Hebrews 4:15

Confirmation both of the encouragement of Hebrews 4:14 and of the fact on which that encouragement is founded is given in the further idea: οὐ γὰρ ἔχομεν … “for we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but has been tempted in all points like us, without sin”. He repels an idea which might have found entrance into their minds, that an absent, heavenly priest might not be able to sympathise. Συνπαθέω [to be distinguished from συνπάσχω which occurs in Romans 8:17 and 1 Corinthians 12:26, and means to suffer along with one, to suffer the same ills as another] means to feel for, or sympathise with, and occurs also in Hebrews 10:34, and is peculiar in N.T. to this writer but found in Aristotle, Isocrates and Plutarch, and in the touching expression of Acts of Paul and Thekla, 17, ὃς μόνος συνεπάθησεν πλανωμένῳ κόσμῳ. Jesus is able to sympathise with ταῖς ἀσθενείαις ἡμῶν “our infirmities,” the weaknesses which undermine our resistance to temptation and make it difficult to hold fast our confession: moral weaknesses, therefore, though often implicated with physical weaknesses. Jesus can feel for these because πεπειρασμένον κατὰ πάντα καθʼ ὁμοιότητα, He has been tempted in all respects as we are. κατὰ πάντα, classical, “in all respects,” cf. Wetstein on Acts 17:22; and Evagrius, Hebrews 5:4, of Christ incarnate, ὁμοιοπαθῆ κατὰ πάντα χωρὶς ἁμαρτίας, cf. Hebrews 2:17. καθʼ ὁμοιότητα may either mean “according to the likeness of our temptations,” or, “in accordance with His likeness to us”. The latter is preferable, being most in agreement with Hebrews 2:17. So Theophylact, καθʼ ὁμοιότητα τὴν ἡμετὲραν, τουτέστι παραπλησίως ἡμῖν, cf. Genesis 1:11-12; and Philo, De Profug., c. 9, κατὰ τὴν πρὸς τἄλλα ὁμοιότητα. The writer wishes to preclude the common fancy that there was some peculiarity in Jesus which made His temptation wholly different from ours, that He was a mailed champion exposed to toy arrows. On the contrary, He has felt in His own consciousness the difficulty of being righteous in this world; has felt pressing upon Himself the reasons and inducements that incline men to choose sin that they may escape suffering and death; in every part of His human constitution has known the pain and conflict with which alone temptation can be overcome; has been so tempted that had He sinned, He would have had a thousandfold better excuse than ever man had. Even though His divinity may have ensured His triumph, His temptation was true and could only be overcome by means that are open to all. The one difference between our temptations and those of Jesus is that His were χωρὶς ἁμαρτίας. Riehm thinks this expression is not exhausted by declaring the fact that in Christ's case temptation never resulted in sin. It means, he thinks, further, and rather, that temptation never in Christ's case sprang from any sinful desire in Himself. So also Delitzsch, Weiss, Westcott, etc. But if Theophylact is right in his indication of the motive of the writer in introducing the words, then it is Christ's successful resistance of temptation which is in the foreground; ὥστε δύνασθε καὶ ὑμεῖς ἐν ταῖς θλίψεσιν χωρὶς ἁμαρτίας διαγενέσθαι.