Points

POINTS [ISBE]

POINTS - points: The word occurs in Eccl 5:16, "In all points (`ummah) as he came, so shall he go"--a man leaves the world in all regards as helpless as he entered it, no matter what he may have gained or accomplished during his life.

Also in Heb 4:15, "In all points (kata panta, "in all things," as in His human nature (Heb 2:14), so in His human experience (compare Heb 2:17,18)) tempted like as we are, yet without sin." He successfully resisted temptation at all points of His nature, in body, soul, and spirit. See TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. Westcott (in loc.) thinks that the reference is not so much to Christ issuing out of all His trials without the least stain of sin, as to "a limitation of His temptation. Man's temptations come in many cases from previous sin. Such temptations had necessarily no place in Christ. He was tempted as we are, sharing our nature, yet with this exception, that there was no sin in Him to become the spring of trial." Whichever interpretation is adopted there is profound insight into the things of the soul in joining sinlessness with fullness of experience of temptation.

M. O. Evans