 |  |
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 Heb. 5: 13 we find the negative, apeiros, where it is translated
"unskillful", 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" (Numb. 14: 23 LXX).
The reader will recognize the influence of this LXX rendering in Heb. 5: 13, 14,
where the unskillful "babe" is contrasted with the "perfect" or mature, who discerns
"good and evil".
As they stand, the words "yet without sin" in Heb. 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
Matt. 19: 6 and Rom. 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 Heb. 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 journey through the wilderness of this world,
as he presses on to perfection; it does not refer to, or include, those temptations to sin
which are only possible to those who have within them the effects of the Fall.
Our examination of the usage of the words "tempt" and "temptation" in the epistle to
the Hebrews leaves us without any doubt but that the apostle had in mind the temptations
that beset "pilgrims and strangers" in maintaining their "confession" or "profession", and
that the words "Tempted in all points like as we are" are limited to that aspect of truth. It
would be neither fair nor sound exegesis to suppose that there is no other aspect of this