CHRIST’S POWER OF SYMPATHY ASSERTED. Differences of position and circumstances among men materially affect their power to sympathise with one another. It is a difficult matter, for instance, for those born in palaces and nurtured in affluence to enter into the difficulties and understand the hardships endured by those to whom life is a perpetual struggle for the barest necessaries; or for those who are hale and strong to sympathize with those whose very existence, by reason of their bodily infirmities, is a burden to them. It was not unnatural, then, that persons who, judged by human analogies, should suppose that He who was the Son of God and had passed into the heavens would be indisposed to sympathise with wretched, sin-benighted men on earth. The text assures us of the contrary. Christ exchanged earth for heaven, the weakness and infirmities of an earthly existence for the everlasting vigour of a heavenly state, degradation for exaltation, the Cross and the thorns for a throne and a crown; but He never exchanged His power of warm, glowing sympathy for men for coldness and indifference. Sympathy was the heritage which earth gave Him to enrich His heavenly state.
II. THE CONDITIONS GUARANTEEING THIS POWER.
1. His exposure to temptation. Just as the light becomes tinged with the hues of the glass it passes through, so the unfathomable love of the Son of God becomes sympathetic towards men as it passes to them through the human heart, steeped in sorrow and agonised with suffering, of the Son of Man Egypt has its two great watercourses, its river and its sweet-water canal. The canal conveys the sweet waters of the river where the river itself cannot take them. The human heart of Jesus is the canal which conducts the sweet waters of the Divine love in streams of sympathy to the parched souls of men.
2. The other condition of His power of sympathy was His freedom from sin, notwithstanding His exposure to its temptations. Flame will not pass through wire gauze of a certain texture. This is the principle of the safety-lamp. This useful and ingenious contrivance is unaffected by any amount of explosive gases external to it. Under ordinary circumstances, the flame of the lamp would set any atmosphere, strongly charged with explosive gases, into a devouring blaze, but, protected by the wire gauze, the lamp-flame merely glows within a little more brilliantly. Such was Christ as He lived among men. The moral atmosphere in which He lived, surcharged as it was with explosive temptations and provocations to sin, did not penetrate the amiability of His sinless nature and cause it to shoot forth into consuming resentment. It merely caused it to burn with a livelier glow of holy anger against hypocrisy and false pretence. Just as the rays of the sun pass over the foulest paths and among heaps of filth untainted, so He passed along the ways and paths of human life untouched by the foulness that surrounded him on all sides. It is a belief with the people of the district that the River Doe passes through the whole length of Bala Lake without mingling with its waters. Its current, they affirm, can be clearly traced, marked off by its clearer, brighter waters. So Christ’s life, passing through the lake, so to speak, of earthly existence, is clearly defined. I, is one bright, holy, spotless stream from its beginning to its end--a life without sin. Now, this freedom from sin is no hindrance to His power of sympathy; in fact, it is an additional qualification to Him in this respect. Temptation yielded to makes the heart callous and cruel, and dries up the fountains of feeling. Temptation resisted and overcome mellows the feelings, and quickens their sensitiveness towards the tried and tempted.
III. CHRIST’S POWER OF SYMPATHY USED AS AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO SEEK THE BLESSINGS PROVIDED FOR US.
1. The blessings we are urged to seek. Mercy represents the new life; grace, all that may be needed to sustain and nourish it until its consummation in everlasting glory. And here we may note the bearing of this promise of “grace to help in time of need” upon the case of a certain class of persons whom we believe to be Christians, true disciples of the Redeemer, but who stand aloof from the fellowship of His people, and shrink from a public avowal of their discipleship. Their reluctance in this direction, they tell us, arises from the sense of their infirmities, and their dread of bringing dishonour on Christ’s Church. But such a plea is essentially unbelief. It arises from a failure to apprehend God’s power to keep from falling those whom He has graciously converted. They forget that He promises to His children “grace to help in time of need.” It is as reasonable to suppose that God will preserve the new life He has quickened in the heart of His people, as that the mother will do all in her power to strengthen the infant that owes its life to her.
2. The place whence these blessings are dispensed. Christ occupies the throne--the place of power and authority. That He is a King as well as a Priest is one of the great truths of this Epistle. And His kingly office becomes the instrument of His priestly sympathies and functions.
3. The spirit of confidence in which, in view of the assurance furnished to us of Christ’s power of sympathy, these blessings should be sought. The word rendered “boldly” here may, with equal propriety, be rendered “joyfully.” The very fact that such blessings as mercy and grace, blessings so inexpressibly precious to sinful men awakened to a sense of their guilt, are procurable, should fill the seeker with the joy of gratitude. To seek them in this spirit is to carry out the prophetic injunction, “Therefore, with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.” The allusion, no doubt, is to the desert traveller, after days of wanderings in the arid waste, coming parched with thirst upon a well. We can well imagine with what grateful joy he would draw therefrom the refreshing element to quench his consuming thirst. With some such joy, yea, with much deeper and intenser joy, should the Christian man come to the throne of grace to draw the grace which is to quench his soul-consuming thirst, and sustain the Divine life quickened by the Divine mercy in his soul. (A. J. Parry.)
Christ touched with the feeling of our infirmities
The compassion of the Son of God was a subject of joyful contemplation to the holy men of old, who saw His day afar off, and were glad. With delight they celebrated the comfort which He should bring to the mourners in Zion; the care which He should take of the lambs of His flock; His sympathy with the afflicted; His condescension to the weak; and the concern with which lie should bring them through their difficulties to safety and peace, and everlasting gladness. Hence it is, also, that in their sacred hymns and songs of triumph they delight to present Him under all those images which are fitted to convey ideas of the gentlest and most engaging order. The design for which the Son of God appeared on earth, and which He voluntarily undertook to accomplish, was a design of the highest compassion. And as the design on which He came was that of unutterable love, so the tenderest compassion distinguished the fulfilment of every part of His great undertaking. He went about doing good, and His Divine power was ever exercised in works of mercy. And with these manifestations of Divine power, how mild and gentle is His demeanour to the humble and the weak! How tender and condescending His addresses to the poor and the contrite! Observe also His sympathy with His disciples in the season of affliction, and the anxiety with which He seeks to give them comfort. But to seek and to save that which was lost Christ came into the world, and all His discourses are full of earnest desire for the welfare of men--of pity for sinners, and of consolation for the miserable. His compassion was manifested even to those who rejected Him. But a view of compassion yet remains to be noticed, which in vain our ideas attempt to reach, or language to describe. He pays the price of human guilt, and gives His life a ransom for many. Having thus directed our attention to the compassion of that great High Priest, who is passed into the heaven--Jesus, the Son of God, let us apply these views to our condition, and consider the encouragement which they are fitted to afford when we approach to the throne of grace. The gracious office which Christ sustains, and the compassion of His character, are fitted to give to us encouragement in all our services, and through the whole of life. But there are special seasons which the apostle describes as “the time of need,” in which we are particularly called, in the exercise of hope and trust, to come to the throne of grace.
I. AMONG THESE WE ARE NATURALLY DIRECTED IN THE FIRST PLACE TO THAT OF A SINNER UNDER DEEP CONVICTIONS OF GUILT. How suited is the gospel of Christ to bring back to God and give peace to the troubled soul! And how admirably does the view of such a High Priest, touched with the feeling of our infirmities, harmonise with every part of the gracious plan for our recovery and salvation! In Him we see every quality which is calculated to insure the confidence, and to dissipate the fears of the humble and the contrite, and through Him, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, they seek the offered mercy, and find the promised rest.
II. AND ARE NOT THE SAME VIEWS CALCULATED TO ENCOURAGE US TO APPROACH THE THRONE OF GRACE, UNDER A SENSE OF OUR WEAKNESS, AND OF OUR DANGERS FROM WORLD LYING IN WICKEDNESS? In a state so surrounded with dangers, and especially in those seasons when we are made to feel how weak we are, or when wearied with the struggles and difficulties which we encounter on the path of duty, we are tempted to retire from the contest, and to leave the post; assigned us, hopeless of success--how fitted to inspire us with courage and perseverance is the view of that provision which the Father of mercies hath made for our support and direction, in the mediation of Him who loved us and gave Himself for us. He is the same Divine Master who has passed before us through the scene of suffering and temptation, and has shown Himself to be so unspeakably our Friend. He knows the difficulties with which we have to struggle, and by proofs the most affecting He has taught us to place confidence in His care.
III. AND AS THE COMPASSION OF OUR GREAT HIGH PRIEST GIVES COURAGE AND SUPPORT AMIDST THE DANGERS AND TRIALS OF LIFE, SO IT GIVES US COMFORT AND PEACE AT THE APPROACH OF DEATH. The Son of God changes the darkness into light. The glory of that state He hath prepared for us, sheds far its light, and illumines every prospect, and the voice of the Saviour is heard conducting and welcoming us to the mansions of His Father. How suited to the fallen state of man is the dispensation of the gospel! (S. MacGill, D. D.)
The sympathy of Christ
1. In attempting to describe the human sympathy of this Divine Being, I will first refer to His wonderful keenness of feeling. Intensely sensitive to nature, and drinking in illustration of highest truth from her homeliest appearances, He felt most keenly anything that could touch the feelings of the fellow-men. Unlike many people who, because they do not feel their own trials very keenly, nor crave for much sympathy amidst them, cannot understand the sufferings and cravings of more sensitive natures, Jesus was so touched by His own troubles, and had such a longing for the Divine and human sympathy in the midst of them, that He is marvellously quick to understand, and ready to sympathise with the most insignificant sorrows of the most sensitive souls.
2. But the sympathy of Jesus is as wide as it is ready. He whose exquisitely sensitive soul was thrilled by the beauty of a lily, and moved by the fall of a wounded sparrow, is keenly touched by whatever can touch a human heart, whether high or low, good or bad, a friend or an enemy. No man can be beyond the reach of His all-comprehending sympathy, because no man can be beyond the embrace of His all-comprehending love.
3. And His sympathy is as deep and tender as it is ready and comprehensive. And the reason of this is two-fold. He has been tempted in all points like as we are; and yet He is without sin. He can sympathise with the poor because He has been poor; with the weary and heavy laden, because He has been tired and worn; with the lonely, misrepresented, and persecuted, because He has been in their position. And because He was also tried, tried in mind as well as heart, by fear, by sad surprise, by mental perplexity, with the hard conflict with evil, and great spiritual depression, He is able to feel to the uttermost for those keenest sorrows of our earthly lot. And then this tried One was without sin. That was what enabled Him to drink in sympathy, and nothing but sympathy from all His sorrows. That is why He received all the sweetness from His sorrows and none of the bitterness, so that He is able out of the pure and exhaustless treasures of His sympathy to sweeten all our bitter cups.
4. For let us also remember that His sympathy is as practical as it is ready, deep, and comprehensive. Smpathising with the fond feeling which led the mothers to bring their children to Him, He at once took the little ones up in His arms, and blessed them; feeling for the hungry multitude He delayed not to spread a table for them in the wilderness. His compassionate soul melted with tenderness when He saw the widow weeping beside the bier; but at that very moment He stopped the bier and restored her only son to his mother’s arms. How deep the sympathy which caused Him to burst into tears among the weeping ones He loved, before the grave of Lazarus; but how prompt the power to “help which caused the dead man to come forth. It is the knowledge that now as then He is ready and able to help us as He is to feel for us, that emboldens us to come with all assurance to the throne of grace, and confide to Him our every trouble. And if His sympathy is to be to us anything more than a beautiful dream, we must there come into personal contact with Him amidst our own sorrows, and sound the depths of His sympathy by proving the fulness of His help. (P. J. Rollo.)
Touched with the feeling of our infirmities
There is no warmer Bible phrase than this. We might have never so many mishaps, the Government at Washington would not hear of them; and there are multitudes in Britain whose troubles Victoria never knows; but there is a throne against which strike our most insignificant perplexities. What touches us touches Christ. What robs us robs Christ. He is the great nerve-centre to which thrill all sensations which touch us who are His members.
I. He is touched with our PHYSICAL infirmities.
II. He is touched with the infirmities of our PRAYERS. He will pick out the one earnest petition from the rubbish, and answer it.
III. He is touched with the infirmity of our TEMPER.
IV. He sympathises with our POOR EFFORTS AT DOING GOOD. (Christian at Work.)
The tenderness of Jesus
I. HE HAS ASSUMED A VERY TENDER OFFICE. A king may render great aid to the unhappy; but, on the other hand, he is a terror to evil-doers: a high priest is in the highest sense “ordained for men,” and he is the friend and succourer of the most wretched.
1. It was intended, first, that by the high priest God should commune with men. That needs a person of great tenderness. A mind that is capable of listening to God, and understanding, in a measure, what He teaches, had need be very tender, so as to interpret the lofty sense into the lowly language of humanity.
2. But a high priest took the other side also: he was to communicate with God from men. Here, also, he needed the tenderest spirit to rule his faculties and to move his affections. But if I understand the high priest’s office aright, he had many things to do which come under this general description, but which might not suggest themselves, if you did not have the items set before you.
3. The high priest was one who had to deal with sin and judgment for the people. We have a High Priest into whose ear we may pour all the confessions of our penitence without fear. It is a wonderful easement to the mind to tell Jesus all. No doubt the high priest was resorted to, that he might console the sorrowful. Go to Jesus, if a sharp grief is gnawing at your heart.
4. The high priest would hear, also, the desires and wish, s of the people. When men in Israel had some great longing, some overwhelming desire, they not only prayed in private, but they would make a journey up to the temple to ask the high priest to present their petitions before the Lord. You may have some very peculiar, delicate desire as to spiritual things that only God and your own soul may know; but fear not to mention it to your tender High Priest, who will know your meaning, and deal graciously with you.
5. It was the high priest’s business to instruct and to reprove the people. To instruct is delightful; but to reprove is difficult. Only a tender spirit can wisely utter rebuke. Our Lord Jesus Christ tells us our faults in tones of love. His rebukes never break the heart.
II. HE HAS A TENDER FEELING. It is not merely true that He is apprised of our infirmities, since the Lord has said, “I know their sorows”; but He “is touched with the feeling of our infirmities.” The sense of feeling is more intense, vivid, and acute than the sense of sight. It is one thing to see pain, but another thing to be touched with the feeling of it. Treasure up this view of your Lord’s sympathy, for it may be a great support in the hour of agony, and a grand restorative in the day of weakness. Note again, “The feeling of our infirmities.” Whose infirmities? Does not “our” mean yours and mine? Note well that word “infirmities”--“touched with the feeling of our infirmities.” He sympathises with those of you who are no heroes, but can only plead, “the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” As the mother feels with the weakness of her babe, so does Jesus feel with the poorest, saddest, and weakest of His chosen. How comes this about?
1. Let us think of it a while! Our Lord has a tender nature. His innate tenderness brought Him from the throne to the manger, from the manger to the Cross.
2. Our Lord is not only tender of nature, but quick of understanding as to the infirmities of men.
III. HE HAD A TENDER TRAINING.
1. He was tried as we are--in body, mind, spirit.
2. But the text says, “tempted,” and that bears a darker meaning than “tried.” Our Lord could never have fallen the victim of temptation, but through life He was the object of it.
IV. HE HAS A TENDER PERFECTNESS. Do not imagine that if the Lord Jesus had sinned He would have been any more tender toward you; for sin is always of a hardening nature. If the Christ of God could have sinned, He would have lost the perfection of His sympathetic nature. It needs perfectness of heart to lay self all aside, and to be touched with a feeling of the infirmities of others. Hearken again: do you not think that sympathy in sin would be a poisonous sweet? A child, for instance, has done wrong, and he has been wisely chastened by his father; I have known cases in which a foolish mother has sympathised with the child. This may seem affectionate, but it is wickedly injurious to the child. Such conduct would lead the child to love the evil which it is needful he should hate. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The sympathy of Christ
The word “tempted” here includes, of course, all trials of soul and body, such as sorrow, pain, anguish, as well as what we commonly call temptation; but it is to this last that we will now confine ourselves. We can readily understand how our Lord’s perfect humanity should sympathise with ours, because both are of one nature; but how He who is sinless should sympathise with us sinners--this is the difficulty. How, it may be asked, can He sympathise in repentance, deserved shame, and guilt of conscience? It may be said, that this difficulty carries its own answer; for His sympathy with penitents is perfect, because He is sinless; its perfection is the consequence of His perfect holiness. And for these reasons:
1. First, because we find, even among men, that sympathy is more or less perfect, as the holiness of the person is more or less so. The living compassion, with which the holiest men have ever dealt with the sinful, is a proof that in proportion as sin loses its power over them, their sympathy with those that are afflicted by its oppressive yoke becomes more perfect.
2. And from this our thoughts ascend to Him who is all-perfect; who being from everlasting very God, was for our sakes made very Man, that He might unite us wholly to Himself. Above and beyond all sympathy is that of our High Priest. None hate sin but those who are holy, and that in the measure of their holiness; and therefore in the Person of our blessed Lord there must exist the two great conditions of perfect sympathy: first, He has suffered all the sorrows which are consequent upon sin and distinct from it; next, He has, because of His perfect holiness, a perfect hatred of evil. And these properties of His human nature unite themselves to the pity, omniscience, and love, which are the perfections of His Divine. Now we may see in what it is that our Lord, by the experience of humiliation in our flesh, has learned to sympathise with us: Not in any motion of evil in the affections or thoughts of the heart; not in any inclination of the will: not, if we dare so much as utter it, in any taint or soil upon the soul. Upon all such as are destroying themselves in wilful commerce with evil, He looks down with a Divine pity; but they have withdrawn themselves from the range of His sympathy. This can only be with those who are in sorrow under sin; that is, with penitents. It is in the suffering of those that would be cleansed and made holy that He partakes.
I. WE MAY PLEAD WITH HIM ON HIS OWN EXPERIENCE OF THE WEAKNESS OF OUR HUMANITY. None knows it better than He, not only as our Maker, who” knoweth our frame, and remembereth that we are but dust,” but as Man, who made full trial of our nature “in the days of His flesh.” He knows its fearful susceptibility of temptation--how, in its most perfect state, as in His own person, it may be solicited by the allurements of the evil one. And if in Him it could be tempted to sin, how much more in us! When we confess our sins before Him, we may lay open all. Things we hardly dare to speak to any man, to any imperfect being, we do not shrink from confessing before Him--things which men would not believe, inward struggles, distinctions in intention, extenuating causes, errors of belief--all the manifold working of the inward life which goes before a fall. With all His awful holiness, there is something that draws us to Him. Though His eyes be “as a flame of fire,” and the act of laying ourselves open to Him is terrible, yet He is “meek and lowly of heart,” knowing all our case, “touched with the feeling of our infirmities.”
II. WE MAY APPEAL TO HIS EXPERIENCE OF THE SORROW AND SHAME WHICH COME BY SIN UPON MANKIND. He suffered both as keenly and as fully as it was possible for one that was without sin (see Psa_22:1-2; Psa_22:6-8; Psa_22:14-15; Isa_53:3-4; Psa_69:1-3; Psa_69:7; Psa_69:10-12; Psa_69:20-21; Psa_88:1-2; Psa_88:5-9; Psa_88:14-16; Lam_1:12-13). All that sin could inflict on the guiltless He endured; and to that experience of shame and sorrow we guilty may appeal. Though we suffer indeed justly, yet can He feel with us though He did nothing amiss. Though in the bitterness of soul which flows from consciousness of guilt He has no part, yet when we take revenge upon ourselves in humiliation, and offer ourselves to suffer all He wills for our abasement, He pities us while He permits the chastisement to break us down at His feet. “When our heart is smitten down within us, and withered like grass, so that we forget to eat our bread,” it is a thought full of consolation, “that we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.” Therefore let us ask for consolation from no other. Let us not go, I will not say to the world, and its fair words, smooth persuasions, shallow comforts, for to these no man whose repentance has any depth or reality in it can bear to go; they are miserable, falsifying stimulants, which beat and bewilder the heart, and leave it open to terrible recoils of sorrow; but let us not go to hooks or to employment; no, nor even to the consolation and tender love of friend, brother, wife, husband, spiritual guide; no, nor to the most perfect saint and nearest to Himself; but to Him for whose sake all these must be forsaken, in whom are all the fresh springs of solace which distil in scanty drops through the tenderest and fondest hearts. Let us go at once to Him. There is nothing can separate us from His sympathy but our own wilful sins. Let us fear and hate these, as for all other reasons, so above all for this, that they cut off the streams of His pure and pitiful consolation, and leave our souls to wither up in their own drought and darkness. So long as we are fully in His sympathy, let our sorrows, shame, trials, temptations, be what they may, we are safe. He is purifying us by them; teaching us to die to the world and to ourselves, that He only may live in us, and that our life may be “hid with Christ in God.” And again, that we may so shelter ourselves in Him, let us make to Him a confession, detailed, particular, and unsparing, of all our sins. And lastly, let us so live as not to forfeit His sympathy. It is ours only so long as we strive and pray to be made like Him. If we turn again to evil, or to the world, we sever ourselves from Him. (Archdeacon Manning.)
The sympathy of Christ
Our subject is the priestly sympathies of Christ. But we make three preliminary observations. The perfection of Christ’s humanity implies that He was possessed of a human soul as well as a human body. Accordingly in the life of Christ we find two distinct classes of feeling. When He hungered in the wilderness--when He thirsted on the Cross--when He was weary by the well at Sychar--He experienced sensations which belong to the bodily department of human nature. But when out of twelve He selected one to be His bosom friend; when He looked round upon the crowd in anger; when the tears streamed down His cheeks at Bethany; and when He recoiled from the thought of approaching dissolution; these--grief, friendship, fear--were not the sensations of the body, much less were they the attributes of Godhead. They were the affections of an acutely sensitive human soul, alive to all the tenderness, and hope and anguish with which human life is filled, qualifying Him to be tempted in all points like as we are. The second thought which presents itself is that the Redeemer not only was but is Man. He was tempted in all points like us. He is a high priest which can be touched. The present manhood of Christ conveys this deeply important truth, that the Divine heart is human in its sympathies. The third observation upon these verses is, that there is a connection between what Jesus was and what Jesus is. He can be touched now because He was tempted then. His past experience has left certain effects durable in His nature as it is now. It has endued Him with certain qualifications and certain susceptibilities, which He would not have had but for that experience. Just as the results remained upon His body, the prints of the nails in His palms, and the spear-gash in His side, so do the results remain upon His soul, enduing Him with a certain susceptibility, for “He can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities”; with certain qualifications, for “ He is able to show mercy, and to impart grace to help in time of need.” To turn now to the subject itself. It has two branches.
1. The Redeemer’s preparation for His priesthood.
2. The Redeemer’s priestly qualifications.
I. HIS PREPARATION. The preparation consisted in being tempted. But here a difficulty arises. Temptation, as applied to a Being perfectly free from tendencies to evil, is not easy to understand. See what the difficulty is. Temptation has two senses, it means test or probation; it means also trial, involving the idea of pain or danger. A weight hung from a bar of iron only tests its strength; the same, depending from a human arm, is a trial, involving iv may be the risk of pain or fracture. Now trial placed before a sinless being is intelligible enough in the sense of probation; it is a test of excellence; but it is not easy to see how it can be temptation in the sense of pain, if there be no inclination to do wrong. However, Scripture plainly asserts this as the character of Christ’s temptation. Not merely test, but trial. First you have passages declaring the immaculate nature of His mind; as here, “without sin.” Again, He was “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.” But then we find another class of passages, such as this: “He suffered, being tempted.” There was not merely test in the temptation, but there was also painfulness in the victory. How could this be without any tendency to evil? To answer this, let us analyse sin. In every act of sin there are two distinct steps. There is the rising of a desire which is natural, and, being natural, is not wrong--there is the indulgence of that desire in forbidden circumstances, and that is sin. Sin is not a real thing. It is rather the absence of a something, the will to do right. It is not a disease or taint, an actual substance projected into the constitution. It is the absence of the spirit which orders and harmonises the whole; so that what we mean when we say the natural man must sin inevitably, is this, that he has strong natural appetites, and that he has no bias from above to counteract those appetites; exactly as if a ship were deserted by her crew, and left on the bosom of the Atlantic with every sail set and the wind blowing. No one forces her t., destruction--yet on the rocks she will surely go, just because there is no pilot at the helm. Such is the state of ordinary men. Temptation leads to fall. The gusts of instincts, which rightly guided, would have carried safely into port, dash them on the rocks. No one forces them to sin; but the spirit-pilot has left the helm. Sin, therefore, is not in the appetites, but in the absence of a controlling will. Now contrast this state with the state of Christ. There were in Him all the natural appetites of mind and body. Relaxation and friendship were dear to Him--so were sunlight and life. Hunger, pain, death, He could feel all and shrunk from them. Conceive then a case in which the gratification of any one of these inclinations was inconsistent with His Father’s will. At one moment it was unlawful to eat, though hungry; and without one tendency to disobey, did fasting cease to he severe? It was demanded that He should endure anguish; and, willingly as He subdued Himself, did pain cease to be pain? Could the spirit of obedience reverse every feeling in human nature? It seems to have been in this way that the temptation of Christ caused suffering. He suffered from the force of desire. Though there was no hesitation whether to obey or not, no strife in the will, in the act of mastery there was pain. There was self-denial--there was obedience at the expense of torture natural feeling.
II. The second point we take is THE REDEEMER’S PRIESTHOOD. Priesthood is that office by which He is the medium of union between man and God. The capacity for this has been indelibly engraven on His nature by His experience here. All this capacity is based on His sympathy--He can be “touched with the feeling of our infirmities.” Till we have reflected on it, we are scarcely aware how much the sum of human happiness in the world is indebted t,, this one feeling--sympathy. The child’s smile and laugh are mighty powers in this world. When bereavement has left you desolate, what substantial benefit is there which makes condolence acceptable? It cannot replace the loved ones you have lost. It can bestow upon you nothing permanent. But a warm hand has touched yours, and its thrill told you that there was a living respouse there to your emotion. One look--one human sigh has done more for you than the costliest present could convey. And it is for want of remarking this, that the effect of public charity falls often so far short of the expectations of those who give. Love is not bought by money, but by love. There has been all the machinery of a public distribution; but there has been no exhibition of individual, personal interest. Again, when the electric touch of sympathetic feeling has gone among a mass of men, it communicates itself, and is reflected back from every individual in the crowd, with a force exactly proportioned, to their numbers. It is on record that the hard heart of an oriental conqueror was unmanned by the sight of a dense mass of living millions engaged in one enterprise. He accounted for it by saying, that it suggested to him that within a single century not one of those millions would be alive. But the hardhearted bosom of the tyrant mistook its own emotions; his tears came from no such far-fetched inference of reflection; they rose spontaneously, as they will rise in a dense crowd, you cannot tell why. It is the thrilling thought of numbers engaged in the same object. It is the idea of our own feelings reciprocated back to us, and reflected from many hearts. And again, it seems partly to avail itself of this tendency within us, that such stress is laid on the injunction of united prayer. Solitary prayer is feeble in comparison with that which rises before the throne echoed by the hearts of hundreds, and strengthened by the feeling that other aspirations are mingling with our own. And whether it be the chanted litany, or the more simple read service, or the anthem producing one emotion at the same moment in many bosoms, the value and the power of public prayer seem chiefly to depend on this mysterious affection of our nature--sympathy. And now, having endeavoured to illustrate this power of sympathy, it is for us to remember that of this in its fullness He is susceptible. Observe how He is touched by our infirmities--with a separate, special, discriminating love. There is not a single throb, in a single human bosom, that does not thrill at once with more than electric speed up to the mighty heart of God. You have not shed a tear or sighed a sigh, that did not come back to you exalted and purified by having passed through the Eternal bosom.
1. We may boldly expect mercy from Him who has learned to sympathise. He learned sympathy by being tempted; but it is by being tempted, yet without sin, that He is specially able to show mercy.
2. The other priestly power is the grace of showing “help in time of need.” We must not make too much of sympathy, as mere feeling. We do in things spiritual as we do with the hothouse plants. The feeble exotic, beautiful to look at, but useless, has costly sums spent on it. The hardy oak, a nation’s strength, is permitted to grow, scarcely observed, in the fence and copses. We prize feeling and praise its possessor. But feeling is only a sickly exotic in itself--a passive quality, having in it nothing moral, no temptation and no victory. A man is no more a good man for having feeling, than he is for having delicate ear for music, or a far-seeing optic nerve. The Son of Man had feeling--He could be “ touched.” The tear would start from His eyes at the sight of human sorrow. But that sympathy was no exotic in His soul, beautiful to look at, too delicate for use. Feeling with Him led to this, “He went about doing good.” Sympathy with Him was this, “Grace to help in time of need.” And this is the blessing of the thought of Divine sympathy. By the sympathy of man, after all, the wound is not healed; it is only stanched for a time. It can make the tear flow less bitterly, it cannot dry it up. So far as permanent good goes, who has not felt the deep truth which Job taught his friends--“Miserable comforters are ye all “? The sympathy of the Divine Human! He knows what strength is needed. He gives grace to help. From this subject I draw, in concluding, two inferences.
1. He who would sympathise must be content to be tried and tempted. There is a hard and boisterous rudeness in our hearts by nature, which requires to be softened down. Therefore, if you aspire to be a son of consolation--if you would partake of the priestly gift of sympathy--if you would pour something beyond common-place consolation into a tempted heart--if you would pass through the intercourse of daily life, with the delicate tact which never inflicts pain--if to that most a cure of human ailments, mental doubt, you are ever to give effectual succour, you must be content to pay the price of the costly education. Like Him, you must suffer--being tempted. But remember, it is being tempted in all points, yet without sin, that makes sympathy real, manly, perfect, instead of a mere sentimental tenderness. Sin will teach you to feel for trials. It will not enable you to judge them; to be merciful to them--nor to help them in time of need with any certainty.
2. It is this same human sympathy which qualifies Christ for judgment. It is written that the Father hath committed all judgment to Him, because He is the Son of Man. The sympathy of Christ extends to the frailties of human nature; not to its hardened guilt: He is “touched with the feeling of our infirmities.” There is nothing in His bosom which can harmonise with malice--He cannot feel for envy--He has no fellow-feeling for cruelty, oppression, hypocrisy, bitter censorious judgments. Remember, He could look round about Him with anger. The sympathy of Christ is a comforting subject. It is besides a tremendous subject; for on sympathy the awards of heaven and hell are built. “Except a man be born again”--not he shall not, but--“he cannot enter into heaven.” There is nothing in him which has affinity to anything in the Judge’s bosom. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
The sympathy of Christ
I. IN ITS NATURE. The words “touched,” &c., mean “to have compassion,” “to condole with.” It is something more than pity. Sympathy cannot properly belong to God, the perfection of His nature raises Him above it. But it is different with Christ. Being man He had all the real affection of human nature.
II. IN ITS OBJECTS. These are all His people on earth, and it is manifested more particularly in their infirmities and afflictions.
III. IN ITS REALITY. The sympathy of Christ is no ideal thing. It is no mere intellectual or ideal supposition. It is one which has been put to a most serious and solemn test. He took away with Him all the meekness, holiness, compassion, and love, which He had when on earth. It is further manifest from the relationship which exists between Him and His people. Again, it is manifest from the offices which He retains in heaven. Can an High Priest whose love was stronger than death be unmindful of those whom He has redeemed? It urges
1. Affection towards our Redeemer. Shall we sympathise with one another in the common calamities of life, and not be affected by the sufferings of Jesus for us?
2. It incites encouragement to repentance. Repentance is going to Christ. Surely His sympathetic nature and gracious disposition should be sufficient inducement to draw us to His arms.
3. It should make us willing patiently to live for God and employ ourselves in His service. If we suffer, or if we toil, He knows our condition, and is acquainted with our needs.
4. It ought to cause Christians to sympathise one with another. We need sympathy ourselves; we cannot justly withhold it from others.
5. How can any man go on day after day sinning against love and compassion so great? (The Preacher’s Analyst.)
Christ’s sympathy with the infirm
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.)
The sympathy of Christ
It has been well said, “Though the lower animals have feeling, they have no fellow-feeling, it only belongs to man to weep with them that weep, and, by sympathy, to divide another’s sorrows and double another’s joys.” I have read that the wounded stag sheds tears as its life blood flows fast upon the purple heather, but never that its pangs and agonies drew tears from its fellows in the herd. That finer touch of nature belongs to man alone. Sympathy is the echo that a heart gives to another’s cry of anguish. But a few weeks since I was in the land of mountains, crags, and rocks, and there, at different well-selected spots, I heard the blast of the Swiss horn. Grand were the echoes as they rolled among the mountain gorges, giving every snowy peak a voice, and every pine-clad hill a tongue. Marvellous was it to have the sound that first came from our very feet flung back upon our ears from distant ranges, that looked the very embodiment of silence. But more musical by far, because more heavenly, is the response given by a heart touched with the feeling of another’s grief, and that grief, the grief of one who has no legal claim upon its sympathy. But be it remembered, the best of human sympathy is but human sympathy at best. To see it in all its exquisite perfections of tenderness, we have to turn from man to his Maker--from the saint to his Saviour--from earth to heaven.
I. THE SYMPATHY OF JESUS FLOWS THROUGH KNOWLEDGE. Tea thousand springs of earthly sympathy are sealed through ignorance. Child of God, the sympathy of your Saviour is never lacking through want of knowledge. There is no wall of separation, however thin, that hides from His eyes the sorrow and the misery within. Jesus knows the every care of every saint. Poor troubled one, thou mayest venture nigh. Thou canst not tell Him that He knew not long before. Are you trying to carry your cares in your own bosom? Like the Spartan youth who stole a fox and hid it in his coat; are you letting it eat its way into your very vitals rather than it should be discovered? For pity’s sake forbear. Go cast yourselves upon the sympathy of Him who not only reads the sorrow of the face, but the deeper anguish of the heart.
II. THE SYMPATHY OF JESUS IS PROMPTED BY HIS NATURE. With Jesus to know is to be touched. If His knowledge cuts the channel, His nature at the same moment fills it with the stream of compassionate love. Would you know what Jesus is? Then you have but to find out what Jesus was.
III. THE SYMPATHY OF JESUS IS DEEPENED BY EXPERIENCE. This is very beautifully taught in the closing sentence of the verse, “But was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” There can after all be but little true sympathy, however loving the heart, where there has been no similar experience. It is the widow who knows best how to speak words of comfort to the one from whose side an affectionate husband has been torn. It is the man who has himself passed through the agonies of a financial difficulty that knows best how to cheer the one who, after every desperate effort to retrieve his fortune, yet finds himself going to the wall step by step. It is in the school of experience that the language of sympathy is best taught. Christ’s knowledge of our trials is not a theoretical but an experimental one. He knows what the weight of a burden is by having carried it. (A. G. Brown.)
The sympathy of the Saviour
The doctrine of my text is, Able to save is also able to feel.
I. Take the wonderful consolation of the text. Look at the expressive word “TOUCHED”; but is it not a weak, poor, or cold word? No I touched! That is, His sympathy does not overwhelm His power. Too great sympathy is death to power; the Saviour knows, helps, heals. Touched! He is not possessed by our infirmities. He always possessed them. As He said, “I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it again.” Walk with me through an infirmary; let us step from bed to bed--we are able to see, not to save--alas, what spectacles are here! Can you walk from bed to bed? can you feel for all that and this? Then, would your hand be strong enough to minister the skill of the surgeon and the tenderness of the nurse? It is difficult to walk through this, and to be touched with tenderness, and not lose the skilfulness. Hence it is said of our Lord, “He was touched”; that is, He holds our infirmities; on the contrary they hold us--our infirmities do not overwhelm His power. “Touched by the feeling of our infirmities,” He was untouched by the power of our infirmities. It was the last lesson necessary “to make Him a merciful and faithful High Priest”; it only proved His human ability to feel, and gives us confidence in His infinite ability to save.
II. EXTEND THIS ILLUSTRATION INTO DOCTRINE. And now from this shall we, after thus dwelling on the sympathy of the Saviour, proceed to see how it illustrates the principle of Divine Providence. The suffering of the world is the great mystery of the world; but what is the suffering of the world, compared with the greater mystery of the suffering of Christ? Can pure being know pain? Can God condition Himself in infirmity? Can eternity be touched by time? Well, Christ says, I cannot save you from suffering, but I can suffer for you; nay, I can attest Myself to your hearts as perpetually suffering with you.
III. LET US NARROW THE TEXT TO THE APPLICATION. I repeat, the doctrine of the text is, Able to save is able to feel. We find even among men that sympathy is more or less perfect as the holiness of the person is more or less so. There is no real sympathy among men of sensual, worldly, unspiritual life, unless we are to call the mere operations of natural instinct sympathy; it is not natural pity, it is consciousness, it differs little from our fellow-perception of heat and cold. Sin kills sympathy; as a man becomes infected with the power of evil, he ceases to sympathise with others, all his feelings centre in himself. Sin is self-centring; sinners put all worst constructions on each other’s words and acts--they have no consideration, no forbearance. Sanctity and charity are one; gentleness, compassion, tenderness, ripens--personal holiness grows more and more mature, and sympathy becomes more perfect as repentance becomes more perfect. May I venture a word on thoughts beyond our probation? They only have true sympathy who are dead to themselves, they must most truly sympathise who are most free from the taints of evil. Now, does not this give light to the nature of His sympathy who was God of very God, was made Man that He might unite us wholly to Himself? Above and beyond all sympathy is that of our High Priest. (E. Paxton Hood.)
Christ touched with a feeling of our infirmities
For the explaining of this let me show
1. What it is to be our High Priest.
2. What those infirmities are, with the feeling of which He is touched.
3. What it is to be touched with the feeling of them.
1. For the first, His office, as High Priest, may be best known by the acts of it. The acts of His office are principally two.
(1) Sacrificing for us to make reconciliation (Heb_2:17).
(2) By interceding.
2. What those infirmities are, with the feeling of which He is touched. Infirmities here are whatever our frail condition makes us subject to suffer by.
3. What is it to be touched with the feeling of our infirmities?
(1) He knows all our infirmities. None of them escape His notice.
(2) He knows them experimentally. Has Himself been exercised with them.
(3) He is affected with our infirmities, He feels them, He is touched with the feeling of them.
He has a sense thereof which touches His soul, and makes some impression on it; as one who not only has suffered what others feel, but suffers with them in what they feel. As when one member is under some grievance, not only the other members suffer with it, but the soul is affected with grief arising out of love, attended with desire to give or get relief, and anger and indignation against that which brought the grievance, or continues it, and hinders relier. In like manner is Christ affected with the infirmities of His people.
(a) He pities, has compassion on them.
(b) And this pity and compassion is not without the motions and acts of love. Indeed, this is the rise of it. It is out of such a love as made Him willing to humble Himself so low as to take our weaknesses and infirmities upon Him.
(c) This is attended with desire, accompanied with an inclination to succour, relieve such, whose condition is to be pitied; to do that which is best for them in such a condition. That which wants this is no pity indeed. It is that which is most advantageous and desirable in this affection; it is all that we must understand by compassion, when the Scripture ascribes it to the Lord; and when we conceive it to be in Christ as God, in the Divine nature, it is not in Him a troublesome or passionate grief. That is an imperfection not to be ascribed to Him; nor would it be any advantage to us if He were liable to it. But it is a willingness in Him to help and succour those whose state calls for pity or commiseration.
(d) This is accompanied with zeal and anger, or indignation, against those who occasion the grievance, or would make it worse and heavier.
(4) He is affected with our infirmities as a man. As He has a human nature, so He has human affections.
(5) He is affected with our infirmities as one concerned in us very much and nearly. As a friend (Joh_15:14-15); as a brother (Heb_12:11-12); as a father, with the grievances of His children (Heb_2:13); as a husband, with the wants or sufferings of the wife of His own 2Co_11:2); as one united to us, as counting Himself one with us (Eph_1:22-23).
(6) He is affected with them really and to purpose. He has a more effectual sense of them than any other, men or angels, yea, or we ourselves have; for He has such a sense thereof as will assuredly bring relier, which neither we ourselves, nor men or angels for us, can do in many cases.
(7) It is all extensive sympathy, it reaches all our infirmities. He has compassion on us in all our weaknesses, all that we suffer by, in all that has anything of misery or activeness in it. This is plain by the latter end of this verse: He “ was in all points tempted,” &c. Oh but, it may be said, this exception does exclude the greatest part of our infirmities from this sympathy, and us from the comfort and advantage of it, in those points too which stand in most need of it: for those infirmities which proceed from sin, or are mixed with it, and sin itself especially, are our greatest misery, make our present state most lamentable, and so stand in most need of pity and relief. If Christ be not touched with the feeling of these (which are worst of all), so as to have compassion on us, and be ready to succour us, we are to seek in our greatest pressures and grievances, where we have most necessity of relief and pity; as e.g.,
(a) In those infirmities which are from sin, the effects of sin, which are many and great, is He not touched with the feeling, &c.? I answer, Yes, He is touched, &c. These are not excluded by the expression. He Himself laboured under these; for such infirmities as are from sin may be sinless, though they be the effects of sin, yet they may be innocent in themselves, and without sin; and all that are without sin He Himself was exercised with. He was tempted in all points, exercised with all infirmities, even those which are the effects of sin, as we are; only they were in Him without sin, as they are not in us. For He took the nature of fallen man, as it was bruised and rendered infirm by the fall; He took our nature as weakened by sin, though not as defiled by it; there was no sin in His human nature, but there were those weaknesses and infirmities which were the sad issues of sin. These He laboured under, and so knows how to pity and sympathise effectually with those that are yet under them.
(b) But in sinful infirmities, what relief is there hereby for them? Christ was not touched with any that were sinful, and how can He be touched with the feeling of them? e.g., the people of Christ have much ignorance and darkness, and many spiritual wants; they are sinfully defective, both in knowledge and holiness; and these are in themselves, and to those that are duly sensible of them, greater miseries than poverty, or sickness, or other outward afflictions and sufferings. I answer, Christ had something of these, though nothing of the sinfulness of them; so much of these, as that He can sympathise with His people under them. He wanted much knowledge of many things; He wanted some spiritual gifts, yea, and some exercise of grace, in some parts of His life, while He was upon earth. He came not to perfection in these, but by degrees, and till then was under some defect and imperfection, though not any that was sinful. For He wanted none that He ought to have had, or that His present state was capable of; yet, wants, defects, and inward weaknesses, without sin, He was really under Luk_2:40; Luk_2:52). Hereby it seems plain, that He had not at first that measure of knowledge, and of the Holy Ghost, as afterwards. He knew not so much, nor had that exercise of grace m His infancy or childhood, as at perfect age. His faculties were not capable of full perfection herein till they came to full maturity. So that He knows by experience what it is to be under defects and wants, and so knows how to pity those who labour under them. In this the comparison holds betwixt Him and the Levitical high priest (Heb_5:2).
(c) Oh, but He was never touched with sin (Heb_1:16), and this is our greatest misery, the sting of all grievances, that which makes all other to be heavy and grievous. If He be not touched with the feeling of our sin, we are at a loss where we have most need. I answer, There are four things considerable about sin, the offence, temptation to it, guilt of it, punishment for it. Now there are none of these but Christ was touched with them, but the first only. So that He had a greater sense of sin than any of His people ever had. We may hear Him cry out under the weight of it Lam_1:12). The whole penalty and curse was upon Him, part of which made His soul heavy unto death. So that, though He was without sin, yet He was touched, or rather oppressed with such a sense of sin, as is enough abundantly to move Him to all compassionateness to any of His people under the burden. It is an extensive sympathy; such as reaches not only infirmities that have no respect to sin, but those that are from sin, as its effects, and those that are sinful formally, yea, sin itself; He is touched with the feeling of all.
(8) It is a proportionable sympathy; a compassion which is exactly answerable to the nature and quality of every infirmity; fully commensurable to it, whatever it be. As it is not more than it needs, so it is not less than it requires, how much compassion and relief so ever it calls for.
(9) A constant and perpetual sympathy. It continues without any intermission so long as He is High Priest, or so long as our infirmities continue; so long as we are under any weakness, inward or outward; so long as we are in any danger or peril; so long as we are exposed to any trouble or suffering. This is one thing wherein the faithful discharge of His priestly office consists. And He is a priest for ever (Psa_110:4), repeated often in this Epistle (Heb_5:6; Heb_7:17; Heb_7:21).
Use
I. For instruction. This truth leads the people of Christ to many duties, and strongly obliges to the performance of them.
1. To admire Christ; to employ your minds in high, adoring, admiring thoughts of Christ, in His person, natures, offices, and the execution of them; but especially, wonderful in this, that He would be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.
2. To love Christ. There is no greater attractive of love to an ingenious temper than love. Now in that Christ is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, you have a most evident demonstration that He loves you. For hereby it is very clear what His love to you is.
(1) A great love, and most extensive; that can reach all conditions and circumstances which you are or may be in, even such as the love of others will not touch, will not come near: a love that will show itself in all cases, even where it could be least expected; a love that will surmount and overflow all discouragements.
(2) A free love. This is an evidence He can love freely; He can love those who are all made up of defects and imperfections.
(3) A lasting, a constant love, such as all the waters cannot quench, nor the floods drown. It cannot be nonplussed, it abides the sorest trials.
(4) A peerless love. It cannot be matched. There is no such thing to be found in heaven or earth, but in Christ only. Now, as He is High Priest, He is both God and man; and so His love to us is both the love of God and also the love of man in one person. No instance of such a love can be given in the whole world.
(5) It is a cordial love, not in show or appearance only, not in outward acts and expressions, but such as springs from His heart and affects that. He is touched, i.e., His heart is touched with the concerns of His people.
(6) An all-sufficient love.
II.
For comfort to the people of Christ. Here is ground of great consolation in every condition; in the worst, the most grievous circumstances that you can be compassed with in this world. (D. Clarkson, B. D.)
Our sympathising and sinless High Priest
I. WE HAVE AN HIGH PRIEST. It is in no figurative sense that Christ is called a High Priest.
