A SERMON ON HEBREWS 4:15. By the Rev. James MacLagan.

A SERMON ON HEBREWS 4:15.

By the Rev. James MacLagan[i]

FOR WE HAVE NOT AN HIGH PRIEST WHICH CANNOT BE TOUCHED WITH THE FEELING OF OUR INFIRMITY; BUT WAS IN ALL POINTS TEMPTED LIKE AS WE ARE, YET WITHOUT SIN.

In these words, the first thing that strikes us is the assertion of a fact respecting our Lord Jesus Christ, in his character of our high priest: that he is “touched with the feeling of our infirmity.” Next, this fact is traced to its origin; the natural cause of its existence is assigned; we are informed how it came to pass that he is so touched: he was “in all points tempted like as we are.” Being, though divine, yet possessed of a real and true humanity, it is easy for men, by consulting their familiar experience, to perceive clearly the connection betwixt this cause and this consequence in his gracious soul. He is the grand exemplification, the noblest practical exhibition, of that standing maxim, that by being ourselves intimate with grief, we learn to succour the wretched; as, if he had never tasted pain, we could hardly have been prevented from applying to him more than to any other, the reverse of that maxim, which is of equal authority, that those can never enter fully into our sorrow who have felt nothing like it themselves. This reference of the inspired writer to a well-known law of our nature gives additional clearness and force to that delightful truth which is besides so plainly expressed in the former clause of the text, namely: that the compassion of Christ for our afflictions is not the result of a merely rational conjecture or estimate of their severity, founded on observation of their natural symptoms or effects, as one who has never known ill health may judge of the violence of another man’s fever; but that it proceeds from that quick, tender, penetrating, thorough sense of our trials, which perfect manhood could not fail to acquire by experiencing personally, as tests of his own obedience, the keenness of bodily pain and the anguish of a wounded spirit. The extent also to which the sympathy of our Saviour spreads is illustrated by this mention of its origin. He was tempted “in all points” like as we are; therefore “in all points” we may surely reckon upon finding in him this fellow feeling. It was not a few kinds only of our earthly struggles, apart from others, that he admitted into his heart so that he could appreciate them by feeling as well as judgment, and not the rest; but he stood successively in all the main flood-gates of tribulation, and there made trial of the worst that mortal man can endure, whether from the hostility of a disordered world, or from the rage of fallen angels, or from the wrath of offended heaven. Yet it was with a certain modification that he was so tempted: it was “without sin”. This is the only difference which the inspired writer marks, the only reservation which he is careful to make. But then it is a reservation of so much consequence that in the eye of our guilty apprehension, it seems, at first sight, to take back nearly all that had been previously granted and to make so essential a dissimilarity betwixt the temptations of the high priest and those of his people that the matter of chief importance in the case, the sympathy on his part, is almost wholly deprived of its foundation. To beings who see that very many of their temptations are the effects of previous sin, failing which, they had never existed; and against whom temptation is so often prevalent, that the very name no longer presents so readily the idea of simple trial, as of trial inducing crime, this is a very natural prejudice; yet to beings entirely dependent, and that through faith, upon the tender mercies of Christ Jesus, it is a prejudice so fatal, that a little time can scarcely be better employed than in endeavouring to see upon what weak foundations it rests, or rather how utterly it is unfounded. May the Spirit of wisdom and grace vouchsafe, in this exercise, not only to disentangle our minds from all misunderstandings but so to commend his truth to our assured convictions, as to fill our hearts with sacred encouragement and comfort!

In illustrating the text by the current usage and clear authority of other Scriptures if we can make it appear:

That temptation and sin, however closely related, are yet things entirely and essentially distinct, so that there may be real and true temptation, where there is no sin whatever. (This in the first place.)

And if we can farther shew, that those temptations which are the most sifting, severe, and terrible in their nature, may be precisely those which are the farthest removed from being sinful. (This in the second place.)

Then, thirdly, we shall the more readily see, how the temptations of Christ, notwithstanding their sinlessness, were such as to give him a most thorough experience and feeling of human infirmity in the hour of trial.

And, lastly, how this feeling on the part of Christ amounts to a true and perfect sympathy with the infirmities of all who receive him as their High Priest, under every form and aspect of their temptations.

First, let us advert then, in the first place, to the truth, that both in the nature of the things themselves, and in the language of the inspired writers, temptation and sin are entirely distinct and separate matters. We do not say that temptation and sin are not intimately connected; we only say that they are not identified. Our assertion is not that they have nothing to do with each other; but just that they are not one and the same thing. That temptation is often mingled with sin, as wine is often mingled with water, must be admitted; but as wine and water are very different substances, and, though capable of mixture, yet can and do exist in a separate state; so it is also with sin and temptation. To say that there is ever sin without temptation leading to it, might indeed be false (and if true, would have no connection whatever with our subject); but there may be temptation that neither partakes of sin nor produces it. And that is precisely the assertion of the text concerning the temptation of our Lord. If we attentively look at the plainest facts, this truth must speedily be apparent. How many are successfully tempted by hunger or the dread of it, to seek subsistence by unrighteous practices? Yet surely to be hungry and to dread the pangs of hunger, are but mere infirmities, not sins. How many crimes are committed under the influence of anger! Yet there is such a thing as blameless anger, if the dictates of God's Spirit are of any authority. For were anger always criminal, the apostolic precept, “Be angry and sin not”, would just be an injunction upon us to sin without sinning. The truth is, that all the stronger appetites and affections which God has implanted in our nature, and which would have been necessary to its being and well-being, though we had never fallen (affections most fit, most becoming, most beneficial, most indispensable), are every one of them converted into most dangerous temptations when they happen at any time to be powerfully excited under circumstances that preclude them from being lawfully indulged. There may, no doubt, be excitement without just cause, or excitement that goes beyond due bounds, and then certainly it is sinful excitement; and if it lead to criminal conduct, here without question, is a sinful temptation producing sinful deeds. But on the other hand, the excitement may be quite unavoidable as to its occasion and quite reasonable as to its degree whilst it may, notwithstanding, continue to be a temptation of the most powerful kind. If, for instance, a man is long shut out from every kind of nourishment, he cannot but hunger and thirst. If the privation is continued, no feeling can be more reasonable than the fear of death, as none can be more violent. In these circumstances, should he suddenly find an opportunity of supplying his urgent want, but only through some act of decided wickedness, who can fail to see that he would be fiercely tempted to seek the relief by committing the sin? Should he in fact commit it, he is guilty; but his guilt lies not in the temptation itself surely, but in the success of the temptation. It lies not in having felt the raging appetite, but in having yielded to it; not in having feared the death of the body, but in having forgotten the fear of Him who, after the body is dead, can cast the soul into hell. That no part of the sin belonged to the mere temptation, will however be still more evident, if, instead of yielding to it, the sufferer has successfully resisted, and died, rather than make shipwreck of faith and a good conscience. In this case, let the bodily anguish have been as great, the horror of death as violent, the impulses that strove to conquer his better will as frequent and as furious as before; yet, seeing his hatred of sin, and trust in God, and hope of eternal life, were stronger still, and were prevalent at last against all inducements to evil. It is clear that the temptation instead of being a sinful thing, was just one of those "fiery trials" of a Christian's faith, which the Scripture pronounces to be "more precious than gold, that perisheth though it be tried in the fire”.

These results of common reason and observation fully agree with the established usage of scripture language which speaks of temptation as sometimes involving sin, and as being at other times entirely free from it. In proof of this, it will be sufficient to compare one or two expressions of other inspired writers with the assertion of St. James in chapter 1:13 that " God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man”. Here, in the first place, it is plainly not the Apostle's intention to affirm that God cannot in any sense be tempted for God himself in Psalm 95 thus expressly warns the people of Israel "Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work”. Neither can it be his intention to affirm that God cannot be tempted by the evil or sin that is in his creatures; for it was precisely the hardened unbelief and stiff-necked rebellion of the Israelites that constituted the "temptation” in question and brought down upon themselves the wrathful oath and exterminating judgments by which their carcasses fell in the wilderness. What remains then as the meaning of this declaration? Just that God cannot be tempted by anything sinful or unholy in Himself. No unrighteous thought or feeling can have a moment's place in his most pure and sacred essence. All such evil is infinitely abhorrent to his nature; and therefore “temptation”, as affecting God, as operating in the divine mind, is a thing perfectly and absolutely "without sin”.

Then, further, the Apostle intimates, that "Neither tempteth he any man". But this expression, any more than the former, is not to be understood with absolute strictness as if God never subjected any of the human race to temptation; for the contrary is distinctly stated, where, in Genesis 22, we read that "God did tempt Abraham”. And how is the apparent contradiction between these two assertions to be reconciled? Simply by taking notice that the limitation in the former clause of St. James's statement, belongs equally to the latter; and that, read at large, the whole would run thus, "God is not tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man with evil.” But, adds the Apostle instantly, "every man is tempted” that is, sinfully tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Sinful temptation, therefore, according to this scripture, a man may certainly feel; but then it is carefully marked that the sin is wholly from himself, and remains chargeable upon himself alone. So then, when God tempted Abraham, he could have mingled no sin with the temptation. As coming from God, it was a temptation; but as coming from God, it must have been "without sin”. He infused no evil feelings; he provoked no corrupt inclinations; yet he did (unless the scripture can be broken), he did really tempt Abraham. Nor is there any deep or unintelligible mystery at all in this sinless temptation. When requiring the Patriarch to sacrifice his son, God tried him by the holy affection which a man like him must have cherished for the child of his faith and of his prayers; and still more, perhaps, by that fervent and sublime concern with which the father of the faithful must have viewed the multitude of his spiritual offspring when the hope seemed upon the point of vanishing forever with the expiring breath of the heir of promise. These were the pious and pure and noble sentiments, in the strange and painful effort of repressing which, as soon as they came in opposition to a divine command, the whole temptation consisted. The more successfully that these had been cultivated, and the longer that they had been indulged, the more powerful inducements would they naturally prove to misunderstand, or evade, or disobey the injunction with which it seemed impossible to reconcile them. Yet so far from being sins, so far from being even weaknesses, they were virtues of the highest kind: and though they might, if not duly guarded, have led to the most fatal consequences, yet as if intentionally to exclude all idea of sinfulness from our views of this temptation - no rebellious murmur -no shrinking reluctance -not the slightest movement of any unholy feeling is ever imputed in the scriptures to the patriarch's conduct under the trial: but on the contrary, it is everywhere made the theme of unqualified applause, and celebrated as the very triumph of a pure and unfaltering obedience .

Second, this much may suffice to establish our first proposition, namely that in the nature of things, and also in accordance with the language of sacred writ, temptation may be, either sinful or “without sin”. As a trial of what is in man, it is sometimes the one and sometimes the other. As a test of the divine character, it is always holy: “God cannot be tempted of evil”. The second assertion, namely, that those temptations which are the most sifting and terrible may, notwithstanding, be the farthest removed from sin, will admit of confirmation in fewer words. Nothing indeed can be more true than that our evil dispositions and passions, when fostered and provoked by indulgence, occasion to those who are not utterly abandoned many a painful trial and many a bitter conflict which might otherwise be avoided. And yet in a world where sin has introduced confusion and demands that God in his sovereign mercy and righteousness should often visit his own children with sharp correction, it frequently becomes needful, as in the case of Abraham, to restrain the holiest affections and, as in innumerable other cases, to mortify desires the most natural and most necessary, with as much rigour as the most impure and profligate; and wherever there is a call for this, the effort of self-government is in fact a great deal more difficult, and a great deal more distressing, than when the check is to be laid only upon the excess and the exorbitance of appetite. Here again, let the simplest examples teach us. Are the cravings of the intemperate palate for wine, as hard to be endured, as the natural thirst of him who pants for the waters of the gushing fountain and cannot find them? Ask the parched Ishmaelite in the desert. And yet the same authority in obedience to which the martyrs have so often given their bodies to be burned might require them to perish of thirst, a fate which many probably endured, rather than deny their Lord or worship an idol. Is the pampered appetite of the sensualist as importunate in its demands as the unavoidable and ravenous hunger of a famishing man? Ask the wretched mothers who in the siege of Samaria bargained to slay in succession their own children that they might subsist a few days longer on their flesh; yet it is obvious that they should have determined to die of famine rather than commit those horrid and unnatural murders. Was the lust of dominion in the breast of Absalom, which excited him, before the time, to aspire after his father's throne a principle of greater energy than that ardour of royal and devout ambition which prompted David, when he had subdued the enemies of God's people and firmly established their strength and prosperity, to crown a work of such extraordinary renown by building a Temple, the only one in all the earth, where the Lord Jehovah should set his name and his worship? Surely it required a greater effort of self-denial in this case to renounce the holy ambition than it would have done to renounce the guilty. And yet after his noble enterprise had seemed to receive the sanction both of God and men, it became the duty of David to resign it into the hands of another. But why are these things adduced? To shew how the temptations of our Lord, without being sinful in the least degree, might notwithstanding be what we know they were: more sharp and terrible than any other. What though he had no irregular or exaggerated passions to restrain! He had holy, just, pure, heavenly affections, strong in proportion to the greatness of his soul and warm in proportion to the brightness and dignity of their objects, which he was called upon by the nature of his undertaking not only to control, but for a season to thwart so painfully and to turn aside so violently from their natural courses, that he must have needed to exercise a persevering strength of self-denial altogether matchless; and must have had in his heart experience far beyond what mere mortality could have endured of the profoundest sorrow, the keenest anguish, and the harshest mortification. What feelings but such as these could he have experienced in those hours of temptation when with a spirit feelingly alive to all the refinements of celestial purity and love itself, he had to hear the loathsome suggestions and encounter the detestable impulses of diabolical wickedness and pollution? Or still more, when with a heart that was completely absorbed in the love of God and that found its highest delight in the sense of his fellowship and favour, it behoved him, by his own consent, not only to feel himself forsaken of God, alone and desolate but also to endure in his spirit the whole expression and effect of God's infinite wrath when roused to execute the utmost vengeance of sovereign justice upon the sins for which, though he did not commit them, it was his lot to suffer. No trial it is evident could either be more holy or more terrible than this. Nay, in the very perfection of its holiness, its terror was consummated.

But now we come to the third inquiry whether the temptation of Christ, being without sin, could give him a thorough experience and feeling of human infirmity in the hour of trial. To judge of this, we must attend to the manner in which that sense of weakness is produced in ourselves to which our Lord's sympathy has reference. Some moral conflict is necessary for the production of it; for whatever may be our real infirmity, it is only in some struggles that we have the “feeling of infirmity”. Then only are we thoroughly conscious of weakness when putting forth our whole strength we feel it insufficient, or but little more than sufficient, to meet the exigency and are consequently open to impressions of danger and the assaults of fear. Such alarming sensations may alike be excited whether we fail or whether we are victorious in the conflict. He that has been overcome must indeed have felt his weakness. And yet experience will testify, that he may have a much less clear and affecting sense of it than the man whom God's especial grace and providence have enabled to stand in the evil day and who afterwards from a place of safety looks back with wonder and awe upon his painful wrestlings, his perilous exposures, and his critical escapes. And why then may not our High Priest, though unconquered, have acquired the like sensibility in his temptation? He had no sin, it is true; but did he not feel weakness? Did he not see danger? Was not his heart afraid? When tempted, had he not experience of a conflict which brought his strength and holiness to as unsparing a trial as any that befalls his people can bring theirs? What less can be intimated to us by such complaints and supplications as these? “I am poured out like water; all my bones are out of joint My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels: My strength is dried up like a potsherd. Be not thou far from me, O Lord! O my strength, make haste to help me! Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion's mouth. Thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.”

Our understanding and belief of this most important truth receives some disturbance from certain ill-defined notions of the share which our Lord's Godhead must have taken in supernaturally sustaining his human powers while under temptation. “The Word was God,” we say with the evangelist. “How then,” we add, “could he ever be in straits?” The question would be quite in point, did it belong to the perfection of his fitness for the mediatorial office, or did it even consist with that fitness that his humanity should be placed, as without doubt, it could easily have been, beyond all reach of sharp and distressing temptation. But the case was far otherwise. For in that he was tempted, says the apostle, he is able to succour them that are tempted: words which distinctly teach that in consequence of encountering painful conflict such as calls for succour, he has acquired for the relief of others in similar circumstances a qualification and a meetness which he could not otherwise have possessed, but without which it is obvious that he could not be, what he now is, a perfect mediator. According to the Scriptures, then, it was the work of that Divinity which is mysteriously united with manhood in his person, not to raise his suffering nature to such a height of glorious power as would render all trial slight and contemptible, but to confer upon it such strength as would be infallibly sufficient, I say infallibly sufficient but not more than sufficient, just to bear him through the fearful strife that awaited him, without his being either destroyed or driven into sin: so that he might thoroughly experience in all the faculties of his soul and body the innumerable sensations of overpowering difficulty, and exhausting toil, and fainting weakness, and tormenting anguish; and might touch the very brink of danger, though not be swept away by it; and feel all the horror of the precipice, but without falling over.

This view of the case implies no disparagement to the greatness of our Lord's endowments considered as a man. On the contrary, the belief that his conflict was extreme is held by none more consistently than by those who hold at the same time, upon the fullest evidence, that even as a man, he was in every excellence, moral and intellectual, exalted unmeasurably, not only above all that are born of women, but even above all that is revealed of angelic sanctity or grandeur. The unrivalled greatness of his soul was no reason why he should pass through his trial without difficulty because the hostility and the hardship with which he had to contend was high and formidable in proportion. It was little that he was to meet the rage of confederated men in all the plenitude of carnal power. It was even little that he stood alone against the concentrated might of the kingdom of darkness when it was stimulated by circumstances to the utmost violence of desperate animosity and came armed with the whole subtilty and vehemence of its spiritual temptations. He had to stand before the face of incensed Omnipotence and to encounter the strokes of that flaming sword of Jehovah which was to fall in vengeance upon the sins of an apostate world. And who then shall undertake to tell what a marvellous enlargement of forethought and knowledge in a human soul, what an inextricable grasp of assured faith upon the promises of God, what an iron strength of holy resolution, and what inextinguishable ardours of divine and saving love must have been found in him who could not only before-hand resolve to meet such terrors, but could actually sustain them, and not only sustain but conquer them, when they came at once, with united force and fierceness, to wrestle with his spirit in the agonies of the cross!

Neither let it be imagined, on the other side, that the putting forth of such astonishing power by the Man Jesus was at all inconsistent with the “feeling of infirmity”. That feeling does not depend alone upon the measure of a champion's strength, whether small or great, nor alone upon the extent, whether small or great, of the force that is brought against him; but it depends still more upon the proportion, the adjustment, the almost equality, of the conflicting powers. When these differ only so much as is just sufficient to decide the combat, then he that conquers, and does hardly more than conquer, will find in every nerve, a thorough sense of his weakness. But this is not all. Though it may seem paradoxical, it is a truth that he will have this feeling the more perfectly the greater degrees and varieties of skill and strength and courage and patience he may have found himself compelled to exert in the struggle. If it be one in which multitudes besides the leaders are concerned, this truth will be the more evident. The more that we enlarge the field, and multiply the destructive engines, and exasperate the fury, and magnify the consequences of battle, the more we shall deepen the sense of infirmity in him, who with his eyes open to see the whole danger, does but just rescue his life and his cause from the tumult though it be by victory. In the shock of contending armies when some monarch experienced in war surveys at one view the nearly equal numbers and advantages of the opposing lines, beholds all the strength and resources of his enemies for the work of destruction, comprehends the perilous skill and boldness of their hostile movements, and perceives the deep and ruinous impressions made by them upon his own host; when he foresees not only the immediate discomfiture and rout and carnage which must ensue upon any failure in courage or conduct on his own part; but also the revolutions and miseries of nations that must be the consequence of his defeat. How much more strong and enlarged, at such a moment, must be his sense of insufficiency and inadequacy than can be that of any ignorant soldier in his army or, shall I say, of the warhorse that carries him which feels no burden but the weight of his master and sees no danger but in the weapon that glitters at his breast! And what has occasioned this intense feeling of infirmity in the man and the sovereign? Nothing but the greater extent and variety of his powers when tasked to the uttermost by an occasion of overwhelming interest and danger. Even so, since we have no better means of arriving at the conception of spiritual things, than by likening them to earthly objects infinitely mean and contemptible in comparison; even so we may understand how Christ, in possessing the most glorious powers, can yet have had a sense of weakness more deep and affecting by far, than we, in the narrowness of our faculties, can either experience or conceive: a sense entirely suited to the unparalleled greatness and terror of his conflict. He saw the conjuncture in all its awful magnitude! He viewed the result in all its tremendous importance! He knew himself advancing to a post where his created and mortal nature, struck with the fiery darts of hell from beneath and pierced from above by the arrows of the Almighty, must abide the shock and pressure of a falling world, and where the failure but for one moment of his human endurance and resolution, must effect not only the universal and eternal triumph of wickedness and misery, but what it is fearful to name even while we know it can never happen, the defeat of his Father's counsel, the failure of his Father's truth, and the desecration of his Father's Godhead! What wonder if we find it written that with a crisis like this before him, Jesus, in his “sore amazement”, “sweated blood”? Or that when the actual extremity of his agony arrived, he poured out supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to help him, and was heard indeed, but heard in that he feared?

Fourth, that Christ then, in his fearful though sinless conflict thus gained a thorough feeling of infirmity is certain; that this feeling lays an ample foundation for a true and perfect sympathy with his people in all their trials, remains to be briefly manifested. The text obviously intends to teach nothing more than that the sympathy of Christ is secure to those who believe in him, who acknowledge him as their High Priest, and who hold the same attitude in which he was found on earth: striving against sin. But this does not prejudice the truth taught in many other passages of Scripture: that he regards with compassion even the very chief of impenitent sinners. That he could derive from the experience of suffering on account of sin a vivid sense of the miseries which men bring down upon themselves by their transgressions, is self-evident; and that he has no disposition to withhold from any who will accept of it the benefit of this fellow feeling appears from his lamentation over the perishing rebels of Jerusalem. In one point, however, it is quite true that his participation of such men's sentiments does entirely fail. He can have no fellowship with their love of sin. Their impure, unrighteous, ungodly thoughts and feelings are utter strangers to his heart. There can be no concord of Christ with Belial. But is this any disadvantage to those unhappy persons in seeking salvation from him? Quite the contrary. If he could possibly have a fellow feeling with their sins, yet to what end would they wish for the existence of such a feeling? Is it that he might the more indulge them in their wickedness? That instead of promoting their salvation would be deepening their destruction. Is it that he might the better mortify and expel their sins? But how could such an object be promoted by his concurring in their sins and entering into the spirit of them? Surely his invincible abhorrence of every, the least, iniquity and his infinite love of holiness and unspotted righteousness are the very best pledges that sinners can desire of his most earnest readiness to aid them in renouncing all their transgressions. Thus even where his fellow feeling comes short, and in reference to his very enemies, it is most for their real interest that it should do so. But if any such desire to be, in every point, and to the utmost extent, in harmony with the Son of God, their course is plain: let them repent and believe the Gospel.

To all who are already in the faith, the comfort of the text is offered without reserve. Engaged in the very same conflict by which Christ acquired his own sense of infirmity, they may rest assured that he can thoroughly appreciate theirs. With what kind or degree of infirmity can they be tried of which he had not experience? Toil, pain, poverty, disappointment, reproach and calumny, the strife of tongues, the violence of hostile deeds, oppression, mockery, murder, were his portion more than any man's. His tender feelings were wounded by the death of friends, by the anguish of a mother with the sword in her soul, by the treachery of false disciples, by the desertion in his time of utmost need of those who were sincerely devoted to him, by the eternal ruin of many whom “beholding he loved” (and amongst them his own unbelieving kindred). The mysterious powers of hell were let loose upon him. The hand of God touched him. These things, and more, came upon him to the uttermost. “He was tempted in all points even as we are.” Then what could we wish for besides? He is with us to relieve every one of our afflictions with the united skill of God and of a fellow man who has experienced the same: so long as we do not willingly yield ourselves to the influences of sin but are found like good soldiers enduring hardness for his sake.

Say not that he could not, like you, have felt the burden of conscious guilt, having committed no personal sin. For, on the one hand, the sins of the world WERE laid to his charge, covering him before God and angels and men, and in his own eyes also, with the garment of shame; and, on the other hand, he hath taken all the guilt of his people wholly and forever away, so that there is now “no condemnation for them that are in Christ Jesus”, who, in striving against temptation, “are walking not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Then why should the sense of guilt be more disheartening to those from whom guilt has been removed, for the purposes of forgiveness, than to him upon whom guilt was laid, for the purposes of retribution?

Say not that by having committed innumerable sins your temptations from within and from without have greatly gathered strength, while your powers and means of resistance have been proportionably diminished: a source of discouragement which could not have affected Christ, as being free from the commission of sin. But wherein lies the real force of this objection? Is it not in the great hardship and difficulty of the conflict to which the disadvantages in question expose you? But is your struggle, at the worst, more severe or more desperate than was the Lord's? If not, believe not that your feeling of infirmity can be more perfect than his, or that there can be any pangs of fear or faintness in your heart which his experience did not more than parallel.

O, but in him was Godhead; and he had the promise of the Father that he should not fail nor be discouraged until his mighty task were completed. And is not Godhead also your refuge and your strength, a very present help in the time of trouble. Does not the Holy Spirit dwell also in you? And has not the Father said to you also, “Fear not, for I am with thee: Be not dismayed, for I am thy God; I will strengthen thee, yea I will help thee, yea I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.”? Nay that very Saviour whose almighty sufficiency our cowardly distrusts pervert by such reasonings into a source of misgivings instead of a theme of triumph: can his destinies be separated for a moment from those of his people? Is not he himself our head, and we the members of his body? Are we not of his flesh and of his bones? Is it not the power of his resurrection that keeps us from death? Is not our life hid with Christ in God? And is not the promise absolute, that when he who is our life shall appear, we also shall appear with him in glory? Let us then be strong and of a good courage. Let us fight a good fight. Let us lay hold on eternal life. Insufficient of ourselves for these things, let us look the more to that sufficiency which is promised us of God. And seeing we have not a High-Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin, let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. Amen!

[i] The preacher of this sermon, the Rev. James MacLagan, or M’Lagan, was born on the 16th of May 1788 to the minister and Gaelic scholar, James MacLagan of Blair-Atholl, and his wife, Catherine Stuart whose father, James, was the minister of Killin. The younger MacLagan was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Glasgow on the 9th of June 1813 and ordained assistant and successor to William Chalmers of Auchtergaven on the 25th of November of the same year. He was admitted to the parish of Kinfauns in the May of 1821 where he stayed until the Disruption of 1843. MacLagan was the minister of Kinfauns Free Church from 1843 to 1846 when he was appointed Professor of Divinity in the Free Church College, Aberdeen. He married twice and had children from both unions; however, he was survived only by the children of his second marriage. He died on the 29th of December 1852.

Marcus Dods, the Church of Scotland minister in the English town of Belford, included this sermon in his book, On the Incarnation of the Eternal Word, which he dedicated to his friend, MacLagan. The book was written to counter the opinions of Edward Irvine, a feature of whose Christology was that the eternal Word took on a fallen human nature. The sermon forms part of the chapter in which Dods takes up the subject of the sympathy of Christ and whether knowledge of sin is necessary to Christ’s ability to be “touched with the feeling of our infirmity”. However, MacLagan also addresses the matter of the reality of Christ’s temptations. Dods writes: “The Sermon is the production of a friend, whose name I regret that I am not permitted to give with it. It was addressed to his own parishioners in the ordinary course of his ministrations, without the remotest idea that it would ever receive a wider publicity than he gave it from the pulpit. It was by mere accident that I heard of his having preached upon the text; and having an opportunity of seeing him soon after, I asked him for the sermon. He very readily replied, that if I could make any use of it, I was perfectly welcome to it. He had no idea that I would print it; nor had I, at the time, any such design. But on reading it, I concluded at once that the very best use I could make of it was to give it entire. To this he has not objected, and I have therefore sent it to the press as I received it, without the alteration of a single word.” Here too the sermon is given without the alteration of a single word other than to give contractions or abbreviations in full: as they might be spoken rather than as they might be printed. The original punctuation has been altered. The aim here is not so much to change that of the original so that it follows more modern conventions, but that might aid in reading the sermon aloud. Both John Macleod and Donald Macleod refer to this sermon in their discussions of the contributions of Scottish theologians to a robust orthodox Christology which was not only the subject of academic discourse but which was also preached. This sermon has been extracted from Dods’s book for educational purposes. References: Hew Scott. Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1923) vol 4, pp 142, 145, 217. Marcus Dods. On the Incarnation of the Eternal Word (London: Seeley and Burnside, 1831) pp 390-413. John Macleod. Scottish Theology (Edinburgh: Knox Press, 1974) pp. 198, 259, 276. Donald Macleod. Jesus is Lord: Christology Yesterday and Today (Fearn: CFP, 2000) pp 135-137. Donald Macleod. The Person of Christ (Downers Grove: IVP, 1998) p 219.