A Compassionate High Priest and a Throne of Grace

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"For we have not a High Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities--but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." –Hebrews 4:15-16

The grand object of the Epistle to the Hebrews is to set forth the high priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Into that subject we cannot now fully enter; and yet our text leads us (and may the Lord lead us by the text) into some attempt to show who this High Priest is, of whom the apostle here speaks.

I. I need scarcely take up your time by showing at any length in what way the high priest under the law was a type and figure of the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet, there are certain points of resemblance, and certain points of difference, which it will be desirable to enter into, in order to illustrate and set forth more clearly the mind and meaning of the Holy Spirit in the words before us.

There were THREE POINTS OF RESEMBLANCE (there were more, but I confine myself to three) between the high priest under the law and the great "High Priest over the house of God." The first was, that the high priest offered sacrifices; the second, that he made intercession for the sins of the people on the great day of atonement, by taking incense beaten small, and, putting it on the coals which were taken off the bronze altar, with it entered into the most holy place; and the third, that he blessed the people.

Now, in these three points did the high priest under the law beautifully resemble and set forth the great "High Priest over the house of God." But O, how feeble the resemblance! how dim the type! how shadowy the figure! The high priest under the law could only offer the blood of bulls and goats, which can never take away sin; the great "High Priest over the house of God" offered himself--his own body and his own soul--that precious, precious blood, which "cleanses from all sin." The high priest under the law could only offer incense upon the coals taken from off the bronze altar; the great "High Priest over the house of God" is offering daily the virtue of his sacrifice by "making intercession for us." The high priest under the law could only pronounce the blessing in so many words; he could not give or communicate that blessing to the soul; the great "High Priest over the house of God" can and does bless the soul with the sweet manifestations of his loving-kindness and tender mercy.

But again. There are POINTS OF DIFFERENCE, as well as points of resemblance,
1. The high priest under the law was but a man; the great "High Priest over the house of God" is God-man, "Immanuel, God with us," the eternal "Son of the Father, in truth and love," having taken our nature into union with his own divine and glorious Person.

2. The high priest under the law died in course of years, and was succeeded by a high priest as mortal as himself; Heb 7:23 but the great High Priest above lives for evermore to "make intercession for us."

3. The high priest under the law might be (and the apostle seems to make some allusion to the circumstance here) one who had no sympathy nor fellow-feeling for the infirmities and sins of those for whom he made sacrifice; he might be like some of our priestly Dons who seem all holiness, and have no tender heart to feel compassion for backsliders, and those that are out of the way--but the great "High Priest over the house of God," the apostle here says, is one that is "touched with the feeling of our infirmities."

4. The high priest under the law might be, or might not be, tempted--he might be, or he might not be, a man who knew the plague of his own heart and the workings of his fallen nature, and therefore might not be "tempted in all points" like unto those for whom he might sacrifice--but the great "High Priest over the house of God" was "tempted in all points like as we are." and therefore can have, and has a sympathetic feeling for the tempted.

5. The high priest under the law was a sinner--but the great "High Priest over the house of God" is spotless, without sin, "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens."

But the two points to which the apostle here refers, and on which I shall, with God’s blessing, now more especially enlarge, are–

1. First, that our great High Priest, Jesus, is one that is "touched with the feeling of our infirmities," and therefore divinely suitable to us who are encompassed with infirmities. Here lies the grand distinction between the child of God quickened into a sense of his deeply-fallen condition, and a self-righteous pharisee. The child of God, spiritually taught and convinced, is deeply sensible of his infirmities, yes, that he is compassed with infirmities, that he is nothing else but infirmities. And therefore the great High Priest to whom he comes as a burdened sinner, to whom he has recourse in the depth of his extremity, and at whose feet he falls overwhelmed with a sense of his helplessness, sin, misery, and guilt; is so suitable to him as one able to sympathize with his infirmities.

We would, if left to our own conceptions, naturally imagine that Jesus is too holy to look down in compassion on a filthy, guilty wretch like our self . ‘Surely, surely, he will spurn us from his feet; surely, surely, his holy eyes cannot look upon us in our blood, guilt, filth, wretchedness, misery, and shame; surely, surely, he cannot bestow one heart’s thought, one moment’s sympathy, or feel one spark of love towards those who are so unlike him.’ Nature, sense, and reason would thus argue– 'I must be holy, perfectly holy, for Jesus to love; I must be pure, perfectly pure, spotless and sinless, for Jesus to think of.’ But that I, a sinful, guilty, defiled wretch--that I, encompassed with infirmities--that I, whose heart is a cage of unclean birds--that I, stained and polluted with a thousand iniquities--that I can have any inheritance in him, or that he can have any love or compassion towards me--nature, sense, and reason- religion, natural religion in all its shapes and forms, revolts from the idea.

And therefore, to set forth the difference between this compassionate, loving, merciful, tender-hearted High Priest, and such a stoical priest as passed by the bleeding one who had fallen among thieves, and would not turn his eyes lest he should be polluted by seeing blood in the path--to contrast, I say, this tender-hearted High Priest with such an unfeeling, religious stoic as this (and many such proud, religious stoics have we in the pulpit and in the pew) the apostle says, "We have not a High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities." It is as though he would thereby specially address himself to the poor, burdened child of God who feels his infirmities, who cannot boast of his own wisdom, strength, righteousness, and consistency, but is all weakness and helplessness. It seems as if he would address himself to the case of such a helpless wretch, and pour a sweet cordial into his bleeding conscience.

It is almost as if he said, "What! do you think, dear friend, that the great High Priest over the house of God will spurn you away because he is so holy? No; we have not such a High Priest as this." There is the negative. ‘Let others have them, if they will; let others rejoice in such priests as they may; let them have all the comfort they can get from them.’ ‘Not so with us, dear brethren,’ he would say. ‘We, the children of God; we, that know each his own plague and his own sore; we, who carry about with us day by day a body of sin and death, that makes us lament, sigh, and groan; we who know painfully what it is to be encompassed with infirmities--we, who come to his feet as being nothing and having nothing but sin and woe; "we have not a High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities:" but One who carries in his bosom that sympathizing, merciful, feeling, tender, and compassionate heart that he carried here below.’

There is no change in him; for he is "the same yesterday, today, and forever;" one and the same Jesus that wept when he saw the tears running from the eyes of the Jews who would comfort Martha and Mary; the same Jesus who did not reject the woman with the issue of blood when she crept through the crowd to touch the hem of his garment--the same Jesus who listened to the cry of the Syrophenician woman, and heard her prayer--the same Jesus who went about doing good, and had tears to weep over human misery and sorrow--the same tender-hearted, merciful, and compassionate Jesus is now at the right hand of God--therefore "touched"--how sweet the word!

Do we not know something experimentally of it, when some one comes to us with a tale of woe--and we see the tear, not of the hypocrite, but of sincere sorrow, trickling down the cheek? or when a child of God comes to us, tells us how he is burdened with sin and guilt, and sets forth in sincerity and godly simplicity the exercises of his heart--are we not "touched"? Is there not a melting of the soul? a breaking down of heart? He may have come into our company, and we sat stern and unfeeling; we may have looked with a suspicious eye upon him, and doubted whether he had any grace at all in his heart; but let him open his mouth, let grace be clearly manifested in him, are we not "touched"? Is not our heart melted and softened? and is there not a sweet union felt between him and us?

Carry this, spiritually, into the idea of our text. This compassionate High Priest is "touched," when we come with our sins, sorrows, infirmities, and complaints, and confess those things which from time to time burden and distress our minds. We have not to deal with an unfeeling, hard-hearted, stoical high priest, who scorns us, turns his eye away from us, and says, ‘Until you are very much holier, I can have nothing to do with you.’ But his heart is touched, and softened "with the feeling of our infirmities." There are some who have the abominable presumption to say, ‘Away with your frames and feelings!’ These presumptuous wretches might as well say, ‘Away with Jesus! away with the great "High Priest over the house of God!" as to say, ‘Away with feeling!’ For is he not "touched with the feeling of our infirmities"? Destroy feeling! and you do all that lies in your power to destroy the great "High Priest over the house of God."

Take away feeling out of my heart! you do all in your power to deny there is feeling in the heart of Immanuel. Shall he be "touched with feeling," and you and I never be touched with feeling? Shall frames and feelings be ridiculed, and contempt poured out upon them, when the Holy Spirit here sets forth Immanuel as "touched with the feeling of our infirmities"? Blessings be upon his name--immortal honors crown his brow, that he is "touched with the feeling of our infirmities," that he is not that stoical High Priest which some would set him forth--but that he has a tender heart, which melts, moves, and yearns over our infirmities and sorrows. And I am bold to say, that we can have no communion with the Lord Jesus Christ except we know he is "touched with the feeling of our infirmities." When I go to a man, and tell him my infirmity and sinfulness, if he assumes a stern look, as though he were so holy that I must not go into his presence, does not that daunt me? Can I tell out the feelings of my soul--can I open the secrets of my heart to one that has no sympathy?

There can be no true union and communion with the Lord Jesus Christ except so far as we know that he is "touched with the feeling of our infirmities;" that we have his ear, and can pour into his ear the feelings of our soul; that we have his heart, and when we tell him what we suffer, his heart too is "touched with the feeling of our infirmities." But O how numerous are these infirmities! The whole evening might be taken up with but a slight description of them; infirmities in faith, in hope, in love, in prayer, in reading the word, in preaching, in hearing--infirmities all the day long, so far as we are left to ourselves. And yet this blessed, merciful, compassionate High Priest can be "touched with the feeling of our infirmities."

2. But we pass on to consider the second point which the Holy Spirit has here brought forward, connected with this compassionate High Priest--that he was "in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." I feel that I tread here upon very tender ground. I must move cautiously, very cautiously, lest I be betrayed into confusion and error. The Holy Spirit seems to me to have marked out the road by boundaries on each side--and as long as we keep within these boundaries, we keep to the mind of the Holy Spirit. What is one boundary? We must not pass it--"tempted in all points like as we are." What is the other boundary? "Yet without sin." Between these two boundaries we may safely walk.

Are you tempted? Then you may see for your comfort, if the Lord is pleased to apply it to your soul, that Jesus was "tempted in all points" like as you are. But then, there is this difference between the blessed Immanuel and you and me, that when we are tempted it is not without sin. But he was "tempted in all points," like as we are, "yet without sin." Sin never touched him; it recoiled, if I may use the expression, from his holy, sinless, spotless nature. Sin charged upon him was the grief of his soul; but sin never found an entrance into his holy, spotless nature. Satan might hurl his darts against him; but "the prince of this world comes, and has nothing in me." But it is not so with us. When temptation comes, there is that in our heart which responds to it. And this makes temptation to be such a dangerous and painful thing to a child of God, that there is that in his fallen nature which answers to the temptation; there is that in him which temptation suits and intertwines with; so that only by the grace of God is he kept in every hour of temptation.

Now, I believe firmly, that every child of God will have to endure temptation. James says, "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations," and he adds, "Blessed is the man that endures temptation. Peter says, "Though now for a season, if need be, you are in heaviness through manifold temptations." And when Paul was recounting, in the eleventh chapter of the epistle before us, the sufferings of the noble army of worthies, he says, "They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword."

Thus these saints of God, in their day and generation, were tempted--and you and I, so far as we are saints, and children of God, must be tempted also. But how numerous and various are our temptations! Some of these temptations are carnal--"the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life" with all those base workings of our deeply-fallen nature, which are better alluded to than described. Then there are temptations to infidelity, temptations to error and heresy, temptations to deny the truth of God, temptations to doubt the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, the doctrine of the Trinity, the personality of the Holy Spirit. In fact, there is not one branch of truth against which the most subtle temptations do not easily find an entrance into the carnal mind, yes, temptations too base to name, too horrible even to hint at.

Now here is the difference between the Lord Jesus Christ and us--that these temptations fell upon his holy and spotless nature, but never entered into it. But these temptations do find access to us. ‘But if that be the case,’ one may say, ‘how can the Lord Jesus Christ feel a sympathy for a poor tempted sinner like me? The Son of God was spotless, holy, harmless, undefiled--and I am sinful, evil, and wicked. I feel something within me that delights in temptation. I have never heard of an error in which I have not found something for my heart to lay hold of. I never hear of a sin without there being something in my heart that seems at once to receive it. Heresy cannot come abroad without there being something in me that is ready to fall in with it. If the Lord Jesus Christ, then, were tempted like as we are, what is the difference between him and us in this matter?’

I would ask you, what is it in us that makes us feel temptation and groan and cry beneath its weight? What is it that makes us hate sin, abhor heresy, and cleave to the truth--which makes us look to the Lord to deliver us from the power of sin, and trample temptation under our feet? The grace of God in the soul; is it not? The Holy Spirit, we would gladly hope, having raised up, through mercy, in our hearts a spiritual and new nature that sees the temptation, feels the temptation, hates the temptation, groans under the temptation and flees unto God to deliver us from the temptation.

Now, if temptation is painful to us, it is only painful so far as we are partakers of grace. Temptation is not painful to the ungodly--it creates no agonizing feelings in the dead sinner; but those whose consciences are made and kept alive, those who desire in their heart and soul to love God and live to his glory, and to hate with perfect hatred everything that he hates--they, and they alone, feel, groan, sigh, cry, and lament deeply under the power of temptation.

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