Like His Brothers

Hello everyone. Welcome back to Deeper Waters. We are going through our Trinitarian commentary on the Bible now and in the New Testament and more specifically, in the epistle to the Hebrews. I also thank you all for your continued prayers as I am working on learning more in an area that I need to learn more in. Keep them up please. Going to the text however, we’ll be looking at chapter 2, verses 14-18.

¹⁴Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— ¹⁵and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. ¹⁶For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. ¹⁷For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. ¹⁸Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

In the work of salvation, those who Christ came to save have flesh and blood. In order to save them then, he became like them. Note that he became like them in that he was fully human but he was also without sin. It is not essential to being human that we be sinners. We just all happen to be. Jesus is the one who lived a truly human life in that he acted the way a human is supposed to act. The rest of us act less than human.

He came to save those who were held in slavery by their fear of death. Death has always been scary as its been the unknown. It is because of Christ that we can say that it is no longer the unknown but rather the known. Now we do not know it yet in the way of personal experience, but we do know it in the way of having information from one who has been there, which would be Christ of course.

Christ does not help angels but Abraham’s descendants, indicating that angels are beyond salvation. That’s because angels do not share a common essence. Humans do. Each angel is its own species essentially. Michael exhausts all that it means to be the archangel Michael. For Christ to save angels, he would have to become each angel. For us, he can partake in a common essence as we can be differentiated by matter.

It is because of this that he is able to be a high priest for us. He took on the temptations that we face every day and yet, he overcame them. Now this doesn’t mean that he faced every temptation, but rather that he faced every kind of temptation that there is. He overcame and because he did such, he is able to help us when we are being tempted. He is also able to make atonement for us for he alone is the pure and spotless one.

And that should be a comfort to all of us.