Bible Dictionary
POINTS
The expression in all points means in every respect or in all things. It emphasizes that Christ shared human experience and temptation, yet remained without sin.
Definition
The expression “in all points” means in every respect or in all things. It emphasizes the extent or completeness of a condition, experience, or comparison.
Biblical Usage
Ecclesiastes uses the expression for the helplessness with which a person leaves the world, regardless of what he has gained. Hebrews uses it of Christ being tempted in all things as people are, yet without sin.
Historical Background
The phrase includes bodily, spiritual, and human experience. The discussion notes that Christ shared human nature and experience while lacking sin as a source of temptation.
Related Figures
Historical Bible Dictionaries
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE)
<p>points: The word occurs in Ec 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.</p><p>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.</p><p>M. O. Evans</p>