The Vast Temptation of Christ

I am currently teaching through Hebrews with the college class at our church. It has been a remarkable study for me. One thing that I recently had to teach through that I have always struggled to really embrace was Hebrews 4:15:

Heb 4:15
For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand the passage and I believe that Christ was indeed tempted in all points as we are and that He didn’t sin. My problem has always been the fact that based upon my understanding of the hypostatic union, because of the full deity of Christ He really couldn’t have sinned. I am ashamed to say that this truth always made verses like Hebrews 4:15 seem a little “not so special”. I mean, if He was tempted, but He really could never have given in, that’s not much of a temptation. Obviously I never said things like that out loud, or even intended to think that way, that’s just where I was.

During my study of Hebrews and to my great delight I was thoroughly rebuked by John Piper and C.S. Lewis in regards to my foolish thinking regarding the temptation of our great High Priest.

In his sermon on this passage Piper recounts Lewis responding a weak minded person like myself.

Fifty years ago C.S. Lewis imagined someone objecting here: "If Jesus never sinned, then he doesn't know what temptation is like. He lived a sheltered life and is out of touch with how strong temptation can be." Here is what Lewis wrote in response to that objection:
A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is . . . A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in . . . Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means—the only complete realist.

Jesus knows the battle. He fought it all the way to the end. And he defeated the monster every time. So he was tested like we are and the Bible says he is a sympathetic High Priest. He does not roll his eyes at your pain or cluck his tongue at your struggle with sin.

I have never been so delighted to be rebuked so harshly. The whole book of Hebrews has been an amazing blessing that has resulted in my seeing and savoring Jesus more than ever. This truth though, about our truly sympathetic High Priest, is something that has really gripped me and caused me to fall on my face before my sinless Savior.