Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Hebrews 4:15

"For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all points tempted like as [we are, yet] without sin." — Hebrews 4:15 (ASV)

Our High Priest has entered into our weakness and so can sympathize meaningfully with us. He “has been tempted... just as we are” may mean “in the same way as we are tempted” or “by reason of his likeness to us”; both are true. There is another ambiguity at the end of the verse where the Greek means “apart from sin.” This may mean that Jesus was tempted just as we are except that we sin and he did not. But it may also mean that he had a knowledge of every kind of temptation except that which comes from actually having sinned. Perhaps the writer was not trying to differentiate between the two. At any rate his words can profitably be taken either way. The main point is that, though Jesus did not sin, we must not infer that life was easy for him. His sinlessness was, at least in part, an earned sinlessness as he gained victory after victory in the constant battle with temptation that life in this world entails. In fact, the Sinless One knows the force of temptation in a way that we who sin do not. We give in before the temptation has fully spent itself; only he who does not yield knows its full force.