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Heb_2:11-13. Elucidatory justification, in passing, of the expression πολλοὺς υἱούς , employed Heb_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 Heb_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, Heb_2:11-13 are to be regarded not as mere accessory remarks, but as the first link in the proof for Heb_2:10, to which then Heb_2:14 f. attaches as second link; in such wise that only in the two thoughts together (Heb_2:11-13 and Heb_2:14 f.), not in Heb_2:14 by itself (see on the verses) alone, is a confirmation of Heb_2:10 to be found; and accordingly the (argumentative, not explicative) γάρ , Heb_2:11, belongs not merely to Heb_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 Heb_2:11-13 manifestly point back to the expression πολλοὺς υἱούς , Heb_2:10—that if the proof for the main thought of Heb_2:10 was designed in reality already to begin with Heb_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 Heb_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 Heb_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. Heb_10:10; Heb_10:14, Heb_9:13 f., Heb_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. Joh_8:47; 1Jn_3:10; 1Jn_4:6; 1Jn_5:19; 3Jn_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. 2Ti_1:6; 2Ti_1:12; Tit_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. Heb_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.