Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Hebrews 2:11
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,
11. For ] The next three verses are an illustration of the moral fitness, and therefore of the Divine necessity, that there should be perfect unity and sympathy between the Saviour and the saved.
both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified ] The idea would perhaps be better, though less literally, expressed by “both the sanctifier and the sanctified,” for the idea of sanctification is here not so much that of progressive holiness as that of cleansing (Heb 13:12). This writer seems to make but little difference between the words “to sanctify” and “to purify,” because in the sphere of the Jewish Ceremonial Law, from which his analogies are largely drawn, “sanctification” meant the setting apart for service by various means of purification. See Heb 9:13-14, Heb 10:10; Heb 10:14, Heb 13:12, and comp. Joh 17:17-19; 1Jn 1:7. The progressive sanctification is viewed in its ideal result, and in this result the whole Church of Christ shares, so that, like Israel of old, it is ideally “holy.”
are all of one ] That is, they alike derive their origin from God; in other words the relation in which they stand to each other is due to one and the same divine purpose (Joh 17:17-19). This seems a better view than to refer the “one” to Abraham (Isa 51:2; Eze 33:24, &c.) or to Adam.
he is not ashamed to call them brethren ] If the Gospels had been commonly known at the time when this Epistle was written, the author would doubtless have referred not to the Old Testament, but to such direct and tender illustrations as Mat 12:49-50, “Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother:” or to Joh 20:17, “Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God:” Mat 28:10, “go unto my brethren.” Or are we to suppose that this application of Messianic Psalms would have come with even greater argumentative force to his Judaising readers?
to call ] i.e. to declare them to be His brethren by calling them so.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For both he that sanctifieth – This refers, evidently, to the Lord Jesus. The object is to show that there was such a union between him and those for whom he died, as to make it necessary that he should partake of the same nature, or that he should be a suffering man; HEB 2:14. He undertook to redeem and sanctify them. He called them brethren. He identified them with himself. There was, in the great work of redemption, a oneness between him and them, and hence, it was necessary that he should assume their nature – and the fact, therefore, that he appeared as a suffering man, does not at all militate with the doctrine that he had a more exalted nature, and was even above the angels. Prof. Stuart endeavors to prove that the word sanctify here is used in the sense of, to make expiation or atonement, and that the meaning is, he who maketh expiation, and they for whom expiation is made.
Bloomfield gives the same sense to the word, as also does Rosenmuller. That the word may have such a signification it would be presumptuous in anyone to doubt, after the view which such people have taken of it; but it may be doubted whether this idea is necessary here. The word sanctify is a general term, meaning to make holy or pure; to consecrate, set apart, devote to God; to regard as holy, or to hallow. Applied to the Saviour here, it may be used in this general sense – that he consecrated, or devoted himself to God – as eminently the consecrated or holy one – the Messiah (compare the note at Joh 17:19); applied to his people, it may mean that they in like manner were the consecrated, the holy, the pure, on earth. There is a richness and fulness in the word when so understood which there is not when it is limited to the idea of expiation; and it seems to me that it is to be taken in its richest and fullest sense, and that the meaning is, the great consecrated Messiah – the Holy One of God – and his consecrated and holy followers, are all of one. All of one.
Of one family; spirit; Father; nature. Either of these significations will suit the connection, and some such idea must be understood. The meaning is, that they were united, or partook of something in common, so as to constitute a oneness, or a brotherhood; and that since this was the case, there was a propriety in his taking their nature. It does not mean that they were originally of one nature or family; but that it was understood in the writings of the prophets that the Messiah should partake of the nature of his people, and that, therefore, though he was more exalted than the angels, there was a propriety that he should appear in the human form; compare Joh 17:21.
For which cause – That is, because he is thus united with them, or has undertaken their redemption.
He is not ashamed – As it might be supposed that one so exalted and pure would be. It might have been anticipated that the Son of God would refuse to give the name brethren to those who were so humble, and sunken and degraded as those whom he came to redeem. But he is willing to be ranked with them, and to be regarded as one of their family.
To call them brethren – To acknowledge himself as of the same family, and to speak of them as his brothers. That is, he is so represented as speaking of them in the prophecies respecting the Messiah – for this interpretation the argument of the apostle demands. It was material for him to show that he was so represented in the Old Testament. This he does in the following verses.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Heb 2:11-13
He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one.
The unity of Christ and His people
1. A description of the work which Christ has come to accomplish for His people. He is described as He that sanctifieth, and His people as they who are sanctified. Jesus sanctifies both Himself and His people with His own blood, expiating and purging away their sins, and fitting them, and Himself as their Surety, for coming with acceptance into the presence of the holy God. This is the great end of the Saviours mighty undertaking, to bring His people near to God. To a creature with a moral nature like man, distance from God is misery–it is death. Thus He is in our text most comprehensively, as well as appropriately, described as He that sanctifieth. We say, most comprehensively; for this is the sum of all that He accomplishes as the Saviour of His people–most appropriately, for the word as here used carries us back to the shedding of blood needful for sanctification under the law, and suggests the necessity of the fact which the apostle is expounding, that Jesus, in sanctifying Himself and His people, should in common with them both suffer and die.
2. The declaration of the reason why the Son of God, in sanctifying His people, must Himself of necessity be a sufferer. The ordinance of consecration for the priesthood under the law suggests this necessity; yet the question remains, whence the necessity of the shedding of blood? Our text answers this question–He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one. Here is the essence of the Divine scheme for sinners redemption.
I. WHATSOEVER IS THEIRS IS MADE HIS.
1. Their sin. One man may spontaneously make himself liable for his neighbours debt but a husband is necessarily liable for the debts of his wife, because they are all of one. This is only a shadow of Christs hability for the sin of His people. Like the husband, Christ may be regarded as having spontaneously assumed the relation of unity with His spouse, but having become one flesh with her, He is, voluntarily indeed, yet necessarily, liable for her debts.
2. Jesus having thus become chargeable with the guilt of His peoples sin, became subject to its penal effects. With their sin their suffering also is made His.
3. With their sin their death also is made His. Death was from the beginning the appointed penalty of sin.
II. WHAT IS CHRISTS IS TRANSFERRED TO HIS PEOPLE.
1. His righteousness is made theirs (2Co 5:21). Thus the holy God can look with complacency on the ungodly believing in Jesus. Not that He esteems less hateful their sin. Not that He esteems less honourable His own law, but He accepts them in the beloved, and He is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.
2. His death is made theirs. He had obeyed as His peoples surety and head. In the same capacity He died. Thus, when He died on the Cross, His people died in Him. If one died for all, then were all dead, or then have all died. This is the glorious security of His people, that having died in their surety, their salvation, in the most important some of the word, is already accomplished.
3. Christs resurrection, as well as His death, is made theirs. In the person of their Head they have already risen and taken possession of their inheritance. (Alex. Anderson.)
Sanctification
I. SANCTIFICATION CONSISTS OF TWO ACTIONS.
1. Separation.
2. Renovation.
II. SANCTIFICATION IS CARRIED ON BY TWO AGENTS.
1. He that sanctifieth. The Holy Spirit works in man to will and to do.
2. They who are sanctified. There must be acquiescence on our part. The Spirit influences: we act. He teaches: we believe. (Homilist.)
Mans Redeemer–His humanity, function, and fraternalness
I. THE HUMANITY OF CHRIST. All of one–one nature. His humanity serves to
1. Enlist our sympathies.
2. Encourage our hopes.
II. THE FUNCTION OF CHRIST. TO make man holy. He that sanctifieth. This work of His
1. He has undertaken in sovereign love.
2. Is indispensable to our well-being.
III. THE FRATERNALNESS OF CHRIST. Not ashamed to call us brethren. Then
1. Let us not be afraid to approach Him.
2. Let us not be ashamed of His followers, however humble. (Homilist.)
Christ and His brethren
This word for noteth a cause of that which was said before; and he had said this. He that leadeth other into the glory of God by the same way he must enter also himself. He addeth now the cause and ground of that saying, because they must be of one nature, both He that leadeth and they that are led into this salvation. A proof and declaration that it is so is added by the apostle in the residue of the verse, And for this cause He is not ashamed to call us brethren: whereunto is straight addled the testimony of Psa 22:1-31., out of which he proveth it, I will show forth Thy name unto My brethren: in the midst of the congregation I will praise Thee. Now where it is said here, He that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one, we have to consider that even in the manhood of our Saviour Christ is virtue and grace, in which He doth sanctify us. For not only as He is God He sanctifieth us, but also in His human nature He hath this virtue and power to make us holy; not taking His nature such from the Virgin Mary, but making it such by pouring into it the fulness of His Spirit. The holiness which the apostles had in their calling they had it from Jesus Christ, made man, and walking in that vacation before them. Even so it is with us. All that is good in us, and all the righteousness that can be in us, we have it neither out of the east, nor west, but from the body of Jesus Christ, neither is there in the world any other sanctification. Even as our hands and arms and other members are not nourished but only by the meat received of the head, so our spiritual meat of righteousness and life is not given us but from our Head, Jesus Christ. And as the veins are moans by which nourishment is conveyed to every part, so faith is the means by which we receive from Christ all that is healthful unto us. And as by joints and sinews our members are really knit and made a body unto the head, so really, by one Spirit we be knit unto Christ as perfectly one with Him as our members are one with our head. And where it is said here, He that doth sanctify, showing the present time and the work still doing, it teacheth us that our sanctification hath a daily increase, and when it is fully accomplished, then God calleth and our days are at an end. And let us note this well, if we be Christians we are still sanctified by the Spirit of Christ, for so it was in Him. He grew still in grace before God and men. If thou be grafted into His body thou hast His Spirit, and it will have His work in thee. Thou shalt not be weary of well-doing, nor cease to rejoice in God thy Saviour, but still increase in spiritual grace till thou come to the age of the fulness of Christ. It followeth, For this cause He is not ashamed to call us brethren. Upon good cause the apostle saith, He is not ashamed, for if He humbled not Himself in great love of us, how justly might He account it shame to be as we are? He that made heaven and earth, He that is the immortal and glorious God, one with His Father, before whom all angels do obey and all princes ate earth and ashes; ought we not to say, seeing it pleaseth Him to acknowledge us, that are but poor ,creatures, that He is not ashamed of us? And if His highness abased itself to our low estate, and was not ashamed, let us learn to be wise and know what the Lord requireth of us for all the good which He hath done unto us. He saith in the gospel, He that is ashamed of Me and My words before men, I will be ashamed of him before My Father which is in heaven. Pride, or flattery, or covetousness, or vanity, or fear, or what you will, may make us now ashamed to confess him, or to dissemble that ever we know Him; but when all this corruption is taken from us, and the grave and death shall take their own, our former foolishness will make us so afraid that we will pray unto the hills to hide us, but vows and wishes shall be but foolish thoughts. It followeth, I will declare Thy name unto My brethren. We are called the brethren of Christ, not in society of flesh and blood, for that the wicked have with Him as well as we, who are yet no brethren, but strangers even from the womb. But as they are natural brethren, which are born of the same parents, so we are brethren with Christ, that are burn of God, through the same Spirit, by which we cry, Abba, Father, the fruit whereof is in glorifying His name, even as our Saviour Christ saith, He that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven, he is My brother (Mat 12:48). And when it is further said, In the midst of the congregation I will praise Thee. First, here we must needs confess what duty is among men, even that they edify one another; for as many as are of Christ are called in this covenant: I will declare Thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the congregation I will praise Thee. The graces of God are not such that they can be looked up in our hearts or kept secret, but they will burn within like fire, and make us speak with our tongues, that we may make, many brethren partakers of our joy. And tell me, I beseech you, what man excelleth in anything, and hath not a delight to speak of his cunning? Doth not the shipman talk of the winds, the ploughman of his oxen? Will not the soldier be reckoning up his wounds, and the shepherd telling of his sheep? So it is with us if we be the brethren of Christ. The covenant of our kindred is, I will declare Thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the congregation I will praise Thee. Let them know this, all to whom it is spoken, and let them discern between hypocrites and true Christians. Some think it a praise to be close men, secret to themselves, that by their words you shall never know them, of what religion they be. Those men, where they think they hide themselves most, there they lay widest open their shame, and while they think to keep it secret of what religion they are, this their dissimulation proclaimeth it louder than the blast of a trumpet that they be of no religion at all; at all, I say, touching any religion of God; for if it were of Him it would show forth His praise, and what their heart believed their mouth would confess it. We are ashamed to exhort men to do well; we are not ashamed to provoke them to sin. We are ashamed to minister talk of faith and religion; we are not ashamed of rotten and unclean works of wantonness. We are ashamed to speak to the praise of God; we are not ashamed to blaspheme His name. We are ashamed of Christ; we are not ashamed of the devil. The prophet David was a good scholar in this doctrine. When he opened his mouth unto God and vowed, I will speak of Thy name before kings, and will not be ashamed (Psa 145:21; Psa 119:46). Pray, dearly beloved, that we may be partakers of the same grace. It followeth now in the 13th verse, And again, I will put my trust in Him. This psalm the prophet made when he was delivered from the layings of wait of Saul and from all his enemies; wherein, as he was a figure of Christ, so it is most properly and truly verified in Christ that he said of himself. Now, because the apostle allegeth this to prove our Saviour Christ to be man like unto us, mark how the argument followeth. Christ saith, I will put My trust in God; but it were a very improper speech, and such as the Scripture never useth to say, God will trust in God. Therefore there must be a nature in our Saviour Christ inferior to His Godhead, in which he speaketh thus: I will trust in Him, and that was His perfect humanity like unto ours, in which we saw Him subject to peril, and how, according to His trust, God His Father delivered Him. And here the apostle allegeth such Scripture for proof of the manhood of Christ, as also proveth that He is our King; for where he saith, I will trust in Him, it noteth that Christ was not weak in faith, but assuredly trusted in the power of God His Father, that He should overcome the devil. And let us here learn for our instruction when we have had experience of Gods benefits, as the prophet had, let us vow as he did–we will pat our trust in Him. When David remembered how God had delivered him from a lion and a bear, he was not afraid of the uncircumcised Philistine. When St. Paul had reckoned so many calamities out of which God had delivered him, he boasted of a holy hope, and said he was sure that ever God would deliver him. Another testimony yet followeth to prove the humanity of our Saviour Christ, and it is this: Behold Me, and the children which Thou hast given Me. This is written in the eighth of Isaiah, in which chapter the prophet foretelleth the captivity of the Israelites by the king of Ashur, how it is determined of God that the people, for all their rebellions, should surely perish; but yet so that God, for His Churchs sake, would bridle their rage, and save some who might praise His name. These threatenings and promises both, while the people contemptuously reject, the Lord biddeth the prophet cease, and bind up these promises for another people that should believe; and then the prophet answering again to God, in acknowledging all His truth and goodness, saith thus: Behold, I and the children that God hath given me. Now, here we must learn as the apostle teacheth. Was the prophet Isaiah a man like unto his children, that is, like unto those which obeyed his word? Then was our Saviour Christ perfect man, like unto us, whom He hath delivered from sin and death. And if He have saved us He hath saved those whom God hath given Him, flesh of His flesh, and bone of His bone; for this is His intercession unto His Father, Behold Me and My children One other thing we must learn in this. There was an apostasy of all men, so that they which believed were made as signs and wonders; yet howsoever the world was the prophet saith, Behold me and my children. Such shall be the days of Christ, many shall fall away, religion and faith shall be persecuted, iniquity shall abound. What, then? Our Saviour Christ saith, Lo, I and My children. If the whole world fall away, we would not regard their multitude to follow them to do evil, but we would alone stand with the Lord our God. We must further mark in these words that the prophet saith, Behold the children which Thou hast given me. In that it is said, God hath given us to His Son Christ, it teacheth us to acknowledge His free gift and grace; and let none of us think there was any wisdom in ourselves why we would choose Him, nor any constancy in us, by which we could cleave unto Him; but God in His grace drew us, that we might come unto Him, and with His power He strengthened us, that we should abide with Him. (E. Deering, B. D.)
Unity of Sanctifier and sanctified
The assertion that the Sanctifier and the sanctified are all of one may be conceived of as answering two questions naturally arising out of Heb 2:10, to which it furnishes no explicit answer. First, Christ is called the Captain or Loader of salvation: how does He contribute to salvation? Is He simply the first of a series who pass through suffering to glory? or does He influence all the sons whom God brings to glory so as to contribute very materially to the great end in view, their reaching the promised land? Second, what is the condition of His influence? what is the nexus between Him and them, the Leader and the led, that enables Him to exert over them this power? The answer to the former question is, Christ saves by sanctifying; the answer to the latter, that He and the sanctified are one. The answer in the first case is given indirectly by the substitution of one title for another, the Leader of salvation being replaced by the Sanctifier; the answer in the second ease is given directly, and forms the doctrine of the text: the Sanctifier and the sanctified are all of one. This statement I regard as the enunciation of a principle; by which is meant that the unity asserted is involved in the relation of Sanctifier to sanctified. Whether there be only one or many exemplifications of the relation is immaterial. Though only one Sanctifier were in view or possible, the proposition would still continue to be of the nature of a principle. The point is, that Christ, as Sanctifier, must be one with those whom e sanctifies, could not otherwise perform for them that function. The Sanctifier is holy, the sanctified when He takes them in hand are unholy. That being so, it needs to be said that, notwithstanding the separation between the parties, there is a unity between them surmounting the difference. And that can be said with truth, for otherwise the two parties could not stand in the relation of Sanctifier to sanctified; they could only stand permanently apart as holy and unholy. Unity is involved in the nature of the case. That is precisely what the writer means to say. He states the truth as an axiom, which he expects even his dull-minded readers to accept immediately as true; and he means to use it as a key to the cardinal facts of Christs human experience. Unity to some extent or in some sense is involved, that is clear. But in what sense, to what extent? This is not plainly indicated. The style at this point becomes noticeably laconic; the sentence lacks a verb, and is worn down to the fewest words possible, after the manner of a proverb, For the Sanctifier and the sanctified of one all. Does it not look as if his purpose were to lay stress, not on descent from one God, one Divine Father, bat rather on the result, the brotherhood or comradeship existing between the two parties? Is not his idea that Sanctifier and sanctified are all of one piece, one whole, two parties welded into one, having everything in common except character? From whatever point of view, the ritual or the ethical, we regard the Sanctifiers function, this becomes apparent on reflection. Conceive Christ first as Sanctifier in the ethical sense, as Captain or Leader of salvation; it is evident that in that capacity it behoved Him to be in all possible respects one with those He took in hand to sanctify. For in this case the sanctifying power of Jesus lies in His example, His character, His history as a man. Be makes men beloving in Him holy by reproducing in His own life the lost ideal of human character, and bringing that ideal to bear on their minds; by living a true, godly life amid the same conditions of trial as those by which they are surrounded, and helping them to be faithful by inspiration and sympathy. The more genuinely human He is, and the more closely the conditions of His human life resemble ours, the greater His influence over us. His power to sanctify depends on likeness in nature, position, and experience. Conceive Christ next as Sanctifier in the ritual sense, as a Priest, consecrating us for the service of God by the sacrifice of Himself; and the same need for a pervading, many-sided unity is apparent. The Priest must be one with His clients in Gods sight, their accepted representative; so that what He does is done in their name and avails for their benefit. He must be one with them in death, for it is by His death in sacrifice that He makes propitiation for their sins. He must be one with them in the possession of humanity, for unless He become partaker of human nature He cannot die. Finally, He must be one with them in experience of trial and temptation, for thereby is demonstrated the sympathy which wins trust, and unless the Priest be trusted it is in vain that He transacts. (A. B. Bruce, D. D.)
All men are brethren in Christ
If Christ and we are all of one, much more are we among ourselves. A king and a beggar are of one; a rich man and a poor man are of one; a fair and beautiful man or woman and they that want beauty are of one. We descended all of Adam, and were taken out of the dust of the ground; therefore let us not insult one over another. The wax that hath the print of the kings seal on it is the same in substance with the wax that hath the point of the seal of a mean man; yet it is honoured in that the kings seal is set on it. So we are all of one weak and waxy nature, save that it pleaseth God to set a more honourable print upon one than on another. Therefore, let us not think highly of ourselves, and condemn our brethren, but submit to them of low degree, using the greatness that God hath given us, to the glory of the Giver. (W. Jones, D. D.)
Christ not ashamed to call us brethren
1. As Christ is not ashamed to call us brethren, so let us do nothing so near as we can that may shame this our Brother. Is it not a shame that the kings brother should be a common drunkard, whoremaster, or such like? Doth not the king take himself disgraced by it? And shall we that are brethren to the King of kings take such courses as that great ignominy should redound to Christ by it? As He is not ashamed to call us brethren, so let us do nothing that may pull a shame on Him and His gospel.
2. Can a brother that is a wealthy man, of fair revenues, and ample possessions, see any of his brethren go begging? Will he not rather receive him to his own house, and set him at his table? Christ, which is the Lord of heaven and earth, is our brother; therefore let us fear no want so long as we fear Him. This may be a comfort to us in all our calamities, that Christ and we are brethren. (W. Jones, D. D.)
Christ the Restorer of the Divine ideal of humanity
As some noble ruin can be best restored by one who possesses the original model or some other key to the builders design, so the Saviours fitness for His office is partly found in the fact that He has in Himself the perfect type of regenerated humanity. The presentation of His life at once shows men what they ought to become, and summons and incites them to its attainment. (W. Landels, D. D.)
Not ashamed to call them brethren
Christ not ashamed to call us brethren
I. CHRIST OUR BROTHER. In all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren. Human nature was divided by the ancients into body, soul, and spirit. Take this tripartite nature of man and see how like He is to us in all things.
1. The body. He was an hungered. All the pains and anguish of intense hunger were felt by Him–Brother then to all the poor and hungry! He thirsted. On the Cross He said, I thirst–Brother then to all who in any way thirst! He knew what the pleasures of life were. He was a guest at feasts–Brother then of these who know the dangers of plenty! He was weary. He was asleep in the boat after His long toil. He sat weary with travel and heat by the well–Brother then to all who are weary! He suffered bodily pain–Brother then of every sufferer! He died–Brother then to each of us in that He died!
2. The soul. He was our Brother in experiencing a shrinking from death in manifesting human benevolence, compassion, and sympathy; in associating with humanity; in displaying love for children; in having private and special friendship for a few; in knowing the anguish of unrequited affection; and in manifesting human self-respect.
3. The spirit. There was that wonderful depression that came upon Him at different times. We have the agony of spirit in Gethsemane and on the
Cross. He felt what it is to seem to be forsaken of God and all we can comprehend by being apprehensive of spiritual gloom, and the fear of being deserted by God. Again, He was tempted, and He had all the faculties and capacities to which temptations are applied and adapted. Once more, He was made perfect through sufferings. For both He that sanctifieth–Jesus–and they who are sanctified–the followers of Jesus–are all of one. He was a sharer with us in discipline by the salve Father, and in sanctification by the same Spirit, journeying to the same heavenly glory. Thus in all points He was made like unto His brethren.
II. CHRIST IS NOT ASHAMED OF THE RELATIONSHIP.
Two brothers may be born in the same cottage, fed from the same breast and trencher, trained at the same school, and one of them may rise in social position, but with seeming greatness unite real littleness and be ashamed of his brother who continues a humble cottager. Or one may live a life of sensuality and bring disgrace on the family name, and the other be distinguished for virtue and benevolence, and the virtuous man may be ashamed of his brother. Or, one may have shown kindness continually to his brother and the other have repelled it by constant hostility and ingratitude, so that at last the other may be ashamed of him. Judging after the manner of men might not Christ be ashamed of us? But He is not.
1. Because of His mighty disinterested love. He loved us when we were unlovely and had no love to Him. Human love, when deep and true, is never ashamed of the lowliness of its object. A truly noble nature recognises a friend the more he needs help
2. Because He knows us thoroughly. Nothing is hidden from Him. He knows all our imperfections, and is not ashamed of us.
3. Because He knows what good is in us, for He put it there. He knows that at the bottom of our hearts, in spite of infirmities and shortcomings, we do love Him. Beneath the faded exterior and withered blossom and leaf He sees the living germ that shall bud and blossom and bear fruit. He sees the first homeward step of the prodigal, the first fear, and hears the first stammering prayer. And is this the Jesus that some of you are rejecting? Is this the Christ that some of you are ashamed to own? Surely you do not know who it is you thus treat with neglect. He is mans best friend, our true Brother. Accept His salvation and rejoice in His love. What an honour it is to have such a Brother! We may be obscure in the world, but we may look up and say, The King of kings upon the throne of the heavenly Majesty is one who is not ashamed of me; He calls me His brother. How safe we are! What harm can come to us when He who rules the universe is our Brother? (Newman Hall, LL. B.)
Christians joint-heirs with Christ
Jesus, the elder Brother, gets nothing apart from those whom He is not ashamed to call His brethren. The law of primogeniture does not appear in the statute-book of heaven. We, the rightful heirs of wrath, are made heirs in common with Jesus. He will have nothing that He will not share with us. We are even now highly exalted with Him, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come; for we are the Church, which is His body. (T. W. Medhust.)
The Brother born for adversity
One main work of the gospel is to give men the right to claim the sympathy, the care, and the help of God. A right. God has brought Himself by His own act within the region of rights and obligations. The relation of Creator and creature is superseded; that of Father and child, Saviour and saved, is substituted in its room. And into these relations new obligations enter, based upon purposes, promises, and hopes which God has announced or inspired. It now becomes Him to do that which, under no conception of His rectoral duty as Creator, could be claimed from Him. God has set forth Christ as the Man with whom He treats; the perfect Man, who explains the manward thoughts and hopes of God. It is the Son of His love who is concerned in the fulfilment of our hope. The Son of His love has interests profounder even than our own in our forgiveness, renewal, and growth to perfection. Realising what we are in Christ, we dare to use great boldness of access, we dare to plead rights and claims, which yet are not ours, save through a love which humbles while it exalts us, and chastens while it inspires.
I. THE RELATION OF A BROTHER. There is a oneness which precludes the idea of separate interests.
II. IT IS PRECISELY THIS RELATIONSHIP WHICH BY HIS INCARNATION AND PASSION THE SAVIOUR CLAIMS. He seeks to give us a relation that we can rest upon; which will draw us by the bands of fraternal sympathy to His strength when we are weak, to His bosom when we are weary and long for rest.
III. It is said in a passage of the Book of Proverbs that A BROTHER IS BORN FOR ADVERSITIES. That He might know our souls in adversities surely, the elder Brother of the great human family was born in the human home, tasted all pure human experiences, and made Himself familiar with all forms of human pain. God is born unto us, a Saviour. We are of His kindred, the brethren of His Christ. It is no pity that moves Him to us; it is pure and perfect love. God is pleading His own cause in pleading against our sins; He is striving against His own enemies in striving against our tempters and lusts. (T. B. Brown, B. A.)
Brotherhood with Christ
I. There are three particulars which require to be stated; the first of which is, THAT THEY WHO ARE BRETHREN PARTAKE OF ONE NATURE. Thus then, it is said of Christ. Forasmuch, then, as the children–that is, Gods children, the family in heaven and earth–are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death–or through dying–He might destroy him that had the power of death, &c. It is also said of Christ, that He was made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. And further: What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, &c. Thus, then, we have the fact clearly revealed to us, that Christ laid the foundation of brotherhood by actually assuming the nature of those whom He now condescends to call brethren. The next particular to be mentioned is, that they who are brethren are so by natural birth, or they become so by adoption into a family. Now, no sinful descendant of Adam can, by virtue of his birth in the flesh, become a member of Gods family; it is utterly impossible. Nor can he be adopted into Gods family unless born again–born of water and of the Spirit. He partakes of the spirituality of Christ, as Christ possesses his human flesh. The next particular is, that between those who are brethren in heart, as well as in fact, there is a family likeness and sympathy. Hence believers are enjoined to let this mind be in them which was also in Christ Jesus; and are said also to have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him who created him. Thus, also, Christ is revealed to us as One who can have compassion on us, and as One touched with the feeling of our infirmities.
II. From these three particulars we may infer that Christ, becoming our Brother, by taking on Him our nature, and linking that nature on to His deity, HAD POWER OVER TREAT NATURE, first, to redeem, and then, by His Spirit, to infuse life–His own spiritual life–into it. Next, that, as the Elder Brother, He had the disposition, as well as the power, to put aside every obstacle in the way of our full and tree adoption into His Fathers family; so that, knowing Him as their Brother, they might exercise the spirit of adoption when received, and at once look up and call God Father. And lastly that, as a sympathising Brother, communicating His likeness to all the members of the household of faith, He must be the great object of our faith and the foundation of all our hopes as members of the family of God. Thus, then, is Christ set before us, under this symbol, in that very aspect which is most attractive; but when we see all His offices proceeding out of this central fact of brotherhood–when we spiritually know that the great Prophet of the Church is our Brother, that the great High Priest of our profession is our Brother, that the King of an unspeakably glorious kingdom is our Brother–when we are assured that the teaching of the Prophet is the teaching of our Brother, that the sacrifice offered by the Priest was the Brother Himself, that the blood which is shed for us was the blood of our Brother, that the grave wherein death became powerless, and from which emerged life and immorality, was the grave of our Brother; oh I what a ground do we then stand on for the realisation and enjoyment of the blessings of salvation, and for looking forward to the coming of the glorious King, who, with all the tenderness of a brothers faithful love, shall gather together the whole family of heaven in manifested union with Himself. (G. Fisk, LL. B.)
Some reasons why the Word because flesh
Ashamed to call them brethren. Why should He be? It is no condescension to acknowledge the fact of brotherhood with humanity, any more than it is humiliation to be born. But there was a Man who emptied, and humbled Himself by being found in fashion as a man, and for whom it was infinite condescension to call us His brethren. We can say of a prince that he is not ashamed to call his subjects friends, and to sit down to eat with them; but it would be absurd to say so of one of the subjects in reference to his fellows. The full, lofty truth of Heb 1:1-14. underlies that word ashamed, which is meaningless unless Jesus was the effulgence of the Fathers glory, and the very image of His substance. The writer quotes three Old Testament passages which he regards as prophetic of our Lords identifying Himself with humanity. These three cited sayings deal with three different aspects of Christs manhood and of the purpose of His incarnation; and they unitedly give, if not a complete, yet a comprehensive answer to the question, Why did God become Man?
I. JESUS IS MAN, THAT HE MAY DECLARE GOD TO MEN. All other sources of knowledge of God fail in certainty. They yield only assertions which may or may not be true. At the best, we are relegated to peradventures and theories if we turn away from Jesus Christ. Men said that there was land away across the Atlantic for centuries before Columbus went and brought back its products. He discovers who proves. Christ has not merely spoken to us beautiful and sacred things about God, as saint, philosopher, or poet might do, but He has shown us God; and henceforward, to those who receive Him, the Unknown Root of all being is not a hypothesis, a great Perhaps, a dread or a hope, as the case may be, but the most certain of all facts, of whom and of whose love we may be surer than we can be of aught besides but our own being.
II. JESUS IS MAN, THAT HE MAY SHOW TO MEN THE LIFE OF DEVOUT TRUST. Perfect manhood is dependent manhood. A reasonable creature who does not live by faith is a monster arrogating the prerogative of God. Christs perfect manhood did not release Him from, but bound Him to, the exercise of faith. Nor did His true deity make faith impossible to His manhood. Christs perfect manhood perfected His faith, and in some aspects modified it. His trust had no relation to the consciousness of sin, and no element either of repentance or of longing for pardon. But it had relation to the consciousness of need, and was in Him, as in us, the condition of continual derivation of life and power from the Father. Christs perfect faith brought forth perfect fruits in His life, issuing, as it did, in obedience which was perfect in purity of motive, in gladness of submission, and in completeness of the resulting deeds as well as in its continuity through His life. Out of His example we may take both shame and encouragement: shame, when we measure our poor, purblind, feeble, and interrupted faith against His; and encouragement when we raise our hopes to the height of the revelation in it of what ours may become.
III. JESUS IS MAN, THAT HE MAY BITING MEN INTO THE FAMILY OF SONS OF GOD.
1. That through Him men may receive a new life which is His own. He can only impart His life on condition of His death. The alabaster box must be broken, though so precious, and though the light of the pure spirit within shone lustrous and softened through it, in order that the house may be filled with the odour of the ointment.
2. That men may, by the communication of His life, become sons of God. They are Gods children, being Christs brethren. They are brought into a new unity, and, being members of one family, are one by a sacreder oneness than the possession of a common humanity.
3. That men may become sharers in His prerogatives and offices. He becomes like us in our lowliness and flesh of sin, that we may become like Him in His glory and perfection.
4. That He may present His family at last to God. If we love and trust Him, He will hold us in His strong and tender grasp, and never part from us till He presents us at last, faultless and joyful, before the presence of His and our Father. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The graciousness of Christ
In the verses immediately preceding, the writer had set forth the incarnation, suffering, and death of Christ Jesus, as an indispensable condition of the great work of lifting the race of man into the Divine nature. Then he identifies and unites the two parties. Those for whom Christ suffered, for whom he became perfect through suffering, are lifted into His household, and are become one with Him. This idea runs through the whole New Testament. Men are adopted, we are told. They are of Gods household. And that meant more in those days than it now means, by a difference of social arrangements in life. They are sons; they are heirs; they are Christs brethren; they are united to Him as the branch to the vine. Now, the absolute inferiority of the human soul and mind to the Divine would lead one, in his meditations, to suppose that God could not well other than be ashamed. Adult companionship does not demand equality. It demands, however, some moral proportion. The Divine nature is illustrated here in this–that the feeling of God toward men, in their inferiority, is apparently feeling without regard to the coming character. God sustains toward the whole human race, we may believe, just the feeling which a true parent sustains toward a new-born child, while it is as yet neither good or bad, but is certainly feeble, weak, infinitely out of proportion to the parent. The feeble, the ignorant, the low–God loves them, and has infinite compassion for them, and is not ashamed of them.
But quite beyond and different from this, are presumptive reasons why God should be ashamed–namely, in moral delinquency. The child, when it knows it has done unworthily, imputes to the parent a sense of shame in its behalf. And every Christian has times of despondency, not only, but of sober conviction that he has dishonoured himself, and that he has brought scandal upon the name of his Master. And in these hours one goes to Christ with the feeling that He must be ashamed too. We are ashamed to pray, and afraid to commune. And yet it is of just such that Christ says He is not ashamed. He is not ashamed to call them brethren, as we shall see. The shame spoken of is not simply a generous feeling. It is to be interpreted by its relation to the idea of personal communion. Christ is not ashamed to call men even brethren. Conceive of the most advanced and noble Christians that ever have lived in this world–of Martyn and Brainerd, as missionary martyrs; of Fenelon and Pascal, as contemplative Christians–and compare these, not with their own kind, but with the character and condition of the just made perfect. Compare the most peerless saint that walks among men with your ideal of the just and the perfect before God. Hardly, one would say, would God be willing to identify Himself with any human being–with even the highest and best. Yet so it is. He is not ashamed to call them brethren. If you consider, now, how far below these ordinary Christians live; how little there is that enters into the Christian experience; how the Divine life is, as it were, but in the germ; if you reflect how far from that ideal which Christ set before us the ordinary, average Christian experience is, men might well express surprise that Christ should be willing to call such Christians brethren. And yet He points to those that stand in the ordinary lot of life, the ordinary Christian experience, and says, I am not ashamed to call them brethren. Far below this level there is a throng who can scarcely be thought to have even a beginning; and yet there is a single spark. There are occasional impulses as if their souls would turn toward God. Bold are they for the world, but timid for righteousness, and hardly daring to say to their fellow-men, I am a Christian. Ah! can it be that Christ is not ashamed to call them brethren? He is not. He has been made in the likeness of men, and has entered into the full temptation of men, that He might know to the uttermost, and to the very bottom, what man suffers. The lowest, poorest, meanest of Christian attainments find in Christ Jesus a spirit that is not ashamed. Banish from your minds an oriental monarchy. Banish the conception of such glory as lies in external appearances and external adjuncts. Consider what it is for God to be glorious. It is the glory of pity unfathomable. He considers glory to lie in long-suffering love. It is because He knows how to work for men that are ungrateful, that His heart swells with consciousness of its power. Look, then, upon the work to be done in this world. We can understand, if we consider it in its entirety, that this world is a school; that it is a healing hospital; that it is a training ground; that the Divine problem is, how to take the germ of life and bring it steadily up through all its transmutations, from age to age, until it becomes Divine; and to do it through suffering, through long-suffering, and through patience; to do it by inspiration; to do it by pain and by joy, by sorrow and by gladness, by all means. So to teach the human soul, and lit t upon it time light of Divine glory, that it shall become like God–that is the work to he done in this world. Christ is not ashamed of this work. He is not ashamed of His scholars, neither of those in the lowest, the intermediate, or the highest form. He is not ashamed to call them brethren. Not because there is not much that is repulsive to a pure and high nature; but for His own reasons (Eph 5:25-27). Without further unfolding this great, this wonderful truth, I ask whether any one need fear to begin a new Christian life with such a Saviour. If, when his prayers go up, they go into the hands of such an One; if all the invitations to a Christian life are those that come from a Brothers lips–from the lips of One who is not ashamed of our poorness, our vileness, our dullness, or our remissness–then any man can be a Christian. Need any one be discouraged who has begun to live a Christian life, because so often he has failed and fallen into backsliding? Is a true pupil discouraged because so many of his lessons are imperfect? There is encouragement, since we have One that is not ashamed of us, in spite of our many defections and inferiorities. Why should we not, therefore, gird up our loins, and take a fresh hold, with new consecration, on the Christian life? Will not every days experience give reason and argument for gratitude to such a Lord as this? I think I have learned more of the nature of my Master from my bad than from my good. We learn both ways. But it is the sense of Gods graciousness that impresses me. (H. W. Beecher.)
In the midst of the Church win I sing praise
Christ singing
We have the record of Christs use of some words of this psalm on the Cross; the author of this Epistle affirms that these words were also adapted by the Saviour. They illustrate
I. CHRISTS ENGAGEMENT IN GODS SERVICE. In all ages, Christ is serving God in the midst of the Church, by His precepts, example, spirit.
II. CHRISTS SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT IN GODS SERVICE. In fellowship with the whole assembly of the good, whom He is not ashamed to call brethren, Christ serves God. But if their brother, He is their Leader in this praise.
III. CHRISTS VOLUNTARY ENGAGEMENT IN GODS SERVICE. Singing is no slavish act; real singing is not even perfunctory; probably, ideal song is spontaneous. Such is Christs service.
IV. CHRISTS JOYOUS ENGAGEMENT IN GODS SERVICE. AS soon as ever we can sing of our sadness, even the sadness is sweetened, and song is the very symbol of joy. Lessons:
1. The highest engagement of our life is serving God.
2. The true method of serving God is socially, willingly, joyfully. (U. R. Thomas.)
The children which God hath given Me
Children to be brought to heaven
There was a mother lay dying some time ago, and she requested her children to be brought to her bedside. The eldest one came in first, and putting her loving bands on his head, she gave him a mothers parting message. Then came another, and then another. To all of them she gave her parting message, until the last–the seventh one, an inlay,–was brought in. She was so young she could not understand the message of love; so the weather gave it to her husband for her; and then she took the child to her bosom, and kissed it, and caressed it, until her time was almost up. Then, turning to her husband, she said: I charge you to bring all these children home to heaven with you. (D. L. Moody.)
Children a life.work
I was in the company of a talented Christian lady, when a friend said to her, Why have you never written a book? I am writing two, was the quiet reply. Have been engaged on one for ten years, the other five. You surprise me, cried the friend; what profound works they must be! It doth not appear yet what we shall be, was her reply; but when He makes up His jewels, my great ambition is to find them there. Your children? I said. Yes, my two children; they are my life work. (Christian Age.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 11. For both he that sanctifieth] The word does not merely signify one who sanctifies or makes holy, but one who makes atonement or reconciliation to God; and answers to the Hebrew caphar, to expiate. See Ex 29:33-36. He that sanctifies is he that makes atonement; and they who are sanctified are they who receive that atonement, and, being reconciled unto God, become his children by adoption, through grace.
In this sense our Lord uses the word, Joh 17:19: For their sakes I sanctify myself; , on their account I consecrate myself to be a sacrifice. This is the sense in which this word is used generally through this epistle.
Are all of one] . What this one means has given rise to various conjectures; father, family, blood, seed, race, nature, have all been substituted; nature seems to be that intended, see Joh 17:14; and the conclusion of this verse confirms it. Both the Sanctifier and the sanctified-both Christ and his followers, are all of the same nature; for as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, i.e. of human nature, he partook of the same, and thus he was qualified to become a sacrifice for man.
He is not ashamed to call them brethren] Though, as to his Godhead, he is infinitely raised above men and angels; yet as he has become incarnate, notwithstanding his dignity, he blushes not to acknowledge all his true followers as his brethren.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
For both he that sanctifieth: for shows the reason of the Sons incarnation, viz. the necessity of union in nature between the sanctifying Mediator and the sanctified sinner. The great gospel Minister was to bring many sons to glory by suffering, which he was not capable of, but by being united to one and the same nature with them to whom the penalty was due, and so he must be Head of them. This God-man is separating and consecrating of penitent believing sinners from the common mass to God, meriting by his death for them remission of their sins, and sanctifying their persons by his Spirit from their pollutions by them, 1Co 6:11; Tit 3:4-7; Heb 9:14; 10:10,14.
And they who are sanctified; penitent believing sinners, justified by his blood, and sanctified by his Spirit, Eph 5:25-27.
Are all of one: this is an attribute of the unity of the principle of both these; such an one as is proper to man with himself, whom he sanctifieth, and not competent to angels; it must therefore be the principle of humanity. He took a human soul and body united to his person, and so became of one nature with us, {compare Heb 2:14} of one human mass, alluding to the first-fruits offered at the Passover, or the loaves at Pentecost, whereby all the rest were sanctified: so Christ assumed the same human nature, that he might be the Head and leading Representative of a body of mankind, differenced from them by his being holy, and they sinful, and personally united to the Word.
For which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren; the unity of him and them in the human nature, is the cause why he calls them brethren, therefore they must be one: considering him in the holiness of his Deity, and them in the filthiness of sin, he might have been ashamed of such a brotherhood; but by his effectual word he adopted them into a state of childship and heirship to God with himself; and in the flesh to give them that glory, that they might be one with God, as he and the Father are one, Joh 17:22.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
11. he that sanctifiethChristwho once for all consecrates His people to God (Jude1, bringing them nigh to Him as the consequence) and everlastingglory, by having consecrated Himself for them in His being made”perfect (as their expiatory sacrifice) through sufferings”(Heb 2:10; Heb 10:10;Heb 10:14; Heb 10:29;Joh 17:17; Joh 17:19).God in His electing love, by Christ’s finished work, perfectlysanctifies them to God’s service and to heaven once for all:then they are progressively sanctified by the transformingSpirit “Sanctification is glory working in embryo; glory issanctification come to the birth, and manifested” [ALFORD].
they who aresanctifiedGreek, “they that are being sanctified”(compare the use of “sanctified,” 1Co7:14).
of oneFather, God: notin the sense wherein He is Father of all beings, as angels;for these are excluded by the argument (Heb2:16); but as He is Father of His spiritual human sons,Christ the Head and elder Brother, and His believing people, themembers of the body and family. Thus, this and the following versesare meant to justify his having said, “many sons“(Heb 2:10). “Of one”is not “of one father Adam,” or “Abraham,”as BENGEL and otherssuppose. For the Saviour’s participation in the lowness of ourhumanity is not mentioned till Heb2:14, and then as a consequence of what precedes. Moreover, “Sonsof God” is, in Scripture usage, the dignity obtained byour union with Christ; and our brotherhood with Him flows fromGod being His and our Father. Christ’s Sonship(by generation) in relation to God is reflected in the sonship (byadoption) of His brethren.
he is not ashamedthoughbeing the Son of God, since they have now by adoption obtaineda like dignity, so that His majesty is not compromised by brotherhoodwith them (compare Heb 11:16).It is a striking feature in Christianity that it unites such amazingcontrasts as “our brother and our God” [THOLUCK].”God makes of sons of men sons of God, because God hath made ofthe Son of God the Son of man” [ST.AUGUSTINE on Psalm 2].
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For both he that sanctifieth,…. Not himself, though this is said of him, Joh 17:19 nor his Father, though this also is true of him, Isa 8:13 but his people, the sons brought to glory, whose salvation he is the Captain of; they are sanctified in him, he being made sanctification to them; and they have their sanctification from him, all their grace and holiness; and they are sanctified by him, both by his blood, which expiates their sins, and removes the guilt of them, and by his Spirit, working internal principles of grace and holiness in them, who are by nature, and in their unregenerate state, guilty and unclean:
and they who are sanctified; the sons brought to glory; they are not naturally holy, nor so of themselves, they are made holy; all that are sons are made holy; whom God adopts into his family, he regenerates: sanctification is absolutely necessary to their being brought to glory; and between the sanctifier and the sanctified there is a likeness, as there ought to be: they are
all of one: they are both of one God and Father, Christ’s God is their God, and his Father is their Father; they are of one body, Christ is the head, and they are members; they are of one covenant, Christ is the surety, Mediator, and messenger of it, and they share in all its blessings and promises; they are of one man, Adam, Christ is a Son of Adam, though not by ordinary generation, they descend from him in the common way; they are all of one nature, of one blood; Christ has took part of the same flesh and blood with them:
for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren; Christ, and these sons that are sanctified, stand in the relation of brethren to each other; Christ is the firstborn among many brethren; he is a brother born for the day of adversity, and one that sticks closer than a brother: and this relation is founded both upon the incarnation of Christ, who thereby became his people’s “Goel”; or near kinsman, yea, brother, So 8:1 and upon their adoption unto his Father’s family, which is made manifest by their regeneration, and by their doing his Father’s will under the influence of his grace and Spirit, Mt 12:49 and this relation Christ owns; he called his disciples brethren, when God had raised him from the dead, and given him glory; and so he will call all his saints, even the meanest of them, in the great day, Mt 28:10, and “he is not ashamed” to do it; he does not disdain it, though he is God over all, and the Son of God, and is also in his human nature made higher than the heavens; which shows the wonderful condescension of Christ, and the honour that is put upon the saints; and may teach them not to despise the meanest among them: such a relation the Jews own will be between the Messiah and the Israelites. The Targumist on So 8:1 paraphrases the words thus;
“when the King Messiah shall be revealed to the congregation of Israel, the children of Israel shall say unto him, Come, be thou with us, , for “a brother”, or “be thou our brother”.”
Nor can they say this will reflect any discredit upon Christ, when they make such a relation to be between God and them. The Israelites, they say f, are called, “the brethren of the holy blessed God”; in proof of which they often produce
Ps 122:8 as being the words of God to them; and again, interpreting those words in Le 25:48 “one of his brethren may redeem him”, this, say g they, is the holy blessed God.
f Zohar in Exod. fol. 23. 3. & in Lev. fol. 3. 3. & 9. 3. & 32. 2. g Tzeror Hammor, fol. 106. 3.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
He that sanctifieth ( ). Present active articular participle of . Jesus is the sanctifier (Heb 9:13; Heb 13:12).
They that are sanctified ( ). Present passive articular participle of . It is a process here as in 10:14, not a single act, though in 10:10 the perfect passive indicative presents a completed state.
Of one ( ). Referring to God as the Father of Jesus and of the “many sons” above (verse 10) and in harmony with verse 14 below. Even before the incarnation Jesus had a kinship with men though we are not sons in the full sense that he is.
He is not ashamed ( ). Present passive indicative of , old compound (Ro 1:16). Because of the common Father Jesus is not ashamed to own us as “brothers” (), unworthy sons though we be.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
In order to bring many sons unto glory, Christ assumes to them the relation of brother.
He that sanctifieth [ ] . Sanctification is the path to glorification. Comp. Heb 10:14.
Of one [ ] . Probably God, although the phrase may signify of one piece, or of one whole. Jesus and his people alike have God for their father. Therefore they are brethren, and Christ, notwithstanding his superior dignity, is not ashamed to call them by that name.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “For both he that sanctifieth,” (ho te gar hagiazon) “For both the one sanctifying,” continuously, Heb 10:10; Heb 10:14. This one was and is Jesus Christ, who progressively sanctifies, “sets apart” his children for special service, Heb 13:12.
2) “And they who are sanctified,” (kai hoi hagiazomenoi) “And the ones being sanctified,” continually, or being made holy continually, by Divine call and by personal obedience to his call by their separated living, Heb 9:13-14; 1Jn 1:7; Rom 12:1-2.
3) “Are all of one,” (eks henos pantes) “Exist out of, or have their origin oi one,” from God, the Father, of one new nature or new creation in Christ Jesus, Eph 2:10; 2Co 5:17; Gal 3:28. This new nature is a Spiritual, sinless one, 1Jn 3:9.
4) “For which cause he is not ashamed,” (di’ hen aitian ouk epaischunetai) “Because of which he is not ashamed,” does not blush or hesitate; reads, “go tell my brethren,” Joh 20:17.
5) “To call them brethren,” (adelphous autous kalein) “Repeatedly to call them brethren,” to refer to or address them as brethren, even in his intercession before the throne of the Father, Psa 22:22; Heb 7:25; ; Rom 8:29.
CHRIST OUR BROTHER
“How many brothers have you?” said a gentleman to a little boy. The child stated the number, adding, “and one in heaven.” No, my son,” interposed his mother, “you have no brother in heaven.” “Yes, I have,” said the boy; did you not tell me that God was my Father, and that Jesus Christ is the Son of God? Then He must be my brother in heaven.”
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
11. For both he that sanctifieth, etc. He proves that it was necessary that what he had said should be fulfilled in the person of Christ on account of his connection with his members; and he also teaches that it was a remarkable evidence of the divine goodness that he put on our flesh. hence he says, that they are all of one, that is, that the author of holiness and we are made partakers of it, are all of one nature, as I understated the expression. It is commonly understood of one Adam; and some refer it to God, and not without reasons; but I rather think that one nature is meant, and one I consider to be in the neuter gender, as though he had said, that they are made out of the same mass. (41)
It avails not, indeed, a little to increase our confidence, that we are united to the Son of God by a bond so close, that we can find in our nature that holiness of which we are in want; for he not only as God sanctifies us, but there is also the power of sanctifying in his human nature, not that it has it from itself, but that God had poured upon it a perfect fullness of holiness, so that from it we may all draw. And to this point this sentence refers, “For their sakes I sanctify myself.” (Joh 17:19.) If, then we are sinful and unclean, we have not to go far to seek a remedy; for it is offered to us in our own flesh. If any one prefers to regard as intended here that spiritual unity which the godly have with the Son of God, and which differs much from that which men commonly have among themselves, I offer no objection, though I am disposed to follow what is more commonly received, as it is not inconsistent with reason.
He is not ashamed to call them brethren. This passage is taken from Psa 22:22. That Christ is the speaker there, or David in his name, the evangelists do especially testify, for they quote from it many verses, such as the following, — “They parted my garments,” — “They gave gall for my meat,” — “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” And further, the other parts of the chapter prove the same; for we may see in the history of the passion a delineation of what is there related. The end of the Psalm, which speaks of the calling of the Gentiles, can be applied to none but to Christ alone, “Turn to the Lord shall all the ends of the world; adore before him shall all the families of the nations,” — “The Lord’s is the kingdom, and he will reign over the nations.” These things are found accomplished only in Christ, who enlarged the kingdom of God not over a small space, as David did, but extended it over the whole world; it was before confined as it were within narrow limits. There is, then, no doubt but that his voice is what is referred to in this passage; and appropriately and suitably does he say that he is not ashamed; for how great is the distance between us and him? Much, then, does he let down himself, when he dignifies us with the name of brethren; for we are unworthy that he should deem us his servants. And this so great an honor conferred on us is amplified by this circumstance — Christ does not speak here as a mortal man while in the form of a servant, but when elevated after the resurrection into immortal glory. Hence this title is the same, as though he had raised us into heaven with himself. And let us remember, whenever we hear that we are called brethren by Christ, that he has clothed us, so to speak, with this honor, that together with this fraternal name we may lay hold on eternal life and every celestial blessing. (42)
We must further notice the office which Christ assumes, which is that of proclaiming the name of God; and this began to be done when the gospel was first promulgated and is now done daily by the ministry of pastors. We hence learn, that the gospel has been presented to us for this end, that we may be brought to the knowledge of God, in order that his goodness may be celebrated by us, and that Christ is the author of the gospel in whatever manner it may be offered to us. And this is what Paul says, for he declares that he and others were ambassadors for Christ; and he exhorted men as it were in the name of Christ. (2Co 5:20.) And this ought to add no small reverence to the gospel, since we ought not so much to consider men as speaking to us, as Christ by his own mouth; for at the time when he promised to publish God’s name to men, he had ceased to be in the world; it was not however to no purpose that he claimed this office as his own; for he really performs it by his disciples.
(41) Though many, ancient and modern, such as Chrysostom, Beza, Grotius and Bloomfield, regard “God” as meant here by “one”, yet the context is in favor of the view taken by Calvin, which is also adopted by Dr. Owen and Stuart. The Heb 2:14 verse seems to decide the question.
The word to sanctify ἁγιάζω, means — 1. To consecrate, to set apart to a holy use or to an office, Mat 23:19; Joh 17:19; — 2. To purify from pollution, either ceremonially, Heb 9:13, or morally and spiritually, 1Th 5:23; — 3. To purify from the guilt of sin by a free remission, Heb 10:10, compared with Heb 10:14. Now, which of these meanings are we to take here? Calvin takes the second, that is to purify from pollution, or to make spiritually holy; others, such as Stuart and Bloomfield, take the last meaning, and the latter gives the rendering, “the expiator and the expiated,” This is more consistent with the general tenor of the passage. The subject is not sanctification properly so called, but expiation or atonement. See Heb 2:9. — Ed.
(42) “If Christ was merely a man and nothing more, where (we may ask with Abresch) would be either the great condescension, or particular kindness manifested in calling men his brethren? If however, he possessed a higher nature, if ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν μορφὴν δούλου λαβών, Phi 2:7, if ἐκένωσε ἑαυτὸν μορφὴν δούλου λαβὼν, Phi 2:8; then was it an act of particular kindness and condescension in him to call men his brethren?” — Stuart
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(11) For both he that sanctifieth . . .The special meaning of sanctify in this Epistle (Heb. 9:13; Heb. 10:10; Heb. 10:14; Heb. 10:29; Heb. 13:12) seems to be, bringing into fellowship with God, the Holy One. They who are sanctifiedliterally, are being sanctified (comp. Act. 2:47; 1Co. 1:18)are those whom the Captain of their salvation, in fulfilment of the Fathers purpose (Heb. 2:10), is leading unto glory. The thoughts of the last verse, therefore, are repeated here, with a change of figure; and again (as in Heb. 2:9) we note the brief reference to a subject which will be prominent in later chapters; see especially Heb. 13:12.
Are all of one.Of one Father. This is the connecting link between Heb. 2:11 and Heb. 2:10, which speaks of the many sons and their Saviour. Though His sonship is unique and infinitely exalted, He is not ashamed to own them as brethren.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
11. For Reason for this becomingness of Jesus sufferings; based upon the need of his identification with his brethren.
They who are sanctified Are being sanctified; the present tense of the Greek participle implying a now continuous process, carried on unto the final glorification. Hence Christians are all, more or less perfectly, “saints.” According to Heb 10:10; Heb 10:14, this is wrought through the efficacy of Christ’s death. But the Greek word for sanctify, here, should not therefore be rendered (as by Stuart and others) expiate.
All of one The English, here, would suggest race, or nature, to be added; but the Greek word for one is masculine, and requires father, or God. This brings us to the same essential meaning as lineage, or race. Jesus is a true man, in order that as man brought sin and death, so a man should bring holiness and life. And still more, by being man he is brother with us, enabled by his humanity to sympathize with us, and by his divinity to so rise as that we may be raised as one with him to the heights of glory.
Not ashamed For it is by a most wonderful and divine condescension that the divine Son becomes with us a human son.
Brethren Thereby we become brother to the God-man.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘For both he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all of one, for which reason he is not ashamed to call them brethren.’
For the wonderful fact is that the One Who was to be their Sanctifier, setting them apart for God and making them holy, had Himself become one with those who were to be sanctified, had necessarily taken on like nature and had suffered along with them, and was therefore ready to call them brothers and sisters.
And as the Author of their salvation He is their Sanctifier (the ‘One Who is sanctifying’ – present participle – a continuing process of sanctifying more and more people to God as time goes on). He it is Who through His death ‘sets them apart’ to God, and marks them off as His, providing for their ‘cleansing’ and fitness (Heb 1:3), so that they are presented as perfect before Him, perfecting for ever those who ‘have been and therefore are sanctified’ (Heb 10:14). ‘Those who are being sanctified.’ Again a present participle recognising that He is choosing more and more, a growing number, to be sanctified as time goes on.
It should be noted here that in Hebrews ‘sanctification’ (setting apart to God and making holy and acceptable to Him) is partially parallel to ‘justification’ elsewhere. It is in one sense a once-for-all event that makes a man continually acceptable with God (Heb 10:10; Heb 10:14; Heb 10:29). By it the blood of Christ effectively cleanses so that all that is contrary to God is removed (see 1Jn 1:7 where it then continues also as a process). Christ becomes their sanctification ‘by one offering for ever’ so that they may be presented perfect before God, and then continues to sanctify them (Heb 10:14).
But in view of the context it is possible that we should also see the use of the present tense here as signifying the continuation of that sanctifying process throughout out lives as, being our Trek leader, ‘He is leading many sons to glory’. He sanctifies once for all, and then works out the process within us and for us continually.
‘Are all of one.’ And He is able to sanctify them through His sacrifice of Himself because He has Himself been made one with them through becoming man, and what is more, representative man. Thus could He incorporate into Himself those who believed. They are in Christ, and He is in them. They are all, as it were, of one ‘piece’, of one close-knit, united family conjoined in Him. They are one in Him. And this is why He is not ashamed to call them ‘brothers and sisters’. For they are united with Him in the unity of His perfection and of His death and resurrection. (It should be noted that the word for ‘brothers’ includes sisters as well, just as the word ‘man’ can mean all ‘man and womankind’). That is why we can sing quite truthfully, ‘the love wherewith He loved His Son, such is His love for me’.
Alternately we might translate ‘are all of one origin’ in God, the Father of the Messiah. And the result of that one origin is that we have been united with Him and share His life. The final significance is the same.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Heb 2:11-13 . Elucidatory justification, in passing, of the expression , employed Heb 2:10 ; in proof of the brotherly relation existing between Christ and believers, already indicated by that expression. That this view as to the aim and signification of Heb 2:11-13 is the true one, is contested indeed by Riehm, Lehrbegr. des Hebrerbr . p. 366 f. (comp. also Kurtz, and Hofmann ad loc. ). According to Riehm, Heb 2:11-13 are to be regarded not as mere accessory remarks, but as the first link in the proof for Heb 2:10 , to which then Heb 2:14 f. attaches as second link; in such wise that only in the two thoughts together (Heb 2:11-13 and Heb 2:14 f.), not in Heb 2:14 by itself (see on the verses) alone, is a confirmation of Heb 2:10 to be found; and accordingly the (argumentative, not explicative) , Heb 2:11 , belongs not merely to Heb 2:11 . The following “chain of reasoning,” namely, is supposed to shape the course of thought: “it became God, etc. For (1) Christ is brother to the Christians; it is thus not unbecoming that He should have been made like them; and (2) He must be made like them, because His suffering and death were necessary, if they were to be saved.” The untenable character of this statement of the connection of thought, as made by Riehm, is, however, sufficiently apparent from the fact apart from the consideration that the contents of Heb 2:11-13 manifestly point back to the expression , Heb 2:10 that if the proof for the main thought of Heb 2:10 was designed in reality already to begin with Heb 2:11-13 , it would surely not be the proposition: it is not unbecoming that Christ should be made like unto the Christians (of which there was no express mention so early as Heb 2:10 ), which must have been proved, but solely and simply the proposition: it is not unbecoming that God should have led Christ through suffering to perfection, in which the true central thought of Heb 2:10 is contained. But such proof is not given.
] Now He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified (through Him, i.e. through His atoning sacrificial death, [48] comp. Heb 10:10 ; Heb 10:14 , Heb 9:13 f., Heb 13:12 ) all have their origin in One , is a special statement concerning Christ and Christians. To take the words as a proposition of universal validity, the application of which to Christ and the Christians was left to the readers, wherein there is specially an underlying allusion to the O. T. high priest and those whose cleansing from sins he accomplished (Schlichting, Gerhard, Schttgen, al .), is forbidden by the connection with that which precedes and that which follows.
The present participles are used substantively. Comp. Winer, Gramm. , 7 Aufl. p. 331 f.
] sc . . is masculine . Wrongly is it by others taken as a neuter , in that they either supplement in thought: , or , or (so Carpzov, Abresch, al .), or else explain: ex communi massa (Jac. Cappellus, Akersloot), or “of one and the same nature” (Calvin, Cameron: ejusdem naturae et conditionis spiritualis; Cornelius a Lapide, Owen, Whitby, Moses Stuart); for neither is the supplying of a substantive admissible, nor can , expressive as it is of the origin, be transformed into a declaration of nature and constitution. We have, however, to understand by , not Adam (Erasmus, Paraphr .; Beza, Estius, Justinian, Hunnius, Baumgarten, Zachariae, Bisping, Wieseler in the Publications of the University of Kiel , 1867, p. 26; Hofmann, Woerner) or Abraham (Drusius, Peirce, Bengel), but God . Yet the notion of fatherhood, which is in this way assigned to God, is not to be expounded in the universal sense, in such wise that God would be called Creator and Father in relation to Christians also , only in the same manner in which He is the Creator of every creature (so Chrysostom and the majority), but is to be referred specially to the fact that Christians are His spiritual children (Piscator, Grotius, Limborch, Paulus, Bleek, Delitzsch, Alford, Moll). Comp. Joh 8:47 ; 1Jn 3:10 ; 1Jn 4:6 ; 1Jn 5:19 ; 3Jn 1:11 .
] Peirce and Bengel would have taken with alone. The position of the word, however, renders this impossible. Rather does , after the close connection between the and the has already been accentuated by means of the , still further lay stress upon the fact that they all , the Christians not less than Christ, are .
] Wherefore . Comp. 2Ti 1:6 ; 2Ti 1:12 ; Tit 1:13 . The same formula also not rarely with Philo.
] He ( sc . ) is not ashamed . For Christ is the higher one. Comp. Heb 11:16 .
] sc . .
[48] Delitzsch arbitrarily takes , ver. 11, as synonymous with , ver. 10 : “In order to be crowned with Jesus must first be sanctified, or, as the author says, ver. 10, be made perfect through sufferings, inasmuch as the sufferings melted away that about Him which was not capable of exaltation, that He, Himself sanctified before, might be able to sanctify us, and so to raise us to like .” Of a being sanctified, on the part of Christ, there is no mention made either here or anywhere else in the epistle.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
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,
Ver. 11. Are all of one ] viz. of Adam; only with this difference; that we are of Adam, and by Adam, but Christ was of Adam, not by Adam, for he was not begotten, but made, and so original sin was avoided.
He is not ashamed ] Christ was not ashamed of us, when we had never a rag to our backs; should we be ashamed of him and his service?
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
11 13 .] The connexion with the foregoing cannot be made plain, till we have discussed the meaning of below. It may suffice to say, that the assertion, and the quotations, are subordinate to the in Heb 2:10 .
For both the Sanctifier and (notice the , which bind closely together in one category) the sanctified (both the participles are in their official substantival sense, as , and the like. The imperfection of our passive in English prevents our accurately expressing a present passive participle: ‘they that are being sanctified’ is perhaps, though we are obliged sometimes to use it, hardly allowable English. The word (see reff.) signifies in LXX and N. T. usage the selecting out and adopting for God’s service. It is not here, as Bleek infers, = , but as every where, when used in allusion to Christ’s work on His people, involves that transforming and consecrating process, of which His Spirit is the actual agent. Hence, believers are ordinarily not , but , as here: the difference being, as may be traced in reff., that where their present state is spoken of, the participle is present: where God’s purpose respecting them, and Christ’s finished work, the perfect. Sanctification is glory working in embryo: glory is sanctification come to the birth and manifested.
It is disputed whether the reference of these words is to be considered as general, applying to every case of sanctifier and sanctified, as, e. g., the priest and the people under the old law (so Schlichting, Schttgen, al.), the firstfruits and the remaining harvest (so Cappellus): or is to be restricted to Christ and His people alone. Certainly the latter seems to be required by the context, and most of all by the assumption of the subject in the next clause tacitly as contained in . The ground on which Christ is our Sanctifier has also been variously alleged. Grotius leaves the connexion very loose, when he says, “Christus nos sanctos facit doctrina sua et exemplo. Ille ex Spiritu sancto conceptus est, et nos per Spiritum sanctum novam adipiscimur naturam; ita communem habemus originem.” But this obviously does not reach the depth of the following argument, see especially Heb 2:17 ; and we must believe that there is a reference to the expiatory death of Christ: see also ch. Heb 10:10 ; Heb 10:14 , and more in the note there) ( are ) of one ( , as will be seen by the usage in reff., must be taken as masculine ; not with Carpzov, Abresch, al., supplied by or , nor understood “ex communi massa,” with Cappellus, al., “ex una natura,” Calv., nor “puritatem conditionis spiritalis,” as Cameron, similarly Corn.-a-lapide. And if masculine, what are we to supply? Erasm. (par.), Beza, Estius (as an altern.), Hofmann, al. say, Adam : Bengel (whose note is well worth consulting), Peirce, al., Abraham . But it seems far better and simpler here, on account of the above, and as satisfying fully the force of , to understand God to be meant. So all the patristic Commentators, and almost all the recent ones, including Delitzsch: most of them however giving it the very wide sense of ref. 1 Cor. , , which is referred to here by Chrys., (and so Thdrt., , ). But this can hardly be. For the argument in this particular place is not to shew by what means , viz. by becoming man, Christ made men into sons, but, that sonship of Himself and them towards the Father having been predicated, to justify the use of the common term. And thus we are driven to a sense of commensurate with , by which word the Writer takes it up again. So that it is not here the mere physical unity of all men with Christ which is treated, but the further and higher spiritual unity of the and the , as evinced by his speaking of them. The same is plain from Heb 2:14 below: see there. So that it is the higher Sonship of God, common to the Lord and those whom the Father by Him is leading to glory, which must be understood. See Joh 8:47 ; 1Jn 3:10 ; 1Jn 4:6 ; 1Jn 5:19 ; 3Jn 1:11 .
Note, that the point brought out here is not that the holiness of our Lord’s human nature, and our holiness, are both of one, viz. the Father ( Joh 10:36 ): which, however true, would be introducing a matter not belonging to the argument here ), all ( of them ) (after the , forms a sort of pleonastic repetition; but comes with considerable force. On account of the , it is quite impossible, with Bengel, al., to confine the to the only: and his argument, “ utrosque , dicturus, si sanctificantem , omnes, includeret,” goes for nothing: the being not set over against the as a second class , but thought of in their multitudinous distinctness as individuals. The connexion with Heb 2:10 will now be plain: ‘ was the right expression to use of those who are brought to glory, for they are of the same divine stock have the same heavenly Father as their , the one proper Son of God.’ And this will be now illustrated by His own words: on which account (reff. especially 2 Tim., Tit.: viz. because they are all of one) He (Christ: see above) is not ashamed (see ref. ; , , , , Chrys.) to call them ( ) brethren (the Commentators quote from Philo de Septenario, 8, vol. ii. p. 284, (scil. ) , ), saying, I will declare (LXX, ) thy name to my brethren, in the midst of the assembly will I sing of thee (it will be sufficient to refer, respecting the general sense and prophetic import of Psa 22 , to what has been before said, on Psa 8 (above, Heb 2:6 ), and on similar citations elsewhere. The Psalm was originally the expression of a suffering saint, in all probability David, communing with his God: laying forth to Him his anguish, and finally triumphing in confidence of His gracious help and deliverance. But by the mouth of such servants of God did the prophetic Spirit speak forth His intimations respecting the Redeemer to come. No word prompted by the Holy Ghost had reference to the utterer only. All Israel was a type: all spiritual Israel set forth the second Man, the quickening spirit: all the groanings of God’s suffering people prefigured, and found their fullest meaning in, His groans, who was the chief in suffering. The maxim cannot be too firmly held, nor too widely applied, that all the O. T. utterances of the Spirit anticipate Christ, just as all His N. T. utterances set forth and expand Christ: that Christ is every where involved in the O. T., as He is every where evolved in the N. T. And this Psalm holds an illustrious place among those which thus point onward to Christ. Its opening cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” was uttered by the Lord Himself in His last agony. The most minute particulars detailed in it are by the Evangelists adduced as exemplified in the history of His Passion: see e. g. ( Mat 27:35 rec.) Joh 19:24 . And, as Bleek well observes, the particulars chosen out of that history by St. Matthew seem to have been selected with an especial view to the illustration and fulfilment of this Psalm. Ebrard, in his note here, insists on the authorship of the Psalm by David, and on its date, as belonging to the time of his persecution by Saul. Then he maintains the exact parallelism of the circumstances with those of the second and greater David, and refers the here to the countrymen of David, who were hereafter to be his subjects. I have no positive objection to this view. Subordinately to the deeper and wider one, it might be applicable in individual instances: but that other seems to me both safer and nearer the truth. See especially on the Psalm, Delitzsch, h. l.
The particular verse here chosen, the 22nd, forms the transition-point from the suffering to the triumphant portion of the Psalm: and consequently the resolution expressed in it by the Messiah has reference to His triumphant state, in which he is still not ashamed to call his people brethren. It is characteristic of the object of this Epistle with reference to its intended readers, that whereas the Writer might have cited two instances as matters of fact, in which our Lord did call His disciples brethren after His resurrection (see Joh 20:17 ; Mat 28:10 ), yet he has not done so, but has preferred to establish his point by O. T. citations).
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Heb 2:11 . In the eleventh verse the writer proceeds to explain wherein consisted the fittingness ( ) of perfecting the through sufferings. It lies in the fact that He and those He leads are brothers. In Heb 2:11-13 it is shown that this is so, and in the succeeding verses the writer points out what is involved in this brotherhood. and are to be taken as present participles, so usually are, in the timeless substantive sense. means (1) to set apart as belonging to God, in contradistinction to , belonging to every one. So in Gen 2:3 , of the seventh day, and in Exodus of the mountain, the tent, the altar. It is especially used of persons set apart to the priesthood or to any special work (Exo 30:30 ; Jer 1:5 ; Joh 10:36 ). Through the O.T. ceremonial the whole people were thus , set apart to God, admitted to His worship. In this Epistle the word is used with much of the O.T. idea cleaving to it, and is often rather equivalent to what we understand by “justify” than to “sanctify”. Cf. Heb 10:10 . It signifies that which enables men to approach God. But (2) it is in N.T. more and more felt that it is only by purification of character men can be set apart for God, so that this higher meaning also attaches to the word. In the present verse introduces the priestly idea, enlarged upon in Heb 2:17 . “all of one”. There is much to be said for Calvin’s interpretation “of one nature,” or Cappellus’ “of one common mass”. Certainly Bleek’s reason for rejecting such renderings that can only signify origin , is incorrect. “Greek often uses the prepositions of origin ( , ) when we prefer those of position or direction, as in , on a sudden, , in a doubt, , with one hand” (Verrall on Choeph. , line 70). In N.T. frequently expresses the party or class to which one belongs (Joh 3:31 ). And cf. 1Co 10:17 . It might be urged from Heb 11:12 that this writer had he meant parentage would have said . Nevertheless the meaning seems to be “of one father”. The of Heb 2:10 , and the which follows make for this sense. And the argument of Heb 2:14 , that because Christ was brother to men He therefore took flesh, proves that cannot mean “of one nature’. The fact that He and they are is the ground of His incarnation. He was Son and Brother before appearing on earth. The words then can only mean that the “many sons” who are to be brought to glory and the “Son” who leads them are of one parentage. The sonship in both cases looks to the same Father, and depends on Him and is subject to the same laws of obedience and development. But what Father is meant? Not Adam (Beza, Hofmann, etc.); Weiss argues strongly for Abraham, appealing to Heb 2:16 and other considerations; but the fact that in Heb 2:14 the incarnation is treated as a result of the brotherhood, seems to involve that we must understand that God is meant; that before the incarnation Christ recognised His brotherhood. “On this account,” because His parentage is the same, “He is not ashamed to call them brothers”. He might have been expected to shrink from those who had so belied their high origin, or at the best to move among them with the kindly superior professionalism of a surgeon who enters the ward of an hospital solely to heal, not to live there; but He claims men as his kin and on this bases His action ( cf. Heb 11:16 ).
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Hebrews
THE BROTHERHOOD OF CHRIST
Heb 2:11-13 .
NOT ashamed to call them brethren. Why should He be? It is no condescension to acknowledge the fact of brotherhood, any more than it is humility to be born. And yet there is One who had to empty and humble Himself in becoming man; and for whom to call men His brethren is a depth of unimaginable condescension. We would say that a prince was not ashamed to call his subjects his friends, and to eat and drink with them, but we should not say it of a subject. This word ‘ashamed’ is meaningless in the present connection unless there underlies it the lofty conception of Christ’s person which is enfolded in the first chapter of this epistle. If He be, and only if He is, the ‘brightness of the Father’s glory, and the express image of His person,’ is it condescension in Him to enroll Himself amongst our fraternity. The writer selects three Old Testament passages which he thinks exhibit in prophetic outline the Messiah as claiming brotherhood with men. If the writer had known the gospels, he could have found other words that would have been even more weighty, such as ‘Behold My mother and My brethren’; but probably he was ignorant of them; or possibly, writing to Jews, he may have felt that to use their own manner of exposition was the best way of reaching them. It would lead us into discussions altogether unsuited to the pulpit to examine the relevance of these three prophetic quotations. My object is a different one. The three citations from the Old Testament, which are adduced in my text as proofs that the Messiah identifies Himself with His brethren, deal with three different aspects of our Lord’s manhood; and if we take them altogether, they afford, if not a complete, yet a very comprehensive answer to the question why God became man. It is from that point of view that I desire to consider them here. There are, then, three points here; 1 Christ’s assumption of manhood in order to show God to men 2 Christ’s assumption of manhood in order to show the pattern of a godly life to men; and 3 Christ’s assumption of manhood in order to bring men into the family of sons. I. First, then, here we have the declaration or manifestation of God as the great object of Christ’s brotherhood with us, ‘Saying, I will declare Thy name unto My brethren.’ Where do these words come from? They come from that psalm, the first words of which rang out from His lips amidst the darkness of eclipse upon the Cross, ‘My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ The psalm, springing directly from the heart of David, and expressing to his consciousness, I suppose, solely his own feelings in the midst of his own trials and humiliations, has yet been so moulded into language a world too wide for the writer’s sorrows, and so corresponding in minute and singular details, with the historical facts of Christ’s passion and death, that we cannot fail to perceive shimmering through the words of the earthly King who won His throne through persecutions and trials, the august figure of the loftier and true King, of whom the sovereign of Israel was, ex-officio, a type and a prophecy. Just as David felt that he, as monarch, must be the brother of his subjects, and that the meaning of his reign and of his deliverance was the declaration of the name of God to his brethren, so our King can only be King if He be brother; and the inmost purpose of His brotherhood and of His monarchy is that He may manifest to men the name of the Father. What is that ‘name’? The syllables by which men call Him? Surely not. But the name of the Lord is the manifest character of God; and therefore the only possible way of declaring Him is not by words but by acts. A person can only be revealed by a person. God can only be shown to men by a life. Words will never do it; they may represent men’s thinkings, but they never can certify God’s fact. Words will never do it, they may suggest hopes, fears, peradventures; but unless we have a living Person whose deeds on the plain level of human history, and in this solid world of ours, are the manifestation of God, our thoughts of Him will neither be solid with certainty nor sweet with comfort. It must be a human life which is more than a human life, but yet is thoroughly and altogether man, that to men can manifest God. Our highest conceptions of the divine nature must be in the form Of man. Between the little sphere of the dewdrop and the great sphere of the sun that is reflected prismatically in it, there is absolute identity in the laws that shape their round. So limited humanity has such an analogy with unlimited divinity as that, in the mirror of manhood, the brilliancy and ineffable brightness of the Godhead can be manifested. That life, the life of Jesus Christ, is the making visible for men of the glory of the invisible God. And what is the substance of the declaration? Men point us to His miracles, to the omniscience, to the power, to the other attributes of majesty, unlike to, and contradictory, of the attributes of finite humanity, and they say that these are the glory of God. Not so! That is a vulgar conception: high above all such as these towers the moral perfectness which is manifested in the purity of Jesus Christ. But when we have passed through what I may call the physical attributes revealed in the miracles which are the outer court, and the moral attributes of righteousness and stainlessness, which are the holy place, there is yet a veil to be lifted, and an inner sanctuary; and in it, there is nothing but a Mercy-seat, and a Shekinah above it. Which, being translated into plain English, is just this, the new-thing in Christ’s declaration of the name of the Father is the love of God therein manifested. Other means of knowing Him give us fragmentary syllables of His name, and men do with the witness of nature, and the ambiguous witness of history, and the witness of our own intuitions, what antiquarians do with the broken, inscribed blocks which they find in ruins, piece them together, and try to make a sentence out of them. But the whole name is in Christ. God ‘ who hath spoken in divers manners’ elsewhere, hath spoken the whole syllables of His manifest character in His Son. And this is the shining apex of all; the last utterances of Scripture, the culmination of all the long procession of self-manifestation – ‘God is love.’ You can only learn that when you look on your brother Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Dear brethren, more and more is it becoming certain, as the tendencies of modern thought unfold themselves, that we are brought to this fork in the road -Christ or nothing! Either God manifest in Him, or no manifestation of God at all Theism or Deism has not substance enough to sustain the assaults of the modern scientific spirit. Unless ‘the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father He hath declared Him,’ no man hath seen God at any time, or can see Him. It is Christ or darkness. Either the Father revealed in Him, or a God spelled with a little ‘g,’ who is an unverifiable and unnecessary hypothesis, or ‘a stream of tendency not ourselves that makes for righteousness’; or a vague somewhat concerning whom we only know that He cannot be known. The cultivated mind of England has to make its choice this day between these two. And when we come back to Christ, declaring the name of the Father unto His brethren, the nebulous, doleful grey that veiled the sky disappears, and we feel the sun again, and regain a God whom we can love because He has an ear and a heart and a hand; a God of whom we can be sure, a God concerning whom we have not to say ‘I think’; ‘I hope’; ‘I fear’; ‘ perhaps’; but a God whom we can know, and to know whom is life eternal.’ II. So much, then, for the first of the thoughts here. Secondly, we have Christ’s brotherhood represented as intended to show to men the pattern of the religious life. ‘I will put my trust in Him.’ These words came probably from the eighth chapter of the book of Isaiah, where the prophet, like the king in the former narrative, speaking altogether his own feelings, and with no consciousness of any prophetic or typical reference, expresses his personal dependence upon God. Our writer sees in Isaiah, as the chief of the prophetic order, which order in its totality was a prophecy or type of Jesus Christ, a dim shadow of Jesus, in so far as the prophet, though filled with the consciousness of a divine inspiration, and knowing that he stood before his brethren to make known to them the name of God, did not yet thereby feel himself absolved from the necessity of personal dependence and reliance on Him. And, says our writer, as it was with that foremost of the prophets, so is it with Him who is the Prophet by eminence. He, too, in His manhood and in His office of declaring the name of the Father, feels that for Him personally there must be the same faith in God which others exercise. Now that is the point to which I want to turn for m moment. Jesus Christ is the object of our faith. Yes! but Jesus Christ is the example of our faith too. You orthodox people, who believe in the divinity of our Lord and Saviour, are far too much afraid of fronting such thoughts as this. They are not so familiar to us as they ought to be. We do not believe in His thorough manhood, some of us, nor in His real divinity, but in strange amalgam of the two, each destroying, to s certain extent, the quality of the other. And so the men who do know their own mind, and who know His simple manhood, will make wild work of the beliefs of some of those who call themselves orthodox believers. A perfect manhood must needs be a dependent manhood. A reasonable creature who does not live by faith is either God or devil: Jesus Christ’s perfect manhood, sinless, stainless, did not absolve Him from, but obliged Him to, a life of continual dependence upon God; His divinity did not, in the smallest measure, interfere with the reality of the faith which, as man, He exercised, and which was the same in kind as ours. His perfect manhood modifies and perfects His faith. In Him dependence had no relation to a consciousness of sinfulness, as it must have in us, but in Him it had relation to a consciousness of need of a continual derivation of life and power from the Father; His faith being the faith of a perfect manhood, was a perfect faith. Our hands tremble as they hold the telescope that looks into the far-off unseen. His hand was steady. Our faith wavers and is interrupted, an intermittent fountain. His was a perennial flow. His perfect faith issued in perfect results in His life; in a perfect obedience, ‘I do always the things that please Him,’ and in a perfect communion. Like two metal plates of which the surfaces are so true that when you bring them into contact they adhere, that perfect nature of Jesus Christ’s, by the exercise of its perfect faith, clung in unbroken fellowship to the Father – ‘He hath not left me alone, because I do always the things that please Him.’ And thus, dear brethren, our brother does not stand above us only to show us God, but comes down amongst us to show us men. Out of His example of faith we may take both shame and encouragement – shame when we Consider the awful disparity between our wavering and His fixed faith; encouragement when in Him we see what humanity has in it to become, and what by the path of faith it may become. The staff that He leaned on He has bequeathed to us. The shield that He carried in the conflict in the wilderness, when He said, ‘Man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,’ and which He bore undinted by all the fiery darts through His earthly course, He has bequeathed to us His followers. The Captain, the Emperor, was once in the arena, and there He struggled. He, the Captain of the faith, the Leader of the hosts of believers, conquered because He said ‘I will put my trust in Him’; and He has left us the same weapon for ours, that we, too, may conquer. ‘This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.’ III. Lastly, we have our Lord’s manhood represented here as the means by which He brings us into a family of sons. ‘And again, behold, I and the children which God hath given Me.’ These words come from the immediate neighbourhood of the last quotation. In their original application the prophet regards his own family, and the little knot of disciples who had been drawn to him, as being associated with him in his prophetic office, set for ‘signs and wonders,’ and the salt of the nation, which without them was rotting to dissolution. So our writer sees in the prophet’s humility, which associates in his office, and admits to its prerogatives, the children to whom he had given natural life, and the little ones who through him had received spiritual life, the dim foreshadowing of that great Saviour who by His becoming our Brother, makes us God’s children. For it is to be noticed that the unity referred to in the word ‘children,’ in this last quotation, does, not apply to the same sphere as the unity referred to in the former word ‘brethren’ ‘Brethren’ referred to the kindred which consisted of the common possession of humanity; ‘children’ refers to the kindred, consisting in the common possession of spiritual life. Thus, in this last quotation of our text we have presented the other side of Christ’s Incarnation and its effects. Here we have to deal, not so much with His becoming us, as with our becoming like Him. The words open out into thoughts which I can only specify without attempting to enlarge upon them. Jesus Christ has become our Brother, that from Him we may each of us draw a life, stored in Him, though having its source in God, which will make us His brethren, and God’s children. The central blessing of the gospel is the communication to every trustful heart of an actual divine life which comes from Christ. Do not be satisfied with any more superficial conception of what God gives us in His Son than this, that He gives us a spark of Himself, that He comes into us through Christ, and bestows upon our deadness a real, mystical, spiritual life, which will unfold itself in forms worthy of its kindred, and like unto its source. For that gift of the life there is more than Incarnation needed. There is Crucifixion needed. The death of Death by death gives Death his death; and then, and then only, can He give us who were dead His life. The box must be broken, though it be alabaster very precious, that through its lustrous surface there may shine lambent the light of the indwelling spirit; the body must be broken, that the house may be filled with the odor of the ointment. Christ dies and life escapes from Him as it were, and passes into the world. That life is a life of sonship. The children are God’s children, being Christ’s brethren. They are brought into a new unity; and the one foundation of true brotherhood amongst men is the common possession of a common relation to the One Divine Father. And that life which leads thus to sonship leads likewise to a marvellous participation in the offices, functions and relations of the Christ who bestows it. Just as the prophet gathered his children and disciples into a family, and gave them to partake in his prophetic office, in his relation to God, and to the world, so Christ gathers us into oneness with Himself; having become like us, He makes us like Him and invests us with a similar relationship to the Father. Being the Son, He gives us the adoption of sons, and lays upon our shoulders the responsibilities and the honours of a similar relation to the world, making us kindled ‘lights’ derived from Himself the fontal source, making us, in our measure and degree, sons of God and Messiahs for the world. This oneness of life – which thus leads to a participation in sonship, an identity of function, and of interest – remains for ever. If we love and trust Christ, He will never leave us until He ‘presents us faultless before the presence of His glory, with exceeding joy.’ So, dear friends, it all comes to this; there is one way to know God and only one. ‘He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.’ All else is darkness. There is one life, noble, pure, worthy of humanity, and only one: the life of trust in Christ, who is at once the object and pattern of our faith; and believing in whom we believe in the Father also. There is but one fountain of life opened in the graveyard of this world, and that is in the Son, drinking of whom there shall be in us a fountain springing up to life everlasting. There is but one way by which we can become sons of God, through the elder Brother, who grudges the prodigal neither the ring nor the feast, but Himself has provided them both. So listen to Him declaring the name; say, ‘I will put my trust in Him’; for you trust God when you have faith in Christ; and then be sure that He will give you of His own life; that He will invest you with the spirit of adoption and the standing of sons, that He will keep His hand about you, and never lose you. ‘Them whom Thou hast given Me, I have kept,’ He will say at last, pointing to us; and there we shall stand, ‘no wanderer lost, a family in Heaven,’ whilst our brother presents us to His Father and ours, with the triumphant words –
‘ Behold I and all the children whom Thou hast given Me.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
One. i.e. God.
brethren. The Lord’s condescension does not justify the irreverence of calling Him our “elder Brother”.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
11-13.] The connexion with the foregoing cannot be made plain, till we have discussed the meaning of below. It may suffice to say, that the assertion, and the quotations, are subordinate to the in Heb 2:10.
For both the Sanctifier and (notice the -, which bind closely together in one category) the sanctified (both the participles are in their official substantival sense, as , and the like. The imperfection of our passive in English prevents our accurately expressing a present passive participle: they that are being sanctified is perhaps, though we are obliged sometimes to use it, hardly allowable English. The word (see reff.) signifies in LXX and N. T. usage the selecting out and adopting for Gods service. It is not here, as Bleek infers, = , but as every where, when used in allusion to Christs work on His people, involves that transforming and consecrating process, of which His Spirit is the actual agent. Hence, believers are ordinarily not , but , as here: the difference being, as may be traced in reff., that where their present state is spoken of, the participle is present: where Gods purpose respecting them, and Christs finished work, the perfect. Sanctification is glory working in embryo: glory is sanctification come to the birth and manifested.
It is disputed whether the reference of these words is to be considered as general, applying to every case of sanctifier and sanctified, as, e. g., the priest and the people under the old law (so Schlichting, Schttgen, al.), the firstfruits and the remaining harvest (so Cappellus): or is to be restricted to Christ and His people alone. Certainly the latter seems to be required by the context, and most of all by the assumption of the subject in the next clause tacitly as contained in . The ground on which Christ is our Sanctifier has also been variously alleged. Grotius leaves the connexion very loose, when he says, Christus nos sanctos facit doctrina sua et exemplo. Ille ex Spiritu sancto conceptus est, et nos per Spiritum sanctum novam adipiscimur naturam; ita communem habemus originem. But this obviously does not reach the depth of the following argument, see especially Heb 2:17; and we must believe that there is a reference to the expiatory death of Christ: see also ch. Heb 10:10; Heb 10:14, and more in the note there) (are) of one (, as will be seen by the usage in reff., must be taken as masculine; not with Carpzov, Abresch, al., supplied by or , nor understood ex communi massa, with Cappellus, al.,-ex una natura, Calv.,-nor puritatem conditionis spiritalis, as Cameron, similarly Corn.-a-lapide. And if masculine, what are we to supply? Erasm. (par.), Beza, Estius (as an altern.), Hofmann, al. say, Adam: Bengel (whose note is well worth consulting), Peirce, al., Abraham. But it seems far better and simpler here, on account of the above, and as satisfying fully the force of , to understand God to be meant. So all the patristic Commentators, and almost all the recent ones, including Delitzsch: most of them however giving it the very wide sense of ref. 1 Cor. , , which is referred to here by Chrys.,-(and so Thdrt., , ). But this can hardly be. For the argument in this particular place is not to shew by what means, viz. by becoming man, Christ made men into sons,-but, that sonship of Himself and them towards the Father having been predicated, to justify the use of the common term. And thus we are driven to a sense of commensurate with , by which word the Writer takes it up again. So that it is not here the mere physical unity of all men with Christ which is treated, but the further and higher spiritual unity of the and the , as evinced by his speaking of them. The same is plain from Heb 2:14 below: see there. So that it is the higher Sonship of God, common to the Lord and those whom the Father by Him is leading to glory, which must be understood. See Joh 8:47; 1Jn 3:10; 1Jn 4:6; 1Jn 5:19; 3Jn 1:11.
Note, that the point brought out here is not that the holiness of our Lords human nature, and our holiness, are both of one, viz. the Father (Joh 10:36): which, however true, would be introducing a matter not belonging to the argument here), all (of them) (after the -, forms a sort of pleonastic repetition; but comes with considerable force. On account of the -, it is quite impossible, with Bengel, al., to confine the to the only: and his argument,-utrosque, dicturus, si sanctificantem , omnes, includeret,-goes for nothing: the being not set over against the as a second class, but thought of in their multitudinous distinctness as individuals. The connexion with Heb 2:10 will now be plain: was the right expression to use of those who are brought to glory, for they are of the same divine stock-have the same heavenly Father as their , the one proper Son of God. And this will be now illustrated by His own words: on which account (reff. especially 2 Tim., Tit.: viz. because they are all of one) He (Christ: see above) is not ashamed (see ref. ; , , , , Chrys.) to call them ( ) brethren (the Commentators quote from Philo de Septenario, 8, vol. ii. p. 284, (scil. ) , ), saying, I will declare (LXX, ) thy name to my brethren, in the midst of the assembly will I sing of thee (it will be sufficient to refer, respecting the general sense and prophetic import of Psalms 22, to what has been before said, on Psalms 8 (above, Heb 2:6), and on similar citations elsewhere. The Psalm was originally the expression of a suffering saint, in all probability David, communing with his God: laying forth to Him his anguish, and finally triumphing in confidence of His gracious help and deliverance. But by the mouth of such servants of God did the prophetic Spirit speak forth His intimations respecting the Redeemer to come. No word prompted by the Holy Ghost had reference to the utterer only. All Israel was a type: all spiritual Israel set forth the second Man, the quickening spirit: all the groanings of Gods suffering people prefigured, and found their fullest meaning in, His groans, who was the chief in suffering. The maxim cannot be too firmly held, nor too widely applied, that all the O. T. utterances of the Spirit anticipate Christ, just as all His N. T. utterances set forth and expand Christ: that Christ is every where involved in the O. T., as He is every where evolved in the N. T. And this Psalm holds an illustrious place among those which thus point onward to Christ. Its opening cry, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? was uttered by the Lord Himself in His last agony. The most minute particulars detailed in it are by the Evangelists adduced as exemplified in the history of His Passion: see e. g. (Mat 27:35 rec.) Joh 19:24. And, as Bleek well observes, the particulars chosen out of that history by St. Matthew seem to have been selected with an especial view to the illustration and fulfilment of this Psalm. Ebrard, in his note here, insists on the authorship of the Psalm by David, and on its date, as belonging to the time of his persecution by Saul. Then he maintains the exact parallelism of the circumstances with those of the second and greater David, and refers the here to the countrymen of David, who were hereafter to be his subjects. I have no positive objection to this view. Subordinately to the deeper and wider one, it might be applicable in individual instances: but that other seems to me both safer and nearer the truth. See especially on the Psalm, Delitzsch, h. l.
The particular verse here chosen, the 22nd, forms the transition-point from the suffering to the triumphant portion of the Psalm: and consequently the resolution expressed in it by the Messiah has reference to His triumphant state, in which he is still not ashamed to call his people brethren. It is characteristic of the object of this Epistle with reference to its intended readers, that whereas the Writer might have cited two instances as matters of fact, in which our Lord did call His disciples brethren after His resurrection (see Joh 20:17; Mat 28:10), yet he has not done so, but has preferred to establish his point by O. T. citations).
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Heb 2:11. , for) The closest relationship was the reason why it was becoming that Jesus should not be made perfect (consummated) without us.- , He that sanctifieth) Christ, ch. Heb 13:12. Christ is called He that sanctifieth, on account of that whole benefit, viz. that He by Himself makes us holy, i.e. divine [belonging to God].- , they who are sanctified) the people, ch. Heb 10:10; Heb 10:14; Heb 10:29. To sanctify, to bring to God, to be sanctified, to be brought to GOD, to draw near, to have access, are synonymous. He who sanctifies was begotten by the Father, and appointed the Sanctifier; they who are sanctified, are those created by God and appointed to receive sanctification; comp. , The children whom God hath given me, Heb 2:13. This is the origin of His brotherhood (with us), and of His communion with flesh and blood (Heb 2:14).- , of one) that , one, is Abraham, as Mal 2:15; Isa 51:2; Eze 33:24. All men are of one, Adam; all the descendants of Abraham are of one, Abraham. In this whole passage, Paul, writing to the descendants of Abraham, accommodates his discourse to them apart, Heb 2:16-17, Heb 8:12; as also in Psalms 22, which is here quoted, ver. 12, the writer is speaking of Israel, ver. 22, etc., but of the Gentiles, ver. 25-31; and the whole of the subsequent discussion respecting the priesthood and sacrifices is chiefly suited to the comprehension of the Hebrews. Wherefore, this epistle will at some time contribute much to the salvation of Israel. If this one meant God, the angels should be included, who are put away at Heb 2:16.-, all) This is construed with , who are sanctified; for he says , all; he would have said both, if he intended to include Him that sanctifies in the , all.- ) He is not ashamed, whereas, but for this cause (that they are of Abraham, who is considered not as a sinner, as in need of salvation, but as the common ancestor, as he who had received the promise), there might have been many things for which he might be ashamed [to call them brethren]; for, far from being holy, we had been exceedingly guilty, Heb 2:14-15 : yet He is not ashamed; nay, He accounts it a glorious thing to Himself, because of the holiness and glory unto which He has brought us. It becomes God to have such sons restored to Him. Christ is not ashamed of such brethren; comp. God is not ashamed, ch. Heb 11:16, note.-) to call, to declare by calling.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
The great reason and ground of the necessity of the sufferings of Christ bath been declared. It became God that he should suffer. But it doth not yet appear on what grounds this suffering of his could be profitable or beneficial unto the sons to be brought unto glory. It was the sinner himself against whom the law denounced the judgment of death; and although the Lord Christ, undertaking to be a captain of salvation unto the sons of God, might be willing to suffer for them, yet what reason is there that the punishment of one should be accepted for the sin of another? Let it be granted that the Lord Christ had an absolute and sovereign power over his own life and all the concernments of it, in the nature which he assumed, as also that he was willing to undergo any sufferings that God should call him unto; this, indeed, will acquit the justice of God in giving him up unto death, but whence is it that sinners should come to be so interested in these things as thereon to be acquitted from sin and brought unto glory? In these verses the apostle enters upon a discovery of the reasons hereof also. He supposeth, indeed, that there was a compact and agreement between the Father and Son in this matter; which he afterwards expressly treateth on, chapter 10. He supposeth, also, that in his sovereign authority, God had made a relaxation of the law as to the person suffering, though not as to the penalty to be suffered; which God abundantly declared unto the church of the Jews in all their sacrifices, as we shall manifest. These things being supposed, the apostle proceeds to declare the grounds of the equity of this substitution of Christ in the room of the sons, and of their advantage by his suffering, the proposition whereof he lays down in these verses, and the especial application in those that ensue.
Heb 2:11-13. , , . v .
There is no variety in the reading of these words in any copies, nor do translators differ in rendering, the sense of them. The Syriac renders the last testimony as if the words were spoken unto God, Behold I and the children , whom thou hast given unto me, O God. The Ethiopic, Wherefore they who sanctify and they who are sanctified are altogether; to what purpose I cannot guess.
is used in this epistle both in the legal sense of it, to separate, consecrate, dedicate; and in the evangelical, to purify, sanctify, to make internally and really holy. It seems in this place to be used in the latter sense, though it includes the former also, , by just consequence, for they who are sanctified are separated unto God. The word, then, expresseth what the Lord Christ doth unto and for the sons as he is the captain of their salvation. He consecrates them unto God, through the sanctification of the Spirit, and washing in his own blood.
. It may be of the masculine gender, and so denote one person; or of the neuter, and so one thing, one mass, one common principle; whereof afterwards.
The first testimony is taken from Psa 22:23, ; which the LXX. render , . The first word, , narrabo, annunciabo, the apostle renders by , more properly than they by . In the rest of the words there is a coincidence, the original being expressly rendered in them. For though , be rendered simply to praise, yet its most frequent use, when respecting God as its object, is to praise by hymns or psalms; as the apostle here, , Tibi hymnos canam, or, Te hymnis celebrabo, I will sing hymns unto thee, or praise thee with hymns: which was the principal way of setting forth Gods praise under the old testament.
It is not certain whence the second testimony is taken. Some suppose it to be from Isa 8:17, from whence the last also is cited. The words of the prophet there, , are rendered by the LXX. , the words here used by the apostle. But there are sundry things that will not allow us to close with this supposal: First, the original is not rightly rendered by the LXX., and, as we shall see, the apostles words do exactly express the original in another place. Besides, is never but in this place and once more turned into by the LXX., but is constantly rendered by them , or : so that it is not improbable but that these words might be inserted into the Greek text out of this place of the apostle, there being some presumptions and likelihoods that it was the place intended by him, especially because the next testimony used by the apostle consists in the words immediately ensuing these in the prophet. But yet that yields another reason against this supposition; for if the apostle continued on the words of the prophet, to what end should he insert in the midst of them that constant note of proceeding unto another testimony, , and again, especially considering that the whole testimony speaks to the same purpose?
We shall, then, refer these words unto Psa 18:3, ; which the LXX. render, , I will hope in him; the apostle more properly, , I will put my trust in him. And that that psalm had respect unto the Lord Christ and his kingdom our apostle showeth elsewhere, by citing another testimony out of it concerning the calling of the Gentiles, Rom 15:9; nor was the latter part of the psalm properly fulfilled in David at all.
The last testimony is, unquestionably taken out of Isa 8:18, where the words are, ; and rendered by the LXX., as here by the apostle, . is properly nati, , or , those that are begotten or born of any one, whilst they are in their tender age. But it may be rendered by , as it is by the LXX., Gen 30:26; Gen 32:23; Gen 33:1-2, which is children in a larger sense. [5]
[5] EXPOSITION. , according to Ebrard, refers neither to sanctification nor to justification, as such, but to the total change in their relation to God whichtakes place in the members of the new covenant, in opposition to the relation of the natural man to God. , of one; that is, Father. Macknight, De Wette, Conybeare and Howson, Tholuck, Ebrard, etc. TRANSLATIONS. . Both the purifier and the purified. Scholefield. He that atoneth, and they that are atoned for. Turner. He who maketh expiation, and they for whom expiation is made. Stuart. , literally, who are in the process of sanctification. Conybeare and Howson. ED.
Heb 2:11-13. 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, 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.
The words contain,
First, A further description of the captain of salvation, and the sons to be brought unto glory by him, mentioned in the verse foregoing, taken from his office and work towards them, and the effect thereof upon them, He that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified; which is the subject of the first proposition in these words.
Secondly, An assertion concerning them, They are all of one.
Thirdly, A natural consequence of that assertion, which includes also the scope and design of it, He is not ashamed to call them brethren. Fourthly, The confirmation hereof by a triple testimony from the Old Testament
First, He describes the captain of salvation and the sons to be brought unto glory by their mutual relation to one another in sanctification. He is , he that sanctifieth; and they are , they that are sanctified. That it is the Son, the captain of salvation, that is intended by the sanctifier, both what the apostle affirms immediately of him and them, and the ensuing testimonies whereby he confirms it, do make evident. And as in the verse foregoing, giving an account why God would have Christ to suffer, he describes him by that property of his nature which includes a necessity of his so doing; so here, setting forth the causes on our part of that suffering, and the grounds of our advantage thereby, he expresseth him and the children by those terms which manifest their relation unto one another, and which they could not have stood in had they not been of the same nature, as he afterwards declares. Now, the same word being here used actively and passively, it must in both places be understood in the same sense, the one expressing the effect of the other. As Christ sanctifies, so are the children sanctified. And the act of Christ which is here intended is that which he did for the sons, when he suffered for them according to Gods appointment, as Heb 2:10. Now, as was said before, to sanctify is either to separate and to dedicate unto sacred use, or to purify and make really holy; which latter sense is here principally intended. Thus, when the apostle speaks of the effects of the offering of Christ for the elect, he distinguisheth between their , or consummation, and their , or sanctification: Heb 10:14, . By one offering he consummated(or perfected) the sanctified. First, he sanctifieth them, and then dedicates them unto God, so that they shall never more need any initiation into his favor and service. This work was the captain of salvation designed unto. The children that were to be brought unto glory being in themselves unclean and unholy, and on that account, separated from God, he was to purge their natures and to make them holy, that they might be admitted into the favor of and find acceptance with God. And for the nature of this work, two things must be considered: first, The impetration of it, or the way and means whereby he obtained this sanctification for them; and, secondly, The application of that means, or real effecting of it. The first consisteth in the sufferings of Christ and the merit thereof. Hence we are so often said to be sanctified and washed in his blood, Eph 5:25; Act 20:32; Rev 1:5; and his blood is said to cleanse us from all our sins, 1Jn 1:7. As it was shed for us, he procured, by the merit of his obedience therein, that those for whom it was shed should be purged and purified, Tit 2:14. The other consists in the effectual working of the Spirit of grace, communicated unto us by virtue of the blood-shedding and sufferings of Christ, as the apostle declares, Tit 3:4-6. And they who place this sanctification merely on the doctrine and example of Christ (as Grotius on this place), besides that they consider not at all the design and scope of the place, so they reject the principal end and the most blessed effect of the death and blood-shedding of the Lord Jesus. Now, in this description of the captain of salvation and of the sons, the apostle intimates a further necessity of his sufferings, because they were to be sanctified by him, which could no otherwise be done but by his death and blood- shedding. Having many things to observe from these verses, we shall take them up as they offer themselves unto us in our procedure; as here,
I. That all the children which are to be brought unto glory, antecedently unto their relation unto the Lord Christ, are polluted, defiled, separate from God.
They are all to be sanctified by him, both as to their real purification and their consecration to be Gods hallowed portion. This, for many blessed ends, the Scripture abundantly instructs us in: Tit 3:3, We ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. A most wretched, defiled, and loathsome condition, that which justly might be an abhorrency to God and all his holy angels! and such, indeed, God describes it to be by his prophet: Eze 16:5-6,
Thou wast polluted in thy blood; and cast out in the open field, to the loathing of thy person.
Thus we were, saith the apostle; even we, who are now sanctified and cleansed by the means which he afterwards relates. The like description he gives of this estate, 1Co 6:11, with an assertion of the same delivery from it. We are naturally very proud, apt to please ourselves in ourselves; to think of nothing less than of being polluted or defiled, or at least not so far but that we can wash ourselves. What a hard thing is it to persuade the great men of the world, in the midst of their ornaments, paintings, and perfumes, that they are all over vile, leprous, loathsome, and defiled! Are they not ready to wash themselves in the blood of them who intimate any such thing unto them? But whether men will hear or forbear, this is the condition of all men, even of the sons of God themselves, before they are washed and sanctified by Christ Jesus. And as this sets out the infinite love of God in taking notice of such vile creatures as we are, and the unspeakable condescension of the Lord Christ, with the efficacy of his grace in cleansing us by his blood, so it is sufficient to keep us humble in ourselves, and thankful unto God all our days.
II. That the Lord Christ is the great sanctifier of the church. His title is , the sanctifier; of which more afterwards. The Lord Christ, the captain of our salvation, sanctifies every son whom he brings unto glory.
He will never glorify an unsanctified person. The world, indeed, is full of an expectation of glory by Christ; but of that which is indispensably previous thereunto they have no regard. But this the Scripture gives us as a principal effect of the whole mediation of Christ; of his death, Eph 5:26; Tit 2:14; of his communication of his word and Spirit, Joh 17:19; Tit 3:5-6; of his blood-shedding in an especial manner, 1Jn 1:7; Rom 6:5-6; Rev 1:5; of his life in heaven and intercession for us, Col 3:1-3. This he creates his people unto by his grace, Eph 2:8, excites them unto by his promises and commands, 2Co 7:1, Joh 15:16-17. So that no end of the mediation of Christ is accomplished in them who are not sanctified and made holy. And this was necessary for him to do, on the part,
1. Of God;
2. Of himself;
3. Of themselves.
1. Of God, unto whom they are to be brought in glory. He is holy, of purer eyes than to behold evil, no unclean thing can stand in his presence; holy in his nature, glorious in holiness; holy in his commands, and will be sanctified in all that draw nigh unto him. And this Peter urgeth as that which requires holiness in us, 1Pe 1:15-16,
As he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy.
And thence it is said that holiness becometh his house, that is, all that draw nigh unto him; and the apostle sets it down as an uncontrollable maxim, that without holiness no man shall see the Lord. If the Lord Christ, then, will bring the children unto God, he must make them holy, or they can have no admittance into his presence, no acceptance with him; for no unclean thing, nothing that defileth, can enter into the new Jerusalem, the place where his holiness dwelleth. It is utterly impossible that any soul not washed with the blood of Christ, not sanctified by his Spirit and grace, should stand in the sight of God. And this was expressed in all the typical institutions about cleansing which God appointed unto his people of old. He did it to teach them that unless they were sanctified, washed, and cleansed from their sins, they could be admitted unto no communion with him nor enjoyment of him. Neither can any serve him here unless their consciences be purged by the blood of Christ from dead works; nor can they come to him hereafter, unless they are washed from all their defilements. Their services here he rejects as an unclean and polluted thing; and their confidences for the future he despiseth as a presumptuous abomination. God will not divest himself of his holiness, that he may receive or be enjoyed by unholy creatures. And the day is coming wherein poor unsanctified creatures, who think they may miss holiness in the way to glory, shall cry out, Who amongst us shall inhabit with those everlasting burnings? for so will he appear unto all unsanctified persons.
2. Of himself, and the relation whereinto he takes these sons with himself. He is their head, and they are to be members of his body. Now, he is holy, and so must they be also, or this relation will be very unsuitable and uncomely. 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. Nay, it would overthrow the whole nature of that relation, and take away the life and power of that union that Christ and his are brought into as head and members; for whereas it consists in this, that the whole head and members are animated, quickened, and acted by one and the self-same Spirit of life, nor doth any thing else give union between head and members, if they be not sanctified by that Spirit, there can be no such relation between them. Again, he takes them unto himself to be his bride and spouse. Now, you know that it was appointed of old, that if any one would take up a captive maid to be his wife, she was to shave her head, and pare her nails, and wash herself, that she might be meet for him. And the Lord Christ taking this bride unto himself, by the conquest he hath made of her, must by sanctification make them meet for this relation with himself. And therefore he doth it: Eph 5:25-27,
Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
This it became him to do, this was the end why he did it: he sanctifieth his church that he may present it a meet bride or spouse unto himself. The like may be said of all other relations wherein the Lord Christ stands unto his people; there is no one of them but makes their sanctification absolutely necessary.
3. On the part of the children themselves; for unless they are regenerate, or born again, wherein the foundation of their sanctification is laid, they can by no means enter into the kingdom of God. It is this that makes them meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. As without it they are not meet for their duty, so are they not capable of their reward. Yea, heaven itself, in the true light and notion of it, is undesirable unto an unsanctified person. Such a one neither can nor would enjoy God if he might. In a word, there is no one thing required of the sons of God that an unsanctified person can do, no one thing promised unto them that he can enjoy.
There is surely, then, a woeful mistake in the world. If Christ sanctifies all whom he saves, many will appear to have been mistaken in their expectations another day. It is grown amongst us almost an abhorrency unto all flesh, to say that the church of God is to be holy. What though God hath promised that it should be so, and Christ hath undertaken to make it so? what if it be required to be so? what if all the duties of it be rejected of God if it be not so? it is all one. If men be baptized whether they will or no, and outwardly profess the name of Christ, though not one of them be truly sanctified, yet they are, as it is said, the church of Christ. Why, then, let them be so; but what are they the better for it? Are their persons or their services therefore accepted with God? are they related or. united unto Christ? are they under his conduct unto glory? are they meet for the inheritance of the saints in light? Not at all; not all, not any of these things do they obtain thereby. What is it, then, that they get by the furious contest which they make for the reputation of this privilege? Only this, that satisfying their minds by it, resting if not priding themselves in it, they obtain many advantages to stifle all convictions of their condition, and so perish unavoidably. A sad success, and for ever to be bewailed! Yet is there nothing at this day more contended for in this world than that Christ might be thought to be a captain of salvation unto them unto whom he is not a sanctifier, that he may have an unholy church, a dead body. These things tend neither to the glory of Christ, nor to the good of the souls of men. Let none, then, deceive themselves: sanctification is a qualification indispensably necessary unto them who will be under the conduct of the Lord Christ unto salvation, he will lead none to heaven but whom he sanctities on the earth. The holy God will not receive unholy persons; this living head will not admit of dead members, nor bring men into the possession of a glory which they neither love nor like.
Secondly, Having given this description of the captain of salvation and of the sons to be brought unto glory, the apostle affirms of them that they are , of one ; which made it meet for him to suffer and for them to be made partakers of his sufferings. The equity hereof lies in the agreement, that he and they are of one; which what it is we must now inquire.
1. The word hath this ambiguity in it, that it may be of the masculine gender, and denote one person, or of the neuter, and signify one thing. If it relate unto the person, it may have a double interpretation:
(1.) That it is God who is intended. They are all of one; that is, God. And this may be spoken in several respects, The Son was of him by eternal generation; the many sons, by temporal creation, they were made by him. Or, they are all of him: he ordained him to be the sanctifier, them to be sanctified; him to be the captain of salvation, and them to be brought unto glory. And this sense the last testimony produced by the apostle seems to give countenance unto: Behold I and the children which God hath given unto me; me to be their father, captain, leader; they to be the children to be cared for and conducted by me.And this way went most of the ancients in their exposition of this place. In this sense, the reason yielded by the apostle in these words why the captain of salvation should be made perfect by sufferings is, because the sons to be brought unto glory were also to suffer, and they were all of one, both he and they, even of God. But though these things are true, yet they contain not a full reason of what the apostle intends to prove by this assertion: for this interpretation allows no other relation to be expressed between Christ and the sons than what is between him and angels; they are also, with him, of one God. And yet the apostle afterwards showeth that there was another union and relation between Christ and the elect needful, that they might be saved by him, than any that was between him and angels. And if nothing be intimated but the good pleasure of God appointing him to be a Savior and them to be saved, because they were all of himself, of one God, which was sufficient to make that appointment just and righteous, then is here nothing asserted to prove the meetness of Christ to be a Savior unto men and not to angels, which yet the apostle in the following verses expressly deduceth from hence.
(2.) If it respect a person, it may be ex uno homine, of one man; that is, of Adam. They are all of one common root and stock, he and they came all of one, Adam. Unto him is the genealogy of Christ referred by Luke. And as a common stock of our nature he is often called the one, the one man, Romans 5. And this, for the substance of it, falls in with what will be next considered.
2. It may be taken in the neuter sense, and denote one thing. And so also it may receive a double interpretation:
(1.) It may denote the same mass of human nature. , of one and the same mass of human nature; or, . So it is said of all mankind that God made them , of one blood,
Act 17:26, of one common principle; which gives an alliance, cognation, and brotherhood, unto the whole race of mankind. As the making of all mankind by one God gives them all a relation unto him, as saith the apostle, We are also his offspring; so their being made of one blood gives them a brotherhood among themselves, See Act 14:15. And this interpretation differs not, in the substance of it, from that last preceding, inasmuch as the whole mass of human nature had its existence in the person of Adam; only it refers not the oneness mentioned formally unto his person, but unto the nature itself whereof he was made partaker. And this sense the apostle further explains, Act 14:14; as he also observes it, Rom 9:5. (2.) By one, some understand the same spiritual nature, the principle of spiritual life which is in Christ the head, and the children his members. And this, they say, is that which is their peculiar oneness, or being of one, seeing all wicked men, even reprobates, are of the same common mass of human nature as well as the children. But yet this is not satisfactory. It is true, indeed, that after the children are really sanctified, they are of one and the same spiritual nature with their head, 1Co 12:12, and hereby are they differenced from all others: but the apostle here treats of their being so of one that he might be meet to suffer for them; which is antecedent unto their being sanctified, as the cause is unto the effect. Neither is it of any weight that the reprobates are partakers of the same common nature with the children, seeing the Lord Christ partook of it only on the childrens account, as 1Co 12:14; and of their nature he could not be partaker without being partaker of that which was common to them all, seeing that of one blood God made all nations under heaven. But the bond of nature itself is, in the covenant, reckoned only unto them that shall be sanctified.
It is, then, one common nature that is here intended. He and they are of the same nature, of one mass, of one blood. And hereby he came to be meet to suffer for them, and they to be in a capacity of enjoying the benefit of his sufferings; which how it answers the whole design of the apostle in this place doth evidently appear. First, he intends to show that the Lord Christ was meet to suffer for the children; and this arose from hence, that he was of the same nature with them, as he afterwards at large declares. And he was meet to sanctify them by his sufferings, as in this verse he intimates. For as in an offering made unto the Lord of the first-fruits, of meat or of meal, a parcel of the same nature with the whole was taken and offered, whereby the whole was sanctified, Leviticus 2; so the Lord Jesus Christ being taken as the first-fruits of the nature of the children, and offered unto God, the whole lump, or the whole nature of man in the children, that is, all the elect, is separated unto God, and effectually sanctified in their season. And this gives the ground unto all the testimonies which the apostle produceth unto his purpose out of the Old Testament; for being thus of one nature with them, he is not ashamed to call them brethren, as he proves from Psalms 22. For although it be true, that, as brethren is a term of spiritual cognation and love, he calls them not so until they are made partakers of his Spirit, and of the same spiritual nature that is in him, yet the first foundation of this appellation lies in his participation of the same nature with them; without which, however he might love them, he could not properly call them brethren. Also, his participation of their nature was that which brought him into such a condition as wherein it was needful for him to put his trust in God, and to look for deliverance from him in a time of danger; which the apostle proves in the second place by a testimony out of Psalms 18 : which could not in any sense have been said of Christ had he not been partaker of that nature, which is exposed unto all kinds of wants and troubles, with outward straits and oppositions, which the nature of angels is not. And as his being thus of one with us made him our brother, and placed him in that condition with us wherein it was necessary for him to put his trust in God for deliverance; so being the principal head and first- fruits of our nature, and therein the author and finisher of our salvation, he is a father unto us, and we are his children: which the apostle proveth by his last testimony from Isaiah 8, Behold I and the children which the Lord hath given unto me. And further, upon the close of these testimonies, the apostle assumes again his proposition, and asserts it unto the same purpose, Isa 8:14, showing in what sense he and the children were of one, namely, in their mutual participation of flesh and blood.
And thus this interpretation of the word will sufficiently bear the whole weight of the apostles argument and inferences. But if any one list to extend the word further, and to comprise in it the manifold relation that is between Christ and his members, I shall not contend about it. There may be in it,
1. Their being of one God, designing him and them to be one mystical body, one church, he the head, they the members;
2. Their taking into one covenant, made originally with him, and exemplified in them;
3. Their being of one common principle of human nature;
4. Designed unto a manifold spiritual union in respect of that new nature which the children receive from him; with every other thing that concurs to serve the union and relation between them. But that which we have insisted on is principally intended, and to be so considered by us. And we might teach from hence, that,
III. The agreement of Christ and the elect in one common nature is the foundation of his fitness to be an undertaker on their behalf, and of the equity of their being made partakers of the benefits of his mediation, but that this will occur unto us again more fully, Isa 8:14.
And by all this doth the apostle discover unto the Hebrews the unreasonableness of their offense at the afflicted condition and sufferings of the Messiah. He had minded them of the work that he had to do; which was, to save his elect by a spiritual and eternal salvation: he had also intimated what was their condition by nature; wherein they were unclean, unsanctified, separate from God: and withal had made known what the justice of God, as the supreme governor and judge of all, required that sinners might be saved. He now minds them of the union that was between him and them, whereby he became fit to suffer for them, as that they might enjoy the blessed effects thereof in deliverance and salvation.
Thirdly, The apostle lays down an inference from his preceding assertion, in these words, For which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren. In which words we have,
1. The respect of that which is here affirmed unto the assertion foregoing: For which cause.
2. The thing itself affirmed; which is, that the Lord Christ calls the sons to be brought unto glory his brethren.
3. The manner of his so doing: He is not ashamed to call them so. And herein also the apostle, according to his wonted way of proceeding, which we have often observed, makes a transition towards somewhat else which he had in design, namely, the prophetical office of Christ, as we shall see afterwards.
For which cause, that is, because they are of one, partakers of one common nature, he calls them brethren. This gives a rightful foundation unto that appellation. Hereon is built that relation which is between him and them. It is true, there is more required to perfect the relation of brotherhood between him and them than merely their being of one; but it is so far established from hence that he was meet to suffer for them, to sanctify and save them. And without this there could have been no such relation. Now, his calling of them brethren doth both declare that they are so, and also that he owns them and avouches them as such. But whereas it may be said, that although they are thus of one in respect of their common nature, yet upon sundry other accounts he is so glorious, and they are so vile and miserable, that he might justly disavow this cognation, and reject them as strangers, the apostle tells us it is otherwise, and that, passing by all other distances between them, and setting aside the consideration of their unworthiness, for which he might justly disavow them, and remembering wherefore he was of one with them, he is not ashamed to call them brethren. There may be ; in the words, and the contrary asserted to that which is denied: He is not ashamed; that is, willingly, cheerfully, and readily he doth it. But I rather look upon it as an expression of condescension and love. And herein doth the apostle show the use of what he taught before, that they were of one, namely, that thereby they became brethren, he meet to suffer for them, and they meet to be saved by him. What in all this the apostle confirms by the ensuing testimonies, we shall see in the explication of them; in the meantime we may learn for our own instruction,
IV. That notwithstanding the union of nature which is between the Son of God incarnate, the sanctifier, and the children that are to be sanctified, there is in respect of their persons an inconceivable distance between them; so that it is a marvellous condescension in him to call them brethren.
He is not ashamed to call them so, though, considering what himself is and what they are, it should seem that he might justly be so. The same expression, for the like reasons, is used concerning Gods owning his people in covenant, Heb 11:16, Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God. And this distance between Christ and us, which makes his condescension so marvellous, relates unto a fourfold head;
1. The immunity of the nature wherein he was of one with us in his person from all sin. He was made like unto us in all things, sin excepted. The nature of man in every other individual person is defiled with and debased by sin. We are every one gone astray, and are become all together filthy or abominable. This sets us at no small distance from him. Human nature defiled with sin is farther distanced from the same nature as pure and holy, in worth and excellency, than the meanest worm is from the most glorious angel. Nothing but sin casts the creature out of its own place, and puts it into another distance from God than it hath by being a creature. This is a debasement unto hell, as the prophet speaks: Thou didst debase thyself even unto hell, Isa 57:9. And therefore the condescension of God unto us in Christ is set out by his regarding of us when we were enemies unto him, Rom 5:10; that is, whilst we were sinners, as Rom 5:8. This had cast us into hell itself, at the most inconceivable distance from him. Yet this hindered not him who was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, to own us as his brethren. He says not, with those proud hypocrites in the prophet, Stand farther off, I am holier than you; but he comes unto us, and takes us by the hand in his love, to deliver us from this condition.
2. We are in this nature obnoxious unto all miseries, in this world and that which is to come. Man now is born to trouble, all the trouble that sin can deserve or a provoked God inflict. His misery is great upon him, and that growing and endless. He, just in himself, free from all, obnoxious to nothing that was grievous or irksome, no more than the angels in heaven or Adam in paradise. Poena noxam sequitur; Punishment and trouble follow guilt only naturally. He did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; so that God was always well pleased with him. Whatever of hardship or difficulty he underwent, it was for us, and not for himself. Might not he have left us to perish in our condition, and freely enjoyed his own? We see how unapt those who are in prosperity, full and rich, are to take notice of their nearest relations in poverty, misery, and distress; and who among them would do so if it would cast them into the state of those who are already miserable? Yet so it did the Lord Christ. His calling us brethren, and owning of us, made him instantly obnoxious unto all the miseries the guilt whereof we had contracted upon ourselves. The owning of his alliance unto us cost him, as it were, all he was worth; for being rich, for our sakes he became poor. He came into the prison and into the furnace to own us. And this also renders his condescension marvellous.
3. He is inconceivably distanced from us in reject of that place and dignity which he was destined unto. This, as we have showed at large, was to be Lord of all, with absolute sovereign authority over the whole creation of God. We are poor abjects, who either have not bread to eat, or have no good right to eat that which we meet withal. Sin hath set the whole creation against us. And if Mephibosheth thought it a great condescension in David on his throne to take notice of him, being poor, who was yet the son of Jonathan, what is it in this King of kings to own us for brethren in our vile and low condition? Thoughts of his glorious exaltation will put a lustre on his condescension in this matter.
4. He is infinitely distanced from us in his person, in respect of his divine nature, wherein he is and was God over all, blessed for ever. He did not so become man as to cease to be God. Though he drew a veil over his infinite glory, yet he parted not with it. He who calls us brethren, who suffered for us, who died for us, was God still in all these things. The condescension of Christ in this respect the apostle in an especial manner insists upon and improves, Php 2:5-11. That he who in himself is thus over all, eternally blessed, holy, powerful, should take us poor worms of the earth into this relation with himself, and avow us for his brethren, as it is not easy to be believed, so it is for ever to be admired.
And these are some of the heads of that distance which is between Christ and us, notwithstanding his participation of the same nature with us. Yet such was his love unto us, such his constancy in the pursuit of the design and purpose of his Father in bringing many sons unto glory, that he overlooks as it were them all, and is not ashamed to call us brethren. And if he will do this because he is of one with us, because a foundation of this relation is laid in his participation of our nature, how much more will he continue so to do when he hath perfected this relation by the communication of his Spirit!
And this is a ground of unspeakable consolation unto believers, with supportment in every condition. No unworthiness in them, no misery upon them, shall ever hinder the Lord Christ from owning them, and openly avowing them to be his brethren. He is a brother born for the day of trouble, a Redeemer for the friendless and fatherless. Let their miseries be what they will, he will be ashamed of none but of them who are ashamed of him and his ways when persecuted and reproached. A little while will clear up great mistakes All the world shall see at the last day whom Christ will own; and it will be a great surprisal, when men shall hear him call them brethren whom they hated, and esteemed as the offscouring of all things. He doth it, indeed, already by his word; but they will not attend thereunto. But at the last day they shall both see and hear, whether they will or no. And herein, I say, lies the great consolation of believers. The world rejects them, it may be their own relations despise them, they are persecuted, hated, reproached; but the Lord Christ is not ashamed of them. He will not pass by them because they are poor and in rags, it may be, reckoned (as he himself was for them) among malefactors. They may see also the wisdom, grace, and love of God in this matter. His great design in the incarnation of his Son was to bring him into that condition wherein he might naturally care for them, as their brother; that he might not be ashamed of them, but be sensible of their wants, their state and condition in all things, and so be always ready and meet to relieve them. Let the world now take its course, and the men thereof do their worst; let Satan rage, and the powers of hell be stirred up against them; let them load them with reproaches and scorn, and cover them all over with the filth and dirt of their false imputations; let them bring them into rags, into dungeons, unto death ; Christ comes in the midst of all this confusion and says, Surely these are my brethren, the children of my Father,and he becomes their Savior. And this is a stable foundation of comfort and supportment in every condition. And are we not taught our duty also herein, namely, not to be ashamed of him or his gospel, or of any one that bears his image? The Lord Christ is now himself in that condition that even the worst of men esteem it an honor to own him: but indeed they are no less ashamed of him than they would have been when he was carrying his cross upon his shoulders or hanging upon the tree; for of every thing that he hath in this world they are ashamed. His gospel, his ways, his worship, his Spirit, his saints, they are all of them the objects of their scorn; and in these things it is that the Lord Christ may be truly honored or be despised. For those thoughts which men have of his present glory, abstracting from these things, he is not concerned in them; they are all exercised about an imaginary Christ, that is unconcerned in the word and Spirit of the Lord Jesus. These are the things wherein we are not to be ashamed of him. See Rom 1:16; 2Ti 1:16; 2Ti 4:16.
Fourthly, That which remaineth of these verses consisteth in the testimonies which the apostle produceth out of the Old Testament in the confirmation of what he had taught and asserted. And two things are to be considered concerning them, the end for which they are produced, and the especial importance of the words contained in them. The first he mentions is from Psa 22:22,
I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.
The end why the apostle produceth this testimony, is to confirm what he had said immediately before, namely, that with respect unto his being one with the children, Christ owns them for his brethren; for this he doth expressly in this place. And we are to take notice that the apostle in the use of these testimonies doth not observe any order, so that one of them should confirm one part, and another, another part of his assertion, in the order wherein he had laid them down. It sufficeth him that his whole intendment, in all the parts of it, is confirmed in and by them all, one having a more especial respect unto one part than another. In this first it is clear that he proves what he had immediately before affirmed, namely, that the Lord Christ owns the children for his brethren, because of their common interest in the same nature. And there needs nothing to evince the pertinency of this testimony but only to show that it is the Messiah which speaketh in that psalm, and whose words these are; which we have done fully already in our Prolegomena.
For the explication of the words themselves, we may consider the twofold act or duty that the Lord Christ takes upon himself in them; first, that he will declare the name of God unto his brethren; and, secondly, that he would celebrate him with praises in the congregation. In the former we must inquire what is meant by the name of God, and then how it is or was declared by Jesus Christ.
This expression, the name of God, is variously used. Sometimes it denotes the being of God, God himself; sometimes his attributes, his excellencies or divine perfections, some one or more of them. As it is proposed unto sinners as an object for their faith, trust, and love, it denotes in an especial manner his love, grace, and goodness, that in himself he is good, gracious, and merciful, Isa 50:10. And withal itintimates what God requires of them towards whom he is so good and gracious. This name of God is unknown to men by nature; so is the way and means whereby he will communicate his goodness and grace unto them. And this is the name of God here intended, which the Lord Jesus manifested unto the men given him out of the world, Joh 17:6; which is the same with his declaring the Father, whom no man hath seen at any time, Joh 1:18. This is that name of God which the Lord Jesus Christ had experience of in his sufferings, and the manifestation whereof unto his brethren he had procured thereby.
Hereof he says in the psalm, , I will declare it, recount it in order, number the particulars that belong unto it, and so distinctly and evidently make it known. , I will make it known as a messenger, sent from thee and by thee.And there are two ways whereby the Lord Christ declared this name of God:
1. In his own person; and that both before and after his sufferings: for although it be mentioned here as a work that ensued his death, yet is it not exclusive of his teachings before his suffering, because they also were built upon the supposition thereof. Thus in the days of his flesh, he instructed his disciples and preached the gospel in the synagogues of the Jews and in the temple, declaring the name of God unto them. So also after his resurrection he conferred with his apostles about the kingdom of God, Acts 1.
2. By his Spirit; and that both in the effusion of it upon his disciples, enabling them personally to preach the gospel unto the men of their own generation, and in the inspiration of some of them, enabling them to commit the truth unto writing for the instruction of the elect unto the end of the world. And herein doth the apostle, according unto his wonted manner, not only confirm what he had before delivered, but make way for what he had further to instruct the Hebrews in, namely, the prophetical office of Christ, as he is the great revealer of the will of God and teacher of the church; which he professedly insists upon in the beginning of the next chapter.
In the second part of this first testimony is declared further:
1. What Christ will moreover do: He will sing praises unto God; and,
2. Where he will do it: In the midst of the congregation.
The expression of both these is accommodated unto the declaration of Gods name and of praising him in the temple.
1. The singing of hymns of praise unto God in the great congregation was then a principal part of his worship. And in the first expression two things are observable:
(1.) What Christ undertakes to do; and that is, to praise God. Now this is only exegetical of what went before. He would praise God by declaring his name. There is no way whereby the praise of God may be celebrated like that of declaring his grace, goodness, and love unto men; whereby they may be won to believe and trust in him, whence glory redounds unto him.
(2.) The cheerfulness and alacrity of the spirit of Christ in this work. He would do it as with joy and singing, with such a frame of heart as was required in them who were to sing the praises of God in the great assemblies in the temple.
2. Where would he do this? , in the midst of the congregation, the great congregation, as he calls it, Act 1:23; that is, the great assembly of the people in the temple. And this was a type of the whole church of the elect under the new testament. The Lord Christ, in his own person, by his Spirit in his apostles, by his word, and by all his messengers unto the end of the world, setting forth the love, grace, goodness, and mercy of God in him the mediator, sets forth the praise of God in the midst of the congregation. I shall only add, that whereas singing of hymns unto God was an especial part of the instituted worship under the old testament, to whose use these expressions are accommodated, it is evident that the Lord Christ hath eminently set forth this praise of God in his institution of worship under the new testament, wherein God will ever be glorified and praised. This was that which the Lord Christ engaged to do upon the issue of his sufferings; and we may propose it unto our example and instruction, namely,
V. That which was principally in the heart of Christ upon his sufferings, was to declare and manifest the love, grace, and good-will of God unto men, that they might come to an acquaintance with him and to acceptance before him.
There are two things in the psalm and the words that manifest how much this was upon the heart of Christ The most part of the psalm containeth the great conflict that he had with his sufferings, and the displeasure of God against sin declared therein. He is no sooner delivered from thence, but instantly he engageth in this work. As he lands upon the shore from that tempest wherein he was tossed in his passion, he cries out, I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee. And thus we find, that upon his resurrection he did not immediately ascend into glory, but first declared the name of God unto his apostles and disciples, and then took order that by them it should be declared and published to all the world. This was upon his spirit, and he entered not into his glorious rest until he had performed it. The words themselves also do evidence it, in that expression of celebrating Gods name with hymns, with singing. It was a joy of heart unto him to be engaged in this work. Singing is the frame (, Jas 5:13) of them that are in a glad, free, rejoicing condition. So was the Lord Christ in this work. He rejoiced of old with the very thoughts of this work, Pro 8:30-31; Isa 61:1-3; and it was one of the glorious promises that were made unto him upon his undertaking the work of our salvation, that he should declare or preach the gospel, and the name of God therein, unto the conversion of Jews and Gentiles, Isa 49:1-10. He rejoiced, therefore, greatly to do it; and that,
1. Because herein consisted the manifestation and exaltation of the glory of God, which he principally in his whole work aimed at. He came to do the will, and thereby to set forth the glory, of the Father. By and in him God designed to make his glory known; the glory of his love and grace in sending him; the glory of his justice and faithfulness in his sufferings; the glory of his mercy in the reconciliation and pardon of sinners; the glory of his wisdom in the whole mystery of his mediation; and the glory together of all his external excellencies in bringing his sons unto the everlasting enjoyment of him. Now nothing of all this could have been made known, unless the Lord Christ had taken upon him to preach the gospel and declare the name of God. Without this, whatever else he had done or suffered had been lost, as unto the interest of the glory of God. This, then, being that which he principally aimed at, this design must needs be greatly in his mind. He took care that so great glory, built on so great a foundation as his incarnation and mediation, should not be lost. His other work was necessary, but this was a joy of heart and soul unto him.
2. The salvation of the sons to be brought unto glory, with all their interest in the benefit of his sufferings, depended on this work of his. How much he sought that, his whole work declares. For their sakes it was that he came down from heaven, and was made flesh, and dwelt among them; for their sakes did he undergo all the miseries that the world could cast upon him; for their sakes did he undergo the curse of the law, and wrestle with the displeasure and wrath of God against sin. And all this seemed as it were little unto him, for the love he bare them; as Jacobs hard service did to him for his love unto Rachel. Now, after he had done all this for them, unless he had declared the name of God unto them in the gospel, they could have had no benefit by it; for if they believe not, they cannot be saved. And how should they believe without the word? and how or whence could they hear the word unless it had been preached unto them? They could not of themselves have known any thing of that name of God, which is their life and salvation. Some men talk of I know not what declaration of Gods name, nature, and glory, by the works of nature and providence; but if the Lord Christ had not indeed revealed, declared, and preached these things, these disputers themselves would not have been in any other condition than all mankind are who are left unto those teachers, which is most dark and miserable. The Lord Christ knew that without his performance of this work, not one of the sons, the conduct of whom to glory he had undertaken, could ever have been brought unto the knowledge of the name of God, or unto faith in him, or obedience unto him; which made him earnestly and heartily engage into it.
3. Hereon depended his own glory also. His elect were to be gathered unto him; and in, among, and over them, was his glorious kingdom to be erected. Without their conversion unto God this could not be done. In the state of nature they also are children of wrath, and belong to the kingdom of Satan. And this declaration of the name of God is the great way and means of their calling, conversion, and translation from the power of Satan into his kingdom. The gospel is the rod of his strength, whereby his people are made willing in the day of his power. In brief, the gathering of his church, the setting up of his kingdom, the establishment of his throne, the setting of the crown upon his head, depend wholly on his declaring the name of God in the preaching of the gospel. Seeing, therefore, that the glory of God which he aimed at, the salvation of the sons which he sought for, and the honor of his kingdom which was promised unto him, do all depend on this work, it is no wonder if his heart were full of it, and that he rejoiced to be engaged in it.
And this frame of heart ought to be in them who under him are called unto this work. The work itself, we see, is noble and excellent, such as the Lord Christ carried in his eye through all his sufferings, as that whereby they were to be rendered useful unto the glory of God and the salvation of the souls of men. And, by his rejoicing to be engaged in it, he hath set a pattern unto them whom he calls to the same employment. Where men undertake it for filthy lucre, for self ends and carnal respects, this is not to follow the example of Christ, nor to serve him, but their own bellies. Zeal for the glory of God, compassion for the souls of men, love to the honor and exaltation of Christ, ought to be the principles of men in this undertaking.
Moreover, the Lord Christ, by declaring that he will set forth the praise of God in the church, manifests what is the duty of the church itself, namely, to praise God for the work of his love and grace in our redemption by Christ Jesus. This he promiseth to go before them in; and what he leads them unto is by them to be persisted in. This is indeed the very end of gathering the church, and of all the duties that are performed therein and thereby. The church is called unto the glory of the grace of God, Eph 1:6, that it may be set forth in them and by them. This is the end of the institution of all the ordinances of worship in the church, Eph 3:8-10; and in them do they set forth the praises of God unto men and angels. This is the tendency of prayer, the work of faith, the fruit of obedience. It is a fond imagination which some have fallen upon, that God is not praised in the church for the work of redemption, unless it be done by words and hymns particularly expressing it. All praying, all preaching, all administration of ordinances, all our faith, all our obedience, if ordered aright, are nothing but giving glory to God for his love and grace in Christ Jesus in a due and acceptable manner. And this is that which ought to be in our design in all our worship of God, especially in what we perform in the church. To set forth his praise, to declare his name, to give glory unto him by believing, and the profession of our faith, is the end of all we do. And this is the first testimony produced by our apostle.
His next is taken from Psa 18:2, I will put my trust in him. The whole psalm literally respects David, with his straits and deliverances; not absolutely, but as he was a type of Christ. That he was so the Jews cannot deny, seeing the Messiah is promised on that account under the name of David. And the close of the psalm, treating of the calling of the Gentiles, as a fruit of his deliverance from sufferings, manifests him principally to be intended. And that which the apostle intends to prove by this testimony is, that he was really and truly of one with the sons to be brought unto glory: and that he doth from hence, inasmuch as he was made and brought into that condition wherein it was necessary for him to trust in God, and act in that dependence upon him which the nature of man whilst exposed unto troubles doth indispensably require. Had he been only God, this could not have been spoken of him. Neither is the nature of angels exposed to such dangers and troubles as to make it necessary for them to betake themselves unto Gods protection with respect thereunto. And this the word , used by the psalmist, properly signifies, to betake a mans self unto the care and protection of another,as Psalms 2 ult. This, then, the condition of the Lord Christ required, and this he did perform. In all the troubles and difficulties that he had to contend withal, he put his trust in God; as Isa 50:7-9, Psa 22:19. And this evinceth him to have been truly and really of one with the children, his brethren, seeing it was his duty no less than it is theirs to depend on God in troubles and distresses. And in vain doth Schlichtingius hence endeavor to prove that Christ was the son of God by grace only, because he is said to depend on him, which if he had been God by nature he could not do. True, if he had been God only; but the apostle is now proving that he was man also, like unto us in all things, sin only excepted. And as such his duty it was, in all straits, to betake himself by faith unto the care and protection of God. And some things may hence also be briefly observed; as,
I. That the Lord Christ, the captain of our salvation, was exposed in the days of his flash unto great difficulties, anxiety of mind, dangers, and troubles This is included in what he here affirms about putting his trust in God. And they were all typified out by the great sufferings of David before he came unto his kingdom. In the consideration of the sufferings of Christ, men commonly fix their thoughts solely unto his death. And indeed therein was a recapitulation of all that he had before undergone, with an addition of the wrath of God. But yet neither are the sufferings of his life to be disregarded. Such they were as made his whole pilgrimage on the earth dangerous and dolorous. There was upon him a confluence of every thing that is evil or troublesome unto human nature. And herein is he principally our example, at least so far that we should think no kind of sufferings strange unto us.
II. The Lord Christ, in all his perplexities and troubles, betook himself unto the protection of God, trusting in him. See Isa 50:7-9. And he always made an open profession of this trust, insomuch that his enemies reproached him with it in his greatest distress, Mat 27:43. But this was his course, this was his refuge, wherein at length he had blessed and glorious success.
III. He both suffered and trusted as our head and precedent. What he did in both these kinds he calls us unto. As he did, so must we undergo perplexities and dangers in the course of our pilgrimage. The Scripture abounds with instructions unto this purpose, and experience confirms it; and professors of the gospel do but indulge unto pleasing dreams when they fancy any other condition in this world unto themselves. They would not be willing, I suppose, to purchase it at the price of inconformity unto Jesus Christ. And he is a precedent unto us in trusting as well as in suffering. As he betook himself unto the protection of God, so should we do also; and we shall have the same blessed success with him. There remains yet one testimony more, which we shall briefly pass through the consideration of: Behold I and the children which God hath given me. It is taken from Isa 8:18. That it is a prophecy of Christ which is there insisted on we have proved at large in our Prolegomena, so that we need not here again further to discourse that matter. That which the apostle aims at in the citation of this testimony, is further to confirm the union in nature, and the relation that ensues thereupon, between the captain of salvation and the sons to be brought unto glory. Now, as this is such that thereon he calls them brethren, and came into the same condition of trouble with them, so they are, by the grant and appointment of God, his children. Being of the same nature with them, and so meet to become a common parent unto them all, God, by an act of sovereign grace, gives them unto him for his children. This is the aim of the apostle in the use of this testimony unto his present purpose. In the words themselves we may consider,
1. That God gives all the sons that are to be brought unto glory to Jesus Christ: The Lord hath given them unto me. Thine they were, saith he, and thou gavest them me, Joh 17:6. God having separated them as his peculiar portion, in the eternal counsel of his will, gives them unto the Son to take care of them, that they may be preserved and brought unto the glory that he had designed for them. And this work he testifies that he undertook; so that none of them shall be lost, but that, whatever difficulties they may pass through, he will raise them up at the last day, and give them an entrance into life and immortality.
2. He gives them to him as his children, to be provided for, and to have an inheritance purchased for them, that they may become heirs of God and co- heirs with himself. Adam was their first parent by nature; and in him they lost that inheritance which they might have expected by the law of their creation. They are therefore given to the second Adam, as their parent by grace, to have an inheritance provided for them; which accordingly he hath purchased with the price of his blood.
3. That the Lord Christ is satisfied with and rejoiceth in the portion given him of his Father, his children, his redeemed ones. This the manner of the expression informs us in, Behold I and the children; though he considers himself and them at that time as signs and wonders to be spoken against. He rejoiceth in his portion, and doth not call it Cabul, as Hiram did the cities given him of Solomon, because they displeased him. He is not only satisfied upon the sight of the travail of his soul, Isa 53:11, but glorieth also that the lines are fallen unto him in pleasantnesses, that he hath a goodly heritage, Psa 16:6. Such was his love, such was his grace; for we in ourselves are a people not to be desired.
4. That the Lord Jesus assumes the children given him of his Father into the same condition with himself, both as to time and eternity: I and the children. As he is, so are they; his lot is their lot, his God is their God, his Father their Father, and his glory shall be theirs.
5. From the context of the words in the prophet, expressing the separation of Christ and the children from the world and all the hypocrites therein, combined together in the pursuit of their sinful courses, we are taught that Christ and believers are in the same covenant, confederate to trust in God in difficulties and troubles, in opposition unto all the confederacies of the men of the world for their carnal security.
And thus by this triple testimony hath the apostle both confirmed his foregoing assertion, and further manifested the relation that is between the children to be brought unto glory and the captain of their salvation, whereby it became righteous that he should suffer for them, and meet that they should enjoy the benefit of his sufferings; which he more fully expresseth in the following verses.
Fuente: An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews
he that: Heb 10:10, Heb 10:14, Heb 13:12, Joh 17:19
all: Heb 2:14, Joh 17:21, Act 17:26, Gal 4:4
he is: Heb 11:16, Mar 8:38, Luk 9:26
to call: Mat 12:48-50, Mat 25:40, Mat 28:10, Joh 20:17, Rom 8:29
Reciprocal: Gen 46:31 – General Gen 47:1 – Joseph Lev 8:30 – the anointing Lev 16:18 – General Lev 25:48 – General Rth 3:2 – is not Boaz 1Ch 28:2 – my brethren Psa 22:22 – I will Pro 17:17 – General Son 4:9 – my sister Son 8:1 – that thou Mat 12:50 – the same Mar 3:34 – Behold Luk 8:21 – My mother Joh 1:14 – the Word Act 20:32 – which are 1Co 1:2 – sanctified 1Co 6:11 – but ye are sanctified 1Th 5:23 – sanctify Heb 1:9 – thy fellows Heb 2:17 – it Heb 10:29 – wherewith
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Heb 2:11. This verse and on through the chapter, carries the main subject of the oneness and fellowship that was designed to exist between Jesus and those whom he planned to save. To be sanctified means to be devoted to the service of God. Such a state of devotion is accomplished through Jesus who is he that sanctifieth. They are all of one in that both Jesus and his disciples are united in reverence for God who makes all. good things possible that exist. In this sense they are all brethren and Jesus is not ashamed in the happy relationship.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
In these words, the union of Christ and us, by his participation of the same nature with us, is declared: he and we are all of one; that is, of one and the same nature, of one stock and original; it was the product of the wise, merciful, and righteous counsel of God, that the Saviour of men should have communion with them in their nature, that he might have to redeem them by his propinquity and alliance with them; Both he that sanctifieth, and they that are sanctified, are all of one.
Learn hence, 1. That the Lord Jesus Christ was, and ought to be of the same nature and stock with those whom he did redeem, and sanctify unto God. Divine justice required, that the same nature which had sinned should suffer for sin. The wisdom of God was pleased to redeem man: man must be redeemed by man: God as God could not die, therefore God becomes man, that he might be in a capacity to die; he that as man will redeem man, must be of the same nature with man. This Christ was, both by divine institution, and by a voluntary susception: He that sanctifieth, and they that are sanctified, are all of one.
Learn, 2. That Christ having taken our nature upon him, accounts it no disgrace to acknowledge and own us for his brethren; Christ will be ashamed of none of his brethren, but such are a shame unto him.
Learn, 3. That not withstanding the union of nature which is betwixt Christ and us, yet, in respect of our persons, ther is an inconceivable distance between him and us: so that it is a marvellous condescension in him to call us brethren.
Here note, That though Christ calls us brethren, yet it becomes us to call him Lord; and as such to adore and worship him, to glorify and serve him, to honour and obey him.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Heb 2:11-13. For As if he had said, And it appears that it was meet that Christ should suffer, because, having the same nature with us, it was necessary he should thus be made like us, who must suffer before we can reign; both he that sanctifieth That washes men from their sins in his blood, renews them in the spirit of their minds, and consecrates them unto God; and they who are sanctified Who are renewed and dedicated to God; are all of one Of one nature, from one parent, Adam; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them Whom he thus sanctifies and saves; brethren He reckons it no disparagement to him, though in respect of his divine nature he is infinitely above them, to acknowledge and deal with them as his brethren; saying, (Psa 22:22,) to his Father, When I appear in the human nature on the earth, I will declare thy name Thy perfections, and especially thy grace and mercy in sending me into the world; unto my brethren Of mankind; in the midst of the church Publicly among the people of God; will I sing praise unto thee As the precentor of the choir. This he did literally in the midst of his apostles, on the night before his passion. And in a more general sense, as the expression means setting forth the praise of God, he has done it in the church by his word and Spirit in all ages; and he still does, and will do it throughout all generations. It is well known that the 22d Psalm, from which this passage is cited, is a prophetic description of the sufferings of Christ, the apostles and evangelists having applied many passages of it to him. Also by repeating the first words of it from the cross, our Lord appropriated the whole of it to himself. The ancient Jewish doctors likewise interpreted this Psalm of the Messiah. And again (Psa 18:2,) as one that has communion with his brethren in sufferings, as well as in nature, he says; I will put my trust in him To support me under, and carry me through them all. Hereby the apostle proves that Christ had the same affections, and consequently the same nature with believers. For had he been God only, or the Son merely in his original state, he could not have been brought into such a condition as required dependance upon another; neither is the nature of angels exposed to such dangers or troubles, as render it necessary for them to have recourse to God for support, protection, and consolation. And again Isa 8:18, (where see the note,) when he says; Behold I and the children which God hath given me He makes a like acknowledgment of his near relation to them, and of his being of the same nature with them, parents being of the same nature with their children. The opposers of Christianity affirm, that the prophecy from which this is taken doth not relate to the Messiah, and that in applying it to Jesus, the writer of this epistle hath erred; and from this they infer that he was not inspired. But, in answer, be it observed, that the application of this prophecy to Christ doth not rest on this writers testimony alone. The 14th verse of the prophecy is applied to him both by Paul, (Rom 9:33,) and by Peter, (1Pe 2:6; 1Pe 2:8,) and by Simeon, (Luk 2:34;) nay, our Lord has applied the 15th verse to himself, Mat 21:44. So that if the writer of this epistle hath erred in the application of that prophecy, all the others have erred in the same manner. But that they have not, is sufficiently shown in the notes on the passages referred to.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
11. For He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one. This is Gods infallible definition of sanctification, i.e., oneness with God. Hence, we see that sanctification unifies us with God, that is, gives us the divine nature. Holiness is the divine nature. It is original in God, but imparted to us by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Ghost is called holy, not because He is more holy than the Father or the Son, but because it is His office to make us holy. Hence, all true religion is the direct work of the Holy Ghost. Anti-holiness preachers, Roman Catholic priests, Moslems, and all sorts of heathens, preach holiness to the people, but all they mean by holiness is loyalty to the church and obedience to their leaders. All this is Satans counterfeit holiness. All of this buncombe twaddle about loyalty to the church belongs to the dogmata of counterfeit holiness, as true holiness makes you loyal to God. When you are loyal to God you are always loyal to Gods Church. Christ is the Head and the Church is His body. Therefore, they are identical and there is no such a thin as being loyal to the one and disloyal to the other Here we see the reason why the popular clergy and secular ecclesiasticism in all ages have fought sanctification. It is because it makes the people loyal to God instead of themselves. Liquori, a distinguished Roman Catholic commentator, furiously denounces the doctrine of perfection as the worst of all heresies, certifying that it has given them more trouble than all other heresies combined. This problem explains itself when the preachers are not in harmony with God, as none can be till they are sanctified wholly; they are unwilling for the people to get sanctified, because they know it will take them out of their hands and put them where they can no longer rely on them as conservators of their carnal policy. The worldly churches heap mountains of labor on their members to conserve their financial and ecclesiastical enterprises, crowding God out and actually causing their members to backslide. The true church is not a social and financial organization, but the children of God united in prayer and labor to save souls. For which reason he is not ashamed to call them brethren. This follows as a logical sequence from Gods definition of sanctification, i.e., that it is oneness with God, i.e., unification with the divine nature. When the Holy Ghost imparts to the very nature of God, He is no longer ashamed to call us brethren.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
Verse 11
He that sanctifieth; that is, by the expiation referred to in the close of Hebrews 2:9.–Of one; of one father.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
2:11 {12} For both he that {r} sanctifieth and they who are sanctified [are] all of {s} one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren,
(12) The basis for both of the former arguments, for we could not be sons through him, neither could he be consecrated through afflictions, unless he had been made man like us. But because this sonship depends not only on nature, for no man is accounted the son of God, unless he is also a son of a man, he is also Christ’s brother, (which is by sanctification, that is, by becoming one with Christ, who sanctifies us through faith) therefore the apostle makes mention of the sanctifier, that is, of Christ, and of them that are sanctified, that is, of all the elect, who Christ condescends to call brethren.
(r) He uses the time to show us that we are still going on, and increasing in this sanctification: and by sanctification he means our separation from the rest of the world, our cleansing from sin, and our dedication wholly to God, all which Christ alone works in us.
(s) One, of the same nature of man.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
"He" is probably Jesus Christ. There is great solidarity between Jesus Christ and believers. The Old Testament taught this solidarity in Psa 22:22 (Heb 2:12), Isa 8:17 (Heb 2:13 a), and Isa 8:18 (Heb 2:13 b). Jesus will not feel ashamed to call sanctified believers His brethren when He leads us to glory (Heb 2:5; Heb 2:10).