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I want to talk for a few minutes tonight on the glorious truth that there is a Man in Heaven who is both our Saviour and our Sympathizer.
The New Testament as a whole teaches us very plainly that God’s Son became a man and gave His life as a ransom for the whole human race; the book of Hebrews, which I want to look at tonight, contains that same teaching; but it also adds something that the other New Testament books don’t talk about: the book of Hebrews calls Him a High Priest, and it goes into great detail about Christ’s High Priestly work in our behalf.
With that in mind I want to read two short passages from the book of Hebrews.
Heb. 2:14-18 and Heb. 4:14-16.
The writer is showing in chapter 2 that in order to save mankind, Jesus had to enter the human race. Redemption for the sin of man could only come through a man. But that man would have to be sinless. There was no way that one sinful man could redeem another sinful man. And so Christ entered the human race by being born of a virgin, and because He was sinless, God accepted his death as satisfaction for the sins of the human race.
An angel couldn’t have atoned for our sins; because as far as we know, angels are spirits and can never die. Jesus entered the human race on purpose so that He could die. Death was the penalty that God demanded for sin, and so Jesus became a man on purpose so that he could die.
In our passage here in Hebrews 2 the writer uses an interesting phrase to describe how Jesus entered the human race. In verse 16 it says: “He took on him the seed of Abraham.” A more accurate translation of that would be, “He took hold of the seed of Abraham”—in other words, He took hold of the human race. It’s the phrase “took hold of” that I want to notice.
Cast your mind back to the Gospels. You remember an incident where Jesus came walking to the disciples on the water, and Peter got out of the boat and started walking toward Him. Remember how the waves started to get boisterous, and Peter took His eyes off Jesus and began to sink. At that point Jesus took hold of Peter and pulled him up. That phrase “took hold of” is the same as the one here in Hebrews. In the same way that Jesus took hold of Peter when he was sinking, Jesus took hold of the whole human race that was sinking in sin.
So in order to help us, Christ had to become one of us. He had to come alongside us in the midst of the storm, just as He did with Peter. He had to have a human hand just like ours in order to grab us and pull us up.
But I think what some of us fail to realize is that the Man Christ Jesus is still one of us. He’s not gone off and left us and forgotten about us. He is our Man in glory. He is our High Priest. He is seated at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us at this very moment.
And because He was and is part of the human race, He understands us completely. He sympathizes with us perfectly. He has been through everything that we go through.
Verse 16 of chapter 4 says that He is “touched with the feeling of our infirmities,” and that He was IN ALL POINTS tempted like as we are, sin apart.” What a comfort to know that the one who is interceding for us at the right hand of God is acquainted with every sorrow, with every weakness, with every infirmity, with every possible state and condition that men and women could ever experience. Christ went through it all.
It says He is touched with, not by, our infirmities. A man can be touched by another man’s sorrow without entering into it. There is such a thing as feeling sympathy for another person, but our High Priest goes beyond that. The pang that goes through our heart goes through His also. He feels with us, not just feels for us. For example, sometimes a rich person can feel sorry for a poor person, but unless he has been poor, He can’t feel sorry WITH him. There’s no fellow feeling. He doesn’t really know what the poor person is going through because He’s never been there. But Jesus HAS BEEN THERE, and He is still there for us. His heart bleeds when ours bleeds.
Notice that the writer says He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. The sense of feeling is much stronger than the sense of seeing. It’s one thing to see pain, but it’s totally another to feel it. Our Lord not only sees our trials, our temptations, our sorrows—but He FEELS them!
Finally, notice that the writer says our High Priest was “IN ALL POINTS tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” And in verse 18 of chapter 2 it says that He Himself hath suffered being tempted. Now we know that temptation is not sin. It’s not wrong to be tempted. It’s only wrong when we yield. But temptation can cause us great sorrow and suffering.
Our Lord was driven into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, and it was a terrible experience for Him. You see, the more pure a soul is, the more it suffers in the presence of temptation. The man who continually yields to temptation doesn’t suffer; but the minute he decides to resist, then suffering begins.
Notice that the writer says, “In all points tempted like as we are, YET WITHOUT SIN.” Now someone might say, “How can this High Priest sympathize with us fully if He never experienced sin, as we all have?” I believe the opposite is true. I believe that JUST BECAUSE Jesus never sinned, He has a greater sympathy with us than if He had. Sin always has a HARDENING effect. If Christ had sinned, He would have lost the perfection of His sympathetic nature. It requires a perfect heart to be able to lay self aside completely and be touched with the feeling of the infirmities of others.
May the Lord help each one of us tonight to see that there is a Man in the glory Who not only died to save us, but Who is seated right now at the right hand of God, and He has fellow-feeling for us in all the trials, the temptations, the infirmities that come to us daily as children of God.
Amen