God’s law was announced to Moses by angels, but his salvation was made known to all humankind by his own Son. This is the more reason why people should not turn away from the gospel, but believe it (2:1-3a). Those who saw and heard Jesus Christ bore testimony to the divine origin of the gospel. Their testimony was confirmed by the miracles and other evidences of the Holy Spirit’s power that accompanied the early apostolic preaching (3b-4; cf. Act 2:43; Gal 3:5).
Christ’s humanity and suffering (2:5-18)
Jews considered that human beings were inferior to angels. They therefore wondered how Jesus Christ could be superior to angels when in fact he was a man.
The writer points out that this human status of inferiority to angels is only temporary. God’s original purpose was that human beings should rule over all things, but because of sin they lost this authority and are themselves in need of salvation (5-8). Jesus Christ, in order to save them, took their position of being temporarily lower than angels, so that he might accept sin’s penalty on their behalf. He died in shame on a cross, but God exalted him to the highest place in heaven (9).
When Adam sinned, humankind lost its original God-given glory and suffered as a result. Jesus Christ therefore had to join in that suffering and bear it fully if he was to save a fallen race from the results of sin. Having suffered, Christ then entered his glory. Because he identified himself with the human race, those who now identify themselves with him have their sins removed and share his glory. Consequently, they can attain the position God originally intended for those he created in his image (10).
Three Old Testament quotations emphasize the union that exists between Christ and the men and women he has saved. He calls them his brothers and sisters, he trusts in God as they do, and he and these his children are God’s new people (11-13).
Christ became a human being to save human beings, and he did so by living with them and dying for them. His death was a victory, not a defeat, for by it he set people free from the power of Satan. Those whom he saves are now free from the fear and bondage that sin brings (14-15). The reason Christ descended to a status lower than angels was that the people he wanted to save were lower than angels (16). By sharing their experiences of human life, he could be their representative in taking away sin. He could also be their helper in gaining victory over life’s temptations (17-18).
Heb 2:1. Lest at any time we should let them slip.- The word Παραρρυωμεν, rendered, we should let them slip, signifies properly, we should fall off, or fall away; namely, from the true religion, and saving grace. In the LXX this verb answers to the Hebrew לז lez, to decline,-depart, Pro 3:21 where what in the Hebrew is, let them not depart from thine eyes, that version renders Μη παραρρυης, decline not, or fall not off from them; the translators applying that to the person, which the original does to the thing. Our translators read in the margin, Lest at any time we should run out, as leaky vessels; referring to the metaphorical etymology of the word. See Parkhurst on the word Παραρρυω .
Heb 2:2. For, if the word spoken by angels- See Act 7:53. Gal 3:19 If the law was given by angels to Moses, (though the Logos undoubtedly presided among them and over them, on that solemn occasion,) but what was delivered to us was given by the Son himself; if, in the one case, he made use of his ministers to give his commands, but, in the other, he acts himself inperson; how forcible is the apostle's argument, that we ought to give the greater heed to what is delivered by the greatest Personage. See Deu 33:2. Instead of, was steadfast, Dr. Heylin reads, was fully executed. The threats denounced in the law were all put in execution exactly and rigidly, and every transgression, and every act of disobedience, (even such crimes under the law as gathering a few sticks on the sabbath, &c.) were punished with death: Num 15:35.
Heb 2:3. How shall we escape, &c.!- The Jews had no reason to imagine that God would remit the punishments threatened in the law, if they resolved to adhere to it, and would not embrace the condition of faith in Christ which was offered to them: for the law had never been repealed, but continued in its original force; nor would disuse make it of no force, if the Lawmaker would put it into execution. By salvation here is understood, the doctrine of salvation;-the gospel, which of course includes experimental religion: and as this stands opposed to the word spoken by angels, it is necessary to understand it of the word or doctrine published by Christ: and all the expressions here used, of Christ's beginning to speak it,-of men's hearing it,-of its being confirmed; and that God attested it,-lead us to understand the place in the sense given. This doctrine of salvation, is said to be begun to be spoken by Christ, because there were some things which belonged to the gospel,-as the resurrection and ascension of Christ, and the pouring out of the Spirit,-which were to be more fully published by his apostles after his death. Confirmed to us, signifies properly, to our times; to the times in which the apostle lived: and the sense appears to be, "They who heard Christ himself preaching, have continued confirming the truth of what he preached to us Hebrews, even to this time; having the gifts of the Holy Ghost) various in their kinds, as God has been pleased to grant them to them." It would have been, not the term εις ημας, but ημιν, which the apostle would have used, if he had intended to say, That he himself learned the gospel from those who had heard Christ; nor would he have said, that the gospel was confirmed to him by them that heard Christ; since elsewhere he declares, that he had it not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ. Gal 1:1. Supposing now St. Paul to have written this epistle in the year 67, he then says, that those who had heard Christ, continued uniformly and constantly to attest what he had said, from that time to this; that is, for upwards of thirty years. They who from this expression would argue, that St. Paul was not the author of this epistle, mistake the meaning of the phrase here used; which does not relate to the person writing, but to the time when he wrote. They who had heard Christ himself, had confirmed, even to this time, steadily and consistently, what they had heard from our Lord himself.
Heb 2:5. For unto the angels- "Angels, as I told you, are only ministering spirits; and though the law was given by them, yet in the present dispensation they have nothing to do in dispensing the gospel: for it is the Son of God, the Lord of all things, to whom is reserved the sole dominion over, and direction of the present dispensation; and who is the giver of that salvation of which we speak, and not angels, to whom we are not subjected."
Heb 2:6-9. But one in a certain place, &c.- "Nor think it strange, that a man should be invested with such extraordinary power; for as the Psalmist says of manin general, that he is Lord of all the creation; that, low and mean, and helpless in ten thousand instances, as he seems to be, yet all things are in general subject to him: this, I say, is now literally and eminently true in the case of Jesus Christ, the God-man. What is man, says the Psalmist, that thou art mindful of him; or the son of man, that thou visitest him?-Thou madest him lower than angels, and yet thou hast crowned him with great glory, in that thou hast given him dominion over the works of thine hands. But then, when the Psalmist said, that God had put all things in subjection under man, it is plain that these words are not to be taken too rigidly: for the moon and the stars, and many other things, the work of God's hands, are not in subjection to man. You are not therefore to understand these words absolutely and strictlyof man in the general; but we see how all this is literally verified in Jesus, the God-man, the eternal Son of God, Heb 2:9 who, by becoming man, that he might suffer death, was, for a short time, in a very qualified sense, made lower and meaner than the angels; and because he suffered death, he was crowned with glory and honour, and obtained all power in heaven and earth, as man. He was made man, I say, and thus for a short time, in this respect, lower than the angels, that by the grace of God, and to shew his exceeding kindness for us, he might taste death for every man." See 1Co 15:25-27. Gen 1:26. A little, Βραχυ τι,- may signify either littleness of the thing, or shortness of the time; and in both these respects Christ, while upon earth, was, in respect to his humanity, inferior to the angels; therefore they were sent to strengthen him. But he had a glory with his Father from all eternity, of which in some figurative sense he emptied himself to become man; and then, as the reward of his sufferings, he received his kingdom, all things being subjected to him. So that it was properly but a little while, or for some short time, that he was as other men are, made lower than the angels. See Joh 17:5. Php 2:6-10. Heb 12:2. To taste death is to die: and to taste death for all, or every man, is to die for the benefit of all mankind, both Jew and Gentile. Now our Lord condescended to taste death for all; and the grace and kindness of God was by that means displayed to mankind in a most extraordinary manner, as the apostle explains it in the following verses.
Heb 2:10-15. For it became him, &c.- Very different are the explanations given of this passage; that which appears to me the plainest and most just, is as follows: Heb 2:10. "Such has been the conduct of God in the great affair of our redemption; and the beauty and harmony of it will be apparent in proportion to the degree in which it is examined. For, though the Jews dream of a temporal Messiah, as a scheme conducive to the divine glory, it well became him,-it was expedient that, in order to act worthy of himself, he should take this method; He, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things; that glorious Being, who is the first cause and last end of all,-in pursuit of the great and important design that he had formed, of conducting all his faithful saints to the possession of that inheritance of glory intended for them;-to make and constitute Jesus, his only begotten and best-beloved Son, the leader and prince of their salvation, and to make him perfect, or completely fit for the full execution of his office,by a long train of various and extremesufferings, whereby he was as it were solemnly consecrated to it. Heb 2:11. Now, in consequence of this appointment, Jesus, the great Sanctifier, who engages and consecrates men to the service of God, and they who are sanctified (that is, consecrated and introduced to God with such acceptance,) are all of one family, all in a sense the seed of Abraham by faith; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them, who thus yield to be saved by his grace, his brethren: Heb 2:12. Saying,-in the person of David, who represented the Messiah in his sufferings and exaltation,-I will declare thy name to my brethren, in the midst of the church will I praise thee. Heb 2:13. And again, speaking as a mortal man, exposed to such exercises of faith in trials and difficulties, as others were, he says in a psalm which sets forth his triumph overhis enemies, I will trust in him, as the saints have done in all ages, only in an infinitely higher sense; and again elsewhere, in the person of Isaiah, Behold I, and the children which God hath given me, are for signs and for wonders, Heb 2:14. Seeing then that those whom he represents in one place and another, as the children of the same family with himself, were partakers of flesh and blood, he himself in like manner participated of them, that thereby becoming capable of those sufferings, to which, without such an union with flesh, this divine Sanctifier could not have been liable, he might by his own voluntary and meritorious death abolish and depose him, who by divine permission had the empire of death, and led it in his train, when he made his first invasion on mankind;-that is, the devil, the great artificer of mischief and destruction; at the beginning the murderer of the human race; who still seems to triumph in the spread of mortality, which is his work, and who may often, by God's righteous permission, be the executioner of it. Heb 2:15. But Christ, the great prince of mercy and life, graciously interposed, that he might deliver those miserable captives of Satan,-mankind in general, and the dark and idolatrous Gentiles in particular, who, through fear of death, were, or justly might have been, all their lifetime obnoxious to bondage: having nothing to expect, in consequence of it,-if they rightly understood their state, but future misery; whereas now, changing their Lord, they have happily changed their condition; and are, as many as have believed in him, the heirs of eternal life."
Heb 2:16. For verily he took not on him, &c.- The version of the margin is here to be preferred, wherewith the Vulgate agrees. The word επιλαμβανεται is used several times in the New Testament with a genitive case, as in this place, and always in the sense of taking hold. See ch. Heb 8:9. Mat 14:31. Mar 8:23. Luk 9:47. 1Ti 6:12; 1Ti 6:19. The apostle's reasoning stands thus: "Christ took part in flesh and blood, because his design was to lay hold of, that is, to save, the seed of Abraham,-all the followers of the faith of Abraham, and not the angels; and upon that account it was highly requisite, that he should be made like unto the seed of Abraham, his brethren in sufferings and grace; in order to which, it was necessary for him to take part with them in flesh and blood; Heb 2:17." It may be here asked, why the apostle should say, that Christ came to help the seed of Abraham; and not the seed of Adam? The reason is, he was writing to persons zealous of the law, and who could not bear the notion of the Gentiles being admitted to equal privileges with themselves. Therefore, under the words the seed of Abraham, (which, in St. Paul's language, implied all that were of faith, be they of what nation soever,) he artfully, and without giving offence to the Hebrews, expresses the full truth. Abraham was the father of all them that believe, Rom 4:11 and in this sense is the expression here used, to take in all that followed the faith of Abraham, whether they were Jews or Gen
Heb 2:17. Wherefore in all things, &c.- In taking flesh and blood, in sufferings, in death; for the next clause, see Rom 8:3. Php 2:7. The following words may be rendered, that he might be merciful, and a faithful High-priest; merciful, in that being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted; and a faithful High-priest in things relative to God;-in doing all such things as the Father had appointed him; particularly in doing the office of a priest, by making a full atonement for the sins of the world. Concerning his fidelity, see ch. Heb 3:1-2, &c. 1Jn 2:2. Rom 3:25.
