The Word of God
“For the Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an High Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:12-15).
The apostle sets before us the instrument that God employs to judge the unbelief and all the workings of the heart that tend to lead the believer into departure from the position of faith, and that tend to hide God from him by inducing him to satisfy his flesh and to seek for rest in the wilderness.
To the believer who is upright in heart this judgment is of great value, for it is that which enables him to discern all that has a tendency to hinder his progress or make him slacken his steps. It is the Word of God which, as the revelation of God and the expression of what He is and of what His will is in all circumstances that surround us, judges everything in the heart that is not of Him. It is more penetrating than a two-edged sword. Living and energetic, it separates all that is most intimately linked together in our hearts and minds. Whenever nature—the soul and its feelings—mingles with that which is spiritual, it brings the edge of the sword of the living truth of God between the two, and judges the hidden movements of the heart respecting them. It discerns all the thoughts and intentions of the heart. But it has another character: coming from God, it brings us into His presence, and all those things that it forces us to discover it sets in our conscience before the eye of God Himself. Nothing is hidden; all is naked and manifested to the eye of Him with whom we have to do.
Such is the true help, the mighty instrument of God to judge everything in us that would hinder us from pursuing our course through the wilderness with joy. What a precious instrument this is: solemn and serious in its operation, but of priceless and infinite blessing in its effects and consequences.
It is an instrument that, in its operation, does not allow “the desires of the flesh and of the mind” (Eph. 2:3) liberty to act. It does not permit the heart to deceive itself. Rather it procures us strength, and places us without any consciousness of evil in the presence of God to pursue our course with joy and spiritual energy.
Our Great High Priest
But there is another help, one of a different character, to aid us in our passage through the wilderness. We have a High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God. He has in all things been tempted like ourselves, sin apart, so that He can sympathize with our infirmities. Christ of course had no evil desires. He was tempted in every way, but apart from sin. Sin had no part in it at all. But I do not wish for sympathy with the sin that is in me; I detest it; I wish it to be mortified—judged unsparingly. This the Word does. For my weakness and my difficulties I seek sympathy; and I find it in the priesthood of Jesus. It is not necessary, in order to sympathize with me, that a person should feel at the same moment that which I am feeling—rather the contrary. If I am suffering pain, I am not in a condition to think as much of another’s pain. But in order to sympathize with him I must have a nature capable of appreciating his pain.
Thus it is with Jesus when exercising His priesthood. He is in every sense beyond the reach of pain and trial, but He is Man. Not only has He the human nature which in time suffered grief, but He experienced the trials that we have to go through more fully than any of us has. Thus His heart, free and full of love, can entirely sympathize with us, according to His experience of ill, and according to the glorious liberty that He now has to provide and care for us. This encourages us to hold fast our profession in spite of the difficulties that beset our path, for Jesus concerns Himself about those difficulties according to His own knowledge and experience of what they are, and according to the power of His grace.
(From Synopsis of the Books of the Bible.)