Hebrews 2:5-10

Hebrews 2:5

Consider:

I. What it is that the Son of man, humbling Himself for us, hath endured. There are two expressions used to suffer death and to taste death. Let us remember that between Jesus, as He was in Himself and death, there subsisted no connection. In Him Satan could find nothing. Death had no personal or direct relation unto Him. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of Life, of His own power and will, laid down His life. The death of the Lord Jesus in this respect is different from the death of any human being; it was the free, voluntary, spontaneous act of His will. When the Lord Jesus Christ died He put forth a great energy. He willedto die. And so in one sense we may say that His death was a great manifestation of His power.

II. Consider that the Lord tasteddeath. A man may die in a moment, and then he does not taste death. But all that was in death was concentrated in the cup which the Lord Jesus Christ emptied on the cross. He was made a curse for us; He was left alone with the power of darkness. But though He emptied the cup of wrath, though all the waves and billows of death went over Him, He continued to live,to trust, to love, to pray. He gained the victory in the lowest depth of His agony.

III. He tasted death by the grace of God for every man.We speak about the pardon of sins; weare pardoned, but all our sins have been punished. All our sins were laid upon Jesus, every one was punished. In the Cross there is not merely the forgiveness of sins, but there is the actual putting away of all our sins; and the Apostle explains to us that this great marvellous mystery of the death of Christ as our Substitute, bearing our sins, bearing our curse, enduring the penalty of our sins, and overcoming all our enemies (that is, the law of Satan and death), that this is in order to manifest unto us the fulness of the perfection of God.

A. Saphir, Expository Lectures on the Hebrews,vol. i., p. 118.