No Superhuman High Priest

eDevotion

Encouragement for your daily walk with God

I’ve read or quoted Hebrews 4:15 more times than I can count. This week, though, I’ve been reading Hebrews from the Phillips Translation. When I got to 4:15, my heart skipped a beat. Listen to Phillips’ rendering:

For we have no superhuman High Priest to whom our weaknesses are unintelligible—He Himself has shared fully in all our experience of temptation, except that He never sinned. 

It’s almost like he could read our minds … God, it’s easy for you since you are far away in heaven. You have no idea what it’s like down here.

But look again…

He Himself — No angel. No ambassador. No emissary. No other substitute. Jesus, Himself.

Shared fully — Not partially. Not nearly. Not mostly. Entirely! Jesus, fully invested.

In all our experience — Every heartache. Every pain. All the pressure. All the stresses of life. No exceptions.

Why? So that He could “sympathize” with your/my [our] weaknesses. 

That Jesus sympathizes with our weakness is no reason for a “pity-party.” It’s to help us understand that we can go to Him for help. He understands and knows what we need to make it through every trial, every heartache, every burden, all of our stress and anxiety. 

That’s the kind of High Priest we need, approachable. Phillips tells us why in the next verse, 4:16: Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with fullest confidence, that we may receive mercy for our failures and grace to help in the hour of need.

Jesus was fully committed to us as the “faithful High Priest” [Hebrews 4:17]. Let’s be fully committed to Him. 

For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Hebrews 4:15