NOTES for Heb 2:10-18
10 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 sufferings. |
11 For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, |
12 Saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee. |
13 And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, Behold I and the children which God hath given me. |
14 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; |
15 And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. |
16 For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. |
17 Wherefore in all things it behoved him 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. |
18 For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted. |
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Continuing the conversation about angels and about the Messiah, the author of the epistle especially emphasizes the fact that the Savior suffered on the cross in a completely real way, just as anyone else would have suffered on it (v. 10). This is precisely where the humanity of the Messiah is shown: an angel in principle cannot suffer the way a human being suffers; he cannot be crucified, for he is free from bodiliness and from all the problems connected with it. But the Messiah is not an angel, not a being from another world. He calls the people He saves brothers, thereby emphasizing His real, essential unity with those being saved (vv. 12-13). Only in this way was it possible to save the whole human being, not only his soul, but also his body, which God also intends to become part of the Kingdom (vv. 14-15). If the Kingdom had entered the world through an angel, a human being would never have been able to enter it whole. Then one really could have spoken of the salvation of the soul alone, which has more share in the spiritual world than the body does, of salvation in the sense in which people began to understand it in the Middle Ages, with postmortem bliss or postmortem torments in mind.
But God wanted to sanctify and transform the whole human being; that is why He sends the Messiah into the world not as an angel, but as a man. The author of the epistle does not compare Christ with a high priest by accident (v. 17): both one and the other are human beings, and through both one and the other God sanctifies His people, in the first case the New Testament Church, in the second the Old Testament Church. But for both the Old Testament high priest and the New Testament High Priest it was absolutely necessary to belong to the world of human beings wholly and to the end; otherwise there could be no question of sanctifying the people. An angel can show the way, but he cannot sit at one table with a human being, sharing a sacrificial meal with him. Yet the road into the Kingdom lies precisely through the sacrificial meal that sanctifies those who are walking. And one can walk it to the end only with Christ, not with angels.
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