VII.

THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST.

"For we have not a high-priest which can not 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."-Heb. iv. 15, 16.

ACCORDING to these verses, the priesthood of Jesus Christ is based upon the perfection of His humanity. Because tempted in all points like as we are, therefore He can show mercy, and grant help. Whatever destroys the conception of His humanity does in that same degree overthrow the notion of His priesthood.

Our subject is the Priestly Sympathies of Christ. But we make three preliminary observations.

The perfection of Christ's humanity implies that He was possessed of a human soul as well as a human body. There was a view held in early times, and condemned by the Church as a heresy, according to which the body of Christ was an external framework animated by Deity, as our bodies are animated by our souls. What the soul is to us, Deity was to Christ. His body was flesh, blood, bones—moved, guided, ruled by indwelling Divinity.

But you perceive at once that this destroys the notion of complete humanity. It is not this tabernacle of material elements which constitutes our humanity: you can not take that pale corpse from which life has fled, and call that man. And if Deity were to take up that form and make it its abode, that would not be a union of the Divine and Human. It would only be the union of Deity with certain materials that might have passed into man, or into an animal or an herb. Humanity implies a body and a soul.

Accordingly, in the life of Christ we find two distinct classes of feeling. When He hungered in the wildernesswhen He thirsted on the cross- when He was weary by the well at Sychar-He experienced sensations which belong to the bodily department of human nature. But when out of twelve He selected one to be His bosom friend-when He looked round upon the crowd in anger-when the tears. streamed down His cheeks at Bethany-and when He recoiled from the thought of approaching dissolution :-these

grief, friendship, fear-were not the sensations of the body, much less were they the attributes of Godhead. They were the affections of an acutely sensitive human soul, alive to all the tenderness, and hopes, and anguish with which human life is filled, qualifying Him to be tempted in all points like as

we are.

The second thought which presents itself is, that the Redeemer not only was, but is man. He was tempted in all points like us. He is a high-priest which can be touched. Our conceptions on this subject, from being vague, are often very erroneous. It is fancied that in the history of Jesus's existence, once, for a limited period and for definite purposes, He took part in frail humanity; but that when that purpose was accomplished, the Man forever perished, and the Spirit reascended, to unite again with pure unmixed Deity. But Scripture has taken peculiar pains to give assurance of the continuance of His humanity. It has carefully recorded His resurrection. After that He passed through space from spot. to spot: when He was in one place He was not in another. His body was sustained by the ordinary aliments-broiled fish and honeycomb. The prints of suffering were on Him. His recognitions were human still. Thomas and Peter were especially reminded of incidents before His death, and connected with His living interests. To Thomas He saysReach hither thy hand." To Peter-"Lovest thou me?” And this typifies to us a very grand and important truth. It is this, if I may venture so to express myself-the truth of the human heart of God. We think of God as a Spirit, infinitely removed from and unlike the creatures He has made. But the truth is, man resembles God: all spirits, all minds, are of the same family. The Father bears a likeness to the Son whom He has created. The mind of God is similar to the mind of man. Love does not mean one thing in man, and another thing in God. Holiness, justice, pity, tendernessthese are in the Eternal the same in kind which they are in the finite being. The present manhood of Christ conveys this deeply important truth, that the Divine heart is human in its sympathies.

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The third observation upon these verses is, that there is a connection between what Jesus was and what Jesus is. can be touched now, because He was tempted then. The incidents and the feelings of that part of the existence which is gone have not passed away without results which are deeply entwined with His present being. His past experience has left certain effects durable in His nature as it is now. It has endued Him with certain qualifications and certain suscepti

bilities, which He would not have had but for that experience. Just as the results remained upon His body, the prints of the nails in His palms, and the spear-gash in His side, so do the results remain upon His soul, enduing Him with a certain susceptibility, for "He can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities;" with certain qualifications, for “He is able to show mercy, and to impart grace to help in time of need." To turn now to the subject itself. It has two branches. I. The Redeemer's preparation for His priesthood. II. The Redeemer's priestly qualifications.

I. His preparation. The preparation consisted in being tempted. But here a difficulty arises. Temptation, as applied to a Being perfectly free from tendencies to evil, is not easy to understand. See what the difficulty is. Temptation has two senses: It means test or probation; it means also trial, involving the idea of pain or danger. A common acid applied to gold tests it, but there is no risk or danger to the most delicate golden ornament. There is one acid, and only one, which tries it, as well as tests it. The same acid applied to a shell endangers the delicacy of its surface. A weight hung from a bar of iron only tests its strength; the same, depending from a human arm, is a trial, involving, it may be, the risk of pain or fracture. Now trial placed before a sinless being is intelligible enough in the sense of probation-it is a test of excellence: but it is not easy to see how it can be temptation in the sense of pain, if there be no inclination to do wrong.

However, Scripture plainly asserts this as the character of Christ's temptation. Not merely test, but trial.

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First, you have passages declaring the immaculate nàture of His mind—as here," without sin." "without sin." Again, He was "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners." And again, "The. prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me." The spirit of evil found nothing which it could claim as its own in Christ. It was the meeting of two elements which will not amalgamate. Oil and water could as easily blend, as the mind of Christ with evil. Temptation glanced from His heart as the steel point does from the surface of the diamond. It was not that evil propensities were kept under by the power of the Spirit in Him:-He had no evil propensities at all. Obedience was natural to Him.

But then we find another class of passages such as this: "He suffered, being tempted." There was not merely test in the temptation, but there was also painfulness in the victory. How could this be without any tendency to evil?

To answer this, let us analyze sin. In every act of sin there are two distinct steps: There is the rising of a desire which is natural, and, being natural, is not wrong: there is the indulgence of that desire in forbidden circumstances; and that is sin. Let injury, for example, be inflicted, and resentment will arise. It must arise spontaneously. It is as impossible for injustice to be done, and resentment not to follow, as it is for the flesh not to quiver on the application of intense torture. Resentment is but the sense of injustice, made more vivid by its being brought home to ourselves; resentment is beyond our control, so far. There is no sin in this: but let resentment rest there; let it pass into, not justice, but revenge; let it smoulder in vindictive feeling till it becomes retaliation, and then a natural feeling has grown into a transgression. You have the distinction between these two things clearly marked in Scripture. "Be ye angry "here is the allowance for the human," and sin not "—here is the point where resentment passes into retaliation.

Again, take the natural sensation of hunger. Let a man have been without food: let the gratification present itself, and the natural desire will arise involuntarily. It will arise just as certainly in a forbidden as in a permitted circumstance. It will arise whether what he looks on be the bread of another or his own. And it is not here, in the sensation of hunger, that the guilt lies. But it lies in the willful gratification of it after it is known to be forbidden.

This was literally one of the cases in which Christ was tried. The wish for food was in His nature in the wilderness. The very mode of gratifying it was presented to His imagination, by using Divine power in an unlawful way. And had He so been constituted that the lower wish was superior to the higher will, there would have been an act of sin; had the two been nearly balanced, so that the conflict hung in doubt, there would have been a tendency to sin: what we call a sinful nature. But it was in the entire and perfect subjugation of desire to the will of right that a sinless nature was exhibited.

Here then is the nature of sin. Sin is not the possession of desires, but the having them in uncontrolled ascendency over the higher nature. Sinfulness does not consist in having strong desires or passions: in the strongest and highest natures, all, including the desires, is strong. Sin is not a real thing. It is rather the absence of a something, the will to do right. It is not a disease or taint, an actual substance projected into the constitution. It is the absence of the spirit which orders and harmonizes the whole; so that what we

mean when we say the natural man must sin inevitably, is this, that he has strong natural appetites, and that he has no bias from above to counteract those appetites: exactly as if a ship were deserted by the crew, and left on the bosom of the Atlantic with every sail set and the wind blowing. No one forces her to destruction, yet on the rocks she will surely go, just because there is no pilot at the helm. Such is the state of ordinary men. Temptation leads to fall. The gusts of instincts, which rightly guided would have carried safely into port, dash them on the rocks. No one forces them to sin; but the spirit-pilot has left the helm.-[Fallen Nature.] Sin, therefore, is not in the appetites, but in the absence of a controlling will.

Now contrast this state with the state of Christ. There were in Him all the natural appetites of mind and body. Relaxation and friendship were dear to Him-so were sunlight and life. Hunger, pain, death-He could feel all, and shrunk from them. Conceive, then, a case in which the gratification of any one of these inclinations was inconsistent with His Father's will. At one moment it was unlawful to eat, though hungry and without one tendency to disobey, did fasting cease to be severe? It was demanded that he should endure anguish; and willingly as He subdued Himself, did pain cease to be pain? Could the spirit of obedience reverse every feeling in human nature? When the brave man gives his shattered arm to the surgeon's knife, will may prevent even the quiver of an eyelid, but no will and no courage can reverse his sensations, or prevent the operation from inflicting pain. When the heart is raw, and smarting from recent bereavement, let there be the deepest and most reverential submission to the highest Will, is it possible not to wince? Can any cant demand for submission extort the profession that pain is pleasure?

It seems to have been in this way that the temptation of Christ caused suffering. He suffered from the force of desire. Though there was no hesitation whether to obey or not, no strife in the will, in the act of mastery there was pain. There was self-denial-there was obedience at the expense of tortured natural feeling. He shrunk from St. Peter's suggestion of escape from ignominy as from a thing which did not shake His determination, but made Him feel, in the idea of bright life, vividly the cost of His resolve. “Get thee behind me, tempter, for thou art an offense." In the garden, unswervingly, "Not as I will, but as Thou wilt." There was no reluctance in the will. But was there no struggling-no shudder in the inward sensations-no re