Hebrews 2:10–18

Original Meaning

The Appropriateness of the Son’s Suffering (2:10)

THE SHIFT FROM such a robust treatment of the Son’s exaltation, supremacy, and power to the Son’s suffering in death must have seemed abrupt to the first listeners. This theme of “the crucified Lord” scandalized the first-century world. Note how Paul spoke of the cross as “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called … the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:23–24). Agreeing with Paul, our author shows that Jesus’ death on the cross was “fitting” (eprepen); he places this word first in his sentence for emphasis. Writers and speakers of the ancient world utilized this word to communicate that which was “appropriate” or “suitable” (e.g., Eph. 5:3; 1 Tim. 2:10; Titus 2:1).

In 2:10 the author proclaims that what God has done in the suffering of Jesus is in line with what we know of his character and purposes.1 It is in accord both with his holiness and love and has accomplished God’s plan to redeem people. The Son’s affliction was ordered by the One “for whom and through whom everything exists,” God thus being both the great Cause and the Director who brings the salvation of his new covenant people to reality.

As shown by the context, “suffering” refers not to pain in general but specifically to the suffering of death (2:9, 14–15), a recurring theme in Hebrews (5:7–10; 9:26–28; 12:1–3). God uses Jesus’ death in “bringing many sons to glory”; the term sons constitutes a reference to the people of God rather than to humanity in general.2 Those fellow heirs with Christ (cf. 1:14) are brought to “glory,” the heavenly realm in which people experience the presence of God.3 Thus, through the death of Jesus God’s people join with the Son, moving from earth to heaven.

As the One who makes the heavenly pilgrimage of believers possible, Jesus is considered “the author of their salvation.” Archegon (rendered “author” by the NIV ) can be translated “trailblazer” or “guide,” emphasizing the Son’s role in bringing the new covenant people to glory. However, the word might be translated better by “champion”—the preacher using the idea of the divine hero common in the ancient Greek world. For example, Hercules was called “champion” (archegos) and “savior” (soter). If this is the author’s intention, it is comparable to a modern preacher saying Jesus is “the real superman,” as crass as that might sound. It was simply a way of expressing a meaningful analogy that Jesus has come to our rescue.

In what sense has he been made “perfect” through his suffering of death? As in 5:9, the author does not mean that Christ had been “imperfect,” in the sense of being flawed or errant. Generally the word means “complete, whole, or adequate.” In Jewish literature the idea of perfection is applied at times to death as the completion or seal of life.4 Perfection in Hebrews has to do with fully completing a course, making it to the end of God’s plan. That Jesus was made “perfect through suffering,” therefore, connotes his full obedience to his mission of death on the cross and, perhaps, the adequacy of that act for bringing the children of God to glory.

Bridging Contexts

IN THESE VERSES the interpreter confronts a fairly complex passage, with unfamiliar terminology, Old Testament quotations the uses of which are not readily apparent, and logical constructs that must be dissected for clarity. The Original Meaning section has begun the spade work necessary for proper application of the passage. However, we must focus on the author’s main concerns and several interpretive pitfalls.

Dealing with transitions. The extensive use of transitions in Hebrews presents the modern preacher or commentator with a dilemma: How do we treat these transitional elements as we move to the process of application? Specifically, since the topic of high priesthood is raised at the end of this passage, should we go ahead and speak of possible applications for the topic at this point?

We have already pointed out that verses 17–18 serve a primary role of setting up a transition to the great central section of Hebrews. Commentators variously present the section on Christ’s high priesthood as beginning at 3:1; 4:14; 5:1; and 7:1.13 Several of these analyses fail to distinguish between passages in which the high priest theme is a focal motif and those in which the theme is used to effect transition. Since the author of Hebrews begins to deal in earnest with Jesus’ high priesthood at 4:14, we will reserve our treatment of high priesthood until we get to the central section of Hebrews. The critical decision reflected in this commentary is to focus on key, repeated topics in the book when the author of Hebrews himself brings those subjects into focus. Therefore, when, as in 2:17–18, the author raises a topic in anticipation of a greater treatment of the topic later in the book, that theme will be considered “transitional” and not a main focus of the section currently under consideration. This gives due weight to the author’s intention in introducing the topic at a given point in the book.

Certainly, the high priest and sacrifice themes serve well the main topics of 2:10–16; they would not be effective elements for transition if they did not. However, they have a specific role to play, and they play that role elegantly. Rather than constituting the heart of the author’s concerns in 2:10–18, these two topics play off those concerns and point to a later section.

What, then, are the author’s intended foci for 2:10–18? Identification of the characteristic terms or themes used throughout a passage helps to form threads of meaning that connect the various elements of the passage. In 2:10–18 two main topics tie the whole together: the Incarnation and the Son’s suffering.

The Incarnation. A main topic threading its way through the entire passage is that of the Son’s close relationship to the children of God through his incarnation. The Son brings believers to glory (2:10) and is not ashamed to call them family since he and they share a common experience (2:11–12, 14). He is in their midst (2:12–13), having become like them by taking on flesh and blood (2:14, 17), and, therefore, he can give them help (2:14–15, 18). Thus, the solidarity of Christ with God’s people forms a central theme for 2:10–18. He is depicted as fully human and, therefore, can relate fully to people.

We should pause to address the gender-specific language of “sons” and “brothers” used in this passage, which some in our modern culture will label as “politically incorrect.” Out of their conviction that such language denigrates the female sex or impedes females’ identification with the text, branches within biblical scholarship are working to use more inclusive language in their translations. This sensitivity is warranted—women of the new covenant, just as much as their male counterparts, have ownership of the promises and proclamations of 2:10–18.

Nevertheless, a caution also is in order. One must think through the analogical nature of theological language.14 Divine revelation makes use of images and concepts from human experience to draw analogies to God’s activities or personality. When the Scriptures use masculine imagery concerning God, such as “Father,” it does not mean that God has a sexual orientation. Moreover, when we call God “Father,” we do not mean that he has fathered us biologically; that is a pagan concept. We have not been born of flesh and blood by the Father (John 1:13), but of the Spirit.

The images communicated through analogous language, however, do communicate specific truths about God. When the writers of Scripture speak of God as “Father,” they mean that God has characteristics and activities analogous to what we know as fatherhood, especially fatherhood as known in the ancient world when the Scriptures were written. For example, in the ancient world God as Father communicated his provision for, protection over, and loving guidance of his children. In the present context the image of God as Father especially communicates God’s granting of an inheritance to his people. It is a mistake simply to change the language to “Mother” or even “Father/Mother” since what the author intended to communicate through the specific image of fatherhood is thereby changed. What we should ask is, “How can we make clear the truth that this image intends to communicate?”

When in 2:10–18 the author speaks of us as “sons” or “brothers,” he has specific reasons for doing so. The concept of sonship flows from the author’s treatment of Jesus as the Son and closely relates to the idea of inheritance in the ancient world. The use also effects a pleasing literary device with the juxtaposition of the “Son” with the “sons.” Jesus as the firstborn Son is inheritor of the universe. This must not be taken to mean that God gave birth to Jesus as a physical father would procreate and have a son. The image speaks of dynamics in the relationship that exists between the first and second persons of the Trinity.

This relationship involves honor, unique position, and responsibility, as well as subordination. Sons in the ancient world held a position of honor and responsibility not held by daughters in the ancient world. The author of Hebrews uses “sons” to refer to all the people of God, male and female, as God’s honored children and receptors of his inheritance. So when a female Christian reads that Jesus brings “many sons to glory,” she should interpret the statement as meaning “Jesus brings me to glory as an honored child for whom there awaits an inheritance.”

The writer takes the term “brothers,” on the other hand, directly from the Old Testament text of Psalm 22:22. In ancient culture the image of brotherhood spoke of the intimacy of relationship, shared experience, and loyalty. Thus, the image communicates a close association, such as in a fraternal relationship. Hebrews 2:12 does not mean Jesus only proclaims God’s name to males, but as the parallel in the next line suggests, he announces God’s name to all those in “the congregation,” that is, the people of God with whom he enjoys an intimate relationship.

There are at least two important presuppositions to note concerning this relationship between the Son and the people of God. (1) The emphasis of Jesus’ being “in the midst” forms an important contrast with the focus on exaltation in 1:5–14. Emphasis lies with the Son’s being below the angels and with his brothers rather than his being “above” his companions (1:9), superior to the angels, and over his enemies (1:13). (2) The movement from above to below—the purposeful appropriation of human existence—presupposes the Son’s preexistence and subsequent incarnation.

What does it mean to say that the Son of God became human, or as 2:14 puts it, “shared in [the sons’] humanity”? The authors of the New Testament present the Incarnation straightforwardly. John 1:14 states, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Similarly, in Philippians 2:6–7 Paul writes, “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.” Note too 1 Timothy 3:16b: “He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory.” These passages present simply the fact of the Incarnation without an analysis of the relationship between the divine and human in Christ.

However, as the Christian movement developed in the first centuries, heresies arose, which skewed certain biblical data and denied the full humanity of Christ. Docetism (from the Greek word dokeo, meaning “to seem”), for example, held that Jesus just seemed to be human. This aberration of early Christianity is probably the problem addressed by 1 John. Some forms of Docetism were associated with a broader philosophical-theological system of belief known as Gnosticism, which held in part that all physical matter is evil. It followed, then, that the divine would not take on real human flesh and thus be corrupted by evil.15 In addressing this heresy Ignatius of Antioch, who was martyred about A.D. 107, wrote:

So do not pay attention when anyone speaks to you apart from Jesus Christ, who was of the family of David, the child of Mary, who was truly born, who ate and drank, who was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate, was truly crucified and truly died, in full view of heaven, earth, and hell, and who was truly raised from the dead.… But if, as some godless people, that is, unbelievers, say, he suffered in mere appearance—being themselves mere appearances—why am I in bonds?16

Another theological perspective, condemned in the fourth century, was Apollinarianism. Apollinarius held that in Jesus the Word had taken the place of a normal human mind and spirit. Thus, Jesus was not fully human because he did not share these aspects of human existence with the rest of humanity. Apollinarius even understood Jesus’ flesh to be fused with his divinity and therefore “glorified,” or “divine flesh.” His teachings were condemned at a series of meetings held in the eighth and ninth decades of the fourth century.17

Because of such heresies church leaders of the first four centuries A.D. saw the need to articulate more clearly what Scripture implies concerning the Incarnation. In the fourth century, for example, Athanasius emphasized elements in Scripture that point to the deity of Christ, and others that point to his humanity, such as his thirst, tiredness, or pain; both need to be affirmed.

A century after Athanasius the Chalcedonian formulation of Christology stressed that Jesus was one person with two distinct natures, at the same time fully divine and fully human. His deity was not changed by his humanity, and in the person of Jesus deity could not be separated from his humanity. He was not made less than God by becoming human but could be said to have added complete humanity to his deity. Thus the church fathers who influenced and crafted the Chalcedonian expression of Christology affirmed the following reflected in Hebrews 2:10–18: That Jesus suffered and partook of flesh and blood, becoming like his brothers and sisters, means that Jesus really did become human. He drank deeply of the human experience.

The Son’s suffering. The preacher first mentions the sufferings (in death) experienced by the Son at 2:10. As noted earlier, the quotations of Psalm 22:22 and Isaiah 8:17–18 in Hebrews 2:12–13 show the hermeneutical importance of considering the broader Old Testament context when seeking to understand an author’s use of a specific quotation. In their broader contexts both of these Old Testament passages carry connotations of righteous suffering. They were read specifically by the early Christian community as messianic prophecies of the Crucifixion. Furthermore, the Son’s death is again mentioned in 2:14 and his suffering in 2:18. Thus the topic of suffering permeates 2:10–18 from beginning to end.

The author has a specific suffering in mind—that of the Son’s death on the cross. He later draws an overt connection between Christ’s suffering and that of the Christian community (e.g., 12:1–3), but the primary point in 2:10–18 is that the Son has worked great accomplishments on behalf of God’s people through his death. The author may have the sufferings of the Christian community and specifically their fear of death under persecution in mind,18 but to draw a general application to the suffering of believers at this point is unwarranted. Furthermore, the concept of perfection speaks of the completion of the Son’s mission through his death.

Some in the church’s history have magnified suffering as a means of accomplishing a state of spiritual perfection. At times martyrs were venerated and seen as having special status before God. Ascetics such as Simeon Stylites, who spent the last part of his life on top of a pillar, and others who denied themselves normal physical provisions such as food, shelter, and social contact, sought to drown their carnal desires in a steady stream of rigorous spiritual disciplines. Yet the New Testament cautions against asceticism as a means of spiritual enrichment (e.g., Col. 2:20–23). Asceticism of any age is wrong-headed when seen in light of the gospel’s truth.

If one takes an ascetic interpretation of Hebrews 2:10, reasoning, “If Jesus was perfected through suffering, then I will also get rid of my sinfulness through my suffering,” one is seriously misinterpreting the verse on several counts. The “perfection” of Jesus in this verse does not speak to an eradication of imperfection or sinfulness (as in the ascetic’s buffeting his body to overcome sinfulness), but of the suffering Christ did on the cross. Also, the ascetic interpretation turns the intention of Hebrews’ words on its head. The point of the passage is that we need a champion who has accomplished for us something we could not do for ourselves. By Jesus’ completing his course in suffering for our sins we have the victory, not by our self-flagellation.

Moreover, 2:10–18 places great emphasis on the purposefulness of the Incarnation and the sufferings of Jesus. The Son took on humanity for specific reasons: to give us help, to destroy the devil, to liberate us from the fear of death, and to make us holy through the forgiveness of sins. The Incarnation, therefore, far from being a topic relegated to a theological ivory tower, has vast practical ramifications for life in this world, the living Christ being our source of help, deliverance, and holiness.

Contemporary Significance

NEOAPOLLINARIANISM . DURING THE winter term of 1980, as a part of my college education, I served as a chaplain intern at Fort Pillow, a medium-maximum security prison in Tennessee. Along with my two colleagues from the university I was given little supervision in my attempt to minister to a wide range of inmates. The food was terrible, pornography was everywhere, and the culture, as is often the case in prison, was one of deception and “special insider rules.” Even the assistant chaplain informed me he no longer believed in God.

Since I was at Fort Pillow as a religion student, I had the assignment to observe various types of religious meetings conducted on the prison grounds. Among these was my first exposure to Islam. Following one worship service a young, energetic preacher of the Koran and I had a lively conversation; of course, I wanted to talk about Jesus. My friend was quite willing to speak of Jesus as a prophet, but the thought of him as God was completely outrageous in his view. How could a holy God take on corruptible human flesh? Did we mean that God had physical intercourse with Mary? Of course not, I assured him. Nevertheless, he was scandalized by the idea of the Incarnation, as are many devotees of other religions and philosophies.

Even many Christians who claim to be “orthodox” or “biblical” struggle to imagine Jesus as fully human, as sinlessly sharing a broad gamut of our fleshly existence (Heb. 4:15). As Max Lucado writes in his down-to-earth style, we get a bit uncomfortable imagining the “exalted Lord of glory” as truly one of us:

Angels watched as Mary changed God’s diaper. The universe watched with wonder as The Almighty learned to walk. Children played in the street with him. And had the synagogue leader in Nazareth known who was listening to his sermons.…

Jesus may have had pimples. He may have been tone-deaf. Perhaps a girl down the street had a crush on him or vice-versa. It could be that his knees were bony. One thing’s for sure: He was, while completely divine, completely human.

For thirty-three years he would feel everything you and I have ever felt. He felt weak. He grew weary. He was afraid of failure. He was susceptible to wooing women. He got colds, burped, and had body odor. His feelings got hurt. His feet got tired. And his head ached.

To think of Jesus in such a light is—well, it seems almost irreverent, doesn’t it? It’s not something we like to do; it’s uncomfortable. It is much easier to keep the humanity out of the incarnation. Clean the manure from around the manger. Wipe the sweat out of his eyes. Pretend he never snored or blew his nose or hit his thumb with a hammer.19

Thus if we are careless in our thinking about Jesus, we can slip into a form of Neoapollinarianism, embracing his divinity but holding his full humanity at arm’s length. Yet, it is important that we understand the extent to which God went to win our redemption. Through the Incarnation God became an “insider,” not merely acting on our human predicament from without, but transforming it from within. In a famous answer to Apollinarianism in the fourth century, Gregory of Nazianzus stated, “What has not been assumed cannot be restored,” meaning that for redemption to reach into every darkened corner of human existence, Jesus had to take on that existence in its entirety. He was not merely God encased in flesh, but was truly human; as human he was vulnerable.

He who was the all-powerful Lord, who cast the stars to their appointed rounds, who sat above the globe spinning it through his powerful word, became vulnerable as he walked on the sod he himself had created. In mind and body he was truly human. Nowhere is that vulnerability seen more starkly than in the Son’s suffering of death. In 2:10–18 the author of Hebrews focuses on this suffering as a main purpose of the Incarnation—he had to be fully human in order to die. Henry Hart Milman writes of this paradox of the vulnerable God:

When God went back to Heaven—the living God—

Rode he the heavens upon a fiery car?

Waved seraph-wings along His glorious road?

Stood still to wonder each bright wandering star?

Upon the cross he hung, and bowed the head,

And prayed for them that smote, and them that cursed;

And, drop by drop, His slow life-blood was shed,

And His last hour of suffering was His worst.20

The limitations of human ability. What is missed both by those who deny the divinity of Jesus and those who reject his full humanity is that we as human beings needed a bridge between deity and humanity that could be built only by one who had experienced fully both sides of the gulf separating us from God. This is the biblical picture.

Of course a true humanist would deny that human beings have needs that can only be met outside themselves, and modern cultures have been permeated with elements of this thinking. We want to be “self-made,” to “pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps.” We do not need any primitive notion of “God” to assuage our fears and feelings of inadequacy or to eliminate our limitations. We as humans can forge our own truth, discern our own perspectives on beauty, and liberate ourselves from the psychological, physical, and social ills by which we are plagued. John Dewey wrote, “Man is capable, if he will but exercise the required courage, intelligence and effort, of shaping his own fate.”21

Although much can be said for self-initiative, hard work, and self-confidence—and humanity has chalked up a plethora of impressive accomplishments—a true humanist is out of touch with the massiveness of human limitation. “Humanism,” wrote French philosopher Simone Weil, “was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of infinite value, but in thinking that man can get them for himself without grace.”22 We need someone greater than ourselves to come into our experience from the outside and lead us, teach us, and rescue us. In short, we need a champion to storm the gates of our prisons and liberate us, ripping the keys to enslavement from the devil’s grip and setting our feet on the path of true life.

What is surprising is the form our champion took and the means of our liberation. The one of all power took the position of the powerless. The Lord of life drank deeply of death. The way he brought us up to God was by coming completely down to, even below our level, taking the form of a servant. Since we could not save ourselves, he did not save himself from the worst of human experiences. The limitless Lord of the universe took on limitations in order to free us from ours, and nowhere are our limitations more clearly recognized than in face of death.

Angst over death. American filmmaker Woody Allen summed up humanity’s uneasiness with death when he said, “It’s not that I’m afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” This death angst is expressed well in Somerset Maugham’s “Appointment in Samarra,” an old tale about a servant who had gone to the market in Baghdad and come back to his master shaken over an encounter there.

“Master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd, and when I turned I saw that it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture. Now lend me your horse and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me.” The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. When the merchant went down to the marketplace he saw Death standing in the crowd and he came to Death and said, “Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning?” “That was not a threatening gesture,” Death said. “It was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.”

No matter how confident one may be over human ability, our limitation concerning death is undeniable and our meeting with it inevitable.23

We must point out that Hebrews does not say we have been delivered from death itself, but from slavery to the fear of death—a fear that might encompass both the process of dying and the state of being dead. In his book The Art of Dying Robert Neale lists three aspects of this fear. (1) We fear the loss of mastery.

I guess I fear dying because it involves a real loss of control. When you are dying, you have almost no control. There is an incredible vulnerability—and that’s scary. It is almost as if one’s last few minutes of life involve a vulnerability akin to one’s first few minutes of life. Losing control over a body and environment which were at one time your servants must be a frightening experience.24

So, as Job’s tormentor Bildad the Shuhite called it, death is the “king of terrors” (Job 18:14).

(2) We fear incompleteness and failure. Especially for those who have enjoyed life and sought certain achievements, whether personal or professional, life can hold a great deal of joy and fulfillment. There exists a stark finality to death. We are confronted with an end, a door shut never to be reopened, the final page of a book, now put down and never to be picked up again. Things left undone will never be brought to completion once we have crossed this finish line.

(3) We fear separation from our loved ones. For those of us who have meaningful relationships with family, the pain of that separation cuts deeply.

(4) To these three can be added a fourth from psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her book Death: The Final Stage of Growth. In chapter 2 Kübler-Ross suggests it is difficult for us to accept death because it leads us to a realm of unfamiliarity. Although it is all around us, we never really see it from the inside until we experience it. Especially for those who are not religious and for whom death cannot be viewed as natural, it is an obscene mystery.25 Death therefore becomes a specter to be avoided, a master to which we are enslaved, and an enemy at which we rage. “Do not go gentle into that good night,” wrote Welsh poet Dylan Thomas in his poem; “old age should burn and rave at close of day; rage, rage, against the dying of the light.”

Christians too experience apprehension over death, still an enemy and one yet to experience our Master’s full judgment (1 Cor. 15:26). So in what way have we been delivered from slavery to this fear? (1) For the believer there is a sense of the known mixed with the unknown of death—or rather the Known One. Christian hope is based on the fact that because of the forgiveness of our sins through Christ’s suffering of death, we know one who has gone before us. Thus, although the dark mystery of death has not been fully exposed to the light, we have the comfort of one who has experience in dealing with it.

Author, speaker, and former missionary Elisabeth Elliot tells of an occasion in the jungles of South America when, as she and her Indian guide were traveling a primitive path, her trail suddenly dropped into a ravine. The only means across was a fallen tree. The Indian guide nimbly jumped onto the tree and started across. Elliot, who confesses she was mortified at the prospect of falling, hesitated. Her guide, perceiving her apprehension, came back across, held out his hand, grasped hers, and led her across safely. The stability of one who had obvious mastery of the situation gave her the needed confidence. Paul tells us that Christ is “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20), an agricultural image that speaks of the initial produce of a crop to ripen. As the first to come through death, Jesus gives us confidence and stability as we face our own.

(2) Our sense of incompleteness and failure is counterbalanced with hope of an eternal future—a future bought by Jesus’ sacrificial death. When I preached at my grandfather’s funeral, I closed with the final page from The Last Battle, the final volume of C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. Aslan—the Christ-figure in the series—that great, untamed Lion from over the sea, has brought the children to his country, the real, eternal Narnia. The children are afraid that Aslan will once again send them back to England, but the Great Lion assures them that they no longer have to leave him:

“There was a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly. “Your father and mother and all of you are—as you used to call it in the Shadow-Lands—dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”

And as he spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

The cities and lands of planet earth are not the end of the road for the believer but mere terminals, visited for a while as we pass through (11:15–16; 13:14). Since we have been made ultimately for his pleasure, ultimate completeness and success will be found in the Eternal One’s presence when he says, “Well done!”

(3) Our fear of separation has been turned inside out. In the heavenly kingdom we will enjoy relationships with those from whom we have been separated by death. Paul writes, “Brothers we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him” (1 Thess. 4:13–14). In Hebrews our final destination is the heavenly Jerusalem, where all believers live eternally (Heb. 12:22–24).

(4) As followers of Christ, we have already surrendered mastery of our lives, realizing that control of our destinies was an illusion all along. As we surrender to the lordship of Christ, we relinquish self-legislation, submitting ourselves to his higher authority and power. It is in that submission—that pre-death dying to self—that we find true life and freedom (Gal. 2:20). It is in the surrender of our earthly hopes that we find eternal hope. Fear of a loss of control dissipates in giving control to One who cares for us deeply and has the power to handle any situation.

In recent years a friend of mine had the privilege of visiting an old Chinese pastor who had spent twenty-five years in prison because of his faith in Christ. This pastor and other Christian leaders in China were brought before Chairman Mao and commanded to join the government’s official church. They informed the chairman that they would not compromise the gospel. The pastor whom my friend visited was the only one to leave prison alive; he continues to lead many believers in the study of Scripture. During that visit the suggestion was made that the two of them go out for a meal. Being concerned for the church leader’s safety, my friend asked if he would get in trouble for talking openly with a Westerner. The old man replied with a smile, “What can they do to me?” In other words, you cannot kill a man who has already died to himself. This peaceful, joyous, persecuted Christian statesman embodies that truth.

Hebrews 2:14–16 plays a part in a larger theological construct in the New Testament called the promise of Christian hope. Death has no sting or victory for believers because sin, which gives death its sting, has been paid for by the death of Christ, our champion. This has afforded us a relationship with the One who has conquered death, entering its mysterious halls before us, and it assures us that life after life shines brightly both relationally and purposefully in the eternal kingdom. He is in control of all situations, including our dying.

We may still experience some trepidation at the idea of our own death, but we are no longer enslaved to those fears. This passage speaks of the great Christian hope—that of eternal life.26 So instead of cowering from death, we can proclaim with Paul: “‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ … But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 15:54–55, 57).

Original Meaning

The Son’s Solidarity with the “Sons” (2:11–13)

THE NEXT MOVEMENT of the passage focuses on the fraternal relationship of Jesus with the people of God. Translated by the NIV with “of the same family,” the phrase ex henos pantes (“all out of one”) is ambiguous; its meaning has been debated since the first centuries of the church. The word “one” (henos) is an adjective that, in form, can be either masculine or neuter. If understood as a masculine, the word could refer to God as the Father of both the Son and Christians (“out of one God”), or perhaps even Abraham, stressing the heritage of God’s people (“out of one ancestor”) (see 2:16). On the other hand, if taken as a neuter, it would refer to the human nature shared by Jesus and the people of God (“out of one nature”).

Most commentators, both ancient and modern, have opted for henos as a reference to God the Father; the emphasis in the context on sonship in relation to God supports this choice.5 However, the main point of the passage has to do with Jesus’ participation in the experience of being human, and, therefore, the understanding of henos as “physical human existence” cannot be ruled out. Both “the One who makes people holy” and “those who are made holy” translate timeless present participles of the verb “sanctify” (hagiazo), used here for the first time in Hebrews; elsewhere the verb is associated with the purification made possible by the sacrificial spilling of Jesus’ blood (10:10, 14, 29).

The solidarity between the Son of God and the heirs of God results in a graciousness on the part of Christ: He is not ashamed to call us “brothers” (i.e., “family”). In verses 12–13 the author sets forth two texts, Psalm 22:22 and Isaiah 8:17b–18, as Old Testament support for Christ’s solidarity with believers. At first glance the text from Psalms might seem to provide poor support for the author’s discussion. However, the preacher did not choose these verses from the Scriptures arbitrarily; rather, he tapped a well of messianic teaching with which his audience would have been readily familiar.

Psalm 22:22 stems from a portion of Scripture that the early church perceived as containing significant prophesies of Christ’s suffering.6 The psalm begins with the words of anguish used by Jesus from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Ps. 22:1; cf. Matt. 27:46). In Psalm 22:7–8 one finds the righteous one being taunted with such phrases as “He trusts in the LORD; let the LORD rescue him”—words that mirror the ridicule of the religious leaders around the cross (Matt. 27:43). Psalm 22:16–18 speaks specifically of the piercing of the righteous one’s hands and feet, the wholeness of his bones, and the parceling out his garments through casting lots (Matt. 27:35; John 19:23, 31–36). The first twenty-one verses of Psalm 22, which afford graphic parallels to events surrounding Christ’s crucifixion, are a righteous man’s plea for deliverance. Thus the psalm as a whole fits well into the author’s broader concern with Jesus’ suffering of death on the cross.

With Psalm 22:22 (the verse quoted in Heb. 2:12) the psalm turns to a declaration of trust, in which the righteous one expresses joy and praise for God’s attention to his cry for help. This quote supports the author’s proclamation of solidarity between Jesus and the people of God in two ways. (1) He sees in its reference to “brothers” the establishment of a spiritual family relationship by the Son’s sacrificial death. (2) The phrase “in the presence of the congregation” places emphasis on Jesus’ location in our midst on earth, where we are “lower than the angels.” It thus constitutes a reference to his incarnation. Psalm 22, therefore, offers a rich backdrop for a discussion on the Son’s incarnation, suffering, and the familial relationships.

The next Old Testament passage to which the author of Hebrews turns (Isa. 8:17b–18) is also in proximity to a text having messianic import for the early church. In Isaiah 8:14 one finds the Lord described as “a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall,” words applied to Christ by New Testament authors (Rom. 9:33; 1 Peter 2:8). Paul points to the crucifixion as that part of Jesus’ experience that causes stumbling (1 Cor. 1:23). The broader context of the quotation in Hebrews 2:14, therefore, also fits the discussion of Christ’s death.

The preacher in Hebrews presents Isaiah 8:17b–18 in a two-step process in order to make three distinct points. (1) He emphasizes verse 17b: “I will put my trust in him.” In its original context this confession of reverential faith was given by the prophet in the face of the Assyrian crisis when, in the eighth century B.C., that powerful nation threatened the Israelites with devastation. Here the author of Hebrews understands the prophesy to express Jesus’ trust toward the Father. (2) He then offers the next portion of the Isaiah passage—“Here am I, and the children God has given me”—to demonstrate that the Truster is in a familial relationship with other “children.” (3) The clause “Here am I” points again to his living with God’s children.

The author of Hebrews uses these two messianic passages (Ps. 22:22 and Isa. 8:17b–18) for at least three specific ends. (1) With their emphases on the Messiah’s “brothers” and believers’ designation as “children,” these texts support the close family relationship established between the Son and the people of God. (2) Both passages refer to the Son’s living with God’s people. (3) In their broader contexts both speak to the Son’s suffering as well as his posture of trust toward the Father. Consequently, they are appropriate for the author’s purposes, especially when understood against a fertile backdrop of early Christian messianic interpretation.