A High Priest Who Can Sympathize with our Weaknesses

14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

15 For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.

Martin Luther wrote, ““There are two days in my calendar: This day and that Day.”

16 Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.

F.F. Bruce, we can even deceive ourselves; but nothing escapes the scrutiny of God; before him everything lies exposed and powerless. And it is to him, not to our fellow-men or to our own conscience, that our final account58 must be rendered. Stripped of all disguise and protection, we are utterly at the mercy of God, the Judge of all

John Calvin- “The meaning is, that it is God who deals with us, or with whom we have a concern; and that, therefore, we ought not to trifle with him as with a mortal man, but that whenever his word is set before us, we ought to tremble, for nothing is hid from him.”

14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

15 For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.

one author, “sympathy with the sinner in his trial does not depend on the experience of sin but on the experience of the strength of the temptation to sin which only the sinless can know in its full intensity. He who falls yields before the last strain.”

Calvin wrote, These infirmities Christ of his own accord undertook, and he willingly contended with them, not only that he might attain a victory over them for us, but also that we may feel assured that he is present with us whenever we are tried by them.

Hughes writes, “What we, and they, needed was not a fellow loser but a winner; not one who shares our defeat but one who is able to lead us to victory; not a sinner but a savior.”

“And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.”

“And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.”

“He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who is seeking the glory of the One who sent Him, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.

“Which one of you convicts Me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me?

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.

who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth;

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;

You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin.

16 Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Anselm wrote, “I do not attempt, O Lord, to penetrate Thy profundity (great depth of knowledge), for I desire to understand in some degree Thy truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand, in order that I may believe; but I believe that I may understand. For I believe too, that unless I believed, I should not understand.” Anselm would write one of the great works on the atonement “Why did God become human?”

B.B. Warfield wrote, “we cannot afford to lose either the God in the man or the man in the God; our hearts cry out for the complete God-man whom the Scriptures offer us.”