----- Original Message ----- 
From: "H Dorrington" <hjdinfl@...>
>"He too shared in their humanity so that by His death
> He might destroy him who holds the power of death."

Precisely.  It's not possible to "share in their humanity" outside of
placing oneself under the demands of the law.  No verse is more
hermeneutically abused in this regard than Hebrews 4:15.  Without getting
into the structure of the argument in Hebrews, 4:15 is
organically/thematically tied to Hebrews 2:14-18 and contextualized by
Israel's disobedience at Kadesh-Barnea.   Rather than "tempted" understood
within the nature of "sin", too often it is moralized into some kind of
"sympathetic" experience of the human experience.

"Tempted" is grounded in the Law and cannot be understood any other way.  So
when the writer of Hebrews says he "partook of the same things" and he was
"made like his brothers in every respect" the mandate of the Law is
included.  "Tempted" has absoutely no meaning outside of the Law.

Further, the writer of Hebrews by using the word "tempted" in chapters 2 and
4 is 1. invoking the imagery of the garden, and 2. calling to mind primarily
Christ's temptation in the wilderness.  IOW, Christ partook of the same
temptation of the First and Corporate Adams.  And this is the context for
4:15... Corporate Adam stood at the threshold of its Corporate Garden, given
the promise of a Sabbath rest (hmm... more evidence that the seventh
day/Sabbath -- notice the writer of Hebrews uses those two terms
interchangeably -- was the promise of a higher life), was tempted, and
disobeyed (4:1-8).  The Corporate Adam's disobedience was a covenantal
disobedience that resulted in a failure to obtain salvation (the sabbath
rest)... and the Last Adam's "temptation" of verse 15 is juxtaposed over
against the Corporate Adam's disobedience.  His life of suffering through
temptation (2:18) is salvific (2:10), culminating in a death that destroyed
the tempter of the First Adam and Corporate Adam (2:14).  And the writer
doesn't end this "temptation" discussion in chapter 4.  He more explicitly
states that the substance of Christ's suffering was obeying the Law (5:8) to
perfection (5:9 via Matthew 5:48, Lev. 19:2) in order that he could be the
source of eternal salvation.  Christ's perfection in keeping the law then
sets up the writer's use of the same word to show the impossibility of
obeying the law to perfection under the Old Covenant (7:11, 19, 28).

Hebrews 2, 4, 5, & 7 explain more fully the statement made by Paul that the
reconciliation of salvation comes through Christ's life (Romans 5:10),
Christ's own words (Mark 10:45, John 10:11,15,17, John 14:6), and Paul's
argument that Christ's life is salvific (2 Cor. 4:9-12).  There is a life
that Christ gives because of the cross/resurrection (Col. 3:4), but this
shouldn't be confused with Christ's present tense statements during his
ministry (Mark 10:45, John 10:11,15,17, John 14:6) in which he states that
his present life laying down is a ransom for the sheep.

Chad Bresson
Xenia, OH