When No One Seems to Understand
Posted by: biblenotes <biblenotes@...>
From: Martin Overfield
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000
When No One Seems to Understand
"For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling
of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet
without
sin." (Hebrews 4:15)
Often, during some of our most trying times, we may have a tendency to
cry within ourselves, "No one understands what I am going through." And, it
may actually be true in as far as this statement represents the limited
knowledge and/or experience of our fellow man. In fact, we may ourselves
not always truly understand our trials and limitations.
It is certainly true, as I tried to express in the note on "The Other
Fellow's Shoes", that one cannot fully understand another's plight, for
there is no way that one can take his brother's place in life as though it
were his own. However, there IS One, both fully man and fully God, Who is
able to fully understand our trials. That One is Jesus Christ the blessed
Son of God.
Jesus, God's Son, became the great high priest of the new covenant, by
offering up Himself as our sinless sacrifice, by shedding His priceless
blood, by making such an atonement (at-one-ment) for our souls that we can
come to God through Him without any fear of being turned away.
The Scripture here expresses a definitely emphatic and dynamically
powerful statement about our great High Priest: "We have NOT an high priest
which CANNOT be touched with the feeling of our infirmities;". This double
negative excludes every argument to the contrary. If no one on earth seems
to understand, there is One in Heaven Who does! It is He Who stands at the
right hand of the Father and Who "ever liveth to make intercession for them"
"that come unto God by Him."(Hebrews 7:25)
As proof of His ability to understand our difficulties the Bible
explains that Christ "was in all points tempted like as we are". This is a
part of the great mystery of the Incarnation. When God became man, He
willingly subjected Himself to a full experience, not only of the personhood
of a mortal man, but also to every aspect and intensity of temptation and
trial that man may face. Though it is clear that Christ had no sin nature
and "did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth"(I Peter 2:22), yet He
experienced the full gamut of temptation --
the very worst that Satan could afford and that God would permit to prove
the love and faith of His children.
At the end of the forty days of temptation in the wilderness, we find
the words "And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from
him for a season." (Luke 4:13). This strongly implies that Jesus was
tempted and tried by Satan throughout His time on earth. It is therefore
reasonable to say that Christ suffered the onslaught of the enemy on
numerous occasions to such an extent that no one could ever rightfully say,
"Lord, you just don't understand. You've never been in my shoes."
Some of us would reason, "But, how could Christ have been tempted just
like us in every case? For example, He was not a woman, was not married,
and he died at a young age (about 33)." But, the Scripture is saying that
Jesus was tempted "like as we are". In other words, He was tempted by every
type of temptation (or we could say in principle) with which we are tempted,
though the details may not have been the same.
It is easy to make the general comparison between the three temptations
of Christ in the wilderness and the three classes of sin that are in the
world (Compare Matthew chapter 4; I John 2:16; and Genesis 3:6).
Also, He was tempted to the utmost extent, so that He can identify with
every degree of temptation that you and I might endure.
More than this, the Scripture says that He is "touched with the feeling
of our infirmities". To be touched with feeling = "1) to be affected with
the same feeling as another, to sympathize with, 2) to feel for, have
compassion on" (Strong's). Taking this meaning with the Greek verb tense
and mood and coupling it with the context above, we can see that He feels as
though He were actually experiencing it Himself in the present, For He, "the
same yesterday today and forever", did experience the feelings while He
endured the awful onslaught of the Devil and the contradiction of sinners
against Himself, while He walked upon earth as a mortal man.
Furthermore, He is now just as human as He was then, for He is the
"firstfruits of them that slept" (I Corinthians 15:20), meaning that He is
the first human being to have a glorified, immortal body. Here again we see
the Incarnation: when God became man, He did so on a permanent basis! He
did not cast off His humanity when He "passed into the heavens". Rather, He
took His full humanity with Him, and as the angels that stood by said, "this
same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like
manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." (Acts 1:11), so we may now say,
"This same Jesus is presently touched with the feeling of our infirmities."
But, what are the infirmities? The idea of INFIRMITY here is like
strength with a minus sign in front of it - "weakness indicating inability
to produce results" (Vine's). Oh, how appropriate it is to apply this truth
to the servants of God who are doing their best for Him, but are tempted to
think that they are accomplishing little or nothing. We can be so keenly
aware of our actual limitations or our seeming failures. Let us be also
aware that He Who knows us best truly loves us most and is touched. He
feels what we feel. He weeps when we weep. He cares when it seems that
others may not.
Finally, not only is Christ thoroughly acquainted with our difficulties,
but He is also eternally triumphant over them. Since He endured them
without sinning and knows our weaknesses, He knows just how much
grace to give us to enable us to overcome.
Yes, this is a little long this time, but the truth here is such an
oasis of spiritual strength and hope for a weary soul that I felt the need
to linger near the living waters, to lean upon the Rock of Ages, and to rest
beneath His shadow. Jesus certainly is "a rock in a weary land ... a
shelter in the time of storm".
Yours In Christ,
Martin Overfield
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