The Christadelphian 1933, John Carter

“The Letter to the Hebrews” 

An Analysis and Exposition

(c) The Future World for Christ (2:5–18)

Paul now returns to his demonstration that Christ is greater than angels, and establishes it by shewing that the world to come will be subject to Christ, and arising out of the Scripture quoted in proof thereof he further shews that the sufferings of the Messiah were the necessary prelude to the glory. In so doing he removes the Jewish objection to a Messiah who had died ignominiously. He could not be the Messiah unless he had so suffered and died.

“We preach a Messiah crucified, unto Jews a stumbling block,” said the apostle in 2 Cor. 1:23 (R.V., margin). Paul tried to remove this stumbling block by presenting the whole counsel of God to those who would hear. The doctrine of a coming king to lead them to victory and to supremacy in the world of mankind was pleasing enough, but that the king should first die a felon’s death was not an acceptable idea.

Peter met this difficulty in his addresses in Jerusalem as recorded in Acts, in the same way as Paul does in Hebrews. Jesus, said Peter, was “delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God,” and was slain by the Jews through the wicked hands of the Romans. But him “God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.” This was in fulfilment of David’s word concerning the Messiah in Psalm 16., which Peter quotes. He then reminds them that David knew that God had sworn with an oath to him that He would raise up a descendant of his to sit on his throne, and continues, “he, foreseeing this, spake of the resurrection of the Christ, ” in the Psalm he has just quoted. Peter then identifies the Christ, who had to be the subject of resurrection, with Jesus. “This Jesus did God raise up, whereof we all are witnesses.”

Peter thus shews that the Scriptures taught that the Messiah had to die and to be raised up from death, David’s words being witness. Jesus had been raised up, and was therefore the Messiah; and that which occasioned them difficulty and at which they were stumbling was really the proof of his Messiahship. “Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God hath made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom ye crucified.”

Similarly, in the address recorded in Acts 3., Peter says that God has glorified His Servant Jesus whom they had delivered up to be slain. But they had denied the Holy and Righteous One and killed the Prince of Life, whom God had raised up. They had indeed done it ignorantly, “But the things which God foreshewed by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ should suffer, he thus fulfilled.” A suffering Messiah was the divinely provided Messiah. Sufferings and glory were both the lot of their King.

This “stumbling block” of the Jews seems remote enough to us, who are Gentiles, in these last days. But the apostles found the difficulty a very great one to their Jewish hearers. They had themselves before the death of their leader found his predictions of what should befall him in Jerusalem difficult to understand. But all the difficulty vanished in the full light of God’s purpose as it was opened up to them after the resurrection of Jesus (Luke 24:25–27). Under the guidance of the Spirit they were at great pains to open up the Scriptures to their hearers so that they also might see that the expected Redeemer of the nation was also the Redeemer of men from sin and death, to which end he must first suffer and die. If we can put ourselves back in the position of Peter’s hearers and Paul’s readers, we understand and value their statements the more for so doing.

Paul then, like Peter, must establish that the Christ had to suffer, and to be exalted to supremacy over all because he was obedient, in days of weakness, even unto death. His readers were thereby confirmed in their allegiance to Jesus, when they saw that the taunts of their adversaries about a Messiah who was crucified was due to failure to understand the purpose of God about all the work that their Messiah had to do.

In his Scripture citations Paul shewed that God had given the Son a throne, and had appointed him the founder of “new heavens and earth” (1:8–12). These are now referred to in the words “the world to come.” “For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come whereof we speak.” (Incidentally, we may notice that this Messianic order has to do with “the inhabited earth,” as the margin of R.V. suggests in its alternative rendering.) It is to be subject to the Son at his return; and so to man in and through the Son of Man. So the Scriptures declare, as Paul now shews.

“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? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; Thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands: Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet.” The “one” is David, and the “certain place” is Psalm 8., where David commemorates his victory over Goliath (as Thirtle, in The Titles of the Psalms, has shewn). But David in turn is quoting from Gen. 1., where is narrated God’s objects in placing man upon earth. “Have dominion” God had said. But man sinned, lost his dominion, and was exiled from Eden. But David (or, the Spirit in David) takes hold of this language of primeval history and uses it prophetically of what is yet to be. God’s purpose has not failed; hindered it may be, as man sees it. But the commission given to man at the beginning will be accomplished, although sin’s entrance has required a second Adam, “the last Adam,” to bring it to pass. Paul makes great use of this Psalm in Eph. 1:19–23 and 1 Cor. 15:23–28, as well as in this place in Hebrews.

Having made the quotation, he proceeds to expound it. First he comments on the word “all.” “For in that he ‘put all in subjection under’ him, he left nothing that is not put under him.” The supremacy indicated is complete, the one exception being God, as Paul states in 1 Cor. 15:27.

Such a vista opened up by this word is confessedly not now a fact. “But now we see not yet all things subjected to him.” It is not accomplished as yet. Nevertheless, part of it has been accomplished; a portion of the Psalm is already history. “But we see Jesus, who was ‘made a little lower than the angels’ (for the suffering of death ‘crowned with glory and honour’), that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man” (verses 8, 9).

God is still “mindful of man,” for there has appeared “the son of man,” whom God “visited.” Observe that Jesus uses this title, when he speaks of “the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit upon the throne of his glory” (Matt. 19:28); and from the parallel record in Mark we learn that Jesus called the “regeneration” also “the world to come” (Mark 10:30). Jesus was made “a little lower than the angels”; he has been “crowned with glory and honour.” He was made the first that he might taste of death for men’s salvation; he has been crowned for the suffering of death. These are the historic facts connected with Jesus; it is of him therefore that David writes, and without doubt “all things will yet be subject to him.”

The thought of Israel’s king being crucified should not have been considered an outrageous thing. On the contrary, rightly viewed in the light, for example, of the Psalm Paul considers, it is a divinely beautiful thing. It is, so to speak, a “visit” of God in a Son to bring man out of the “horrible pit” into which he had fallen by sin. And therefore the Son must go down into the pit.

Man could not find a way out. This was God’s way, and it was a method that exhibited the love and mercy and grace of God, and at the same time his righteousness and truth; this way “behoved” or “befitted” God.

“For it behoved him (God), 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 sufferings” (verse 10). The things done are worthy of God. They are “for” Him—He is the originator; they are “through” Him—He brings them to pass. By them “many sons” are to share the “glory” which crowns the Son. But in “bringing” them to this salvation there was necessary, and God provided, a “captain of their salvation” who must be made perfect through sufferings. The edge is taken off the Jewish objection to Jesus in this larger view of his mission.

These who partake of Christ’s glory, are “many sons.” They are “sons” through, and only through, the only begotten Son. And while he is higher than the “many” as the mode of his sonship is higher than theirs (his by begettal, theirs by adoption) yet all are sons. They share the glory as God’s sons, and therefore are his brethren, to be acknowledged by him as such. “For both he that sanctifieth (Jesus) and they who are sanctified (the many sons) are all of one (Father): for which 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’; And again, ‘I will put my trust in him.’ And again, ‘Behold I and the children which God hath given me’” (verses 11–13).

He does then call them brethren, as these three Scriptures show. First, in Psalm 22., where a very full picture of his sufferings is shewn, and his cries to God set down. But God did not despise his afflictions, but He heard his cries. And because of this the Psalmist draws another picture. The sufferer is exalted and leads a “great congregation” in praise. The “seed of Jacob”—the children of the promise—are around him. They are “satisfied” and “live for ever.” In that assembly the leader says, “I will declare thy name unto my brethren”; and he addresses them, “Ye that fear the Lord, praise him” (verses 22–31).

As their brother he shares their dependance upon God. “I will put my trust in Him.” Thus spake David, “the servant of the Lord . . . in the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies” (Ps. 18., title, and verse 2). So will speak David’s greater Son, when his enemies are subject to him, and when the words of the Psalm are more literally fulfilled than ever in David’s experiences. When Jesus hung upon the cross his enemies derisively said, “He trusted in God,” and taunted him with it. But it was true, and was a mark of his Messiahship; and his trust was not misplaced.

Lastly, his oneness with his brethren is represented by the figure of children. Psalm 22. concludes with the reference to “A seed (that) shall serve him.” Isaiah had two sons, whose names with that of their father, were prophetic. Isaiah said that he and “the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion” (Is. 8:16). Of “the king” it is written, “Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth” (Ps. 45:16). The Messiah is the brother, the fellow-worshipper; the fellow-believer; he is the parent, but he is only this last because he is the manifestation of God who is his and their Father. By these Scriptures is established the fellowship of the sanctifier and the sanctified. They are of one Father.

They are also of one nature. Necessarily so. The manifestation of the Father for the salvation of men requires a son to be born of Adamic stock; he must be of the family that needs redemption. Taking up the word “children” from the last quotation from Isaiah, Paul says “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil” (verse 14).

“By man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.” The last Adam must die before he can be raised; he must therefore be mortal like those he came to redeem. It is through death that he destroys that which has the power of death. It would be physically impossible for an angel to die; it would be morally impossible for either an angel or a man unconnected with the race that is dying because of sin, through their death, to save men. It is by man that resurrection came, and while the man who accomplished this was provided by God, he was yet man. “The devil,” or sin, has the power of death. The sting of death is sin. Sin and its effects were overcome by a sinless life and the resurrection that followed.

We again observe the emphasis secured by the apostle in his adding word to word to establish the sameness of Christ’s nature and that of “the children” given unto him. “He . . . also . . . himself . . . likewise . . . took part of the same.”

Two results are achieved. First, the destruction of sin; and second, and this arises out of the first, that he might “deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” Sin and death having met their victor, the fear of it, and the bondage following the fear, are removed for the friends of the victor. The fear of death and of possible experiences beyond it, are terrifying things to many people. Superstitions of all kinds have sprung up, and ritual of many forms has been designed in endeavours to allay the fear. False religion thrives on the fear, and the darkened mind of man is soon enslaved to priests of various orders and kinds, civilized and uncivilized.

The Hebrew, more enlightened than the Gentile, had his form of bondage. The many offerings of the law brought home to him the sinfulness of man; with him there was “conscience of sins.” Greater efforts to keep the law, in a mistaken apprehension of its aim, made it a burden which they were unable to bear. But the sacrifice of Christ, his victory over death, the forgiveness of sins, and the certain hope of resurrection at his coming, removes the distressing fear which destroys the peace of all those who are affected thereby.

Man needed a deliverer from these troubles because he was powerless to deliver himself. And the Son of Man whom God visited, who has been crowned with glory and honour, and to whom all things are to be subject, is the deliverer. Instead of the lowly life and the shameful death of Jesus being grounds for rejecting him, they are seen to be the conditions of his Messiahship, part of the work he had to do. He was not only to be the national Saviour of Israel, but the Saviour of individuals from death. And it is not angels who need such a helper; it is man; “for verily not of angels doth he take hold, but he taketh hold of the seed of Abraham.” The “seed of Abraham” are “the children” of whose nature he partook (verse 14), in order that he might help them in their helplessness.

Since this was so, “it behoved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted” (verses 17, 18).

It became God to make the Captain perfect through sufferings; it behoved Christ to be made like unto his brethren. In this way Jewish fears and misgivings are resolved in the larger view of the work of the Messiah. If this was God’s way, what other can man do than gladly accept it.

And see the result. He has become through this a “merciful and faithful high priest.” “Merciful,” because he knows and understands the temptations and weaknesses of men; “faithful” in that he has successfully overcome, and is trustworthy, and to be relied upon to fulfill all his engagements, even to bringing men to God, and having brought them to present their petitions and obtain the forgiveness of the recurring sins of all his people.

Having suffered, being tempted, through being made like unto his brethren, he is able to succour those who are tempted. In this admirable way, Paul leads his readers to a fuller understanding of the purpose of God in “King Jesus, and him a crucified one.” Their King was more than king; he was sin’s victor, and death’s conqueror. He was alive for evermore, now with God on their behalf. Additionally, Paul has established a foundation for later sections of the letter in which he considers Jesus as High Priest.

John Carter.