---

I. We learn from these words ONE IMPORTANT END OF THE TEMPTATION OF OUR DIVINE REDEEMER. It was to give us an assurance of sympathy and aid under the pressure of such trials as we must all of us expect.

1. Now I am speaking only to those who believe in the Divinity of the Saviour, and that what He took upon Him was "human nature." Now, the nature which our Divine Redeemer took upon Him was not that nature which Adam had after his fall. It was not a nature in which the higher principles were in bondage, and from which the light of the Divine presence was withdrawn, but the original human nature which Adam had in the early days before his fatal disobedience.

2. The trials He underwent were the trials incident to such a nature. There are, you know, some circumstances which we cannot imagine to present temptation to any but a very badly constituted being. There are other circumstances which cause trial quite independently of such considerations, and others, again, which can be afflicting only in proportion to the completeness of the subordination of the rest of the principles to the conscience, and of the whole to Divine influence. For instance, to say that a man was severely tried by being placed in circumstances in which he would have to abstain from theft, would be to express a low opinion of him. But to say that he was severely tried by being placed in a position where he should do without food, would imply no such estimate of his character. Why not? Because it would be natural to him to desire food.

II. From what has been said, it will appear THAT OUR TRIALS RESEMBLE CHRIST'S, JUST IN THE SAME DEGREE THAT OUR NATURE RESEMBLES HIS. Our Divine Redeemer came to do very much more than save us from the punishment of sin. He came to save us from its power. He came to renew our nature by restoring to it what it had lost. We Christians are spoken of as "renewed in the spirit of our mind" — as "having put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." St. Paul exhorts the Colossians to the abandonment of certain sins on this distinct ground — "seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds," &c. Now, it is just in proportion to our progress towards this ideal of a Christian that our trials will resemble those of our Lord and Master. In a word, the trials of the serious are those which resemble Christ's. These trials are principally of two kinds. One kind is that which consists in the patient endurance of afflictions, which must, from the nature of the case, cause pain and sorrow — afflictions which no degree of holiness could prevent us from feeling while they last. In cases of this kind the Saviour's example certainly teaches us the power of endurance with which man is endowed. The other class of trials peculiar to the serious are those which address themselves to their zeal for the service of the Most High. In trials of this kind, where serious men fear, that they may be hindering, the spread, of God's dominion" among men — by not going with the times (as men say) in religious matters of doctrine or worship — the history of our Redeemer's temptation is peculiarly instructive. Every one of the proposals of Satan seemed for the glory of God and the furtherance of the ends the Redeemer had in view. To work a miracle was not merely to appease the pangs of hunger, but to prove Himself the Son of God. To cast Himself from a pinnacle of the temple was at once to give evidence of His reliance upon the Most High and to impress the assembled Jews with the belief that their Messiah had appeared among them, as they expected, from heaven, and had "suddenly," as was predicted, "come to His Temple." To secure the kingdoms of the world was an end which might for a moment seem to justify the use of almost any means. And yet it was in this proposal — the proposal to secure the greatest ends by the adoption of unlawful means — that the tempter was unmasked. In a word, we are supported by the remembrance of the Redeemer's trials in all cases where we have declined to" make the end sanctify the means? — where we have declined to "do evil that good may come." We are taught that when God has appointed means to an end, we cannot gain that end — His end — by other means; that when He has ordained a time, we must not — while acting in accordance with His regular appointments — be impatient of delay. We are taught to endure the constant taunts — the utterances of zeal without knowledge, or of thoughtlessness without either — to endure being called indifferent to our Master's cause! We are taught to hope on, and to be firm, amid all the clamorous calls to encourage disorder, ecclesiastical lawlessness, heresy, schism, to promote what we think wrong — or else, forsooth, see "sin triumphant and Jehovah conquered!" We are taught, I say, to reject the temptation, as we hear the voice of our Divine Redeemer saying to us through the record of His trials, "Be still, then, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the heathen; and I will be exalted in the earth."

(J. C. Coghlan, D. D.)

---

---

KJV: For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.

WEB: For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted.