Great Is His FaithfulnessSample

Day 3: God is Faithful to Give You a High Priest Who Sympathizes with You

In Hebrews 2:14–18 Jesus, our high priest, is mercifully eager and faithfully able to help us in temptation by making us offspring of Abraham, qualifying us to share in all of God’s covenant promises, and freeing us from the tyranny of the lifelong fear of death. How? Because Jesus “himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Heb. 2:17–18).

First, what suffering of Jesus is the author of Hebrews referring to? Almost certainly, he had the suffering Jesus experienced in Gethsemane through the crucifixion primarily in mind. But I doubt that’s all he had in mind. In chapter 4, he tells us that Jesus was tempted “in every respect . . . as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). If “righteous Lot . . . was tormenting his righteous soul over [the] lawless deeds that he saw and heard” in Sodom (2 Peter 2:7–8), we can only imagine what it was like for the sinless Son of God to live in this sin-saturated world.

So, how does Jesus’ suffering in temptation help us? It means that he is mercifully able to “sympathize with our weaknesses” (Heb. 4:15). Jesus knows what temptation is like from experience—temptation more intense and agonizing than we likely will ever know. And since “he always lives to make intercession” for us with the Father, he is able to faithfully provide us “the way of escape” for each temptation we face, so we can faithfully endure it (Heb. 7:25; 1 Cor. 10:13).

This is the good news we have when facing temptation: strong help is available! Jesus, our great high priest, is eager to help us because he’s merciful and sympathetic, and he’s able to help us because he’s faithful in his service to God on our behalf.

But not only this. When we fail and succumb to sin’s temptation—because of the whole scope of Jesus’ high priestly ministry—“if we confess our sins, he is [faithfully able] and just to [mercifully] forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” which he is also eager to do (1 John 1:9).

When we’re tempted today, “Let us . . . with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16). Because our high priest, who has made us offspring of Abraham, delivered us from the fear of death, and has himself suffered when tempted, is mercifully eager and faithfully able to help us in every temptation. And should we fail and sin, we don’t need to wallow in condemnation (Rom. 8:1–2), for he has also made it possible for the Father to be faithful and just to forgive us. We only need to confess our sin, receive our promised forgiveness, then get back up and back in the fight.

Prayer

Father, thank you for all you and your high priestly Son have mercifully and faithfully done to make it possible for Jesus to sympathize with my weaknesses and effectively intercede for me so that I have a way of escape with every temptation. Help me discern those escape ways in whatever temptations I face today so I can faithfully endure them. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Meditate More

Read Hebrews 4:14–16.