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This passage, the reference following the cluster in Heb. 2: (9, 14 and 15), carries
with it the same sense that is more dimly seen there, 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 is of great help to us in our endeavour to
understand the peculiar meaning of death in Heb. 2: 14, 15. In Heb. 11: 5, the chapter
of overcomers, sons who are led on to glory and perfected through sufferings, but not yet
perfected in resurrection, we read of Enoch, who by faith "was translated that he should
not see death". When we turn to 3: 17, 18, we read of the tragedy of the wilderness:
"But with whom was He grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned
(those who sinned), whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? And to whom sware He that
they should not enter into His rest, but to them that believed not?".
Those in Heb. 2: were all their lifetime held by the "fear" of death. In chapter 4: 1
we read immediately after hearing of those whose carcasses fell in the wilderness:
"Let us therefore FEAR, lest, a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of
you should seem to come short of it."
In writing of the wilderness to the Corinthians, the apostle says:
"Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were DESTROYED OF
THE DESTROYER" (I Cor. 10: 10).
When a believer was handed over to Satan by Paul it was for the destruction of the
flesh that the spirit might be saved. Parallel with this is I Cor. 3: 15, "He shall suffer
loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire". This too is the one great theme of
Hebrews.
"But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition (destruction, the destruction of
the flesh, the two Greek words used come together in I Cor. 10: 10), but of them who
believe to the saving of the soul" (Heb. 10: 39).
The death of Christ was effective in rendering ineffective him who had the strength of
death. By His one Offering the "sanctified" (Heb. 2: 11; 10: 14) are "perfected" for ever.
The deliverance is like that from a legal opponent (Luke 12: 58), or from the grip of a
disease (Acts 19: 12), or from the authority of darkness (Col. 1: 13). It is not the word
that indicates deliverance from sin in the gospel sense of the word. It is from the power
of some one into whose hands, or under whose authority we have come. The connection
between the believer's "perfecting", expressed in Colossians and Philippians as
circumcision, with antagonistic principalities and powers, is indicated in Col. 2: 10-15,
and their association with "reward" is seen in 2: 18. The death and the deliverance of
Heb. 2: must be related to the overcoming, the crown, the prize, and it is against this
"strength of death" the believer is ranged as he presses along the path, and to which he is
delivered should he so sadly fail as did those who tempted God in the wilderness.