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In this message we will continue to consider the experience and enjoyment of Christ as the Son of Man who is better than the angels.
According to Hebrews 2:10, God made Christ “the Author of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” The Greek word translated “Author” means “Captain, Originator, Inaugurator, Leader, and Pioneer.” The salvation mentioned in this verse and referred to in verse 3 and 1:14 saves us from our fallen state into glory. Jesus, as the Pioneer, the Forerunner (6:20), took the lead to enter into glory, and we, His followers, are taking the same way to be brought into the same glory, which was ordained by God for us (1 Cor. 2:7; 1 Thes. 2:12). He cut the way, and we are now taking the way. Hence, He is not only the Savior who saved us from our fallen state but also the Author who, as the Pioneer, entered into glory that we may be brought into the same estate.
Christ is the Captain of salvation. This expression indicates that all the saved believers are an army with Christ the Forerunner as their Captain. He was also made perfect through sufferings. This refers to His humanity. He was not only perfect in His humanity; He was also perfected through many sufferings as a man.
In order to be saved merely from hell, we do not need a captain, but if we are to enter into glory, into the good land of rest, we need the Captain. God’s salvation is not merely to rescue us from hell and to put us into heaven. His salvation is to save us from every negative thing and to bring us into glory, into a glorious rest. This kind of salvation is not an overnight matter; it is a lifelong process. We need to follow our Captain throughout our entire life.
The children of Israel came out of Egypt in one night. That was truly an overnight matter. However, in order for them to enter the good land of rest, they needed to follow their captain. At the beginning they followed Moses, and later they followed Joshua. They had a captain for their salvation. After they crossed the Red Sea, they surely were saved, but they were saved to a very small degree. They had gone only a small part of the way and needed to follow their captain the entire rest of the way. They had such a captain of salvation.
In order to accomplish His purpose of bringing many sons into glory, God had to have an example, a model. Such a one could be the qualified captain taking the lead to bring the many sons into glory. Jesus is this Captain. Before Jesus became the Captain, however, He had to be perfected through sufferings (Heb. 2:10). To make Jesus perfect was to make Him perfect in terms of qualification. It does not imply that there was any imperfection of virtue or attribute in Jesus but only that the completing of His experience of human sufferings was needed to make Him fit to become the Author, the Leader, of His followers’ salvation.
As the self-existing and ever-existing God, the Lord Jesus is complete from eternity to eternity. But He needed to be perfected through the processes of incarnation, the partaking of human nature, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension so that He might be qualified to be God’s Christ and our Savior.
Without passing through sufferings, the Lord Jesus as a man could not be in the glory, and if He were not in the glory, He would not be perfected or qualified. But by passing through the sufferings, He entered into glory. He is now fully qualified, fully perfected, to fulfill His office of Captain.
The writer of Hebrews mentions suffering because at the time this Epistle was written the Hebrew Christians were suffering (10:32-35). They were being persecuted. In a sense, their suffering was not good, for they were very troubled by it. In another sense, however, that suffering was the process which was helping them to enter into glory. The Lord Jesus, as the Captain of salvation, passed through all the sufferings and entered into glory. He is our Pioneer, our Forerunner. He has gone before us to cut the way into glory. The way has been paved, and all we need to do is follow Him. We should not be troubled by our sufferings. We should be comforted. All the sufferings are helping us along the highways to Zion (Psa. 84:5).
The more we follow Christ in His way, the more we must be prepared to experience sufferings. Sufferings are good; they are a great help. We need to thank the Lord for our sufferings because all the sufferings are our helpers. The more we Christians pray and love the Lord, the more problems we may have. According to our experiences, we can realize that many problems are precisely measured out. They are neither too long nor too short, and they all seem to come at just the right time. As we look back upon our experiences, we see how good it was that certain things happened when they did. We should not be bothered by our problems. Whatever happens to us, we should praise the Lord, declaring that this is the process of entering into glory. He is leading us into the glory, which has been sown into our inner being. The glory that has been sown into us as a seed will be developed into the glory which we will enter.
The glory into which we will enter is the glory of the divine element that has been sown into us, the blossoming of the divine element within us. We are not entering into this glory on our own but with the Captain who pioneered the way, who entered into glory, and who is now leading us into glory.
When Paul was suffering because of a thorn in the flesh, he asked the Lord three times to remove it (2 Cor. 12:7-8). But the Lord answered Paul, saying, “My grace is sufficient for you” (v. 9). Instead of taking away the thorn, the Lord afforded Paul His sufficient grace, ministering Himself to the apostle as the supply, the grace, to sustain and support him as he passed through all the sufferings. Hence, these sufferings produced glory in him.
Hebrews 2:11-12 says, “For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of One, for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, ‘I will declare Your name to My brothers; in the midst of the church I will sing hymns of praise to You.’” Christ the Sanctifier is of the Father, and the believers as those being sanctified are also of the Father. For this reason, He called them brothers, declared the Father’s name to them, and sang hymns of praise unto God the Father. This took place after His resurrection. According to John 20, the resurrected Christ as the firstborn Son of God came to meet with the disciples as His brothers.
He who sanctifies is Christ as the firstborn Son of God, and those who are being sanctified are the believers of Christ as the many sons of God. Both the firstborn Son and the many sons of God are born of the same Father God in resurrection (Acts 13:33; 1 Pet. 1:3) and have the same divine life and nature. Hence, He is not ashamed to call them brothers.
According to Hebrews 2:11, “Both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of One.” He who sanctifies is Christ, and those who are being sanctified are the believers. Hence, Christ and we the believers are all of One. The Greek word translated “of” actually means “out of.” This means that Christ and we, the Sanctifier and the sanctified, are all out of one source, one Father. The source surely does not refer to position but to nature, to disposition. The Sanctifier and the sanctified are all out of one source, one Father. The Father is the source of the Sanctifier, and He is the source of all the sanctified.
He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all out of One. Because of this, He is not ashamed to call us brothers. Rather, it is glorious for Him to call us brothers because He and we are of the same source. He has come from the Father, and we also have come out of the Father.
The Sanctifier is the Son of God. In His original state and before His incarnation, the Son of God could not sanctify us. However, the Sanctifier today is not only the Son of God but the Son of God incarnated. If He had never been incarnated, He would be unable to sanctify us.
As the incarnated One, Christ is the Son of Man. This Son of Man could not sanctify us until He was crucified, resurrected, glorified, and exalted. These are His qualifications for Him to be our Sanctifier. The incarnated Son of God needed to pass through death and resurrection so that His humanity might be born of God and that He might be glorified and exalted into the position of His being Sanctifier.
In order to be the Sanctifier, Christ had to be produced as the firstborn Son of God (1:6). The Firstborn can sanctify us because He, like us, has two natures and because we have the same natures that He has. Our Sanctifier is not the only begotten Son of God; He is the firstborn Son of God, the One who has the human nature as well as the divine nature. Because He and we are of the same two natures, He can sanctify us. Only when the firstborn Son was produced could the Sanctifier come into His office to do His sanctifying work. This means that He had to pass through the process of incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, glorification, and exaltation. After passing through this process, He became the firstborn Son of God. In other words, the firstborn Son of God was produced. This is our Sanctifier. He is qualified to be our Sanctifier, and we are qualified to be the sanctified.
He is qualified to be the Sanctifier because He is the firstborn Son of God, and we are qualified to be the sanctified because we are the many sons of God. He was qualified through His incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, glorification, and exaltation. After passing through this process, He became the firstborn Son of God. Our qualifications to be the sanctified are that we have the propitiation for our sins (2:17), that we have been released from the slavery of death (vv. 14-15), and that we have been brought forth to be the many sons of God (v. 10). Now both He and we are qualified. He is the qualified Sanctifier, and we are the qualified sanctified. We are fully qualified through the propitiation and resurrection of Christ.
We have seen that the Sanctifier and the sanctified are all out of One. This means that they are all out of one Father. Both the Sanctifier and the sanctified are sons born of the same Father. Since He and we are born of the same Father, we are His brothers. We and He have all come out of the same source, and we share with Him the same life and nature. In this life and nature we are now under His sanctifying work to transform us from being natural and to conform us to His image so that we may be glorified with the glory of God. Sanctification is to separate the reborn sons of God unto God, to transform them metabolically and organically with the element of the divine life, to conform them to His image, and to glorify them with His glory. The meaning of God’s sanctifying work is that the firstborn Son of God is working on the many sons of God.
Verse 12 goes on to say, “I will declare Your name to My brothers; in the midst of the church I will sing hymns of praise to You.” The firstborn Son declared the Father’s name to His brothers after He resurrected from the dead, when He met with the Father’s many sons (John 20:17, 19-23). The church mentioned in Hebrews 2:12 is referred to as a corporate composition of the many brothers of the firstborn Son of God.
Hebrews 2:11-12 indicates that in resurrection Christ has brought forth many brothers. Through His resurrection we were regenerated (1 Pet. 1:3). His death released the divine life from within Him, and His resurrection imparted the life of God into us in order that we might become the many sons of God and His many brothers. He was the one grain of wheat falling into the ground, dying, and growing up to bring forth many grains, which we are (John 12:24). He was the one grain, and we are now the many grains, His many brothers, brought forth by Him in His resurrection. Hence, immediately after His resurrection He called us His brothers (John 20:17).
In His resurrection Christ not only brought forth many brothers but also came to His brothers and declared to them the Father’s name (Heb. 2:12). The Father’s name is simply the Father. The Father is His name. The Father means the source of life and the source of being. We are all out of Him. The Sanctifier, the firstborn Son, and all the sanctified ones, the many sons, are all out of the one Father. On the day of His resurrection, the Lord declared the Father’s name to the disciples. From that day on Peter came to realize that he had the divine nature. Thus, in his second Epistle, Peter says that we are “partakers of the divine nature,” having received “all things which relate to life and godliness” (3, 2 Pet. 1:4). We have received the divine nature, and all things pertaining to life have been given to us because we were all born of the Father.
In the church the firstborn Son of God declares the Father’s name to His brothers. Because the Father is the source of the divine life and nature, to declare the name of the Father is to show the many brothers the source of this life and nature. Although the Jewish people in ancient times knew God, they did not know the Father. They knew God as the Creator but not as the Father who begets. They knew God’s creating power, but they did not know the Father’s begetting ability. They knew God’s power, but they did not realize the Father’s life. Before the resurrection, not even the disciples of Jesus knew the Father’s life and begetting ability. Before the day of resurrection, they knew only as much as the Jewish people did. However, on the day of resurrection the Lord came to them to declare the Father to make them know the Father as the source of life.
According to John 20, Jesus visited His disciples in the evening on the day of His resurrection. But John does not explicitly say that He declared the Father to the disciples. This is mentioned prophetically in Psalm 22:22. According to that prophecy, after His resurrection Christ came mainly to His disciples to make the Father known to them. The Father’s life and nature had become theirs. The Father’s being had been transferred into their being. This is what it means to declare the Father’s name to the disciples. That declaration was not merely a matter of mentioning the name; it was an impartation of all that the Father is — the Father’s life, nature, and being — into the disciples. We, the sons of God, have all become partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). To us, God is no longer only the creating God but also the begetting Father. He has begotten us; He has imparted His life, His nature, and even His being into our being. This is what it means to declare the Father’s name.
In resurrection Christ not only declared the Father’s name to His brothers but also praised the Father in the church (Heb. 2:11-12). When the Lord declared the Father’s name to His brothers, He praised the Father’s name in the church. The brothers are the church. Individually speaking, they are His brothers, and collectively speaking, they are the church brought forth in His resurrection. In the evening of the day of His resurrection His brothers gathered together, and He came to meet with them. That was the first church meeting. In the church meeting the Lord not only declared the Father’s name to His brothers, but He also praised the Father in the midst of the church.
This is the firstborn Son’s praising of the Father within the Father’s many sons in the church meetings. When we, the many sons of God, meet as the church and praise the Father, the firstborn Son praises the Father in our praising. It is not that He praises the Father apart from us and alone; rather, He praises within us and with us through our praising. In our singing He sings hymns of praise to the Father. If then we do not sing, how can He sing? The more we sing to the Father, the more we enjoy His presence, His moving, His anointing, and His life-imparting within us. Thus we will grow in Him and be brought into His glorification above all.
Today in the proper church meeting, the resurrected Christ is in our midst, although He is invisible. As Matthew 18:20 tells us, where there are two or three gathered into the Lord’s name, there He is in their midst. In the church meetings, He meets with us and sings hymns of praise to the Father. In fact, He sings in us; He sings in our singing. Because Christ is within us, if we are silent, He has no way to sing. Likewise, if we do not speak, He cannot speak. When we sing, He sings; when we speak, He speaks. Since He is not only in our midst but also within us, we need to take the initiative to speak and sing so that He can speak and sing hymns of praise to the Father in our speaking and singing.
Throughout all the centuries the firstborn Son has been continually singing hymns of praise unto the Father in the church. He does this in all of His brothers. When we sing hymns to the Father from our spirit, He sings with us in our spirit. This is wonderful. The church on earth today is one corporate Body with the firstborn Son of God. In the meetings of the church, the firstborn Son of God sings praise to the Father. Whenever we come to the meetings, we must open our mouths to praise the Father. If we do this, immediately we cooperate with the indwelling firstborn Son of God. To gain more of the firstborn Son, we need to praise the Father. The more we praise the Father, the more we gain the firstborn Son. The more we sing, the more He sings in our singing. The best way to have Christ work together with us is by singing praises to the Father.
Christ has made the Father known to us as the source of life. Now in the church meetings He is waiting for us to cooperate with Him in singing praises to the Father. The best way for us to give Him this cooperation is to open our spirit and sing praise to the Father. The more we sing, the more we will enjoy His singing. When we praise the Father, we enjoy Christ. We are one with Christ in praising the Father in the church meetings. The more we praise the Father in the church meetings, the more He praises the Father in our praising, and the more we enjoy Him and gain Him.
Hebrews 2:17 says, “Hence He should have been made like His brothers in all things that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest in the things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” The Son of God was made like us, His brothers, in that He partook of blood and flesh (v. 14). This was done for two purposes, one negative and the other positive. The negative purpose was to destroy for us the devil, who is in the flesh. The positive purpose is to be our merciful and faithful High Priest who has the human nature, that He may sympathize with us in all things.
The Lord was made like His brothers in all things in order that He might sympathize with them. It is a matter of sympathy that Christ shared in our nature, partaking of blood and flesh. He is the firstborn Son of God, and we are His many brothers. Yet we all are weak and fragile in the flesh, so He became a man in the flesh, the same as we are. Because we are weak and fragile, we need Him to sympathize with us. The Lord’s sympathizing with us is an aspect of His incarnation.
As the High Priest, Christ ministers God Himself and the riches of the divine life to us. As the God-man, He is fully qualified to be our High Priest. The first two chapters of Hebrews mainly cover two points — that Christ is the Son of God, God Himself, and the Son of Man, man Himself. Merciful corresponds with His being a man, and faithful corresponds with His being God.
Being merciful corresponds with the matter of Christ’s being a man. He became a man and lived on earth as a man passing through all the human sufferings. As a result, He is fully qualified to be merciful to us. He knows how to be merciful to man. He is a man with the experiences of human life, with the experiences of human suffering.
He was incarnated to be like us (vv. 14, 17). We may even say that He is more than like us, for He suffered in His human life some things that we have not suffered. In order to be qualified to be a merciful High Priest, He became like us, sympathizing with all of our weaknesses.
If we would be faithful, we not only need virtue but also the ability to keep our word. Christ as the High Priest is the faithful God. God is faithful (10:23). He is able to fulfill whatever He says. God never lies (6:18). Whatever He has spoken He is able to fulfill; He has every means to fulfill what He has spoken. Only God can be fully faithful. None of us can be completely faithful. In contrast, nothing can frustrate God from fulfilling His word. Jesus can be a faithful High Priest because He is the almighty God. Since He, as the Son of God, is God Himself, He is able to be faithful. Although, as the many sons of God and as the many brothers of the Firstborn, we are divine as well as human, we are not almighty. We are human in our human nature and divine in His divine nature, but we are not almighty in His deity. Since He is the almighty God, He can be faithful to us.
Christ can be a merciful and faithful High Priest because He is the Son of Man with the human nature and the Son of God with the divine nature. He is fully qualified. Our High Priest, Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Son of Man, is both merciful and faithful because He is both God and man.
In His death Christ made propitiation for the sins of God’s people (2:17). The Greek word for propitiation here is hilaskomai which means to appease, to reconcile one by satisfying the other’s demand, that is, to propitiate. The Lord Jesus made propitiation for our sins to reconcile us to God by satisfying God’s righteous demands on us. Thus, He has appeased God for us.
Jesus made propitiation for our sins, thereby satisfying the demand of God’s righteousness and appeasing the relationship between God and us, that God may be peacefully gracious to us. He has settled every problem between us and God. Since we create problems between us and God, all of which need to be solved, every day we need to enjoy Christ as the propitiatory sacrifice, which appeases God for our situation.
He has made purification of sins (1:3). Thus, we should be at peace. Our sins have been purified. Although we must hate our sins, we need not be bothered by them. Christ has purified us of our sins once for all (7:27).
The first two chapters of Hebrews reveal that Christ as the Son of God, God Himself, through His incarnation, ascension, and glorification made Himself the same as we are and made us the same as He is. We are human, and He made Himself human. He is divine, and He made us to have the divine life and nature. Since He is such a man, and at the same time God Himself, He is superior to the angels. In chapter 1 Christ is God, and in chapter 2 He is man. He is the God-man, the mingling of God and man.
Chapter 1 of Hebrews reveals that Christ is the Son of God coming to speak, declare, and express God. As such a One He is superior to the angels. In chapter 2 He is the Son of Man going to be the Lord, the Christ, the Captain, and the Savior. His being our Lord, Christ, Captain, and Savior is not based mainly upon His divinity but upon His humanity. This is a very practical matter. It is because He is a man that He is the Lord, Christ, Captain, and Savior. Angels, who do not have humanity, can never be our Lord, Christ, Captain, and Savior. Only Christ in His humanity can be such a One to us. Furthermore, this humanity is not a natural humanity; it is a resurrected, uplifted, and ascended humanity, a humanity that is crowned with God’s glory and honor.
At this point it would be helpful to consider certain contrasts between Hebrews 1 and 2 in the way they reveal Christ for our experience and enjoyment. In chapter 1 Christ is the Son of God, but in chapter 2 He is the Son of Man (1:2, 5; 2:6). Chapter 1 also tells us that Christ is in the heavens, but chapter 2 says that He is on the earth (1:3, 13; 2:9, 14). In chapter 1 Christ is on the throne, but in chapter 2 He is in the church (1:3; 2:12). Chapter 1 says that Christ is at the right hand of God, but chapter 2 says that Christ is with the children whom God has given to Him (1:3; 2:13). In chapter 1 Christ is the One whom the angels of God worship, but in chapter 2 He is the One who praises God (1:6; 2:12). Finally, in chapter 1 Christ is the One in whom people trust, but in chapter 2 He is the One who is trusting (1:10-12; 2:13).
