We have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God.
We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses.
Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
        - Hebrews 4:14,15,16

The Lord Jesus Christ, our never-failing Friend, Who effected redemption on earth, is now our Great High Priest in heaven. Because He was tested in all points like we are, sin apart, He is able to sympathize with us in and to succor us from the sorrows and distresses that ever and anon assail us as we journey to the heavenly land.

Carefully note that it is with our infirmities that He sympathizes; not our sins. What, then, are "infirmities"? The simplest definition is that they are the sinless consequences of sin; and in the main they are three in number: the sorrows of life; physical limitations; and bereavement. Job is the outstanding biblical illustration of one who had all three of these infirmities—grief, sickness, bereavement; but although he was sustained in his trial he had no sense of sympathy, and this was the thing that so greatly distressed him (Job 16:1,2). Today, however, we are assured that our Great High Priest now in the heavens is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and that He comforts those that mourn.

The method by which we may experimentally realize the infinite treasure which is thus within our reach is described in the next verse, where we are exhorted to come to Him. The congregation of old was commanded to stand afar off (Exodus 19:12). We are now commanded to draw near. What only the high priest of Israel could do once a year, every Christian may do every moment of his or her earthly life.

Israel's representative was silent in the presence of God; we are invited to come with "freedom of utterance," for that is the meaning of the word translated "boldly." With humble and unquestioning confidence we are to come just as we are, to state exactly how we feel, to ask precisely what we want.

The high priest of old came to a symbolic mercy-seat (Exodus 25); we come to a throne at which mercy and grace are shown in regal majesty: mercy for the failures of the past, and grace for every hour of need.

It is generally admitted that the last phrase in verse 16—"grace to help in time of need"—would be more correctly translated "grace for timely help." Another translates it "grace in the nick of time." Help in time of need may be illustrated thus: A child is knocked down in the road by a swiftly passing vehicle. A tenderhearted doctor, passing at the time, takes charge of the injured child and attends to all his needs until at last he is well and strong again.

Timely help is a very different matter. It is as though that same doctor, seeing the child in danger of being run over, rushed forward and at just the moment saved him out of danger. This is the grace of which the verse speaks. We have a High Priest who watches with tender care all who come to God by Him, and with Him there is grace to keep us in the hour of temptation, to keep us from falling and to preserve us blameless. It is this grace that we obtain at the throne of grace.

There is also, thank God, grace to help if, through unwatchfulness and lack of dependence on the Lord, the Christian sins and falls. There is grace to restore such a one; for "if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). He can bind up the wounds and make the bones that are broken to rejoice, and His grace will never fail.

George Henderson