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.
For it became him, for whom [are] all things, and by whom [are] all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make perfect the leader of their salvation through sufferings.
Hebrews 2 has just shown Jesus crowned with glory and honor after He tasted death. Verse 10 asks why God chose that road. The answer is not that suffering was unavoidable. It was fitting. It matched who God is.
The verse starts with God's own character, not with our need. One writer explains the word, then follows it to the goal God had in view:
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.
The verse names God as the One all things come from and exist for. So why not lift people to glory by sheer power? One writer answers that God's own nature sets the terms for what His power does:
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.
The ESV says "founder." Older translations say "captain." One Greek word lies behind both, and it is used of Christ elsewhere:
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.
A leader goes ahead of his people. How far ahead did this one go? One writer compares Him with David, who led a band of followers through hardship:
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.
The phrase troubles many readers. How can the sinless Son be made perfect? Every writer here agrees that nothing was lacking in Him, but they stress it differently. One puts the perfecting in His work as Saviour:
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.
Another ties the word to the outcome God had in view:
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.
God Himself set what a Saviour must be. So the Saviour He gives meets that standard:
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.
- Fitting. The cross suited God's own character. God chose that road by what He is, not only by what we needed.
- Sons. The goal was never a distant place in glory but a family: many sons, in eternal relationship with Himself.
- Suffering. Power alone could not do it. God's holiness had to be vindicated at personal cost. So a Saviour from sin had to be a sufferer.
- Leader. The word means beginner and leader. He starts the salvation. Unlike David with his men, He went through every suffering first, all the way to death.
- Perfect. Nothing was added to His Person. God perfected Him as Saviour and Leader. Commentators differ on where the stress falls: on His fitness to save, or on His place as glorified Man. Either way, we get a salvation that will stand every coming day.
For both he that sanctifies and those sanctified [are] all of one; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren,
Hebrews has just called Jesus the leader of salvation, brought to glory through suffering. Now it says He and the people He saves are of one — so on what ground can the Son of God call sinful people family?
The word has a particular sense in this letter. It does not mean the inward change in a believer's character.
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.
The wording is careful. Where the ESV says they "all have one source," older translations read "all of one," and that is the phrase these writers weigh. It does not say Christ and believers are one. It says they are of one.
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."
Some stretch the phrase to mean that Christ became one with the whole human race by being born. The verse itself blocks that reading.
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.
Commentators differ over what the "one" points to. Some read it as one Father.
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.
Others hold back from settling it.
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.
The name belongs to a particular point in His history. He did not always use it.
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.
Because the relationship rests on His grace and not on any equality, the freedom He takes is not one we may take back.
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.
- Set apart. In Hebrews, "sanctified" means set apart to God by the finished work of Christ. It is not the Spirit's inward work in the heart.
- One company. He came into our position and brings His own into His position. So Sanctifier and sanctified stand before God together.
- Not everyone. The verse speaks only of the sanctified, the children God gave Him. It does not speak of the human race by birth.
- Not ashamed. The gap between the divine Son and human believers is infinite. That He still owns them is love, not likeness.
- Risen and spoken. He took the name "brothers" as a man, and used it fully as the risen Man. It is a grace He gives downward, never one we claim upward.
saying, I will declare thy name to my brethren; in [the] midst of [the] assembly will I sing thy praises.
Hebrews 2:12 puts Psalm 22 into the mouth of the risen Christ, proving the claim just made: He is not ashamed to call believers His brothers. Two things stand out — when He first spoke this way, and the picture of the Son singing among redeemed people.
Psalm 22 has two halves. The first describes the crucifixion, the second what follows it — and the voice changes between them.
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.
Commentators mark when Jesus first used this word of His disciples. It was not at His birth, but after He rose.
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.'"
The verse does not say what name He tells out. Writers answer it from the shift in language between the Old Testament and the New.
"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.
That naming produces something in return.
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 Psalm also speaks of praise "in the great congregation." Writers set that future scene apart from the one Hebrews applies to now.
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!
The song follows from the place He has brought His people into — the same place He now holds Himself.
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."
Our part is to be in tune with Him.
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.
The word here does not carry everything it carries elsewhere. Commentators differ on how much weight to give it, and one writer draws the line carefully.
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.
- Cross first. The verse comes from the second half of Psalm 22. The forsaken Sufferer falls silent, and a strong voice rises once the work is done.
- Brothers second. He never called His disciples "my brothers" until He was risen. The relationship rests on redemption accomplished, not on His birth alone.
- The Name third. What He tells out is Father — the relationship He knew from eternity, now shared with those He calls His own.
- The song fourth. The declared name produces worship. He Himself leads it "in the midst," wherever two or three are gathered to His name.
- Our voice last. We do not start the song; we join it — and the note only rings true when it rests on the peace and joy of redemption.