Hebrews 2:5

‘For not to angels did he subject the world to come, of which we speak.’

For let them consider that it was not to angels that God gave authority over ‘the world to come’, it was to the Lord and to these witnesses who received His word, those through whom these signs and wonders were done. When God decided to act it involved His Son and those men who were chosen by Him and had responded to Him. The angels had no part to play in it.

The word for ‘world’ is oikoumene. This can signify the inhabited world, or one section of the world subjected to order and discipline, in contrast to another. Thus the Greeks used it of their own ‘ordered world’ in contrast with the world of Barbarians, and it was used of ‘ordered world’ of the Roman Empire in contrast with the world outside. In this case therefore ‘the world to come’ means ‘that world forecast as coming in the Scriptures, and now here, which is under the control of God’, in contrast with the world in general, and thus signifies the coming and arrival of the Kingly Rule of God in Jesus, in contrast to the world outside that Rule. It refers to that sphere of Kingly Rule which was under the sway of the King and His followers (Colossians 1:13), and subject to the law of Christ (1 Corinthians 9:24), in Jewish terminology, to the coming days of the Messiah and His Kingdom.

Thus the ‘world to come’ here indicates ‘the world’ known from Scripture ‘to be coming’, and which had now arrived in the coming of Jesus and the establishing of the ‘worldwide’ Christian community, the sphere of the Kingly Rule of God, and is to be seen as including all that follows from it. It represents the new stage of God’s purposes in its totality. The old ‘world’ was passing. The new had come.

It had arrived at ‘the end of these days’ (Hebrews 1:2), that is, ‘in the last days’ (Acts 2:17), which are in Acts very closely connected with signs and wonders and gifts of the Spirit (Hebrews 2:4; Acts 2:17-20). For this use of ‘to come’ compare Hebrews 6:5; Hebrews 9:11; Hebrews 10:1. In other words it is speaking of the Christian presence on earth in these final days before the end (the days from the first coming of Christ to the rapture, and then to the end of time) as new creatures in Christ, living ordered lives under the King, followed by their continual existence in glory. It is the result of the presence in the world of the Kingly Rule of God as proclaimed by Jesus and manifested in power. Such an ‘ordered world’ was not subjected to angels, it was subjected to the Son and His followers. And they had come manifesting that kingship with all the outward and inward signs of God’s presence and power. Thus those in it are without excuse if they drift away to the world outside.

This is in contrast with the world in general. In Deuteronomy 32:8 (LXX) we read,

‘When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,

When he separated the children of men,

He set the bounds of the peoples,

According to the number of the angels of God.’

The idea is that once the nations were separated at Babel and languages became confused, angels took authority over the different sections into which the world of men was split. Man had lost his authority over creation. This is confirmed further in Daniel 10:20, which speaks of angelic beings such as "the prince of Persia" and "the prince of Greece," as having sway in those areas, and Daniel 10:21; Daniel 12:1 which speak of Michael as "the great prince" who champions the people of Israel. Man had lost his dominion through sin, and was swayed by heavenly powers, although God kept a special watch on His own.

The result was that the ‘present world’ (compare 2 Timothy 4:10; Galatians 1:4) was seen as no longer under the sway of man but as under the sway of angelic forces, the majority of them seemingly evil. However, the ‘coming world’ (now come) is different. It is under the sway of the King and His disciples, and angels have no part in its rule. The kingdom of the Son of His love is in vivid contrast with the power of darkness (Colossians 1:13).

Others, however see ‘the world to come’ as indicating the afterlife when Christ will rule over all along with His own, and this is not to be excluded, but the idea is surely more immediate than that. For ‘the world to come’ is to be seen as that promised by the prophets, in contrast with ‘this present world’, the new world under the rule of the promised King, and is to be seen as beginning at Christ’s first coming with the advent of the Kingly Rule of God. Then there came a new world (oikoumene) within the world (kosmos). It covers the life and activity of God’s people under His Kingly Rule in this world, although it then moves on to embrace all God’s future purposes and plans for His people. In other words the ‘world to come’ is all embracing. It is the new God-ordered ‘world’ introduced in the coming of Christ. For that is central to the whole passage, that Jesus has come and established that new world for those who are His own.