We may now glance at Hebrews 4:1515For 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. (Hebrews 4:15): “For we have not a high priest unable to sympathize with our infirmities, but tempted as He hath been in all things alike apart from sin.” There is a notion prevalent among theologians that the blessed Lord Himself was compassed with infirmities. Where is such a statement warranted in Scripture? Do they call it an infirmity for a man here below to eat, drink, sleep or feel the lack of these things? What do they make of Matthew 23 and of Matthew 8:1717That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses. (Matthew 8:17), “Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses”? of His anger against the sabbath-perverters? of His walking in Solomon’s porch, not in the sanctuary? of His sleeping outside Jerusalem and other holy cities? of His agony in Gethsemane?
Christ could be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, nay, was in all points tempted like as we are, sin excepted. The word “yet,” interpolated into the Authorized Version, makes the sense equivocal, if it be not spoiled; at any rate, “yet” probably helped on the misinterpretation that the words teach no more than that He did not yield to sin — that He was tempted, fully and like us, yet without sinning. But this is not the force. He was tried in all things after a like sort apart from sin (cwri;" aJmartiva"). Tempted as He was in all things similarly, in this He differed essentially that He had absolutely no sin in His nature. This therefore very materially guards the resemblance from trenching [encroaching] on the state of humanity as it was in His person — “without [or, apart from] sin,” and not merely from sins. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:88He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. (John 1:8)). Consequently we have inward temptations connected with sin in us, such as James speaks of, which He never had. The passage then proves the precise contrary of this pernicious doctrine, for it qualifies the resemblance of His trials to ours by excepting sin. With sin He had nothing to do in temptation, though He had all to do with it in suffering on the cross. He had not the smallest tendency to it in His humanity; though a partaker of blood and flesh, He had not what Paul calls “the flesh.” There was no liability to sin in Him who was perfect God and perfect man in one person; there was in the first man, Adam, and he accordingly fell. But the second Man, the last Adam, had no such infirmity, though He had it in the sense of a capacity to suffer in body and soul and to die on the cross, if and when He pleased, yet in obedience to God, for our sins (2 Cor. 13:4). Of inward moral infirmity He had none.
Had Adam been “born of God” in his entire nature and in the highest sense, he, without being a divine person, could not have sinned (1 John 3:99Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? (John 3:9)). When the Christian sins, it is because he, spite of the new nature and of the indwelling Spirit, yields to the old man which is never born of God; he is off his guard, is wrought on by the enemy, and fails. Liability to sin there would not be in a nature exclusively holy. Who would affirm such a liability of Christ when He comes again in glory? Now, the selfsame expression—“without sin” (cwri;" aJmartiva") — is employed about Him then (Heb. 9:2828So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. (Hebrews 9:28)) as when tempted here below (Heb. 4:1515For 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. (Hebrews 4:15)). In the days of His flesh He was “without sin.” On the cross God made Him “sin for us.” By and by, when He appears a second time to His own, it is “without sin.” Once for all He was offered to bear the sins of many; soon will He appear for the salvation, not judgment, of those that wait for Him, but appear absolutely apart from sin, having fully done the will and work of God about it through the offering of His body once for all. Without the smallest particle of sin or tendency to it in His humanity, He was assailed to the utmost by the devil; next, He was to put sin away by the sacrifice of Himself. The second time He will be seen apart from sin, having settled all the question and perfectly glorified God about it in the cross. He will come again, therefore, without sin for salvation. No man is heterodox enough to impute to Christ in glory the least exposure to any inward evil, but if they dare so to speak or think of His humanity while He lived on earth, it is formally contradicted by the very scripture they are wont to allege —Hebrews 4:1515For 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. (Hebrews 4:15). The Holy Spirit predicates the same thing, cwri;" aJmartiva", about Him in both cases. He was on earth, as He will soon appear in glory, wholly without sin.
Indeed, had there been an infinitesimal particle of fallen humanity in Christ, how could He be a meet sacrifice to God for sin? Even the typical animals must needs be unblemished after their carnal pattern. No offerings, it is remarkable, were more stamped with holiness, if so much, as the meal offering and the sin and trespass offerings. They emphatically were “most holy” — Christ in His human activity and Christ made sin for us. The paschal lamb without blemish, the daily lambs without spot, the red heifer of the wilderness wherein was no blemish and upon which never came yoke (note it well) all proclaimed that in the great Antitype fallen humanity could have no place. Had Christ been, as born of woman, under the yoke of fallen manhood in any sense or degree, had He been born into a relation of distance from God, even without question of a single failure in His ways, He never could have been a due adequate sacrifice for us, because there must have been thus the gravest possible defect in His humanity. For what so serious in such an offering as the signs of the fall, no matter how suppressed or attenuated? None can deny that the fall vitiates [contaminates] the entire constitution, save men blinded into thinking God is altogether such an one as themselves. This doctrine therefore makes atonement impossible, unless God can accept a fall-stained victim, and (what is worse) it undermines and assails the person of Christ, the Son, touching God’s glory in the point of which He is most jealous.