(3.) Satan had a principal hand in the temptations wherein he — suffered. He set upon him in the entrance of his ministry, immedi- — ately in his own person, and followed him in the whole course of it by the instruments that he set on work. He had also a season, an hour of darkness, allowed unto him, when he was to try his utmost strength and policy against him; under which assault from him he suffered, as was foretold from the foundation of the world, the bruising of his heel, or the temporal ruin of all his concernments.
(4) God’s desertion of him was another temptation under which he suffered. As this was most mysterious, so his sufferings under it — were his greatest perplexity, Ps. xxii, gg 2, Heb. v. 7.
These are some of the heads and” springs of those various and —
VER. 17, 18.] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 479
innumerable temptations that the Lord Christ suffered in and under.
Again; The blessed effect and consequent hereof is expressed in these words, “He is able to succour them that are tempted :” wherein we have, (1.) The description of them for whose sake the Lord Christ underwent this condition; (2.) The ability that accrued unto him thereby for their relief; and, (3.) The advantage that they are thereby made partakers of.
(1.) They for whose sakes he underwent this condition, are those whom he reconciled unto God by his sacrifice as a high priest, but they are here described by an especial concernment of their obedience, which, producing all their sorrow and trouble, makes them stand in continual need of aid and assistance. They are of ‘ f weipatowevor, “tempted ones,” Notwithstanding their avd: guage. reconciliation unto God by the death of Christ, they have a course of obedience prescribed unto them. In this course they meet with many difficulties, dangers, and sorrows, all proceeding from the temptations that they are exercised withal. Hence is this description of them, they are those who are tempted, and suffer greatly on that account. Others are little concerned in temptations. Outward, it may be, as unto danger, they have not many; and if they have, it is the trouble and not the temptation which they regard ;—inward, as unto sin, they yield obedience unto; but the trouble from temptation is in the opposition made unto it. It is reconciled persons who emphatically are the tempted ones, especially as temptations are looked on as ‘the cause of sufferings. They are the mark of Satan and the world, against which all their arrows and darts are directed, the subject whereon God himself exerciseth his trials. And besides all this, they maintain a continual warfare within them against temptations in the remainder of their own corruptions. So that with, in, and about them, are they conversant in the whole course of their lives. Moreover, unto this constant and perpetual conflict, there do befall them, in the holy, wise providence of God, certain seasons wherein temptations grow high, strong, impetuous, and are even ready to ruin them. As Christ had an hour of darkness to conflict withal, so have they also. Such was the condition of the believing Hebrews when Paul wrote this epistle unto them. What through persecution, wherein they endured “a great fight of afflictions,’ and what through the seductions of false brethren, alluring them unto an apostasy unto Judaism and an acquiescency in Mosaical ceremonies, they were even ready to be utterly ruined. Unto them, therefore, and by them unto all others in the like condition, the apostle hath respect in his description of those whom the Lord Christgs ready to succour; they are tempted ones. This is the proper name of believers. As Satan, from what
480 AN EXPOSITION OF THE [ CHAP. IL
he doth, is called the tempter; so they, from what they endure, may be called the tempted ones. Their calling is to oppose tempta- tions, and their lives a conflict with them. The high priest having suffered the like things with them, they have an assured ground of consolation in all their temptations and sufferings; which he con- firms by what is added in the second place, namely, his ability to help them.
(2.) Advaras, “he is able.” Now, this ability is such as ariseth from that peculiar mercifulness which he is disposed unto from that experience which he had of suffering under temptation ;—a moral power, not a natural. It is not divas évepynring, aN executive power, a power of working or operation, not a power of the hand, but divas commadnring, a power of heart and will, an ability in readiness of mind, that is here assigned unto Christ. It is this latter, and not the former, that was a consequent of his temptations and sufferings. A gracious, ready enlargedness : of heart, and constant inclination unto the succour of them that are tempted, is the ability here designed; for as this power was originally and radically implanted in the human nature of Christ, by the communication of all habitual grace unto him, so its next inclination to exert itself in suitable effects, with a constant actual excitation thereunto, he had upon the account of his suffering in temptations: for,—
[1.] He had particular experience thereby of the weakness, sorrows, and miseries of human nature under the assaults of tempta- tions; he tried it, felt it, and will never forget it.