`Your fathers tempted ME' (Heb. 3:9), said God.  Now whatever questionable views we may entertain

concerning the temptation to which our Lord was subjected in the days of His flesh, no such thoughts are possible

when we consider the words `Your fathers tempted ME'. It is not only repugnant to common sense, but contrary to

positive Scripture, that God can, by any possibility, be `tempted' to, or by, evil. `God cannot be tempted with evil'

is the categorical statement of Holy Writ (Jas. 1:13); consequently we are immediately faced with a fact concerning

`temptation' that must influence our views of Hebrews 2:18 and 4:15.

If we had continued the quotation of Hebrews 3:9 we should have read, `When your fathers tempted Me, proved

Me, and saw My works forty years'. `Proved' is dokimazo, `to test, try as a metal'. This meaning is borne out by the

passages in Hebrews 11, `By faith Abraham, when he was TRIED (peirazo `tempted'), offered up Isaac' (verse 17).

Shall we say that God tempted Abraham to sin when He made the great demand concerning Isaac? God forbid:

Scripture positively declares that God never tempts man to sin (Jas. 1:13), and a reading of Genesis 22 reveals that

this `temptation' was a `testing' of Abraham's faith, `Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not

withheld thy son, thine only son from Me' (Gen. 22:12).

The context of the references to temptation in Hebrews 2 and 4 introduce such words as `succour', `sympathy'

(`cannot be touched with') `infirmities', but we can scarcely speak of `sympathy' and `infirmities' when we speak of

`sin' as it appears in Scripture.

The word translated `succour' (Heb. 2:18) and `help' (Heb. 4:16) occurs once more in Hebrews 13:6, `So that we

may boldly say, The Lord is my Helper'. This is associated, not with `sin' or `forgiveness', but with the promise

that the believer would never be forsaken and in connection with `what man shall do' unto us, not what we might

inadvertently do ourselves.

Another word which occurs in Hebrews must be included in our examination and that is the word peira. This

occurs twice in Hebrews:

`By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land: which the Egyptians assaying (making the attempt) to do

were drowned' (Heb. 11:29).

`Others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings' (Heb. 11:36).

In neither passage can the idea of `tempting' be discovered. In the first passage `attempt' gives good English

and incidentally reveals that in our own mother tongue the word `tempt' means a `trial' or an `attempt'. The second

reference (Heb. 11:36) is but a variant of the word translated `tempted' and needs no comment.

To complete the tale of occurrences of peirazo in Hebrews, one more reference must be included. In Hebrews

5:13 we find the negative, apeiros, where it is translated `unskilful', which accords with the classical rendering

`untried' and `inexperienced' and with the LXX usage.

`Surely they shall not see the land, which I sware to their fathers; but their children which are with Me here, as many as

know not good or evil, every inexperienced (apeiros) youth, to them will I give the land' (Num. 14:23 LXX).

The reader will recognize the influence of this LXX rendering in Hebrews 5:13,14, where the unskilful `babe' is

contrasted with the `perfect' or mature, who discerns `good and evil'.

As they stand, the words `yet without sin' in Hebrews 4:15 suggest to the English reader `yet without sinning', as

if our Lord was actually tempted to steal, to murder, to commit adultery, but resisted. We only allow ourselves to

write this in order to bring this doctrine and its consequences into the light, for there is no necessity so to translate or

interpret the words choris hamartias. In his Lexicon, choris is rendered by Dr. Bullinger `apart; asunder'. It comes

from chorizo `to put asunder', `to separate', as in Matthew 19:6 and Romans 8:39. In Hebrews itself we read

concerning the Saviour, that He was `holy, harmless, undefiled, separate (chorizo) from sinners' (Heb. 7:26).

Dr. John Owen quotes the Syriac Version of Hebrews 4:15 as reading `sin being excepted'; J.N. Darby and

Rotherham read `sin apart', `apart from sin'.

The positive witness of the epistle to the Hebrews as a whole, and of this expression in particular, is that the

temptation referred to in the words `tempted in all points' relates to the testings and trials of the pilgrim on his