“Wherefore in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make expiation [or, atonement] for the sins of the people” (vs. 17). Having thus prepared the way, the Holy Spirit did not feel it needful to guard the strong assertion that Christ was in all things made like to His brethren. Those who believed that He was the Sanctifier, as the risen Man, the Son of God who had by Himself purged our sins, need not to be told that fallen humanity formed no part of His person. The exclusion of sin in nature is added where it was more requisite, when the Apostle (ch. 4:15) states how fully He was tempted like us.
Observe, moreover, in Hebrews 2:1818For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted. (Hebrews 2:18), “in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted,” there never was anything else; it is not that He suffered after being tempted, for this a man may do who yields and repents. There was not, there could not be, distress of conscience in the Lord Jesus, any more than the workings of unbelief, such as we may feel. He suffered in the entire moral being the sufferings of holiness and grace. He loathed and rejected all that the enemy presented to His holy nature. Hence He who in human nature knew trial and suffering beyond all is able to comfort the tried saint. This is the real idea and application of temptation here. It does not mean inward susceptibility of, or proclivity to, evil; it does in James 1:1414But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. (James 1:14), where it is expressly connected with lust; if any man dares to apply this to Jesus, let him speak out, that we may know what he is and that the sheep of Christ may flee from the voice of a stranger. But James, in the same chapter (vss. 2,12), uses the word in its more ordinary scriptural application to trials. The confusion arises from not heeding the difference between such an inward working of fallen nature as is described in James 1:1414But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. (James 1:14) and the being tried by Satan without. The true faith of the Son of God ought to have rendered such suggestions impossible in His case. There was no sin in Adam and Eve when they were tempted, hence fallen humanity is not necessary to temptation. But let it be noticed that, when our first parents were tempted, there was no suffering then: They yielded. It is in contrast with the last Adam, who was incomparably more tempted but in nothing yielded. He met every assault by the Word of God, instead of letting it slip and transgressing it as they did. He came to do God’s will, not His own. He acted in the power of the Holy Spirit, who brings out the suited scripture for the need, whatever it be. We, it is true, as men, have fallen humanity, which He had not, but then, as believers, we are born of God (Christ Himself being our life), and we have in the Holy Spirit power to resist, especially bearing in mind that Satan is now to us, because of Christ, a conquered enemy. But the old nature in us is still there and no better; victory, as far as we are concerned, depends not on its improvement but on our faith.
This false doctrine is sometimes betrayed by a wrong thought of Christ’s state under the law. It is imagined that, from the humanity He assumed, there was moral feebleness, if not a repugnance to the law, as in other children of Adam. This is a fatal error; it degrades the Lord beneath His servants. I deny that the Christian’s obedience is to do the will of God because he is obliged. Spite of the old man in us, there is also the new man, and Scripture always speaks of us according to that new life that characterizes us. Hence it speaks of us, when delivered, as loving to obey, as cleaving to God’s Word, as sanctified unto obedience — set apart by the Spirit for this very purpose (1 Peter 1). Now Christ never had the wrestling that we know from the old man’s opposition in us to the Holy Spirit. In Him there was the absolute surrender of every thought and feeling to the will of God. There was but one apparent exception, where He prayed in His agony, “Let this cup pass from Me.” But how could He, who ever enjoyed the unbroken sunshine of God’s favor throughout His career on earth, desire to be forsaken of God? It would have been indifference and not love; it would have been to despise the blessed fellowship between the Father and Himself. Therefore was it a part of the perfectness of Christ to say, “Let this cup pass from Me: nevertheless, not My will but Thine be done.” His humanity because perfect could not wish for that unutterable scene of wrath, but here too He was, as in all things, subject to the will of God. “The cup which My Father giveth Me, shall I not drink it?”
Looked at then in the light of God’s Word, Christ’s humanity was as real as ours (which itself differs not a little from human nature as it came from God); its state was totally different from Adam’s either in integrity or in ruin. In its singularly blessed source and character, as in its practical development, there was that which, even on the human side of His person, contradistinguished Christ from Adam whether in or outside Paradise. Was the agency of the Holy Spirit in His generation a small matter? And what of the fact that in Him all the fullness was pleased to dwell? There was nothing in Adam innocent that could be represented by the oil mixed with the fine flour any more than by the subsequent anointing with oil, nor was he at any time (as Christ always was) simply and solely in his life an offering to God, from which the salt of the covenant was never lacking. In the type of the Pentecostal saints, spite of their wondrous privileges, in that new meal offering unto Jehovah, the two wave-loaves were expressly baken with leaven, and hence necessarily had their accompanying sacrifice for a sin-offering (Lev. 23:15-2115And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete: 16Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the Lord. 17Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals: they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baken with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto the Lord. 18And ye shall offer with the bread seven lambs without blemish of the first year, and one young bullock, and two rams: they shall be for a burnt offering unto the Lord, with their meat offering, and their drink offerings, even an offering made by fire, of sweet savor unto the Lord. 19Then ye shall sacrifice one kid of the goats for a sin offering, and two lambs of the first year for a sacrifice of peace offerings. 20And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits for a wave offering before the Lord, with the two lambs: they shall be holy to the Lord for the priest. 21And ye shall proclaim on the selfsame day, that it may be an holy convocation unto you: ye shall do no servile work therein: it shall be a statute for ever in all your dwellings throughout your generations. (Leviticus 23:15‑21)): firstfruits indeed to be offered, but not to be burnt (as was the oblation that represented Christ) on the altar for a sweet savor.