Christ Tempted in All the Faculties of Humanity
H. W. Beecher. Hebrews 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are… A geographer may be a competent representative of the land through which he travels, without having stood on every single foot of ground which he describes. Robinson did not need to tread every square inch of the streets of Jerusalem in order to understand the topography of that city, and represent it accurately to us. It was not necessary that Christ should pass through every shade and every inflection of human experience in order to understand them. For all experience issues from certain definite foundations of faculty; and it is enough if every faculty which works in us was proved, pained, tempted, and tried in Him, and tried up to this measure, that no man should thereafter live who should have any temptation or trial that should make against any given faculty such a pressure as was made against our Saviour. Pride — is it tempted among men? All that I require is, that Christ should have felt a temptation of pride that should more than equal it; that should swell immeasurably above and overmatch any trial that befals His followers below — in other words, enough put to proof in that particular faculty of the human soul, to understand what that faculty can suffer; how it can be tempted; what course is needed to sustain one under such temptation. It is not needful, therefore, that Christ should sustain the relationship of husband, for He never was in wedlock; or of father. It only requires that He should sustain such a relation to universal human nature or life that there should be no faculty, no passion, no sentiment that is tempted in us, that should not also be tempted in Him; and that there should be no such pressure brought to bear upon us that our temptation should ever be greater than His knowledge of temptation through His own suffering. (H. W. Beecher.) Parallel Verses KJV: For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. WEB: For we don't have a high priest who can't be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who has been in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin.