Chapter Two

Exhortation to heed what has been heard (1–4). The humiliation and exaltation of Jesus (5–9). The necessity of His suffering death (10–18).

Hebrews 2:1. Therefore we must pay closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. “Therefore...” — the exhortation to heed what has been heard is derived as a practical conclusion for the readers from what was said above about the superiority of Jesus Christ over the Angels in authority and dignity. — “To what we have heard” — not only in chapter 1, but in the evangelical preaching about salvation in general. — “So that we do not drift away” — μή ποτε παραρρυῶμεν... — Slavonic “да не когда отпадем” — so as not to pass by the salvation that is taking place, not to miss participation in this saving current, not to be carried away from it and perish.

Hebrews 2:2. For if the word spoken through angels proved reliable, and every transgression and act of disobedience received a just penalty, “The word spoken through angels” — undoubtedly the Law of Moses, as is more clearly mentioned in Gal 3:19. Here the common Jewish tradition about the giving of the Law — not directly from God Himself, invisible and incomprehensible, but through the mediation of Angels, just as the reception of this Law also took place not directly by the people but through Moses, who stood between the people and the angel — is evidently reproduced (cf. Acts 7:53).

Hebrews 2:3. how will we escape if we neglect such a great salvation, which was first proclaimed by the Lord and then confirmed to us by those who heard Him, “How will we escape...” — that is, the same just retribution or punishment for transgression and violation of the New Covenant of God, given by the Son of God Himself, without the mediation of Angels and people? — “By those who heard Him” — that is, by the Apostles and the immediate disciples of the Lord. And here the apostle several times, through various emphatic nuances of expression, shows the superiority of the Son of God over the Angels and of His work over their ministry. Thus, it is noteworthy that what was proclaimed through the Angels he calls a word, while what was preached by the Lord he calls “salvation.” The external testimony to the truth and inviolability of the angelic word consisted almost exclusively in the retribution for its violation, whereas the testimony to the truth of the Lord’s preaching consisted of long-standing signs and wonders, which showed the special power and greatness of the new salvation (“such a great salvation”).

Hebrews 2:4. while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles, and by distributions of the Holy Spirit according to His will? “While God bore witness...” — συνεπιμαρτυροῦντος τοῦ θεοῦ... — Slavonic: “сосвидетельствующу Богу” — co-testifying God. The Slavonic text more precisely expresses here the meaning of the original regarding the close cooperation of God with man in various signs, the variety of which showed how great is God’s care for the fullness of His influence upon people and how people will be without excuse if they do not receive the preaching so manifoldly confirmed. Preparing to prove that Jesus Christ is the head of the New Covenant, the Apostle says that the humiliation of Him before the Angels in sufferings not only did not diminish His dignity but exalted it still further and was part of the plans of Divine providence as the most salvific means of the sanctification of all people.

Hebrews 2:5. For it was not to angels that God subjected the coming world, of which we are speaking; The sense of what was said is this: nowhere in the Old Testament is it promised that the future world — the Kingdom of the Messiah of which we are now speaking — will be subjected to the Angels; but there is one passage where it is said that God will subject this new world to the Son (Heb 2:6-8), who is consequently higher than the Angels, though He seemed to have been humbled below them. This stumbling block is sufficiently removed both by the subsequent exaltation of the Messiah and by the fact that this humbling was revealed by God and found its most beautiful portrayal in the Psalmist David, of whom the apostle speaks here guardedly (“someone somewhere”) so that this remarkable testimony of the universally known and beloved prophet might stand forth with greater force and significance. What was said by David refers most immediately in general to man as he was meant to be, and perhaps was for a brief time (before the fall) — according to God’s original intent (cf. Gen 1:26). Understanding what was said as going beyond the past, one must refer David’s words in their entirety to Christ alone, who received humanity without the infection of sin, and only then — in connection with Him — to the rest of redeemed humanity, and even that to a lesser degree: Heb 2:8 in its full sense applies only to Him alone (cf. 1 Cor 15:27; Eph 1:22).

Hebrews 2:6. but someone has testified somewhere, saying: “What is man, that you are mindful of him? or the son of man, that you visit him? Hebrews 2:7. “You made him a little lower than the angels; with glory and honor you crowned him, and you set him over the works of your hands, “You made him a little lower than the angels” — the Hebrew text, instead of “than the angels,” has “than the divine” (Elohim), better expressing the particular closeness of man’s relationship to God and at the same time his dignity. “A little” — “малым нечим” — βραχύ τι — in a double sense: either for a short time — during the earthly life of Jesus (cf. Heb 2:9), or in the sense of allowing a small (though also temporary) difference in dignity (the assumption of human flesh and the endurance of suffering and death), which was afterward made up by surpassing glory and honor.

Hebrews 2:8. “you put all things in subjection under his feet.” For in putting all things in subjection to him, He left nothing outside his control. At present, however, we do not yet see all things subjected to him; Hebrews 2:9. but we do see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone. The sense of these verses in their general context is as follows: God subjected all things to man, leaving nothing outside his control. Yet we do not yet see all things subjected to him. This is because we shall see it in due time, and specifically in the person of such a Man as to whom in the proper and full sense the present words of the Psalmist must be applied — in the person of Jesus. He was the One whom God humbled a little below the Angels through the endurance of death, but for this very endurance of death also crowned with the highest glory and honor, giving not only to Him Himself all authority in heaven and on earth, but restoring to believers in Him the true human dignity. This shade of meaning is better maintained in the Slavonic text, where, having cited the words of the Psalmist and established that at the present time they have not yet found full realization, the apostle — as if explaining this and pointing to where and when to expect this realization — interprets the words of David in application to Jesus: “but we do see Jesus, humbled a little below the angels,” with special emphasis on the last word (“Jesus”!). To Him, Jesus, consequently, all things are subjected; and if not all things are yet actually subjected, it is only because not everything has yet reached its proper time (cf. Heb 1:13). “Because of the suffering of death” — διὰ τὸ πάθημα τοῦ θανάτου — some connected this with the expression “made lower,” attributing to this passage the sense that Christ, through His sufferings and death (or for the sake of sufferings and death), so as to endure them for us, was for a short time humbled below the Angels. Others, more correctly, connect this expression “because of the suffering of death” with the thought about the crowning with glory and honor of Jesus, since the following verse 10 also serves to confirm that very thought (cf. Phil 2:9-10; Luke 24:26). — “By the grace of God, to taste death for everyone.” Here the thought is expressed that Jesus Christ’s tasting of death was an act of God’s love for fallen people (cf. Rom 5:8; Gal 2:21).

Hebrews 2:10. For it was fitting that He, for whom all things exist and through whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. “For it was fitting” — as most in keeping with Divine wisdom, love, and the glory of Christ, and as most appropriate to the condition of fallen man, that the pioneer — the principal agent of human salvation — should attain the goal of His ministry to the human race through suffering. — “For whom all things exist and through whom all things exist...” God the Father is depicted here as the primal ground and final purpose of all existence; under this condition He was entirely free to undertake, and did indeed undertake, the best and wisest measures for the salvation of people. The Slavonic text of verse 10, when compared with the Greek and Russian, has a curious peculiarity that opens a wide field for interpretation. This peculiarity consists in the expression “having brought many sons into glory,” placed in dependence on “to Him” (“it was fitting for Him...” — that is, for God the Father, having brought... and so on). The Russian text places the said expression in the accusative case, apparently agreeing it with what follows — “the pioneer of their salvation” (“bringing many sons” and so on). The Greek text does the same, although in the opinion of some, the Greek accusative here could have been used instead of the dative, so as to bind the participle more closely to the infinitive τελειῶσαι, and allows relating it not to the “pioneer of salvation” but also to God the Father, of whom the preceding speech is about. Both interpretations have their justifications, but it seems better to proceed as the Russian text does and as the literally translated Greek does. Τελειῶσαι — to make perfect — in the sense of making complete, bringing to one’s goal, realizing in accordance with the intention. “To make perfect the pioneer of salvation” means to achieve the result that Jesus became the true perfecter and cause of the salvation of all people, offering Himself as a sacrifice for them through His sufferings and death and leading them (ἀρχηγός — one who goes ahead, who leads) on this path of salvation. In the subsequent verses (Heb 2:11-18) the apostle strives to ground and more clearly elucidate the thought of why it pleased the Lord to accomplish our salvation precisely through sufferings.

Hebrews 2:11. For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from One; for this reason He is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying: “For” — is an explanatory conjunction for a whole series of thoughts about how the Lord’s sufferings made Him the pioneer of salvation for us. Most immediately this “for” also explains the thought expressed further, as to why the Lord is not ashamed to call us brothers: because (for) both He who sanctifies us and we who are sanctified by Him are all from One. By the “One” here one can understand either God the Father — if one has in view the humanity deified by Christ, of which the deification of ourselves was also the fruit (“He gave to those who believe the power to become children of God,” John 1:12-13) — or by the “One” one can understand Adam, if one has in view the incarnation of the Deity of Christ through birth from the Virgin Mary, daughter of the common progenitor of all people — Adam, which again leads to the “One,” the true Cause of all, united in Adam through bodily birth and in Christ through spiritual birth.

Hebrews 2:12. “I will proclaim your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you. The verse cited by the apostle gains special force in view of the fact that it is borrowed from a psalm unanimously acknowledged by all as Messianic (Ps 21:23).

Hebrews 2:13. And again: “I will put my trust in Him.” And again: “Here am I and the children whom God has given me. The verses from the prophet Isaiah (Isa 8:17-18) are intended to mark the human nature of Christ by ascribing to Him human qualities — prayerful trust in God and dedication to Him, both of Himself and of all His offspring — in this case, spiritual offspring. Having first cited the title of men as Christ’s brothers, and then as children, the apostle intends to note in general the unity of Christ’s nature with ours, all the more so since through His incarnation the Lord not only became our brother but, as the second Adam, also our father (cf. John 17:6).

Hebrews 2:14. Since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same, so that through death He might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, “Share in flesh and blood” — a descriptive expression for human nature. In order to become more perfectly like the children — His brothers — and more certainly to deliver them from the power of death that reigned over them, the Lord in completely the same way as they (“fully” — παραπλησίως — fully, perfectly) received their nature, so as to conquer the devil in it, the cause of sin and death (cf. 1 Cor 15:20-26 and following 1 Cor 15:53-57). This victory was accomplished through the satisfaction of God’s righteousness by Christ’s death for the sins of men — that is, the devil suffered defeat from the side from which one might least of all have expected it — from that domain in which he was ἔχων τὸ κράτος — in other words, by his own weapon. Death remained, apparently, as before, but it has already become no longer fearsome, for it destroys itself by giving those who die from it entry into the beginning of eternal life.

Hebrews 2:15. and to deliver those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. “Subject to slavery through fear of death” — that is, they experienced an extremely agonizing condition, being under constant fear of death, which was the sole master over people.

Hebrews 2:16. For surely it is not angels He helps, but the offspring of Abraham He helps. The verse points to a deeper grounding of the necessity of the incarnation of our Deliverer from death. Not angels needed deliverance, but people; therefore He also takes up not an angelic nature but a human one — for deliverance. Instead of “the offspring of Abraham” one might have expected the apostle to use “the offspring of Adam” as referring to humanity in general. The name of Abraham is preferred because it pointed more directly to the Jews as referring to the promises given to the “offspring of Abraham,” who was, as it were, less afflicted by the terrible consequences of Adam’s sin and more worthy for the Deliverer of people to derive His kinship with people from him.

Hebrews 2:17. Therefore He had to be made like His brothers in every way, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest before God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. Hebrews 2:18. For since He Himself suffered, having been tested, He is able to help those who are being tested. In order to save suffering man, the Deliverer had to not only assume human nature but also suffer in it Himself — to study, as it were in practice, the sufferings of humanity — and moreover to suffer in such a way that these His sufferings would be sufficient once and for all to propitiate God for the sins of all the people. Such sufferings, surpassing all human suffering, the Lord endured, moved to it both by His own mercy and by the demands of God’s righteousness (“merciful and faithful high priest”).