What does it mean that Jesus was tempted, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15)?

But in order to such a priesthood Jesus had been tempted in all things in like manner, sin excepted. Here we need to be on our guard. For the foisting in of "yet" in the last clause is apt to convey a notion wholly contrary to the truth and most derogatory to Christ. Most readers would gather thence that, though Christ was in all points tempted like as we are, yet He never sinned. Now one may boldly affirm that this is altogether short of the true meaning, and indeed quite another thought, so as to miss the mind of God in the passage. It is not sins or failures excepted, but "apart from sin." We have evil temptations from within, from fallen humanity; Christ had none. This was absolutely incompatible with His holy person. By a miracle He was even as to humanity exempt from taint of evil, as no one else was since the fall. And it is of these holy temptations that the Epistle to the Hebrews treats, not of our unholy ones. The Epistle of James distinguishes them very definitely in James 1. Compare verses 2, 12, on the one hand and verses 13-19 on the other. We know the latter too well, Jesus never. But He knew the former as no other before or since. He was in all things tempted according to likeness i.e. with us, with this infinite difference, "sin apart." He knew no sin, He had no inward sinful temptation. He is therefore the more, not the less, able to sympathise with us. For sin within, even if not yielded to, blinds the eye and dulls the heart, and hinders from unreserved occupation with the trials of others.

Temptation means trial; never in Christ's case, what is in fallen man's inward solicitation to evil. This is what the Holy Spirit expressly denies of Him, and what no one who believed in His person ought to have allowed for a moment. Lustful experience or sin is incompatible with the Holy One of God; and, so far from being in a single instance predicated of Him, it is wholly excluded: χωρὶς ἁμαρτίας could be said of neither Enoch nor Elijah, nor of John and Paul, but of Him only. The blessed endurance of temptation (James 1:2, 12) He knew beyond any; but what James describes in verses 13-15 of his first chapter was foreign to Him, and a blasphemous imputation, as it proves fundamental unbelief of Who and what He is. We are too familiar with the human and selfish argument that He could not sympathise with us adequately if exempt from those internal and evil workings, bemoaned in Rom. 7 and bitterly known by every soul born of God, at least in the early days of his awakening. But if we needed the Lord to be similarly harassed in order to feel fully with us, we should on that ground want Him to have yielded, as we alas! have often done, in order to sympathise with us in our sad failures. No! that ground is wretchedly and absolutely opposed to Christ; and what the word reveals as the remedy for evil within and without in every form and degree is not Christ's sympathy, but His propitiatory suffering for us. 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. Had there been in fact the least inward taint of sin, His sensibility of evil had been impaired, His sufferings diminished, and His sympathy hindered, to say nothing of the deadly wound to His person, unfitted by such an evil nature to be a sacrifice for sin.

Mischief is wrought in two ways by the idea. In the first place, sin must be palliated, excused, covered by misleading names. Lust is called temptation, and sometimes even daring dishonor done to Christ Himself by the insinuation that He too was in like manner tempted. So people quote, "He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin," as if it meant that He had such inward desires, only restrained them, so that there was no positive outbreak. This, the actual blasphemy of Irving and Thomas, in milder and less pronounced forms infects many in the present day. The text they quote in the common version favors these views too much. And the Revised Version unhappily perpetuates the error. There is properly, as any one may see by the italics (Heb. 5:15), no word in the original representing "yet." "He was tempted in all points, like as we are, apart from sin" is the true rendering. You must not imply sin in any way in the Holy One of God. Sin it is that produces lust, as the seventh of Romans decisively teaches, as on the other hand lust, again, brings forth the positive outward sin. He had neither; no inward incitement as no sin in act, and herein was our total opposite, who, as Scripture assures us, "in many things offend, all." (James 3:2.)

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.

The "yet without sin," which I translated "apart from sin," is the same word as in the passage, "He shall appear the second time without sin." As free as He then will be from it, so free was He in the temptations He went through. Thus, we have the express testimony of scripture on the point. Every trial, every sorrow, every circumstance, in which the enemy of our souls could try Him, He was tempted with χαθ᾽ ὁμοιότητα. Everything which sin had caused as an effect He bore; in His nature He was sinless. He sympathizes with us in every trial of ours as new creatures. He judges — God has judged — and strengthens us against the suggestions of our old man, with which He can have no sympathy, but which is all condemned, we being received because He has willingly died for us as to it all, which was the sympathy we wanted for it, and which He could not have given if He had been in any way or sort sinful Himself. He could not then have been made sin.

Observe, moreover, in Hebrews 2:18, "in that he himself hath suffered being tempted," there never was anything else: it is not that He suffered after being tempted, for this a man may do who yields and repents. There was not, there could not be, distress of conscience in the Lord Jesus, any more than the workings of unbelief, such as we may feel. He suffered in the entire moral being the sufferings of holiness and grace. He loathed and rejected all that the enemy presented to His holy nature. Hence He who in human nature knew trial and suffering beyond all is able to comfort the tried saint. This is the real idea and application of temptation here. It does not mean inward susceptibility of, or proclivity to, evil; it does in James 1:14, where it is expressly connected with lust: if any man dares to apply this to Jesus, let him speak out, that we may know what he is, and that the sheep of Christ may flee from the voice of a stranger. But James, in the same chapter (vers. 2, 12), uses the word in its more ordinary scriptural application to trials. The confusion arises from not heeding the difference between such an inward working of fallen nature as is described in James 1:14 and the being tried by Satan without. The true faith of the Son of God ought to have rendered such suggestions impossible in His case. There was no sin in Adam and Eve when they were tempted: hence fallen humanity is not necessary to temptation. But let it be noticed that, when our first parents were tempted, there was no suffering then: they yielded. It is in contrast with the last Adam, who was incomparably more tempted but in nothing yielded. He met every assault by the word of God, instead of letting it slip and transgressing it as they did. He came to do God's will, not His own. He acted in the power of the Holy Ghost, who brings out the suited scripture for the need, whatever it be. We, it is true, as men, have fallen humanity, which He had not; but then, as believers, we are born of God (Christ Himself being our life), and we have in the Holy Ghost power to resist, especially bearing in mind that Satan is now to us, because of Christ, a conquered enemy. But the old nature in us is still there and no better: victory, as far as we are concerned, depends not on its improvement but on our faith.

(Heb. 2:18.) He suffered — never yielded. We do not suffer when we yield to temptation; the flesh takes pleasure in the things by which it is tempted. Jesus suffered being tempted, and He is able to succour them that are tempted. It is important to observe that the flesh, when acted upon by its desires, does not suffer — being tempted, it, alas! enjoys. But when, according to the light of the Holy Ghost and the fidelity of obedience, the Spirit resists the attacks of the enemy, whether subtle or persecuting, then one suffers. This is what the Lord did, and this we have to do.

The suffering is through not yielding to the temptation. If we yield, the flesh does not suffer; on the contrary, it indulges itself by the temptation, finding its pleasure in the thing by which it is tempted. It enjoys the pleasure of sin at the moment, though for the sin it will finally have to suffer. The Lord was tempted, only to bring out His perfection that never for a moment yielded to the temptation. This entailed suffering. He endured hunger rather than yield to the devil's temptation. Having thus suffered in the presence of temptation, He is able to succour His people and enable them to stand firm in the presence of temptation. With a perfectly tender heart He enters into our temptations and succours us with mercy and faithfulness. Too often we can show mercy at the expense of faithfulness, or act in faithfulness at the expense of mercy. He, in the perfection of His way, can show mercy without compromising faithfulness.

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?

Able to Sympathise. — The excellency of His person, who is Jesus, Son of God, and who has passed too through the heavens, and who remains there, would at once point out how far He surpasses Aaron, and assuredly his successors. Who then would follow them, and continue beholden to such for sanctuary ministrations, when there was, and is, such a High Priest as Jesus, Son of God? But more. Great though He is, He is human as well as Divine; so can sympathise with His people in their weaknesses, for "Touched with the feeling of our infirmities" (4:15) really means that. What a thought for us! What encouragement! We may find some men anything but sympathetic. The very mention of weakness may bore them. The Son of God is different. He can and does sympathise with His people in their weaknesses. Weakness, let us mark, not sins. It is the feebleness of the creature of which He takes note, and for whom in such a condition He can feel. And indeed what are there of difficulties by the way with which He is not conversant? What is there of proper human feeling to which He is a stranger? What power of man, what power of the devil, opposed to God, has He not experienced?

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.