_THE SON AND THE ANGELS._
HEBREWS i. 4-ii. 18.
The most dangerous and persistent error against which the theologians of
the New Testament had to contend was the doctrine of emanations. The
persistence of this error lay in its affinity with the Christian
conception of mediation between God and men; its danger sprang from its
complete inconsistency with the Christian idea of the person and work of
the Mediator. For the Hebrew conception of God, as the "I AM," tended
more and more in the lapse of ages to sever Him from all immediate
contact with created beings. It would be the natural boast of the Jews
that Jehovah dwelt in unapproachable light. They would point to the
contrast between Him and the human gods of the Greeks. An ever-deepening
consciousness of sin and spiritual gloom would strengthen the conviction
that the Lord abode behind the veil, and their conception of God would
of necessity react on their consciousness of sin. If, therefore, God is
the absolute Being--so argued the Gnostics of the day--He cannot be the
actual Creator of the world. We must suppose the existence of an
emanation or a series of emanations from God, every additional link in
the chain being less Divine, until we arrive at the material universe,
where the element of Divinity is entirely lost. These emanations are the
angels, the only possible mediators between God and men. Some theories
came to a stand at this point; others took a further step, and
worshipped the angels, as the mediators also between men and God. Thus
the angels were regarded as messengers or apostles from God and
reconcilers or priests for men. St. Paul has already rejected these
notions in his Epistle to the Colossians. He teaches that the Son of
God's love is the visible image of the invisible God, prior to all
creation and by right of primogeniture Heir of all, Creator of the
highest angels, Himself being before they came into existence. Such He
is before His assumption of humanity. But it pleased God that in Him,
also as God-Man, all the plenitude of the Divine attributes should
dwell; so that the Mediator is not an emanation, neither human nor
Divine, but is Himself God and Man.[8]
Recent expositors have sufficiently proved that there was a Judaic
element in the Colossian heresy. We need not, therefore, hesitate to
admit that the Epistle to the Hebrews contains references to the same
error. Our author acknowledges the existence of angels. He declares that
the Law was given through angels, which is a point not touched upon more
than once in the Old Testament, but seemingly taken for granted, rather
than expressly announced, in the New. Stephen reproaches the Jews, who
had received the Law as the ordinances of angels, with having betrayed
and murdered the Righteous One, of Whom the Law and the prophets
spake.[9] St. Paul, like the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews,
argues that the Law differs from the promise in having been ordained
through angels, as mediators between the Lord and His people Israel,
whereas the promise was given by God, not as a compact between two
parties, but as the free act of Him Who is one.[10] The main purpose of
the first and second chapters of our Epistle is to maintain the
superiority of the Son to the angels, of Him in Whom God has spoken unto
us to the mediators through whom He gave the Law.
The defect of the doctrine of emanations was twofold. They are supposed
to consist of a long chain of intermediate beings. But the chain does
not connect at either end. God is still absolutely unapproachable by
man; man is still inaccessible to God. It is in vain new links are
forged. The chain does not, and never will, bring man and God together.
The only solution of the problem must be found in One Who is God and
Man; and this is precisely the doctrine of our author, on the one hand,
that the Revealer of God is Son of God; and, on the other hand, that the
Son of God is our brother-man. The former statement is proved, and a
practical warning based upon it, in the section that extends from chap.
i. 4 to chap. ii. 4. The latter is the subject of the section from chap.
ii. 5 to chap. ii. 18.
I. THE REVEALER OF GOD SON OF GOD.
"Having become by so much better than the angels, as He hath
inherited a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the
angels said He at any time,
Thou art my Son,
This day have I begotten Thee?
and again,
I will be to Him a Father,
And He shall be to Me a Son?
And when He again bringeth in the Firstborn into the world He saith,
And let all the angels of God worship Him. And of the angels He
saith,
Who maketh His angels winds,
And His ministers a flame of fire:
but of the Son _He saith_,
Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever;
And the sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre of Thy kingdom.
Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity;
Therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee
With the oil of gladness about Thy fellows.
And,
Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth,
And the heavens are the works of Thy hands:
They shall perish; but Thou continuest:
And they all shall wax old as doth a garment;
And as a mantle shall Thou roll them up,
As a garment, and they shall be changed:
But Thou art the same,
And Thy years shall not fail.
But of which of the angels hath He said at any time,
Sit Thou on My right hand,
Till I make Thine enemies the footstool of Thy feet?
Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to do service for
the sake of them that shall inherit salvation?
Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things that
were heard, lest haply we drift away _from them_. For if the word
spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and
disobedience received a just recompense of reward; how shall we
escape, if we neglect so great salvation? which having at the first
been spoken through the Lord, was confirmed unto us by them that
heard; God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and
wonders, and by manifold powers, and by gifts of the Holy Ghost
according to His own will" (Heb. i. 4-ii. 4, R.V.).
Christ is Son of God, not in the sense in which angels, as a class of
beings, are designated by this name, but as He Who has taken His seat on
the right hand of the Majesty on high. The greatness of His position is
proportionate to the excellency of the name of Son. This name He has
not obtained by favour nor attained by effort, but inherited by
indefeasible right. Josephus says that the Essenes forbade their
disciples to divulge the names of the angels. But He Who has revealed
God has been revealed Himself. He is Son. Which of the angels was ever
so addressed? To speak of the angels as sons and yet say that not one of
them individually is a son may be self-contradictory in words, but the
thought is consistent and true.
From the pre-existent Son, regarded as the idealised theocratic King,
the Apostle passes to the incarnate Christ, returning to the world which
He has redeemed, and out of which He brings[11] many sons of God unto
glory. God brings Him also in as the First-begotten among these many
brethren. But our Lord Himself describes His coming. "The Son of man
shall come in His glory, and all the angels with Him."[12] In allusion
to this saying of Christ, the Apostle applies to His second advent the
words which in the Septuagint Version of the Old Testament are a summons
to all the angels to worship Jehovah. They are the Son's ministers. Like
swift winds, they convey His messages; or they carry destruction at His
bidding, like a flame of fire. But the Son is enthroned God for ever.
The sceptre of righteousness, by whomsoever borne, is the sceptre of
His kingdom; all thrones and powers, human and angelic, hold sway under
Him. They are His fellows, and participate only in His royal gladness,
Whose joy surpasses theirs.
The author reverts to the Son's pre-incarnate existence. The Son created
earth and heaven, and, for that reason, He remains when the works of His
hand wax old, as a garment. Creation is the vesture of the Son. In all
the changes of nature the Son puts off a garment, while He remains
unchanged Himself.
Finally, our author glances at the triumphant consummation, when God
will do for His Son what He will not do for the angels. For He will make
His enemies the footstool of His feet, as the reward of His redemptive
work. The angels have no enemy to conquer. Neither are they the authors
of our redemption. Yea, they are not even the redeemed. The Son is the
Heir of the throne. Men are the heirs of salvation. Must we, then, quite
exclude the angels from all present activity in the kingdom of the Son?
Do they altogether belong to a past epoch in the development of God's
revelation? Must we say of them, as astronomers speak of the moon, that
they are dead worlds? Shall we not rather find a place for them in the
spirit-world corresponding to the office filled in the sphere of nature
by the works of God's hands? God has His earthly ministers. Are not the
angels ministering spirits? The Apostle puts the question tentatively.
But the pious instinct of the Church and of good men has answered, Yes.
For salvation has created a new form of service for which nature is not
fitted. The narrative of the Son's own life on earth suggests the same
reply. For an angel appeared unto Him in Gethsemane and strengthened
Him.[13] It is true that the Son Himself is the Minister of the
sanctuary. He alone serves in the holiest place. But may not the angels
be _sent forth_ to minister? Salvation is the work of the Son. But shall
we not say that the angels perform a service for the Son, which is
possible only because of men who are now on the eve of inheriting that
salvation?
We must beware of minimising the significance of the Apostle's words. If
he means by "Son" merely an official designation, where is the
difference between the Son and the angels? The only definition of "Son"
that will satisfy the argument is "God the Revealer of God." Sabellius
said, "The Word is not the Son." The contrary doctrine is necessary to
give any value to the reasoning of our Epistle. The Revealer is Son; and
the Son, in order to be the full Revealer, must be "of the essence of
the Father," inasmuch as God only can perfectly reveal God. This is so
vital to the Apostle's argument that he need not hesitate to use a term
in reference to the Son which in another connection might be liable to
be misunderstood, as if it expressed the theory of emanation. The Son is
"the effulgence" of the Father's glory, or, in the words of the Nicene
Creed, He is "Light out of Light." It is safe to use such words when our
very argument demands that He should also be "the distinct impress of
His substance,"--"very God out of very God."
The Apostle has now laid the foundation of his great argument. He has
shown us the Son as the Revealer of God. This done, he at once
introduces his first practical warning. It is his manner. He does not,
like St. Paul, first conclude the argumentative portion of his Epistle,
and afterwards heap precept on precept in words of warning, sympathy, or
encouragement. Our author alternates argument with exhortation. The
Epistle wears to a superficial reader the appearance of a mosaic. The
truth is that no book in the New Testament is more thoroughly or more
skilfully welded into one piece from beginning to end. But the danger
was imminent, and urgent warning was needed at every step. One truth was
better fitted to drive home one lesson, and another argument to enforce
another.
The first danger of the Hebrew Christians would arise from
indifference. The first warning of the Apostle is, Take care that you do
not drift.[14] In the Son as the Revealer of God we have a sure
anchorage. Let us fasten the vessel to its moorings. That the Son has
revealed God is beyond question. The fact is well assured. For the
message of salvation has been proclaimed by the Lord Jesus Himself. It
has run its course down to the writer of the Epistle and his readers
through the testimony of eye-witnesses and ear-witnesses. God Himself
has borne witness with these faithful men by signs and wonders and
divers manifestations of power, yea by giving the Holy Ghost to each one
severally according to His own will. The last words are not to be
neglected. The apparent arbitrariness of His sovereign will in the
distribution of the Spirit lends force to the proof, by pointing to the
direct, personal action of God in this great concern.
But the warning is based, not simply on the fact of a revelation, but on
the greatness of the Revealer. The Law was given through angels, and the
Law was not transgressed with impunity. How, then, shall we escape God's
anger if we contemptuously neglect a salvation so great that no one less
than the Son could have wrought or revealed it?
Observe the emphatic notions. Salvation is contrasted with law. It is a
greater sin to despise God's free, merciful offer of eternal life than
to transgress the commandments of His justice. There may be emphasis
also on the certainty of the proof. The word spoken by angels was firmly
assured, and, because no man could shelter under the plea that the
heavenly authority of the message was doubtful, disobedience met with
unsparing retribution. But the Gospel is proved to be of God by still
more abundant evidence,--the personal testimony of the Lord Jesus, the
witness of those who heard Him, and the cumulative argument of gifts and
miracles. While these truths are emphatic, more important than all is
the fact that the Son is the Giver of this salvation. The thought seems
to be that God is jealous for the honour of His Son. Our Lord Himself
teaches this, and the form which it assumes in His parable implies that
He speaks, not as a speculative moralist, but as One Who knows God's
heart: "Last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will
reverence my son." But when Christ asks His hearers what the lord of the
vineyard will do unto those wicked husbandmen, the manner of their reply
shows that they only half understand His meaning or else pretend not to
see the point of His question. They acknowledge the husbandmen's
wickedness, but profess that it consists largely in not rendering to
the owner the fruits in their season, as if, forsooth, their wickedness
in killing their master's son had not thrust their dishonesty quite out
of sight.[15] The Apostle, too, appeals to his readers,[16] evidently in
the belief that they would at once feel the force of his argument,
whether trampling under foot the Son of God did not deserve sorer
punishment than despising the law of Moses. Christ and the Apostle speak
in the spirit of the second Psalm: "Thou art My Son. Ask of Me, and I
shall give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost
parts of the earth for Thy possession.... Kiss the Son!" Now, if Christ
adopts this language, it is not mere metaphor, but is a truth concerning
God's moral nature. Resentment must, in some sense or other, belong to
God's Fatherhood. The doctrine of the Trinity implies the necessary and
eternal altruism of the Divine nature. It would not be true to say that
the God of the Christians was less jealous than the God of the Hebrews.
He is still the living God. It is a fearful thing to fall into His
hands. He will still vindicate the majesty of His law. But now He has
spoken unto us in One Who is Son. The Judge of all is not a mere
official Administrator, but a Father. The place occupied in the Old
Testament by the Law is now filled by the Son.
II. THE SON THE REPRESENTATIVE OF MAN.
"For not unto angels did He subject the world to come, whereof we
speak. But one hath 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 honour,
And didst set him over the works of Thy hands:
Thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet.
For in that He subjected all things unto him, He left nothing that
is not subject to him. But now we see not yet all things subjected
to him. But we behold Him Who hath been made a little lower than the
angels, _even_ Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with
glory and honour, that by the grace of God He should taste death for
every _man_. For it became Him, for Whom are all things, and through
Whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the
Author of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both He
that sanctifieth and they that 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 congregation will I sing Thy praise.
And again, I will put My trust in Him. And again, Behold, I and the
children which God hath given Me. Since then the children are
sharers in flesh and blood, He also Himself in like manner partook
of the same; that through death He might bring to nought him that
had the power of death, that is, the devil; and might deliver all
them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to
bondage. For verily not of angels doth He take hold, but He taketh
hold of the seed of Abraham. Wherefore it behoved Him in all things
to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and
faithful High-priest in things pertaining to God, to make
propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself hath
suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted"
(HEB. ii. 5-18, R.V.).
The Son is better than the angels, not only because He is the Revealer
of God, but also because He represents man. We have to do with more than
spoken promises. The salvation through Christ raises man to a new
dignity, and bestows upon him a new authority. God calls into existence
a "world to come," and puts that world in subjection, not to angels, but
to man.
The passage on the consideration of which we now enter is difficult,
because the interpretation offered by some of the best expositors,
though at first sight it has the appearance of simplicity, really
introduces confusion into the argument. They think the words of the
Psalmist,[17] as applied by the Apostle, refer to Christ only. But the
Psalmist evidently contrasts the frailty of man with the authority
bestowed upon him by Jehovah. Mortal man has been set over the works of
God's hand. Man is for a little inferior to the angels; yet he is
crowned with glory and honour. The very contrast between his frailty and
his dignity exalts the name of his Creator, Who judges not as we judge.
For He confronts His blasphemers with the lisping of children, and weak
man He crowns king of creation, in order to put to shame the wisdom of
the world.[18]
We cannot suppose that this is said of Christ, the Son of God. But there
are two expressions in the Psalm that suggested to St. Paul[19] and the
author of this Epistle a Messianic reference. The one is the name "Son
of man;" the other is the action ascribed to God: "Thou hast made him
lower than the angels." The word[20] used by the Seventy, whose
translation the Apostle here and elsewhere adopts, means, not, as the
Hebrew, "to create lower," but "to bring from a more exalted to a
humbler condition." Christ appropriated to Himself the title of "Son of
man;" and "to lower from a higher to a less exalted position" applies
only to the Son of God, Whose pre-existence is taught by the Apostle in
chap. i. The point of the Apostle's application of the Psalm must,
therefore, be that in Christ alone have the Psalmist's words been
fulfilled. The Psalmist was a prophet, and testified.[21] In addition to
the witnesses previously mentioned,[22] the Apostle cites the evidence
from prophecy. An inspired seer, "seeing this beforehand, spake of
Christ," not primarily, but in a mystery now explained in the New
Testament. The distinction also between crowning with glory and putting
all things under his feet holds true only of Christ. The Psalmist, we
admit, appears to identify them. But the relevancy of the Apostle's use
of the Psalm lies in the distinction between these two things. The
creature man may be said to be crowned with glory and honour by
receiving universal dominion and by the subjection of all things under
his feet. "But we see not yet all things put under him;" and,
consequently, we see not man crowned with glory and honour. The words of
the Psalmist have apparently failed of fulfilment or were at best only
poetical exaggeration. But Him Who was actually translated from a higher
to a lower place than that of angels, from heaven to earth--that is to
say, Jesus, the meek and lowly Man of Nazareth--we see crowned with
glory and honour. He has ascended to heaven and sat down on the right
hand of the Majesty on high. So far the prophecy has come true, but only
so far. All things have not yet been put under Him. He is still waiting
till He has put all enemies, even the last enemy, which is death, under
His feet. As, then, the glory and honour are bestowed on man through his
Representative, Jesus, so also dominion is given him only through Jesus;
and the glory comes only with the dominion. Every honour that falls to
man's share is won for him by the victory of Christ over an enemy. This
is the nearest approach in our Epistle to the Pauline conception of
Christ as the second Adam.
But is there any connection between Christ's victory and His being made
lower than the angels? When the Psalmist describes the great dignity
conferred on frail man, he sees only the contrast between the dignity
and the frailty. He can only wonder and worship in observing the
incomprehensible paradox of God's dealings with man. The Apostle, on the
other hand, fathoms this mystery. He gives the reasons for the strange
connection of power and feebleness, not indeed in reference to man as a
creature, but in reference to the Man Christ Jesus. Apart from Christ
the problem that struck the Psalmist with awe remains unsolved. But in
Christ's incarnation we see why man's glory and dominion rest on
humiliation.
1. Christ's humiliation involved a propitiatory death for every man, and
He is crowned with glory and honour that His propitiation may prove
effectual: "that He may have tasted[23] death for every man." By His
glory we must mean the self-manifestation of His person. Honour is the
authority bestowed upon Him by God. Both are the result of His suffering
death, or rather the suffering of His death. He is glorified, not simply
because He suffered, but because His suffering was of a certain kind and
quality. It was a propitiatory suffering. Christ Himself prayed His
Father to glorify Him with His own self with the glory He had with the
Father before the world was.[24] This glory was His by right of Sonship.
But He receives from His Father another glory, not by right, but by
God's grace.[25] It consists in having His death accepted and
acknowledged as an adequate propitiation for the sins of men. In this
verse the great conception of atonement, which hereafter will fill so
large a place in the Epistle, is introduced, not at present for its own
sake, but in order to show the superiority of Christ to the angels. He
is greater than they because He is the representative Man, to Whom, and
not to the angels, the world to come has been put in subjection. But the
Psalmist has taught us that man's greatness is connected with
humiliation. This connection is realised in Christ, Whose exaltation is
the Divine acceptance of the propitiation wrought in the days of His
humiliation, and the means of giving it effect.
2. Christ's glory consists in being Leader[26] of His people, and for
such leadership He was fitted by the discipline of humiliation. There is
no incongruity in the works of God because He is Himself the ground of
their being[27] and the instrument of His own action.[28] Every
adaptation of means to an end would not become God, though it might
befit man. But this became Him for Whom and through Whom are all things.
When He crowns man with glory and honour, He does this, not by an
external ordinance merely, but by an inward fitness. He deals, not with
an abstraction, but with individual men, whom He makes His sons and
prepares for their glory and honour by the discipline of sons. "For what
son is there whom his father does not discipline?"[29] Thus it is more
true to say that God leads His sons to glory than to say that He bestows
glory upon them. It follows that the representative Man, through Whom
these many sons are glorified, must Himself pass through like
discipline, that, on behalf of God, He may become their Leader and the
Captain of their salvation. It became God to endow the Son, in Whose
Sonship men are adopted as sons of God, with inward fitness, through
sufferings, to lead them on to their destined glory. Perhaps the verse
contains an allusion to Moses or Joshua, the leaders of the Lord's
redeemed to the rich land and large. If so, the author is preparing his
readers for what he has yet to say.
3. Christ's glory consists in power to consecrate[30] men to God, and
this power springs from His consciousness of brotherhood with them. But,
first of all, the author thinks it necessary to prove that Christ has a
deep consciousness of brotherhood with men. He cites Christ's own words
from prophetic Scripture.[31] For Christ has vowed unto the Lord, Who
has delivered Him, that He will declare God's name unto His brethren.
Here the pith of the argument is quite as much in the vow to reveal God
to them as in His giving them the name of brethren. He is so drawn in
love to them that He is impelled to speak to them about the Father. Yea,
in the midst of the Church, as if He were one of the congregation, He
will praise God. They praise God for His Son; the Son joins in the
praise, as being thankful for the privilege of being their Saviour,
while they offer their thanks for the joy of being saved. That is not
all. Christ puts His trust in God. So human is He that, conscious of
utter weakness, He leans on God, as the feeblest of His brethren.
Finally, His triumphant joy at the safety of His redeemed ones arises
from this consciousness of brotherhood. "Behold, I and the children" (of
God) "which God hath given Me."[32] The Apostle does not fear to apply
to Christ what Isaiah[33] spoke in reference to himself and his
disciples, the children of the prophet. Christ's brotherhood with men
assumes the form of identifying Himself with His prophetic servants.
Evidently He is not ashamed of His brethren, though, like Joseph, He has
reason to be ashamed of them for their sin. The expression means that He
glories in them, because His assumption of humanity has consecrated
them. For this consecration springs from union. We do not, for our
part, understand this as a general proposition, of which the sanctifying
power of Christ is an illustration. No other instance of such a thing
exists. Yet the Apostle does not prove the statement. He appeals to the
intelligence and conscience of his readers to acknowledge its truth.
Whether we understand the word "sanctification" in the sense of moral
consecration through an atonement or in the sense of holy character, it
springs from union. Christ cannot sanctify by a creative word or by an
act of power. Neither can His power to sanctify be transmitted by God to
the Son externally, in the same way in which the Creator bestows on
nature its vital, fertilising energy. Christ must derive His power to
sanctify through His Sonship, and men must become sons of God that they
may be sanctified through the Son. Our passage adds Christ's
brotherhood. He that consecrates, therefore, and they that are
consecrated are united together, first, by being born of the same Divine
Father, and, second, by having the same human nature. Here, again, the
chain connects at both ends: on the side of God and on the side of man.
Now to have dwelling in Him the power of consecrating men to God is so
great an endowment that Christ may dare even to glory in the brotherhood
that brings with it such a gift.
4. Christ's glory manifests itself in the destruction of Satan, who had
the power of death, and his destruction is accomplished through
death.[34] The children of God have every one his share of blood and
flesh, which means vital, mortal humanity. Blood signifies life, and
flesh the mortality of that life. They are, therefore, subject to
disease and death. But to the Hebrews disease and death involved vastly
more than physical suffering and the termination of man's earthly
existence. They had their angel, by which is meant that they had a moral
significance. They were spiritual forces, wielded by a messenger of God.
This angel was Satan. But, following the lead of the later Jewish
theology, our author explains who Satan really is. He identifies him
with the evil spirit, who from envy, says the Book of Wisdom, brought
death into the world. To make clear this identification, he adds the
words, "that is, the devil." The reference to Satan is sufficient to
show that the writer of the Epistle means by "the power of death" power
to inflict it and keep men in its terrible grasp. But the difficulty is
to understand how the devil is destroyed through death. Evidently the
death of Christ is meant; we may paraphrase the Apostle's expression by
rendering, "through _His_ death." At first glance, the words, taken in
connection with the reference to Christ's humanity, seem to favour the
doctrine, propounded by many writers in the early ages of the Church,
that God delivered His Son to Satan as the price of man's release from
his rightful possession. Such a notion is utterly inconsistent with the
dominant idea of the Epistle: the priestly character of Christ's death.
A Hebrew Christian could not conceive the high-priest entering the
holiest place to offer a redemptive sacrifice to the spirit of evil.
Indeed, the advocates of this strange theory of the Atonement admitted
as much when they described Christ as outwitting the devil or escaping
from his hands by persuasion. But the doctrine is quite as inconsistent
with the passage before us, which represents the death of Christ as the
_destruction_ of the Evil One. Power faces power. Christ is the Captain
of salvation. His leadership of men implies conflict with their enemy
and ultimate victory. Death was a spiritual conception. Here lay its
power. Deliverance from the crushing bondage of its fear could come only
through the great High-priest. Priesthood was the basis of Christ's
power. We shall soon see that Christ is the Priest-King. The Apostle
even now anticipates what he has hereafter to say on the relation of the
priesthood to the kingly power. For as Priest Christ delivers men from
guilt of conscience and, by so doing, delivers them from their fear of
death; as King He destroys him who had the power to destroy. He is
"death of death and hell's destruction." It has been well said that the
two terrors from which none but Christ can deliver men are guilt of sin
and fear of death. The latter is the offspring of the former. When the
conscience of sin is no more, dread of death yields to peace and joy.
In these four ways is the glory of Christ connected with humiliation,
and thus will the prophecy of the Psalmist find its fulfilment in the
representative Man, Jesus. His humiliation implied propitiation, moral
discipline, conscious brotherhood, and subjection to him who had the
power of death. His glory consisted in the effectiveness of the
propitiation, in leadership of His people, in consecration of His
brethren, in the destruction of the devil.
But an interesting view of the passage has been proposed by Hofmann, and
accepted by at least one thoughtful theologian of our country. They
consider that the Apostle identifies the humiliation and the glory. In
the words of Dr. Bruce,[35] "Christ's whole state of exinanition was not
only worthy to be rewarded by a subsequent state of exaltation, but was
in itself invested with moral sublimity and dignity." The idea has
considerable fascination. We cannot set it aside by saying that it is
modern, seeing that the Apostle himself speaks of the office of
high-priest as an honour and a glory.[36] Yet we are compelled to reject
it as an explanation of the passage. The Apostle is showing that the
Psalmist's statement respecting man is realised only in the Man Christ
Jesus. The difficulty was to connect man's low estate and man's glory
and dominion. But if the Apostle means that voluntary humiliation for
the sake of others is the glory, some men besides Jesus Christ might
have been mentioned in whom the words of the Psalm find their
accomplishment. The difference between Jesus and other good men would
only be a difference of degree. Such a conclusion would very seriously
weaken the force of the Apostle's reasoning.
In bringing his most skilful and original argument to a close, the
Apostle recapitulates. He has said that the world to come,--the world of
conscience and of spirit,--has been put in subjection to man, not to
angels, and that this implies the incarnation of the Son of God. This
thought the Apostle repeats in another, but very striking, form: "For
verily He taketh not hold of angels, but He taketh hold of the seed of
Abraham." Though the old versions were incorrect in so rendering the
words as to make them express the fact of the Incarnation, the verse is
a reference to the Incarnation, described, however, as Christ's strong
grasp[37] of man. By becoming man He takes hold of humanity, as with a
mighty hand, and that part by which He grasps humanity is the seed of
Abraham, to whom the promise was made.
Four points of connection between the glory of Christ and His
humiliation have been mentioned. In his recapitulation, the Apostle sums
all up in two. The one is that Christ is Priest; the other is that He
succours them that are tempted. His propitiatory death and His bringing
to nought the power of Satan are included in the notion of priesthood.
The moral discipline that made Him our Leader and the sense of
brotherhood that made Him Sanctifier render Him able to succour the
tempted. Even this also, as will be fully shown by the Apostle in a
subsequent chapter, is contained in His priesthood. For He only can make
propitiation, Whose heart is full of tender pity and steeled only
against pity for Himself by reason of His dauntless fidelity to others.
Thus is the Son better than the angels.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] Col. i. 15, 19.
[9] Acts vii. 53.
[10] Gal. iii. 19.
[11] =agagonta=.
[12] Matt. xxv. 31.
[13] Luke xxii. 43. The genuineness of the verse is somewhat doubtful.
[14] =mê pararyômen= (ii. 1).
[15] Matt. xxi. 33, sqq.
[16] Heb. x. 29.
[17] Ps. viii. 4.
[18] Ps. viii. 2.
[19] 1 Cor. xv. 27.
[20] =êlattôsas=.
[21] Cf. Acts ii. 30.
[22] Chap. ii. 4.
[23] =geusêtai= (ii. 9).
[24] John xvii. 5.
[25] =chariti=.
[26] =archêgon= (ii. 10).
[27] =di' hon=.
[28] =di' hou=.
[29] Chap. xii. 7.
[30] =ho hagiazôn= (ii. 11).
[31] Ps. xxii. 22.
[32] Chap. ii. 13.
[33] Isa. viii. 18
[34] Chap. ii. 14.
[35] _Humiliation of Christ_, p. 46.
[36] Chap. v. 4, 5.
[37] =epilambanetai= (ii. 16).