For we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all things tempted like as we are, without sin. The power of sympathy ( συμπαθήσαι) of our great High Priest is not adduced to distinguish him from other high priests, but to express, in this respect, his resemblance to them; community of nature and feeling with those for whom he mediates being essential to the conception of a high priest (see Hebrews 4:2).
The sequence of thought is, "Let us hold fast our confession, not moved from it by the thought of the superhuman greatness of this High Priest of ours, who hath passed through the heavens; for he can still sympathize with our infirmities ( ἀσθενείαις), having undergone our trials."
ἀσθένεια in the New Testament denotes both bodily infirmity, such as disease (cf. Matthew 8:17; Luke 5:15; John 5:5; John 11:4; Acts 28:9; 1 Timothy 5:23), and also the general weakness of human nature as opposed to Divine power, δύναμις (cf.
Romans 8:26; 1 Corinthians 15:23; 2 Corinthians 12:5, 2 Corinthians 12:9; 2 Corinthians 13:4). St. Paul seems to have had regard to ἀσθένεια in a comprehensive sense—including chronic malady (his "thorn in the flesh"), liability to calamities, "fear and trembling," temptation to sin—when he spoke (2 Corinthians 12:5, 2 Corinthians 12:9) of glorying in his infirmities that the power of Christ might rest upon him.
With all human ἀσθενείαι, of whatever kind, Christ can sympathize in virtue of his own human experience: "Himself took our infirmities ( ἀσθενείας) and bare our sicknesses" (Matthew 8:17); "himself ἐσταυρώθη ἐξ ἀσθενείας, though he now lives ἐκ δυνάμεως θεοῦ" (2 Corinthians 13:4).
The latter part of the verse corresponds in meaning with Hebrews 2:18, but with further delineation of the temptation undergone by Christ. The concluding χωρὶς ἁμαρτίας (best taken in connection with καθ ὁμοιότητα, which it immediately follows, rather than with κατὰ πάντα) is not a categorical assertion of Christ's sinlessness, though it implies it, but an exclusion of the idea of sin from-the likeness spoken of.
His temptation was after the likeness of ours, "apart from sin," or "sin except." For similar expressions, though not with definite reference to temptation, cf. Hebrews 9:28; Hebrews 7:26. But how is the exception of sin to be understood?
Is it that, though, like us, tempted, he, unlike us, resisted temptation? Or is it that his sinless nature was incapable of being even solicited by sin? Now, the verb πειράζω means sometimes "to tempt to sin," as Satan or our own lusts tempt us (cf.
1 Corinthians 7:5; 1 Thessalonians 3:5; James 1:13, etc); and also "to prove.... to try," "to test faithfulness," as in 1 Corinthians 10:13; Hebrews 11:37, etc., in which sense, with reference especially to afflictive trials, the noun πειρασμὸς is commonly used (cf.
Luke 8:13; Luke 22:18; Acts 20:19; Galatians 4:14; 1 Peter 4:12; James 1:12). That Christ was not only subjected to πειρασμὸς in this latter sense, but was also directly assailed by the tempter to sin ( ὁ πειράζων), appears from the Gospel record.
But here comes in a difficulty. There can, we conceive, be no real temptation where there is no liability to the sin suggested by temptation, still less where there is no possibility of sinning. But can we imagine any such liability, or even possibility, in the case of the Divine and Sinless One?
If not, wherein did the temptation consist? How could it be at all like ours, or one through his own experience of which he can sympathize with us? It was for maintaining, on the strength of such considerations, the theoretic peccability of Christ, that Irving was expelled as heretical flora the Presbyterian communion.
The question has undoubtedly its serious difficulties in common with the whole subjeer of the Divine and human in Christ. The following thoughts may, however, aid solution. That Christ, in his human nature, partook of all the original affections of humanity—hope, fear, desire, joy, grief, indignation, shrinking from suffering, and the like—is apparent, not only from his life, but also from the fact that his assumption of our humanity would have otherwise been incomplete.
Such affections are not in themselves sinful; they only are so when, under temptation, any of them become inordinate, and serve as motives to transgression of duty. He, in virtue of his Divine personality, could not through them be seduced into sin; but it does not follow that he could not, in his human nature, feel their power to seduce, or rather the power of the tempter to seduce through them, and thus have personal experience of man's temptation.
St. John says of one" born of God" that he "doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God" (1 John 3:9). He does not mean that the regenerate Christian is not exposed to and does not feel, the power of temptation; only that, so far forth as he lives in the new life from God, he is proof against it; he gives no internal assent to the seduction of the tempter; and so "that wicked one toucheth him net" (verse 18).
What is thus said of one "born of God" may be said much more, and without any qualification, of the Son of God, without denying that he too experienced the power of temptation, though altogether proof against it.
Bengel says, "Quomodo autem, sine pectate tentatus, compati potest tentatis cum peceato? In intellectu multo acrius anima salvatoris percepit imagines tentantes quam nos infirmi: in voluntato tam celeriter incursum earum retudit quam ignis aquae guttulam sibi objectam.
Expertus est igitur qua virtute sit opus ad tentationes vincendas. Compati potest nam et sine peccato, et tamen vere est tentatus."