The Epistle To The Hebrews: Introductory Lectures by William Kelly (Part 3 Chapter 2:5-18)
Now the Apostle enters on another and very distinct portion of the glory of Christ. He is not only the Son of God, but Son of man. They are both, I will not say equally necessary but, without a doubt, absolutely necessary, whether for God's glory or for his salvation to whomsoever it may be applied. Touch Christ on either side, and all is gone. Touch Him on the human side; it is hardly less fatal than on the divine. I admit that His divine glory has a place which humanity could not possess; but His human perfection is no less necessary to found the blessing for us on redemption, glorifying God in His righteousness and love. This accordingly the Apostle now traces. Jesus was God as truly as man, and in both above the angels. His superiority as Son of God has been proved in the most masterly manner from their own scriptures in the first chapter. He had drawn his conclusions, urging the all-importance of giving heed, and the danger of letting slip such a testimony. The law, as he had said elsewhere, was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. He had just said, if under it every transgression and disobedience received just recompense of reward, how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation? Outward infraction and inner rebellion met their retribution. The sanction of the gospel would be commensurate with its grace, and God would avenge the slightings of a testimony begun by the Lord, further carried on and confirmed by the Holy Spirit with signs, wonders, powers, and distributions according to His will.
Now he takes the other side, saying, "Unto the angels hath He not put in subjection the world to come." "Whatever may have been God's employment of angels about the law, the world to come was never destined to be subjected to them. It is the good pleasure of God to use an angel where it is a question of providence, or law, or power; but where it comes to be the manifestation of His glory in Christ, He must have other instruments more suitable for His nature, and according to His affections. "For one has somewhere testified, saying, What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? or the Son of man, that Thou visitest Him? Thou madest Him a little lower than the angels;
Thou crownedst Him with glory and honor, and didst set Him over the works of Thy hands." Thus we see the first question raised is one as to the littleness of man in comparison with that which God has made; but the question is no sooner raised than answered, and this by one who looks at the second Man and not at the first. Behold then man in Christ, and then talk, if you can, about his littleness. Behold man in Christ, and then be amazed at the wonders of the heavens. Let creation be as great as it may be, He that made all things is above them. The Son of man has a glory that completely eclipses the brightness of the highest objects. But also He shows that the humiliation of the Savior, in which He was made a little lower than the angels, was for an end that led up to this heavenly glory. Grant that He was made a little lower than the angels; what was it for? "We see not yet all things put under Him. But we behold Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; so that by the grace of God He should taste death for everything."
Nor was this the only object; He was "crowned with glory and honor" as fruit of His sufferings unto death; but it had a gracious object as well as a glorious end; "so that by the grace of God He should taste death for everything"; for thus was the only door of deliverance for what was ruined by the fall, and this because it was the only means of morally vindicating God who yearned in love over every work of His hands. There can be otherwise no efficacious because no righteous deliverance. It may be infinitely more, but righteous footing it must have; and this the death of Christ has given. Flowing from God's grace, Christ's death is the ground of reconciliation for the universe. It has also made it a part of His righteousness to bring man thus out of that ruin, misery, and subjection to death in which he lay. It has put into the hands of God that infinite fund of blessing in which He now loves to admit us reconciled to Himself.
The Apostle does not yet draw all the consequences; but he lays down in these two chapters the twofold glory of Christ—Son of God, Son of man—and following up the latter, he approaches that which fitted Him, on the score of sympathy, for the priesthood. I do not mean that Jesus could have been High Priest according to God because He was a man. Not His manhood, but His Godhead is the ground of His glory; nevertheless, if He had not been man as well as Son of God, He could not have been priest. As for atonement, so for priesthood, that ground was essential. But it was for man, and therefore He too must be man. So it is here shown that it "became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one." Remark, it is not "all one"—we never reach that height in the epistle to the Hebrews; never have we the body here, any more than unity. For the body we must search into some other epistles of Paul, though unity we may see in another shape in John. But the epistle to the Hebrews never goes so far as either. It does what was even more important for those whom it concerned and, I add, what is of the deepest possible moment for us. For those who think that they can live according to God on the truth of either Ephesians or of the epistles of John, without the doctrine of the epistle to the Hebrews, have made a miserable mistake.
Say what men will, we have our wants, as traversing this wilderness; and although we might like to soar, it cannot long, if at all, prosper. We have, therefore, the adaptation of Christ as priest to the infirmities that we feel, and so much the more because of an exercised conscience toward God, and a realizing of the desert sin has made—this defiled scene of our actual pilgrimage.
Accordingly, in the latter part of the chapter, the Apostle begins to introduce the great truths which form so large a part of the epistle to the Hebrews. He speaks of Christ, the Sanctifier: "He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one." He means one and the same condition, without entering into particulars. "For which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren." There is a common relationship which the Sanctifier and the sanctified possess. It might be supposed, because He is the Sanctifier and they the sanctified, that there could be no such communion. But there is: "For which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren." He never called them so till He became a man; nor did He do so fully then till He was man risen from the dead. The Apostle here most fittingly introduces Psalm 22, etc., "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." He is proving the reality of this common relationship of the Sanctifier and the sanctified. He, like themselves, can say, and He alone could say as they never did, "I will put My trust in Him." Indeed Psalm 16 was the expression of all His course as man—trust in life, trust in death, trust in resurrection. As in everything else, so in this, He has the pre-eminence, but it is a preeminence founded on a common ground. It could not have been true of Him had He not been a man; had He been simply God, to talk of trusting in God would have been altogether unnatural and impossible. As for Him then, though the Sanctifier, He and they were all of one. And so further; "Behold I and the children which God hath given Me." Here is again a different but equally good proof of mutual relationship.
"Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily He took not on Him the nature of angels." This last should be, that He does not take up angels; He does not help them. They are not the objects of His concern in the work here described; "but He takes up the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest"-here you have the object of all the proof of His being man-"in things pertaining to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people." I use the word "atonement," or expiation, as being decidedly preferable to "reconciliation." You cannot talk of reconciling sins. It is not a question of making sins right. They are atoned for; people are reconciled. Those who have been sinners are reconciled to God; but as to sins, they do not admit of being reconciled at all (which is a mistake). There is need of a propitiation, or expiation, for the sins of His people. "For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted." Temptation to Him was nothing but suffering; He suffered, being tempted, because there was that intrinsic holiness which repelled but, at the same time, most acutely felt the temptation.
Thus the Apostle enters on the vast field that will come before us a little more fully. He has laid the basis for the high priesthood of Christ. He could not have been such a High Priest, had He not been both divine and human; and He has proved both, in the fullest manner, from their own scriptures.
(To be continued)
Any variation from the King James Version of the Scriptures is Mr. Kelly's own translation.