COVENANTS AND THEIR RESPONSIBILITIES
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with glory and honour because of the suffering of death? If we read it that Christ was crowned with glory as a result
of His death, we shall have a difficulty in the conclusion of verse 9, `that He by the grace of God should taste death
for every man'; He was not exalted to taste death, but was humbled. The grammar of the apostle's phrase
considered alone and without the context, favours the following as the meaning:
`But we see Jesus crowned with glory and honour, Who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of
death, so that He by the grace of God might taste death for every man' (2:9).
With this agrees Hebrews 10:5:
`Wherefore when He cometh into the world, He saith, Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not, but a body hast Thou prepared
Me'.
But while this translation appears to conform to the requirement of grammar, we cannot help feeling how fully the
alternative rendering fits the theme of the epistle.
Philippians 2:8,9 links the death of the cross with the glorious exaltation, and with the Name above every name,
which immediately attracts attention to Hebrews 1:4. Hebrews 12:2 also links the suffering and cross very definitely
with the exaltation at the right hand of the throne of God. The whole driving thought of the epistle is that endurance
now is necessary to obtain that aionian glory and that so great salvation. By transposing the order of the words and
placing the reference to the glory immediately after the reference to Jesus, we may be more grammatical, but we
have nevertheless taken a liberty with the way in which the apostle by Divine guidance arranged his sentence, and
have robbed ourselves of the very ambiguity he intended.
The Lord did not take hold of angels, He took hold on the seed of Abraham. He was made flesh and received a
body that thereby He might suffer the death of the cross. By that very act of humiliation, however, He inherited a
more excellent Name than the angels, beneath whose dignity and nature He had voluntarily stooped; and therefore
by reason of the suffering of death, we see Jesus crowned with glory and honour.
`All of one'
`For it became Him, for Whom are all things, and by Whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make
the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings' (Heb. 2:10).
Instead of simply saying `God' or `The Father', the apostle uses the title `Him for Whom are all things, and by
Whom are all things'. There is a reason for this which it is important to observe, and it comes out again in chapter
11 . There the statement is simpler, and will enable us to perceive the underlying principle here in verse 10:
`For it is necessary for him who comes near to God (a special term) to believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of
them who diligently seek Him' (11:6).
Three statements are here, which placed beside 2:10 will illuminate that passage:
`It was becoming'.
`It is necessary'.
`Him, for Whom and by Whom are all things'.
`He is'.
`Perfecter'.
`Rewarder'.
The doctrine of reward is as primal and absolute as the very existence of God. `He is', `He is a rewarder'. The
words of chapter 2:10 are an expansion of this. He Who IS, is the Creator Whose creation has been arranged with a
view to His own glory. He Who is a rewarder of the diligent seeker, plans also the pathway to glory, `Perfect
through suffering'. Instead of counting the idea of reward as strange, and proudly saying, `Virtue is its own reward,
we ought to do right for right's sake' (which is perfectly true), we should be more Scriptural, and fundamentally
more true, if we saw in the framing and enforcing of all law whatever, that reward is essential, and that suffering is
of purpose. So the words are introduced by eprepe, `It is becoming'.
Prepei is used again in 7:26, when the essential suitability of Christ as High Priest is spoken of; also in Matthew
3:15, where it was fitting and proper that the Son of God should fulfil all righteousness. It was therefore in the way
of the nature of things that God, Who had made all things for Himself, in leading many sons to glory, should perfect
their Captain through sufferings. The idea of a suffering Messiah was repugnant to the Jew by reason of the