"MADE LIKE TO HIS BRETHREN" (AN ADDRESS)

“MADE LIKE TO HIS BRETHREN” (AN ADDRESS)

Hebrews 2:16-18; Hebrews 4:14-16

Our hearts have often been comforted and elevated by the thought that we are going to be like the Son of God in His glorified condition, but it is necessary also that we should consider that in becoming Man in the circumstances in which we are, sin apart, “it behoved him in all things to be made like to his brethren”.

We are told that “he takes hold of the seed of Abraham”. In becoming Man, He took up a special relationship with the faith family — with what God owned as having a link with Himself. There were features about that family which were of God, though every member of it had been by nature a child of wrath, even as the rest. But faith having come in, there was that in them which was not of the fallen man, but which had its origin in God. Christ could take hold of that, for it was suitable to Him; we might say that it was kindred to Him. It is as having this characteristic of faith that men are regarded as Christ’s brethren, and it behoved Him in all things to be made like to them. This underlies the teaching of Hebrews: we hardly get the indwelling Spirit in this epistle, but all through, prominence is given to faith. Christ’s brethren are in view, and “the people” are the elect nation — those who have faith. They, and they only, get the good of the Apostle and High Priest of our confession. Those from among the Jews who received Christ were the true “seed of Abraham”, and they became Christ’s companions and His brethren. They were the seed of whom Christ took hold; He attached Himself to them and was made like to them — ^[p. 228] not that He could have them apart from His death and from His soul being made an offering for sin, for they all had sins for which propitiation was needed if they were to be with God in a righteous and holy way. The seed could not be sanctified — they could not be “all of one” with the Sanctifier — if He had not made propitiation for their sins. So we find later in the epistle (chapter 10) that by God’s “will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all”. We also read that “by one offering He has perfected in perpetuity the sanctified”. As purged worshippers they have no longer any conscience of sins. We need to shut out the flesh more completely from our thoughts of the holy brethren. They are to be regarded as the epistle to the Hebrews regards them. There are more than twenty designations of the saints in this epistle, but they all suggest suitability to God and to Christ, and not the contrary.

It is as having the exercises and trials and sorrows of faith that saints are Christ’s brethren, and it is as having part in the testings and sorrows of faith that it has behoved Christ to be made in all things like His brethren. Christ’s brethren are viewed here as in a position and condition in which they are sure to be tempted and tried, and they are also marked by infirmities. Faith is there as a ruling principle, but it is surrounded by almost universal unbelief, and is therefore continually exposed to temptation in the sense of trial. It has always been so, wherever there was faith. And along with faith there is always, in our present condition, the consciousness of infirmity. These things mark Christ’s brethren here. The temptations or trials here referred to do not arise from the activity of the flesh; they are the result of faith coming into conflict with the influences that operate in the present evil age. If faith and a good conscience are maintained, there is bound to be suffering, and when we have part, however small, in the ^[p. 229] sufferings of faith, there is always the consciousness of infirmity. Infirmity does not mean that we give way before the power of evil, but it means that we are conscious that if we did not get divine support we should give way.

Now it is this experience which prepares us to appreciate how near Christ has come to us in becoming Man. He entered into, and took part in, all suffering which had been the portion of faith in all ages. He was tempted, or tried, by every form of trial which has ever come upon faith. And having passed through this experience He is qualified to be “a merciful and faithful high priest in things relating to God”. It is in these things that we need a merciful and faithful high priest. Faith governs all matters relating to God, and when faith brings us into trial here, we need One who is able to help us as having suffered and been tried in exactly the same way Himself. When we prove that He does help us, it makes Him a very blessed reality to us.

We cannot for a moment think of Jesus, the Son of God, as having infirmities, but He had the true feelings of a man in presence of trials and sufferings. He was “tempted in all things in like manner”. Therefore He is able to sympathize with our infirmities. He knows perfectly how trial and suffering affect man — how they ought to affect man. In His case the sensibilities and the sufferings were perfect, and were all infinitely acceptable to God. They were wholly apart from sin. They are real trials which cause suffering, but they are not the result of evil-doing, but of faith. Now the Lord, in the state of a blessed, perfect Man, has been subjected to every such trial, that He might be able to sympathize with His brethren who suffer the same trials, but who are also conscious of infirmities. He never had infirmities, and He certainly has none as the great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, but His experience of trial and suffering here has qualified Him to ^[p. 230] sympathize with our infirmities. If I feel so weak that I cannot possibly hold fast the confession unless I get His support, He is exceedingly sympathetic with that feeling. It is the very reason — or, at any rate, one reason — why we have Him as our High Priest.

We have infirmities connected with our bodies, such as Timothy’s “frequent illnesses” (1 Timothy 5: 23) and the sickness of Trophimus. Christ has not been made like to us in these things, but He can enter perfectly into them because in the days of His flesh “Himself took our infirmities and bore our diseases”, Matthew 8: 17. It has been well said that He bore in His spirit what He removed by His power. He felt in His spirit all that pressed upon men, even physically. This is not exactly what He became as Man, but what He took on Him. (See note to Hebrews 2:17 in the New Translation). But it enables Him to enter fully and sympathetically into all that His saints suffer, even in their bodies, and He is able to help them in those sufferings, as an innumerable multitude have proved.