Hebrews 4:15-16: Tempted in Every Way

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Hebrews 4:15-16 (NIV)

Tempted in Every Way

Ten past five, and she calls the only person she knows who has been where she is. She hasn’t slept and hasn’t washed and has nothing to report except that it’s happening again and she can feel the shape of it coming.

The other woman picks up on the second ring. She doesn’t ask her to start at the beginning and she doesn’t say any of the things people say. She doesn’t bring up how the last one ended, and she doesn’t pretend to have forgotten it either. What she says, about four minutes in, is that the third day is the worst one and then it isn’t, and she says it like somebody reading a number off a gauge.

We have a high priest who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, and who did not sin. Hebrews says that to people who were weighing whether to let go of the faith they had professed.

Jesus knows what the pull feels like from inside a body that wanted things. He was tempted in every way we are, and he came out the far side of it without sin, which means he is the only one who has been all the way down that road and all the way through.

Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Hebrews sends people toward a throne, and it tells them what’s waiting there when they arrive.

A time of need is the hour a person is least presentable and most certain he ought to wait until he’s in better shape. Hebrews puts the throne right there and calls it a throne of grace. Mercy for what’s done, and grace to help with what’s coming. Both of them are at that throne, and the letter tells you to walk up.

I don’t know how anyone checks whether he’s approaching that throne with confidence or out of habit. I’ve never found a test for it from the inside, and I go anyway.

Nothing about the day changed because of the call. She got two things out of it that she could not have got anywhere else: nobody was surprised at her, and somebody told her what was coming. She made it again at ten past five the following week.