Was Jesus' Temptation Greater than Ours? Jesus our Advocate

Lesson Transcript

I messed up this week preparing for my lesson. Excuse me. First, I thought I was done, and then I went and started reviewing it, and it was only like seven minutes long. And I was thinking, "This doesn't seem right." I thought there was more than that. So I spent the whole evening, I think Thursday evening, and redid it all. And then as I was doing that, I had a flashback.

I read a passage, and it sparked a memory, and I was thinking, "Wait a minute, I know I've done this." And so I started digging through my Google Drive, and lo and behold, there was the original. Apparently, I had put the first bit of it onto the PowerPoint and thought that I was done and just walked away from it. Long story short, I got it all squared up. This does mean, though, that I was working on it late until yesterday, and so I didn't have a chance to send it to the elders for the heresy and spelling check.

If you catch all five misspelled words, you get extra credit, Sunday school points. This also means that we have the opposite problem that we started with. In the beginning, we had a little too little, and then now we have a little too much, so we're going to get right into it. For the visitors for Sunday school, for the past seven weeks, this is week eight, we're looking through the book of Hebrews. Today, we're going to be looking at these verses on the screen here.

Last week, we left off in chapter 2, verse 15, where we saw that Christ, through death, He defeated Satan, and He freed us, who were all our lifetime held and bondage, subject and bondage to both sin and death. We have two final verses that we're going to finish up in chapter 2 today, and then we'll move on to chapter 3. So chapter 2, verse 16. "For indeed, He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham." This is how it's worded in the New King James Version.

The King James Version reads as, "For verily He took not on Him the nature of angels." Now, this word, "to give aid to," it is too long for someone with my level of education to attempt to pronounce without embarrassing himself. But the definition means "to lay hold of," or "to take hold of," or even "to seize." Chrysostom viewed the rendering of this as "to take hold of," and he thought about it this way: "For do not regard lightly what was spoken, nor think that Him taking on our flesh was a small matter.

He did not grant this to angels, for certainly He did not take His hold of angels, but the seed of Abraham." But what does this mean, "He taketh hold of"? It means He did not grasp the nature which belonged to angels, but ours. But why did He not say, "He took on Him," but instead use this expression, "He taketh hold of"? So Chrysostom is drawing our attention to the exact words that Paul chose to use.

He did not say that He took on Him, but he used this expression, "He taketh hold of." He then explains the significance of this. It is derived from the idea of a person pursuing those who have turned away from them and doing everything possible to overtake them as they flee away, to take hold of them as they are bounding away. For when human nature was fleeing from God and fleeing far away, He pursued after us and overtook us. It has been shown that He has done this out of kindness and love and tender care for us.

What an incredible picture. Here is the human race fleeing from God, running from Him as fast as our little legs would carry us away. But out of His kindness and His love and tender care for us, He reached out and took hold of us as we were fleeing. Back to verse 16. "For indeed, He does not take His hold of angels, but of the seed of Abraham He taketh hold." Notice here that He did not say that He taketh hold of men or of mankind. He specifically says that He took hold of the seed of Abraham.

Paul does this because he wishes to exalt the Hebrews and to show them that their race was indeed a great and honorable race. Verse 17. "Therefore, in all things, He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people." What does this mean, "in all things to be made like His brethren"? He means Christ was born. He was brought up. He grew. He suffered all things that were necessary, and at last He died.

This is what it means in all things to be made like unto His brethren. And consider the great power by which He has done these things, how Paul represents Christ as having great zeal to be made like unto us, which is a sign of much care towards us. As Scripture has said, "Inasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself in like manner took on the same." And then now in this place, it says that in all things to be made unto like His brethren.

In other words, He that was so great, He that was the brightness of His glory, He that was the expressed image of His person, He that made the worlds, He that sits on the right hand of the Father, He was willing and earnest to become our brothers in all things. And for this very cause, He left the angels and the other powers, and He came down to us, and He took hold of us and brought about uncountable good things. He destroyed death. He put us out of the reach of the devil's tyranny. He freed us from bondage.

Not by brotherhood alone did He honor us, but also in other ways beyond number. For He was willing also to become our high priest with the Father. For in verse 17, He adds this, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God. For this reason, Paul says, He took our flesh on Him. And His motive was only for the love, the love of man, that He might have mercy on us.

For He saw us cast on the ground, perishing, tyrannized over by death, and He had compassion on us and became man to make reconciliation or propitiation, He says, for the sins of the people, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest. When I began the study of Hebrews, I had absolutely zero idea that I was going to find, riddled through almost every single passage, this demeanor that God has towards man, this passion for man and the zeal for humankind and His mercy and compassion.

For God's love for man is overwhelming to me. What did we do to deserve all of this? And this brings us to the fifth reason that the Son of God became a man, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God. This is the fifth reason for the visitors, because we've been laying out other reasons in the previous lessons. But what does this mean in things pertaining to God?

Therefore, He added in things pertaining to God that it is for things that is for the sake of things in relation to God. We were condemned, degraded, and there was no one who should offer sacrifice on our behalf. He saw us in this condition and had compassion on us, so much compassion that He did more than appoint a high priest for us. Instead, He Himself became our high priest. Now, it is true that He was appointed to be a high priest by the Father.

The Scripture prophesied that He would be a high priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. It is also true that He bathes all things. He was the creator of all things, and He Himself has chosen to become our high priest. And we looked at this a couple of weeks ago. Every high priest is selected from among the people and is appointed to represent the people in matters that are related to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.

He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and who are going astray, since He Himself is also subject to weakness. This is why He has to offer sacrifices for His own sins as well as for the sins of the people. It says that the human high priests were able to deal gently with us when we were ignorant or when we go astray for a particular reason. And that reason is because He Himself is subject to weakness.

The high priest has His own sin, which is why I said that He has to first sacrifice for Himself and then for the sins of the people. So we are told that being in the flesh and sharing in the weakness positions a high priest to be able to deal gently with us. Again, this is speaking of the earthly high priest, but we see it in contrast to Hebrews 4, where Jesus is described as our high priest this way.

"For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but in all points were tempted as we were, yet without sin. For He suffered being tempted, and therefore He is also able to sympathize with our weaknesses, because in all points He was tempted, yet without sin." And it gets even greater for us when we look at 1 John 2, where we get more details about this arrangement of Jesus being our high priest. "My little children, these things I write to you so that you may not sin.

And if anyone sins, we have an advocate, an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." So this is another beautiful picture. An advocate. We have an advocate, a high priest who was at all points tempted, who has sympathy for our weaknesses, and not only was our atoning sacrifice, but also now is an advocate for us with the Father. Some will say, "Yeah, but Jesus never really gave in to sin, so He doesn't really know what it's like to suffer like us." But this is a lie. C.S. Lew answers this question.

You may remember that it was said that the first steps towards humility was to realize that one is proud. I want to add now that the next step is to make some serious attempts to practice the Christian virtues. One week is not enough. Things often go swimmingly for the first week. Try six weeks. By that time, having as far as one can see falling back completely or even falling lower than the point one began from, one will have discovered some truths about himself.

"No man knows how bad he is until he has tried very hard to be good." A silly idea that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of the wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down.

And a man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of an evil impulse inside of us until we try to fight it. And Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is the only man who knows to the fullest extent what temptation actually means.

So to say that Jesus never gave in to sin, so He doesn't really know what it is like to suffer like us, is just a lie. And that brings us to the end of chapter 2. So at this point, it's taken us eight weeks to claw through chapter 1 and chapter 2. And this week and next week, we're going to begin and we're going to bulldoze right through chapter 3. Not that chapter 3 is insignificant by any means. What we will see is that chapter 3 and chapter 4 are very tightly woven together.

The moment that we get into chapter 4, we will continually be dragged back into chapter 3. And so by the end, all of it will get its due attention. So far in chapter 1 and chapter 2, the author has established that Jesus is greater than the prophets and that Jesus is greater than the angels. Now in chapter 3 here, he is going to establish that Jesus was greater than Moses. We'll read 3:1-6 together.

"Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our confession, Jesus Christ, who was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was faithful in all His house. For this one has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who built the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by somebody, but He who built all things is God.

And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as a servant for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterwards. But Christ has a son over His own house, whom house we are, if we hold fast to the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end." Back to verse 1. "Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle." So Jesus is referred to here as an apostle.

The word means to be a messenger or one who has been sent on a mission, who was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses was also faithful in all His house. The Jews held Moses in high esteem. They already believed and understood that Moses was faithful. Paul is saying that Moses was faithful in all of his house in the same way that Jesus was faithful to the Father who appointed Him. What is happening now is Paul is going to set the stage to begin to make a comparison between Jesus and Moses.

And because he knows that the Jews hold Moses in such high esteem, he begins this with a compliment to Moses. He says, "Jesus was faithful to the Father in the same way that Moses was faithful." But Paul doesn't tiptoe around the topic for very long. In the next verse, he says, "For this one," talking about Jesus, "for this one has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses." He comes right out and says it. Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses.

But Paul, knowing the reverence that the Hebrews have for Moses, he takes his time to explain what he means. And he continues by building them an illustration, saying, "Inasmuch as he who builds a house has more honor than the house." And this kind of goes without saying. It's practically clear to everyone that the builder is both greater and has more honor than the thing that he builds.

And another way of saying the word "inasmuch" is to say "in the same way." So to say, "For this one has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses in the same way as he who builds a house has more honor than the house." For every house is built by someone, again pointing out the obvious. The house didn't bring itself into existence. I mean, it's a nice house. It's got a glory of its own, so to speak, but it didn't build itself. But he who built all things is God.

So the house is great and the builder is great, but the one who built all things is God. Without God, the bricks and the glue and the clay and the straw and all the raw materials in the building, they don't even exist. In fact, without God, the builder doesn't even exist. For every house is built by someone, but God himself built the someone.

Now, if you think back to the past seven weeks, as we have been studying this book, you will remember how over and over Jesus is depicted as the creator, the Alpha and the Omega, the one who brought all things into existence from nothing. This idea has been pounded into the mind of the reader by the time they've reached this part of the letter. So at this point, in my opinion, Paul has pretty much established within these few sentences that Jesus is superior to Moses.

But in these next verses, he takes it even a little bit deeper with the Hebrews. "And Moses indeed was faithful in all of his house as a servant for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterwards." So here he compliments Moses again. He repeats the pattern. First, he compliments Moses, then he says he's not as great. Then he compliments Moses, now he's going to say he's not as great again.

"But Christ has a son over his own house, whose house we are, if we hold fast to the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end." Now, notice something that's done in this verse. I'm going to do my best to explain this, but if I lose you or if it doesn't help you, just drop it. It's not that important, but in case it helps anybody, I'll go ahead and explain what I saw here. First, what Paul does is he sets the stage with this verse.

"For every house is built by somebody, but he who built all things is God." And he brings four different things into the picture here. Number one, the creator, Jesus. Number two, man, the builder. Number three, the house. And finally, the bricks. Now, there's no real mention of the bricks in the passage, but the bricks are there implicitly. It's another one of those obvious things. If there's something being built, in this case a house, then clearly it is being built with some raw material of some sort.

For conversation's sake, we will say it's the bricks. "For every house is built by someone, but he who builds all things is God." And then verse 5 comes in. "And Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterwards. But Christ has a faithful as a son over his own house, whose house we are." So notice that Moses is faithful in his house, but this is being faithful in God's house as a servant.

But when speaking about the Christ, he says, "Christ was faithful as a son over his own house." And then he follows by adding this, "whose house we are." So the illustration shifts here. And what does this mean, "whose house we are"? In Colossians 1:24, it says, "I do my share on behalf of his body, which is the church." So this is something that we're all familiar with, the concept that we talk about all the time. We are the church. We are the body. We are his temple.

And so back at verse 5, "But Christ was faithful as a son over his house, whose house we are." So notice what Paul has done here. First, he set the stage saying that man is the builder of the house and that man has more glory than the house. Now, with this phrase, "whose house we are," he shifts the illustration, and now the house in the illustration becomes the church, whose house we are. So pay attention to the left-hand side of the screen. See where the house is the house? Now the house becomes the church.

So now let's look at 1 Corinthians 12:27. "Now you are Christ's body and individually members of it." So collectively, altogether, we make up the body. We make up the church. But individually, we're just members of the body. We are called both the church and the body, and individually, we're members. Let me call your attention again, once again, to the left-hand side of the screen where the builder is man. Notice what happens in the illustration to man now that the house has become the church.

First, man is the builder, and now man becomes the members. And the members are the units that make up the church. What does this mean? If men are the members that make up the church, this means that man goes from being the builder of the house down to being the bricks of the church. And man now becomes the raw materials that is making up the body. So if man becomes the bricks, then who becomes the builder of the church? Now, I'm not 100% sure how to nail this one down.

I'm not exactly sure how this works out within the Trinity. 1 Corinthians 6:19 says, "Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you?" So this verse doesn't specifically say that the Holy Spirit is the builder of the church, but it clearly says that he is the tenant of the building. He dwells within the members that make up the body.

Then in Matthew 6:18, we see Jesus say this, "And I also say to you that you, Peter, are on that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church." So here we have Jesus saying that he is the builder of the church. But I wouldn't rule out the fact that the Father may also be involved. We see in John 6:44, "No one can come to me," Jesus says, "unless the Father who sent me draws him." So it seems to me that the entire Trinity may be involved in the building of the church.

So for conversation's sake, we will just say that it's God. So in saying that Christ was faithful as a son over his own house, whose house we are, everything in the illustration has shifted. The house has become the church. Man goes from being the builder to being the bricks. God becomes the builder, and Jesus remains the one at the top by whom and through whom all things were made. Now, question. Where does Moses fit into this whole thing? Moses is just like us. He's a brick, a member of the body.

A highly esteemed and honored and revered brick, still a brick. In Paul's first illustration, Jesus started off as greater than Moses. Once the house in the illustration has been shifted to the church, man's position changed, and this put an even greater distance between Jesus and Moses. What is the point? Sorry.

So we have Jesus and God at the top being the creator of all things and God being the builder of the church, and Moses down here at the bottom being both made by Jesus and being a member of the church that Jesus is building. What is the point that is being made here? Jesus is greater than Moses. So now we have Jesus is greater than the prophets, and Jesus is greater than the angels, and now we have covered that Jesus has been established as greater than Moses.

So let's wrap that up and move on to verses 7 through 15. We'll read it together. "Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, 'Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart as in the rebellion, in the days of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested me and tried me and saw my works for 40 years.

Therefore, I was angry with that generation and said, 'They always go astray in their hearts, and they do not know my ways.' So I swore in my wrath, 'They shall not enter my rest.' Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief and departing from the living God, but exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

For we have become partakers in Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, while it is said, 'Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.'" Let's put verse 7 through 11 on the screen. Here, Paul is quoting Psalm 94 in the Septuagint and Psalms 95 if you're reading the Masoretic text. And we're all familiar with this story. But what has always been something about the story that didn't quite sit right with me?

God walking his people around in circles in the desert for 40 years. That's a long time. And then we see in what seems to be a fit of anger, he swears that they will not enter into the promised land. This always seemed to me like a rash and rather harsh decision until that is I honed in on this passage right here, "Where your fathers tested me and tried me and saw my work for 40 years." In light of this passage, this was not a quick or rash decision.

Your fathers tested me and they tried me and they saw my work for 40 years. Therefore, because of that reason, I was angry with that generation. Think about the 40 years that God's talking about here. I can hear God the Father chastising them. "How have you so soon forgotten? How do you not remember where you came from? How do you be so disobedient and faithless after so much has been done for you? Do you not remember that you were slaves in Egypt, but I set you free?

I said to Pharaoh, 'Let my people go, or I will turn your water into blood.' He refused to release you, and so I did that for you. I said, 'Let my people go, or I will cover your land with frogs.' And he refused, and so I did that for you. I said, 'Let my people go, or I will infest your land with lice and flies. I will bring pestilence to your livestock. I will cover your people with sores and boils. I will pulverate you with hailstorms.

I will darken your skies.' He continued to refuse, and so I did all of these things for you. Finally, I said, 'Pharaoh, I've had enough. Let my people go, or I will take from you your children. I will take from you and your people, all your firstborn. He refused to set you free. Therefore, I did even this for you. I took his children. How have you so soon forgotten?' Finally, after all that, you were set free." But did I stop there? Not at all. "I gave you favor in the eyes of the people.

You asked for gold, and they gave it to you. You asked for silver, and they gave it to you. You asked for clothing, and they gave it to you. You went from slavery to freedom, and with that, in that one transaction, you took with you plunder and spoils. That doesn't happen. I did that for you. And when the army was approaching from the rear and the Red Sea was before you, I opened up the mouth of the Red Sea and I led you through. And when your enemies came to follow you, I swallowed them with the Red Sea.

And in the desert, I put a pillar of clouds before you during the day and a pillar of fire to lead you during the night. And from the sky, it rained down manna from heaven. I fed you. And when you wanted me, I brought you quails. And when you were thirsty, I gave you water out of a rock in the middle of a desert. And when you were sick and injured, I put a snake on a pole. And when you looked at it, you were healed.

After all of this, after all of that, finally, I brought you to the promised land, the land of milk and honey. But what did you do? You sent in spies. And the spies reported honestly. God is no liar. The land is indeed full of milk and full of honey. But there's a problem. Their men are big and strong. Are you kidding me? Their men are strong? After all I have done for you, you're afraid because their men are strong? For 40 years, you have seen my work.

Your hearts, they have been hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. They're always going astray. When I had enough with Pharaoh, I took from him his children. And now I've had enough with you, stiff-necked people. I swear in my wrath, you will never enter my rest. All except for you, Joshua and Caleb. For only you were not mixed. And as for you, Moses, don't you know you represent me? I commanded you to speak to the rock, not to strike it.

Because you did not trust me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not enter the promised land either." Chrysostom said, "But being struck with terror," talking about the Israelites, "just as if nothing had been done, they said, 'We wish to go back to Egypt, for God has brought us out to die with our children and wives.' God, therefore, being angry that they had so quickly cast off the memory of what had been done, he swore in his anger that the disobedient generation should not enter

his rest.

And they all perished in the wilderness." Now, in verse 16 through 19, they're very important. Paul goes into the specifics of the nature of these sins against God. And we're going to be looking at those next week. But before we wrap this up today, I would like to look back at verse 12 and think of one final thought. It's a scary thought to think about. The idea of God making a decision that someone has lost all hope of entering his rest while that person is still alive.

Those that God said wouldn't enter his rest, they didn't just drop dead. They lived on. But there was no hope for them to enter the promised land. The question is appropriate. Is this passage in any way saying that this can happen to us today? Are there things that we can do that can cause us to lose all hope of eternal rest, to still be alive but have no hope? Let's look at verse 12. "Beware." That can also be warning or danger.

"Beware, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief and departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily." Notice, this is a command. "Exhort one another." How often? Every day while it is called today. Question for you. Pay attention. This is a tough one. Is it today? Yes. Paul says, "If it's today, we need to be exhorting each other." Why? To avoid the risk of any of you being hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. And this is good news for us.

This means that if we hear his voice today, then it's not too late for us to repent. If we hear his voice today, it is not too late for us to avoid this risk of having a hardened heart. And verse 8 tells us that the hardened heart was the exact reason that they were not allowed to enter into the first place. "Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, where they hardened their hearts, and I swore they would never enter my rest." So that's the answer to the question. Can this happen to us? No.

And it all hinges on this phrase in the verse just before this one, verse 7, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as they did in the rebellion." Chrysostom, commenting on this passage, he said this. "And he said, 'Today, so that they might never be without hope. Exhort one another daily,' he says, 'while it is called today.' That is to say that even if a man has sinned, as long as it is today, he has hope.

So long as a man is alive, he should not despair, for the fact that he is still alive means that there is hope." Most importantly, Paul said this, "Let there not be an evil heart of unbelief. But even if this does happen, let that man not despair. Let him instead recover himself. For as long as we are in this world, the today is in season." And we have just been told to exhort one another every single day. And so this is my exhortation to you.

If you have committed some sin, you're struggling with something, even if it's a horrible or sinister sin, do not despair. Instead, recover yourself, for the today is in season. And if today you hear his voice, this means that you don't have to be like the fathers who were not able to enter into his rest. And that brings us to the end of our passages today.