Hebrews 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are… There is much to wonder at here. We wonder that He should care for us at all, but still more that that care should be for those of our experiences apparently least likely to move Him. Men are interested in our successes, in those points where we are strong and brave, for the most part they care little for our weakness. The dull child, who for all his trying makes no progress, has not a tithe of the kindly thought lavsihed on another. In society the timid and nervous are overlooked and fall into the background; the strong, the self-reliant, the well-to-do haw friends, but the weak are passed by. Now it is just these, it is just those points where we are low — our infirmities — that our Lord thinks about, and feels for, and longs to help. And in this He who is farther off than any comes closer than any. Human friends can understand sickness, and suffering, and loss, and care, but how little they understand mere infirmity! They think we could be cheerful if we would, or that infirmity at the worst is not hard to bear, and they do not attach much weight to it, and know not its sore need of thoughtfulness, or of how much it deprives us. But, says the text, Christ does. He comes nearer to us than man, He is the friend " closer than a brother," "He knoweth our frame." Nor does that exhaust the wonder of His sympathy, for many of our infirmities are more or less due to sin. Yet He does not scorn us, or say it serves us right; but is sorry for us, and would help us, and make us what we should have been. I. First, then, consider THE FACT OF THIS SYMPATHY OF THE LORD JESUS. 1. It is assured by His personal human experience. 2. And this sympathy is assured by His perfect knowledge and love. 3. But is there not, I had almost said, a still stronger assurance of our Lord's sympathy in His union with His people? For that union is not merely one of love, nor of similarity of taste; it is that of a common life. II. CONSIDER THIS SYMPATHY IN ITS CONNECTION WITH HIS HIGH-PRIESTLY WORK, He is the medium by which we can approach God with our sin and need, and by which God can approach us with His blessings. Now it is easy to see how priceless is the assurance that this Mediator "is touched with the feeling of our infirmities," that He feels for us and is drawn to us by most tender sympathy. 1. As High Priest He has direct intercourse with us. The glory of God places Him at an infinite distance, but He has appointed Christ as His representative to us, and ours to Him. If a king appoints one to represent him to a prisoner who is not worthy to approach him, or to a poor man who is afraid, it is part of that representative's work to come into close intercourse with them; whoever else is barred from that prisoner's cell, or free to keep away from that poor man's house, that representative is not. So the Lord Jesus, in accepting His high-priesthood, undertook thus to come close to us, and He fulfils what He undertakes. 2. As High Priest He prays for the supply of our need. What they want is ever profoundly sure to His people since His prayer for them is influenced by His sympathy, and " Him the father heareth always." 3. As High Priest He brings us to the Father. We read of "those who come unto God by Him"; He said "no man cometh unto the Father but by Me." Does that only mean that His sacrifice is the ground on which God receives us and refer to those who go to Him trusting that for acceptance, and not also that His is the help by which we tread the new and living way He is I Yes, Jesus brings us to God both by the merits of His sacrifice and by the aid of His Spirit. III. Then consider, THIS SYMPATHY WITH INFIRMITY THE PATTERN" FOR HIS PEOPLE. Christ-likeness includes sympathy. 1. Thus our Lord's sympathy rebukes our hardness. 2. His sympathy shows one of the great needs of the world. It is part of His saving work as His atonement is; it is to save that He sympathises. What saving power was in His kindness on earth! And that is what the world wants still for its regeneration. (C. New.) Parallel Verses KJV: For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. |
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