Hebrews 2:1–18

In verse 3 the word "neglect" carries the thought of not caring for God's great salvation while they were inside the Christian company, having professed faith. It is not merely neglecting the Gospel when it was preached to them.

The whole of professing Christendom is drifting away from the truth. Men will preach and listen to anything — on industrial questions, social topics, political questions, anything and everything — so that it is not Christ. "How shall we escape" says the writer, who associates himself with them — how should anyone escape, who neglects this great salvation? Notice here it is neglect, not open hostility.

The law came in with displays of Divine majesty — lightning and thunder, an earthquake, and Mount Sinai seen on fire. Above all, the people heard the voice of God, and it terrified them. What had now taken place to equal that? A Man had been here, and He had spoken — not in tones of thunder that terrified those around Him, but in a still small voice. And He had been crucified. Yes. But He was a Messenger of the Lord of Hosts, the God of their fathers, who had once spoken amid all those displays of majesty at Sinai. So a Messenger greater than any angel had appeared.

It is far more serious, beyond any comparison, to despise grace brought in by the Head of all glory. No idea is more contrary to truth than that grace makes light of evil — that the gospel is a softened or watered-down law. Man, and man under law, had been proved wholly bad and ruined beyond repair. Only then did God send His Son and lay the entire burden on Him.

Note this: it is a great salvation. It is not the limited, partial, poor salvation that some men make it out to be — one that saves only those who help to save themselves, or saves them for a time and then lets them lapse and be lost again. It is a salvation worthy of God Himself, and only that finished, faultless work of Christ on the cross could produce it. We are all great sinners. Our guilt was great, our need was great, and only a great salvation could be of any use to us.

Salvation was only beginning to be announced while He was here on earth. The work of atonement had not yet been touched; His death at the end accomplished it, and nothing else could. Yet salvation did begin to be spoken of when the Lord started His public ministry. Luke 4:16 and following is the beautiful witness of this. There He read Isaiah 61:1-2 in the synagogue of Nazareth, and stopped at the acceptable year of the Lord. The day of vengeance will certainly come in its season, but not until He comes again. It is salvation now.

That argument looks shallow. Suppose Paul is the writer. He joins himself with the Hebrews he is addressing, outside the field of his own apostolic work, and that fits the task in hand exactly. The first person does not mean that he had heard it. It means that when the message began to be spoken, those who heard confirmed it "to us." In fact he marks himself off from those who heard the Lord.

Is this great salvation what so many are despising and rejecting? Few will say, in plain words, that they are rejecting it, but many will admit that they are neglecting it. Be sure of this, dear reader: neglect comes to the same thing as rejection in the end. There is no escape from eternal ruin if we keep on neglecting Christ, in whom alone salvation is found.

The Psalm quoted adds "all sheep and oxen," and "whatever passes along the paths of the seas" (Ps. 8:7-8), showing that this "world to come" does not mean heaven, nor yet the "new earth" in which "the sea was no more" (Rev. 21:1). The word used for "world" is one which always means the inhabited earth. This world, then, is to be brought into complete and absolute subjection to Christ.

The inspired writer calls the miracles that were signs to unbelievers in the Gospel's early days on earth "powers of the age to come." They were partial testimonies of the energy that will mark the future age. Then the Lord will heal all diseases as surely as He forgives all iniquities, and the creature will be set free and joyful instead of groaning in bondage as now. This is a defined future age, and Heb. 2:5 calls its scene the habitable earth to come. That description rules out the present age, and it rules out eternity too. It is not heaven but the earth — the earth not dissolved, but placed under the rule of the glorified Son of Man.

In one sense God has placed the present world in subjection to angels. He uses them as instruments to carry out His providential government, protecting the heirs of salvation as they pass on their way to glory. In the world to come the angels will give place to the rule of the Son of Man.

The fall of man separated him from God, and that is what introduced this ministry. It is a passing state of things, not an eternal one. Purpose and counsel are for eternity, and they were there long before all that sin introduced… Angels were never the objects of purpose and counsel. But man was… As a system of service under God — with man as its object — the angelic race gives place to God Himself. His counsel and purpose are to find His own delight in man without their help. I have no doubt the ministry of angels goes on now. But the saints have something greater: they have communion with the Father and with the Son.

God gave Adam dominion over the earth (Genesis 1:28). But sin came in, and death also, and that dominion and rule was lost. The glory and honour that rested on Adam turned into shame and dishonour. Through man's fall Satan became the usurper, the prince of this world. Adam was the figure of Him that was to come, the Second Man in whom and through whom the lost dominion is restored.

This world below, dear friends, is not our world. We have another, and Christ will be its chief, its centre, and its joy — "the world to come, of which we are speaking," says the apostle. And may God grant that this separation becomes real and visible in all the details of life, in our everyday circumstances, so that we may be able to say, "Our life is hidden with Christ in God."

First of all, Scripture declares that the angels are not the future rulers of this earth when it enters the era of blessing still ahead of it... That "world to come" means the earth during the Millennium. It is the time when evil will be put down and the glory of God's kingdom will be shown in full. Men have longed for that period. Israel was taught by the prophets to long for it. Scripture says here in plain words that the angels will not be lords and masters over it at all. God has not put that in subjection to them. On the contrary, "One in a certain place testified."

It is touching that the inspired writer of Hebrews will not say David "testified in a certain place." How well he knew that a greater than David was there!

"What is man" — any man, great or small — "that you are mindful of him? or the son of man" — man in the abstract, the ideal man — "that you visit him?" We might well say that of man as the creature of God. In one sense he is one of the least of God's creatures, so far as certain standards go.

The eighth psalm shows man as made a little lower than the angels by nature. But it shows more. If God remembers him at all, that is a matter of His condescending grace. The glory of God fills the heavens above his head. That is what makes the psalmist ask in astonishment how God can visit this fallen son of man. The answer is plain: God is not occupied with fallen man, but with Another altogether.

People sometimes answer that question like this: man is a sinner. He has dishonoured God, degraded His holy Name, and dragged His glory in the dust. That shows the awful state he had fallen into. All of this is true. Yet it is not the answer of Psalm 8, and it is not the answer of Hebrews 2. Jesus crowned with glory and honour, and set over the works of God's hands, is the answer.

This Psalm is quoted three times in the New Testament. Hebrews 2:6 shows that it is as man He is exalted. 1 Corinthians 15:27 establishes that it is as risen. Ephesians 1:22 brings in the church as sharing with Him — He the Head over all things, and it the fulness of Him who fills all in all.

According to Hebrews 2:6, the prophecy is not yet accomplished. But the church already holds the pledge of its final completion, in the partial accomplishment of what is still to come. All things are not yet put in subjection to Jesus. In the meantime Jesus is already crowned with glory and honour — certain proof that what remains will be fulfilled in due time.

When the Psalmist looks up at God's glorious handiwork in heaven, he asks, "What is man, that you are mindful of him?" But of whom is he speaking? As the apostle tells us in the second chapter of Hebrews, he speaks not of the first man, but of the Second Man. "We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor." In Christ the true ideal of man becomes real. The first Adam was only a passing image of Him, and in many respects the contrast.

Here the angels are not only surpassed beyond comparison, but have no place whatever. It is a question of subjection and of rule; but this is not for angels. They serve; they never reign. Man is called to rule, to have dominion. God was looking on to His Son, the Son of man. For Him the habitable earth is destined. God has not made it in vain.

In chapter 2 the emphasis lies upon the Manhood of the Lord Jesus. He became a Man with a view to the suffering of death. God so made man — spirit, soul and body — that he could die, when the spiritual part of him separates from the body. In this respect man was made a little lower than the angels. Now the Son of God has become the Son of Man in so real a sense that as a Man He has taken up the death penalty and died for men. From this standpoint He has been made a little lower than the angels, for angels never die.

"A little inferior to the angels for the suffering of death"; "a little" refers to the degree rather than time. Jesus went down to the lowest of creation to be able to grasp it all.

Man's condition is a little lower by creation. But more than that, Christ as Son of man is made that. This is a true descent. The word used for "angels" really means "gods" — it is Elohim, the ordinary word for "God" — and that double sense matters here. He was God indeed, and He came down to be a little lower than God.

Aaron wore these beautiful robes only once, at the ceremony that set him apart as priest. After his two elder sons failed, he had to appear before God from then on in only the linen coat and trousers. The garments for glory and beauty had to be laid aside as a memorial of what might have been. In Hebrews 2:7 we read of Jesus, who is our High Priest, being "crowned with glory and honour." His garments of glory and beauty are never laid aside, since He is a Priest for ever. What a contrast!

Adam received lordship over the creatures straight from the hand of God. Christ, the Son, the Man of Psalm 8, takes it only after being made lower than the angels, so that as man He might taste death for it.

The first man could not hold the gift of dominion, because he himself was the defeated slave of sin and death. It has passed into the hands of the second, with heavenly addition. The language of Psalm 8 describes the dominion given in paradise, but it reaches much further. All things there are put under the rule of man. Things in heaven as well as things on earth belong to God's gift to Him.

Notice where the quotation stops. The psalm goes on to add words that seem to limit the "all things" set under His feet to the things on earth and in the sea. For the moment, the Old Testament view went no further than that. But in our chapter, as soon as we turn from the quotation to the explanation, a far wider range of things comes into view. We are told to give the little word "all" its full value, without the least shadow of qualification. Search the universe, and you will find nothing that is not put under Him.

His rule will have no limits at all. It will be as wide as the whole universe. Nothing is left out, as Paul teaches, except Him, God the Father, who put all things under Him (1 Cor. 15:27).

But Adam was a picture of Him who was to come (Rom. 5:14). The first man could not hold the gift of rule, because he himself had become the defeated slave of sin and death. That gift has now passed into the hands of the second Man, with heaven added to it. The language of Psalm 8 describes the rule given in paradise, but it means far more than that. All things are there made subject to the rule of man. For in that Psalm the Spirit has the second Adam in view, not the first.

So here the writer of the letter to the Hebrews explains the eighth Psalm to his readers and says: we see now that this has not yet been fulfilled. This does not contradict Ephesians, where the same Psalm comes up and where it says that He has put all things under His feet. In Ephesians we have God's settled purpose. That purpose is that all things will be put under the feet of the glorified Christ, and when God purposes something it is as good as done. But here in Hebrews 2 the writer is speaking about timing.

We do not see all things put under Him. But we do see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honour. We see that half done, but not the other half.

Are we then to complain because, while Christ is on high, we do not yet see all things subjected to Him? He is crowned with glory; but Satan is still the god and prince of the world, so all who have faith meet hostility — and the more faithful they are, the more hostility they meet.

Even those who claim to be His followers show very little sign of being really subject to Him. The truth is that we live in a time when there is very little to see, unless we have the telescope-like sight that faith gives.

So He is raised to the highest seat, and that is the pledge of all that is to follow. For now we do not yet see all things put under Him, but we do see Him crowned with glory and honour. And we know from elsewhere why He has not yet entered that immense and glorious inheritance. He is waiting for all the joint-heirs to be called out. He will give them the inheritance at the same moment that He takes it Himself, for if children, then heirs — heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ.

We do not yet see everything this psalm announces: that all things should be put under His feet. But a part is already fulfilled, and this is a guarantee to the heart that the whole will be. Made a little lower than the angels to suffer death, He is crowned with glory and honour. He has suffered death, and He is crowned as the reward for His work. By that work He perfectly glorified God in the place where God had been dishonoured. And He saved man — those who believe in Him — where man was lost.

He has rights because of His suffering — He tasted death for everything (Hebrews 2:9). He is now crowned with glory and with honour. The cross entitles Him to the crown.

"But we see Jesus." This is faith's language. We see with the eyes of a believing heart. What we see is the Person of the Son of Man at the right hand of God. Since it is truth, then truth in the heart responds to it. He chose to be made a little lower than angels, though in nature He is infinitely higher than they are. Now He is crowned with glory and honour.

It was "for the suffering of death" that Jesus was made lower than the angels. What a low abasement for the Son of God! What was Adam's highest honour was only the first immeasurable step down for God's Fellow. That descent for our sakes ended in the grave. Death has no power over angels. It never reached so high. Its prey is man. God appointed it so, judging His sinful creature with a penalty that could be paid — if only someone fit could be found to stand in his place.

His work had to be real, matching the responsibility He had taken on Himself. It also involved the glory of God in the place where sin was. So He had to suffer; He had to taste death. It is by the grace of God that He did so — we, because of sin; He, because of grace for sin.

How blessed and exact are the words added: "that He by God's grace should taste death for every thing"! This rendering, rather than "man," seems to suit the drift of the context best. It means the whole sphere — not just a universe, but "every thing" that His death brings under its reconciling power. The following verse brings in persons, and different language is used there.

Both things are blessedly true of the death of Christ — He died for all, and by the grace of God He tasted death for every man. But according to the teaching of Scripture, only believers are entitled to say that He bore their sins in His death on the cross. That claim involves faith in His work. It also involves the benefits of His death coming to those who have that faith.

That word "became" means it was consistent with all that He was. It was suited to the character of God. Look at what He was going to do. He was going to bring people to glory. That was God's great object. And whom is He going to bring to glory? Many sons. He is not satisfied to bring a few men to glory, nor even to bring many. When they are brought to glory they are to be in an eternal relationship of sonship with Himself. We can easily imagine God redeeming us without bringing us into the relationship of sons. He might have given us a distant place in His glory. But God's thoughts go far beyond that. He will have a family of children around Himself.

A Saviour from sin must be a sufferer. Power alone is not enough. The divine nature has its own necessities, and they set the terms on which divine power goes out... All things look to Him in their origin and their end... The moral conditions required a penalty. God's holiness must be vindicated at personal cost, but God's love is set on bringing sons to glory. There could be no perfecting of His blessed Person. But the conditions required for becoming a Saviour had to be met.

Archegos means "beginner, leader." In Acts 3:15 it is "prince" (the margin says "author"): the Lord Jesus is the originator of life. In Hebrews 12:2 the Lord Jesus is the "leader" and completer of faith. He began and finished the whole course. In Hebrews 2:10 older English versions read "captain": He was "leader" of their salvation through suffering.

The Captain or Leader of the band must therefore pass through those sufferings Himself. Notice one point here. David was the captain of his band, and he suffered much. But he and his followers suffered together, so from time to time they must have met new experiences. Our Captain suffered it all first, and in doing so He did not stop short of death.

It was not His Person that had to be perfected, for He is perfect. But He had to be perfected through suffering as a Saviour... Before the foundation of the world, knowing the coming ruin of man, He purposed to bring many sons to glory. This is divine love.

It was fitting for Him to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. "Perfect" here means the full result of glory: to bring Him into the state of a glorified Man, if He would bring sons to glory. In Himself He was the perfect One. He is always in the bosom of the Father.

It was fitting for the glory of God to give you a perfect Saviour. Do you believe it? What thoughts rise in the soul when we come to that! Do you have Him, so that you are never tempted, even in a single thought, to look beyond Him? We have a salvation that cannot be questioned and cannot fail, one that will stand the shock of every coming day.

Christ by His finished work has set apart His people to God. That is what sanctification mainly means in this letter. It does not mean the work of the Spirit in our hearts — that is the sanctification of the Spirit. There is also the Father's sanctification, you might say, in His choosing us in Christ before the world was made. That would be sanctification according to the purpose of God. But the sanctification spoken of here is mainly the work of Christ. That work has cut us loose from Satan and sin forever, and set us before God as His ransomed people.

This wonderful expression seems to point to this. Christ came into our position and bore the consequences. He has truly brought us into His position before God, as Man. So He and His own — the Sanctifier and the sanctified — are seen as one company before God. It is worth noting, though, that the Word of God never says of Jesus and of men that they are all one. It says that "He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all of one."

If we say "of the same mass," we can push the expression too far. It would sound as though He and the others were of the same nature as children of Adam, sinners together. In that case He would have to call every man His brother. But He gives that name only to the children God has given Him, the "sanctified" ones. But He and the sanctified ones are all as men in the same nature and position together before God. When I say "the same," it is not in the same state of sin, but the contrary.

Here is the "Firstborn among many brothers," and everything in the passage assures us that "of One" or "out of One" means "of one Father." Yet there is an infinite difference. So it is divine love in Him that makes Him recognise and welcome "brothers" like these. He is the divine Son; they are only human. He is the Sanctifier; they are the sanctified; yet He is not ashamed of them.

I hold back from saying flatly that the "one" spoken of here refers to the Father, because that is not the general theme of this letter. Yet there is no doubt of a strong case that this may be just the meaning, for He speaks of them as His brothers.

You might suppose that no such fellowship could exist, since He is the Sanctifier and they are the sanctified. But it does exist: "That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers." He never called them that until He became a man. And even then He did not use the name in full until He was a man risen from the dead.

They are of one Father — He by very nature and title, we by His infinite grace. By nature it would be impossible for Him to call us brothers. But through the power of His perfect salvation He is not ashamed to do so. Let us say it again: He does this in grace. For us to call Him "Brother" would be an unfitting abuse of that grace.

It is a wonderful psalm. The first part is occupied with the cross, where our blessed Lord was made sin for us. At the very depth of His anguish you find Him forsaken by God and persecuted by men. His hands and feet are pierced as He is nailed to the cross. And yet, in the middle of all that, after the cloud of divine wrath has passed, we hear Him say that God has heard Him. And so He dies. After He has finished the work of redemption, giving up His spirit to the Father, you find a blessed contrast. It is no longer one who is forsaken, nor even one who has cried to God and been heard. Instead we hear a strong, sweet, mighty Voice telling out the praises of God among those whom He calls His brothers.

As God was not ashamed to be called the God of the fathers, so Christ is not ashamed — I do not say to be called Brother, but — to call us, the children, brothers. It is His relationship, which He nowhere extends to man as he is, nor even to His own disciples though born of God, until He rose from the dead. Before then the most He said was quite vague: "Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother." As risen, He sends the new message: "Go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"

"Your name" — what name? When bearing sin He speaks of God. When looking on to deliverance, or in enjoyed relationship, the godly Israelite speaks of Jehovah. But in the New Testament, God remains God and must always be the Judge of sin. Father is the characteristic term of a relationship. The Son of God knew that relationship from eternity, and knew it just as truly as man — but in a truth and fullness that belonged to Him only.

He declares the Father's name to us, and He leads His brothers' praises to the Father. It is the declaration of the Father's name that produces worship in the hearts of His brothers, and this He presents to the Father as an offering.

The time had not yet come for Messiah's praise of God in "the great congregation." That is Judah and Ephraim in their full twelve tribes, when all the ends of the earth will also remember and turn to Jehovah. Verse 22 is plainly different. The Spirit who inspired the letter to the Hebrews applies it now. The truth of it came true that evening. Jesus came, though the doors were shut for fear of the Jews. He stood among the assembled disciples and said, "Peace be with you." The Psalm stresses the united praise of the assembly which Jesus Himself leads as "in the midst." He is in the midst wherever two or three are gathered to His name. How unbelieving, then, to doubt that He will lead our praise!

Christ is singing the praises, but He raises the song of praise as the result of His own place and ours being the same. He comes and brings us into this place and says, I will sing in the midst of the assembly. He went down into the place of death and drank the cup of wrath. Then He comes out into all the blessedness of His Father's delight — not only as His eternal delight, but as having done the work for God. He comes out and tells us His name, and then says, "you must come and sing with me."

The degree to which we realise this joy, the sweetness and volume of the note we add, of course depends on our spiritual state. But no note that is not founded on the perfect peace and joy of redemption is at all in tune there.

In Hebrews we never find the body of Christ as such referred to. We have the church, but even when the word "church" occurs, it is the church quite generally, as in Hebrews 2:12, or viewed in the units that compose it — not at all in its unity.

"I will put my trust in Him." This is quoted in Hebrews 2 to prove His humanity. Two things make a man perfect: dependence and obedience. Both were in Christ. They are the opposite of what was in Adam when he sinned. Christ was always the dependent and obedient One. Independence is sin: there is the principle of sin in it.

Three passages in the Greek Old Testament contain the words quoted in Hebrews 2:13… In both the other places where the same words occur, the speaker knows he has been delivered. In Isaiah 8 it is not so. Now the Lord's deliverance came in resurrection. We cannot suppose He would use such language after that event. So we believe the second quotation in Hebrews 2:13 comes from Isaiah 8, where the speaker is a dependent, trusting man, just as here.

Taking a position as Man, the Lord identified Himself with His own in the only proper life for a man to live — the life of dependence upon God.

Notice again that His own unique distinction is stated first. This makes the wonder and beauty of His grace in joining Himself to His saints even greater. He receives these children as a gift from God. He uses a similar expression when, speaking as the Divine Son of God, He says, "I have manifested Your name to the people whom You gave Me out of the world" (John 17:6). In the first case they are a gift from God because of His sufferings and death. In the second they are a gift from the Father to His Son because of the eternal worth of His Person.

On the passage, "Behold, I and the children God has given Me," I would just point out that though we often hear people talk about Christ's children, this passage does not call them that. On the contrary, part of the apostle's argument is that they are Christ's BROTHERS. They were God's children. God, as their Father and as His Father, gave them and entrusted them to Him. So He became their elder brother and guardian.

The quotations from Isaiah 8:17-18 connect the godly in Israel with Christ, the great prophet, on His path of reliance on God, away from all the unbelieving alliances of men. They are not linked to Him as His brothers, for they were not yet marked out that way. Nor are they exactly His children. They are the children whom God gave Him. This is the righteous remnant joined to the Messiah, morally separate from the rest of the nation.

He and the children Jehovah gave Him — the One who sanctifies and those He sanctifies — are for signs and wonders, while He is a rock that both houses of Israel stumble over… He was as truly man as He was Jehovah, and we who are given to Him reap the blessing of both facts joined in His person.

The last quotation is from Isaiah 8:18. The children the Lord had given to Isaiah were for signs and wonders in Israel from the Lord. The two sons of Isaiah had received their names, full of meaning, from heaven. Believers are children. They belong to Him. They are signs and witnesses both to unbelieving Israel and to the world… And some day, in the day of His glory, He will declare in triumph, "Behold, I and the children God has given Me."

The children were flesh and blood; that is, they were really men. Notice the difference in wording here, which points to what the original says. The children are partakers — that is, they belong to the order of flesh and blood; they are simply human. He too became fully man. But the word used of Him suggests that He came into it from outside, in grace: "He Himself likewise partook of the same things." He came into the human sphere. It was apart from sin, of course, but He shared in it and joined Himself to man.

Christ really took human nature, though not in a state identical with ours... but He took it so that He could die.

Boaz acts this out in the Book of Ruth. That picture shows how necessary it was for the Lord Jesus to take up perfect Manhood, apart from sin. So He "partook" of "flesh and blood," as Hebrews 2:14 says, so that by death He might annul the devil's power over us. If He had taken hold of angels only, He could not have filled the picture as our Kinsman-Redeemer, or paid the price that was needed.

Satan had the judicial power of death. He got it through man in Eden, who deliberately took his word instead of God's... So death was God's judicial sentence on man. Satan was tied to it so closely that Scripture says he had the power, or authority, of death. Satan in that way was the executioner of God's judgment upon man. And how he has used his authority! How he has held the fear of death over people's heads!... Satan is master of man's religion, and you will find that the fear of death drives most of it.

Death is possible for man since he is a partaker of flesh and blood. His blood can be shed, his flesh can decay, his spirit can return to God who gave it — and none of this is possible for angels... What could destroy (that is, annul or bring to nothing, make of no effect) the devil and the power he wields? One thing only. Nothing but DEATH could annul death. And it must be the death of a MAN to annul death for men.

The Son of God became man, as the children were men, so that He could meet Satan in his last stronghold, death. By dying He drained Satan's power away for those who, under law, lived all their lives troubled by fear in their conscience... Satan is no longer to the believer the King of terrors. Christ has disarmed the enemy by submitting to death, and his power is gone for ever for His own.

Satan used all his power through death. Christ gave Himself wholly to that. In the resurrection of Christ all Satan's power was over — it is Christ's work that annuls it.

The Lord by His death has annulled his power (Heb. 2), but death itself is not yet done away with; it will be the last enemy to go... Still in himself Satan remains, having the power of death, and death itself is not gone... but the Christian is not truly under his power at all.

The natural man fears death, for "it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment." A brave man may not fear physical death. But no man is brave enough to think of the judgment of Almighty God without trembling. It is the judgment after death which "makes cowards of us all." Our Lord bore that judgment in His death, and so removed its curse from us.

The devil knows that the wages of sin is death. He is quick to use this solemn truth to keep the sinner in fear of death and its consequences all his life. The Lord, on whom death has no claim, goes into death and bears the death penalty that was on us. So He robs the devil of his power to terrify the believer with death.

Incarnation is a blessed truth, but here it is only the means to the end specified. When it is misused, as it often is, it clouds and shuts out that death which defeats the enemy and sets the captives free. That death is the true ground of God's righteousness, because there alone was sin judged definitely and in grace toward the guilty.

Nothing but the death of Christ could bring to nothing him who had the power of death; nothing else could deliver all those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

He is not only glorious in heaven. He has also conquered Satan in the very place where Satan held his sad rule over man, the place where the judgment of God lay heavy on man.

Death has two very distinct characters: as the wages of sin, and for God. While it is the witness of man's sin, yet because of the death of the Lord Jesus death is now one of our servants. All things are ours, whether life, or death, or things present, or things to come. Death is for us now as it was against us before, because Christ has tasted death.

Instead of our enemy, "the king of terrors," death has become our servant. It opens the door to our Lord's presence, where we enjoy sweet communion with Him while we wait for the resurrection of the body.

This means deliverance for those who were "all their lifetime subject to bondage" — the bondage of sin, by which Satan had wielded his power over mankind. "The sting of death is sin," and as long as that question stayed unsettled, "the fear of death" held souls in bondage. He is speaking of believers, of course. Unbelievers know nothing of the present deliverance from this fear and bondage that all who trust in the precious blood of Christ enjoy. Notice too that this bondage is during "lifetime," not after death. Even the unsaved are not in such bondage after death. Satan can exert no more authority over them.

Even His own people in Old Testament times were in bondage, more or less. When Hezekiah was told to set his house in order because he would die, he wept bitterly and begged God to spare him. In a certain sense he was in bondage.

Many versions translate verse 16 wrongly, and none perhaps worse than our own Authorised Version. The sense is completely changed. The verb is given a past form instead of the present tense... The word means to lay hold of, especially when it is used with a genitive, as it is here. Never does it mean to take a nature... The Holy Spirit here goes on to Christ's making a special object, not of angels but of Abraham's seed. Why Abraham rather than Adam? It is because of another truth. It is no longer the taking on of human nature, but the cause He undertakes for them.

The word used here means "to take hold of." It has been said that "it is constantly used for 'taking up a person to help him,' though in other senses as well." What amazing grace this is, when we see what it involved. He took a part in flesh and blood, which is the common lot of mankind; and He took it so that He might die.

And shall I say He gave all this to every human being? Scripture does not say so. Suppose it had said, "He takes hold of the seed of Adam." Then everyone who has human nature would have to be saved, and would have to be brought in as a co-heir of this glory. But it is said, "Of the seed of Abraham He takes hold." And who are they? Those who are of faith.

Hebrews 2 shows this plainly. On the one hand, since the children shared in blood and flesh, He also Himself took part in the same, in the same way. On the other hand, He does not take up angels; He takes up the seed of Abraham (or the children spoken of, those who believe). So He became man to die for men; He did not become an angel to die for angels... The holy angels do not need it; the fallen ones await their everlasting doom.

An angel has no need of mercy, of grace, of forgiveness, of divine righteousness, of a sacrificing priest, or of power that holds him up in weakness and raises him from the dead... Now grace and redemption, patience, mercy and divine righteousness do not apply to a state like that. To fallen man they do.

We may well thank God that the Lord takes hold of the seed of Abraham! We who were once Gentiles could never be members of the privileged nation. But all true believers are certainly members of a privileged class — the seed of Abraham. The Lord has taken up their cause, and He has borne their sins.

If He takes us up, He must take us up with all our burdens too. He must charge Himself with us, from the place of our ruins to the place of His glories... the Son, who is the Christ, made the interests of chosen sinners (here called "the seed of Abraham") His care. He charged Himself with their blessing. He kept them in view in all His ways and doings, until He takes them into the glory... In all the successive parts of His history, from the first to the last, He never lets them go.

He suffered — never yielded. We do not suffer when we yield to temptation; the flesh takes pleasure in the things by which it is tempted. Jesus suffered being tempted, and He is able to help those who are tempted. … But when, in the light of the Holy Spirit and in faithful obedience, the Spirit resists the attacks of the enemy, whether subtle or persecuting, then one suffers. This is what the Lord did, and this is what we have to do.

Notice too, in Hebrews 2:18, "in that He Himself has suffered being tempted" — there never was anything else. It is not that He suffered after being tempted, which a man may do who yields and then repents. There could not be distress of conscience in the Lord Jesus, any more than the workings of unbelief that we may feel. He suffered in His entire moral being the sufferings of holiness and grace. He loathed and rejected everything the enemy set before His holy nature… There was no sin in Adam and Eve when they were tempted, so fallen humanity is not necessary to temptation. And when our first parents were tempted, there was no suffering: they yielded. Christ, the last Adam, is the contrast. He was tempted far more, and yielded in nothing. He met every assault with the word of God, instead of letting it slip and breaking it as they did.

Temptation means trial. In Christ's case it never means what is in fallen man — the inward pull toward evil. This is what the Holy Spirit expressly denies of Him. … We are too familiar with the human and selfish argument that He could not sympathise with us properly if He was free from those inward, evil workings. … But suppose we needed the Lord to face the same inward struggle to feel fully with us. On that ground we would want Him to have yielded, as we so often have, so He could sympathise with our failures. No — that ground is completely opposed to Christ. What the word reveals as the remedy for evil within and without, in every form and degree, is not Christ's sympathy but His propitiatory suffering for us. He sympathises with us in our holy temptations, not in our unholy ones.

"Able to help," as in Hebrews 2:18, does not refer to strength, though of course strength must be there. It means knowledge He gained by experience — of the opposition, the difficulties and the trials on the road. So He could understand them and be touched by them. He gets for us all the grace and help we need for the way down here.

…verse 18 plainly mentions this second service, His help for His people… The tempted. Then there is One on high who is specially interested in them and ready to help all such. No one can say, "No one cares for me." Someone may cry with the psalmist, "No refuge remains to me; no one cares for my soul." Then, thinking of the Lord, they must say with him, "You are my refuge" (Psalm 142:4-5).

These early chapters of this great Epistle attribute three things to the "Great High Priest." In Hebrews 2:18 "He is able to help." In the section we are considering He is "able to sympathise." Then "He is able also to save," Hebrews 7:25.

He proved Himself in lowly experience — He suffered rather than yielding to temptation. So He is Himself a strength to His suffering people. He can give grace so that they bear temptation rather than give way to it. Having such a High Priest, what a shame that we should ever give way when tempted.