THE FIRST WARNING: Do not neglect salvation
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📚Therefore 📖 we ought to pay more careful attention to the things we have heard 📖, lest at any time we drift away 📖 from them. 2 📚For if the word spoken by angels 📖 was firm 📖, and every violation of the Law and every disobedience was justly paid back in full, 3 📚how will we escape, if we neglect so great salvation 📖, which at the first was spoken by the Lord 📖, and which was confirmed 📖 to us 📖 by those who heard him? 4 📚God also 📖 gave witness with them, both with signs and wonders, and with many kinds of miracles, and gifts 📖 of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will.2:1-4 This is the first of five very severe warnings in this letter. The others are Heb 3:7-19; 6:1-8; 10:26-31; 12:25-29. The warnings are against treating the gospel lightly (Heb 2:3), unbelief (Heb 3:12, 19), falling away (Heb 6:6), deliberately going on in sin (Heb 10:26), and refusing God and His revelation of truth (Heb 12:25). These five things can be summed up in one word – apostasy. Apostasy means to rebel against God and to turn away from the truth He has revealed.⚜
Christ, not angels, will rule the world to come
5 📚For it is not to the angels that he has subjected the world to come 📖, of which we speak.
Christ, for a little while, was made lower than the angels, but now is again exalted above them
6 📚But someone in a certain place testified and said,
What is man that you bring him to mind?
Or the son of man,
that you visit him?
2:6 “But someone” – v 8 has not yet been completely fulfilled. Man does not now have the high place that God intended him to have.⚜
7 📚You made him a little lower than the angels.
You crowned him with glory and honour,
and placed him over the works of your hands.
8 📚You have put all things in subjection
2:6-8 The writer quotes from Ps 8:4-6 to show that God will make men, not angels, the rulers of the world to come. See also Matt 19:28; 24:46-47; 25:21; Luke 19:17; 2 Tim 2:12; Rev 5:10; 20:6; 22:5.⚜
under his feet.
For in putting all things in subjection under him, he omitted nothing that is not put under him. But now we do not yet see all things put under him. 9 📚But we see Jesus crowned with glory and honour, the One who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death so that by the grace of God he might taste death for every man.
2:9 Man’s authority over the world to come will be realized only through the Lord Jesus. He is mankind’s representative, “the last Adam” (1 Cor 15:45-47), the Leader of a redeemed people Who shall rule the world to come. He wanted to raise men far above the angels. So, though He was the Creator of angels, He was made lower than angels – that is, He became a man (John 1:14; Phil 2:5-8). The purpose of His incarnation was to suffer death. “Taste death” here means actually to die. God’s purpose is for man to rule the world to come. But there was a great obstacle to the fulfillment of this purpose. All men were sinners and subject to death as a punishment for their sins (Gen 2:17; Rom 5:12; 6:23). The Lord Jesus came to die “for every man” – 2 Cor 5:14-15; 1 Tim 2:6; 1 John 2:2. This was “by the grace of God”. It was God’s gift to mankind – John 3:16; Rom 5:8. Because Jesus willingly gave Himself up to death (John 10:17-18), God highly exalted Him – Heb 1:3; Phil 2:9-11.⚜
Christ was made lower than the angels, not for their sake, but for men
10 📚For it was fitting for him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory 📖, to make the author of their salvation 📖 perfect through sufferings. 11 📚For both he who sanctifies 📖 and those who are sanctified are all of one. For this reason he is not ashamed to call them brothers, 12 📚saying,
I will declare your name to my brothers,
in the midst of the church
I will sing praise to you.
13 📚And again, I will put my trust in him.
And again, See, I and the children
whom God has given me.
2:12-13 He quotes Ps 22:22 and Isa 8:17-18 as evidence that the Lord Jesus and His believers share together in human nature and in their relationship to God.⚜
14 📚Since therefore the children 📖 had flesh and blood, he also himself took of the same, so that through death he might destroy the one having the power of death 📖, 📖 that is, the devil, 15 📚and deliver those who through fear of death were, throughout their lifetime, under the heel of slavery.
16 📚For he certainly does not take hold of angels to help them, but he takes hold of the children of Abraham 📖.
2:16 This verse is not easy to translate. All that is in the Greek is “For certainly he does not take hold of angels, but he takes hold of the children of Abraham”. The KJV put the verb in the past tense and added the words “him the nature of” and “him” in italics, indicating that the words were not in Greek. The meaning of the Greek probably is that Christ, having become a man, now lays hold of certain men, not angels, to help them (v 18).⚜
17 📚Therefore in all things he had to be made like his brothers 📖, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest 📖 in things relating to God, to make propitiation 📖 for the sins of the people. 18 📚For since he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted.
2:5-18 The writer returns to the subject of chapter 1 – Christ is superior to the angels (vs 5,7,9). He knew that some people, lacking a full knowledge of the truth, might object: “If Christ is superior to the angels how is it that He was a man lower than the angels? How could one greater than angels experience temptation, suffering and death?” Christ’s death on the cross was a stumbling block to many Jews – 1 Cor 1:23. And many would not receive the truth that He was God incarnate – John 5:17-18; 10:31-33.
The writer answers any possible objection by making two chief points in these verses: Christ was made lower than the angels only for a brief time (v 9), and it was both fitting and necessary that Christ should be made a man, lower than the angels, so that He could be the Saviour of men (vs 10,14,17).⚜
2:18 See Heb 4:15; Matt 4:1-10. Jesus has felt the sharp arrows of temptation. He has suffered under the suggestions of Satan to think only of Himself, to avoid the cross, to do wrong. Since He has been through all that, He knows by experience Satan’s ways and how they come against the human mind and heart, and He can sympathize with His people facing them. On temptation see also Matt 6:13; 1 Cor 10:13.⚜
2:11-18 The Lord Jesus completely identified Himself with those whom God is bringing to glory.⚜