126. I. Sympathy Through Common Suffering.

I. Sympathy Through Common Suffering.

1. A True and Deep Law of Sympathy.—It is not assumed, nor could it be successfully maintained, that common suffering is a necessary condition of sympathy. Such a capacity seems intrinsic to our own nature wholly irrespective of any personal suffering. It is a fact of the Scriptures that holy and ever happy angels sympathize with us in the misery and peril of sin. Only with such sympathy can they have Joy in our repentance and salvation. Here we have an instance of very real sympathy without any ground in common suffering. The compassionate love of the Father, a love in profound sympathy with us, was the deepest source of the great plan of human redemption. Also, before the incarnation and suffering of the Son he was in loving sympathy with us.

It is none the less a truth that suffering, and particularly suffering in common with others, is a very real law of sympathy. Few, if any, are without the personal experience which verifies this law. Innumerable witnesses could testify to its reality. More readily, and as by the attraction of a special affinity, we go for sympathy to those who have suffered; for the deepest sympathy, to those who have suffered as we suffer.

2. Law of the Sympathy of Christ.—There is the same law of sympathy in Christ. This is not a speculation or mere inference, but an explicit truth of Scripture. And it is a truth to which the Christian consciousness is gratefully responsive. As in the exigencies of our trouble and sorrow we turn to Christ for his helpful sympathy, the fact of his own suffering in our nature, and in a manner so like our own, is ever most assuring.

It is proper that we here present this law of his sympathy in the light of the Scriptures. A few texts will suffice for the presentation. “For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted” (Hebrews 2:18). There are other like words: “For we have not a high-priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). Immediately preceding these words the duty of fidelity to the Christian profession is strongly enforced. “Seeing then that we have a great high-priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession” (Hebrews 4:14). Such a characterization of our great High-priest as the Son of God, and as having passed into the heavens, might readily suggest a doubt whether one so remote in his exaltation and greatness could still have a helpful sympathy with his disciples in the sore trials incident to their Christian profession. Hence, as if in apprehension of such a doubt, there immediately follow the words, as previously cited, which give the fact of his own former sufferings as the ground and warrant of his ever-abiding sympathy. This law of his sympathy is thus specially emphasized.

3. The Law Appropriated in the Incarnation.—Our previous discussion of the incarnation supersedes any requirement for its formal treatment here. All that we further need is to point out and briefly illustrate the fact stated in our last heading, that it was through his incarnation that Christ appropriated the law of his sympathy with us.

It seems clearly the sense of Scripture that a special purpose of the Son in the incarnation was that through a participation in our suffering he might have the deeper sympathy with us. It was in the incarnation that he was made a little lower than the angels; and therein he entered into the profound suffering which he endured (Hebrews 2:9). A special reason for all this is immediately given, which means the truth here maintained: “For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings” (Hebrews 2:10). Other verses follow which are replete with the same truth. Through the incarnation the divine Son entered into a real brotherhood with man. In this brotherhood there is sympathy with us in our sufferings (Hebrews 2:11-16). He thus met all the requirements for the work of our salvation: “Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high-priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted” (Hebrews 2:17-18).

It is thus manifest that the divine incarnation, with its result in the personality of the Christ, furnishes the real ground of his sympathy. Hence, if we would reach any proper apprehension of his sympathy we must view it in the light of his incarnation.

4. Thorough Appropriation of the Law.—The divine incarnation was very real; therefore the appropriation of this law of sympathy was very thorough. We need not here renew the formal discussion of the incarnation; yet a few facts which directly concern the present question may properly be specialized. The divine Son assumed a real human nature. The facts, as given in the Scriptures, allow no place for the early Gnosticism which denied this reality and held the human form of Christ to be a mere phantasm. On the truth of such a theory there could have been no divine appropriation of a law of sympathy with us. The theory openly contradicts the facts of Scripture. In proof of this we need only to recall the appropriate texts, most of which were previously cited. “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same.” “For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh” (John 1:14; Hebrews 2:14; 2 John 1:7). It seems quite impossible to mistake the meaning of such explicit words respecting the reality of the human body of Christ. In the incarnation the divine Son assumed, not only a real human body, but also a human soul, the soul and body thus constituting a complete human nature. This is, at once, the sense of Scripture and the doctrine of the Church. Accordingly, the Church repudiated the Apollinarian heresy, which, while conceding to Christ a real body, denied to him a human mind, and assumed to provide for its functions in his life by the offices of the incarnate Logos. It was no such defective form of human nature that the divine Son assumed in the incarnation. The historic life of Christ can have no interpretation without the presence of a human mind. The phenomena of such a mind are just as manifest in his life as the phenomena of a body of flesh and blood. Further, without the presence of such a mind there could be no sufficient ground for the sympathy of Christ. Many of our own experiences in which we so much need his sympathy have their seat in our rational and moral nature. Hence the need that the “reasonable soul” should constitute a part of the nature assumed in the incarnation. It was only in a personal union with the human mind in his incarnation that the divine Son could appropriate the law of sympathy through a common suffering with us. This law he did fully appropriate by the assumption of our complete nature.

We here emphasize another point previously made. The human nature assumed in the incarnation suffered no change in consequence of this assumption. Again we meet an opposing and perverting heresy, the Eutychian, which assumed a transmutation of the human nature into the divine. With such a result there could be no place for the human facts in the life of Christ; no place for the experiences which are the ground of his sympathy. This heresy was rejected by the Church, and the truth was maintained, that the human nature assumed in the incarnation remained unchanged. With this truth the ground of the sympathy of Christ remains complete. In the incarnation the complete human nature was taken into personal union with the divine. Here again there was an opposing heresy, the Nestorian, which denied the union of the two natures in the personal oneness of Christ, and held that in the historic Christ there were really two persons, the Son of God and a human person. Between the two, as thus distinct in personality, there could be only a spiritual communion. Consequently, there could be no sympathy of the Son through a law of common suffering with us. But, with the personal oneness of Christ in the union of the two natures, the ground of his sympathy remains complete. The life of Christ is replete with instances of suffering in the likeness of our own. His sufferings were manifold and in him were fulfilled the prophetic utterances of Isaiah: “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). He suffered trials even from his chosen disciples. Much more did he suffer the contradiction of hostile minds. Malignant eyes were ever upon him. Scribe and Pharisee, priest and people, were combined against him in hatred and persecution. Deep were his trials from the opposition of the wicked. There is profound meaning in the words: “For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds” (Hebrews 12:3). These trials were such in kind as the disciples of Christ were called to suffer; for otherwise there could have been no power in his example of patience to fortify their minds with a like power of endurance. His own words picture to us other forms of trial: “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20). Here again is the meaning of such trials as often enter into human experiences; only, the meaning is specially profound in the application of the words to Christ. Nor may we infer that his transcendent character in anywise rendered him indifferent to such forms of trial. With such loftiness of character his sensibilities were all the more acute.

Still, there are differences between Christ and ourselves which may suggest some doubt respecting this law of sympathy. One is that, whatever his temptation or trial, there was in him no evil tendency, while in us there is such a tendency. How, then, can he sympathize with us in our conflict with such a tendency, since there was no such experience in his own trials? The law of his sympathy is not deficient at this point. The profound reality of the divine incarnation still provides for its sufficiency. In the assumption of a complete human nature into a personal union with himself the divine Son entered so deeply into the consciousness of human experiences that, without any evil tendency of his own nature, he can sympathize with us in our conflict with such tendencies. We may instance his temptation in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11). In this temptation he knew in his own experience the intense appetence of very real hunger. He thus knew the appeal of worldly power and glory, and the solicitation to an irrational presumption upon the providence of God. All this must be admitted, or we sink these temptations into a mere appearance, with the consequence, that Christ was not really tempted in the wilderness. A solicitation in the sensibilities and an inclination responsive to its gratification are distinct facts, and the entire absence of the latter does not affect the reality of the former. While these forms of temptation found nothing responsive in the nature of Christ, as too often they do in our own, still he knew in his own experience their power of solicitation. These trials were so very real in the experience of Christ, and so comprehensive of the forms of our own trials, that they constitute in him a very real and profound law of sympathy with us.

There is another suggestion of doubt respecting this law of sympathy. It arises from the fact that we have forms of trial of which Christ had no experience. There are spheres of life into which he never entered, and hence he could not know in his own experience the precise forms of trial peculiar to these spheres. This is the view. It is true that in one text of Scripture the law of Christ’s sympathy is based on an experience of trial as broad and diverse as our own: “For we have not a high-priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities ; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). This, however, need not be interpreted in an absolute sense. Nor is it necessary that Christ should have entered into all the precise forms of our own trial in order to sympathize with us in all. We find in ourselves the power of sympathy with others in forms of trial peculiar to themselves, and the more deeply as we ourselves have suffered, though not in precisely the same form of trial. So his trials were so multiform and deep, and so thoroughly in the cast of our own, as to constitute in him the profoundest and most comprehensive law of sympathy with us. When we add to the many trials of his life the severe sufferings which crowded its closing hours the law of his sympathy with us is manifestly complete.