Hebrews 2:11

For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren,

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(11) For both he that sanctifieth . . .—The special meaning of “sanctify” in this Epistle (Hebrews 9:13; Hebrews 10:10; Hebrews 10:14; Hebrews 10:29; Hebrews 13:12) seems to be, bringing into fellowship with God, the Holy One. “They who are sanctified”—literally, are being sanctified (comp. Acts 2:47; 1Corinthians 1:18)—are those whom the Captain of their salvation, in fulfilment of the Father’s purpose (Hebrews 2:10), is leading unto glory. The thoughts of the last verse, therefore, are repeated here, with a change of figure; and again (as in Hebrews 2:9) we note the brief reference to a subject which will be prominent in later chapters; see especially Hebrews 13:12.

Are all of one.—Of one Father. This is the connecting link between Hebrews 2:11 and Hebrews 2:10, which speaks of the “many sons” and their Saviour. Though His sonship is unique and infinitely exalted, He is not ashamed to own them as brethren.

MacLaren's Expositions

Hebrews

THE BROTHERHOOD OF CHRIST

Hebrews 2:11-13.

NOT ashamed to call them brethren. Why should He be? It is no condescension to acknowledge the fact of brotherhood, any more than it is humility to be born. And yet there is One who had to empty and humble Himself in becoming man; and for whom to call men His brethren is a depth of unimaginable condescension. We would say that a prince was not ashamed to call his subjects his friends, and to eat and drink with them, but we should not say it of a subject. This word ‘ashamed’ is meaningless in the present connection unless there underlies it the lofty conception of Christ’s person which is enfolded in the first chapter of this epistle. If He be, and only if He is, the ‘brightness of the Father’s glory, and the express image of His person,’ is it condescension in Him to enroll Himself amongst our fraternity.

The writer selects three Old Testament passages which he thinks exhibit in prophetic outline the Messiah as claiming brotherhood with men. If the writer had known the gospels, he could have found other words that would have been even more weighty, such as ‘Behold My mother and My brethren’; but probably he was ignorant of them; or possibly, writing to Jews, he may have felt that to use their own manner of exposition was the best way of reaching them.

It would lead us into discussions altogether unsuited to the pulpit to examine the relevance of these three prophetic quotations. My object is a different one. The three citations from the Old Testament, which are adduced in my text as proofs that the Messiah identifies Himself with His brethren, deal with three different aspects of our Lord’s manhood; and if we take them altogether, they afford, if not a complete, yet a very comprehensive answer to the question why God became man. It is from that point of view that I desire to consider them here.

There are, then, three points here; {1} Christ’s assumption of manhood in order to show God to men {2} Christ’s assumption of manhood in order to show the pattern of a godly life to men; and {3} Christ’s assumption of manhood in order to bring men into the family of sons.

I. First, then, here we have the declaration or manifestation of God as the great object of Christ’s brotherhood with us, ‘Saying, I will declare Thy name unto My brethren.’

Where do these words come from? They come from that psalm, the first words of which rang out from His lips amidst the darkness of eclipse upon the Cross, ‘My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ The psalm, springing directly from the heart of David, and expressing to his consciousness, I suppose, solely his own feelings in the midst of his own trials and humiliations, has yet been so moulded into language a world too wide for the writer’s sorrows, and so corresponding in minute and singular details, with the historical facts of Christ’s passion and death, that we cannot fail to perceive shimmering through the words of the earthly King who won His throne through persecutions and trials, the august figure of the loftier and true King, of whom the sovereign of Israel was, ex-officio, a type and a prophecy. Just as David felt that he, as monarch, must be the brother of his subjects, and that the meaning of his reign and of his deliverance was the declaration of the name of God to his brethren, so our King can only be King if He be brother; and the inmost purpose of His brotherhood and of His monarchy is that He may manifest to men the name of the Father.

What is that ‘name’? The syllables by which men call Him? Surely not. But the name of the Lord is the manifest character of God; and therefore the only possible way of declaring Him is not by words but by acts. A person can only be revealed by a person. God can only be shown to men by a life. Words will never do it; they may represent men’s thinkings, but they never can certify God’s fact. Words will never do it, they may suggest hopes, fears, peradventures; but unless we have a living Person whose deeds on the plain level of human history, and in this solid world of ours, are the manifestation of God, our thoughts of Him will neither be solid with certainty nor sweet with comfort. It must be a human life which is more than a human life, but yet is thoroughly and altogether man, that to men can manifest God. Our highest conceptions of the divine nature must be in the form Of man. Between the little sphere of the dewdrop and the great sphere of the sun that is reflected prismatically in it, there is absolute identity in the laws that shape their round. So limited humanity has such an analogy with unlimited divinity as that, in the mirror of manhood, the brilliancy and ineffable brightness of the Godhead can be manifested. That life, the life of Jesus Christ, is the making visible for men of the glory of the invisible God.

And what is the substance of the declaration? Men point us to His miracles, to the omniscience, to the power, to the other attributes of majesty, unlike to, and contradictory, of the attributes of finite humanity, and they say that these are the glory of God. Not so! That is a vulgar conception: high above all such as these towers the moral perfectness which is manifested in the purity of Jesus Christ. But when we have passed through what I may call the physical attributes revealed in the miracles which are the outer court, and the moral attributes of righteousness and stainlessness, which are the holy place, there is yet a veil to be lifted, and an inner sanctuary; and in it, there is nothing but a Mercy-seat, and a Shekinah above it. Which, being translated into plain English, is just this, the new-thing in Christ’s declaration of the name of the Father is the love of God therein manifested. Other means of knowing Him give us fragmentary syllables of His name, and men do with the witness of nature, and the ambiguous witness of history, and the witness of our own intuitions, what antiquarians do with the broken, inscribed blocks which they find in ruins, piece them together, and try to make a sentence out of them. But the whole name is in Christ. God ‘ who hath spoken in divers manners’ elsewhere, hath spoken the whole syllables of His manifest character in His Son. And this is the shining apex of all; the last utterances of Scripture, the culmination of all the long procession of self-manifestation - ‘God is love.’ You can only learn that when you look on your brother Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Dear brethren, more and more is it becoming certain, as the tendencies of modern thought unfold themselves, that we are brought to this fork in the road -Christ or nothing! Either God manifest in Him, or no manifestation of God at all Theism or Deism has not substance enough to sustain the assaults of the modern scientific spirit. Unless ‘the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father He hath declared Him,’ no man hath seen God at any time, or can see Him. It is Christ or darkness. Either the Father revealed in Him, or a God spelled with a little ‘g,’ who is an unverifiable and unnecessary hypothesis, or ‘a stream of tendency not ourselves that makes for righteousness’; or a vague somewhat concerning whom we only know that He cannot be known. The cultivated mind of England has to make its choice this day between these two. And when we come back to Christ, declaring the name of the Father unto His brethren, the nebulous, doleful grey that veiled the sky disappears, and we feel the sun again, and regain a God whom we can love because He has an ear and a heart and a hand; a God of whom we can be sure, a God concerning whom we have not to say ‘I think’; ‘I hope’; ‘I fear’; ‘ perhaps’; but a God whom we can know, and to know whom is life eternal.’

II. So much, then, for the first of the thoughts here. Secondly, we have Christ’s brotherhood represented as intended to show to men the pattern of the religious life. ‘I will put my trust in Him.’

These words came probably from the eighth chapter of the book of Isaiah, where the prophet, like the king in the former narrative, speaking altogether his own feelings, and with no consciousness of any prophetic or typical reference, expresses his personal dependence upon God. Our writer sees in Isaiah, as the chief of the prophetic order, which order in its totality was a prophecy or type of Jesus Christ, a dim shadow of Jesus, in so far as the prophet, though filled with the consciousness of a divine inspiration, and knowing that he stood before his brethren to make known to them the name of God, did not yet thereby feel himself absolved from the necessity of personal dependence and reliance on Him. And, says our writer, as it was with that foremost of the prophets, so is it with Him who is the Prophet by eminence. He, too, in His manhood and in His office of declaring the name of the Father, feels that for Him personally there must be the same faith in God which others exercise.

Now that is the point to which I want to turn for m moment. Jesus Christ is the object of our faith. Yes! but Jesus Christ is the example of our faith too. You orthodox people, who believe in the divinity of our Lord and Saviour, are far too much afraid of fronting such thoughts as this. They are not so familiar to us as they ought to be. We do not believe in His thorough manhood, some of us, nor in His real divinity, but in strange amalgam of the two, each destroying, to s certain extent, the quality of the other. And so the men who do know their own mind, and who know His simple manhood, will make wild work of the beliefs of some of those who call themselves orthodox believers.

A perfect manhood must needs be a dependent manhood. A reasonable creature who does not live by faith is either God or devil: Jesus Christ’s perfect manhood, sinless, stainless, did not absolve Him from, but obliged Him to, a life of continual dependence upon God; His divinity did not, in the smallest measure, interfere with the reality of the faith which, as man, He exercised, and which was the same in kind as ours.

His perfect manhood modifies and perfects His faith. In Him dependence had no relation to a consciousness of sinfulness, as it must have in us, but in Him it had relation to a consciousness of need of a continual derivation of life and power from the Father; His faith being the faith of a perfect manhood, was a perfect faith. Our hands tremble as they hold the telescope that looks into the far-off unseen. His hand was steady. Our faith wavers and is interrupted, an intermittent fountain. His was a perennial flow. His perfect faith issued in perfect results in His life; in a perfect obedience, ‘I do always the things that please Him,’ and in a perfect communion. Like two metal plates of which the surfaces are so true that when you bring them into contact they adhere, that perfect nature of Jesus Christ’s, by the exercise of its perfect faith, clung in unbroken fellowship to the Father - ‘He hath not left me alone, because I do always the things that please Him.’

And thus, dear brethren, our brother does not stand above us only to show us God, but comes down amongst us to show us men. Out of His example of faith we may take both shame and encouragement - shame when we Consider the awful disparity between our wavering and His fixed faith; encouragement when in Him we see what humanity has in it to become, and what by the path of faith it may become. The staff that He leaned on He has bequeathed to us. The shield that He carried in the conflict in the wilderness, when He said, ‘Man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,’ and which He bore undinted by all the fiery darts through His earthly course, He has bequeathed to us His followers. The Captain, the Emperor, was once in the arena, and there He struggled. He, the Captain of the faith, the Leader of the hosts of believers, conquered because He said ‘I will put my trust in Him’; and He has left us the same weapon for ours, that we, too, may conquer. ‘This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.’ III. Lastly, we have our Lord’s manhood represented here as the means by which He brings us into a family of sons. ‘And again, behold, I and the children which God hath given Me.’

These words come from the immediate neighbourhood of the last quotation. In their original application the prophet regards his own family, and the little knot of disciples who had been drawn to him, as being associated with him in his prophetic office, set for ‘signs and wonders,’ and the salt of the nation, which without them was rotting to dissolution. So our writer sees in the prophet’s humility, which associates in his office, and admits to its prerogatives, the children to whom he had given natural life, and the little ones who through him had received spiritual life, the dim foreshadowing of that great Saviour who by His becoming our Brother, makes us God’s children.

For it is to be noticed that the unity referred to in the word ‘children,’ in this last quotation, does, not apply to the same sphere as the unity referred to in the former word ‘brethren’ ‘Brethren’ referred to the kindred which consisted of the common possession of humanity; ‘children’ refers to the kindred, consisting in the common possession of spiritual life. Thus, in this last quotation of our text we have presented the other side of Christ’s Incarnation and its effects. Here we have to deal, not so much with His becoming us, as with our becoming like Him.

The words open out into thoughts which I can only specify without attempting to enlarge upon them. Jesus Christ has become our Brother, that from Him we may each of us draw a life, stored in Him, though having its source in God, which will make us His brethren, and God’s children. The central blessing of the gospel is the communication to every trustful heart of an actual divine life which comes from Christ. Do not be satisfied with any more superficial conception of what God gives us in His Son than this, that He gives us a spark of Himself, that He comes into us through Christ, and bestows upon our deadness a real, mystical, spiritual life, which will unfold itself in forms worthy of its kindred, and like unto its source. For that gift of the life there is more than Incarnation needed. There is Crucifixion needed. The death of Death by death gives Death his death; and then, and then only, can He give us who were dead His life. The box must be broken, though it be alabaster very precious, that through its lustrous surface there may shine lambent the light of the indwelling spirit; the body must be broken, that the house may be filled with the odor of the ointment. Christ dies and life escapes from Him as it were, and passes into the world.

That life is a life of sonship. The children are God’s children, being Christ’s brethren. They are brought into a new unity; and the one foundation of true brotherhood amongst men is the common possession of a common relation to the One Divine Father.

And that life which leads thus to sonship leads likewise to a marvellous participation in the offices, functions and relations of the Christ who bestows it. Just as the prophet gathered his children and disciples into a family, and gave them to partake in his prophetic office, in his relation to God, and to the world, so Christ gathers us into oneness with Himself; having become like us, He makes us like Him and invests us with a similar relationship to the Father. Being the Son, He gives us the adoption of sons, and lays upon our shoulders the responsibilities and the honours of a similar relation to the world, making us kindled ‘lights’ derived from Himself the fontal source, making us, in our measure and degree, sons of God and Messiahs for the world.

This oneness of life - which thus leads to a participation in sonship, an identity of function, and of interest - remains for ever. If we love and trust Christ, He will never leave us until He ‘presents us faultless before the presence of His glory, with exceeding joy.’

So, dear friends, it all comes to this; there is one way to know God and only one. ‘He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.’ All else is darkness. There is one life, noble, pure, worthy of humanity, and only one: the life of trust in Christ, who is at once the object and pattern of our faith; and believing in whom we believe in the Father also. There is but one fountain of life opened in the graveyard of this world, and that is in the Son, drinking of whom there shall be in us a fountain springing up to life everlasting. There is but one way by which we can become sons of God, through the elder Brother, who grudges the prodigal neither the ring nor the feast, but Himself has provided them both. So listen to Him declaring the name; say, ‘I will put my trust in Him’; for you trust God when you have faith in Christ; and then be sure that He will give you of His own life; that He will invest you with the spirit of adoption and the standing of sons, that He will keep His hand about you, and never lose you. ‘Them whom Thou hast given Me, I have kept,’ He will say at last, pointing to us; and there we shall stand, ‘no wanderer lost, a family in Heaven,’ whilst our brother presents us to His Father and ours, with the triumphant words -

‘Behold I and all the children whom Thou hast given Me.’

Benson Commentary

Hebrews 2:11-13. For — As if he had said, And it appears that it was meet that Christ should suffer, because, having the same nature with us, it was necessary he should thus be made like us, who must suffer before we can reign; both he that sanctifieth — That washes men from their sins in his blood, renews them in the spirit of their minds, and consecrates them unto God; and they who are sanctified — Who are renewed and dedicated to God; are all of one — Of one nature, from one parent, Adam; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them — Whom he thus sanctifies and saves; brethren — He reckons it no disparagement to him, though in respect of his divine nature he is infinitely above them, to acknowledge and deal with them as his brethren; saying, (Psalm 22:22,) to his Father, When I appear in the human nature on the earth, I will declare thy name — Thy perfections, and especially thy grace and mercy in sending me into the world; unto my brethren — Of mankind; in the midst of the church — Publicly among the people of God; will I sing praise unto thee — As the precentor of the choir. This he did literally in the midst of his apostles, on the night before his passion. And in a more general sense, as the expression means setting forth the praise of God, he has done it in the church by his word and Spirit in all ages; and he still does, and will do it throughout all generations. It is well known that the 22d Psalm, from which this passage is cited, is a prophetic description of the sufferings of Christ, the apostles and evangelists having applied many passages of it to him. Also by repeating the first words of it from the cross, our Lord appropriated the whole of it to himself. The ancient Jewish doctors likewise interpreted this Psalm of the Messiah. And again — (Psalm 18:2,) as one that has communion with his brethren in sufferings, as well as in nature, he says; I will put my trust in him — To support me under, and carry me through them all. Hereby the apostle proves that Christ had the same affections, and consequently the same nature with believers. For had he been God only, or the Son merely in his original state, he could not have been brought into such a condition as required dependance upon another; neither is the nature of angels exposed to such dangers or troubles, as render it necessary for them to have recourse to God for support, protection, and consolation. And again — Isaiah 8:18, (where see the note,) when he says; Behold I and the children which God hath given me — He makes a like acknowledgment of his near relation to them, and of his being of the same nature with them, parents being of the same nature with their children. The opposers of Christianity affirm, that the prophecy from which this is taken doth not relate to the Messiah, and that in applying it to Jesus, the writer of this epistle hath erred; and from this they infer that he was not inspired. But, in answer, be it observed, that the application of this prophecy to Christ doth not rest on this writer’s testimony alone. The 14th verse of the prophecy is applied to him both by Paul, (Romans 9:33,) and by Peter, (1 Peter 2:6; 1 Peter 2:8,) and by Simeon, (Luke 2:34;) nay, our Lord has applied the 15th verse to himself, Matthew 21:44. So that if the writer of this epistle hath erred in the application of that prophecy, all the others have erred in the same manner. But that they have not, is sufficiently shown in the notes on the passages referred to.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:10-13 Whatever the proud, carnal, and unbelieving may imagine or object, the spiritual mind will see peculiar glory in the cross of Christ, and be satisfied that it became Him, who in all things displays his own perfections in bringing many sons to glory, to make the Author of their salvation perfect through sufferings. His way to the crown was by the cross, and so must that of his people be. Christ sanctifies; he has purchased and sent the sanctifying Spirit: the Spirit sanctifies as the Spirit of Christ. True believers are sanctified, endowed with holy principles and powers, set apart to high and holy uses and purposes. Christ and believers are all of one heavenly Father, who is God. They are brought into relation with Christ. But the words, his not being ashamed to call them brethren, express the high superiority of Christ to the human nature. This is shown from three texts of Scripture. See Ps 22:22; 18:2; Isa 8:18.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For both he that sanctifieth - This refers, evidently, to the Lord Jesus. The object is to show that there was such a union between him and those for whom he died, as to make it necessary that he should partake of the same nature, or that he should be a suffering man; Hebrews 2:14. he undertook to redeem and sanctify them. He called them brethren. He identified them with himself. There was, in the great work of redemption, a oneness between him and them, and hence, it was necessary that he should assume their nature - and the fact, therefore, that he appeared as a suffering "man," does not at all militate with the doctrine that he had a more exalted nature, and was even above the angels. Prof. Stuart endeavors to prove that the word "sanctify" here is used in the sense of, "to make expiation" or "atonement," and that the meaning is, "he who maketh expiation, and they for whom expiation is made."

Bloomfield gives the same sense to the word, as also does Rosenmuller. That the word may have such a signification it would be presumptuous in anyone to doubt, after the view which such people have taken of it; but it may be doubted whether this idea is necessary here. The word "sanctify" is a general term, meaning to make holy or pure; to consecrate, set apart, devote to God; to regard as holy, or to hallow. Applied to the Saviour here, it may be used in this general sense - that he consecrated, or devoted himself to God - as eminently "the consecrated" or "holy one" - the Messiah (compare the note at John 17:19); applied to his people, it may mean that they in like manner were the consecrated, the holy, the pure, on earth. There is a richness and fulness in the word when so understood which there is not when it is limited to the idea of expiation; and it seems to me that it is to be taken in its richest and fullest sense, and that the meaning is, "the great consecrated Messiah - the Holy One of God - and his consecrated and holy followers, are all of one." "All of one."

Of one family; spirit; Father; nature. Either of these significations will suit the connection, and some such idea must be understood. The meaning is, that they were united, or partook of something in common, so as to constitute a oneness, or a brotherhood; and that since this was the case, there was a propriety in his taking their nature. It does not mean that they were originally of one nature or family; but that it was understood in the writings of the prophets that the Messiah should partake of the nature of his people, and that, "therefore," though he was more exalted than the angels, there was a propriety that he should appear in the human form; compare John 17:21.

For which cause - That is, because he is thus united with them, or has undertaken their redemption.

He is not ashamed - As it might be supposed that one so exalted and pure would be. It might have been anticipated that the Son of God would refuse to give the name "brethren" to those who were so humble, and sunken and degraded as those whom he came to redeem. But he is willing to be ranked with them, and to be regarded as one of their family.

To call them brethren - To acknowledge himself as of the same family, and to speak of them as his brothers. That is, "he is so represented as speaking of them in the prophecies respecting the Messiah" - for this interpretation the argument of the apostle demands. It was material for him to show that he was so represented in the Old Testament. This he does in the following verses.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

11. he that sanctifieth—Christ who once for all consecrates His people to God (Jude 1, bringing them nigh to Him as the consequence) and everlasting glory, by having consecrated Himself for them in His being made "perfect (as their expiatory sacrifice) through sufferings" (Heb 2:10; Heb 10:10, 14, 29; Joh 17:17, 19). God in His electing love, by Christ's finished work, perfectly sanctifies them to God's service and to heaven once for all: then they are progressively sanctified by the transforming Spirit "Sanctification is glory working in embryo; glory is sanctification come to the birth, and manifested" [Alford].

they who are sanctified—Greek, "they that are being sanctified" (compare the use of "sanctified," 1Co 7:14).

of one—Father, God: not in the sense wherein He is Father of all beings, as angels; for these are excluded by the argument (Heb 2:16); but as He is Father of His spiritual human sons, Christ the Head and elder Brother, and His believing people, the members of the body and family. Thus, this and the following verses are meant to justify his having said, "many sons" (Heb 2:10). "Of one" is not "of one father Adam," or "Abraham," as Bengel and others suppose. For the Saviour's participation in the lowness of our humanity is not mentioned till Heb 2:14, and then as a consequence of what precedes. Moreover, "Sons of God" is, in Scripture usage, the dignity obtained by our union with Christ; and our brotherhood with Him flows from God being His and our Father. Christ's Sonship (by generation) in relation to God is reflected in the sonship (by adoption) of His brethren.

he is not ashamed—though being the Son of God, since they have now by adoption obtained a like dignity, so that His majesty is not compromised by brotherhood with them (compare Heb 11:16). It is a striking feature in Christianity that it unites such amazing contrasts as "our brother and our God" [Tholuck]. "God makes of sons of men sons of God, because God hath made of the Son of God the Son of man" [St. Augustine on Psalm 2].

Matthew Poole's Commentary

For both he that sanctifieth: for shows the reason of the Son’s incarnation, viz. the necessity of union in nature between the sanctifying Mediator and the sanctified sinner. The great gospel Minister was to bring many sons to glory by suffering, which he was not capable of, but by being united to one and the same nature with them to whom the penalty was due, and so he must be Head of them. This God-man is separating and consecrating of penitent believing sinners from the common mass to God, meriting by his death for them remission of their sins, and sanctifying their persons by his Spirit from their pollutions by them, 1 Corinthians 6:11 Titus 3:4-7 Hebrews 9:14 10:10,14.

And they who are sanctified; penitent believing sinners, justified by his blood, and sanctified by his Spirit, Ephesians 5:25-27.

Are all of one: this is an attribute of the unity of the principle of both these; such an one as is proper to man with himself, whom he sanctifieth, and not competent to angels; it must therefore be the principle of humanity. He took a human soul and body united to his person, and so became of one nature with us, {compare Hebrews 2:14} of one human mass, alluding to the first-fruits offered at the Passover, or the loaves at Pentecost, whereby all the rest were sanctified: so Christ assumed the same human nature, that he might be the Head and leading Representative of a body of mankind, differenced from them by his being holy, and they sinful, and personally united to the Word.

For which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren; the unity of him and them in the human nature, is the cause why he calls them brethren, therefore they must be one: considering him in the holiness of his Deity, and them in the filthiness of sin, he might have been ashamed of such a brotherhood; but by his effectual word he adopted them into a state of childship and heirship to God with himself; and in the flesh to give them that glory, that they might be one with God, as he and the Father are one, John 17:22.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For both he that sanctifieth,.... Not himself, though this is said of him, John 17:19 nor his Father, though this also is true of him, Isaiah 8:13 but his people, the sons brought to glory, whose salvation he is the Captain of; they are sanctified in him, he being made sanctification to them; and they have their sanctification from him, all their grace and holiness; and they are sanctified by him, both by his blood, which expiates their sins, and removes the guilt of them, and by his Spirit, working internal principles of grace and holiness in them, who are by nature, and in their unregenerate state, guilty and unclean:

and they who are sanctified; the sons brought to glory; they are not naturally holy, nor so of themselves, they are made holy; all that are sons are made holy; whom God adopts into his family, he regenerates: sanctification is absolutely necessary to their being brought to glory; and between the sanctifier and the sanctified there is a likeness, as there ought to be: they are

all of one: they are both of one God and Father, Christ's God is their God, and his Father is their Father; they are of one body, Christ is the head, and they are members; they are of one covenant, Christ is the surety, Mediator, and messenger of it, and they share in all its blessings and promises; they are of one man, Adam, Christ is a Son of Adam, though not by ordinary generation, they descend from him in the common way; they are all of one nature, of one blood; Christ has took part of the same flesh and blood with them:

for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren; Christ, and these sons that are sanctified, stand in the relation of brethren to each other; Christ is the firstborn among many brethren; he is a brother born for the day of adversity, and one that sticks closer than a brother: and this relation is founded both upon the incarnation of Christ, who thereby became his people's "Goel"; or near kinsman, yea, brother, Sol 8:1 and upon their adoption unto his Father's family, which is made manifest by their regeneration, and by their doing his Father's will under the influence of his grace and Spirit, Matthew 12:49 and this relation Christ owns; he called his disciples brethren, when God had raised him from the dead, and given him glory; and so he will call all his saints, even the meanest of them, in the great day, Matthew 28:10, and "he is not ashamed" to do it; he does not disdain it, though he is God over all, and the Son of God, and is also in his human nature made higher than the heavens; which shows the wonderful condescension of Christ, and the honour that is put upon the saints; and may teach them not to despise the meanest among them: such a relation the Jews own will be between the Messiah and the Israelites. The Targumist on Sol 8:1 paraphrases the words thus;

"when the King Messiah shall be revealed to the congregation of Israel, the children of Israel shall say unto him, Come, be thou with us, for "a brother", or "be thou our brother".''

Nor can they say this will reflect any discredit upon Christ, when they make such a relation to be between God and them. The Israelites, they say (f), are called, "the brethren of the holy blessed God"; in proof of which they often produce Psalm 122:8 as being the words of God to them; and again, interpreting those words in Leviticus 25:48 "one of his brethren may redeem him", this, say (g) they, is the holy blessed God.

(f) Zohar in Exod. fol. 23. 3. & in Lev. fol. 3. 3. & 9. 3. & 32. 2.((g) Tzeror Hammor, fol. 106. 3.

Geneva Study Bible

{12} For both he that {r} sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of {s} one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren,

(12) The basis for both of the former arguments, for we could not be sons through him, neither could he be consecrated through afflictions, unless he had been made man like us. But because this sonship depends not only on nature, for no man is accounted the son of God, unless he is also a son of a man, he is also Christ's brother, (which is by sanctification, that is, by becoming one with Christ, who sanctifies us through faith) therefore the apostle makes mention of the sanctifier, that is, of Christ, and of them that are sanctified, that is, of all the elect, who Christ condescends to call brethren.

(r) He uses the time to show us that we are still going on, and increasing in this sanctification: and by sanctification he means our separation from the rest of the world, our cleansing from sin, and our dedication wholly to God, all which Christ alone works in us.

(s) One, of the same nature of man.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Hebrews 2:11-13. Elucidatory justification, in passing, of the expression πολλοὺς υἱούς, employed Hebrews 2:10; in proof of the brotherly relation existing between Christ and believers, already indicated by that expression. That this view as to the aim and signification of Hebrews 2:11-13 is the true one, is contested indeed by Riehm, Lehrbegr. des Hebräerbr. p. 366 f. (comp. also Kurtz, and Hofmann ad loc.). According to Riehm, Hebrews 2:11-13 are to be regarded not as mere accessory remarks, but as the first link in the proof for Hebrews 2:10, to which then Hebrews 2:14 f. attaches as second link; in such wise that only in the two thoughts together (Hebrews 2:11-13 and Hebrews 2:14 f.), not in Hebrews 2:14 by itself (see on the verses) alone, is a confirmation of Hebrews 2:10 to be found; and accordingly the (argumentative, not explicative) γάρ, Hebrews 2:11, belongs not merely to Hebrews 2:11. The following “chain of reasoning,” namely, is supposed to shape the course of thought: “it became God, etc. For—(1) Christ is brother to the Christians; it is thus not unbecoming that He should have been made like them; and (2) He must be made like them, because His suffering and death were necessary, if they were to be saved.” The untenable character of this statement of the connection of thought, as made by Riehm, is, however, sufficiently apparent from the fact—apart from the consideration that the contents of Hebrews 2:11-13 manifestly point back to the expression πολλοὺς υἱούς, Hebrews 2:10—that if the proof for the main thought of Hebrews 2:10 was designed in reality already to begin with Hebrews 2:11-13, it would surely not be the proposition: it is not unbecoming that Christ should be made like unto the Christians (of which there was no express mention so early as Hebrews 2:10), which must have been proved, but solely and simply the proposition: it is not unbecoming that God should have led Christ through suffering to perfection, in which the true central thought of Hebrews 2:10 is contained. But such proof is not given.

ὅ τε γὰρ ἁγιάζων … πάντες] Now He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified (through Him, i.e. through His atoning sacrificial death,[48] comp. Hebrews 10:10; Hebrews 10:14, Hebrews 9:13 f., Hebrews 13:12) all have their origin in One,—is a special statement concerning Christ and Christians. To take the words as a proposition of universal validity, the application of which to Christ and the Christians was left to the readers, wherein there is specially an underlying allusion to the O. T. high priest and those whose cleansing from sins he accomplished (Schlichting, Gerhard, Schöttgen, al.), is forbidden by the connection with that which precedes and that which follows.

The present participles ὁ ἁγιάζων καὶ οἱ ἁγιαζόμενοι are used substantively. Comp. Winer, Gramm., 7 Aufl. p. 331 f.

ἐξ ἑνὸς πάντες] sc. εἰσίν. ἑνός is masculine. Wrongly is it by others taken as a neuter, in that they either supplement in thought: σπέρματος, or ΑἽΜΑΤΟς, or ΓΈΝΟΥς (so Carpzov, Abresch, al.), or else explain: ex communi massa (Jac. Cappellus, Akersloot), or “of one and the same nature” (Calvin, Cameron: ejusdem naturae et conditionis spiritualis; Cornelius a Lapide, Owen, Whitby, Moses Stuart); for neither is the supplying of a substantive admissible, nor can ἐκ, expressive as it is of the origin, be transformed into a declaration of nature and constitution. We have, however, to understand by ἙΝΌς, not Adam (Erasmus, Paraphr.; Beza, Estius, Justinian, Hunnius, Baumgarten, Zachariae, Bisping, Wieseler in the Publications of the University of Kiel, 1867, p. 26; Hofmann, Woerner) or Abraham (Drusius, Peirce, Bengel), but God. Yet the notion of fatherhood, which is in this way assigned to God, is not to be expounded in the universal sense, in such wise that God would be called Creator and Father in relation to Christians also, only in the same manner in which He is the Creator of every creature (so Chrysostom and the majority), but is to be referred specially to the fact that Christians are His spiritual children (Piscator, Grotius, Limborch, Paulus, Bleek, Delitzsch, Alford, Moll). Comp. John 8:47; 1 John 3:10; 1 John 4:6; 1 John 5:19; 3 John 1:11.

πάντες] Peirce and Bengel would have taken with ΟἹ ἉΓΙΑΖΌΜΕΝΟΙ alone. The position of the word, however, renders this impossible. Rather does ΠΆΝΤΕς, after the close connection between the ἉΓΙΆΖΩΝ and the ἉΓΙΑΖΌΜΕΝΟΙ has already been accentuated by means of the ΤΈ … ΚΑΊ, still further lay stress upon the fact that they all, the Christians not less than Christ, are ἐξ ἑνός.

διʼ ἣν αἰτίαν] Wherefore. Comp. 2 Timothy 1:6; 2 Timothy 1:12; Titus 1:13. The same formula also not rarely with Philo.

οὐκ ἐπαισχύνεται] He (sc. ὁ ἁγιάζων) is not ashamed. For Christ is the higher one. Comp. Hebrews 11:16.

αὐτούς] sc. τοὺς ἁγιαζομένους.

[48] Delitzsch arbitrarily takes ἁγιάζειν, ver. 11, as synonymous with τελειοῦν, ver. 10 : “In order to be crowned with δόξα καὶ τιμή Jesus must first be sanctified, or, as the author says, ver. 10, be made perfect through sufferings, inasmuch as the sufferings melted away that about Him which was not capable of exaltation, that He, Himself sanctified before, might be able to sanctify us, and so to raise us to like δόξα.” Of a being sanctified, on the part of Christ, there is no mention made either here or anywhere else in the epistle.

Expositor's Greek Testament

Hebrews 2:11. In the eleventh verse the writer proceeds to explain wherein consisted the fittingness (τὸ πρέπον) of perfecting the ἀρχηγόν through sufferings. It lies in the fact that He and those He leads are brothers. In Hebrews 2:11-13 it is shown that this is so, and in the succeeding verses the writer points out what is involved in this brotherhood. ὁ ἁγιάζων and οἱ ἁγιαζόμενοι are to be taken as present participles, so usually are, in the timeless substantive sense. ἁγιάζειν means (1) to set apart as belonging to God, in contradistinction to κοινός, belonging to every one. So in Genesis 2:3, of the seventh day, and in Exodus of the mountain, the tent, the altar. It is especially used of persons set apart to the priesthood or to any special work (Exodus 30:30; Jeremiah 1:5; John 10:36). Through the O.T. ceremonial the whole people were thus ἡγιασμένοι, set apart to God, admitted to His worship. In this Epistle the word is used with much of the O.T. idea cleaving to it, and is often rather equivalent to what we understand by “justify” than to “sanctify”. Cf. Hebrews 10:10. It signifies that which enables men to approach God. But (2) it is in N.T. more and more felt that it is only by purification of character men can be set apart for God, so that this higher meaning also attaches to the word. In the present verse ἁγιάζων introduces the priestly idea, enlarged upon in Hebrews 2:17. ἐξ ἑνὸς πάντες “all of one”. There is much to be said for Calvin’s interpretation “of one nature,” or Cappellus’ “of one common mass”. Certainly Bleek’s reason for rejecting such renderings—that ἐξ can only signify origin, is incorrect. “Greek often uses the prepositions of origin (ἐκ, ἀπό) when we prefer those of position or direction, as in ἐξ ἀπροσδοκήτου, on a sudden, ἐξ ἀφανοῦς, in a doubt, ἐκ μιᾶς χειρός, with one hand” (Verrall on Choeph., line 70). In N.T. ἐκ frequently expresses the party or class to which one belongs (John 3:31). And cf. 1 Corinthians 10:17. It might be urged from Hebrews 11:12 that this writer had he meant parentage would have said ἀφʼ ἑνός. Nevertheless the meaning seems to be “of one father”. The πολλοὺς υἱοὺς of Hebrews 2:10, and the διʼ ἣν αἰτίαν which follows make for this sense. And the argument of Hebrews 2:14, that because Christ was brother to men He therefore took flesh, proves that ἐξ ἑνὸς cannot mean “of one nature’. The fact that He and they are ἐξ ἑνὸς is the ground of His incarnation. He was Son and Brother before appearing on earth. The words then can only mean that the “many sons” who are to be brought to glory and the “Son” who leads them are of one parentage. The sonship in both cases looks to the same Father, and depends on Him and is subject to the same laws of obedience and development. But what Father is meant? Not Adam (Beza, Hofmann, etc.); Weiss argues strongly for Abraham, appealing to Hebrews 2:16 and other considerations; but the fact that in Hebrews 2:14 the incarnation is treated as a result of the brotherhood, seems to involve that we must understand that God is meant; that before the incarnation Christ recognised His brotherhood. “On this account,” because His parentage is the same, “He is not ashamed to call them brothers”. He might have been expected to shrink from those who had so belied their high origin, or at the best to move among them with the kindly superior professionalism of a surgeon who enters the ward of an hospital solely to heal, not to live there; but He claims men as his kin and on this bases His action (cf. Hebrews 11:16).

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

11. For] The next three verses are an illustration of the moral fitness, and therefore of the Divine necessity, that there should be perfect unity and sympathy between the Saviour and the saved.

both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified] The idea would perhaps be better, though less literally, expressed by “both the sanctifier and the sanctified,” for the idea of sanctification is here not so much that of progressive holiness as that of cleansing (Hebrews 13:12). This writer seems to make but little difference between the words “to sanctify” and “to purify,” because in the sphere of the Jewish Ceremonial Law, from which his analogies are largely drawn, “sanctification” meant the setting apart for service by various means of purification. See Hebrews 9:13-14, Hebrews 10:10; Hebrews 10:14, Hebrews 13:12, and comp. John 17:17-19; 1 John 1:7. The progressive sanctification is viewed in its ideal result, and in this result the whole Church of Christ shares, so that, like Israel of old, it is ideally “holy.”

are all of one] That is, they alike derive their origin from God; in other words the relation in which they stand to each other is due to one and the same divine purpose (John 17:17-19). This seems a better view than to refer the “one” to Abraham (Isaiah 51:2; Ezekiel 33:24, &c.) or to Adam.

he is not ashamed to call them brethren] If the Gospels had been commonly known at the time when this Epistle was written, the author would doubtless have referred not to the Old Testament, but to such direct and tender illustrations as Matthew 12:49-50, “Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother:” or to John 20:17, “Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God:” Matthew 28:10, “go unto my brethren.” Or are we to suppose that this application of Messianic Psalms would have come with even greater argumentative force to his Judaising readers?

to call] i.e. to declare them to be His brethren by calling them so.

Bengel's Gnomen

Hebrews 2:11. Γὰρ, for) The closest relationship was the reason why it was becoming that Jesus should not be made perfect (consummated) without us.—ὁ ἁγιάζων, He that sanctifieth) Christ, ch. Hebrews 13:12. Christ is called He that sanctifieth, on account of that whole benefit, viz. that He by Himself makes us holy, i.e. divine [belonging to God].—οἱ ἁγιαζόμενοι, they who are sanctified) the people, ch. Hebrews 10:10; Hebrews 10:14; Hebrews 10:29. To sanctify, to bring to God, to be sanctified, to be brought to GOD, to draw near, to have access, are synonymous. He who sanctifies was begotten by the Father, and appointed the Sanctifier; they who are sanctified, are those created by God and appointed to receive sanctification; comp. ἔδωκεν, “The children whom God hath given me,” Hebrews 2:13. This is the origin of His brotherhood (with us), and of His communion with flesh and blood (Hebrews 2:14).—ἐξ ἑνὸς, of one) that εἷς, one, is Abraham, as Malachi 2:15; Isaiah 51:2; Ezekiel 33:24. All men are of one, Adam; all the descendants of Abraham are of one, Abraham. In this whole passage, Paul, writing to the descendants of Abraham, accommodates his discourse to them apart, Hebrews 2:16-17, Hebrews 8:12; as also in Psalms 22, which is here quoted, ver. 12, the writer is speaking of Israel, ver. 22, etc., but of the Gentiles, ver. 25–31; and the whole of the subsequent discussion respecting the priesthood and sacrifices is chiefly suited to the comprehension of the Hebrews. Wherefore, this epistle will at some time contribute much to the salvation of Israel. If this one meant God, the angels should be included, who are put away at Hebrews 2:16.—πάντες, all) This is construed with ἁγιαζομένοι, who are sanctified; for he says πάντες, all; he would have said both, if he intended to include Him that sanctifies in the πάντες, all.—οὐκ ἐπαισχύνεται) He is not ashamed, whereas, but for this cause (that they are of Abraham, who is considered not as a sinner, as in need of salvation, but as the common ancestor, as he who had received the promise), there might have been many things for which he might be ashamed [to call them brethren]; for, far from being holy, we had been exceedingly guilty, Hebrews 2:14-15 : yet He is not ashamed; nay, He accounts it a glorious thing to Himself, because of the holiness and glory unto which He has brought us. It becomes God to have such sons restored to Him. Christ is not ashamed of such brethren; comp. “God is not ashamed,” ch. Hebrews 11:16, note.—καλεῖν) to call, to declare by calling.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 11. - For both he that sanctifieth (i.e. Christ, the ἀρχηγὸς) and they that are sanctified (i.e. the "many sons" who are brought unto glory) are all of one (ἐξ ἑνὸς, i.e. of God). The idea expressed here by the verb ἁγιάζω, to sanctify, may be determined by comparison with Hebrews 9:13, 14; Hebrews 10:14, 29; and Hebrews 13:12 (ἵνα ἁγιάση διὰ τοῦ ἰδίου αἱμάτος τὸν λαόν); cf. John 17:9. It is not the idea, to us most familiar, of moral sanctification through the Holy Spirit, but that of the redeemed being brought into a new relation to God, hallowed for "glory," through redemption; whence all Christians are called ἅγοι. Ἁγιάζειν is the equivalent in the LXX. of the Hebrew קָדַשׂ, which is applied to the hallowing of both the sacrifices and the people to God's service. As an atoning sacrifice, Christ thus hallowed himself (John 17:19), that thus he might hallow the "many sons." Ἐξ ἑνός must certainly be taken as referring to God, not (as some take it) to Abraham or Adam. For the necessity of the SON taking part of flesh and blood in order to accomplish the redemption is not introduced till ver. 14. So far the common fatherhood spoken of has been that of him "for whom are all things and by whom are all things," who, "in bringing many sons to glory," has perfected "the Captain of their salvation." The idea is that it was meet that the Captain should be perfected through human sufferings, since both he and the "many sons" are of one Divine Father; in their relation of sonship (with whatever difference of manner and degree) they are associated together. Be it observed, however, that it is not the original relation to God of the "Sanctifier" and the "sanctified," but their relation to him in the redemption, that is denoted by ἐξ ἑνός. The common sonship does not consist in this, that he is Son by eternal generation and they by creation. It has been seen above that the term υἵος is net applied to Christ in this Epistle with reference to his eternal Being, but to his incarnation; and the human "sons" are not regarded as such till made so by redemption. Ὁ ἁγιάζων, and οι{ ἁγιαζομένοι rule the sense of ἐξ ἑνός. The view is that the one Father sent the SON into the world to be the Firstborn of many sons. The expression, frequent in the Pentateuch, "I am he that sanctifieth," may be cited in illustration of the moaning of the passage. For which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren; i.e. in the Messianic utterances of the Old Testament, to which, in accordance with the plan and purpose of the Epistle, reference is again made for proof. The point of the quotations that follow (vers. 12, 13) is that the Messiah, notwithstanding the position above the angels, shown above to be assigned to him, is represented also as associating himself with men as brethren, in dependence on one heavenly Father. Hebrews 2:11

Vincent's Word Studies

In order to bring many sons unto glory, Christ assumes to them the relation of brother.

He that sanctifieth (ὁ ἁγιάζων)

Sanctification is the path to glorification. Comp. Hebrews 10:14.

Of one (ἐξ ἑνὸς)

Probably God, although the phrase may signify of one piece, or of one whole. Jesus and his people alike have God for their father. Therefore they are brethren, and Christ, notwithstanding his superior dignity, is not ashamed to call them by that name.