For he has not subjected to angels the habitable world which is to come, of which we speak;
The writer has just warned his readers not to drift from the message the Lord spoke. Now he looks ahead to a coming world, and two questions open up: what world is meant, and if not angels, then who will rule it?
The word behind "world" always means the inhabited earth, and the psalm quoted just after this verse keeps the picture at ground level:
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 phrase also marks off a period of time, sitting between the present age and eternity. The same letter calls the miracles of the early days "the powers of the age to come" — a taste in advance of what is still ahead:
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.
The verse denies angels the coming rule, which implies they hold a place in the present one:
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.
Angels minister to man because man fell. God's purpose runs further back, and further forward:
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.
This rule over the earth is not a new idea. It goes back to the first man:
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.
The writer takes for granted that his readers talk about this coming world:
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."
- Earth, not heaven. The word means the inhabited earth. Psalm 8's sheep, oxen and seas keep it there — a future age on this same earth, not heaven and not eternity.
- Angels now. Today God governs from behind the scenes. He uses angels to guard the heirs of salvation on their way.
- Man then. Rule in that coming age passes from angels to the Son of Man, and this world comes into complete subjection to Christ.
- Purpose behind it. Angel ministry to man began after the fall, and it will pass. God's purpose was always set on man, and it brings us into communion with the Father and the Son.
- Talk that follows. The Second Man recovers Adam's lost dominion — so those who belong to Him talk about that coming world, and hold this one lightly.
but one has testified somewhere, saying, What is man, that thou rememberest him, or son of man that thou visitest him?
Hebrews 2 has just said that the coming world was never handed over to angels. Verse 6 proves the point by quoting an old question from the Psalms about how small man is. Two things stand out. The writer never names the man he quotes, and the answer to the question is not the one most people would give.
The quotation is placed here to settle who will rule the world that is coming. One commentator ties the two verses together closely:
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."
The words come from Psalm 8, yet Hebrews names no human author:
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!
The question has two halves, and each names man in a different way:
"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.
(Older translations read "visit him," where the ESV has "care for him.")
Man's fall makes the question sharper still:
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.
The obvious reply to "what is man?" is a list of human failures:
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.
Hebrews is not the only place that quotes this Psalm. Each quotation presses a different point:
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.
The rule this Psalm describes is not visible yet. That gap does not weaken the promise:
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.
- Question — God did not put the coming world under angels. So the writer quotes Scripture to show whose it is.
- Witness — Hebrews leaves the speaker unnamed. What matters is that God said it, not that David wrote it.
- Smallness — "Man" means anyone; "son of man" means man as God intended. Measured against the heavens, he is one of God's least creatures.
- Grace — If God remembers and visits such a creature at all, that is condescending grace. The astonishment is the point of the question.
- Answer — The reply is not a verdict on human sin. It is a Person: Jesus crowned with glory and honour, with all things still to be put under His feet.
Thou hast made him some little inferior to the angels; thou hast crowned him with glory and honour, [and hast set him over the works of thy hands;]
Hebrews 2 is quoting Psalm 8, which asked why God takes any notice of man at all. The verse holds a stooping down and a crowning, and everything turns on who this "him" is.
The psalm sounds at first like a description of people in general.
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.
The subject here is rule, and that settles the angels' place at once.
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.
This raises an obvious question: how can the Son rank below angels at all?
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.
The word "little" can mean a short time or a small distance. The ESV takes it as time — "for a little while." The writers quoted here follow an older translation and read it as degree.
"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.
The word behind "angels" in the psalm carries more than one sense.
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.
The same pair of words describes the robes made for Aaron, Israel's first high priest — garments "for glory and for beauty."
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 once held rule over creation and lost it. The Second Man receives His by a different route.
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.
What He receives is also larger than what was lost.
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.
- Descent — "A little lower" is a real going down. God Himself came to be lower than God, taking the one thing angels never share: the ability to die.
- Death — He went lower for a reason: the suffering of death. That is also the road to the crown.
- Crown — His glory carries the words used of Aaron's robes, worn once and then put away. Christ never lays His aside, because His priesthood never ends.
- Dominion — Adam received rule and lost it. The Second Man takes it through death, and takes more: heaven as well as earth.
- Sight — What faith sees now is Jesus, once made lower than the angels, already crowned with glory and honor.
thou hast subjected all things under his feet. For in subjecting all things to him, he has left nothing unsubject to him. But now we see not yet all things subjected to *him*,
The verse quotes Psalm 8, but stops short of where the psalm itself stops, and the writer then presses the word "all" as far as it will go.
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.
Another writer names the one thing that word "all" does not cover:
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).
The "him" of the psalm is a man. That matters, because God first gave rule over the earth to a man who lost it.
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.
Elsewhere the Bible speaks of this subjection as already done. Commentators explain that the two statements look at it from different angles.
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.
One writer holds Psalm 8 up against what our eyes can check today.
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.
So should we complain about the gap between the crown and the world we see?
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.
That includes what we see among Christ's own followers:
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.
One writer explains what the Heir is still waiting for.
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.
- Decree. God has already put everything under the Son of Man. The word "all" carries no limit — the one exception is God the Father, who did the subjecting.
- Man. Adam was given rule over the earth and could not hold it. That gift has passed to the second Man, and heaven has been added to it.
- Delay. Ephesians gives God's purpose; Hebrews gives the timing. Both are true — the purpose is settled, but not yet on display.
- Sight. What we do see is a world where Satan is still god and prince. So faith, not eyesight, is how the believer holds the promise.
- Waiting. He has not yet entered the inheritance. He is gathering the joint-heirs, and they will receive it with Him on the day He takes it.
but we see Jesus, who [was] made some little inferior to angels on account of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; so that by the grace of God he should taste death for every thing.
Psalm 8 said God would put everything under man's feet, but no one sees that world today. Verse 9 answers with a different sight: one Man, already crowned, and the death that brought Him there.
The psalm has not failed. Part of it has already come true, and that part guarantees the rest.
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 did not merely receive the crown. He has a right to it.
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.
The "seeing" in this verse is not the ordinary kind of sight.
"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.
One reason took Him below the angels. That reason also shows why no angel could take His place.
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.
Every person tastes death. The words "by the grace of God" show why His tasting of it was not like ours.
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.
Commentators differ over the last words. The ESV reads "for everyone." An older translation reads "for every thing," and some hold that the wider sense fits the context best.
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.
That wide reach raises a question. Does it mean every person can say their sins were borne?
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.
- Down. He was made lower than the angels for one reason — death. Angels are beyond death's reach; only a man could die, and He became one to do it.
- Death. We taste death because of sin; He tasted it by grace, for sin. The same experience, opposite causes.
- Reach. That death touches "every thing" — the whole scene that will come under His feet. But only faith in His work lets a person say He bore my sins.
- Crown. The glory is the reward of the suffering, not a substitute for it. The cross is what entitles Him to the crown.
- Sight. We cannot yet see all things under Him. We can see Him. That half-fulfilled psalm is the guarantee that the rest is coming.