For we have not a high priest not able to sympathise with our infirmities, but tempted in all things in like manner, sin apart.
Hebrews has just shown the word of God laying the heart bare. Now it turns to a High Priest in heaven, and answers two questions every tested believer asks: does He really feel what we feel, and how can He, with no sin in Him at all?
The verse is put as a denial: He is not a priest who cannot be touched. One writer weighs its words closely:
In verse 15 the emphasis lies upon the grace of the Priest. He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. Note those three words carefully. Infirmities, not sins; for His temptations here were wholly apart from sin. While infirmity deserves sympathy, sin deserves nothing but condemnation. Further, He is concerned with the feeling of our infirmities, not merely with the knowledge. When trouble comes and fellow Christians offer sympathy, we quickly know the difference between sympathy that flows from knowledge alone and sympathy that springs from having already been in the same place… He regards us not with the cold interest of the philosopher, but with the warm affection of the Lover of our souls.
The ESV says "weaknesses"; older translations say "infirmities." The word is worth a closer look:
The word translated here as "infirmities" is elsewhere translated as "sickness" and "weakness." Whatever the translation, it seems to carry the thought of someone needing help from another. It is the same word used of our Lord — "crucified in weakness." Sickness was never recorded of Him. Yet He bore the anguish of the cross in His body, so how well He would know what His saints would need when sickness was allowed to come upon them.
One writer is firm about what "tempted" means here, and about a common objection:
Temptation means trial. In Christ's case it never means what in fallen man is an inward pull toward evil. This is what the Holy Spirit expressly denies of Him… We know all too well the human and selfish argument that He could not sympathise with us properly if He was free from those inward, evil workings… But if we needed the Lord to be harassed in the same way to feel fully with us, we would on that ground want Him to have given in, as we sadly have often done, to sympathise with us in our failures… He sympathises with us in our holy, not in our unholy, temptations. For our unholiness He died; the cross alone has met it fully in God's sight.
With that one exception, the statement is total, and the record of His wilderness testing bears it out:
There is one great exception to the statement: He was altogether apart from sin. With that exception made, the statement covers everything. He was tempted in every respect. The Gospels confirm this as history. Take Luke's account of the temptation in the wilderness. There the temptations rise in order: the first aimed mainly at the body, the second at the soul, the third at the spirit… Our blessed Lord met them all, and triumphed in them all, in perfect manhood.
Darby preferred "apart from sin" to "yet without sin." He points to another verse, quoted here in an older wording, where the same phrase appears:
The "yet without sin," which I translated "apart from sin," is the same expression as in the passage, "He shall appear the second time without sin." He will then be completely free from sin. He was just as free from it in the temptations He went through… Everything which sin had caused as an effect He bore; in His nature He was sinless.
This limit is no loss to us. It matches what a believer wants:
Christ of course had no evil desires: He was tempted in every way, apart from sin. Sin had no part in it at all. But I do not wish for sympathy with the sin that is in me; I detest it, I wish it to be put to death — judged unsparingly. This the word does. For my weakness and my difficulties I seek sympathy; and I find it in the priesthood of Jesus.
He has walked our path, so His care reaches even the trials we would be ashamed to mention to anyone else:
Not one atom of our experience is beneath the notice of our blessed High Priest! No trial is so small that you cannot pour it out in His sympathetic ear, even one you would be ashamed to tell a man… He is not merely One who has divine knowledge of our path — God has that… with our blessed Lord it is more than divine knowledge of the sorrows and needs of His people; it is divine experience of those sorrows and needs.
- Weakness — "Weaknesses," or "infirmities," means sickness and weakness. It describes someone who needs help, not someone who sins.
- Tested — "Tempted" means trial, never an inward pull toward evil. In the wilderness, body, soul and spirit were each tested, and He triumphed in them all.
- Sinless — He was as free from sin under trial as He will be when He appears a second time. That is why one writer preferred to translate the phrase "apart from sin."
- Sympathy — His fellow-feeling meets us where we need it: in our weakness and difficulty. He never sympathises with the sin we ourselves want judged; for that He died.
- Boldness — He does not just know our path from above. He has walked it, so no trial is too small to bring to Him.
Let us approach therefore with boldness to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and find grace for seasonable help.
Hebrews 4:16 draws a conclusion. We have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens and knows human weakness from the inside. So God's throne is now open to us, and the verse tells us what we will find when we come.
Who sits on a throne gives that throne its character. One writer links the name to the High Priest, and adds one condition:
Oh, then, let us come boldly to the throne of grace! That throne is the third of the great helps which our chapter mentions. It is a "throne of grace" because graced by our great High Priest being seated there. From there God gives mercy and grace as help at just the right moment. But we must come to the throne to get it.
Other writers set this against Israel's past. The people knew of God's throne, and they knew of the mercy seat, the gold cover on the sacred chest in their place of worship. But they never knew it as a place they could walk up to:
The Israelite knew about the throne of God. He also knew about the mercy seat, with the glorious winged figures spreading over it. But the idea that this mercy seat was a place he could freely come to was strange to him... He thought of God as being far off. Faith's thought is that through Christ we can draw near with boldness to a throne of grace.
The confidence here is not a casual attitude toward God. It rests on Christ, not on the person coming:
This is not self-confidence. That would be "unauthorized fire" (Lev. 10:1, 2). It is the firmest confidence in the Lord Jesus. There is no dread and no cringing fear, but a calm and reverent sense of being truly welcome. For we find the majestic throne of God to be in truth a "throne of grace." He keeps His great glory there, and He gives His grace there in fullest measure. The sacrifice of the Lord Jesus is why the throne of God has this character of grace.
Notice who the verse sends us to. One writer points out that the High Priest is the reason we can come, not the one we come to:
We are exhorted therefore to draw near to the throne of grace, that is to God Himself. We are not told to draw near to the High Priest, but to God, and we can do so boldly because the High Priest represents us at the throne of grace. As we draw near we receive mercy. This is not because we have failed. It is so that we will not fail in the trial. Here the time of need is not the time of failure. It is the time when trials and temptations come, the kind that may lead to failure.
The verse names two things, and one writer keeps them apart:
The verse draws a distinction between receiving mercy and finding grace to help in time of need. Mercy is heartfelt compassion. It comes to us inside our sorrow or trial, and it sees us there. Grace is active favor. It is a power that lifts us above our circumstances... And that grace is always available in daily life here. What a real encouragement to keep praying, and to pray in a way that gets an answer!
The verse says we receive and we find. One writer draws an observation from that:
We are to draw near with boldness to receive mercy, and to find grace to help in time of need (4:16). To receive. Let us pause for a moment. We are not told even to ask. We are told to come to receive and to find. Why such language? Why this direction? Because our High Priest has asked already for us, and has obtained all the grace and the mercy that we need. It is there already for us. If we had to ask first, we could fairly expect to wait for the answer. We are to go to receive what we need, and all that we need, and as often as we need.
Commentators differ on whether this throne is for the moment after we have fallen. Some restrict it to help that prevents failure. Others read it more widely:
If I go to the throne, rather than waiting for the throne to come to me, it is all grace: I get help. I never can go to the throne of grace without finding mercy. He may send discipline, but it is a throne of grace and all mercy — "grace to help in every time of need." If you have a will, He will break it; if a need, He will help you. Do you feel that you can always go with boldness, even when you have failed? You go humbled, of course. We should be humble at all times, but we are humbled in a special way when we have failed.
- Seated — the throne gets its name from who sits there. Our great High Priest is seated at God's right hand, and He gives the throne its character.
- Welcome — boldness is not self-confidence. It is firm confidence in the Lord Jesus, and a calm sense of being truly welcome.
- Direct — we are sent to God Himself, not to the Priest; He represents us there so that we can come.
- Twofold — mercy meets us inside our trouble; grace is the active power that lifts us above it.
- Timely — the help meets the time of need. Writers differ on its reach: some stress it keeps us from falling, others say it also meets us after we fall.