For he didn’t subject the world to come, of which we speak, to angels.
But one has somewhere testified, saying, “What is man, that you think of him? Or the son of man, that you care for him?
You made him a little lower than the angels. You crowned him with glory and honor.
You have put all things in subjection under his feet.” For in that he subjected all things to him, he left nothing that is not subject to him. But now we don’t see all things subjected to him, yet.
But we see him who has been made a little lower than the angels, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that by the grace of God he should taste of death for everyone.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv5, 7, 8, 9 5. For unto the angels, etc. He again proves…
5. For unto the angels, etc. He again proves by another argument that Christ ought to be obeyed; for the Father has conferred on him the sovereignty of the whole world, while the angels are wholly destitute of such an honor. It hence follows that none of the angels should stand in the way of his preeminence who alone possesses supremacy.
But first, the Psalm which he quotes must be examined, for it seems to be unfitly applied to Christ. David there mentions the benefits which God bestows on mankind; for after having contemplated God’s power as manifested in heaven and the stars, he comes to man, among whom the wonderful goodness of God appears in a peculiar manner. He does not, then, speak of any particular person, but of all mankind. To this I answer, that all this affords no reason why the words should not be applied to the person of Christ. I indeed allow that man was at first put in possession of the world, that he might rule over all the works of God; but by his own defection he deserved the loss of his dominion, for it was a just punishment for ingratitude as to one thus favored, that the Lord, whom he refused to acknowledge and faithfully to worship, should have deprived him of a right previously granted to him. As soon, then, as Adam alienated himself from God through sin, he was justly deprived of the good things which he had received; not that he was denied the use of them, but that he would have had no right to them after he had forsaken God. And in the very use of them God intended that there should be some tokens of this loss of right, such as these, — the wild beasts ferociously attack us, those who ought to be awed by our presence are dreaded by us, some never obey us, others can hardly be trained to submit, and they do us harm in various ways; the earth answers not our expectations in cultivating it; the sky, the air, the sea, and other things are often adverse to us. But were all creatures to continue in subjection, yet whatever the sons of Adam possessed would be deemed a robbery; for what can they call their own when they themselves are not God’s?
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This foundation being laid, it is evident that God’s bounty belongs not to us until the right lost in Adam be restored by Christ. For this reason Paul teaches us that food is sanctified to us by faith, (1 Timothy 4:5;) and in another place he declares that to the unbelieving nothing is clean, for they have a polluted conscience. (Titus 1:16.)
We found at the beginning of this epistle that Christ has been appointed by the Father the heir of all things. Doubtless, as he ascribes the whole inheritance to one, he excludes all others as aliens, and justly too, for we are all become exiles from God’s kingdom. What food, then, God has destined for his own family, we leave no right to take. But Christ, by whom we are admitted into this family, at the same time admits us into a participation of this right, so that we may enjoy the whole world, together with the favor of God. Hence Paul teaches us that Abraham was by faith made an heir of the world, that is, because he was united to the body of Christ. (Romans 4:13) If men, then, are precluded from all God’s bounty until they receive a right to it through Christ, it follows that the dominion mentioned in the Psalm was lost to us in Adam, and that on this account it must again be restored as a donation. Now, the restoration begins with Christ as the head. There is, then, no doubt but that we are to look to him whenever the dominion of man over all creatures is spoken of.
To this the reference is made when the Apostle mentions the world to come, or the future world, for he understands by it the renovated world. To make the thing clearer, let us suppose two worlds, — the first the old, corrupted by Adam’s sin; the other, later in time, as renewed by Christ. The state of the first creation has become wholly decayed, and with man has fallen as far as man himself is concerned. Until, then, a new restitution be made by Christ, this Psalm will not be fulfilled. It hence now appears that here the world to come is not that which we hope for after the resurrection, but that which began at the beginning of Christ’s kingdom; but it will no doubt have its full accomplishment in our final redemption.
But why he suppressed the name of David does not appear to me. Doubtless he says one, or some one, not in contempt, but for honor’s sake, designating him as one of the prophets or a renowned writer.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv5–9 The world to come, whereof Christ is Father, Isa.…
The world to come, whereof Christ is Father, Isa. 9:6, or the Church, which as a new world, was to be gathered together by the Gospel.
If it were an heinous matter to contemn the Angels which are but servants, much more heinous is it to contemn that most mighty King of the restored world.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv5–9 5 For unto the angels hath he not put…
5 For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak.
Ver. 5. For unto the angels, &c.] The Jews, as they had embraced the Pythagorean transanimation, Mat 16:14, so the Platonic opinion of angels moving the heavens, and ordering the world; whom therefore they worshipped, intruding into those things whereof there was no sound either proof or profit, Col 2:18. The angels (say Proculus the Platonist and Plutarch) are messengers that carry God’s mind to men and men’s requests to God. {a} But who told them all this? Egregie dicis, sed quomodo probas? said Aristotle of Moses, may we better say of these bold affirmers.
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{a} πορθμευοντες τα των Θεων προς ανθοωπους.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv5–9 For unto the angels: the Spirit having applied the…
For unto the angels: the Spirit having applied the doctrine of the great gospel Minister, exceeding the prophets of old, and having a more excellent name and office than angels, in respect of his Deity, pursues to show these Hebrews, that he is so likewise in respect of his humanity, the other nature in his person. This he proves negatively in this verse. The rational particle introducing, shows it to be a demonstration of his excelling angels, having a world to come subjected to him, which they have not; for so none of these incorporeal, intellectual, spiritual substances, so often diminished before, have; because those Hebrews were more addicted to esteem of them, and the law ministered by them, than of God the Son incarnate and his gospel.
Hath he not put in subjection; this God the Father, Son, and Spirit, the Creator who formed all things, and had right of disposing all things under their proper Lord, hath not put under their ordering or government; he never decreed, foretold, or promised that it should be under their authority.
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The world to come, must be interpreted by that scripture, where it is asserted and proved that it was subjected to the great gospel Minister, and that is in Psa 8:5-8. It is a world that must consist of heaven and earth; compare Heb 2:3,6,7. It was a world not come when Paul wrote this Epistle to the Hebrews, see Heb 2:8. It is a world distinct from this present world, Eph 1:21, in which God-man must eminently reign; a world between this world and a heavenly one which is to come, in respect of us, Luk 18:30; 1Ti 4:8. A world to come, which the angels have nothing to do with, as they have with this, which is greatly under their administration; such as consists of a new heaven and a new earth, in which dwelleth righteousness, 2Pe 3:13; for Peter asserts, that Paul, according to the revelation given him of it, had written to these Hebrews, and eminently in this text. And unto this do the prophets give witness, Isa 65:17,18; 66:22; and of his day of rest and sabbath in it, as Heb 4:7,9,10; so Isa 66:23. And for their restitution in this world to come do the creatures groan, Rom 8:19-23, that they may be therein under the happy administration of the Second Adam, the Lord from heaven. And of this the 8th Psalm {Psa 8:1-9} doth assure us; for it is not, as some have imagined, a representation of the state of the first Adam, but of God-man, the Second Adam, and his world; for Christ applieth it to himself, and testifieth it was written of him, and it is not compatible in itself to any other, Mat 21:16. This world to come is a heavenly world, begun by Christ to be created when he commenced to preach the gospel covenant, which angels were not to meddle with, as they did the law, but was only to be ministered by men, Psa 8:2; through whose ministry of the word by the Spirit, is ingrafted into the sinful nature of the elect a new creature, whereby they are delivered from this present evil world, Gal 1:4, and fitted for being inhabitants of this new one, 2Co 4:6; 5:17; compare Eph 4:22-24; which hath been preparing by Christ’s casting down heathenism and Judaism by the gospel, Luk 10:18; Heb 12:26, and bringing them into a new world of ordinances and church privileges, fitted for them, and called by the Spirit, the kingdom of heaven, it surpassing the Sinai church state as much as heaven doth earth. And he is now proceeding to cast down papism, or Roman Christian paganism, and Mahometism, Rev 19:19-21, and to subdue the generality of men, both Jews and Gentiles, to himself, Zec 14:9; Rom 11:25,26; when this Christian heavenly frame shall be advanced to a higher degree by the descent of the new Jerusalem from God out of heaven, Rev 21:1,2; 22:1-5; in the which the kingdom of Christ shall be most peaceable, glorious, and prosperous. And to the rendering of it eminently so, Scripture seems to intimate, that the bodies of the martyrs of Jesus shall be raised, and their souls united to them, and so be made conformable to Christ’s glorified person, Phi 3:21; compare Rev 20:4-6. These will their Lord send down into this new world, and to have the same state in it, and to perform the same offices to the saints, as the angels had and did in the world past, Mar 12:25; there to be kings, and reign as the angelical thrones and principalities did before, Rev 5:10; 20:4. As priests, help on the saints’ duties, and instruct them in the matters of the kingdom of God, and so answer in conformity to their Head, as he was forty days after his resurrection; during whose reign in this new world the devil shall be chained up, so as they shall not be infested, nor the nations deceived, as formerly they were by him, Rev 20:1-3, so as there shall be no need of good angels to oppose or restrain him. At the close of which thousand years the devil will be loosed for a little while, as Heb 2:3,7,8, and infest the world, when the great Lord and King of it shall in the greatest solemnity descend into the air with all his hosts of angels; and by the trumpet of God sounded by the arch-angel, the dead in Christ shall first be raised, and the living changed in the twinkling of an eye; and being openly owned and acknowledged by the Supreme Judge, shall be assessors with him; when the judgment shall proceed by the angels bringing devils and all impenitent mankind to the bar of Christ, where the vast accounts of them shall be cast up and audited, and on the charge against them they shall be found speechless and convict, so as the great Judge shall solemnly sentence them, and it be assented to and applauded by all the saints, Rev 20:2,11,12,15, compare 1Co 6:2,3, and be as gloriously executed by the ministering angels, Mat 13:41-43. And so this great King and Lord, having thus shut up the scene of this world, shall return in triumph into the heaven of heavens, and there in the height of his glory deliver up his kingdom to the Father, that God may be all in all, 1Co 15:22-28.
Whereof we speak; we describe it further in the following testimony, and in this Epistle, as to some part of it.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv5, 8 Still our apostle prosucutes his former design, which was…
Still our apostle prosucutes his former design, which was to persuade the Hebrews, that more heed is to be given to the word of Christ, the doctrine of the gospel, than to the word or law delivered by angels, because God had given a greater authority to Christ than ever he did to the angels, as appears by putting the world to came in subjecton to Christ, and not to angels; yea, inasmuch as angels themselves are to be in subjection unto Christ, as a part of his kingdom, Unto the angels hath he not put into subjection the world to come? That is, the world of believers gathered out of all nations by the preaching of the gospel, is put under Christ’s immediate power, and subject not to angels, but to Christ himself.
Learn hence, That it is the great privilege of the gospel-church, that it depends upon Christ as its immediate and only Head, and is not put in subjection to any other, either angels or men. The gospel-church was not put in subjection to angels in its first erection or institution, nor was it put into subjection unto angels, as to the rule and government of it when erected; but angels and saints are equally subjected unto Christ, who is both an head of vital influence, as also an head of authority, rule, and government to the whole church, and every member thereof.
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Observe next, The proof which the apostle brings for this out of the Psalms, Psalms 8 in which David breaks forth into admiration and wonder, at that glory and honour which God the Father put upon man at first in the work of creation, and next in the work of redemption: When the Son of God took the nature of man upon him, well might it then be said, Lord! What is man, that thou wert thus mindful of him, and the sons of men, that thy dear and only son did thus visit them:
Learn hence, 1. That such was the inconceivable love of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, towards the sons of men, that he was free and willing to condescend unto any condition for their benefit and salvation: He that was the Creator of angels, was willing, for our sakes, to be made lower than the angels, a little lower, that is, for a little time lower than the angels, namely, during the time of his humiliation.
Learn, 2. That this wonderful condescension of Christ to take the nature of man, his respect and care, his love and eternal admiration. Oh! What is man that thou art mindful of him, and crownest him with dignity and glory.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v5 The apostle, having made this serious application of the…
The apostle, having made this serious application of the doctrine of the personal excellency of Christ above the angels, now returns to that pleasant subject again, and pursues it further (Heb 2:5): For to the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak.
I. Here the apostle lays down a negative proposition, including a positive one - That the state of the gospel-church, which is here called the world to come, is not subjected to the angels, but under the special care and direction of the Redeemer himself. Neither the state in which the church is at present, nor that more completely restored state at which it shall arrive when the prince of this world is cast out and the kingdoms of the earth shall become the kingdom of Christ, is left to the government of the angels; but Jesus Christ will take to him his great power, and will reign. He does not make that use of the ministration of angels to give the gospel as he did to give the law, which was the state of the old or antiquated world. This new world is committed to Christ, and put in absolute subjection to him only, in all spiritual and eternal concerns. Christ has the administration of the gospel church, which at once bespeaks Christ's honour and the church's happiness and safety. It is certain that neither the first creation of the gospel church, nor its after-edification or administration, nor its final judgment and perfection, is committed to the angels, but to Christ. God would not put so great a trust in his holy ones; his angels were too weak for such a charge.
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II. We have a scripture - account of that blessed Jesus to whom the gospel world is put into subjection. It is taken from Psa 8:4-6, But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the Son of man, that thou visitest him? etc. There words are to be considered both as applicable to mankind in general, and as applied here to the Lord Jesus Christ.
1. As applicable to mankind in general, in which sense we have an affectionate thankful expostulation with the great God concerning his wonderful condescension and kindness to the sons of men. (1.) In remembering them, or being mindful of them, when yet they had no being but in the counsels of divine love. The favours of God to men all spring up out of his eternal thoughts and purposes of mercy for them; as all our dutiful regards to God spring forth from our remembrance of him. God is always mindful of us, let us never be forgetful of him. (2.) In visiting them. God's purpose of favours for men is productive of gracious visits to them; he comes to see us, how it is with us, what we ail, what we want, what dangers we are exposed to, what difficulties we have to encounter; and by his visitation our spirit is preserved. Let us so remember God as daily to approach him in a way of duty. (3.) In making man the head of all the creatures in this lower world, the top-stone of this building, the chief of the ways of God on earth, and only a little lower than the angels in place, and respect to the boy, while here, and to be made like the angels, and equal to the angels, at the resurrection of the just, Luk 20:36. (4.) In crowning him with glory and honour, the honour of having noble powers and faculties of soul, excellent organs and parts of body, whereby he is allied to both worlds, capable of serving the interests of both worlds, and of enjoying the happiness of both. (5.) In giving him right to and dominion over the inferior creatures, which did continue so long as he continued in his allegiance and duty to God.
2. As applied to the Lord Jesus Christ, and the whole that is here said can be applied only to him, Heb 2:8, Heb 2:9. And here you may observe, (1.) What is the moving cause of all the kindness God shows to men in giving Christ for them and to them; and that is the grace of God. For what is man? (2.) What are the fruits of this free grace of God with respect to the gift of Christ for us and to us, as related in this scripture-testimony. [1.] That God was mindful of Christ for us in the covenant of redemption. [2.] That God visited Christ on our account; and it was concluded between them that in the fulness of time Christ should come into the world, as the great archetypal sacrifice. [3.] That God had made him a little lower than the angels, in his being made man, that he might suffer and humble himself to death. [4.] That God crowned the human nature of Christ with glory and honour, in his being perfectly holy, and having the Spirit without measure, and by an ineffable union with the divine nature in the second person of the Trinity, the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in him bodily; that by his sufferings he might make satisfaction, tasting death for every man, sensibly feeling and undergoing the bitter agonies of that shameful, painful, and cursed death of the cross, hereby putting all mankind into a new state of trial. [5.] That, as a reward of his humiliation in suffering death, he was crowned with glory and honour, advanced to the highest dignity in heaven, and having absolute dominion over all things, thus accomplishing that ancient scripture in Christ, which never was so accomplished or fulfilled in any mere man that ever was upon earth.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv5–9 But one in a certain place testified,.... That is,…
But one in a certain place testified,.... That is, David, for he is the penman of the psalm, out of which the following words are taken; and though his name is not mentioned by the apostle, nor the particular place, or the psalm pointed at, as in Act 13:33 yet this was not through ignorance of either, nor out of disrespect to the penman; but because the apostle is writing to Jews, who were conversant with the Scriptures, and knew full well who said the words, and where they were: and it is usual with the Jews to cite passages in this manner; and the form by which the passage is introduced, by the word testified, is quite agreeable to their way of citing Scripture, of which there is another instance in Heb 7:17 and I think that this form is only used in this epistle to the Hebrews, with which they were acquainted: it is common with them to say, , "the law testified" (e), as it is said in such or such a place; and here the apostle produces a passage, as a witness and testimony of the truth of what he had said, that the Gospel dispensation is not put in subjection to angels, but to the Messiah: the passage stands in Psa 8:4 which psalm belongs to the times of the Messiah, as appears from the non-application of it to others; and from the application of a passage in it to the children in his time, Mat 21:16 by Christ himself, and of the passage here by the apostle; nor in any other time was the name of the Lord excellent in all the earth, with which the psalm begins and concludes:
Saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him? this is not to be understood of mankind in general: not of man in a state of innocence; there were no babes nor sucklings in paradise, nor enemies to restrain; "Enosh", the word for man, signifies a frail mortal man, which Adam then was not; nor could he be called the son of man; nor can it so well suit with him, to be said to be made a little lower than the angels, and then crowned with glory and honour: nor of man as fallen, for all things are not subjected unto him; but of Christ, with whom everything agrees, as the name by which he is called, "Enosh", a frail man; for he was a man encompassed with infirmities; of no note and esteem among men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with griefs; was subject to death, and did die; and is often called the son of man: what is said of him suits with him, as that God was "mindful of him"; which may be expressive of his love and delight in, and choice of his human nature, to be taken into union with his divine person; and of his counsel and covenant in preparing it for him; and of his uniting it to his person; and of his providential care of it, and great affection for it; of his unction of it, and of his great regard to it in its sufferings, by supporting it, and in raising it from the dead: and also that he "visited" him; not in a way of wrath, but of favour, with his presence, with the gifts and graces of his Spirit, with divine supports, and spiritual peace and joy; all which in itself it was not deserving of, nor could it claim; and therefore these things are spoken of as favours, and in a way of admiration.
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(e) T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 37. 1. Maimon. Hilchot Yesode Hattorsh, 3. 7. sect. 6. & Melachim, c. 11. sect. 1. Vid. Aben Ezra in Lev. xvi. 8.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv5–9 This verse contains a proof of the third; the…
This verse contains a proof of the third; the greater the salvation is, and the more glorious the Lord whom we despise, the greater will be our punishment. God hath not subjected the world to come - That is, the dispensation of the Messiah; which being to succeed the Mosaic was usually styled by the Jews, the world to come, although it is still in great measure to come Whereof we now speak - Of which I am now speaking. In this last great dispensation the Son alone presides.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv5, 6, 7, 9 Verse 5. The world to come] That עולם הבא…
Verse 5. The world to come] That עולם הבא olam habba, the world to come, meant the days of the Messiah among the Jews, is most evident, and has been often pointed out in the course of these notes; and that the administration of this kingdom has not been intrusted to angels, who were frequently employed under the law, is also evident, for the government is on the shoulder of Jesus Christ; he alone has the keys of death and hell; he alone shuts, and no man opens; opens, and no man shuts; he alone has the residue of the Spirit; he alone is the Governor of the universe, the Spirit, Soul, Heart, and Head of the Church: all is in his authority, and under subjection to him.
But some think that the world to come means future glory, and suppose the words are spoken in reference to the Angel of God's presence, Ex 23:20, who introduced the Israelites into the promised land, which land is here put in opposition to the heavenly inheritance. And it is certain that in this sense also we have an entrance into the holiest only by the blood of Jesus. Dr. Macknight contends for this latter meaning, but the former appears more consistent with the Jewish phraseology.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv5–8 Heb 2:5. For, &c. — This verse contains a…
Heb 2:5. For, &c. — This verse contains a proof of the third: the greater the salvation is, and the more glorious the Lord whom we despise, the greater will be our punishment. Unto the angels hath he (God) not put in subjection the world to come — That is, as most commentators have understood the clause, the dispensation of the Messiah; which, being to succeed the Mosaic, was usually styled by the Jews, The world to come; although it is still, in a great measure, to come: whereof we speak — Of which I am now speaking. In this last great dispensation, the Son alone presides. Macknight, however, objects to this interpretation of the words, observing, “The gospel dispensation is called αιωνος μελλοντος, the age to come, (Heb 6:5,) but never οικουμενην μελλουσαν, the habitable world to come. That phrase, if I mistake not, signifies the heavenly country promised to Abraham, and to his spiritual seed. Wherefore, as οικουμενην, the world, (Luk 2:1, and elsewhere,) by a usual figure of speech, signifies the inhabitants of the world, the phrase οικουμενην μελλουσαν, may very well signify the inhabitants of the world to come, called, (Heb 1:14,) them who shall inherit salvation. If so, the apostle’s meaning will be, that God hath not put the heirs of salvation, who are to inhabit the world to come, the heavenly Canaan, in subjection to angels, to be by them conducted into that world, as the Israelites were conducted into the earthly Canaan, by an angel, Exo 23:20. They are only ministering spirits, sent forth by the Son to minister for the heirs of salvation, but not to conduct them. The heirs who are to inhabit the world to come, God hath put in subjection to the Son alone. Hence he is called the Captain of their salvation, Heb 2:10. And having introduced them into the heavenly country, he will deliver up the kingdom to God the Father, as we are told 1Co 15:24.”
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv5–9 For unto the angels hath he not put in…
For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection - In this verse the apostle returns to the subject which he had been discussing in Heb 1:1-14 - the superiority of the Messiah to the angels. From that subject he had been diverted Heb 2:1-4, by showing them what must be the consequences of defection from Christianity, and the danger of neglecting it. Having shown that, he now proceeds with the discussion, and shows that an honor had been conferred on the Lord Jesus which had never been bestowed on the angels - to wit, the “supremacy over this world.” This he does by proving from the Old Testament that such a dominion was given to “man” Heb 2:6-8, and that this dominion was in fact exercised by the Lord Jesus; Heb 2:9. At the same time, he meets an objection which a Jew would be likely to make. It is, that Jesus appeared to be far inferior to the angels. He was a man of a humble condition. He was poor, and despised. He had none of the external honor which was shown to Moses - the founder of the Jewish economy; none of the apparent honor which belonged to angelic beings. This implied objection he removes by showing the reason why he became so. It was proper, since he came to redeem man, that he should be a man, and not take on himself the nature of angels; and for the same reason it was proper that he should be subjected to sufferings, and be made a man of sorrows; Heb 2:10-17. The remark of the apostle in the verse before us is, that God had never put the world in subjection to the angels as he had to the Lord Jesus. They had no jurisdiction over it; they were mere ministering spirits; but the world had been put under the dominion of the Lord Jesus.
The world to come - The word rendered here “world” - οἰκουμένη oikoumenē - means properly the “inhabited,” or “inhabitable” world; see Mat 24:14; Luk 2:1; Luk 4:5; Luk 21:26 (Greek); Act 11:28; Act 17:6, Act 17:31; Act 19:27; Act 24:5; Rom 10:18; Heb 1:6; Rev 3:10; Rev 12:9; Rev 16:14 - in all which places, but one, it is rendered “world.” It occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. The proper meaning is the world or earth considered as inhabitable - and here the jurisdiction refers to the control over man, or the dwellers on the earth. The phrase “the world to come,” occurs not unfrequently in the New Testament; compare Eph 2:7; 1Co 10:11; Heb 6:5. The same phrase “the world to come,” צולם ‛owlaam הבּא habaa' - occurs often in the Jewish writings. According to Buxtorf (Lexicon Ch. Talm. Rab.) it means, as some suppose, “the world which is to exist after this world is destroyed, and after the resurrection of the dead, when souls shall be again united to their bodies.” By others it is supposed to mean “the days of the Messiah, when he shall reign on the earth.” To me it seems to be clear that the phrase here means, “the world under the Messiah” - the world, age, or dispensation which was to succeed the Jewish, and which was familiarly known to them as “the world to come;” and the idea is, that that world, or age, was placed under the jurisdiction of the Christ, and not of the angels. This point the apostle proceeds to make out; compare notes on Isa 2:2.
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Whereof we speak - . “Of which I am writing;” that is, of the Christian religion, or the reign of the Messiah.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv5–9 God hath not put in subjection to the Angels…
God hath not put in subjection to the Angels the [2] world to come. By the world to come, is meant the Church of Christ to the end of the world, and succeeding to the state of those who served God under the old law. The former world, under the law of Moses, might be said to be subject to Angels, by whom that law was delivered; but the church of the new law is subject to Christ, its author and publisher. (Witham)
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Orbem terræ futurum, Greek: ten oikoumenen ten mellousan.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v5 The exaltation of Jesus’ above the Angels, is not…
IV
The exaltation of Jesus’ above the Angels, is not disparaged by His earthly life, which rather effects the elevation of humanity
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Heb_2:5-13.
5For unto the angels hath he not [For not unto the angels did he] put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak [are speaking]. 6But one in a certain place testified, saying, What Isaiah 2 [a] man, that thou art mindful of him? or the [a] son of man, that thou visitest him? 7Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honor, and didst set him over the works of thy hands 8 [om. and didst set him over the works of thy hands]Hebrews 3 : Thou hast [didst] put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put [in subjection] under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him. 9But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels [but him who has for some little been made lower than the angels, Jesus, we see] for the [on account of his] suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he by the grace of God4 should [might] taste death for every man. 10For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing [as one who brought] many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. 11For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of [from] one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, 12Saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church [congregation] will I sing praise unto thee. 13And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, Behold I and the children which God hath given me [that God gave to me].
[Heb_2:5.—οὐ γὰρ ἀγγέλοις, for not unto angels=it is not to angels that he subjected, etc. Ἀγγέλοις without the Art., as marking not the individuals, but the class, and emphatic in its position.—ὑπέταξεν, he subjected, Aor.; not, hath subjected.—τήν οἰκουμένην. There are three words commonly rendered, world: 1. Κόσμος properly the world as a harmoniously adjusted and orderly system of things; this is never used in the phrase, the “world to come;” 2. αἰών, age, duration of time, and hence the world as constituting a particular period of time, or age; so commonly ὁ αἰὼν οὗτος, this age, this world, and αἰὼν ὁ μέλλων, the coming or future age or world; 3. ἡ οἰκουμένη (γῆ), the world as a locality and as inhabited; the world in a more concrete character than is expressed by αἰών.
Heb_2:6.—τί ἔστιν ἄνθρωπος. De Wette, Del., Alf. render as=ὁ ἄνθρωπος, man, collectively, as Eng. Ver.: Moll and Lün. a man, individually, which accords better with the absence of the article.
Heb_2:7.—βραχύ τι, some little, in the Hebr. text, and in the citation, Heb_2:7, in relation to man, is “a paululum of degree;” in its application by the author to Jesus, Heb_2:9, it becomes a “paululum of time,” Del., contrasting his temporary humiliation with his permanent exaltation.
Heb_2:9.—διὰ τὸ πάθημα τοῦ θανάτου, on account of his suffering of death, referring forward to ἐστεφ, crowned. The Eng. ver. “for the suffering,” etc., suggests an erroneous reference, or is at least ambiguous.—For the general construction of Heb_2:9 see exegetical notes.—K.].
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Heb_2:5. For not unto angels did He put in subjection the coming world of which we are speaking.—The γάρ refers not back to Heb_1:13 (de W.), nor in form to the preceding exhortation, while, in fact, introducing an entirely new thought, parallel to the preceding, viz., that in the Son humanity is exalted above the angels (Ebr.). Nor does it introduce the ground on which the author has assigned to the revelation made through the Son a so much loftier position (Thol.), but rather the ground for the earnest exhortation to personal devotion to the system of salvation revealed through the Son. Jewish conceptions assigned to the angels a share, not merely in the giving of the Law, but also in the government of the world, and especially in influencing the events of history. It is uncertain whether Psalms 82 has such a reference; but the LXX., in rendering the obscure words, Deu_32:8 (that God, when He fixed the heritage of the nations and separated the children of men from one another, fixed the limits of the nations according to the number of the sons of Israel), makes the division to take place according to the number of the angels of God. In the following verse it is then said that the people of Israel are the portion of Jehovah Himself. The same idea is found, Sir_17:17, and with many Rabbins, who, on the ground of the list of nations, Genesis 10., assume for the seventy nations seventy angelic heads and rulers, while Israel, excepted from the number, is the special and privileged people of the Supreme God. At Dan_10:13; Dan_10:20; Dan. 21:12, however, we find the representation that the Jews also have such an angelic prince, who takes in charge this people as against the guardian angels at other nations; and at Tob_12:15, the seven archangels are regarded as the angelic protectors of the covenant people; and at Dan_4:14, the fate announced to Nebuchadnezzar is indicated as the decision of the “Watchers,” and the decree of the “Holy Ones.” From these passages is explained the mode of expression here employed, in regard to which we may also recollect that the LXX. render the designation of the Messiah, Isa_9:6, (אֲבִי־עַד), according to the Cod. Alex, by πατὴρ τοῦ μέλλοντος αἰῶνος, Father of the coming age. For it is not a mere absolute futurity which is meant (Theodoret, Œc, Grot., Schulz), but the Messianic world (Calv.). And the order of the words, too, shows that the contrast is not between the future and the preceding world (Camero, Bl.), but, as indicated also by the absence of the Art. with ἀγγ., between angelic existences and man, to which latter class the Messianic King sustains a relation entirely unlike that which he bears to the former.
Heb_2:6. But some one testified in a certain place.—Here is not the commencement of a new section (Heinr.), but the adversative δέ subjoins a contrast to the idea referred to and denied in the preceding clause, and over against that idea presents in a contrast indicated by its Scriptural citation, the real nature of the case. The indefiniteness of the form of citation (πού, somewhere), occurring also with Philo, (Carpz.), and with many Rabbins (Schöttg.), implies not that, as against the inscription which refers the Psalm to David, the author would ascribe it to some unknown person (Grot.), which would imply a critical habit not at this time existing; nor that, quoting from memory, he did not know the precise locality of the passage (Koppe, Schulz),—a supposition negatived partly by the verbal exactness of the citation, partly by the like mode of citing a passage entirely familiar, Heb_4:4 (Lün.); nor that, regarding God or the Holy Spirit as the proper Author of the passage, he was indifferent to its human writer (Bl.), in which case τὶς would hardly have been employed; but is probably a usage purely rhetorical (so the majority after Chrys.). For that God Himself is addressed in this well known passage (Ebr.) is a matter on which no stress need be laid, since the author either might have made the Scripture the subject, or employed a passive construction.
What is a man—all things under his feet.—The connection of the words in Psa_8:5-7 shows that man, as אֱנוֹשׁ, in contrast with heaven and the shining stars which God has ordained, is conceived immediately in his frailty and earthly lowliness, and it is purely arbitrary to introduce here,—whether into the original text, or the conception of our author (Kuin., Heinr., Böhm., Bl., Stein, Lün.),—the idea of the glory and dignity of man. We find rather the preceding words of the Psalm expressing the idea that God is not stumbled, so to speak, by this natural inferiority of man, but displays His own glory in selecting from such an humble sphere His instruments of victory for the confusion of His enemies. After reminding us, Heb_2:2, that God, whose majesty is extolled above the heavens, has also a mighty name upon the earth, the Psalmist declares in Heb_2:3 that out of the mouth of children and sucklings He has prepared to Himself a power against His adversaries, to subdue the enemy, the seeker of vengeance. On this follows (Heb_2:4) the wondering gaze at the heavens, the work of the fingers of God, and then, Heb_2:5, the contrasted reference to the twofold nature of man, appearing, on the one hand, frail and impotent, as a mortal dweller on the earth, as a creature of dust, and, on the other, not merely an object of loving care, but an instrument, preferred before all creatures, for the execution of the will of God. The subsequent delineations of the Psalm show that the reference is to that position of sovereignty which, according to the account of creation, man has received by virtue of his possession of the Divine image. Precisely for this reason it is added: “Thou hast made him to fall short but little of Deity.” Elohim without the Art. expresses abstractly the Divine in its super-terrestrial character,—nay, 1Sa_28:13; Zech. 12:19, the super-terrestrial in general, such as appertains to spirits. The Psalmist thus says, not that man is made almost equal to Jehovah, but that he has received almost a supra-terrestrial nature and position. Hence the LXX. in place of Elohim put παῤ ἀγγέλους. But the words of the text do not justify Calov, Vitr., Stier, Ebr., in taking not merely the βραχύ τι of the Sept., but even the Heb. מְעַט, not, of degree, but, of time, in the sense, “Thou hast for a season let him fall short of Elohim, i.e, of the intercourse and presence of the world-ruling Deity in His glory, which the angels, as inhabitants of heaven, always enjoy.” Equally unwarranted is the assumption that this glory of man is a glory as yet merely promised by God, and that the hope of the Psalmist looks to its speedy realization. For the “falling short” or “lacking” is not transferred back to the past, nor the ‘crowning’ carried forward to the future; but the two are represented as contemporaneous, and the description refers to man, not after the Fall, but in his primitive and normal condition. Precisely for these reasons can the words be applied to the Messiah, and the application made by our author, Heb_2:9, is facilitated by the expression, “Son of Man.” But it finds in this expression, neither its occasion nor its substantial reason, and the nature of the argument rather requires us here to regard the author as applying the parallel terms, ‘man’ and “Son of man,” to mankind in general (Bez., Storr, Ebr., Del.), than to assume in the original a direct reference of these words to Christ (Bl., Lün.), and thus interpolate here the quite differently applied train of thought which is found at 1Co_15:25 ff.5
Heb_2:8. For in subjecting to him all things he has left nothing.—The author proceeds to draw from the words of the Psalmist a conclusion which introduces the proof of the position laid down in Heb_2:5. The subject of the verb is not the Psalmist, but God (Heb_3:15; Heb_8:13), and αὐτῷ refers not to the Son of man, either as appealing in Christ as a historical person (Calv., Gerh., Calov, Seb. Schmidt, Lün., etc.), or simply as ideally conceived, but to man as such, as immediate object of Psalms 8 (Bez., Grot., Schlicht, Ebr., Del.). But neither is it his purpose to make good and justify the declaration of the Psalmist (Hofm.). This rests on the statement of Gen_1:28. It is rather to justify the declaration of the author that God has not subjected to angels the future world of which we speak. This is done by an appeal to the infallible word of Scripture that God has subjected every thing to man: this declaration admits no exception. It cannot be objected to the legitimacy of this conclusion, that the Psalmist is speaking of the present, and our author of the future world, and that he is thus unwarranted in including the οἰκουμ. μέλλ. in the category of the “all things.” With partial correctness, Del. remarks, after Hofm.: The world, as collective aggregate of what is created, coincides with the generic term, “all things,” and the present and future world are not two different things, comprehended under the τὰ πάντα, but they are the τὰ πάντα—the all things themselves, only in two distinct and successive forms. Still I would rather lay the emphasis on the fact that in οἰκ. μέλλ. denotes the Messianic world as that in which alone the Divine destination of man to dominion over all things can have its accomplishment. By this, attention is at once directed partly to the present position of the human race, not yet corresponding with its destiny, and partly to that fulfilment of the Divine declaration which, through Jesus the Messianic King, has been already commenced, and is pledged to an absolute completion.
But now we see not as yet all things subjected to him.—The νῦν δέ is not logical,=but as the case stands, in fact, but directs our eyes to the earthly present, which shows the universe as yet not in a condition answering to its destination. By this the certain fulfilment of the divine declaration, is indeed held out in prospect for a more perfect future. But this aspect of the subject the author is not now unfolding. To assume (with Lün), a contrast between that which we now see and that which we shall yet see, disturbs the connection, and is inconsistent with the following verse. The purpose of the author is to prove that the future or Messianic world—the world of redemption—that world which forms the proper subject of communication between him and his readers—is as far as the original world, which began with creation, from being subjected to angelic beings. Hence he institutes a double contrast of that which we now do not see: primarily a contrast with the declaration immediately preceding [viz. the inferential statement that God subjecting to man all things, has left nothing unsubjected to him]; and, secondly, a contrast with that which we now already see [viz., Jesus glorified in advance, and for the sake of, humanity.] Even the δέ in our passage should have awakened a suspicion against the common assumption that we have here an objection to the declaration of the Psalm, or a limitation of our author’s previous position inferentially derived from it. [Νῦν has here, with nearly all interpreters, the temporal signification. While entirely coinciding with the author’s general exposition, which cites the passage from the Psalm in its primary literal acceptation, and then draws out from it, by legitimate reasoning, its proper Messianic application, I yet incline strongly to the logical explanation of νῦν. The closing clause of Heb_2:8 : “For in subjecting to Him all things, etc.,” is purely logical. It seems more natural that the next should commence with a logical particle, and it is precisely because the author (as Moll maintains above) is not yet contrasting the present with the future; but an actual condition with an ideal condition, that I prefer to take νῦν in the purely logical sense, which is not inconsistent with the not yet, (or possibly not at all) of the οὔπω. I would thus render, “But as it is, in no way,” or, “But as it is, not yet do we see,” etc. Still, if we forbear to press the νῦν, its temporal acceptation harmonizes nearly as well with the reasoning as the logical. I wish to add that the passage, rightly expounded, is a beautiful specimen of the author’s skilful and profound manner of dealing with Scripture; or, perhaps we should rather say, it is a striking example of a commentary by the Spirit of inspiration on a passage which the Spirit had indited.—K.].
Heb_2:9. But him who has been for a little humbled below the angels, Jesus, we behold—honor. The position and import of the word ‘Jesus,’ standing in close connection with the finite verb βλέπομεν, and between the two Perf. Part. ἠλαττ. and ἐστεφ., of which the former has the Art. the latter not, present to us the historical Saviour as the person in whom the language of the Psalm has its fulfilment. The object is not a direct contrast between as yet unexalted humanity, and the already exalted Jesus, nor between the humiliation and exaltation of the Messiah; but simply this, to declare that that Jesus who was once, for a little, humbled below the angels, is well known as a person crowned on account of His suffering of death with glory and honor, and that to Him must be referred the words of the Psalm, because also now, i.e, in the period of redemption and the time of the Messiah, these infallible words of the Psalm can apply to no other “man” and “Son of man” than Jesus. While Hofmann formerly (Weiss. II. 28) regarded τὸν ἠλαττ. as predicate, I̓ησοῦν as obj. and ἐστεφ. as its apposition, he now more correctly regards (Schriftb. I. 187) τὸν ἠλαττ. as object., Ἰησ. as in apposition with it, and ἐστεφ. as predicate. This construction is, on grammatical grounds, preferable to that adopted by Ebr. and Del., which makes Ἰησ. the proper object of βγέπ., and ἠλαττ. its apposition, placed before it on purely rhetorical grounds.6 True, Lün. goes too far in maintaining that Ἰησ. is wholly unemphatic, and could even be dispensed with. But the emphasis lies certainly on the predicates formed from the words of the Psalm, which describe the two contrasted conditions of the Lord, and hence inclose as it were between them the historical name of His person. The subjection of the world under man we as yet see not; but we see the man really characterized by the Psalm, viz: Jesus, in whose history we at the same time recognize the deeper significance of its words, and learn to give to the words, “lowered a little below the angels” a new and profounder import. The Messianic application of Psalms 8 is made in a different way by Jesus Himself at Mat_21:16, and again in still another way by Paul 1Co_15:27. In both cases, however, Jesus is regarded as the ‘Lord,’ equal to God; and as such is also the doctrine of our author, we need not, by our anxiety to retain the historical sense of the βραχύ τι, be misled into the rendering of Hofm., “Him who was well-nigh equal to the angels.” The transition of the βραχύ τι of degree into the βραχύ τι of time is all the more easy, from the fact that on the one hand the meaning of the phrase is in clasical Greek more commonly temporal, and that, on the other, the actual state of the case, man’s inferiority to angels, having its ground in his corporeal and mortal nature, is but transient, and limited to his earthly life; while for Jesus, this period of His life, being already completely finished, belongs now to the past. We are, in like manner, to reject Hofmann’s reference of the words: “crowned with glory and honor,” to the furnishing out and endowing of Jesus at His entrance into the world, or to His designation and appointment as Saviour; also his idea that the “suffering of death” refers to that suffering of death to which man, instead of enjoying his destined sovereignty, is subjected, and which, consequently, becomes thus the occasioning cause of the appointment of Jesus as Saviour. For Christ’s appointment as Saviour is indicated in the words, “lowered for some little below the angels,” while His “crowning” is constantly referred in the New Testament to His heavenly reward, obtained after His successful and victorious life-conflict of suffering and of faith; while again, His suffering of death appears as the ground and procuring cause of His glorification, (Heb_5:10; Php_2:9). Precisely for this reason also we are to refer the διὰ τὸ πάθ τοῦ θαν., not (with Orig., Chrys., Theod., Aug., Bez., Calov, etc.,) to ἡλαττ. but to ἐστεφ. as is also indicated by its position in the sentence.
That by the grace of God, on behalf of every man, he might taste of death.—The clause commencing with ὅπως [in order that=ἴνα] and thence introducing not a mere result (Eras., Kuin., etc.) but purpose, cannot, from the nature of the thought, be connected directly with ἐστεφ. [“crowned in order that”], nor from the structure of the sentence with ἠλαττ., but must be regarded either as a pregnant exponent of πάθημα τοῦ θανάτου, (Thol., Lün.), or as belonging to the entire participial predicative clause—[i.e., “crowned on account,” etc.]—(Del.) and thus assigning the reason why Jesus was exalted, not without the suffering of death, and even on account of it; or, according to my view, as final object of the two-fold declaration respecting Christ’s transfer into His two successive states of humiliation and glorification. With this explanation accords best the reasoning of the following verse; and in the present final clause itself, the author’s main point is not to explain why Jesus has gone through suffering to glory (with which understanding Grot., Carpz., Storr, Bleek, etc., supply, from the preceding πάθημα, an explanatory ὃ ἔπαθεν) but to declare the object to be subserved alike by the incarnation of the First Born, and the exaltation of the Crucified One in the inseparable unity of the theanthropic person Jesus, viz.: the fulfilment of the divine purpose, that Jesus should, by the grace of God, for the benefit of every one, taste of death. There is no reason for laying the entire stress on ὑπὲρ παντός, although the masc. sing is employed with a designed emphasis. The weight of the thought is rather distributed nearly equally between the impressive closing words γεύσηται θανάτου, taste of death, the ὑπὲρ παντός, which declares the universality of the purpose and merit of His death, accomplished by His entrance into glory, and the χάριτι θεοῦ which refers back the whole, for its efficient and originating cause, to the grace of God. (We add, in passing, that the γεύσηται θανάτου taste of death refers neither to brevity of duration—simply “tasting,” (as Chrys., Primas., Braun, etc.,) nor to the bitterness of the death (Calov), nor to its reality (Beza, Bengel), but presupposes Jesus’ personal experience of the suffering of death and his incarnation). Even the reading χωρὶς θεοῦ would not necessarily require more than a secondary stress to be laid upon ὑπὲρ παντός. This would be the most natural, as also would the neuter rendering of παντός (every thing), only in case we take the thought to be that Jesus suffered death for all existences, with the single exception of God (Orig., Theodor., Ebr.), contrary to Heb_2:16; or, in order, with the exception of God, to gain and subjugate every thing to Himself (Beng., Chrys., Fr. Schmidt); the thought in this case being parallel to that Eph_1:10, and the form of expression to 1Co_15:27. Other interpreters take the words χωρὶς θεοῦ as an independent characterization, either of the subject of the clause [Christ separately from God], or of the verb [taste of death apart from God]. The former is advocated by Theod. Mops. and his pupil Nestorius, by Ambros., Fulgent., and Colomesius, (Obb. sacr. 603), who thus made Christ to have died in His humanity, without participation of His divinity: the latter, with a reference to Mat_27:46, by Paul., and Baumgart., (Sach. I. 359, and in the Sermon: “How the sight of Jesus, amidst the woes of life, suffices for our blessedness, Brunsw. 1856). Hofm., who formerly explained thus (Weiss. I. 92): “Jesus has tasted death, χωρὶς θεοῦ, by surrendering to death a life (commencing in time), separated from God,” has abandoned both the interpretation and the reading on which it was based. The dispute regarding its genuineness is ancient. For while Orig. (at Joh_1:1) declares that he had found the reading χάριτι only ἔν τισι ἀντιγράφοις, Jerome (ad Gal_1:2) has, in like manner, found absque Deo only in quibusdam exemplaribus.
Heb_2:10. For it became him—perfect through sufferings,—it seems, at first view, more natural to find the stress of the thought in διὰ παθημάτων (Lün., Del.) than in τελειῶσαι (Thol.), by which διὰ παθημάτων is reduced to a mere secondary and incidental place. In the former case, the way so offensive to the Jews, which leads the Messiah to glory through suffering and death, is here justified as entirely worthy of God. In the other case, we should have the thought expressed that it was indispensable that He should be glorified Himself, who became to others the author of salvation. But the connection demands an equal emphasis upon both points, to which also corresponds the two-fold description of God as the Being by whom and for whom are all things. God—not Christ, as (Prim., Hunn., Dorsch., Cram., etc.)—is designated as the final cause (for whom), and the instrumental cause (by or through whom) of all, in order, at the same time, to remind the reader that alike the τελίωσις, perfecting, which is the end, and the παθήματα, sufferings, which are the means, stand respectively in corresponding relation to those respective aspects of God’s being and agency. The perfecting (τελειοῦν) embraces at once the outward and the inward, the formal and the spiritual elements of perfecting, Heb_9:9, the bringing the person to the goal by the complete realization and fulfilment of his entire destiny (Thol.), so that the reaching of the highest outward goal is the consequence of internal moral perfection (Camero, de W.). For the perfect (τέλειον) stands in contrast alike with the incipient, the imperfect, and the unrealized (Köstl.). Lün. takes the idea too restrictedly as identical with δόξ. καὶ τιμ. ἐστεφ.
As leading many sons—perfect through sufferings.—We might be inclined to refer the participial clause, “leading many sons,” etc., to Jesus, as in apposition with “Leader of their salvation,” (ἀρχηγὸν τῆς σωτηρίας), but placed emphatically before it as in Heb_2:9 (so Primas., Erasm., Este, Ebr., Win.). And to this neither the absence of the Art. before ἀγαγόντα (Böhm., Bl.), nor the expression υἱούς, sons (Lün.), constitutes any objection. For as to the former, the participial clause is only made by the failure of the Art., subordinate to its noun [the Leader, as one who led] instead of being coördinated with it as in case of the employment of the Art. [the Leader who led]; and as to the latter we might say that while those brought to glory are indeed brethren of Christ, yet here they are mentioned not, in their relation to Him, as brethren, but in their relation to God as sons, especially as God is the subject of the entire sentence. But the word ἀρχηγός. (Heb_12:2; Act_3:15; Act_5:31) needs no explanatory apposition (Lün.). It is an abridged form of ἁρχεγέτης, with which, Philo designates the first Adam, and it denotes him who, at the head of a company, goes in advance of them, and leads them to a like goal; it thus passes over into the sense of author, originator, and becomes=αἴτιος (Bl. II. 1, p. 302). The goal is here ‘salvation’ (σωτηρία), to which ‘glory’ (δόξα) in the participial clause is entirely equivalent. We refer, therefore (with Chrys., Luth., Calov, and most intpp.), this participial clause more fittingly to God, of whom then the same is said, as the expression, “Leader of their salvation,” declares in reference to Christ. He is author of salvation for a great number of children, who are styled ‘many,’ not in the sense of ‘all,’ (Seb. Schmidt), and not in antithesis to all, but in contrast to ‘few,’ and in relation to ‘the One’ (Del.). The irregular Acc. ἀγαγόντα (for Dat. ἀγαγόντι) cannot be urged (as by Carpz., Mich., etc.) against this construction; for the Accus. is the natural case for the subject of the Inf., whence also transitions into it are frequent in spite of a preceding Dat. (Kühn., Gr. II., 346; Bernh. Synt., 367; Buttm. Gr. N. Test., 1859, p. 262).
The Aor. Part. (ἀγαγόντα) was formerly commonly taken in the sense of the Pluperf., and was applied, if it was referred to God as subject, to the saints of the Old Test., as Hofm. even still says (II., 1, 39): “The God who has led many sons to glory, a Moses to the prophetic, an Aaron to the high-priestly, a David to the royal dignity, must render this Son, to whom He had given as His distinguishing vocation, the realization of that destiny of humanity which is set forth in Psalms 8, perfect through suffering.” If, on the contrary, the Part. were referred to Christ, then they were applied (as still by Win. Gr. Ed. 6) to the men already saved through the personal instructions of Jesus. But it is alike inadmissible to weaken the idea of δόξα, glory, hitherto used of Christ’s heavenly glorification, into the lower conception of an earthly, prophetic, priestly, or kingly dignity, and to make the teachings of Jesus, exclusively of His glorious exaltation acquired by sufferings, the cause of salvation. All more recent investigations, however, show that the restricting of the Aor. Part, to the past—a restriction already previously abandoned in reference to the Infin.—is inadmissible. The future signification which many expositors, as even Grotius and Bleek, following Erasmus, give to the participle, is certainly unwarrantable. And to refer it again (with Grot., Limb., Schlicht.), to the eternal purpose and decree of God, though justified by Kuinoel on the ground of an utterly erroneous canon of the earlier Rhetoricians, that the Aor. can be used de conatu, is, of course, to be rejected. “Customary” action may, indeed, be denoted by the Aor., but we are forbidden to assume such a use here, by the fact that we are required by the term ἀρχηγός to restrict the “Sons” spoken of to the New Testament times, excluding those of the Old. [I would add, that there is no such use of the Aor. Participle to denote customary action, as would, in any case, justify the construction here supposed.—K.]. This difficulty is evaded by Tholuck’s assumption, that, here, without respect to relations of time, the Part. expresses the simple way and manner of the perfection, claiming that the Aor. connected with the finite verb, may express that which is contemporaneous with the finite verb, whether mention of this be present or future. To this Lün. objects, that while the Aor. Infin. may be thus used irrespectively of time, this usage does not extend to the Part., and that ἀγαγόντα cannot express the way and manner of the τελειῶσαι—the perfecting—inasmuch as the personal objects of the two verbs are different, ἀγαγόντα having for its object υἱούς, sons, and τελειῶσαι, the Captain, τὸν ἀρχηγόν. The former remark, however, does not touch the examples adduced by Tholuck; and the latter appears to rest on a misapprehension. For the “perfecting” of Jesus, as ‘Leader of salvation,’ has been historically accomplished in His person in no other way and manner than by having had personally His career and course of life in a communion and fellowship of men believing on Him, and transformed by Him into children of God, who, after His manner and type, were led to glory—(a manner and type which Jac., Cappell. and Grot. restrict too exclusively to sufferings). To this also comes substantially the explanation of Lün. himself, viz., that from the stand-point of the writer, the participial clause stands in causal relation to the main proposition, and that the Aor. Part. is justified by the fact that in reality God, from the moment Christ came upon earth as Redeemer, and found faith existing, led to glory, that is, put upon the way to glory, those who had become believers in Him.
[The knot of the difficulty of the Aor. Part. ἀγαγόντι is scarcely yet untied. That it may grammatically be equally well referred either to God, or to the ‘Leader of salvation,’ Christ, seems unquestionable; and in either construction it makes nearly equally good sense, and is liable substantially to the same difficulties. Granting it, however (as with most, I, on the whole, prefer), to be connected with God (to which, as Moll justly remarks, and for the reason which he assigns, the Acc. case of the Part. constitutes no objection), it still remains a question why, and in precisely what sense, the Aor. Part. is used. That, like the Inf., it can be used without specific reference to past time, and that, in a certain sense, it takes its time from its accompanying finite verb, is unquestionable. It usually thus either denotes an act actually, or ideally and logically separable from that expressed by the finite verb, and conceived as logically prior to it, or, as remarked by Thol., expresses its way and manner. Thus to give examples of its several uses:
1. Of its frequent use as applied to past time: “God, after speaking (λαλήσας) to the Fathers, spoke to us,” etc. “Opening (ἀνοίξαντες) their treasures, they presented.” They opened their treasures and presented.
2. Of contemporaneous action actually distinct: “On seeing (ἰδόντες) the star, they rejoiced.” They saw the star before they could rejoice, and yet they rejoiced as soon as they saw the star. Logically, the seeing preceded the rejoicing: chronologically they were simultaneous.
3. A still stronger case of the merely logical separation: “Answering (ἀποκριθείς) he said=he answered and said. The ‘answering’ and ‘saying’ are absolutely and completely one and the same act, but the mind views it under two distinct aspects, and of these the ‘answering’ is logically anterior to the ‘saying.’ So “Jesus crying with a loud voice, said, Father,” etc., here, as in the preceding, the distinction of time is purely logical, the ‘crying’ and ‘saying’ being two aspects of the same act.
4. These latter examples often run into way and manner: “Answering, he said”=“he answered and said,” or nearly=he said in the way of answering. Πιὼν φάρμακον ἀπέθανεν, ‘he drank poison and died,’ or here more exactly, “he died of drinking poison.” Plato does not mean to say (Phæd. I.) “after drinking poison he died,” but “he drank poison and died,” or better, “he died by drinking poison.” Hence the Aor. Part. sometimes denotes almost or quite purely, ‘way and manner.’
5. We may remark, that the Aor. Part. may be employed to denote an idea that is strictly subordinate to that of the accompanying verb, or really coördinate with it, and of equal, or even superior importance. Thus, ‘He directed me coming (ἐλθόντα) to inform him,’ might be either, ‘he directed me after coming, to inform him,’ or ‘to come and inform him;’ and only the connection can show whether the act expressed by the Part. is included in the command, or only presupposed by it. Thus “He commanded him, arising, (ἐγερθέντα) to take the child and flee,” might be either “on or after arising, to take the child and flee,” or to arise and take, etc. The connection only can positively determine.
In view of the above, the natural renderings of the Aor. Part. here would be: 1. (with Hofm.). It became him, etc., “after leading many sons to glory,” which, however, is nearly impossible as to the thought, even after rejecting Hofmann’s absurd reference of it to Christ’s Old Testament predecessors, and referring it, as we might possibly do, to all the righteous whom God had formerly led to glory. One grand objection to this is, that the Old Testament saints had not as yet been led to glory (Heb_11:39-40). Or 2. It became him “by leading many sons to glory,” with Thol. making the Part. express the way and manner. To this, however, Lönemann’s objection is valid, that then the Part. and the verb ought to have the same personal object, as it seems difficult to see how God could perfect Jesus, one being, by leading many sons, other beings, to glory, unless we reply with Moll that the career of our Lord was so intimately blended with the life of His people, that His perfection was really accomplished in the process—not exclusively of suffering—by which they were brought to glory. This answer is ingenious, but hardly satisfactory. Or 3. Taking the Part. not as expressing a subordinate, but a coördinate or principal idea: It became him to lead many sons, etc., and to make: which, however, it must be confessed, hardly seems to be the writer’s idea. To render the Part. as future, being about to lead, or for the purpose of leading (ἄξοντα or ὡς ἄξοντα), or as present while leading (ἄγοντα), is out of the question. It is, indeed, possible to render it ‘as leading’ absolutely,=‘as one who led;’ and this perhaps, all things considered, is the best mode of constructing it. But this is harsh, and I know of no strictly parallel examples in Greek prose. Exceptional constructions in the poets are hardly worth the citing, even if they can be found. Were there even any slight external authority for ἄγοντα or ἄξοντα, on internal grounds I should hardly hesitate to adopt it. The rendering of the Eng. vers., ‘in bringing many sons,’ etc., would naturally require ἐν τῶ ἅγειν, or at the least, the Pres. Part., ἄγοντα.—K.].
Heb_2:11. For both he that sanctifieth and they—are all from one.—Having designated Jesus as the ‘Son of God,’ the author now justifies his application of the same term to those who believe in Him. Not barely the One, but also the others (τε—καί); not merely the Sanctified (Peirce, Beng.), but they together with the Sanctifier, i.e., with Jesus Christ (Heb_9:13; Heb_13:12), are from One. “From one” (ἐξ ἑνός) expresses not likeness of nature and character (ejusdem naturæ et conditionis spiritualis, Calv., Camero), but simply community of origin; and this not ex communi massa (J. Cappell, Akersloot); not “from one seed, or blood, or stock,” (ἐξ ἑνός scil. σπέρματος, or αἵματος, or γένους, as Carpz., Abresch, etc.); nor from Adam (Erasm., Bez., Este, etc.), but from God. For the language relates not to that relationship subsequently adverted to Heb_2:14, by joint participation in humanity, but to spiritual brotherhood with Christ, a brotherhood founded in that translation from the darkness of a life estranged from God into a union with Him as the perfectly pure and absolute and essential light, which Christ, as the Sanctifier, has wrought for us as the sanctified. This is effected, as is subsequently shown, by the high-priestly work, which Jesus Christ, as eternal Priestly King, accomplishes in heaven. For by ἁγιάζειν our Epistle denotes the accomplishment of the actual commencement of the true fellowship of individuals with God, in the Covenant relation which God Himself has instituted, on the basis of the expiation wrought by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and in virtue of the purification obtained through the blood of Jesus Christ, under the point of view of dedication to a Divine relationship, Heb_9:13 f.; Heb_10:10; Heb_10:14; Heb_10:29; Heb_13:12. This expression also has its origin in the terminology of the Old Testament, but has within the sphere of New Testament fulfilment and realization, a more than merely nominal and ritual significance. The Pres. Part. may stand without reference to distinction of time, in the sense of substantives (Winer), [that is, any Participle may, with the Article, be employed in the sense of a concrete substantive, as the Infinitive with the Art. is employed in the sense of the abstract (τὸ ἁγιάζεσθαι, the being sanctified: ὁ ἡγιασμένος, he who has been sanctified), while the Pres. tense denotes, according to the nature of the case, that which is going on at the time specified by the principal verb, or that which from time to time or habitually takes place. Thus οἱ ἁγιαζόμενοι may denote “those who are being sanctified, or are in process of sanctification,” or, “those who, from time to time, are sanctified,” i.e., the successive classes of the sanctified.—K.]. It is a characteristic of Christ to exercise this ministry: of us to receive its influence and efficient power. Thus we are ‘from God’ (Joh_8:47; 1Jn_4:6), and the language can be applied to Jesus, as here the subject is the Saviour’s earthly and historical relation to God. Hence we need not find the ‘Father’ in Abraham (Drus., Peirce, Beng.), nor again refer to God as creative (Chrys. and the Fathers), but as spiritual Father (Grot., Limb., etc.). And thus, under this connection, we need not take the words as denoting a properly universal relation (Hofm.) restricted in its application to Christ and Christians by a reference to the O. T. priesthood (Schlicht., Gerh., etc.). They refer directly to Christ and Christians.
For which reason he is not ashamed to call them brethren.—In accordance with the character of the Epistle, the author appeals not to the words of Jesus Himself regarding this his fraternal relation, but regards it as belonging essentially to the fulfilment of the Messiah’s vocation; and hence, as so typified in the O. Test., that alike David the Theocratic Ruler, and Isaiah the prophetic Servant of Jehovah, recognize, feel, and express this their relation in the Church, and embrace in a unity with themselves those who otherwise are subordinated to them, and dependent upon them. In subjoining, therefore, his proof passages, the writer adds: “for which cause he is not ashamed,” an expression which points on the one hand to the distinction between Christ’s Sonship and that of believers (Chrys., Theod.); and on the other, to his sincere and hearty condescension to this fellowship, in proof of which are now given three citations from the Scripture.
Heb_2:12. Saying, I will declare, etc.—The first passage is from Psa_22:23, according to the LXX, except that ἀπαγγελῶ is substituted for διηγήσομαι. David, amidst the sore distress of his flight from before Saul, reposes in faith, as one whom Samuel had anointed, upon the promise made to him of the throne, and declares, in the midst of affliction, not merely this assurance of deliverance and exaltation, but also his determination to declare on this account to his brethren in the congregation, to the seed of Jacob, to them that fear Jehovah, the name, the grace, the help of the Lord, and summon them to join him in praising God. We need assume neither that Christ speaks in David, nor that the Psalmist has transferred himself into the person of Christ. Nor need we interpose the ideal or abstract righteous person (Heng.) in order to justify the Messianic application of this Psalm. We can conceive it as purely typical (Hofm.), or, regarding the prophecy of history as here united with verbal prophecy, we may regard it as typico-prophetical (Del.).
The second passage is found three times in the form πεποιθὼς ἔσομαι ἐπ’ αὐτῶ—I will put my trust in him,—so that the author has merely reversed the order of the first two words, and prefixed an emphatic ἐγώ. The passage Isa_12:2, cannot possibly be referred to; while that 2Sa_22:3 is intrinsically suitable. Still we are not necessarily forced to this from the fact that a καί πάλιν separates it from the third (Isa_8:17) as well as from the first (Ebr.). Rather we may more naturally refer it to Isa_8:17, because the immediately following verse in Isaiah is employed as the third citation, and the separation of the two verses springs not from the author’s wish to accumulate proofs (Lün.), but from the two passages presenting the relation in question under two different aspects (Del.); first, that the speaker associates himself with his brethren in a common attitude of spirit toward God, viz., that of confidential trust, which belongs properly to all the children of God; secondly, that he embraces in one himself and the children that God has given him. Of course these two passages refer but typically to Jesus; but this typical view is entirely legitimate. For Isaiah, whose very name points to the Saviour, not merely prophesies with prophetic words, but has also begotten children who are partly pledges for the salvation of Jehovah, which is to come after affliction and through judgment, and partly, like him, point by their names symbolically to this relation, and by their position prefigure it. It is hence needless to assume (as Bl., Lün.) that the author has been led by the καὶ ἐρεῖ, introduced by the LXX. before Isa_8:17, to suppose that the Messiah is the speaker, in that these words appeared to point to another subject than the prophet, who, in the whole section, has spoken in the first person, and also to another subject than God, since the latter is in the ἐπ’ αὐτῶ named as He in whom the speaker puts his trust.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Angels may, indeed, sometimes be conceived as guardian spirits of individual men, and as heads of entire nations, and are also designated in Scripture as dominions, principalities, and powers, which in themselves, again, have distinctions of position, of power, and of rank. But a dominion over the world is never ascribed to them, neither over the world of creation, nor over that of redemption. It is, for this reason, folly to invoke them as helpers of our need, or to expect from them any saving intercession.
2. The destination of man to the dominion of the world, has the possibility of its realization in his possession of the divine image. Hence, under the dominion of sin, the actual condition of man cannot correspond to his Divine destination. But on account of man’s susceptibility of redemption, and in reference to his future redemption, the attainment of this destination becomes the goal of history, and is an essential part of the Divine promises.
3. The attainment of this destination of our race, can be reached by individuals only on the ground of redemption, and that, too, in that new world, which, in its hidden ground and germ, is already present; but in its glorified form of manifestation, is still in the future. It is linked completely, and in all respects, with the mediation of Christ as the Redeemer. But those who, through Him, have become children of God, will, by virtue of their birthright, enter into the possession of the promised land (Mat_5:6), and of the world (Rom_4:13), and sitting with Him upon the throne of His glory (Mat_19:28), and on the seat of His Father (Rev_3:21; Rev_5:10) will reign with Him as priestly kings (Rom_5:17; 2Ti_2:12), and as His saints will judge the world (1Co_6:2), and the angels (Heb_2:3).
4. That which for humanity is still in the future, we see in the person of Jesus Christ already realized. In Him the destiny of man is attained, so that in Him, idea and realization are united. An ancient voice from the synagogue (with Del., p. 59, from Biesenthal’s Rabb. Comm., 1857, p. 1) says: “The mystery of Adam is the mystery of the Messiah; Adam is the anagram of א֯דם, ד֯ור, מ֯שׁיח. And the midrash at Psa_104:1 : “God lent to Moses הוד, and to Joshua הדר in that he purposed yet, in accordance with Psa_21:6, to lend both to King Messiah.”
5. But precisely for this reason has also the history of Jesus an inestimable value. We have in it no mythological presentation of religious ideas, no symbolical expression of general relations, no moral portraiture of the ideal man, as a postulate of reason and of conscience; but, however wide-reaching may be this history, and flexible and various in its applications, it is yet in its being matter of fact that it has its true significance and importance. For the peculiarity of the Christian faith is not the idea of communion with God, and the idea of a salvation furnished by the theanthropic personalities and arrangements. This is rather a characteristic of all religious faith. The distinguishing feature of the Christian faith is the certainty of the realization of salvation, for eternal ages and for all believers, a realization accomplished in a single historical subject, in Jesus of Nazareth, and by the acts of His life.
6. Although men, by the fact that they live in a body of flesh and blood, hold for the time being a position subordinated to angels, as heavenly spirits, yet it is precisely in this relationship with earthly creatures, above whom men are again, by their spiritual natures, specifically exalted, that there exists the possibility of man’s central position and of his history in his fall and redemption within the sphere of the universe. He is the creaturely, as Christ is the uncreated, head of the creation.
7. The glorification of the body in the future world, whose type and pledge we behold, in the Son of man, crowned with glory and honor at the right hand of the Father, and the participation of the whole thus glorified man, in the glory of the Lord, elevates him completely and forever above the angels. His subordination to these, is but “for a little,” in respect alike of degree and time.
8. Patient endurance in our present position, in which we as yet see not the fulfilment of our destiny, and of the promises relating to it, is rendered difficult to us by our sufferings, but is rendered easy by the participation and example of Christ. Sufferings have been for Him no hinderance, but rather the ground and means of His glorification; hence we are not to be displeased at the sufferings which we ourselves experience, and are to take no offence at the sufferings of Jesus Christ, but in order rightly to understand and profit by them, are to have regard to their cause and their purpose.
9. A remembrance of that crowning of Christ which has been achieved by sufferings, and the declaration of the gracious purpose of God, in the death of Christ, viz., that Christ tasted death for us, should, on the one hand, awaken our consciousness of guilt, on the other, strengthen our faith in the redemption already secured, and our hope of the glorification yet to be attained: for alike Christ’s suffering and His coronation have sprung neither from accident, nor from any natural necessity, nor from caprice, nor from outward compulsion; but have taken place in free love, in willing obedience, according to God’s gracious purpose for the accomplishment of the true end and destination of the world.
10. The final object of the world, is to reflect back the glory of God. It can fulfil this object only under the dominion of man who corresponds with his destination, i.e., who mirrors in himself the glory of God. In the attainment of this, his destination, man has been hindered by sin, but sin does not merely hinder his reaching the goal; it brings him into positive destruction. Thus for the accomplishment of the world’s destiny, a deliverer of the race becomes indispensable, who has been Himself incorporated into it, as a member, yet whose life is of such a nature, that He can work vicariously, and by His own progress through suffering to glory, can become the author, pioneer, and captain of salvation, for the children whom God leads to glory.
11. The birth and introduction of this indispensable Deliverer, is no result of mere natural development or product of the natural course of human affairs, but a work of Divine freedom and love, corresponding to the holy nature of the Eternal and Omnipotent One, who from everlasting to everlasting has, as to Himself and as to all things, absolute knowledge and control, and has Himself placed Himself, not merely in His glory, as the end, for the sake of which, but in His goodness and might as the cause by means of which, all beings are and exist. The means by which we, as redeemed ones are led to glory, correspond, therefore, alike to the ultimate end and the nature of Him who has both ordained the end, and arranged the means.
12. The fellowship which Christ has with those who are led to glory, rests, in its ultimate ground, on their common origin from one and the same Father. They are all children of God, by virtue of their birth from God. But this fellowship includes an essential diversity. Christ is the eternal Son of God, of like nature with the Father, and hence even in His state of humiliation, needs no regeneration of His nature from the corruption of sin, but only, by virtue of His true humanity, was susceptible and participant of perfection in the pathway of suffering. As the proper and peculiar (ἴδιος, Rom_8:32) Son of the Father He is in Himself ἅγιος (holy). But by virtue of the perfection of His life in the flesh, He, as ἁγιάζων, sanctifier, imparts, by taking away sin and communicating His holy obedience (Heb_9:13-14; Heb_10:10; Heb_10:14; Heb_10:29; Heb_13:12) this quality to those who by adoption and regeneration receive the Divine Sonship, and acknowledges expressly the common brotherhood which He has with them preëminently on the spiritual side.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
To what shall we adhere, amidst the contradictions of our earthly life, and amidst the strifes and turmoil of the world? 1. To the word of God, which announces to us the truth; 2. to the grace of God, which works our salvation; 3. to the Son of God, who has become our brother.—Wherewith shall we comfort and sustain ourselves amidst the sufferings of time? 1. With hope of the glory of the future world. 2. With faith in the certainty of our redemption in Christ Jesus. 3. With the love of the children of God.—We shall triumph victoriously over all dangers which threaten us, if we—1, keep in our eye our destination to that dominion over the world which God has given us; 2, tread the path to perfection which God has ordained and pointed out to us; 3, allow ourselves to be led with all the children of God in following Jesus as the Captain of our salvation.—The greatness and power of the wondrous grace of God is most clearly discoverable by us: 1, in the preëminence to which in the creation He destined us above all creatures; 2, in the accomplishment of our redemption by the giving of His Son for us; 3, in leading the redeemed to sanctification, and to a perfected life in glory.—The Sonship which we possess with God is: 1, a work of grace which binds us to grateful acknowledgment of our unworthiness, and the Divine compassion; 2, a state of salvation which summons us to abiding trust in the Lord; 3, a common brotherhood which stimulates to mutual love in our following after Christ.—Why it is needful and good in all cases to put confidence in God the Lord: 1, because He is the God through whom, as the Almighty, all things are: 2, in like manner, the God for whose sake all things are, for the manifestation of His glory; 3, and further, the God who, as the absolutely truthful One, certainly executes the utterances of His lips; 4, who, as the compassionate One, stoops to His creatures in their necessities; 5, and as the Holy, Ever-living, Unchangeable God, in the only fitting way brings His purposes to accomplishment.—The way through suffering to glory is ordained for us of God: 1, on account of our sins, which hinder us in the promised attainment of our destiny: 2, by the grace of God, which will lead many children to glory; 3, after the pattern of Jesus Christ, who, as Captain of our salvation, was made perfect through sufferings.—From temporal sufferings spring eternal joys if they bring us: 1, under the guidance of God; 2, into the following of Christ; 3, into eternal glory.
Starke:—Everything is subject to Christ, not only in this world, but also in the future. O that in true obedience of faith we may henceforth subject ourselves to Him, that we may not be obliged to bow to His chastisement as Judge!—Of the majesty and glory of Christ we must judge not according to our reason or sense, but solely according to the word of God; otherwise we shall go widely astray, 1Co_2:9.—The character of Christ’s Kingdom is not worldly, but invisible and spiritual. What wonder, then, that we cannot comprehend with our senses the character of His majestic Presence and Dominion? Joh_18:36; Luk_17:20-21.—As one portion of the prophecy regarding Christ is already fulfilled, viz., that He should be crowned with glory and honor, we need not doubt that the rest will also be fulfilled, and that all things will be brought perfectly beneath His feet.—The grace, love and compassion of God are the source of our entire salvation; but the love of the Father was also the love of the Son, Gal_2:20. Observe that the expiatory death of Christ is to be for the benefit of all men, without exception, and is to be applied to them under the condition of faith, 1Ti_2:6.—Precious word! The Lord Christ has tasted death for us, that we might live before Him, Rom_5:10; Col_1:22.—If God has taken this method with His Son, that He should be exalted by suffering, then must we also, through many tribulations, enter into eternal life, Act_14:22; Christ is our “breaker,” Mic_2:13.—Christ, the Captain of thy salvation, has been made perfect by sufferings; why, then, thou cross-shunner, wilt thou not go a like way? 1Pe_4:13.—Believers are indeed brethren of Christ, on account of His human nature, but actually to bear the title and that from love is a work of the grace which they do not deserve. For He, the Brother and Head, is of far greater glory than His members.—The haughtiness of man must be put to shame before the condescension of Christ, who acknowledges us as His brethren. How unreasonable in us not to bear the shame of the poverty, or sinfulness, or impurity of our nearest friends, when Christ bears the shame of our sins!—Behold how men are honored even yet above the angels! Holy and glorious as are these latter, they are not brethren of the Son of God. Should it not arouse us to an humble, indeed, but still joyful praise of God, that we not only have Christ our Brother on the throne of the Divine Majesty, but are also ourselves with Him to be raised to the like royal dignity?—Believers are brethren of Jesus and Sons of God. What a consolation! How is it possible that they should ever be sorrowful? Rom_8:17.—All men are delivered over to Christ for the attainment of salvation; but happy are they who also deliver up themselves in the appropriation of it by the influence of the Holy Spirit, Joh_6:44.—If Christ the Lord of Heaven and Earth is not ashamed to acknowledge us as His brethren, we also should be mindful with all diligence to maintain brotherly love among ourselves, and to evince it by words and deeds.—The exclamation, “Behold, I,” expresses: 1, that the Messiah exhibits Himself as present, and, as with the finger, points to Himself: Behold, here am I! Isa_40:5; Isa_40:9; Isa_52:6-7; Isaiah 2, that His appearance in the flesh would be wondrous and remarkable, Isa_7:14; Isa_9:5; 1Ti_3:16; 1 Timothy 3, His readiness and perfect willingness to speak, to do, and to suffer, that which had been laid upon Him, Is. L. 4, 5; Psa_41:7-9; Psalms 4, that it was He to whom the eyes of all Israel were to look, nay, also the heathen, Isa_45:22.—If it is said of Christ that He reposes His confidence in God, He is not regarded in His character as God, but as having become man, and as executing His assumed work of redemption. And this confidence involves in itself: 1, that the Messiah would exhibit Himself in a lowly, poor and unprotected condition; 2, that He would be in much suffering and danger from enemies; 3, that He would not at all times make use of His Divine power, but would surrender His life to the power of His Father; 4, that He would have abiding assurance of the Divine willingness to aid him.—It was in accordance with Divine: 1, love, that it should discover so effectual a means for the restoration of our lost bliss; 2, righteousness, that it should be such a means as should render satisfaction to righteousness itself; 3, wisdom, that the love and righteousness of God should, through this means, unitedly and in equal measure, distinguish themselves; 4, truth, in order that that which God in the Old Testament had promised at so great cost, and had prefigured in so many types, should be fulfilled, and the Head should stand, in respect to suffering, in close communion with the members; 5, honor, that this might thereby be most gloriously promoted.—God has done every thing which He has done for the manifestation and glorifying of His name, and this with the most entire propriety; otherwise He who possesses perfectly in Himself all glory, would have, as it were, denied Himself. Thus must the honor of God be placed as the object in all things, Psa_115:1; Eph_1:5-6.—Believers under the Old Testament were equally with those in the New Testament, brethren of the Lord Jesus, Mat_12:50.
Berlenburger Bible:—Future things we must hold fast by means of the past and present. But men spring away from them and submit to no struggle. While they grasp after that which glitters, and despise the unostentatious, they wage absolutely no conflict. Many would have only glory, and would only become Lords with their Messiah; therefore they have utterly lost Christ. They would have a king in Christ, but not a bleeding priest.—What to our corrupt eyes appears abominable, is “becoming” in the eyes of God. This becomingness we should always study; all other decorum, all that otherwise belongs to well being, or is reckoned as such, our art may well let pass.—Since we have lost our case by evil doing, it must be recovered by suffering. For this leads through ways of righteousness, and yet from the impulse of love. Hence comes it that such an arrangement “became him.”—We cannot come directly to holiness without expiation, but we all have equal right to both.—It is true that our humanity and Divinity constitute a pair totally unlike, yet this miserable unlikeness has awakened the compassion of God to undertake such a work on our behalf.—Had it depended on our judgment, nothing would have been accomplished in the work of redemption.—It is perhaps easily told how many elements faith has; but the thing itself costs a struggle; man, however, would gladly triumph before the victory.
Laurentius:—Divine truths in the Holy Scripture must also be experienced.—Christ’s state of humiliation lasted only for a little time.—To Christ in His human nature, all things are subjected.—Whom God makes righteous, He also makes glorious. Believers have one and the same Father with Christ.
Rambach:—Believers need no visible Head, but stand immediately under Christ, Heb_12:9.—Christ was humbled a short time below the angels: 1, in that sometimes the service of the angels was withdrawn from Him, as otherwise they are required to worship and serve Him; 2, in that He was exposed to the assaults of wicked angels; 3, in that He subjected Himself to the law which was given by angels.—In the sufferings of Christ were disclosed the grace and righteousness of God. His grace toward us, in laying our sin and punishment upon His Son; His righteousness in Christ as the surety, Rom_3:25.—Had Christ been a mere man, he had had absolutely no cause to be ashamed of His fellow-creatures, even though He had been elevated to the highest honor, as also Joseph was not ashamed to acknowledge his brethren, Gen_45:4; in like manner, Moses, Act_7:22.
Steinhofer:—It is the mystery of the Divine good pleasure, that a man from our midst should be Lord on the throne of majesty, and have dominion over all things. Here none can ask, “Why doest thou so?” Here none can inquire, Why is it so determined? Why has it been so arranged, and accomplished, in Christ Jesus? But, instead, we readily bow ourselves to the earth and adore. I mean that we honor the counsel of eternity; we are astonished at the riches of grace; it is our profoundest pleasure that such is the good pleasure of God; we kiss the Son; we rejoice in this our Lord.—The lowliness and condescension of our Redeemer, the great Son of God, puts us to shame, as often as we behold Him in this form; it inspires in us pangs of love, it melts our hearts like wax before Him.—The simple look of faith toward Jesus, best learns the great mystery of the eternal purpose of God for our salvation. With this we look upon His cross, we look upon His crown. Faith grasps both together.—The grounds and causes of this entire procedure, viz., that the Captain of salvation should be made perfect by death, are God’s perceptions of Divine fitness and propriety.—God takes His children out of the number of the most miserable sinners.—Blessedness and glory are the two things we are to receive from our Saviour and Lord.—Jesus legitimates among His people even the name of brother, so that all worldly titles of honor readily yield to it.—It belongs to the office and work of Jesus, which is His highest joy and the delight of His heart, 1. that He gathers into a community the children of God, who have been ordained and presented to him by His Father; 2. that in His Church He announces and reveals the name of His Father; 3. that He conducts and brings His people to glory.—The way of faith has been tried by the Son of God Himself, inasmuch as Jesus is a noble and thoroughly experienced Prince and Leader on the way of faith; but the power of God is required that one maintain faith to the end.
Hahn:—If we can say with joy, Jesus is my Lord! then we have a pass which we can and may exhibit in the whole realm of creation.—The path of suffering trod by Jesus, makes our own pleasant to us, and should repress our excessive murmuring against suffering.—From Jesus we are to learn the true spirit of suffering, and in like manner the value of suffering in the eyes of God, and with this, bethink ourselves of the brevity of suffering. We should have perpetually before our eyes, 1. the Divine sense of propriety and fitness; 2. the career Christ entered upon wholly for us; 3. the way of faith which Christ makes so honorable to us.
Hiller:—The Church is a community that treads a difficult way, but on this way is led by God; yet can enter upon it no otherwise than by blood, and by faith in one that was crucified.—The Church is a people that is forever preserved and saved by God.
Rieger:—From the love of the Father all further revelation of the kingdom of Christ, and hope therein, is to be derived.—Of all which the result has confirmed, we can say, We see! though we may not have it directly before our eyes.—As the Saviour, under suffering, solaced Himself by this, “It takes place according as it has been decreed and written;” as He, under the heaviest assaults of terror, subjected His most pressing demand, “Is it possible?” to the, “As thou wilt!” so still more, we, in reflection on His suffering, are to rest ourselves, in this good pleasure of God, in these Divine proprieties which are founded in the prerogatives of God’s majesty, and have an influence upon His entire kingdom.—The chief power by which the Lord Jesus endured under suffering, and looked forward to His perfection, was trust. His official burden, the weight of sin that was laid upon Him, the judgment of God, might press Him as they would; His confidence He never cast away.
Heubner:—The dignity of man was first brought to light by Revelation: it flows from Religion. Insignificant man becomes great by the grace of God. Toward no being has God so proved His grace as toward man, since for him He has given His Son.—Christianity knows no perfection except in union with God, and participation in His blessedness.—Christ has secured for God eternal praise, since the highest praise comes from ransomed souls.—The redemption which was completely brought about and inaugurated by the death of Christ, could become universally known and rendered efficacious, only by His exaltation. In this was demonstrated and confirmed the complete validity of His redemption.
Stier:—It was not the wrath of God, it was not condemnation that Jesus tasted, but death; and death, too, not on account of the wrath of God, but from the grace of God. Of short duration was the mockery and the shame that attended Jesus’ suffering of death on our behalf; but eternal are the praise and the honor with which He is crowned.—Although Christ died for all, yet are not all saved by Him, but only the many sons who let Him draw and lead them.
Steinmeyer:—The fraternal relation sustained by the Lord to His believing ones: 1. how we have to unite this with His supreme and all-transcending dignity; 2. what an expression it should find in Christian life.
Hedinger:—Believers are indeed brethren of Christ, on account of His human nature; but actually to bear the title is a work of that grace of which they are undeserving.
Baumgarten (1856):—How looking to Jesus suffices for our happiness amidst the unhappiness of life.
Fricke:—Suffering and victory are so little antagonistic to each other that the same being who has suffered is styled the “Captain of salvation.”
[Owen:—The Lord Christ: 1. our head; 2. our only head, a. of vital influence, b. of rule and government; 3. our immediate head.—If men forget the true God, and then lift up their eyes unto, or fall into the contemplation of the heavenly bodies, such is their glory, majesty, and excellency, that they will be driven and hurried unto the adoration and worship of them.—The assumption of our nature into personal union with the Son of God, was an act of mere free, sovereign, unconceivable grace.—God is more glorified in the humiliation and exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the salvation of mankind thereby, than in any of, or all the works of the first creation.—No love or grace will suit our condition but that which is incomprehensible. We find ourselves by experience to stand in need of more grace, goodness, love, and mercy, than we can look into, search to the bottom of, or fully understand.—Jesus Christ as Mediator of the New Covenant hath absolute and supreme authority given unto Him over all the works of God in heaven and on earth.—There is a double act of God’s predestination; the first is His designation of some unto grace, to be sons, Eph_1:5; the other His appointment of those sons unto glory; both to be wrought and accomplished by Christ, the Captain of their salvation.—In bringing the elect unto glory, all the sovereign acts of power, wisdom, love and grace exerted therein, are peculiarly assigned unto the Father, as all ministerial acts are unto the Son as Mediator; so that there is no reason why He may not be said, by the way of eminency, to be the ἀγωγεύς, the leader or bringer of His sons unto glory.—As the obedience of Christ, which is our pattern, did incomparably exceed whatever we can attain unto; so the sufferings of Christ, which are our example, did incomparably exceed all that we shall be called unto.—Christ is gone before us through death, and is become the “first fruits of them that sleep.” And had Christ passed into heaven before He died, as did Enoch and Elijah, we had wanted the greatest evidence of our future immortality.—The Lord Jesus, being consecrated and perfected through sufferings, hath consecrated the way of suffering, for all that followed Him to pass through unto glory.—No end of the mediation of Christ is accomplished in them who are not sanctified and made holy.—A living head and dead members, a beautiful head and rotten members—how uncomely would it be! Such a monstrous body Christ will never own.—There is no one thing required of the sons of God that an unsanctified person can do: no one thing promised them that he can enjoy].
Footnotes:
[2]Heb_2:6.—The reading τίς ἐστιν (Lach. Ed. Stereot. and Bl.) is not sufficiently supported.
[3]Heb_2:7.—The lect. rec. Καὶ κατέστησας αὐτὸν ἐπὶ τὰ ἔργα τῶν χειρῶν σου, deemed spurious by Mill, bracketed by Lachman, cancelled since Griesbach, is a gloss from the LXX. The author has omitted it in citation as unnecessary to his purpose. It is found, however, in the original text of Cod. Sin.
[4]Heb_2:9.—The reading χωρὶς θεοῦ, without, or apart from God (instead of χάριτι θεοῦ), preferred by Orig. and Theod. Mops., known by Jerome, made use of by Ambr., Fulgent. and Vigil. Thaps., strongly insisted on by the Nestorians, defended by Beng., Ebr., etc., is found only in Cod. 53 (Griesb.) of the 9 or 10 Cent., and Cod. 67 of the 11 or 12 Cent., and in the latter only on the margin. [For χωρὶς θεοῦ, which Theod. Mops. and Ebr., find eminently in place, no natural and appropriate meaning can here be found; while χάριτι θεοῦ, which Ebr. denounces as flat and uncalled for, is eminently to the writer’s purpose, as commending the arrangement which involved the crucifixion of the Messiah, as one called for and originated by the grace of God. It would seem probable that χωρὶς θεοῦ may have originally been placed on the margin opposite Heb_2:8, limiting the expression, “he left nothing unsubjected to him”—‘except God,’ after 1Co_15:27, and that a subsequent copyist, misled by the resemblance of χωρὶς θεοῦ to χάριτι θεοῦ, substituted it in the text. At all events its history is curious, but the internal evidence is decisively against it.—K.].
[5][By a failure to recognize this, the course of thought must be inextricably entangled. By referring the ‘him’ already in Heb_2:8 to Jesus, we are obliged, in order to extract any sense out of the passage, to make a false distinction between Jesus’ being already “crowned with glory and honor,” as but a first step in his elevation, and an ultimate and more complete glorification. Such a distinction, we scarcely need say, is not in the author’s mind at all. “Crowned with glory and honor” is repeated in Heb_2:9 as the exponent and representative of all the dignity and dominion expressed in the preceding verses; and the contrast is not between Jesus now partially exalted in token of His future complete exaltation, and that future complete exaltation, but between man, as such, not yet in himself exalted to his true original destination, and Jesus, the representative Man, thus exalted in Himself, and as the Leader of the destinies of humanity. Thus by taking ‘man’ and ‘him,’ through Heb_2:7-8, in their natural sense, and then, when it appears that in this sense the language of the Psalm is not fully borne out, applying them to the God-Man, we make the connection and the reasoning perfect.—K.].
[6][Hofmann’s first construction would be: But Jesus, having been, on account of His suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, we behold as one who has been for a little humbled below the angels, i. e.=we behold this being to have been for a little, etc. The latter, and unquestionably more correct construction is: ‘But Him who has been for a little humbled below the angels, viz., Jesus, we behold on account of His suffering of death [to have been and to be now] crowned with glory and honor,’ and thus fulfilling in His own person that language of the Psalm, which in humanity proper is not fulfilled. This construction is equally natural, elegant and suited to the context.—K.].
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv5–9 For--confirming the assertion, Heb 2:2-3, that the new covenant…
For--confirming the assertion, Heb 2:2-3, that the new covenant was spoken by One higher than the mediators of the old covenant, namely, angels. Translate in the Greek order, to bring out the proper emphasis, "Not the angels hath He," &c.
the world to come--implying, He has subjected to angels the existing world, the Old Testament dispensation (then still partly existing as to its framework), Heb 2:2, the political kingdom of the earth (Dan 4:13; Dan 10:13, Dan 10:20-21; Dan 12:1), and the natural elements (Rev 9:11; Rev 16:4). and even individuals (Mat 18:10). "The world to come" is the new dispensation brought in by Christ, beginning in grace here, to be completed in glory hereafter. It is called "to come," or "about to be," as at the time of its being subjected to Christ by the divine decree, it was as yet a thing of the future, and is still so to us, in respect to its full consummation. In respect to the subjecting of all things to Christ in fulfilment of Psa 8:1-9, the realization is still "to come." Regarded from the Old Testament standpoint, which looks prophetically forward to the New Testament (and the Jewish priesthood and Old Testament ritual were in force then when Paul wrote, and continued till their forcible abrogation by the destruction of Jerusalem), it is "the world to come"; Paul, as addressing Jews, appropriately calls it so, according to their conventional way of viewing it. We, like them, still pray, "Thy kingdom come"; for its manifestation in glory is yet future. "This world" is used in contrast to express the present fallen condition of the world (Eph 2:2). Believers belong not to this present world course, but by faith rise in spirit to "the world to come," making it a present, though internal. reality. Still, in the present world, natural and social, angels are mediately rulers under God in some sense: not so in the coming world: man in it, and the Son of man, man's Head, are to be supreme. Hence greater reverence was paid to angels by men in the Old Testament than is permitted in the New Testament. For man's nature is exalted in Christ now, so that angels are our "fellow servants" (Rev 22:9). In their ministrations they stand on a different footing from that on which they stood towards us in the Old Testament. We are "brethren" of Christ in a nearness not enjoyed even by angels (Heb 2:10-12, Heb 2:16).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv5–9 5. For—Illustration. All this danger of offending a divine…
5. For—Illustration. All this danger of offending a divine dignity is true, for Christ is lord of our dispensation. The development of thought is this: Heb_2:5 declares that angels rule not this dispensation: Heb_2:6-8 quote the psalmist’s description of man, (as in his first paradisaic state,) made ideal ruler of the lower creation: Heb_2:8 declares how complete that supremacy was, nothing being excepted; but it adds that now, (since the fall,) that subjection is annulled: Heb_2:9 descries that supremacy potentially restored in one, namely, Jesus, who is divinely so exalted as that he may be a glorious atoning sufferer for every man. It is this glorious divine Sufferer who, identifying himself with man by being man, restores the primitive exaltation of man. Beautifully does our author meet those who would revolt from Christ on account of the suffering of the cross, by showing that it was a suffering glorified by the divinity of the Sufferer.
Unto the angels—Not only was the Law given through angels, but the entire old dispensation was rife with angelic over-rulings, either of subordinate angels or transient phenomena of the Angel-Jehovah, who thus anticipated in shadow his incarnation. That angelic guidance led Israel from Egypt.
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Moses declares, (Num_20:16 :) “When we cried unto the Lord, he heard our voice, and sent an angel, and hath brought us forth out of Egypt.” And God says, (Exo_23:20 :) “Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.” And Exo_23:23 : “Mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites… and I will cut them off.” And so the last of the prophets, Malachi, (Mal_3:1,) predicts the incarnate Lord himself under the title “Messenger (or Angel) of the Covenant.” It was not until the time of the Captivity that Israel came fully to form the conception, as we learn from Daniel, that even secular nations were overruled by angels. Dan_10:13; Dan_10:20; Dan_12:1. Against Michael, the prince of the people of God, there stood a “prince of Persia” and “of Grecia.” The Jewish doctors then read the same idea into Deu_32:8, which the Seventy translates, “When the Almighty divided the nations, he set the borders of them according to the number of the angels of God.” This, Rabbi Menahem paraphrases, “He placed seventy angels over the seventy nations.” See our note preceding Luk_10:1. But under our present dispensation angels are in the background. Even popular imagination, when, at the present day, it sees supernatural phenomena, never sees them in an angelic form.
World—Not aeon, the time-world, nor cosmos, the frame-world, but oikomene, the inhabited world, or territory; and so the world more or less completely of human population and territory. Mat_24:14; Luk_2:1; Luk_4:5; Luk_21:26; Act_11:28; Act_17:6; Act_17:31; Act_19:27; Act_24:5; Rom_10:18; Rev_3:10; Rev_12:9; Rev_16:14.
World to come—Buxtorf says: “By ‘world to come,’ some Jews understand the world which is to be after the destruction of this inferior world, and after the resurrection of dead men, when their souls will again be united with their bodies. Others, by ‘world to come,’ understand the days of the Messiah, in which, that is, the Messiah shall come, whom they still expect, and that he will reign temporally in this world.” In the New Testament, when speaking from a Christian standpoint, the world to come would signify the world beyond the judgment-day, as in Mat_12:32 : but speaking from the Jewish standpoint, as here, the phrase signifies the days of the Messiah, the incoming period between the first and second advent. So in the Septuagint of Isa_9:6, Christ is called ο πατηρ μελλοντος αιωνος, the Father of the age or time-world to come, (English translation, “the everlasting Father.”) See notes on 1Co_10:11; Eph_1:10.
Whereof we speak—Which is the subject of Heb_2:1-4.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv5–9 5–13. The voluntary humiliation of Jesus was a necessary…
5–13. The voluntary humiliation of Jesus was a necessary step in the exaltation of Humanity
5. For] The “for” resumes the thread of the argument about the superiority of Jesus over the Angels. He was to be the supreme king, but the necessity of passing through suffering to His Messianic throne lay in His High-Priesthood for the human race. To Him, therefore, and not to Angels, the “future age” is to belong.
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unto the angels hath he not put into subjection the world to come] Lit. “for not to Angels did He subject the inhabited earth to come.” In this “inhabited earth” things in their pre-Christian condition had been subjected to Angels. This is inferred directly from Psalms 8 where the “little” of degree is interpreted as “a little” of time. The authority of Angels over the Mosaic dispensation had been inferred by the Jews from Psa_82:1, where “the congregation of Elohim” was interpreted to mean Angels; and from Deu_32:8-9, where instead of “He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel,” the LXX. had “according to the number of the Angels of God.” From this passage, and Genesis 10, Dan_10:13, &c. they inferred that there were 70 nations of the world, each under its presiding Angel, but that Israel was under the special charge of God, as is expressly stated in Sir_17:17 (comp. Isa_24:21-22, LXX.). The notion is only modified when in Dan_10:13; Dan_10:20, Michael “the first Prince,” and in Tob_12:15, “the seven Archangels,” are regarded as protectors of Israel. But now the dispensational functions of Angels have ceased, because in “the kingdom of God” they in their turn were subordinated to the man Christ Jesus.
the world to come] The Olam habba or “future age” of the Hebrews, although the word here used is not aion but oikoumenç, properly the inhabited world. In Isa_9:6 the Theocratic king who is a type of the Messiah is called “the Everlasting Father,” which is rendered by the LXX. “father of the future age.” In the “new heavens and new earth,” as in the Messianic kingdom which is “the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ,” man, whose nature Christ has taken upon Him, is to be specially exalted. Hence, as Calvin acutely observes, Abraham, Joshua, Daniel are not forbidden to bow to Angels, but under the New Covenant St John is twice forbidden (Rev_19:10; Rev_22:9). But, although the Messianic kingdom, and therefore the “future age,” began at the Resurrection, there is yet another “future age” beyond it, which shall only begin when this age is perfected, and Christ’s kingdom is fully come.
whereof we speak] i.e. which is my present subject.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv5, 6, 8, 9 (5) For.—There is a very clear connection between this…
(5) For.—There is a very clear connection between this verse and Heb_1:14. “Angels are but ministering spirits, serving God in the cause of those who shall inherit salvation; for not to angels is the world to come made subject.” But the connection with Heb_2:2-3, is equally important: “the salvation that is now given has been proclaimed not by angels but by the Lord, and it is God Himself who works with the messengers of the Lord; for not unto angels,” &c. The word “salvation” binds together this section and the first. (See Heb_1:14; Heb_2:2; Heb_2:10.)
Hath he not put in subjection.—Better, did He subject; for the reference is to the passage quoted in the following verses, which is already in the writer’s thought. “He:” God, speaking in the prophetic Scripture.
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The world to come.—The same expression occurs in the English version of Heb_6:5, but in the Greek “world” is represented by entirely different words. Here, as in Heb_1:6, the meaning is “inhabited earth,” “world of man”; there, the word properly relates to time, “age.” Is “the world to come” still future, or is it here looked at from the Old Testament point of view? (See Heb_1:2.) The following verses (especially Heb_2:9) make it clear that the period referred to is that which succeeds the exaltation of Christ. We ourselves cannot but markedly distinguish the present stage of Messiah’s kingdom from the future; but in the perspective of prophecy the two were blended. The thought of this kingdom amongst men has been present from the first verses of the Epistle onwards; hence, “whereof we speak.”
(5-18) It was needful that Jesus, as Author of salvation to man, should in all points be made like to those whom He saves, and in their likeness suffer and die; thus He becomes for them a merciful and faithful High Priest.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv5–9 Here the second division of the first section of…
Here the second division of the first section of the argument, according to the summary given above, (Heb_1:2) begins. But it is also connected logically with the interposed exhortation, the sequence of thought being as follows: "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?For (as an additional reason) not to angels (but to the Sou, as will be seen) did he (God) subject the world to come, whereof we speak, "The world to come (h oikoumenh h mellousa)" must be understood, in accordance with what has been said above in explanation of" the last of these days", (Heb_1:1) as referring to the age of the Messiah"s kingdom foretold in prophecy. The word mellousan does not in itself necessarily imply futurity from the writer"s standpoint though, according to what was said above, the complete fulfillment of the prophetic anticipation is to be looked for in the second advent, whatever earnest and foretaste of it there may be already under the gospel dispensation. The word oikoumenhn (sub ghn) is the same as was used (Heb_1:6) in reference to the Son"s advent, denoting the sphere of created things over which he should reign. And it is suitably used here with a view to the coming quotation from Psalm 8., in which the primary idea is man"s supremacy over the inhabited globe. The whole phrase may be taken to express the same idea as the "new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness". (cf. 2Pe_3:13)
Vers. 5-9. The royalty of man. The apostle, in beginning to touch upon the humiliation and death of Christ, shows that these arrangements brought him no dishonor. God had subordinated the new dispensation, not to angels, but to man (ver. 5); and human nature, restored in Christ to its imperial dignity, is destined to ultimate exaltation above angelic nature.
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I MAN"S NATIVE SOVEREIGNTY. The writer cites, in illustration of this, the testimony of Psalm 8 (vers. 6-8). Here we have:
1. Mans lofty nature. (Ver. 7.) Humanity had a splendid origin. Though clothed meanwhile in a mortal body, our nature did not crawl up to its present position from primeval "sentient slime;" it belonged from the beginning to the same order of being as God its Maker. The first man was not a savage. He wore the crown of reason and conscience and moral freedom. In his spiritual and immortal nature he was made in the image of God. God was "mindful of him," and "visited him.
2. His kingly prerogative. "And didst set him over the works of thy hands" (ver. 7). In bestowing upon man this illustrious kinship with himself, God placed in his hand the scepter of authority over all the creatures. The world was made that he might be its master, and rule over it as God"s viceroy.
3. His universal dominion. "Thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet" (ver. 8). Not the inferior animals only, as Psalm 8. might lead us to conclude; but, as we learn here, as well as from 1Co_15:27, the entire visible and invisible universe. Even the world of angels is by-and-by through Christ to be subordinated to man. It is only "for a little while "that man is to remain "lower" than they.
II HIS FAILURE TO REALIZE HIS SOVEREIGNTY. "But now we see not yet all things subjected to him" (ver. 8).
1. His nature is debased. Man"s course in the world has not been one of continuous upward development. So far from that, it has been a course of deterioration from the golden age of his original maturity. "The crown is fallen from our head." Man used his freedom to destroy his innocence. His spiritual nature is in ruins. He is the slave of his own evil passions. He feels far away from God, and he has lost all fellowship with him.
2. His authority is resisted. So soon as Adam rebelled against God, nature began to renounce allegiance to him. Having lost his purity, he forfeited the lordship, which had been his birthright. Since the Fall, man has not been able to master even the material world. Uncivilized nations live in ignorance of many of the simplest physical laws; and the most advanced rather wrestle with the forces of nature than command them.
3. His power is partial. How impotent man is in presence of earthquake and tempest! Frost and snow are mightier than he. Wild beasts defy him. Insect hordes destroy his harvests. Disease and death triumph over him. Man cannot rule his own spirit; and as for dominion over the spiritual world beyond himself, he is unable to see how such a thing can be possible at all.
III HIS RE-CORONATION IN CHRIST. (Ver. 9.) The apostle"s comment upon David"s words fills them with new light and glory, by showing how their fulfillment centers in Jesus. He has become the focus of man"s destined royalty.
1. The life of Jesus exhibits the Divine ideal of man. We understand what is recant by our creation in God"s image when we "behold;" him. He has lifted our crown from the dust, and set it upon his own head. Think of his life of spotless purity and holy familiarity with God during the years in which he continued "a little lower than the angels." He was, while on earth, the Second Adam the Son of man the Type of imperial manhood. While in the world he exercised dominion over the creatures; and at length he was exalted to God"s right hand, where our faith now sees him.
2. His death gives man power to reach up to that ideal. Jesus voluntarily submitted to his humiliation and sufferings and death that he might put away the sin which has robbed man of crown and scepter. In tasting death he drank up the curse. His sacrifice has vindicated the righteousness and justice of God, and his blood has power to renew and sanctify the human soul. So, those who become united to him in his death are delivered from the thraldom of sin, and participate with him in his kingdom. (Rev_1:5, Rev_1:6)
3. His glory is the pledge of man"s restored dominion. The last clause of ver. 9 reminds us that seeing Jesus has himself triumphed over death, the benefits of his death have become, by virtue of his exaltation, available for all. His people, being one with him, shall partake of all the "glory and honor" with which, as the God-Man, he has been "crowned." Man"s restoration to imperial power is already being foreshadowed on earth, in the increasing triumphs of science and art among Christian nations, and in the gradual victory of what is moral and spiritual over brute force and evil passion. And in heaven the saints shall reign with Christ. They shall stand nearer the throne than the seraphim. They "shall judge angels." The whole of Christ"s vast empire shall be theirs. (1Co_3:21-23)
In conclusion, let us:
1. Cherish the scriptural idea of man"s dignity.
2. Remember that we can realize our destiny only in Christ.
3. Seek a saving interest in his atoning death.
4. Consecrate soul and life to his service.
5. Imitate him as the pattern Man.
6. Live in a manner befitting the great hope which we have in him.
Vers. 5-9. The Divine destiny for man. "For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection," etc. The writer now resumes the subject of the exaltation of the Son of God over the holy angels. He proceeds to show that in that human nature in which he suffered death, he is raised to supreme glory and authority, and that man also is exalted in and through him. Notice
I THE DESTINY FOR WHICH MAN WAS CREATED. In certain aspects of his being man seems to be an insignificant creature, and to occupy a comparatively mean position in the universe. The psalmist, who is quoted in the text, refers to this: "When I consider thy heavens,... what is man?" etc. The word translated "man" denotes the weakness and frailty of our nature; and the words translated "son of man" point to man as "formed of the dust of the ground." Yet there are aspects in which man is great; and the destiny for which God created him is a glorious one. That destiny is briefly indicated in this quotation from Psa_8:8. It consists in:
1. A high place in the Divine regard. As evidence of this we have a twofold fact.
(1) God graciously thinks of man. "Thou art mindful of him;" "I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil." God"s care of man, which is manifested in the provision which he has made for him, witnesses to his thought of him. What significance it gives to our life when we reflect that the Infinite thinks upon us and cares for us! How the fact tends to exalt our nature! What a consolation and inspiration it should be to us! "I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me.
(2) God graciously visits man. "Thou visitest him." The word used indicates a kindly visitation, as of "a physician visiting the sick." His visitation preserveth our spirits. His visits bring light and refreshment and joy. "His going forth is prepared as the morning, and he shall come unto us as the rain," etc. His visits are redemptive. "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people.
2. An exalted rank in creation. Thou madest him a little lower than the angels." We have already called attention to the distinguished rank of angels in the universe, Man is only a little lower than they. "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him." Man"s nature is intellectual He can reason, reflect, etc. It is spiritual. The body is the vesture of that which comes from God and returns to him. "There is a spirit in man," etc. It is moral. He can understand and feel the heinousness of the morally wrong, the majesty of the morally right. Conscience speaks within him. It is religious. He can love, admire, and adore. It is capable of endless progress. If man attains unto his Divine destiny he will for ever have to say, "It doth not yet appear what we shall be." Truly, "Thou madest him a little lower than the angels;" "a little less than Divine.
3. A position of kingly majesty and authority in this world.
(1) Here is regal majesty. "Thou crownedst him with glory and honor." The figure of coronation is intended to set forth the royal majesty which was conferred upon man, as of a kingly crown. Amongst creatures in this world he is royal in his faculties and capacities, and in his position.
(2) Here is regal authority. "Thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet," etc. The psalmist in the original passage amplifies this "all things:" "All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field," etc. There is a reference to Gen_1:26-28," Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea," etc. In this world man is God"s vicegerent. He was made by his Creator to exercise dominion over all things and all creatures here.
II THE FAILURE OF MAN TO REALIZE HIS TRUE DESTINY. "But now we see not yet all things put under him." It is unmistakably clear that at present man"s sovereignty in the world is not complete. The scepter has slipped from his grasp. His dominion is contested. He has to contend against the creatures that were put in subjection unto him. The forces of nature sometimes scorn his authority and defy his power. Man has not now complete rule over his own being. His passions are sometimes insurgent against his principles. His senses are not always subordinate to his spirit. His appetites war against his aspirations. Sin has discrowned man. He has lost his purity, therefore has he lost his power. In his present condition he is far from realizing his glorious destiny.
III THE DIVINE MEANS FOR ENABLING MAN TO REALIZE HIS DESTINY. "But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels," etc.
1. The Son of God has taken upon himself human nature. "We behold him who hath been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus." "Who being in the form of God, deemed not his equality with God a thing to grasp at, but emptied himself, taking upon him the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men." As man was "made a little lower than the angels," so, in becoming man, our Lord also was "made a little lower than the angels.
2. In his human nature he endured death. "That he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.
(1) The death of Jesus was voluntary. In his case death was not inevitable. He was not forced to die. "I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one taketh it away from me," ere; "The Son of man came... to give his life a ransom for many.... Christ Jesus gave himself a ransom for all." The voluntariness was essential to the influence of his death as an atonement and as an inspiration.
(2) The death of Jesus was for the benefit of man. Taste death for every man." In this place for" (uper) does not mean "instead of," but on behalf of. " Alford well says, Where this ordinary meaning of uper suffices, that of vicariousness must not be introduced. Sometimes, as e.g. 2Co_5:15, it is necessary. But here clearly not, the whole argument proceeding, not on the vicariousness of Christ"s sacrifice, but on the benefits which we derive from his personal suffering for us in humanity; not on his substitution for us, but on his community with us. " He died for "every man." The benefits of his death, its inspiring and redeeming power, are available "for every man for the poorest, the obscurest, the wickedest, etc.
(3) The death of Jesus for man is to he ascribed to the kindness of God. That he by the grace of God should taste," etc. Our salvation is to be ascribed to the unmerited kindness and love of God towards us. The grace of God hath appeared, bringing salvation unto all men." When the kindness of God our Savior, and his love toward man, appeared, not by works done in righteousness," etc.; God commendeth his own love toward us, " etc.
1. On account of his endurance of death he has been raised to supreme glory and authority. "Because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor." His exaltation to this might and majesty is in consequence of his voluntary humiliation and suffering and death. "He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted him," etc. This was necessary to the perfection of his redemptive work. "On the triumphant issue of his sufferings their efficacy depends.
2. He has been exalted to this supreme position as the Head of humanity.
Not the angelic but the human nature has God raised to the throne. "For not unto the angels did he subject the world to come, whereof we speak." This Christian economy, this new world of redemption by the grace of God in Christ Jesus, in all its developments, is placed under our Lord. In our humanity, and as our Head and Forerunner, he is enthroned the King in the new realm of Divine grace. Humanity is crowned in him. Through him alone can we realize our glorious destiny. We must:
(1) Believe in him. Our text intimates this. "We behold him... even Jesus." This "behold" does not express an indifferent, uninterested sight of him; but the earnest look of faith, the believing contemplation of him. By faith we become one with him.
(2) Imitate him. The sacrifice of the cross leads to the splendor of the crown. The true sovereignty is reached only by the way of service. "If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified with him. W.J.
Vers. 5-10. The dignity of human nature shows that the Incarnation was not degrading to the Godhead. The apostle proceeds with his argument broken off at end of the first chapter. The first chapter deals with the Deity of Christ; the second with his humanity; thus the Epistle is based on the fact of the dual nature of our Lord. Having spoken of the Godhead of Christ, he has to meet the objection which presented itself with great force to the Hebrews. Why should this glorious.Being stoop to the humiliation of Jesus of Nazareth?
To the Jew, Christ crucified was a stumbling-block. (Joh_10:30-33 Joh_12:32-34) The writer needs to justify the Incarnation. (Observe, he does not attempt to prove the real humanity of Jesus. Clearly the Hebrews did not share subsequent doubts on this point, for there is not a word in the Epistle though it is based on the fact to prove that Jesus was man; it is assumed, than which there can be no stronger evidence of it, for if the Hebrews, Christ"s contemporaries cherished no doubts with regard to it, the later doubts of others are worth nothing.) In justifying the Incarnation, the writer uses in this chapter four progressive arguments, closely woven together yet distinct. The first is in this passage. Subject The dignity of human nature shows that the Incarnation was not degrading to the Godhead. True, Christ did assume human nature, and that was an act of infinite condescension; but there was no degradation in it, for consider how sublime this nature is in God"s estimate.
I THE DIGNITY OF HUMAN NATURE AND MAN"S FAILURE TO ATTAIN IT. (Vers. 5-8.) (Observe marginal readings in Revised Version, ver. 5, "the inhabited earth;" ver. 7," for a little while.") In proof of this dignity, the writer quotes from their own Scriptures. (Observe that this Epistle is very remarkable for its quotations from the Old Testament. Many of the Epistles addressed to Gentile believers have no quotations, but in this they are found in almost every page. To the Jew the Scriptures were a final authority, so in writing to them each successive step of the argument is based thereon.) He bids them, therefore, read in the eighth psalm how lofty is God"s idea with regard to man. The picture drawn there may be ideal, may never have been reached; but it is God"s idea, and being so, some day it shall be fulfilled. What, then, is the proper dignity of humanity? what the place in the universe to be filled by this wondrous being, man, who in himself, unlike God"s other works, is a combination of the material and the spiritual? The psalm specifies in token of man"s greatness:
1. His lordship over creation. "Thou didst set him over the works of thy hands; thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet." Man is not one of innumerable beings made to people the earth; not a link in an endless series, as though up to him all previous things have led, and from him others higher still shall be evolved. The world was made for him, made and furnished (see Genesis 1) to be his home, the scene of his education, the means of his discipline, the minister to his happiness. Man is greater, in God"s sight, than all the worlds; he was made to be a crowned and sceptered king, with them for his servants; he was made in God"s image to have dominion over them all.
2. His fellowship with God. "Man, thou art mindful of him... the son of man, thou visitest him!" God rejoices in all the works of his hands, but how different his feeling towards men! They are to have communion with him, which involves similarity of nature; they are taught to pray, "Our Father, which art in heaven." The parable of the prodigal son is the picture of his attitude with regard to them his sorrow, and joy, and welcome, and fellowship, and care. How great that nature of which this is true!
3. His destroy to be higher than the angels. "Thou madest him, for a little while, lower than the angels; ... thou didst put all things... under his feet." Nothing is left out; angels, principalities, powers, are included. How great the angels; how sublime the idea Scripture gives of them! But man is only made lower than they for a little while. He is the son, they are the servants.
4. His redemption secured at so great a price. "Jesus... should taste death for every man." How great is he of whom Christ could say, "I will give my heavenly crown for him; I will pass through the humiliation of a sorrowful human life for him; I will bow my head in accursed death for him; I will forfeit my Father"s favor for him!" But this glorious dignity is not yet reached. "But now we see not yet all things subjected to him." If we compare the eighth psalm with the actual condition of things, it reads like a satire. Traces of man"s greatness are seen in his moral nature and achievements; but when we behold the poverty, ignorance, disease, misery, crime, sin, which abound under the sun, and compare them with the magnificent ideal of Scripture, the distance of the actual from the ideal seems too great to be destroyed.
II THE ASSUMPTION OF HUMAN NATURE BY CUBIST, AND ITS PERFECTION REACHED IN HIM. "But we behold him who hath been made for a little while lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor." This ideal psalm is realized in Christ; all that man was to be we see in Jesus.
1. Christ assumed that nature which is lower than the angels. Mark the contrast between this and the substance of the first chapter. This is the first chapter: Christ "so much better than the angels." This is the second: "Jesus, made for a little while lower than the angels." How great the contrast between the angels who heralded his birth, and the feeble babe; between the angels who ministered to him, and the lonely Man worn with conflict; between the angels who strengthened him in Gethsemane, and the Man of sorrows, whose sweat was as it were great drops of blood; between the angels who kept his tomb, and that lifeless body! Think of the Lord of angels needing angelic ministry! His earnest prayer, his deepening groans, Were heard before angelic thrones; Amazement wrapped the sky! "Go, strengthen Christ," the Father said: Th" astonished seraph bowed his head, And left the realms on high.
2. Christ has lifted that nature far higher than the angels. We behold him crowned with glory and honor." When Christ returned to his native position, he retained his human nature for evermore; as when he trod the streets of Jerusalem and hills of Galilee this same Jesus." Exalted to the right hand of the Father, he is still "the Man," the man wearing his human body, that body spiritual in the like of which Moses and Elias appeared at the Transfiguration, and the saints will be enwrapped at the resurrection. It is thus, as muff, he is exalted King over all. To him, as man, every knee doth bow in heaven, and shall bow on earth; on his head, as man, are many crowns; in his human hand rests the sceptre which rules the universe; and before him, as man, the hosts of heaven continually do cry," Thou art the King of glory, O Christ.
3. Christ"s ability for this was due to the suffering of death. Christ inherits the throne of heaven as man, as the meritorious reward of his sufferings. So Isaiah; (Isa_53:11, Isa_53:12) so Paul. (Php_2:6-11) What Christ is in his mediatorial capacity he is because he died; apart from his death, he would have no power to be or do anything for man. Man has failed to be what God meant him to be; Christ has become it all; and through the suffering of death retains it all for evermore.
III THE PERFECTION OF HUMAN NATURE IN CHRIST IS THE PLEDGE OF ITS PERFECTION IN his PEOPLE. That is evidently the idea here: "We see not yet all things subjected to man, but we behold Jesus... crowned with glory and honor." The truth is that whereas we are groaning in our failure to reach the eighth-psalm ideal, Christ has attained that sublimity which human nature ought to reach; and through him we shall one day attain it too. The littleness under which we labor we shall shake off, and rise to that grand summit in which there will be only One above us, God over all; the pledge of this being that that summit is already reached by Christ as man.
1. The perfection of human nature in Christ is the token of the complete removal of man"s disabilities. God was unable to fulfill his ideal for man, because sin forfeited exaltation and incurred abasement. Christ undertook, as man"s Representative, to remove the sin by an atoning death. The exaltation of Jesus from the sepulcher to the throne was the proof that the atonement was sufficient. Now the hindrance to God fulfilling his purpose for man is removed: the eighth-psalm ideal is that purpose; that ideal will, therefore, be attained.
2. The perfection of human nature in Christ is the assurance of all power in the hands of the Mediator. Christ raised to supreme authority as God-Man, means that all the authority he possesses is to be used in his redemptive work. Then, depend upon it, he will redeem perfectly; he will save up to the highest point of salvation of which man is capable, and. which even God desires. There can be no fear of his people reaching the eighth-psalm ideal when they know that on purpose to raise them to it, Christ, in the nature and character of Savior, has been placed on the highest throne.
3. The perfection of human nature in Christ is the promise of perfection to all who are to be made like him. His people are to be glorified together" with him, sit with him on his throne, become like him when they see him. See here what Christ is; learn thereby what man in him shall be; for Christ in glory is but the First fruits of perfected humanity. C.N.
Vers. 5-9. The human nature of our Lord foreshadowed and his sovereignty over all things realized through his sufferings and death. The author pursues his argument, which is to show the indisputable superiority of our Lord to the angels, unto whom the kingdom of grace is not made subject. In the quotation from the eighth psalm there is declared the condescension and goodness of God towards man in appointing him to be the lord and ruler of creation. When Jehovah pronounced the blessing upon Noah and his sons, he said, "And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered". (Gen_9:2) This sublime promise is realized in the exaltation of the Son of God, who was made for a short time lower than the angels; and yet, even in his state of humiliation, showed his kingly power over the diseases of men, the storms of the sky, and the fishes of the sea. But there is the plain fact that all things are not put under men; yet we see Jesus of Nazareth made lower than the angels that he should fulfill the purposes of eternal grace, taste death in its unutterable bitterness and agony that life might be offered to mankind, and now crowned with glory and honor. There is a sacred lesson conveyed to Jewish Christians in the allusion to the death of our Lord, since the offence of the cross was likely to disturb their faith, and lead them to surrender a truth which was a stumbling-block to many of their countrymen. Jesus passed through this valley of the shadow of death to reach the throne where he is now exalted, angels, principalities, and powers, believers and unbelievers, being now subject unto him. The glory and honor which he has attained raise him far above all patriarchs, priests, prophets, and the whole angelic world; and therefore those that kiss the Son, in unlimited trust and loving obedience, may expect all the blessedness now and hereafter from their faith in the Redeemer. B.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv5, 6, 7, 9 Put in subjection the world to come
Heb_2:5
Put in subjection the world to come
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The sovereignty of the future
I.
IF CHRIST IS THE SOVEREIGN OF THE FUTURE, WE SHOULD HOLD STRONG FAITH IN THE UNIVERSAL TRIUMPHS OF HIS SYSTEM.
1. He has plentitude of power for the accomplishment of His promises.
2. Plenty of time.
II. IF CHRIST IS THE SOVEREIGN OF THE FUTURE, WE MAY INFER THAT OUR FUTURE WELL-BEING IS EVER DEPENDENT UPON PRESENT WELL-DOING. Otherwise
1. The good would have no guarantee that present obedience would ensure future well-being.
2. And the evil might hope for approval hereafter.
III. IF CHRIST IS THE SOVEREIGN OF THE FUTURE, HIS LOYAL SUBJECTS SHOULD BE RECONCILED TO THE EVENTS OF THE PRESENT, AND CALMLY AWAIT THOSE OF THE FUTURE.
IV. IF CHRIST IS THE SOVEREIGN OF THE FUTURE, THE OBVIOUS INTEREST OF EVERY HUMAN BEING, IS TO CULTIVATE HIS FRIENDSHIP NOW.
1. Because, without this friendship, His control will run contrary to all the feelings, aspirations, and purposes of the soul.
2. Because without this friendship, His control in the future will be exercised with positive reference to punishment. (Homilist.)
The world to come
The greatest difficulty is to know what is meant by the world to come, which many think refers to the state of glory, and the word which follows the resurrection. Thus Lapide, and some of the ancients. Rivers understands the Church-Christian as opposed to the Church of former times, especially under the law. This is the more probable sense; for the apostle speaks of these last times, wherein God spake unto men by His Son; and it is opposed to the times wherein He spake by His prophets and angels. Yet we must not understand it of the Church exclusively, as though God had not subjected other things, even angels, for the good of the Church. That world and those times whereof the apostle speaks are here meant, but he speaks of the times of the gospel. The proposition is negative. God subjected not the world to come to angels. In former times God had used very much the ministry of angels in ordering the Church, and put much power in their hands to that end. Yet now in this last time He made Christ His Son (who by reason of His suffering was a little lower then the angels) to be the administrator-general of His kingdom, the universal Lord, and subjected the very angels unto Him. The expression seems to be taken from Isa_9:6, for whereas there, amongst other titles given to Christ, one is, everlasting Father; the Septuagint turn it, the Father or Governor of the world to come, which seems to be the genuine sense of the Hebrew words. The sum is, that God did not subject the Church in the times of the gospel, nor the world of those times to angels but to Christ. The words thus understood may inform us
1. That Christ is more excellent than the angels.
2. If the law and Word spoken by angels, when neglected and disobeyed, was so severely punished, much more severely shall they who neglect the gospel spoken by Christ be punished.
3. That if it was the duty of the fathers and those who lived in former times to hearken to the Word spoken by angels, which are but servants, then it is much more the duty of us, who live in these last times, to hearken unto the Word of so great salvation spoken by Christ, made Lord of all. From hence we may understand the scope of the words to be the same with that of the former, and that may be considered either as part of the former reason why we should hearken to Christ and not neglect the gospel; or they may, with the latter words following, contain another distinct reason, and in this manner, that seeing God hath not to the angels subjected the world to come, but to Christ, who, by His suffering and death, was for a little time made lower than the angels, and for that suffering, afterwards made Lord of all, even of angels, then we ought to give the more earnest heed to His doctrine. (G. Lawson.)
The world to come
The phrase to come does not seem here merely to express the antithesis between this world and the new order of things introduced through Christ; with this there is at least included the idea that this new order is still future: compare city to come (Heb_13:14; Heb_6:5). Throughout the Epistle the great antithesis is this world and the world to come. The former, visible, material, transient, to which belongs, as part of it, the first covenant; the other, real, heavenly, and eternal, access into which is through the new covenant. The first is subjected to angels, particularly as revealers of the law; but under their rule seems embraced the whole pre-Christian condition of things, embracing man in his earthly and mortal condition. Salvation is escape from this and possession of the heavenly world. In this world to come the angels have no more rule, all things without exception are put in subjection to man (Heb_2:8). From the Old Testament point of view, the world to come is the world from the coming of the Messiah, for the Old Testament drew no lines in the Messianic salvation, the Messianic world was perfect from the moment of Messiahs coming. But in the view of this Christian writer, though powers from the world to come made themselves felt here (Heb_2:4; Heb_6:5), and though through hope (Heb_6:19) and faith believers might be said to be come to it (Heb_12:22), it was still no more than ready to be revealed. It belonged to a sphere transcending this earth, out of which it would be revealed and descend, and then all that was promised by Gods holy prophets would be fulfilled, when the meek should inherit the earth Psa_37:11; Mat_5:5; Rom_4:13), and the dominion under the whole heaven should be given to the people of the saints of the Most High (Dan_7:27)--for then earth and heaven would be one. This world to come is identical with the all things of the Psalm (verse 8), being all things in their final and eternal condition--whereof we speak means, which is the subject of my writing, rather than, which is the theme of hope and converse among us Christians. (A. B. Davidson, LL. D.)
Christ the Genius of the future
Strauss, in writing of the Emperor Julians attempt to restore the old paganism, and to put away the new Christianity, says: Every Julian, i.e.. every great and powerful man who would attempt to resuscitate a state of society which has died, will infallibly be vanquished by the Galilean, for the Galilean is nothing less than the genius of the future. To say that the Galilean is nothing less than the genius of the future, is to say of Him what it would be ridiculous to say of any one else. Strauss felt that the spirit of the Galilean was so great add good, so rich, as to give to the future its noblest inspirations. (T. Sherwood.)
The world to come
As a man plants his estate, and plants for far-off years, and gives to each tree the soil and situation it requires--so has the Lord planted this earth, and certainly with reference to a time not yet fulfilled. (Miss S. F. Smiley.)
The hope of a golden age
The hope of a future golden age, when the whole world should be renewed and evil banished, is very plainly expressed in the old German legends of the gods. Baldr, the good, the holy and the wise, the favourite of the gods and of men, is slain through the crafty stratagem of the wicked Loki. The gods and all creatures lament: men and beasts, trees and rocks weep. Evil times afterwards come upon the earth; strife and bloodshed increase; and in the fight between the giants and the gods, Odin and the Ases (the good gods) are subdued, and the world destroyed by fire. But Vidar the victorious will restore the golden age; a new world is to arise, clothed with perpetual spring and plenty; there will no longer be any Loki, and Baldr will return from the dead: while gods and men, recovering from their overthrow, will dwell peacefully together. Kindred traditions are familiar also, in Mexico and the South Sea Islands. In short, everywhere in the heathen world, the prediction and the hope are indigenous, that when evil shall have reached its climax, these iron times of sin and misery will come to an end, and even the gods who have ruled during this age of the world will be overthrown. For this purpose a royal hero, of heavenly descent, will appear to crush the head of the demon and to bring back the primitive age of happiness and innocence. (Prof. C. E. Luthardt.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv5–9 5–12. The world to come. Literally, “the inhabited earth…
5–12. The world to come. Literally, “the inhabited earth in the future.” The Jewish dispensation was called by the Jews “the present world.” A dispensation following it would be “the world to come.” The reference is rather to the future gospel ages than to the eternal world. These are not subjected to the angels.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v5 Heb_2:5. World to come.—The new dispensation. Rabbinical teaching was…
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Heb_2:5. World to come.—The new dispensation. Rabbinical teaching was divided under two heads:
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(1) hâ‘ôlâm hazzeh (the present world), and
(2) hâ‘ôlâm habbâ (the world to come). The period referred to in this verse is that which succeeds the exaltation of Christ. But the word used by the writer strictly means “the inhabited earth.”
Heb_2:6. The writer brings this quotation from the 8th Psalm to show that man is recognised as inferior to angels. This he admits must apply to Jesus, the Head of the new dispensation. He has therefore to meet the Jewish objection, that Judaism, ministered by angels, must be a higher dispensation than Christianity, which was ministered by a man. Notice that this writer does not affirm the Davidic authorship of the psalm. The quotation is taken from the LXX. Version. The writer’s thought may be thus given:” According to Scripture the world is subjected to man, not to angels. We ought therefore to cherish high notions of man’s dignity. Man has not, however, yet gained his full sovereignty. There is hope for him now; for we do see the “Man Christ Jesus,” though humiliated for a purpose, crowned with glory and honour, and constituted the Head of the race. In Him and through Him man will reach His full dignity.” “There is One in whom the Divine purpose is fulfilled in all its parts.”
Heb_2:9. To understand this verse we must keep in view the Jewish objection which the writer is combating. It may be stated thus: “The Christ whom you are so greatly exalting was only a man, and suffered an ignominious death.” He replies: “There was a necessity for that humiliation to share our humanity, and a necessity for that experience of death. And on the ground of consenting to that humiliation, and suffering that death, He is crowned with glory and honour.” Compare St. Paul’s glorying in “Christ and Him crucified.” Taste death.—Passing through a complete human experience. For every man.—In order to gain redemptive power on every man.
Heb_2:10. Became Him.—God, rhetorically described in the next clause. Many sons.—An assertion of the relation of man to God which Christ the Son fully represents. Captain.—Better, “Bringer-on.” Christ is the living Leader of souls. “Author” is a suitable term. Perfect.—In the sense of “perfectly competent.” But two thoughts seem to be included:
(1) perfectly fitted for His work of bringing on;
(2) perfect, as crowned with glory and honour, for reward. It became God to give the reward. Sufferings.—The characteristic lot of humanity.
Heb_2:11. Sanctifieth.—The LXX. and the New Testament use of the word ἁγιάζω is the selecting out, and adopting for, God’s service. It suggests the moral side of the Redeemer’s work. All of one.—Of one and the same human nature. If Christ was to exert moral power on us, manifestly He must be a moral being in our sphere, and familiar with our experience. Brethren.—Real brother-men. The full value of our Lord’s humanity in relation to His complete redemptive work is only now coming into the full view of theologians.
Heb_2:14. Partakers of flesh and blood.—This opposes the errors of the Docetæ. The devil.—A deadly power of leading men into sin is ascribed to the devil (see Joh_16:11; Eph_2:2; Eph_6:12; 1Co_2:15; 2Co_4:14). Stuart explains, “To render null the deadly power of Satan is to prevent the effects of it, as bringing men to incur the sentence of spiritual death.”
Heb_2:15. Fear of death.—Not physical dying, but the sin-sense, which darkens the future.
Heb_2:16.—R.V. “For verily not of angels doth He take hold, but He taketh hold of the seed of Abraham.” Does not redemptively interest Himself in angels.
Heb_2:17. Behoved Him.—It was as becoming as it certainly was necessary. High priest.—This allusion rhetorically introduces the writer’s next comparison. The great point impressed in this chapter is, that the Son accomplishes His redemptive work largely through the power of sympathy; to secure that sympathy He must have fellow-experience with man in His sufferings and death.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Heb_2:5-18
The Representative Manhood of the Divine Son.—It is necessary to deal with this passage as a whole, because only one subject is really treated in it. The writer has referred to the angels, and has shown the superiority of Jesus to them in being the Divine Son. But he had spoken of the angels as “ministering spirits.” Not men; not in the earthly range; and so not effective agents in accomplishing human redemption. If he had dwelt upon the superiority of Christ to angels, he must also recognise His temporary inferiority to angels. If he dwells first on the primary truth of our Lord’s Deity, he must also present the equally essential truth of His humanity. “He was made a little lower than the angels” by becoming a man; and a man He must become if He would accomplish the redemption of man. “The temporary humiliation was the voluntary and predestined means whereby alone He could accomplish His redemptive work.” But the writer approaches his theme from a fresh and somewhat unusual side; we might almost say that he comes round to it in an indirect way. This is his point, “The voluntary humiliation of Jesus was a necessary step in the exaltation of humanity.”
I. God’s promise to man is vindicated in Christ.—In having the limitations of a human body, with its five senses, man is made “a little lower than the angels”; but in the earth-sphere where he, in the body, is placed he is supreme, he is lord, everything is subject to him. So God constituted his relations. Amid all earthly things man stands first, “crowned with glory and honour.” “Set over the works of God’s hands,” the entire material universe. And having “all things put in subjection under his feet.”
1. Rule in the earthly and human spheres is in no sense given to angels. “Unto the angels did He not subject the inhabited earth [margin, R.V.] whereof we speak.”
2. But, as a matter of fact, this complete rule, which God designed for him, has never yet been realised by ordinary man. “Now we see not yet all things put under him.” That fact is explained by man’s wilfully breaking loose from the laws and conditions which God had arranged, and so bringing sin and death into the world, things which are entirely beyond man’s control, by which he has always been mastered. All things then are not subject to the ordinary man. There is very much that is subject to him. In one direction he is limited. Death, and the sin which makes it a necessity, man cannot control.
3. This complete rule over absolutely all things in the earth-sphere is realised in one Man, the representative Man, the “Man Christ Jesus.” The Son was made “a little lower than the angels,” made a man, in order that He might deal with the one thing—death—which man had no power to conquer. As a man only was it possible for Him to “taste death,” and in the very experience of it conquer it. “Through death He might bring to nought him that had the power of death.” It was as if an alien power held death; and from him man could never wrest it; so all his life, master whatsoever he might, man was afraid of death, and subject to its bondage. Christ the man won for man the mastery of the one thing that completed man’s mastery of the earth, and now, in Christ, God’s promise to man is realised—“all things are in subjection unto Him.”
II. See how much is involved in the vindication.—Death is only a climax and result. It involves so much. And He who gains the mastery of death must gain with it the mastery of all that it involves.
1. It is the climax of sin. “Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” Then it must be evident that Christ has gained the power to deal with and master human sin.
2. But the writer has another thing in mind. Suffering is in the world, as God’s disciplinary agency for the correcting of sin. And He who conquers death for man, and masters sin for man, must also have the power to deal with suffering. And just as He yielded to death and took all its bitterness away, so He yielded to suffering and took all its bitterness away nay, even gained His power to sanctify suffering, and take away sin by suffering—was made a perfect Bringer on of souls to glory by suffering. What have we then in Christ when we can fully embrace the double truth of His Deity and His humanity?
1. His sympathy—born of actual experience—in our times of suffering.
2. His representative triumph over death, which secures us relief from the “fear of death.”
3. The destruction of death itself in its relation to sin; and His present living mastery—as our Head—of the sins that bring on death, and the sufferings that were necessary to exhibit the evil of sin, and to discipline man in his efforts to master sin. “It behoved Him to be made in all things like unto His brethren,” that He might deliver them from their sin and death bondage, and come into their lives as a sympathetic and efficient spiritual helper.
(In “Suggestive Notes” see passage from Moses Stuart.)
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
Heb_2:5. “The Infinite Superiority of Jesus to the Angels is not diminished but rather enhanced by the temporary humiliation which was the voluntary and predestined means whereby alone He could accomplish His redemptive work.”
The Temptableness of Christ’s Manhood.—“Temptation of its own nature involves suffering, and it is too generally overlooked that though our Lord’s severest temptations came in two great and solemn crises—in the wilderness and at Gethsemane—yet Scripture leads us to the view that He was always liable to temptation, though without sin, because the temptation was always repudiated with the whole force of His will throughout the whole course of His life of obedience.” It is indeed essential to any and every moral being that he shall be temptable, and it shall be possible to yield to temptation and fall. This truth is illustrated in the legend of the fall of the angels. Too often angels are thought of as untemptable. What is promised to us is not a future removal of the liabilities of the moral nature, which we shall always have, but a Divine life in our will, which will give us the absolute security that Christ enjoyed.
The Objection to Salvation by a Fellow-man.—As the Jews, one and all, conceded that the dispensation of the Messiah would be of a higher order than that of Moses, proof that Jesus was the sole mediator or head of the new dispensation, and that angels were not employed as mediators or internuntii in it, would satisfy them that Jesus was superior to angels. But the unbelieving Jew would be likely to urge the seeming absurdity of renouncing subjection to a dispensation of which angels were the mediators, and of acknowledging a subjection to one of which the professed head and mediator appeared in our nature. It was repulsive to the feelings of the unbelieving Jews, that one to all appearance like a man, and made up of flesh and blood in the same manner as themselves, should advance a claim to the exalted honour of a superior and Divine nature. The writer concedes the fact entirely, that Jesus had a nature truly and properly human. But instead of granting that this proves the new dispensation to be inferior to that of Moses, he proceeds to adduce evidence from the Old Testament Scriptures, to show that man, or the human nature in the person of the Messiah, should be made Lord of the universe. Consequently, in this nature, Jesus the Messiah is superior to angels. Nay, more, it was becoming that God should exalt Jesus, in consequence of His obedience unto death. To suffer this death, He must needs take on. Him a nature like ours. And as His object was the salvation of men (and not of angelic beings), so He participated in the nature of men, in order that by experience He might know their sufferings, temptations, and trials, and thus be prepared, in a peculiar manner, to be compassionate and ready to succour. The sum of the whole is: “The possession of a human nature by Jesus is far from being a reason why the ancient dispensation (of which angels were the internuntii) is preferable to the new one; for—
1. This very nature is exalted far above the angels.
2. Without participating in this nature, Jesus could not have made expiation for sin by His death.
3. The possession of such a nature did contribute in a peculiar and endearing manner to constitute Him such a Saviour as men could approach with the greatest boldness and confidence, in all their wants and in all their woes” (Moses Stuart).
Heb_2:8. The Limited Supremacy of Man.—Scripture is no story of the material universe. Man is the central figure there, or, to speak more truly, the only figure; all else serves but as a background for him. He is not one part, not the highest merely in the scale of its creatures, but the lord of all; all the visible creation borrow their wealth and significance from their relationship to him. Such he appears in the ideal worth and dignity of his unfallen condition; even now, when only a broken fragment of the sceptre with which he once ruled the world remains in his hands, such he is commanded to regard himself still.—Trench.
Man a King.—Man is a king; God hath put a crown upon his head, and not only so, but hath given him a territory and subjects (see Gen_1:26), where what David means by “all things” is in the same manner enumerated. St. Paul, however, extends the meaning of “all things” far beyond this. David’s “all things” and Paul’s “all things” are not the same: the one is thinking of the visible world, the other of the invisible world; the one speaks of that within us, the other of that which is to come. The words may be true of man, but in their higher sense they are truer of Christ as the great Head of mankind, and of man only in Him, in whom only is to be seen their proper fulfilment.—J. S. Perowne, D.D.
Man’s Authority in Creation.—The trust of material things committed to man, as recorded in Gen_1:26; Gen_1:28, man has fully responded to. It may be truly said that no living creature has been unable to yield to his authority: no nature-force has refused to be yoked to do his bidding; and no combination of difficult circumstances has baffled his masterfulness. But man has failed to rule himself. Having made the fatal mistake in not ruling himself, he cannot now recover his power of moral self-command. Christ, the ideal Man, came to this world to give man back his lost power over himself. His redemption is the recovery of man to his ideal. It is the completing of man’s supremacy over everything, by winning for him the supremacy over himself. The sign of man’s limited supremacy is his absolute inability to mate and master death, which is the issue and seal of sin. Before death man stands morally helpless, because before sin he is ineffective. Then the Saviour of man must show that He can, as man, deal efficiently with sin, by dealing, as man, efficiently with death. In man’s name, and for man, and as man, Jesus wrestled with death, and conquered it; and so He has gained for man his full supremacy. In Christ “all things” are now put under him.
Burning the Earth.—Any one casually reading this verse might imagine that the last clause refers to the “thorns and briars,” especially as this idea seems to be supported by comparison of the passage with Isa_9:18; Isa_23:12, etc. The original Greek, however, for “whose” (ἧς) is in the singular number, and must relate to the land, “which beareth thorns and briars.” St. Paul alludes to the custom, common to the Romans, and other heathen nations, of burning the barren fields, or, rather, the stubble, etc., standing upon them, according to Virgil, who, in his book on husbandry (Georg., i. 84), lays down this rule:—
“’Tis well to set on fire the barren fields,
And burn in crackling flames the stubble light.”
Heb_2:8-9. Manhood crowned in Jesus.—The text brings before us a threefold sight. It bids us look around; and if that sadden us, it bids us look up, and thence it bids us draw confidence to look forward. There is an estimate of present facts, there is a perception by faith of the unseen fact of Christ’s glory, and there follows from that the calm prospect for the future for ourselves and for our brethren.
I. Look at the sight around us.—“We see not yet all things put under man.” It is a sight of human incompleteness. Where are the men of whom any portion of the psalmist’s words are true. Look at them—are these the men of whom he sings? Visited by God! crowned with glory and honour! having dominion over the works of His hands! Is this irony or fact?
1. Let consciousness speak.
2. Let biographies speak.
3. Let observation speak.
II. Look upwards to Jesus.—Christ in glory appears to the author of this epistle to be the full realisation of the psalmist’s ideal. Our text deals only with the exalted dignity and present majesty of the ascended Lord; but both the ascended Christ upon the throne, and the historical Christ upon tho earth, teach us what man may be, the one in regard of dignity, the other in regard of goodness. Here is a fact. Such a life was verily once lived on earth—a life of true manhood, whatever more it was. And that life is to be our standard. In Jesus Christ is the type; and, albeit it is alone in its beauty, yet it is more truly a specimen of manhood than the fragmentary, distorted, incomplete men are who are found everywhere besides. Christ is the power to conform us to Himself, as well as the pattern of what we may be. But what does Scripture teach us to see in the exalted Lord?
1. A perpetual manhood. There is a strong tendency in many minds to think of Christ’s incarnation and humanity as transitory, the wearing of a garb of human nature but for a moment. The Biblical representation is, that for evermore, by an indissoluble union, the human is assumed into the Divine, and that “to-day and for ever” He remains the Man Christ Jesus. Without this truth, that mighty work which He ever carries on, of succouring them that are tempted, and having compassion with us, were impossible.
2. A corporeal manhood. The resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ are our great reasons for believing that man, in his perfect condition, has body as well as spirit. And that belief is one chief means of giving definiteness and reality to our anticipations of a future life.
3. Transfigured manhood. The natural body changed into the spiritual body.
4. Sovereign manhood. Here is a Man exalted to absolute, universal dominion.
III. Look forward.—The day is coming wherein men shall be all that God proposed, and all that their Saviour is. Christ is the measure of man’s capacities. He is the true pattern of human nature. Christ is the prophecy and pledge of man’s dominion. From Christ comes the power by which the prophecy is fulfilled, and the pattern reproduced in all who love Him. He is more than Pattern—He is Power; more than Specimen—He is Source; more than Example—He is Redeemer. The answer to my own evil conscience, to the sad inferences from man’s past and present, to the conclusions which are illegitimately sought to be extended from man’s material place in a material universe to man’s spiritual place as an immortal and moral being, lies in that twofold sight,—Christ on His cross the measure of man’s worth in the eyes of God, and of man’s place in the creation; Christ on the throne the prophecy of man’s dignity, and of His most sure dominion.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Heb_2:9. The Bitter Cup.—Jesus on the cross! Why is He there? By the force of circumstances? Hell and earth had conspired against Him. Every power and device which malice could summon are there to play their infernal part in His crucifixion. He dies by the hand of the law, moved by hatred; no—but by the grace of God. Did He die for expediency’ sake? Must one life be sacrificed to assert the rights of truth and justice? No—but “by the grace,” etc. “For God so loved the world,” etc., and “delivered Him up for us all.” The cup was sometimes the emblem of bitterness. So in Isa_51:17 : “Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of His fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out.” The cup of hemlock. And He said in Gethsemane, “The cup which the Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?” “They gave Me also gall for My meat; and in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink” (Psa_69:21).
I. The death of Christ was an act of voluntary submission to the will of the Father.—The admiral of the Orient had a beautiful son of thirteen years, who was on board with him in the battle of the Nile. He was at his post according to his father’s orders when the ship took fire, and he stood at his post until the powder magazine was fired, and the ship blown to atoms. This is a faint picture of the terrible sufferings through which the Son of God passed. In the garden the storm began to rage, and the flames issued from the hold; then He cried, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me.” But there was no answer. Again He cried, with blood-sweat running down His brow, but no answer. The storm raged more furiously. The nails are driven through His hands and feet. He is on the cross, and the flames of hell are burning around Him. He cried again, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” But no answer. Crash goes the vessel, and down He sank into the gulf of death. “It is finished!” The heavens are black with the smoke. The earth trembles. The old ship of the ceremonial law which had weathered many storms, and borne thousands of precious souls on its deck to glory, is totally wrecked. The old Aaronic priesthood is shattered, and the Son of God goes down in the catastrophe to show that there is One who obeys the Divine behests even unto death. All ye fallen angels behold Him, and ye stiff-necked sons of men witness the One who follows the Captain’s orders to the bitter end! “For this cause the Father loveth Me,” etc. “Lo, I come, O God, to do Thy will,” etc. He tasted death by the grace of God, and the cup was drained by the lip of love.
II. The death of Christ is the highest demonstration of God’s mercy.—The gracious promise at Eden’s gate—the woman’s seed; the breath of mercy tempering the moral law on Sinai, “Keeping mercy for thousands,” etc.—all was mercy. As the lamb dies on the ancient altar, mercy speaks of repentance and peace. On Calvary wisdom is out of sight, power is in the shade; but mercy stands before justice in full array. Jesus dies because God is merciful.
III. The death of Christ is the mightiest instrument for man’s salvation.—It is the lever with which God lifts up the human race. It has opened the way to the Father—a sacrifice for sin. In the light of the cross justice shines brighter than in the bowers of Eden. He has made the law honourable. Be not afraid; the living way to the Father through His flesh is straight and safe. It has dealt a deadly blow to sin. The hero and the suitors. Taking down the old bow, and striking home the arrow. Sin dies: the death-scene and funeral were witnessed on Calvary.
IV. Jesus is crowned with everlasting glory.—There is no more bitterness in the cup.—Weekly Pulpit.
Heb_2:10. The Physical Suffering, or Cross of Christ.—The apostle is here virtually making answer to Anselm’s famous question, “Cur Deus Homo.” In the previous verse, finding Jesus made a little lower than the angels, and, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour, it is as if the apostle’s mind began to ask: Why did He suffer thus, or come in the way of suffering at all? Why could not God, the Almighty, strike out the needed salvation by a shorter method, without suffering, viz. by His omnipotent force? Whereupon He makes answer, virtually, that force is out of the question, because the needed salvation is a purely moral result, which can be accomplished only by moral means and motives. The declaration of the apostle’s answer is, that God, the Almighty, must needs work morally in such a case, and not by force; and that Christ, the Leader, is made perfect, or perfectly competent, as regards the moral new creation, or bringing up into glory, by His cross and the tragic eloquence of His death. Let then our question be: Why should Christ, in the redeeming of souls and bringing them unto glory, subject Himself to physical suffering?—what, in other words, were the necessities and uses of that suffering? The question is here confined to physical suffering. He encountered two distinct kinds of suffering—mental and bodily—that which belongs to burdened feeling and wounded sensibility, and that which is caused by outward privation, or violence done against the physical nature. In the New Testament the word “suffering” is only applied to the latter. But physical suffering, taken by itself, or as being simply what it is in itself, is never a thing of value. On the contrary, it is, so far, a thing on the losing side of existence. It is not, in fact, a commodity of any kind, exchangeable or not exchangeable, but a simple incommodity, a quantity purely negative, and a worse than worthless fact. And this is true of Christ’s suffering. Taken as physical pain simply, nothing is to be made of it. It has no relation to personal desert; and, regarding the Divine order of the Sufferer, it is even a shocking anomaly, which reason cannot comprehend, and faith only can accept. God does not exact a retributive suffering, even in what is called His justice, because He wants so much in quantity to even the amount of wrong, but only that He may vindicate the right and testify His honour to it by a fit expression. It may be said: Are not the physical sufferings of Christ what are called, in the Scripture, His sacrifice for sin? And what is the use of sacrifice but to atone God’s justice? But the fact is, that all the sacrificial and lustral figures set forth the sacrifice, not as a way of reconciling God to us, but of reconciling us to God. And so universally—I do not know the instance where Christ’s cross and physical suffering are conceived as a making satisfaction to God’s justice. It is quite conceivable that Christ could have been incarnated into the world in such a way as to involve no physical liability at all. There was no necessary condition of physical suffering implied in His Messiahship. Why then did He come under conditions of suffering? what uses did He expect to serve by it, such as would compensate the loss? It was done that He might be made perfect by such suffering,—perfect, that is, not in His character, but in His official competency; perfect as having gotten power over men, through His sufferings, to be the sufficient Bringer-on, or Captain, He undertakes to be, in bringing many sons unto glory. Coming down to do a work of love, He simply took the liabilities of a human person doing such a work. What then is the manner and degree of that power over men’s convictions and feelings which Christ obtained by His physical suffering?
I. The manner in which, by His physical suffering, He magnifies and sanctifies the law in men’s convictions.—The true Christian idea is that Christ is magnifying the law and making it honourable, not before the remote altitudes, but before the sinning souls of this world by whom it has been trampled. Christ came into the world with a perfect right to be exempted from physical suffering. There is nothing in His character to require this kind of discipline, or even to make it just. He also had power to put all suffering by, and sail over the world as the stars do, in a region of calm and comfort above it. But He would not infringe on the penal order of God’s retributions. Having taken humanity, He takes all the judicial liabilities of human society under sin, preferring in this manner to submit Himself to the corporate order of God’s judgments, and testify in that manner His profound homage to law and justice. He will let the world be to Him just that river of vinegar and gall which its sins have made it to itself. So He bears the world’s bitter curse, magnifying, even by His pains, the essential sanctity of law and justice. He powerfully honours that justice in its dealings with the world, by refusing to let even His innocence take Him out of the murderous and bloody element it mixes. Hence the marvellous, unheard of power His life and gospel, and especially His suffering death, have exerted in men’s consciences.
II. The physical suffering of Christ has an immediate value, under that great law of human nature, that ordains the disarming of all wrong, and the prostration of all violence, by a right suffering of the evils they inflict.—Nothing breaks the bad will of evil so completely as to have had its way, and done its injury, and looked upon its victim. When the wrath of transgression hurls itself upon the Lord’s person, sparing not His life, nor even letting Him die easily or in respect, the bad will is only the more fatally broken, that, accomplishing so much in a way so dreadful, it has yet accomplished nothing. Suffering kills, how often, the wrong-doing that inflicts it.
III. The sublime morality or moral worth of Jesus could never have been sharply impressed, except for the sensibilities appealed to by His physical suffering.—If He had lived in condition, and died as one admired for His excellence, the real depth of His virtue could never have been conceived. All the most effective powers of moral impression contained in His character would have been wanting if He had not borne the lot of wrong and bitter suffering.
IV. It is only by His suffering in the flesh that He reveals or fitly expresses the suffering sensibility of God.—As certain as God has any sensibility, such as belongs to a perfect mind and heart, that sensibility must be profoundly moved by all misery, impurity, and wrong. Impassible, physically speaking, He is not impassive to evils that offend or grieve His moral perfections. He suffers because He is a perfect being, and according to the measures of His perfection. This Christ, for our salvation’s sake, has taken the flesh and suffered even death in order to impress. Nature, in her scenes and objects, had no power to express this moral pain of God’s heart. The ancient providential history was trying, always vainly, to elaborate the same. Nothing could ever express it but the physical suffering of Jesus. And everything turns here on the matter of physical suffering; for, to our coarse human habit, nothing else appears at first to have much reality. And here comes to view the relation of the agony to the cross. One is the reality, the other is the outward sign or symbol. In one view it is even a scandal that we make so much more of the cross than we do of the agony. The grand thing to be revealed is that which stands in the agony; and the superior value of the cross, or physical suffering, lies in the fact that it comes to us, at our low point, speaking to us of the other, in a way that we can feel.
V. It was necessary that Christ should suffer in the body, and get power over men by that kind of suffering, because the world itself is put in a tragic economy, requiring its salvation to be an essentially tragic salvation.—Human history is tragic in its characters and scenes, and its material generally. The great crimes are tragic, and the great virtues scarcely less so. So if Christ will pluck away eternal judgment for the world, He must bleed for it. So great a salvation must tear a passage into the world by some tragic woe. The tragic power of the cross takes hold of all that is dullest and hardest and most intractable in our sin, and moves over palsied nature, all through, in mighty throbs of life. And this is Christianity, meeting us just where we most require to be met. Christ is a great Bringer-on for us, because He suffers for us. Christianity is a mighty salvation, because it is a tragic salvation.—Horace Bushnell, D.D.
The Moral Necessity for Christ’s Death.—Unlike St. Paul, the writer never enters into what may be called “the philosophy of the plan of salvation.” He never attempts to throw any light upon the mysterious subject of the antecedent necessity for the death of Christ. He dwells upon Christ’s death almost exclusively in its relation to us. The expression which he here uses, “it was morally fitting for Him,” is almost the only one which he devotes to what may be called the transcendent side of Christ’s sacrifice—the death of Christ in its relation to God. The “moral fitness” here touched upon is the necessity for absolutely sympathetic unity between the High Priest and those for whom He offered the perfect sacrifice (Luk_24:46). Philo also uses the phrase “it became Him.”—Farrar.
Perfect through Suffering.—The text gains clearness if for the word “Captain” we put the more general term “Leader,” or read the verse thus: “In bringing many sons to glory, to make the Bringer-on of their salvation perfect through suffering.” By “perfect” we understand perfectly efficient to sustain and to fulfil His office, and to accomplish His work, of “bringing many sons unto glory.”
I. The sufferings of Jesus.—
1. Some of the deepest, though least comprehensible, of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus must have come out of His very being and nature. He was God, with all the feeling of God towards sin and its consequences. His body of flesh and blood must have been to Him a constant limitation and burden. That human nature which Jesus took, He took as it was—no longer the perfect thing of the Eden Paradise, but lowered, enfeebled, in some strange ways a bruised and wounded thing, shaped and fitted through long years to be the agency of man’s depraved will and sinful soul. A sinful nature the Son of God could not take; but a bodily nature as marred and enfeebled by sin He did take; and we can but very unworthily conceive the strain on His daily life of the effort to utter His pure soul through that frail and feeble body. And that Divine-human being was not set in seclusion, and fitted to a place where no annoyance should reach it. It was put in the very midst of the world, and the world’s worst. A pure soul can only be happy in pure surroundings. Ensphere true goodness in evil, and you may not thereby turn the good to evil, but you cannot help piercing, wounding, grieving, goodness to the very heart.
2. Some of the sufferings of Jesus must have come out of His unusual capacity for sympathy. To sympathise is to have a fellow-feeling with a sufferer, and to take his burden upon our heart. Then if Christ bore the burden of the sins and sorrows of this grief-loaded, weary earth of ours, must He not have suffered? Even love is scarcely possible without suffering. The worthier the love is, the more it makes us one with its object; and if it unites us with his joys, makes us keenly sensible of his sorrows, and deeply touched by his sins.
3. Something of the sufferings of Jesus appear as we consider the work He undertook.
(1) Part of that work was to make men see and feel that God was their Father. The memory of their sufferings and sacrifices on our behalf make precious to us our earthly father and mother. If God is to be apprehended by us as our heavenly Father, it can only be in the revelation of His fatherly sacrifices and sufferings, borne in the endeavour to redeem us, and win us away from evil. But that work Jesus the Son must do. That revelation of the fatherliness of God He must make.
(2) He was to demonstrate to men the evil of sin. Men can never know that save through its consequences. Death—the death of peace and purity and hope—is the great revealer of sin. So our Lord let men see in Himself the evil of sin. He laid Himself open to the fiercest attacks, and rudest buffetings, and deepest anguish that sin could bring upon a man. He put Himself into our human nature, that in suffering He might show the world what sin is, and what sin can do. The corruption of Greece was shown up when it had spent itself in the hemlock-death of its great teacher Socrates. The utter and hopeless badness of humanity is seen in this—men even turned out and crucified incarnate virtue, in the person of God’s dear Son.
II. How did the sufferings of our Lord fit Him to be the Bringer-on of sons to glory?—
1. Those sufferings brought Him experience. God saves moral beings by bringing moral forces to bear on them. He brings the most persuasive influence by giving to us a human Saviour. We want to feel sure that He has experience, and an experience like ours. If He has indeed trodden our valleys of humiliation, then He does know our human life altogether, and can help us.
2. The sufferings of Jesus set Him most fully in the love and trust of His people. He might have been the founder of a religious ceremonial; but a new religious system could never bring any soul to glory. He might have been a great reformer; but a reformation is not necessarily a salvation. He might have been a teacher, with new truths and principles; but to furnish stimulus for the intellect of man is not to change and renew his heart. No man can be really a new man until his heart is reached. Our Lord Jesus, then, if He is to save the world, must get into the world’s heart. He must draw out to Himself the full affection of a man’s soul. But how shall that be done? By an exhibition of perfect purity and beauty? Men can admire without loving. By a revelation of Divine claims? Men are too busy to heed them; and unless God utters His laws amid thunders such as those of Sinai, men will not heed. Then let us adore the Divine solution of the mystery. God sets before men a sacrificed, suffering, dying Saviour. No man can pass by the cross of Calvary altogether unmoved, for suffering is sacred to every man. The suffering Saviour gets into the world’s heart, according to His own word, “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.”
3. The sufferings of Jesus, in their result, showed the way open, through suffering, to glory. Suffering is God’s witness to the evil of sin. Every pain, wrong, passion, disease, is a letter designed to help us in spelling out the abominableness of sin. Yet the grace of God turns the evil into good, changes earthen clay into better than fine gold, compels suffering to become even a pathway to glory. God sent His own Son to tread that pathway first; and He opens the way for us. We watch Him struggling through the common sorrows of a human life, through the over-crowding sorrows of an ignominious death, and we behold Him, at last reaching a throne of everlasting dominion, and seated for ever on the right hand of God. Along that pathway to a like glory He is leading us. Apply:
1. Jesus is the Bringer-on of sons to glory.
2. Jesus is the only Bringer-on.
Heb_2:11. Christ the Friend.—This verse is a statement of the union that exists between Christ and His people, and of the perfect sympathy which the Elder Brother feels for the other members of the family of God.
I. The vitality of the union that exists between Christ and His Church.—
1. The union between Christ and a believer is not so much one of co-operation as one of incorporation. For as my limbs are a part of my body, as the branch is part of a tree, so Christ and His people are verily and indeed members one of another. And the union between Christ and His true Church—the members of His body—can never be dissolved.
2. Treat this truth as a solemn reality. Do not think of it as a mere theory or doctrine or speculation. It is a great fact to live by day by day.
3. Since the Saviour and His people are together sons of one God, He in His love and condescension annihilates the distance that is between them, and He calls them brethren. He is “the firstborn among many brethren.” He “is not ashamed to call them brethren.”
II. Connected with this truth there is the assurance of Christ’s constancy.—There is no sorrow, no emotion, that we need hide from our “Brother” in heaven; for there is no pang that the members feel which is not felt by Him. Nor is there any interruption to His sympathy.
Application.—As Christ is “not ashamed to call us brethren,” let none of us be ashamed of Him. And remember that to confess Christ is to maintain His authority when it is despised, to uphold His laws when they are contemned, to oppose His enemies where we may make enemies ourselves. Let us thus confess Christ our Friend.—Canon Bell.
Heb_2:11-13. The Perfect Manhood of Christ.—“Sanctify” in the text, and throughout this epistle, does not refer to the cleansing work of the Spirit, but to the atoning work of the Son. The teaching of the text is—the perfect manhood of our blessed Lord.
I. The proposition.—That “both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one.” Of one what? “Father,” “family,” “race,” “blood,” “character”? No; of one “nature” (Heb_2:10). The perfect manhood of the Son of God is part of our faith, and the very foundation of our hope of heaven. The disciples needed all the evidence of His stupendous miracles, the dazzling scene of His transfiguration, the crowning proof of His resurrection, to convince them that He was perfect God; we need to feel that if in any respect He had been unlike “His brethren,” it would have defeated one great purpose of His mission. He was precisely “of one” with us.
1. In person. His body, though always a chaste and perfect temple in which the fulness of the Godhead might dwell, had none of that superhuman glory with which we so often associate it. John the Baptist “knew Him not” till he saw the Spirit descend on Him. “Is not this the carpenter’s son?” Mary supposed “Him to be the gardener.”
2. In this perfect body there was enshrined as perfectly human a soul. The conditions of the Incarnation required that both natures should exist in all their perfectness, in unity of person, but without any confusion of substance—and these two conditions were fulfilled in the Saviour. We have no more right to deify the Saviour’s manhood than to humanise His Godhead. The human soul of the Saviour was so far distinct from His Deity as to be in every respect finite. His human soul was not possessed of an unassailable purity. As a human soul He wept, He prayed, He suffered.
3. This oneness of nature between the Christian and His Lord is dependent not simply on the memory that He was incarnate once, but on the fact also that He is incarnate now. Never was the Saviour more truly a man than He is now. Note His appearances to His disciples after His resurrection, the manner of His ascension. He is “God over all”; but no less surely is He perfect Man, throbbing with the memory of human sorrow, touched with the feeling of human infirmity, filled with sympathy for human nature.
II. The confirmation of this doctrine in the Scriptures (Heb_2:12-13).—The first is taken from Psa_22:22—a psalm prophetic of our Lord’s sufferings.
1. “I will declare … unto My brethren.” This prophecy was fulfilled. “No man hath seen God,” etc. “I have declared Thy name unto them, and I will declare it.”
2. “In the midst of the Church I will sing praise unto Thee.” This was fulfilled. Immediately before His passion they sang a hymn.
3. He engaged in human employments; and while we share in these employments, we are truly of one with Him. What honour! He is not ashamed to call you His brother, sister, mother.
(1) To Christians. How often since you have named the Saviour’s name has He been “ashamed to call” you brethren? Are you faithful or faithless? How often ashamed to confess Him before a sneering world? “If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father.” “Seeing then that we have such a High Priest passed into the heavens, Jesus … let us come boldly to the throne of grace,” etc.
(2) To unconverted. Seek Him now. Religion is here presented in its most alluring form. Come. Plead His atonement, and know what it is to be “all of one” with Christ.—Frederic Greeves, D.D.
Heb_2:14. The Personality of the Devil.—This was one reason why the Son of God took on Him our nature, that He might put Himself into circumstances where death was possible, in order that by dying He might free us from our ancient enemy. He has won the victory, and it is our fault if we are not free.
I. The being who was to be reduced to impotence by the death of Jesus Christ.—What do we know about his history, character, his power of affecting ourselves and our destiny? Some say:
1. “It is an unpleasant subject.” Nothing is gained, and much is lost, by shrinking from fact because fact is disagreeable. Religion, beyond everything else, should have the courage to look truth in the face.
2. “The devil is an unprofitable subject for discussion.” Much, practically, depends on our believing in him or not. We are more profoundly affected by feeling ourselves close to a living being, than by feeling ourselves under the vague and more intangible influence of a negative principle. When it is embodied in a living intelligence—in a living will—the case is very different. How can evil itself be, strictly speaking, a principle! Evil is a perverted selfish quality of the will of an already existing personal creature. Evil could not exist apart from such a creature unless the will of such a creature was free. When we speak of the personality of Satan; we mean that he is an intelligence capable of reflecting on his own existence; he is a will which has had the power of determining its destiny.
II. There is no real room for question as to the existence of a personal evil spirit, if we believe the Bible to be a trustworthy source of information on the subject.—All that implies personality is attributed to Satan in Holy Scripture, as distinctly as it is attributed to God. The New Testament representation is fuller and more sustained than that of the Old Testament. Jesus Christ spoke of Satan’s personality: e.g. in parable of the sower; the saying about Judas; His denunciation of the Jews. His prayer bequeathed to us, “Deliver us from the Evil One.” The facts of human life bear out what we learn from the lips of Jesus Christ. There are two points in the Christian representation of the Evil One to which attention should specially be given.
1. Satan was not always what he is now. He was once a glorious archangel. He became what he is now by his own act and deed. The Bible always represents Satan, not as a self-existent, evil being, but as a fallen and apostate angel. There is no such thing in the universe of the almighty and all-good God as a self-existing, originally created devil.
2. The Satan of Scripture has limited, although extensive, powers. It is a mistake to think of this being as omnipresent. He is often enough in the way—not always—not everywhere. His power is only for a given period.
III. “How can you reconcile the continued toleration of such a being as the Evil One by God, with His attributes of goodness and almightiness?”—The Master of the universe sees farther than we do, and will one day, perhaps, enable us to understand in a measure these rules of His government which perplex us now.
IV. Let us fix in our minds the words and lessons of the text.—Sin brought death. Jesus, as man, invaded this region of human experience, and conquered for Himself and for us its old oppressor. Let us follow the guidance of faith. The lessons of Calvary do not lessen with the lapse of time; and, among these, not the least blessed is the enfeeblement of Satan, and the deliverance of those who, through fear of death, would else be all their lifetime subject to bondage.—H. P. Liddon, D.D.
Heb_2:15. The Fear of Death a Lifelong Bondage.—It is not possible to over-estimate the value to humanity of the “sanctity of human life.” It is the primary law stamped upon the new human race when it stepped forth from the Ark to take possession of a cleansed earth. “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made He man” (Gen_9:6). The sanctity of life is the basis of society, for it makes every man jealous of his brother’s life for the sake of preserving his own. There is no safety for any one in lands where this primary law for humanity is not recognised. But there is, of necessity, an apparently bad side to this good law. It involves dread of death. And this dread is universal. It applies to all beings in whom is the breath of life. It is natural. But the moral nature of man at once puts a new sanctity on life, and a new dread on death. The moral being man has brought sin into the world, and put a new significance upon death. In the consciousness of having sinned there has come the fear of penalties that must attend upon the sin, and a dread of death as taking us where those penalties must be endured. So the consciousness of sin has put on men a life-long dread of death. And that dread has come to be so stamped upon the race that it seems like a second nature, and the good cannot shake themselves altogether free of it. The saintly soul could only say this much, “I am not afraid of death, but I am afraid of dying.” What can give us liberty from this enslaving fear? Only the possession of a new life—soul-life—which death is altogether powerless to touch. Over the animal-life of man death has its power. Over the real life, the soul-life, when quickened in the power of the Holy Ghost, through faith in Christ, death has no power. The life in Christ is a spiritual and eternal life. Jesus Himself said, “He that believeth in Me shall never die.” By the new life He gives, He delivers those who “through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”
Heb_2:16-18. Christ made like us in all things.—Two points in which Christ was different from us:
1. In being God as well as man.
2. In being without sin. In these things He had to be unlike His brethren, or He could not have been a Saviour at all. In all other things it behoved Him to be made like unto us. There was no part of our condition that He did not humble Himself unto.
1. He passed through all the terms of our life from childhood to manhood. He was an infant of days. He bore the trials and pains of boyhood. He suffered the afflictions and anxieties of manhood.
2. He tasted the difficulties of many situations in life.
3. He had special trials in connection with His own family.
4. He was assailed by Satan.
5. He was tested by God. The purpose of His human experience was:
(1) to make an atonement for our sins;
(2) to succour His people under their trials.—R. M. McCheyne.
Heb_2:17. Priestly Reconciliations.—“To make propitiation for the sins of the people.” There is no attempt to explain precisely how the high priest made the propitiations. Attention is fixed upon his ability to do it; and the ability is found very largely to depend upon his personal character. He could make propitiation because he was a “merciful and faithful high priest”—merciful by reason of his common experience with those whom he represented. He well understood their sins of frailty and of will, because he shared them. If a rebellious nation sent an intercessor to plead for pardon, they would select one of themselves, one most deeply interested in all their trouble, and the best and most acceptable man among them. That man would not only propitiate by what he said and did—he would propitiate by what he was; for standing before the king, that man would show what the people were, and wanted to be. He would embody the people to the view of the king; and nothing could possibly propitiate a king like such a living persuasion that his people had come to be right, were right, and meant to be right. Along this line the old priestly reconciliations of Mosaism gain simple and natural explanation. The high priest was acceptable to Jehovah, because he was in right relations. But he stood for the people, and they were as acceptable as he, because they were in the same right relations. Along this line the propitiation of Jesus can be explained. He is personally acceptable to God as a man, but He stands before God for all who are in the same relations of purposed love and obedience as He; and they are accepted in and with Him.
Sympathetic Intercession.—When a tender-hearted mother would plead with the judge for a child about to be condemned, how would her tears trickle down, what weeping rhetoric would she use to the judge, for mercy! Thus the Lord Jesus is full of sympathy and tenderness (Heb_2:17), that He might be a merciful High Priest; He has left His passion, yet not His compassion. An ordinary lawyer is not affected with the cause he pleads, nor does he care what way he goes; it is his profit makes him plead, not affection. But Christ intercedes feelingly; it is His own cause which He pleads in the cause of His people.—T. Watson.
Heb_2:18. The Helper of the Tempted.—In promise (Gen_3:15) and in fact (Mat_4:1) the Saviour’s work from the very first is associated with the tempted; and put His mission in any words you will, you cannot hide the link which unites Christ unto the tempted, and the tempted unto Christ. Wherefore did we need a Saviour, if not because we were overborne with evil, and of ourselves had not strength enough to cope with it? A Christ who could not help me in my temptations would be no Saviour to me. He might startle me with revelations, astonish me by works, amaze me with power, awe with holiness, instruct me by teaching; but if in the infirmity of my moral weakness He could not stand by my side, put His shoulder to my shoulder, and help me to fight the daily battle of my daily life, whatever else He might be to me, He could never be my Saviour; for it is only as we are made strong to resist and overcome temptation that we can be saved. This relation of Christianity to the tempted is, in fact, one of the secrets of its hold upon the human heart. To be a Christian at all we must start from the consciousness of weakness; and the religion of Christ is the religion of the strong, only by being first the religion of the weak. Christ is the Helper of the tempted, by sympathy learnt in the endurance of the same temptations from which He came to save. Some things can only be learnt by experience. Sympathy is one. There were some things which were not Christ’s to know, until like us, by bitter human experience, He had learnt them for Himself. He shared our experience of temptation in its full completeness. Wherever we are tempted, so was He—through the senses, the appetite, the reason, the imagination, the affection, the ambition, the will—tempted wherever there seemed a point of vantage for the tempter. The three temptations on the threshold of His public work were representative. They were representative of temptations in His unrecorded history, of the number and intensity of which we can form no idea. We cannot too fully accept the great doctrine of the completeness of our Lord’s humanity. By sympathy, learnt through the temptations of a common human experience, Christ is the Helper of the tempted. But sympathy does not seem enough; we want strength. Will this sympathy of Christ bring us strength? It will. The sphere of sympathy is spiritual, and within that sphere there is nowhere to be found such strength as that which comes from sympathy. Its power is electric. Men, naturally cowards, by sympathy have been made brave, and there is no trial of human suffering which sympathy has not enabled men and women courageously to bear. Amongst the world’s regenerating influences there is none for a moment comparable to the sympathy of Christ. For the sympathy of the strong helps always to strengthen the weak. If I wanted to strengthen a morally weak man, I would link him with a man as strong as he was weak, quite sure that the companionship would act on him like a tonic, or be to him like the sweet, fresh breath of mountain air. And thus it is that Christ, in His great sinless strength, is the Helper of the tempted. Let this be no empty doctrine to you, no mere point of theology, or article in a creed, void of all reality and force. Let it be a living truth, as vital as your own heart’s blood. It will nerve you for mastery over the infirmities of your nature. It will inspire you to resist the evils of an evil world. And it will help you to victories of faith and love, to conquests of conscience, and of character like unto your Lord’s.—Johnson Barker, LL.B.
Experience the Secret of Moral Power.—“He himself hath suffered being tempted.” The reality of our Lord’s human experiences is constantly enforced by the apostles. In the early days of the Church there was a tendency to present the Divinity of Christ in such a way as to imperil the truth of His real, flesh and blood, humanity. It was thought derogatory to a Divine Saviour to represent Him as sharing the common woes of the human lot. But unless we see worthily our Lord’s veritable humanity, it must be impossible for us to understand how He can be a power of redemption to us. He is our Saviour only through His manhood.
I. Moral beings can only learn through experience.—A moral being is not intellectual only. He has a further sphere of feeling and emotion. He is a being with a will, which can be influenced by his mind, but is much more influenced by principles and feelings. And experience alone affects the feelings. See how a moral being is made, and is developed. Life does it; experience does it: learning can do but a little of it. Christ could not have taken rank with us as a moral being if He had not shared the experience which makes us moral beings. “In all points tempted like as we are.”
II. Moral beings get power to help one another only through a common experience.—It is somewhat strikingly said of Tennyson that he had no experience of vice, and so all the sins in his poetry are human frailties. It is constantly observed that the best religious workers in any class of society are persons belonging to the class who have full experience of the class. If Christ was to gain moral power to help man, He must have the experience of man, of all that is essential to man, not of all that is accidental to sin. The experience of man’s conflicts was essential, but not the experience of man’s defeats. It is not essential to man to fail in the moral struggle. Illustrate from man’s moral power to
(1) sympathise with;
(2) to strengthen;
(3) to advise;
(4) to deliver, his brother. He can only do it out of experience. This must be true of Christ as the typical moral Helper of humanity.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 2
Heb_2:10. Captain of our Salvation.—We are the soldiers of Jesus Christ. Now that which nerves the soldier’s arm and strengthens his heart as he goes forth to battle, is not so much the multitude of the army of which he forms a part, as the character of the chief whom he is following. It is related that in one of the Duke of Wellington’s battles a portion of the army was giving way, under the charge of the enemy, when he rode into the midst of them. A soldier called out in ecstasy, “There’s the duke—God bless him! I’d rather see his face than a whole brigade”; and these words, turning all eyes to their chief, so reassured his comrades that they repulsed the foe. For he is beside us, they felt, who was never defeated yet, and will not be defeated now. A military friend with whom I conversed on this subject said, that though he had never heard the anecdote, he could well conceive it to be true: the presence of that distinguished general, he added, was at any time worth five thousand men.—Tait.
“Perfect” as applied to Christ.—The Greek word translated “perfect,” which occurs very often in this epistle, was used among the heathen in a specific sense; for instance, one thoroughly initiated into the arcana, or other mysteries, was called a “perfect” man. The meaning was not morally or personally perfect, but thoroughly acquainted with all the facts or mysteries of the caste or service. Our blessed Lord was made perfect by being thoroughly acquainted with human nature in all its points, save that of sin, and so became the author of eternal salvation by being initiated into all the sorrows and woes of humanity.—Dr. Cumming.
Blessings coming through Suffering.—In proportion as a horse is well trained and gentle, he had to suffer in being broken in. The white beautiful teeth of a little child, that look so much like ivory, cause much pain before they grow up in that regular row. A gentleman in Hartford (America) had a beautiful little daughter. But oh, how her parents grieved when they found that she was deaf and dumb, and could never speak or hear. She was bright and lovely, and no child among them all nestled so near a father’s heart as little Alice; and so anxious was he for her, that he had no rest till the Deaf and Dumb Asylum was established, at which hundreds of such unfortunate children have been educated; so that all this great good may be said to have grown out of the sufferings of little Alice.—Dr. Todd.
Heb_2:14. Christ’s Victory over Satan.—When the devils saw Christ on the cross, there stood the exulting fiend, smiling to himself, “Now I have the King of glory in my dominion, I have the power of death, and I have the power over the Lord Jesus.” He exerted that power till Christ died in bitter anguish. But how short-lived was that hellish victory, how brief the Satanic triumph! When Christ cried, “It is finished!” He shook the gates of hell. Down from the cross the Conqueror leaped, pursued the fiend with thunder-bolts of wrath. Swift to the shades of hell did the fiend fly, and swift descending went the Conqueror after him, and seizing him, dragged him to His chariot-wheel—dragged him up the steeps of glory, the angels shouting all the while. He had led captivity captive, and received gifts for men.—C. H. Spurgeon.
Life given for life.—When Mahomet, the second of that name, besieged Belgrade, in Servia, one of the captains at last got upon the wall of the city, with his colours displayed. A noble Bohemian espying this, ran to the captain, and clasping him fast about his middle, asked one Capistranus, standing beneath, whether it would be any danger of damnation to his soul if he should cast himself down headlong with that dog (so he termed the Turkish captain), to be slain with him. Capistranus answered that it was no danger at all to his soul. The Bohemian forthwith tumbled himself down, with the Turk in his arms, and so by his own death saved the life of all the city. Such an exploit as this Christ plays upon the devil. The devil, like the great Turk, besieged not only one city, but even all mankind. Christ alone, like this noble Bohemian, encountered with him; and seeing the case was so, that this dog, the devil, could not be killed stark dead, except Christ died also, therefore He made no reckoning of His own life, but gave Himself to death for us, that He only dying for all the people, by His death our deadly enemy might for ever be destroyed.—Old Author, 1610.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv5, 6, 8, 9 5. “For He did not subordinate the world to…
5. “For He did not subordinate the world to come, concerning which we speak to angels.” The Greek word translated “world” in this verse is a passive participle, and simply means “the inhabited” (earth). It means this world in the glorious restoration of its Mediatorial King. In the grand restitution which will properly be inaugurated when our Lord rides down on His millennial throne to reign in righteousness a thousand years, then it will be consummated by the fiery sanctification of the world, its final renovation and celestialization (Rev 21:1). This redeemed and glorified world is not committed to angels, but the glorified Christ, with His transfigured saints, will rule over it forever.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v5 Section 1. (Heb 2:5-9.)
Section 1. (Heb 2:5-9.)
As already crowned with glory, and to be over the world to come.
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The first section, then, shows us Christ as Man destined to be set over the world to come, though, as yet, not seen with all things put under Him as such, but crowned with glory and honor. The world is here the "habitable earth to come," to which the psalmist is looking on now. Angels are not set over that. The Son of Man is, and He is the representative Man for God, -not the first, but the Second Man. The first man is fallen, and the race with him. The Second Man it is in whom the restored earth stands, and whose work reaches even to the reconciliation of the things in heaven.
Here we have again the testimony of the Old Testament. The habitable earth was designed for man, as is plain, at the beginning, and, spite of his fall, the purpose of God in this cannot be defeated. The angels are not to displace him here. In the quotation of the eighth psalm man is seen indeed, not merely made naturally a little lower than the angels, but such an one as makes it a matter of God’s condescending grace, if He remembers him at all. The very glory of God in the heavens over his head makes the psalmist ask with astonishment, how God can visit this fallen son of man. The answer is plainly that it is not the fallen man with whom God is occupied, but Another altogether. And when Christ is seen, then the glory of the visible heavens is all eclipsed in comparison. What does it all amount to when compared with the glory of Him who is now before the eye of God, made indeed Himself a little lower than the angels, but to be crowned with glory and honor, and with all things put in subjection under His feet!
The apostle emphasizes this in the most absolute way: "For in that He put all in subjection under Him, He left nothing that is not in subjection under Him." It is quite true, he says, we do not see that yet. That is a mystery revealed to faith: it is not yet a manifestation. Nevertheless, "We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels on account of the suffering of death," which He had to endure, "crowned with glory and honor. Here is One who has plainly come to seek the lowest place, and not the highest, but who, just in that very way, is exalted to the highest. Here is a true Man, and even a Son of Man; and One who has come under the penalty of sin in order that He might remove it; by the grace of God tasting death, realizing all the bitterness of it, "for every one" or "every thing," as we may otherwise read it; in either case, for the ransom of all the creation, wherever sin had blighted it. The first man stood for the whole scene with which he was connected, and which fell with him. The Second Man, in the same way, stands in connection with the whole scene, but as Redeemer and Restorer. The habitable earth to come is the sphere of the first man, but in the hands of the Second. It is earth, not heaven (as is plain by the psalm), and can only take in part of the scene in Heb 12:22-24; as, for instance, Zion, but not the New Jerusalem. The eighth psalm may give hints of a wider dominion, but its plain speech does not go beyond the earth; but thus the purpose of God in man’s creation is vindicated abundantly, nay, shown to be inconceivably more wonderful than could appear at the beginning. God is glorified in Him with a glory which fills not the earth only, but also heaven.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v8 Heb 2:8-9
Hebrews
MANHOOD CROWNED IN JESUS
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Heb 2:8-9
ONE of our celebrated astronomers is said to have taught himself the rudiments of his starry science when lying on the hill-side, keeping his father’s sheep. Perhaps the grand psalm to which these words refer had a similar origin, and may have come from the early days of the shepherd king, when, like those others of a later day, he abode in the field of Bethlehem, keeping watch over his flock by night. The magnificence of the Eastern heavens, with their ‘larger constellations burning,’ filled his soul with two opposite thoughts - man’s smallness and man’s greatness. I suppose that in a mind apt to pensive reflections, alive to moral truths, and responsive to the impressions of God’s great universe, the unscientific contemplation of any of the grander forms of nature produces that double effect. And certainly the grandest of them all, which is spread over our heads, little as we dwellers in cities can see the heavens for daily smoke and nightly lamps, forces both these thoughts upon us. They seem so far above us, they swim into their stations night after night, and look down with cold, unchanging beauty on sorrow, and hot strife, and shrieks, and groans, and death. They are so calm, so pure, so remote, so eternal. Thus David felt man’s littleness. And yet - and yet, bigness is not greatness, and duration is not life, and the creature that knows God is highest. So the consciousness of man’s separation from, and superiority to these silent stars, springs up strong and victorious over the other thought. Remember that, in David’s time, the nations near, who were believed to be the very centre of wisdom, had not got beyond the power of these impressions, but on Chaldean plains worshipped the host of heaven. The psalm then is a protest against the most fascinating, and to David’s age the most familiar form of idolatry. These great lights are not rulers, but servants; we are more than they, because we have spirits which link us with God.
Then, kindling as he contemplates man as God meant him to be, the poet bursts into rapturous celebration of man’s greatness in these respects - that he is visited by God, capable of divine communion, and a special object of divine care; that he is only lower than the loftiest. and that but in small degree and in one specific respect. because they, in their immortal strength, are not entangled in flesh as we; that over all others of God’s creatures on earth he is king.
‘Very fine words,’ may be fairly said; ‘but do they correspond to facts? What manhood are you talking about? Where is this being, so close to God, so lowly before Him, so firmly lord of all besides?’ That is the question which the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews deals with in our text. He has quoted the psalm as an illustration of his thesis that Christ, and we in Christ, are exalted above angels, and then he proceeds to admit that, as a matter of fact, men are not what David describes them as being. But the psalm is not, therefore, an exaggeration, nor a dream, nor a mere ideal of the imagination. True, as a matter of fact, men are not all this. But as a matter of fact Jesus Christ is, and in His possession of all that the psalm painted our possession is commenced and certified. It is an ideal picture, but it is realised in Jesus, and having been so in Him, we have ground to believe that it will be so in us. We see not yet all things put under man - alas no, but-we see Jesus crowned with glory and honour; and as He tasted death for every man, so in His exaltation He is prophecy and pledge that the grand old words shall one day be fulfilled in all their height and depth. The text, then, brings before us a threefold sight. It bids us look around, and if that sadden us, it bids us look up, and thence it bids us draw confidence to look forward. There is an estimate of present facts, there is a perception by faith of the unseen fact of Christ’s glory, and there follows from that the calm prospect for the future for ourselves and for our brethren. Let us deal with these considerations in order.
I. Look at the sight around us.
‘We see not yet all things put under man.’ Where are the men of whom any portion of the psalmist’s words is true? Look at them - are these the men of whom he sings? Visited by God I crowned with glory and honour! having dominion over the works of His hands! Is this irony or fact?
Let consciousness speak. Look at ourselves. If that psalm be God’s thought of man, the plan that He hangs up for us His workmen to build by, what a wretched thing my copy of it has turned out to be! Is this a picture of me? How seldom I am conscious of the visits of God; how full I am of weaknesses and imperfections - the solemn voice within me tells me at intervals when I listen to its tones. On my brow there gleams no diadem; from my life, alas! there shines at the best but a fitful splendour of purity, all striped with solid masses of blackness. And as for dominion over creatures, how superficial my rule over them, how real their rule over me! I can tame animals or slay them; I can use the forces of nature for my purposes; I can make machinery, and bid the lightning do my errands and carry messages, the burden of which is mostly money, or power, or sorrow. But all these, and the whole set of things like them, are not ruling over God’s creation. That consists in using all for God, and for our own growth in wisdom, strength, and goodness; and he only is master of all things who is servant of God. ‘All are yours, and ye are Christ’s.’ If so, what are most of us but servants, not lords, of earth and its goods? We fasten our very lives on them, we tremble at the bare thought of losing them, we give our best efforts to get them - we say to the fine gold, ‘Thou art my confidence.’ We do not possess them, they possess us: and so, though materially we may have conquered the earth {and wonderfully proud of it we are now}, spiritually, which is the same as to say really, the earth has conquered us.
The same impression of human incompleteness is made by all the records of human lives which we possess. Go into a library, and take down volume after volume-the biographies and autobiographies of the foremost men, the saints and sages whom we all reverence. Is there one on whose monument the old psalm could truthfully be written? Are not the honest autobiographies what one of the noblest of them is called, ‘Confessions’? Are not the memoirs the stories of flawed excellence, stained purity, limited wisdom? There are no perfect men in them - no men after the pattern of David’s words. Or if some enthusiastic admirer has drawn a picture without shadows, we feel that it is without life or likeness; and we look for faults and limitations that we may be sure of brotherhood.
And if we take a wider range, and listen to the sad voice of history chronicling the past, where in all her tragic story of bright hopes brought to nothing, of powers built up by force and rotted down by pride and selfishness, of war and wrong, of good painfully sought, and partially possessed, and churlishly treasured, and quickly lost - where on all her blotted pages, stained with tears, and sweat, and blood, do we find a record that verifies the singer’s rapture, and shows us men like this of the Psalm?
Or let observation speak. Bring Before your minds, by an exercise of imagination vivifying and uniting into one impression, the facts which we all know of the social and moral condition - to say nothing now of the religious state - of any country upon earth. Think of the men in all lands who are helpless, hopeless, full of animal sins and lusts, full of stupid ignorance. Take our psalm and read it in some gaol, or in a lunatic asylum, or at the door of some gin-palace, or at the mouth of a court in the back streets of any city in England, and ask yourselves, ‘Are these people, with narrow foreheads and villainous scowls, with sodden cheeks and foul hands, the fulfilment or the contradiction of its rapturous words?’ Or think of naked savages, who look up to bears and lions as their masters, who are stunted by cold or enervated by heat, out of whose souls have died all memories beyond yesterday’s hunger, and all hopes greater than a full meal to-morrow - and say if these are God’s men. So little are they like it that some of us are ready to say that they are not men at all.
What then? Are we to abandon in despair our hopes for our fellows, and to smile with quiet incredulity at the rhapsodies of sanguine theorists like David? If we are to confine our view to earth - yes. But there is more to see than the sad sights around us. All these men - these imperfect, degraded, half-brutified men - have their share in our psalm. They have gone out and wasted their substance in riotous living; but from the swine- trough and the rags they may come to the best robe and the feast in the father’s house. The veriest barbarian, with scarcely a spark of reason or a flickering beam of conscience, sunken in animal delights, and vibrating between animal hopes and animal fears rote him may belong the wondrous attributes: to be visited by God, crowned with glory and honour, higher than all stars, and lord of all creatures.
It sounds like a wild contradiction, I know: and I do not in the least wonder that people pressed by a sense of all the misery that is done under the sun, and faintly realising for themselves Christ’s power to heal their own misery and cleanse their own sins, should fling away their Bibles, and refuse to believe that ‘God hath made of one blood all nations of men,’ and that Christ has a message for the world. I venture to believe both the one and the other. I believe that though angels weep, and we should be smitten with shame, at the sight of what man has made of man, and we of ourselves, yet that God will be true though every man fail Him, and will fulfil unto the children the mercy which He has promised to the fathers.
‘All the promises of God in Christ are yea,’ And so against all the theories of the desperate school, and against all our own despondent thoughts, we have to oppose the sunny hopes which come from such words as those of our text. Looking around us, we have indeed to acknowledge with plaintive emphasis, ‘we see not yet all things put under Him’ - but, looking up, we have to add with triumphant confidence that we speak of a fact which has a real bearing on our hopes for men - ‘we see Jesus.’
II. So, secondly, look upwards to Jesus.
Christ in glory appears to the author of this epistle to be the full realisation of the psalmist’s ideal Our text deals only with the exalted dignity and present majesty of the ascended Lord; but before touching upon that, we may venture, for a moment, to dwell upon the past of Christ’s life as being also the carrying out of David’s vision of true manhood. We have to look backward as well as upward if we would have a firm hope for men. The ascended Christ upon the throne, and the historical Christ upon the earth, teach us what man may be, the one in regard to dignity, the other in regard to goodness.
Here is a fact. Such a life was verily once lived on earth; a life of true manhood, whatever more it was. In it we may see two things: first, we may see from His perfect purity what it is possible for man to become; and second, we may see from His experience who said, ‘The Father hath not left Me alone, because I do always the things which please Him,’ how close a fellowship is possible between the human spirit that lives for and by obedience, and the Father of us all. The man Christ Jesus was visited by God, yea, God dwelt with Him ever; whatever more He was - and He was infinitely more - He was also our example of communion, as He was our example of righteousness.
And that life is to be our standard. I refuse to take other men, the highest, as specimens of what we may become. I refuse to take other men, the lowest, as instances of what we are condemned to be. Here in Jesus Christ is the type; and, albeit it is alone in its beauty, yet it is more truly a specimen of manhood than the fragmentary, distorted, incomplete men are who are found everywhere besides. Christ is the power to conform us to Himself, as well as the pattern of what we may be. He and none lower, He and none beside, is the pattern man. Not the great conqueror, nor the great statesman, nor the great thinker, but the great Lover, the perfectly good - is the man as God meant him to be. As it has been said, with pardonable extravagance, ‘Aristotle was but the rubbish of an Adam,’ so in sober truth we may affirm that the noblest and fairest characters, approximating as they may to the picture in the psalm, and giving us some reason to hope that more is possible for us than we sometimes think, are after all but fragments of precious stones as compared with that one entire and perfect chrysolite, whose unflawed beauty and completeness drinks in, and flashes forth, the whole light of God. He is not ashamed to call us brethren. Therefore, if we would know what a man is, and what a man may become, let us not only look inward to our own faults, nor around us at these broken bits of goodness, but let us look back to Christ, and be of good cheer. We hear and see more than enough of men’s folly, stupidity, godlessness, and sin. Nevertheless - we see Jesus. Let us have hope.
But turn now to the consideration of what is more directly intended by our text, namely, the contemplation of Christ in the heavens, ‘crowned with glory and honour,’ as the true type of man. What does Scripture teach us to see in the exalted Lord?
It sets before us, first, a perpetual manhood. The whole force of the words before us depends on the assumption that, in all His glory and dominion, Jesus Christ remains what He was on earth, truly and properly man. There is a strong tendency in many minds to think of Christ’s incarnation and humanity as transitory. I do not mean that such a conception is thrown into articulate form as a conscious article of belief, but it haunts people none the less, and gives a feeling of unreality and remoteness to what the Scripture says of our Lord’s present life. Many believers in the eternal existence and divinity of our Lord think of His incarnation much after the fashion in which heathendom conceived that the gods came down in the likeness of men - as if it were a mere transitory appearance, the wearing of a garb of human nature but for a moment. Whereas the Biblical representation is that for evermore, by an indissoluble union, the human is assumed into the divine, and that ‘to-day and for ever’ He remains the man Christ Jesus. Nor is a firm grasp of that truth of small importance, nor is the truth itself a theological subtlety, without bearing upon human interests and practical life. Rather it is the very hinge on which turn our loftiest hopes. Without it, that mighty work which He ever carries on, of succouring them that are tempted, and having compassion with us, were impossible. Without that permanent manhood, His mighty work of preparing a place for us, and making heaven a home for men because a Man is its Lord, were at an end. Without it, He in His glory would be no prophecy of man’s dominion, nor would He have entered for us into the holy place. Grasp firmly the essential, perpetual manhood of Jesus Christ, and then to see Him crowned with glory and honour gives the triumphant answer to the despairing question that rises often to the lips of every one who knows the facts of life, ‘Wherefore hast Thou made all men in vain?’ Again, we see in Jesus, exalted in the heavens, a corporeal manhood. That thought touches upon very dark subjects, concerning which Scripture says little, and no other voice says anything at all. The resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ are our great reasons for believing that man, in his perfect condition, has body as well as spirit. And that belief is one chief means of giving definiteness and reality to our anticipations of a future life. Without the belief of a corporeal manhood, the unseen world becomes vague and shapeless, is taken out of the range of our faculties altogether, and soon becomes powerless to hold its own against the pressure of palpable, present realities. But we see Jesus - ascended up on high in man’s body. Therefore He is somewhere now. Heaven is a place as well as a state; and however, for the present, the souls that sleep in Jesus may have to ‘wait for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body,’ and, being unclothed, may be wrapped about with Him and rest in His bosom, yet the perfect men who shall one day stand before the Lord, shall have body and soul and spirit - like Him Who is a man for ever, and for ever wears a human frame.
Further, we see in Jesus transfigured manhood. Once when He was on earth, as some hidden light breaks through all veils, the pent-up glory of the great ‘God with us’ seemed to stream through His flesh, and tinge with splendour even the skirts of His garments. ‘He was transfigured before them,’ not as it would appear by light reflected from above, hut by radiance up-bursting from within. And besides all its other lessons, that solemn hour on the Mount of Transfiguration gave some small hint and prelude of the possibilities of glory that lay hidden in Christ’s material body, which possibilities become realities after {though not, in His case, be} death; when He ascended up on high, beautiful and changed, being clothed with ‘the body of His glory.’ For Him, as for us, flesh here means weakness and dishonour. For us, though not for Him, flesh means corruption and death. For Him, as for us, that natural body, which was adequate to the needs and adapted to the material constitution of this earth, must be changed into the spiritual body correspondent to the conditions of that kingdom of God which flesh and blood cannot enter. For us, through Him, the body of humiliation shall be changed into likeness of the body of His glory. We see Jesus, and in Him manhood transfigured and perfected.
Finally, we see in Jesus sovereign manhood. The psalmist thought of man as crowned with glory and honour, as having dominion over the works of God’s hands. And here is his thought embodied in far higher manner than ever he imagined possible. Here is a man exalted to absolute, universal dominion. The sovereignty of Jesus Christ is not a metaphor, nor a rhetorical hyperbole. It is, it we believe the New Testament writers, a literal, prose fact. He directs the history of the world, and presides among the nations. He is the prince of all the kings of the earth. He wields the forces of nature, He directs the march of providence, He is Lord of the unseen worlds, and holds the keys of death and the grave. ‘ The government is upon His shoulders,’ and upon Him hangs ‘all the glory of His Father’s house.’ Angels served Him in His lowliness, and strengthened Him in His agony they watched His grave, and when He ascended on high, the multitudes of the heavenly hosts, even thousands of angels, were the chariot of the conquering Lord. Angels are His servants now, and all do worship Him. He holdeth the stars in His right hand, and all creatures gather obedient round His throne. His voice is law, His will is power. He says to this one ‘Go,’ and he goeth; He rebukes winds and seas, diseases and devils, and they obey; to all He says, ‘Do this,’ and they do it. He speaks, and it is done. ‘On His head are many crowns.’ Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ - and, seeing Jesus, we see man crowned with glory and honour.
III. Finally, then, look forward.
Though it be only too true that the vision seems to tarry, and that weary centuries roll on, and bring us but so little nearer its accomplishment; though the fair promise, at which the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy, seems to have faded away; though the hope of the psalmist is yet unfulfilled; though the strain of a yet higher mood, proclaiming peace on earth, which later shepherds of Bethlehem heard from amid the silent stars, has died away, and the war shout lives on; still, in the strength which flows from seeing Jesus exalted, we can look for a certain future, wherein men. shall be all that God proposed, and all that their Saviour is. Rolling clouds hide the full view, but through them gleams the lustrous walls of the city which hath the foundations. We look forward, and we see men sharing in Christ’s glory, and gathered together round His throne.
Christ is the measure of man’s capacities. He is the true pattern of human nature. Christ is the prophecy and pledge of man’s dominion. From Christ comes the power by which the prophecy is fulfilled, and the pattern reproduced in all who love Him. Whosoever is joined to Him receives into his soul that spirit of life in Christ which unfolds and grows according to its own law, and has for its issue and last result the entire conformity between the believing soul and the Saviour by whom it lives. It were a poor consolation to point to Christ and say, ‘Look what man has become and may become,’ unless we could also say, ‘A real and living oneness exists between Him and all who cleave to Him, so that their characters are changed, their natures cleansed, their future altered, their immortal beauty secured.’ He is more than pattern, He is power; more than specimen, He is source; more than example, He is redeemer. He has been made in the likeness of sinful flesh, that we may be in the likeness of His body of glory. He has been made ‘sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.’ His exaltation, if it were ever so much a fact, and ever so firmly believed, yields no basis for hope as to any beyond Himself, but on one supposition. To see man exalted and his glory ensured in Christ’s, the glory of Christ must be connected, as is done in our text, with His tasting death for every man. When I know that He has died for me, and for all my brethren who sit in darkness, and hear each other groan as the poison shoots through their veins, then I can feel that, as He has been in the likeness of our death, we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection. Brethren, the Cross, and the Cross alone, certifies our participation in the Crown. Unless Jesus Christ have and exercise that wondrous power of delivering from sin and self, and of quickening to a new life, which He exercises only as Sacrifice .and Saviour, there were nothing which were more irrelevant to the hopes of man’s future than the story of His purity and of His dominion. What were all that to men writhing with evil? What hope for single souls or for the world in the knowledge that He was good, or in the belief that He had gone up on high? If that were all, what would it all matter? The lack-lustre eyes that have grown wan with waiting will have no light of hope kindled in them by such a gospel as that. But bid them look, languid and weary as they are, to Him who is lifted up, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish - that vision will give to the still loftier sight of Christ on the throne its true meaning, as not a barren triumph for Himself alone, but as victory for us - yea, our victory in Him. If we can say, ‘God, who is rich in mercy for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together,’ then we can add, ‘and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Jesus Christ,’ And what wonderful hopes, dimly discerned indeed, but firmly founded, we have a right to cherish, if what we see in Jesus we may predict for His brethren! We shall be like Him in all these points to which we have already referred. We, too, shall have a corporeal manhood transfigured and glorified. We, too, shall have perfect union and communion with the Father. We, too, shall be invested with all the unknown prerogatives which are summed up in that last promise of His, beyond which nothing more glorious can be conceived, ‘To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me on My throne.’ Then the ancient word will be fulfilled in manner beyond our dreams, ‘Thou hast put all things under his feet.’ Who can tell what accessions of power, what new faculties, what new relations to an external universe, what new capacity of impressing a holy will upon all things, what new capability of receiving from all things their -most secret messages concerning God their Maker, may be involved in such words? We see darkly. The hopes for the future lie around us as flowers in some fair garden where we walk in the night, their petals closed and their leaves asleep, but here and there a whiter bloom gleams out, and sweet, faint odours from unseen sources steal through the dewy darkness. We can understand but little of what this majestic promise of sovereign manhood may mean. But the fragrance, if not the sight, of that gorgeous blossom is wafted to us. We know that ‘the upright shall have dominion in the morning.’ We know that to His servants authority over ten cities will be given. We know that we shall be ‘kings and priests to God.’ The fact we know, the contents of the fact we wait to prove. ‘It doth not yet appear what we shall be.’ Enough that we shall reign with Him, and that in the kingdom of the heavens dominion means service, and the least is the greatest.
We, too, shall be exalted above all creatures-far above all principality and power, even as Christ is Lord of angels. What that may include, we can but dimly surmise. Nearness to God, knowledge of His heart and will, likeness to Christ, determine superiority among pure and spiritual beings. And Scripture, in many a hint and half-veiled promise, bids us believe that men who have been redeemed from their sins by the blood of Christ, and have made experience of departure and restoration, are set to be the exponents of a deeper knowledge of God to powers in heavenly places, and, standing nearest the throne, become the chorus leaders of new praises from lofty beings who have ever praised Him on immortal harps. They who know sin, who remember sorrow, who learned God by the Cross of Christ, and have proved His forgiving and sanctifying grace, must needs have a more wondrous knowledge, and be knit to Him by a tenderer bond than the elder brethren who never transgressed His commandments. The youngest brother of the king is nearer to him than the oldest servant who stands before his face. Our brother is Lord of all, and His dominion is ours.
But we can speak little, definitely, about such matters. It is enough for the servant that he be as his Lord. This confidence, which can be certain, though it be not accurate, should satisfy our minds without curious detail, and should quiet our hearts however they be tempted to cast it away. Many enemies whisper to us doubts. The devil tempted first to sin by insinuating the question, ‘Shall ye surely die?’ The devil often tempts now to sin by insinuating exactly the opposite doubt, ‘Can it be that you will live?’ It seems to us often incredible that such hopes of immortal life should be true about such poor creatures, such wretched failures, as we feel ourselves to be. It seems often incredible that they should have any connection with men such as we see them on the average to be. We are tempted, too, in these days, to think that our psalm belongs to an exploded school of thought, to a simple astronomy which made the earth the centre of the universe, and conceived of moon and stars as tiny spangles on the hem of light’s garment. We are told that science lights us to other conclusions as to man’s place in creation than such as David cherished. No doubt it does as to man physically considered. But the answer to my own evil conscience, to the sad inferences from man’s past and present, to the conclusions which are illegitimately sought to be extended from man’s material place in a material universe to man’s spiritual place as an immortal and moral being, lies in that twofold sight which we have been regarding - Christ on the cross the measure of man’s worth in the eyes of God, and of man’s place in the creation; Christ on the throne the prophecy of man’s dignity, and of his most sure dominion.
When bordering on despair at the sight of so much going wrong, so much ignorance, sorrow, and vice, so many darkened understandings and broken hearts, such wide tracts of savagery and godlessness, I can look up to Jesus, and can see far, far away - the furthest thing on the horizon - like some nebula, faint, it is true, and low down, but flickering with true starry light - the wondrous vision of many souls brought into glory, even a world redeemed.
When conscious of personal imperfection and much sin, no thought will bring peace nor kindle hope but this, that Christ has died to bring me to God, and lives to bring me to glory. Then, dear brethren, ‘behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.’
Behold Jesus entered within the veil for us. Look away from the imperfect men, the partial teachers, the incomplete saints, the powerless helpers around you, to Him, the righteous, the wise, the strong. Look at no man any more, as the hope for yourself, as the pattern for your life, save Jesus only. The gaze will feed your triumphant hope, and will make that hope a partial reality. Here you will be visited by God, here you will in some degree have all things for yours, if you are Christ’s. Here, from far beneath, look up through the heavens to Him who is ‘made higher than’ them all. And hereafter, from the supreme height and pinnacle of the throne of Christ, we shall look down on sun, moon, and stars that once shone so far above us; and conscious that His grace has raised us up on high, and put all things under our feet, shall exclaim with yet deeper thankfulness and more reverent wonder: ‘What is man, that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv5, 9 "oikoumene" = inhabited earth. (See Scofield "Luk 2:1").
world
"oikoumene" = inhabited earth. (See Scofield "Luk 2:1").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v5 II. CHRIST, SON OF MAN, His GLORY AND His…
II. CHRIST, SON OF MAN, His GLORY AND His SALVATION
CHAPTER 2:5-18
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1. The Man crowned with glory and honor (Heb 2:5-9)
2. His humiliation, suffering and the results (Heb 2:10-18)
Heb 2:5-9
Angels are once more mentioned and the fact is stated first of all that angels are not called of God to reign: “Unto the angels hath He not put in subjection, the world to come whereof we speak.” “The world to come” is not heaven or the eternal state. The literal translation is “the habitable world to come”; it is the existing earth, inhabited by human beings in the dispensation which will follow the present age. The world in the dispensation to come, called in Ephesians “the dispensation of the fullness of time” is not put in subjection to angels. A quotation from the Eighth Psalm follows, from which we learn that man is to have dominion and to rule over this world to come. Dominion over the earth was given to Adam (Gen 1:28), but sin coming in, and death also, this dominion and rule was lost; the glory and honor which rested upon Adam was changed into shame and dishonor. 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.
It is interesting to study the order of the psalms with which the book of psalms begins, divinely arranged by an unknown instrument. The righteous Man in Psa 1:1-6 is the Lord Jesus; the Second Psalm shows Him as the Messiah-King. Then Psa 3:1-8; Psa 4:1-8; Psa 5:1-12; Psa 6:1-10; Psa 7:1-17 show the suffering, sorrows and soul-exercise of the godly during the time when He does not yet reign, especially the suffering of the Jewish remnant during the tribulation and then comes Psa 8:1-9, Christ, the Second Man set over all things. The Annotated Bible on the Psalms follows this more fully.
The Eighth Psalm reveals this Second Man, the Lord from heaven, the Creator in creature’s form. He was made a little lower than the angels. The Son of God took the position of man to make peace in the blood of His cross “to reconcile all things unto Himself, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven” (Col 1:20). All things are therefore put in subjection under His feet and nothing is left that is not put in subjection under Him. He will have dominion over all and His name will be excellent in all the earth. Satan knows that the dominion of the earth will not be left forever in his horrible grasp. He offered the kingdoms of the world and their glory to the Son of Man, attempting to keep Him from going to the cross, in which, through the death of Christ, the devil, who has the power of death, is brought to nought.
The work is done. Christ is the Second Man; He will have dominion over the earth in the world to come, the dispensation to come. He will reign and rule and His fellows, the partakers of His salvation, will reign with Him. “But now we see not yet all things put under Him.” The time is not in this present age in which Satan is god and ruler. Only when the First-begotten is brought back from the glory, in His second coming, will all things be put under Him. Faith knows this from the unfailing promises of God. But faith also has another vision; while Satan is not yet dethroned and Christ enthroned, “We see Jesus crowned with glory and honor, who was made a little lower than the angels on account of the suffering of death; so that by the grace of God He should taste death for all things.” Glorious vision! He suffered death. He perfectly glorified God on the earth where God had been dishonored. He came down and took the lowest place and now He is exalted to the highest. The Man who suffered and died fills the throne and is crowned with glory and honor. And as surely as He is there now, so will He in God’s own time occupy His own throne with all things put under his feet. He tasted death for that--for all things--for a ruined creation which He has redeemed and will restore.
Heb 2:10-18
This salvation work is now more fully mentioned in the second part of this chapter. He is spoken of as the captain (author) of the salvation of the many sons He is bringing to glory. And as the originator and leader of their salvation He had to suffer and die. Not His person was to be perfected, for He is perfect; but He had to be perfected through suffering as a Saviour. “For it became Him for whom are all things and by whom are all things in bringing many sons unto glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering.” Here God’s eternal purpose is wonderfully revealed. He purposed before the foundation, knowing the coming ruin of man, to bring many sons unto glory. This is divine love. But God’s holiness had to be vindicated, and therefore the Son of God became man to suffer as the captain of their (the many sons) salvation.
As disobedience had led man from life to death, so, by obedience unto death the sinless Lamb of God had to win in righteousness the path of endless life for those who trust in Him as the originator and captain of their salvation. And those who accept Him are the many sons, whom God is bringing through Him, to glory everlasting. And both He who sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one. It is a wicked perversion of the truth when it is taught, that He, and all the human race are of one. This is the common error taught so much in the so-called theory of “The Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of Man. “ The statement shows the wonderful relationship which divine grace has established between the captain of salvation and those who are saved by Him. He, Christ, is the sanctifier, setting those apart unto God, who accept Him as Saviour. Such are born of God and become children of God, destined to be brought by Him as sons to glory. In this sense He who sanctifieth and they who are sanctified by Him are of One, that is, of God. Higher still is the truth revealed in the Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians, that believers are not only “of one” but are one with Him.
Again quotations from the Scriptures follow. The first is from the Twenty-second Psalm. “For this cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying I will declare Thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto Thee” (Psa 22:22). This Psalm shows first Christ on the cross as sin-bearer. In Psa 22:20-21 is the prayer of the Suffering One. And He was heard. God’s answer was His resurrection from the dead. That resurrection and His exaltation are revealed in the second portion of this Psalm (Psa 22:22-31). The beginning of this section is quoted here. And when He was risen from the dead He gave this blessed new message at once. “But go unto My brethren and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father and your Father, and My God and your God” (Joh 20:17).
Here we learn the blessed identification of Him that sanctifieth and with them that are sanctified, and that on the ground of resurrection. And therefore He is not ashamed to call us brethren, which, however, does not authorize believers to call Him “brother” as it is done so often. (Never before His death and resurrection did He address His disciples as “brethren.” Only once did He hint before His death at this relationship to come, in Mat 12:48-50.) And by His Spirit He is in the midst of those who are gathered unto His name, the Church, and sings praise unto God, as they praise God in His blessed and worthy name. The Twenty-second Psalm also speaks of “the great congregation,” Israel, gathered unto Him and of the ends of the earth and the nations who shall remember and shall worship before Him. It is His coming glory when all things are put under Him in the age to come.
The next quotation is from Psa 16:1-11. (It may also be brought in connection with Is. 8:17. The Septuagint has it “I will trust in Him” 2Sa 22:3.) “I will put my trust in Him.” It is the prophetic expression of His personal faith on earth. As man He trusted in the Lord and waited for Him (Isa 8:17). “The Seed of David, and the object of the promises, is thus represented as awaiting, in perfect confidence, the righteous award which in due time should be made to Him who alone is worthy, by the God whom He had glorified in perfect obedience; although for an appointed season His gracious labor might seem to have been spent for nought and in vain, while man and Satan appeared only to prevail” (Isa 49:1-26).
The last quotation is from Isa 8:18. The children, which 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 of significant meaning from heaven. Believers are children, belong to Him and are signs and witnesses both to unbelieving Israel and the world. In a special sense this passage, no doubt, applies to the believing remnant of Israel, which owned Him, while the nation rejected Him. And some day, the day of His glory, He will declare triumphantly “Behold I and the children which God gave unto Me.” Then He will be glorified and admired in all that believed (2Th 1:10) and the redeemed will be for signs and wonders in a still more blessed way.
Then follows a restatement of the fact of His incarnation and its special bearing on the calling of the children, God has given Him, the many sons He brings to glory. “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also in like manner took part of the same (His incarnation) that through death He might bring to nought him who hath the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver as many as through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” It was for the children’s sake, all who accept Him and whom God brings through Him to glory, that He took on flesh and blood and by doing so He arrayed Himself for death. He took on flesh and blood apart from sin. Satan’s work is perfected in death. “That the Lord Jesus might enjoy the children as the gift of God, He must first take away the yoke of the oppressor. But because the right of Satan to destroy was founded on the victory of sin, which made man the lawful prey of death, He, who loved the children though as yet they knew Him not, took also flesh; that in their stead He might undergo that death which should forever spoil the devil of his claim” (A. Pridham). The limit of this work of the Lord Jesus to the children as its object, should be carefully observed.
Jewish saints in the Old Testament, believing the promise and expecting the Messiah, were in bondage and in fear of death. “The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law,” but the death of Christ once for all to sin has received the sting and brought to nought him who has the power of death. A believer is delivered from the fear of death, for he no longer dies the sinner’s death, but falls asleep in Jesus and that with the promise to awake in due time in His likeness. “For verily it is not angels upon whom He taketh hold, but He taketh hold of the seed of Abraham.” And who were they whom He took hold on? Not angels, but the seed of Abraham. Those are the children for which He came, took on flesh and blood and wrought His work on the cross. The expression “seed of Abraham” is as a generic term, descriptive of the whole family of faith. Believers of Jews and Gentiles are comprehended in this term. They that are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.
His priesthood is next introduced for the first time in this Epistle. He was made like unto His brethren in all things “that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted,” and thus in suffering and temptation (apart from sin) in His humanity, He was fitted to be the priest to sympathize with His own in all their trials and conflicts.
“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 succour them that are tempted. It is important to observe that the flesh, when acted upon by its desires, does not suffer. Being tempted, it, alas! enjoys. But when, according to the light of the Holy Spirit and the fidelity of obedience, the Spirit resists the attacks of the enemy, whether subtle or persecuting, then one suffers. This the Lord did, and this we have to do. That which needs succour is the new man, the faithful heart, and not the flesh. I need succour against the flesh, and in order to mortify all the members of the old man” Synopsis of the Bible.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v5 A further argument for the superiority of Christ’s word:
A further argument for the superiority of Christ’s word:
v. 5. For unto the angels hath He not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak.
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v. 6. But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man that Thou art mindful of him, or the Son of Man that Thou visitest Him?
v. 7. Thou madest Him a little lower than the angels; Thou crownedst Him with glory and honor, and didst set Him over the works of thy hands;
v. 8. Thou hast put all things in subjection under His feet. For in that he put all in subjection under Him, he left nothing that is not put under Him. But now we see not yet all things put under Him.
v. 9. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man.
In addition to the first proof for the superiority of Christ and of His Gospel the inspired writer now brings another reason: For not to the angels did He subject the world to come, concerning which we speak. This is the proof positive for the sovereignty of the Son, the fact that the government and the administration of the world to come, of the Kingdom of Glory, is ascribed to Him. For God did not place this wonderful kingdom into the control of the angels; there is not a single passage in Scriptures nor any other evidence to that effect.
What we must believe with regard to the Kingdom of Grace and Glory and its government is plainly shown in the passage which the sacred writer quotes, Psa 8:4-6, as the testimony of one, namely, David the prophet, concerning the facts here discussed by him: What is man that Thou art mindful of him, or the Son of Man that Thou visitest Him? For a little while Thou hast made Him lower than the angels: with glory and honor hast Thou crowned Him and didst set Him over the works of Thy hands; Thou didst put all things in subjection under His feet. The author here clearly states that Psa 8:1-9 is a Messianic psalm, and that these words are spoken of Jesus Christ. See 1Co 15:27; Eph 1:22. God truly was mindful of this Son of Man in a most extraordinary manner, for the good of all mankind: He visited Him in a way which resulted in the salvation of all men. It is true indeed that Christ, in His state of humiliation, was for a little while inferior to the angels, just as He had no form or comeliness among men, Isa 53:2. But when the work of redemption was completed, God crowned the formerly despised Jesus with divine honor and glory; He exalted Him, according to His human nature, to the full possession and enjoyment of all the divine attributes and powers, giving Him unlimited authority over all the works of creation, over all created beings. The entire universe, with all that it contains, is lying in subjection under His feet.
The writer now draws a conclusion from this Scripture-passage: For in this, that He put all things in subjection under Him, He left nothing that was not subjected under Him. It follows, of course, that even the angels are subject to Christ, that they can in no way compare with Him in power and authority. Eph 1:21-22; Col 2:10. It is true, indeed: But now we do not see yet that all things are subjected to Him, 1Co 15:24-27; the revelation of the fullness of Christ’s divine power, just as He told the Jews in the court of Caiaphas, is a thing of the future: it will appear before the eyes of all men on the last day. In the meantime, however, our faith has a certain basis: Him who, for a little while, was lower than the angels we see, Jesus, on account of His suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for every man. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in His state of humiliation, took upon Himself the sufferings of mankind and finally laid down His life in death. In this way the grace of God was revealed to mankind, since it was in behalf of every single human being and for the sake of earning a complete salvation for all men that Christ tasted the bitterness of death, Rom 5:8; Gal 2:21. This perfect obedience of the Redeemer has now been recognized and rewarded by the award of divine and everlasting glory and honor, Php 2:6-11; Eph 1:20-23; Mat 28:18. It is equally certain that it will finally be shown that God put everything in subjection under His feet. If we wish to leave the order of the clauses in the sentence unchanged and think of the revelation of divine glory that came to Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration, the explanation is almost equally simple: "He was made a little lower than the angels that He might suffer death; but He was crowned with glory and honor that this very death might bring all men to the glory of supremacy which was theirs when the fear of death was removed."
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv5, 7, 9 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
The writer reminds these Hebrew believers that the earth will one day be under the rule of the Lord Jesus.
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General Information:
The quotation here is from the book of Psalms in the Old Testament. It continues on through the next section.
For it was not to the angels that God subjected
"For God did not make the angels rulers over"
the world to come
Here "world" refers to the people who live there. And "to come" means that this is the world in the next age after Christ returns. AT: "the people who will live in the new world" (See: Metonymy)
What is man, that you are mindful of him?
This rhetorical question emphasizes the insignificance of humans and expresses surprise that God would pay attention to them. AT: "Humans are insignificant, and yet you are mindful of them!" (See: Rhetorical Question)
Or a son of man, that you care for him?
The idiom "son of man" refers to human beings. This rhetorical question means basically the same thing as the first question. It expresses surprise that God would care for humans, who are insignificant. AT: "Human beings are of little importance, and yet you care for them!" (See: Idiom and Parallelism and Rhetorical Question)
Or a son of man
The verb may be supplied from the previous question. AT: "Or what is a son of man" (See: Ellipsis)
translationWords
angel
subject
testimony
Son of Man
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv5–9 2:5-9 The author of Hebrews uses Ps 8:4-6 to…
2:5-9 The author of Hebrews uses Ps 8:4-6 to transition from the discussion of Christ’s exalted divinity (Heb 1:5-14) to the discussion of his humanity (2:10-18). Psalm 8 is often presented with Ps 110:1 (see Heb 1:13) to speak of the submission of created things to Christ (see 1 Cor 15:25-27; Eph 1:20-23). Christ is the consummate human being. In his exaltation, he fulfills what fallen humanity could not: true dominion over the created order.
2:5 it is not angels: Cp. 1:13.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.