How does Jesus sympathize with our weaknesses (Hebrews 4:15)?

In verse 15 the emphasis lies upon the grace of the Priest. He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. The three italicized words should be carefully noted. Infirmities, not sins; for His temptations here were wholly apart from sin. While infirmity merits sympathy, sin merits nothing but condemnation. Further, He is concerned with the feeling of our infirmities, not with the knowledge merely. When trouble assails us and sympathy is offered by our fellow-Christians, we quickly know the difference between that which flows from knowledge merely and that which springs from the feeling begotten by having been already in similar circumstances. Apart from sin, He has been “in all points tempted like as we are.” And then with the feeling of our infirmities He is touched. He regards us not with the cold interest of the philosopher, but with the warm affection of the Lover of our souls. The warm tide of the sympathy of our great High Priest is ever flowing. Could anything be sweeter than this?

What a comfort it is in the midst of the trials of the way to know that we have a sympathetic High Priest! Oftentimes we may go to one another with our trials and we meet each other with a certain measure of sympathy: "A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity." But how incomplete is the sympathy of the dearest friend that you may have! There are experiences, there is a sense of weakness, there are needs which you are either ashamed to speak of or realize the uselessness of telling the dearest earthly friend about. How blessed it is to know that there is not an atom of experience we may have that is beneath the notice of our blessed High Priest! There is not a trial, so small that you might be ashamed to speak of it to man, that you cannot tell out in His sympathetic ear. He was tried as we are — for that is what has given Him capacity to be a merciful High Priest! He has passed through our experiences; it is not merely One who has divine knowledge of our path — God has that: "When my spirit was overwhelmed within me," says the psalmist, then Thou knewest my path." God knows the path of His people. He knew the sorrows of Israel down in Egypt; but, beloved, with our blessed Lord it is something more than divine knowledge of the sorrows and needs of His people; it is divine experience of those sorrows and needs.

With human weakness He has been acquainted. Witness that time when an angel appeared to Him to strengthen Him. Weariness too from travel and hunger and thirst likewise did He experience. The history of Sychar's well records His weariness and His thirst. The wilderness and the barren fig tree both knew Him as the hungry man. Then rejection by men He was made to feel, and the being forsaken by all His disciples as well. The taunts and jeers of all classes when He was crucified He keenly felt, for He endured them. We know that. For though the Gospels tell us nothing of His feelings in that way at the time, the 22nd Psalm acquaints us by the Spirit of prophecy with the trial all that really would be to Him. Jesus, Son of God, passed through it. He was deeply sensible of it. Hence He can sympathise with His people, if found at any time in similar circumstances. And whether it be the sense of human weakness, or the trials from men, or from the enemy, He knows the full measure of it all. For He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin (Heb. 4:15). True He was holy and undefiled. Satan had nothing in Him (John 14:30). Peter too tells us He did no sin (1 Peter 2:22). And John writes, what is stronger, that in Him is no sin (1 John 3:5). Does that make Him less able to sympathise with us? Nay, it makes Him better able, we must say with reverence. For He has known the full force of temptation, and resisted it to the uttermost. He knows then all it can be, and the grace that we need to stand firm against it. We profit by His sinlessness. For all that the enemy could bring against Him to turn Him aside from the cross, which was then appointed Him, was certainly attempted, but signally failed. Many a one may have resisted temptation much and long, though at length succumbing. Such a one could speak from experience of the enemy's power, but could not, through at last yielding, affirm that he had fully tested it to the uttermost. One alone has done that. And that One is our High Priest, Jesus, Son of God.

He has, in all things, been tempted like ourselves, sin apart; so that He can sympathise with our infirmities. The word brings to light the intents of the heart, judges the will, and all that has not God for its object and its source. Then, as far as weakness is concerned, we have His sympathy. 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 mortified — judged unsparingly. This the word does. For my weakness and my difficulties I seek sympathy; and I find it in the priesthood of Jesus. It is not necessary, in order to sympathise with me, that a person should feel at the same moment that which I am feeling — rather the contrary. If I am suffering pain, I am not in a condition to think as much of another's pain. But in order to sympathise with him I must have a nature capable of appreciating his pain.

Thus it is with Jesus, when exercising His priesthood. He is in every sense beyond the reach of pain and trial, but He is man; and not only has He the human nature which in time suffered grief, but He experienced the trials a saint has to go through more fully than any of ourselves; and His heart, free and full of love, can entirely sympathise with us, according to His experience of ill, and according to the glorious liberty which He now has, to provide and care for it. This encourages us to hold fast our profession in spite of the difficulties that beset our path; for Jesus concerns Himself about them, according to His own knowledge and experience of what they are, and according to the power of His grace.

Their "Great High Priest," who was now in the presence of God in heaven, had once walked this earth in perfect subject Manhood, and had experienced all the cares and trials of the pathway apart from sin. Hence His ability to sympathize with them in the pathway of faith into which they had now been brought. Scorn, ridicule and all they were subject to from the nation had been borne by Jesus when He, in this world, had suffered the same things as witnessing to the truth and standing for the rights of God. Who could have a better understanding of their needs than the One who had suffered the same things Himself? The word translated here as "infirmities" is elsewhere translated as "sickness" and "weakness." Whatever the translation it appears to convey the thought of one needing help from another. It is the same word used of our Lord — "crucified through weakness," and although sickness was never recorded of Him yet having suffered the bodily anguish of the cross, how fully He would know what His saints would stand in need of when sickness was allowed to come upon them. "In all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin."

We learn, then, from our first scripture, that Christ took the infirmities and bore the sicknesses of His people when He was down here upon the earth. In one word, in all their affliction He was afflicted. Strictly speaking, in the passage in Matthew the Lord is seen taking away the sicknesses and the infirmities of His people; but if the passage in Isaiah is consulted of which this act is said to be the fulfilment, it will be seen that He first took these burdens upon His own shoulders. This, indeed, was ever His blessed way. In His own tender grace and unutterable compassion, He went down in spirit under the load of the sorrow of those who sought His aid; then He bore it up upon His own heart before God, and finally took it away. Thus, when they brought unto Him one that was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, after He had taken him apart, etc., looking up to heaven, He "groaned" under the burden of the man's infirmity, and then said, "Ephphatha, that is, Be opened." (Mark 7.) So it was in all His blessed pathway through this world: He was the Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, because He entered into the condition of those with whom He came into contact. Truly He was the great Burden-bearer, as, indeed, His tears over impenitent Jerusalem and on His way to the grave of Lazarus abundantly testify. Who can thus consider Him, in these expressions of His sympathy and love, without being deeply touched? Here was One, at least, ever full of unspeakable compassions, incessantly yearning over the burdened hearts of those around, and never chilled in His ministry of love by the lack of response. The springs of His action were above and within - in doing the will of Him who had sent Him, and in gratifying His own affections. Blessed Lord, well might we be ashamed as we meditate upon Thee; and yet, knowing what we are, Thou dost speak to each one of us, and say, even as to this, Follow Me. May we, by Thy grace, be enabled to cry, Draw us, and we will run after Thee in this Thy service of grace and sympathy.

If now we consider the present service of our blessed Lord as the Great High Priest we shall discover the same principle as its basis. We are told that He is not one that cannot be touched with a feeling of our infirmities, and the reason given is that He has been tempted in all points like as we are apart from sin. This we understand to mean that, inasmuch as He has made personal experience of our trials - trials resulting from our infirmities - He is able to enter into our feelings and to sympathise with us in them. The meaning of sympathy is to feel with - not for, that is pity, but with - and thus in a very profound sense the Lord still enters into and bears our infirmities. There is not a single sorrow or trouble arising from these which He therefore does not behold, and which does not call out, and that instantly, the loving sympathy of His heart. It is on account of this that, knowing our need, He is able to maintain us in His priestly intercession before God, and to secure for us the needed mercy and grace when we come boldly to the throne of grace. Oh! how blessed it is then to appropriate Christ in His priestly character. He said Himself, "He that eateth Me shall live by Me," and we may thus be encouraged to appropriate Him, for He is before God as our Representative. It will comfort our hearts and lighten our heaviest burdens to do so. Then, instead of sinking down under our circumstances, as Peter was sinking into the sea, we shall find that His strong hand of support is under and around us, lifting us above our trials and filling our lips with thanksgivings and praise.

The sympathy of Jesus is in scripture based on wholly different grounds. I admit that His divine glory alone suffices not; but it does give lustre and infinite worth to His most real suffering as Man tried, and in every way conceivable, sin excepted. He must have the nature of those whose cause He undertakes, though not in the same fallen state; He must have proved the anguish and bitterness of temptation here below; and so He did incomparably more than any other. In holy humanity He could thus feel sympathy with our infirmities, having felt the wiles and power and malice of the enemy, and so much more than we do, as His dignity and holiness and love transcended ours. Never having known sin (which, if known, narrows and blunts the heart), but having suffered infinitely, His affections are large and free to go out to us, in our sore distresses as saints, who have not only the same outward enemy to try us, but also a treacherous nature within.

"Able to succour," as in Hebrews 2:18, refers not to strength, though of course it must be there, but experimental knowledge of the opposition, difficulties, trials, which are on the road, so that He could understand, be touched with them. The priest does represent us, "appear in the presence of God for us," but that is before God, but He also obtains for us all needed grace and help, as regards the way down here. And learning our dependence, and to trust in God's faithfulness is a great thing; man would be independent, and has to learn his relationship to God, or rather know himself and God in it. This has its importance as well as being perfectly accepted.

For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted. He is able to help those that are tempted." Having proven Himself in lowly experience, - suffering rather than yielding to temptation, - He is Himself a strength to His suffering people, able to give grace that they should bear rather than succumb to temptation. Having such an High Priest, what a shame that we should ever give way when tempted. But here we have a fourth reason for His sufferings, - that He might have perfect sympathy with His suffering saints. How full and orderly is the precious Word of God!

What a Succourer or Helper this One is. He has walked this path before, He wept at the grave of Lazarus (John 11:35), He has been hungry (Luke 4:2) and thirsty (John 4:7), He has been "tempted in all things in like manner, sin apart" (Heb. 4:15), He was homeless, He did not have place to lay His head (Luke 9:58). As He has been tested in all areas, sin apart, He can succour us. Not only does He succour us but in Hebrews 4:14-16 we are told that He sympathises with us, "Having therefore a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast the confession. For we have not a high priest not able to sympathise with our infirmities, but tempted in all things in like manner, sin apart. Let us approach therefore with boldness to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and find grace for seasonable help". So the Lord Jesus in this office as our great High Priest mediates for us, succours us and here He sympathises with us. Who can sympathise more than Jesus (humanity), the Son of God (Divinity). How He, a true Man, can be "over all, God blessed for ever" (Rom. 9:5) goes beyond human comprehension but it is certainly true. This is where faith comes in and lays hold of this truth. So He is human, He is Divine, and He is compassionate, merciful and accessible (you can talk to Him in your car going to work, or in your closet, or in your bed, or coming to the meeting, in fact in any circumstance night or day).