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"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; For it is God which worketh in
you both to will and to work on account of the good pleasure" (Phil. 2: 12, 13).
"Make you perfect in every good work, in order to do His will, doing in you that
which is well pleasing in His sight" (Heb. 13: 21).
The third reference (Heb. 10: 5-7) we have already had occasion to examine when
dealing with the word "sanctified". There we read of the moment when the Lord laid
aside His glory, the moment of His kenosis (Phil. 2: 7); and just as He left the glory that
was His before the world was to enter by human birth in the crib at Bethlehem that path
of suffering, we hear Him say:--
"Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not, but a BODY HAST THOU PREPARED
ME . . . . . Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God."
Here we are allowed by wondrous grace to hear the words with which the Lord of life
and glory voluntarily partook of the same flesh and blood as the children of men, that in
the body thus prepared for Him He might learn obedience by the things He should suffer,
and, being made perfect through suffering, lead many sons to glory.
Before we attempt to explain our verse, we must examine another item. The Lord
submitted to death, not only that all Adam's sons might live again (I Cor. 15: 22), but that
"He might render ineffective the one having the strength of death, that is the Devil".
What is this strength of death? Here we are not viewing atonement, for Christ offered
Himself in all aspects of His sacrifice, "unto God". The Devil possessed this strength,
and we must seek from the Word the meaning of the expression. Kratos is used in
Eph. 1: 19 of resurrection, "according to the energy of the strength of His might", and in
6: 10 of its practical application to the believer, "Finally be empowered in the Lord and
in the strength of His might", this empowering being in view of the conflict with spiritual
wickedness in heavenly places.
It will be remembered that (evidently) at the time when Moses was to appear with
Elias on the mount of transfiguration, "Michael the archangel when contending with the
Devil disputed about the body of Moses" (Jude 9). It will be remembered that the mount
of transfiguration came into prominence in our investigation into the meaning of the
expression "taste of death" of Heb. 2: 9, and Peter in his epistle of suffering in view of
glory introduces it in the first chapter. It is the vision of the overcomer. Death is spoken
of ten times in Hebrews. In 5: 7 we are taken to the garden of Gethsemane and there the
Lord:--
"in the days of His flesh, offered up both prayers and supplications with strong crying
and tears to Him who was able to save Him out of death, and was heard for His piety."
This passage, the reference following the cluster in Heb. 2: (9, 14, 15), carries with it
the same sense that is more dimly seen in Heb. 2:, namely, death as viewed in
connection with suffering and glory, obedience and perfection, aionian salvation, and the
so great salvation. Here also, as in Heb. 2: 17, the High Priesthood of Christ is
introduced (5: 6). The next reference to death (7: 23) speaks of the priesthood of the
sons of Aaron in contrast. The last reference seems of great importance in our endeavour
to understand the peculiar meaning of death in Heb. 2: 14, 15. In Heb. 11: 5, the chapter