THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST
‘For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted.’
Many purposes, no doubt, were answered by the temptation of our Lord. But amongst the many, this was one: that, by being tempted, our Lord was qualified—as without temptation He would not have been—for His mediatorial work.
I. A sympathising Saviour is to us a spiritual necessity.—Our heart desires, craves, for a loving, tender, sympathising friend. And this want, too, this requirement, this demand, is met in the person and character of the incarnate Son of God.
II. Kindness is one thing, and sympathy is another.—Sympathy implies a capacity of suffering with another person in his suffering. To a certain extent you are afflicted in his affliction; you share his grief; you bear his burden. The Lord Jesus Christ, then, in order to be perfectly qualified for His mediatorial office, and in order, too, to become such an one as the heart of man could rest in with perfect unfaltering confidence, entered into full experience of the trials which beset us in our present state.
III. How was it possible for Christ to suffer under temptation?—That He was perfectly sinless is a fundamental article of our belief. Nor was He only perfectly free from the overt manifestations of evil, but He was free from the very presence of evil. It was not that He kept evil inclinations under subjection; but that there were no evil inclinations in Him to keep under subjection. ‘The Prince of this world cometh,’ says Christ Himself, ‘and hath nothing in Me—finds in Me no point of attack, finds no access, finds nothing on which to fasten his hold.’ How, then, was it that He suffered under temptation? There was reality in our Lord’s temptation. If we may venture to speak of a struggle as going on in His heart, we must not for a moment be supposed to mean that the issue of the struggle was doubtful; or that the innocent inclination ever would, or ever could, rise so high as to disturb, in the slightest degree, His fixed resolve to obey the will of His Heavenly Father. That thing could not be. But at the same time I believe that the innocent inclination rose so high as to qualify Him to understand what such a struggle must be in the heart of a frail human creature, and thus to fit him to sympathise with, and to succour, those that are tempted. We want no more than this. But less than this we cannot have, if our Lord’s temptation is to be a reality and not a pretence; a substance and not a shadow.
IV. Do you not think that such an experience as that qualifies the Saviour for understanding and entering into your feelings when you are in trouble?—Moreover, his very sinlessness qualifies Him to sympathise.
—Rev. Prebendary Gordon Calthrop.
Illustration
‘Who manifests sympathy for sinners? Do fellow-sinners? No! Do you find the fallen woman sympathised with by those of her own class? No! It is the pure woman who is ready to stretch a helping hand to her, and to pluck her up, if it may be so, out of the horrible mire of sin. If the drunkard, or the gambler, comes into trouble, into deep misery—can he look to his associates for kindness, for forbearance, for sympathy? The idea is ridiculous. Sinners have no feeling for sinners. It is to those who are not stained with his vices, and who are not co-partners in his crime, that he must go for comfort and for help.’