We have a High Priest who has passed through the heavens — as Aaron through the successive parts of the tabernacle — Jesus, the Son of God. He has, in all things, been tempted like ourselves, sin apart, so that He can sympathize with our infirmities. The Word brings to light the intents of the heart, judges the will, and all that has not God for its object and its source. Then, as far as weakness is concerned, we have His sympathy. Christ, of course, had no evil desires: He was tempted in every way, apart from sin. Sin had no part in it at all. But I do not wish for sympathy with the sin that is in me; I detest it — I wish it to be mortified — judged unsparingly. This the Word does. For my weakness and my difficulties I seek sympathy and I find it in the priesthood of Jesus. It is not necessary, in order to sympathize with me, that a person should feel at the same moment that which I am feeling — rather the contrary. If I am suffering pain, I am not in a condition to think as much of another’s pain. But in order to sympathize with him, I must have a nature capable of appreciating his pain.
Thus it is with Jesus, when exercising His priesthood. He is in every sense beyond the reach of pain and trial, but He is man. And not only has He the human nature which, in time, suffered grief, but He experienced the trials a saint has to go through more fully than any of ourselves, and His heart, free and full of love, can entirely sympathize with us, according to His experience of ill, and according to the glorious liberty which He now has, to provide and care for it. This encourages us to hold fast our profession in spite of the difficulties that beset our path, for Jesus concerns Himself about them, according to His own knowledge and experience of what they are and according to the power of His grace.
The Throne of Grace
Therefore, our High Priest being there, we can go with all boldness to the throne of grace, to find mercy and the grace suited to us in all times of need: mercy, because we are weak and wavering; needful grace, because we are engaged in a warfare which God owns.
Observe, it is not that we go to the High Priest. It is often done, and God may have compassion, but it is a proof that we do not fully understand grace. The Priest, the Lord Jesus, occupies Himself about us, sympathizes with us, on the one hand, and, on the other, we go directly to the throne of grace.
The Book of Hebrews does not here speak positively of falls; we find that in 1 John 2. There, also, it is in connection with communion with His Father; here, with access to God. His purpose here is to strengthen us, to encourage us to persevere in the way, conscious of the sympathies which we possess in heaven, and that the throne is always open to us.
J. N. Darby