Hebrews2;- Jesus, suffering death by the grace of God

The epistle to the Hebrews was written to Jewish Christians, perhaps to a specific Jewish church.
The message of the letter is that Christ has brought them “completeness”.
That is, God makes available, through Christ, a much greater and more decisive revelation of salvation than anything they have received from him previously.

So in the first chapter the writer wanted to show how the Son, who brought this final revelation, was greater than the angels who had been the agents of the revelation of the Law of Moses.
His next task is to explain why this difference was necessary, why a revelation received through angels could not have completed God’s purpose.
In other words, why this work needed to be done through a man.

In the first place, the angels do not inherit, and do not have at their disposal “the world to come” (or “the age to come”).
For this has been promised to the human race (ch2 v5).

The promise can be found in Psalm 8. Humanity may be humble, in themselves, and yet God has made them only a little lower than the angels.
“Thou hast crowned him with glory and honour, putting everything in subjection under his feet”.
The “subjection” is in agreement with the command in Genesis;
“Fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth” (Genesis ch1 v28).
However, if “subjection” is supposed to mean that nothing is outside human control, then the dominion is incomplete;
“We do not yet see everything in subjection to him” (v8).
That is what turns the command into a promise.

But now we find the promise fulfilled in Jesus, which opens up the way for the rest of us.
For we see Jesus, the man, “made a little lower than the angels” (when he was born as man), and also now “crowned with glory and honour” (v9).
However, it was necessary that he should die before he could be glorified, as we know from the opening of the letter;
“When [and only when] he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high…” (ch1 v3)
Thus it was for our benefit (“by the grace of God”) that Jesus should experience death.
He experienced death on account of, or on behalf of, everyone [HYPER PANTOS].

So if God, the Lord of all things, was to fulfil the promise of the Psalm by “bringing many sons to glory”, it was fitting that he should make the pioneer of their salvation “perfect through suffering” (v10).
Jesus is the “pioneer” (ARCHEGOS), because he leads the way along the path and causes others to follow.
“Perfect through suffering” is not the psychological idea that “suffering builds character”, which we might read into the English version.
“Suffering” is the experience of death, as in the previous verse.
Being “perfect” means being complete.
The meaning is that his death made him perfect [TELEIOSAI] in the achievement of his task.
That is, the offering of himself was carried to a full conclusion.

That is why the Son needed to be a man, and not an angel.
Only as a man could he open up the human path to glorification, and only as a man could he follow the path himself through death.
That is the significance of the fact that “he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified” are EX ENOS (v11). It means they have the same origin.
He can only “sanctify” them, setting them apart for God, by sharing their nature, living in the same kind of fleshly body.
In a sense, he carries them along with him into God’s presence.
That is why he calls them his brothers.
The writer quotes, on his behalf, the words of Psalm22 “I will proclaim thy name to my brethren, in the midst of the congregation I will praise thee”.

This brings to our attention the close of the Psalm, which describes how his deliverance will be proclaimed to a coming generation, and all the peoples of the world will turn to serve him.
That is how the Psalmist resolves his opening words - “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”- which Jesus himself attached to what was happening on the Cross. The appearance of despair has been turned into triumph.

The writer sees another picture of the relationship in the words of Isaiah;
“I will put my trust in him”, followed by “Here am I, and the children God has given me” (Isaiah ch8 vv17-18).
He quotes the two parts separately, to show the two stages of the process.
“I will put my trust in him” is the Son suffering death, as the pioneer, acting out his trust in the Father and so demonstrating that trust.
The “children” whom the Son is able to gather round him and present to his Father are the “many sons brought to glory”.

As already observed, this could only be possible if he had the same flesh-and-blood nature as the children themselves.
Sharing the same nature, he could experience death, and through this experience he would destroy the one who has the power of death- that is, the devil.
Thus he was able to liberate his brethren or children from the fear of judgemental death which constitutes their state of bondage (v15).

The last verses of the chapter point out another advantage of his humanity.
He has been tested as a human, to the point of death, so that he can understand and help those going through the same testing.
But that is not really part of the main argument of this chapter.
It anticipates the later discussion of the priestly function of Jesus.

In summary, Jesus would not have needed a physical body if he had been engaged in the salvation of angels, or anyone else without a physical body (v16).
But he was, instead, engaged in the salvation of humanity, which required him to be equally human.

How exactly does the devil have the power of death?
Since only God has full authority over life and death, the devil could not have more than a restricted and inferior power.
The most useful clue is probably at the beginning of Job, where Satan has the function of bringing sin to God’s attention.
By this function, the sinner is exposed to God’s judgement and the consequent penalty.
And that is a very indirect “power of death”.
If his function is extended to “tempting”, that has the same effect.
The purging of sin destroys this function by making it redundant. Forgiven sin will not come under judgement. So that is how the “power” of the devil is to be destroyed.

N.B. The words of the opening post are my own, but the commentary of B.F. Westcott has been my invaluable guide to the sense of the original text.

Subscribed. Ill be back after running errands. I was reading Romans this AM. That was written by Paul to the church in Rome. Off the top of my head I was thinking Paul also wrote the letter to Hebrews. I look later.

a reply to: visitedbythem
Modern scholars tend to think it was somebody else. Amongst other things, differences in style. Even so, it comes endorsed by the early church, which is enough to give it authority.

You know what? I think you are right. Jumping from Acts and Romans to Hebrews, I sense a different writer.

I'm in the Layman's parallel New Testament right now. It has 4 versions side by side. King James, Amplified, Living, and the revised standard versions. It is marked, underlined, and has notes by my deceased mom and myself from decades. what I see right away right away is a note and underlining in Hebrews 1. The note says " proclaiming Jesus God, not a spirit messenger. Hebrews 1:2-14, especially 2,3,8 and 10. Mom passed 4 years ago at 83. This was one of her bibles. I see notes and underlining all through Hebrews. This is really good reading! Too bad I'm working over 12 hour shifts the next 3 days.
I'm off to bed in a bit. Gotta be up at 4:15. Thanks for this Thread Bro.

a reply to: visitedbythem
"Not a spirit messenger". Somebody was obviously preparing arguments against a false teaching. Good practice.

Absolutely

a reply to: visitedbythem
This thread is the sequel to
Jesus, the greater revelation
The series will be continued up to the end of Hebrews.

a reply to: DISRAELI
Im making my way through Hebrews now. I have one more 12 hour shift, then I can spend more then 15 minutes each morning. Im really enjoying it too. I wonder who wrote that letter. Do you think it was John? Do you recognize the style?

a reply to: visitedbythem
I don't have a personal theory, but John Robinson and others think there is a good case for Barnabas, on the grounds that he must have been somebody who could have claimed respect and pastoral authority in Paul's absence.
He was obviously important enough to have been credited with the later "Epistle of Barnabas", which was probably written by somebody more anonymous.

a reply to: DISRAELI That's very Interesting. I will look into that Bro. My dad, who is a Genius research scientist and a Christian ( He is 90), believes some of the epistles that were not cannonized have a lot of merit. These were writings that were very much believed by early Christians

I want to share something with you. I am Armenian from My dads side. His mother also had a little Jewish, per our DNA

My grandfather was born at the base of mount Ararat in 1900, we escaped due to a prophecy from a 11 year old Russian Pentecostal kid that could not read or write, who came over the mountain and lived among my people. ( This is all documented in a book , " The Happiest people on Earth"), 75% of my people ( Armenians) were slaughtered 3.5 years after he got out. 1.5 million people. Hitler commented that the world did nothing about The Armenians so they surely wouldn't do anything if he killed all the Jews.

In 1965 I had an in depth conversation with grandfather. He was 65 at the time. I asked him about Noahs Ark. I asked if it was a fairy tale or if it was true. He was startled. He said " Philip, If the people in our village heard you ask this, they would have thought you to be a fool. " He went on to describe where the Ark was, and that it was whole, and petrified, and completely covered, frozen in a deep layer of ice
High on the mountain above our village ( Our home and farm was in Turkey along the Euphrates river) and that it was only visible in centuries when there was at least 15 years consecutive drought. If I remember correctly , He also said people from our village ( near Harput Turkey) had been on and in it before, in the past, It was only exposed on the back side, and was the size of a giant ocean liner. They had to stack rocks and boosted a kid up onto the small portion of deck that was exposed. He looked inside and saw sectioned off areas. The whole thing was petrified like rock

I think its been 52 years since this conversation, I was just a child, but his words affected me. I will be 60 this year. I look young, but im not. I would love to go climb up the mountain to find it if I could. It is very high, and that makes biblical sense. That's where it would have lodged as the flood began to recede. It is so high on Ararat, You need an oxygen canister to supplement the air. Your body begins to die up there, so I have read. It is above Turkey where my family lived, in a very sensitive Military area. I dont think people are allowed in that area. I have heard people in villages below have artifacts and tools that they have recovered from the ark. It may have been damaged by an earthquake in about 1920, and a back portion may have broken off and plummeted down the mountainside. Just things Ive heard. Not sure. I just wanted to share these things with you. Phil

There is something that jumped out at me while reading Hebrews, and Ill talk to you about it tomorrow. It had to do with Joshua. You know of course that Mary named Jesus after Joshua. It has to do with the promised land. I bet you already know where Im going with this..... Ill see You tomorrow Brother In Christ!