The Throne of Mercy

Well, we have finally reached the last post in the informal series on the temptation of Christ. I suppose, alternately, that I could keep going or that I should have stopped awhile ago. In any event, I hope you can suffer through one more.

This post will have little to do with the actual scene of the temptation, though, in fact, this post is in every way contingent on the temptation. I am focusing again on the verses from Hebrews chapter four that I highlighted in the previous post. They are as follows:

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (4:14-16, ESV)

I have had verse 16 (the final sentence) memorized for years. (Perhaps I am about to highlight the importance of reading Scripture in its entire context and not merely picking verses out that sound nice.) There is a subtle problem, however, in reading verse 16 as if it does not follow immediately on the heels of verses 14-15 and, indeed, the entire preceding text of Hebrews. The problem is that I claimed verse 16 as truth after I had sinned. I would sin, want to beat myself up, but then be reminded that I can draw near to throne of grace with confidence and receive mercy and find grace. Boom. I feel better.

The context of the verse, though, does not speak specifically about the time after we have sinned, but the time before we sin, the time when we are struggling through the temptation. Verse 15, in all of its splendor, tells us that our high priest, Jesus, was tempted in every way we are and kept from sinning despite the temptation. Therefore, the contextual meaning of verse 16 is not that we will receive mercy and find grace after we have sinned, but that because Christ was able to stare down temptation and not sin we can now receive mercy and grace to help us in the time of temptation, so that we will not sin.

Now I want to be careful here about what I am saying and what I am not saying. I am not saying that God does not provide mercy and grace for us after we have sinned. He gives us grace upon grace and thanks be to God that he does. I am not saying that because we have this grace we can now be perfect. We are, in a sense, dualistic creatures, at war within ourselves. Perfectionism is nasty theology. What I am saying is that we are also met with grace before we sin. When temptation is pounding us and we just want to give in, we don’t have to. Because of Jesus we are no longer bound to sin.

This truth is all over Scripture, but it has overwhelmed me in the past couple of years. My assumption used to be that God’s grace was an after-the-fact type of grace. We sin and mess up and then go to God and he patches us up. Verses like this affirm that grace is also a before-the-fact type of grace. We are met before we sin and God tells us that because of Jesus we can find the grace we never could before to choose not to sin, to resist temptation.

This, perhaps, is the greatest lesson for me from the temptation of Christ. Because of Christ’s example in refusing to succumb to temptation, I am freed by his grace and sympathy to withstand temptation myself. I can change and choose the Father because the Son showed me the way.