THE KING’S BUSINESS
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Our Sympathizing but Absolutely Sinless Saviour O NE of the most precious, but at the same time, one of the most abused verses in Scripture, is Hebrews 4:15, “For we have not an high priest that cannot be touched with a feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” There are those who tell us that if the temptation of our Lord Jesus was real, that it must have been possible for Him to sin, but this very passage to which they appeal de clares that it was not possible for Him to sin. The Greek word which is trans lated “without” is a very strong word; it means “having no association with” “apart from” “aloof from.” It is the same word that is used, for example, in Romans 3 :21 where Paul writes of a righteousness of God absolutely apart from the law, and in Ephesians 2:12, where Paul writes of the Gentiles in their unregenerate state as being entirely “eparate from Christ” (see R. V.). It is used a number of times in the Epistle to the Hebrews, a striking instance in this connection being Hebrews 9 :28 where we are told that Christ is to be seen a second time absolutely “apart from sin” unto salvation. Our Lord Jesus could not sin just as God cannot lie (Titus 1 :2). The heart that has any real appreciation of our Lord and of His absolute holiness shudders at the very thought of any one imputing even the possibility of. sinning to Him. The. most fundamental moral characteristic of the Lord Jesus was holiness. He was the Holy One (Acts 3 :14; 1 John 2 :20; cf. Acts 4:27, 30; Mark 1 :24; Luke 4:34). His whole delight was in His Father’s will (Ps. 40:8). His very food was doing the Father’s will (John 4:34). Sin in any form made no appeal whatever to Him. Some will say, “If this is true then his temptation was a farce.” Not in the least. When He had fasted for forty days in the wilder ness, He was hungry; there was no sin in His being hungry, He longed for bread and the longing for bread was perfectly innocent and proper and so the temptation was intensely real, gut, not for a moment, even in thought, did He yield to the Devil’s suggestion to obtain bread in a way that would nave taken Him out of God’s plan. Just so with the other temptations; they were real, but not for a moment, even in thought, was there any wavering on His part in His perfect holiness. He could not waver. He could not yield even in thought. The impossibility of sinning lay not in any constraint that was put upon Him from without, but in His own holy character. He could not sin because He would not sin. His whole Being abhorred sin, shrank from it. He could suffer anything and would suffer anything rather than sin. He could no more sin than white could be black. Sin was as impossible to Him as lying is impossible to God. But some one will aslc, “Did not our Lord Jesus, as a man, meet temptations with the same weapons with which we must meet them, namely, the Word of God and prayer?” Yes, He did. “Well, then,” they may ask further, “suppose He had neglected the Word of God and prayer, would He not have yielded to temptation?” The answer is simple, He did not neglect prayer and the Word of God. He would not and could not neglect the Word of God and prayer. To have neglected the Word of God and prayer would have been to have sinned. The wljole difficulty arises from trying to imagine what would have happened if something had happened which did not happen and could not happen. Qne can prove anything by that style of argument. But whatever difficulties to the doctrine may arise in one’s own imagination,
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