“For we don’t have a high priest who can’t be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.” Hebrews 4:15
The child of God, spiritually taught and convinced, is deeply
sensible of his infirmities. Yes, that he is encompassed with
infirmities—that he is nothing else but infirmities. And therefore
the great High Priest to whom he comes as a burdened sinner—to
whom he has recourse in the depth of his extremity—and at
whose feet he falls overwhelmed with a sense of his helplessness,
sin, misery, and guilt—is so suitable to him as one able to
sympathize with his infirmities.
We would, if left to our own conceptions, naturally imagine that
Jesus is too holy to look down in compassion on a filthy, guilty
wretch like ourselves. Surely, surely, He will spurn us from His
feet. Surely, surely, His holy eyes cannot look upon us in our
blood—guilt—filth—wretchedness—misery—and shame. Surely,
surely, He cannot bestow one heart’s thought—one moment’s
sympathy—or feel one spark of love towards those who are so
unlike Him. Nature, sense, and reason would thus argue, “I must
be holy, perfectly holy—for Jesus to love—I must be pure,
perfectly pure—spotless and sinless, for Jesus to think of. But that
I, a sinful, guilty, defiled wretch—that I, encompassed with
infirmities—that I, whose heart is a cage of unclean birds—that I,
stained and polluted with a thousand iniquities—that I can have
any inheritance in Him—or that He can have any love or
compassion towards me—nature, sense, reason, and human
religion in all its shapes and forms, revolts from the idea.”
It is as though Jesus specially address Himself to the poor,
burdened child of God who feels his infirmities, who cannot boast
of his own wisdom, strength, righteousness, and consistency—but
is all weakness and helplessness. It seems as if He would address
Himself to the case of such a helpless wretch—and pour a sweet
cordial into his bleeding conscience. We, the children of God—we,
who each know our own plague and our own sore—we, who carry
about with us day by day a body of sin and death, that makes us
lament, sigh, and groan—we, who know painfully what it is to be
encompassed with infirmities—we, who come to His feet as being
nothing and having nothing but sin and woe—we do not have a
High Priest who is unable to sympathize with our infirmities, but
One who carries in His bosom that sympathizing, merciful, feeling, tender, and compassionate heart!
– J.C Philpot