Hebrews 2:9

‘But we behold him who has been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour, in order that by the grace of God he should taste of death for everyone.’

Before looking at this verse in detail we must consider the phrase ‘crowned with glory and honour’ for it helps to determine the meaning of the whole passage, and is regularly misunderstood. Now the temptation, if we ignore the context, is undoubtedly to see it as signifying Christ’s resurrection and exaltation and then to try to fit around it the other phrases, which in truth then fit rather strangely. And that is done by most commentators. But that is totally to ignore the context. Reference to His exaltation, except in a secondary, inclusive way, is out of place here. And the Greek in its obvious sense is against it.

For had this been its meaning we might have expected the whole sentence to be constructed differently (as commentators tend to confirm by constantly switching it around), especially by so consummate an author as we have here, for the natural reading here is to see ‘crowned with glory and honour’ as leading on into ‘in order that by the grace of God He should taste death for everyone’, as though the one resulted in the other, as though the crowning preceded the suffering and was necessary for it, and if that is so it bars us seeing in it simply a direct reference to the resurrection and exaltation. Is there then any alternative, which actually avoids the manipulation of the verse required for that view?

Firstly we should note that the same words are also cited in Hebrews 2:6. There they indicate that (as a result of his creation in ‘the image and likeness of the elohim (or ‘God’)’ (Genesis 1:0)) man was ‘crowned with glory and honour’ by being made the earthly lord of creation, so that all creation was subjected to him. This was what pinpointed what man was. He was placed there from the very beginning. He was ‘crowned with glory and honour’, with authority over all things. And it was from this exalted position that he fell, so that creation became no longer subject to him and only a small part, the domestic animals and the cultivated fields, still did his bidding. As fallen man he had become a king without a kingdom, He had been uncrowned as lord of creation.

Now if we consider that, in order for Jesus to be fitted to be a substitutionary and perfect sacrifice for man, it was necessary for Him to become ‘perfect man’, to become what man originally was, we will recognise that this required that He too in His lifetime be ‘crowned with glory and honour’ in relation to creation, so that as man He became overlord of creation, as man was, and man should be.

And that this was so is in fact evidenced in two ways. Firstly by the declaration at His baptism, ‘You are my Son’ (Mark 1:11), when He was endued with the Holy Spirit. For these words were probably used at the coronation of the kings of Israel/Judah, and certainly used in some way of the kings of the house of David in their special relationship to God (Psalms 2:7). By them Jesus was marked off as unique, and as representing God on earth in a unique and glorious way, fulfilling the destiny that man had failed to fulfil, and manifesting His rule. This was then confirmed at the transfiguration when His full glory was momentarily revealed, and God said of Him ‘This is my Son’, and He spoke of His coming death in Jerusalem (Luke 9:31; Luke 9:35). Here His humanness was seen as veiling the divine glory of the representative Man.

And secondly by His life in which He demonstrated His lordship over creation and superiority to angels. He was ‘with the wild beasts’ and angels ministered to Him (Mark 1:13), the evil spirits obeyed Him and were cast out (Mark 1:25-26 and regularly), the water turned into wine at His will (John 2:1-11), the fish moved at His command (Luke 5:4-6; Matthew 17:27; John 21:6), the wind and waves did His bidding (Mark 4:39), the sea provided Him with a pathway through the storm (Mark 6:48), the storm ceased at His presence (Mark 6:51), the unbroken ass walked quietly into Jerusalem through noisy crowds, responsive to His hands (Mark 11:2; Mark 11:7-9), (which made a jockey cry out when he read it, “what hands He must have had”), the fig tree withered at His command (Mark 11:14; Mark 11:20). Indeed He could have commanded the mountain to fall into the sea and it would have obeyed Him because of His total faith in God (Mark 11:23). All this emphasised the restoration of the crowning with glory and honour.

And it was this overlordship of creation that revealed that He was perfect man as God had intended man to be, and it was this that made Him fitted to ‘taste death for everyone’, because it revealed that He was truly ‘the second man’, ‘the last Adam’, (1 Corinthians 15:45-47) man restored to what he should be. So was He seen as ‘crowned with glory and honour’ in His lifetime, as Man restored to his lost status, that status given by God from the beginning. And thus could it be that as perfect man He would offer Himself, the One for the many. (Neither in Genesis 1:0 as expanded in Psalms 8:0, nor here, is the crowning necessarily to be seen as literal. The point is that that was His status).

And in this lies explained the mystery of His suffering. When He came He was here as lord of creation, all of which obeyed Him. He was declared to be crowned with glory and honour as God’s Son. Creation was under His sway. It was only man who was in rebellion and was antagonistic, and opposed His rule. It was thus man, guilty rebellious man, out of tune with creation, who brought about His sufferings, and the sufferings of all who would follow Him, as they made clear their total rejection of what God is. From the world came glory (‘even the stones would cry out’ - Luke 19:40), from rebellious man, overwatched by sinister angels, came persecution and suffering.

So as Jesus walked the world as Lord of Creation, crowned with glory and honour, He called men to come under the Heavenly Rule of God, to submit to Him even as nature submitted. And in their refusal and rejection, apart from the few, was made clear the need for Him to die. They were in rebellion against God’s purpose in creation, and only through His death on their behalf could a way be made for them back to God.

Nor should we overlook the fact that, with the exception of the crown of thorns, Jesus is never elsewhere depicted as undergoing a process of being crowned. He is ever depicted as already being King (Matthew 2:2; Matthew 21:5; John 1:49), depicting Himself as such when He entered Jerusalem on an ass (John 12:13), depicting Himself as such to a cynical Pilate (John 18:37; Luke 23:3 compare Luke 23:38) and in His parables (Matthew 18:23; Matthew 22:2). His message was that the Kingly Rule of God was here, and the implication He gave was that He was here as the king. He was here as God’s anointed (Luke 4:18-21; Acts 10:38). If we wish to see a moment of crowning was it not at His baptism when God declared, ‘You are My Son’ and anointed Him with the Holy Spirit? What greater glory and honour could there be than that?

But there was also this physical crowning, a recognition that that overlordship was established and confirmed, as He went on to face His final sufferings. For a mock crown was placed on His head, and in that too He was in the eyes of Heaven crowned with glory and honour, and Pilate too confirmed in writing somewhat cynically that ‘this is the king of the Jews’ (Luke 19:38). For as He faced up to the suffering and death which was the direct result of man’s rebellion against God He faced it because He was the king, and because He was the true representative of what man should be, and because only man was rejecting Him as such. And He declared that He was to be glorified in that suffering too (John 12:23; John 12:27-28). He was to face His death as He had faced His life, as the One Who was crowned with glory and honour, and Who was Himself receiving great glory as he crushed all the forces that were against Him.

This is especially brought out in the fourth Gospel where one of John’s aims was to bring out that in all the events that took place He was sovereign. The soldiers, for example, fell back before Him until He again spoke; and they let the Apostles go free because He commanded it (John 18:6-8). He was in charge of events, and they proceeded at His will. And all the Gospels essentially agree on the same, for Matthew’s Gospel tells us that twelve legions of angels waited to do His will and could have prevented all that happened, but did not do so because it was not His will (Matthew 26:53). So the stress throughout this whole passage in Hebrews is not on His final exaltation, but on what He was when He came into the world lower than the angels, and on the necessity for His being prepared for what He had to face, and on the recognition that He was publicly acclaimed by God as the supreme Man Who did His will, and on the necessity for Him to face suffering as a result of man’s rebellion, because they no longer did His will, and then, following on that, on what the consequence would be for His own as they too faced a hostile world. And part of that preparation was in His being ‘crowned with glory and honour’ in God’s eyes (and in the eyes of angels and evil spirits) so as to be truly what man should be and so fitted to suffer on man’s behalf. Indeed by itself the idea of the exaltation fits oddly here. While what we have suggested fits completely adequately into the whole context.

Our problem is that we often overlook His earthly glory and concentrate on His humiliation. But while this picture is in accordance with Scripture from one point of view (Isaiah 52:13 to Isaiah 53:12; Philippians 2:6-11), we must remember that when He was made a servant it was as the Servant of Yahweh, and that while He walked in submission to God He was still a Colossus on earth, for He always prevailed until the time came for Him to die.

So that being how we might see his words here, let us then consider the passage as a whole.

‘But we behold him who has been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death.’ But look! says the writer. Here is One Who has been made man, and thus made a little lower than the angels, and Who has been declared to be God’s Son, and ‘crowned with glory and honour’ as man was at his first creation, as One Who has all things under Him. Here is One Who is even now true representative man.

And why was He made lower than the angels? It was because of the need for a sacrifice, ‘because of the suffering of death’, something that was required for man’s redemption. That is the very reason why He came as One ‘lower than the angels’, although in His case, because of Who He is, the ‘making lower’ was a humiliation, not a privilege to rejoice in. The Psalmist could proclaim that man had been privileged to be made a little lower than the angels, but for this One that was a humiliation not a privilege, for He was the outshining of the glory of God, the Lord over all. And the purpose of it was simply in order that He might be able to fully identify with those He had come to save, that as representative man He might suffer death on their behalf and in their place, that He might be able to become their saving sacrifice and their great High Priest. Without His lowering Himself to become man this could not have been.

And the context supports this. For it was only through such humiliation, suffering and death, which followed His crowning with glory and honour as true man, that He could become the author, the source and worker out, of our salvation (Hebrews 2:10; Isaiah 53:0; Mark 10:45), leading many sons to glory. It could only be through His becoming truly man and suffering as man, that, as the One Who in Himself represented all mankind, He could be ‘the second man’ and ‘the last Adam’ (1 Corinthians 15:45-47), The One Who could as man’s representative and substitute offer Himself as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45), making many to be accounted righteous (see Romans 5:12-21; Isaiah 53:11). The emphasis all through is on Christ’s perfect manhood, resulting from His choosing to humble Himself below the angels.

And so as Adam had been the first man, representing all mankind, and had been ‘crowned with glory and honour’ but had then brought sin into the world, and had dragged man down from his status, so was Jesus also ‘crowned with glory and honour’ in His life on earth, as the second man, the sinless man, so that as such He might live triumphantly in this world as lord over creation, remaining free from sin, and thus be in a position to endure death for the sin of ‘everyone’, and restore all who would come to Him.

Here then was the full explanation of why the Lord of glory became man, why He was seen in His humiliation as lower than the angels. It was not because He was so in Himself, but because He had in eternity chosen to humble Himself and become man, so that He could be in a position to die for us (Philippians 2:6-8). And it was as the sinless and representative man who had come into the world, that He was ‘crowned with glory and honour’, that is, was reinstated into the place that man had forfeited as lord of creation (Hebrews 2:7), so that He could as their accepted representative, as lord of creation, die on man’s behalf. And as we have seen, the fact that He was indeed, as man, lord of creation came out in His being with the wild beasts without being harmed, in His turning water into wine, in His lordship over fish, in His stilling of the storm, in His riding of an untrained ass amid a frenzied crowd, and in the withering of a tree at His command. Wild beasts, domestic animals and fish, and even inanimate nature, all did His bidding. Only man rebelled.

‘Because of (through) the suffering of death.’ Why then was He made lower than the angels? It was in order that He might become truly mortal, as God made man, ‘because of the suffering of death’. That was why He had to do it. It was because of the necessity for a death for sin that would satisfy the requirements of a holy Law. There had to be a sufficient death, and there therefore had to be a humiliation of One Who could die that death and yet be sufficient to save the world. For the presence of sin in the world demanded death, and it had to be either the death of all of us, or the death of Another sufficient to bear it for us.

This then was why it was necessary for Him to die, indeed, came in order to die. And the stress on His death in the Gospels emphasises the truth of this. In other men’s biographies their life is stressed, and death is but the end, but in the case of Jesus it is His death that takes the prime place. There had to be a death, and that necessity for death is emphasised. But it was only because He was truly made man, and that as man restored, that He could thus die, and so offer Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.

In their superior existence angels are not mortal, and will not and cannot die, for they are heavenly beings. No angel or above could fulfil this requirement to die, even had they been sufficient for it. There was only One Who was supreme enough to become lower than the angels and Who could do so. So, for Jesus, although He was the outshining of the glory of God and the express ‘stamped out’ image of His substance, being made ‘lower than the angels’ was essential in order that He might be made truly mortal and suffer. And this was also why He had to receive on earth the ‘crowning with glory and honour’ which was man’s right through creation, but which had been previously forfeited, constituting Himself thus as ‘reinstated man’, able to suffer for mankind.

So here we ‘behold’ Him as ‘crowned with glory and honour’, firstly as representative, sinless, and reinstated man, revealing His lordship as man over creation, and fitted by what He was for the task of salvation, and secondly as triumphant, victorious man, defeating even the angels in achieving His victory through suffering. In His manhood He is truly established as lord over ‘all things’. And the purpose behind this humiliation and glorification through suffering was so that He might be fitted to ‘taste’ (experience to the full) death for everyone. That is, as restored Man He was to experience death to the full, to absorb it to the full, so that we who are His might not have to finally die, and He could only do this because He was ‘crowned with glory and honour’ as the last Adam. So central to His humiliation and exaltation as man was that as true representative man He would thus truly die. For it was finally through His death that He was able to become the perfect means of salvation.

‘We behold Him.’ That is, we behold Him as described by eyewitnesses, we behold Him in our hearts by faith, and we behold Him in the testimony by the Spirit through chosen men of God (including this writer), as they speak of what He accomplished. We behold Him as we take heed and consider Him and receive Him within out hearts in responsive faith. As John said of those who walked with Him, ‘we behold His glory’ (John 1:14)

‘Who has been made a little lower than the angels.’ We behold that He Who was in the form of God, humbled Himself to become a servant and to be made in the likeness of men, thus being made for a time lower than the angels (Philippians 2:5-8). The Son of Man came down from Heaven, He Who is in Heaven (John 3:13), and became Man. And so we behold Him.

‘Even Jesus, because of the suffering of death.’ And to Whom did this happen? We behold what happened to ‘Jesus’, to the One born of Mary by the Holy Spirit, to Him Who walked as a man among men in order that He might truly suffer death. Without such humiliation, death as a human being would have been impossible, as would also the resulting accomplishment of men’s salvation. It was by becoming a human being that He became qualified to die for the sins of the world.

‘Crowned with glory and honour.’ And we behold that in His coming as sinless man He had to be ‘crowned with glory and honour’ as man had originally been in order to be true man. He had, as sinless and truly obedient Man, firstly to be reinstated into man’s destiny (Hebrews 2:7) as lord of creation, and secondly, He had to be accepted as a sufficient sacrifice, so that He could suffer, in order that all who respond to Him might be reinstated. And God confirmed this at His baptism, and at the mount of transfiguration, and through His signs and wonders, and through His power over creation.

And in the end we behold that God had openly declared His status, although in a partly hidden way known only to His elect, through the mockery of men. For He was literally at this time given a crown. It was a crown of glory, even though a crown of suffering; it was a crown of honour, even though a crown of thorns. No greater glory and honour could have been suggested than by this crown of thorns, the crown that revealed that the Creator was offering Himself up to suffer for His creatures, that the Lord was offering Himself up to suffer for His servants, that the Son was offering Himself up to suffer for His slaves, so that they might be redeemed. It laid bare the very heart of God. And were not the thorns in themselves a reminder that Jesus was bearing man’s curse on Himself? For thorns were a part of man’s curse. How symbolic was this, that perfect man, the Lord of creation, was crowned with thorns.

For this crown of thorns, and what it portrayed, revealed that sacrificial, self-giving love lay at the very heart of the Universe. It revealed that true morality (part of what God is in Himself) was fully and permanently established as a prime concern within it. No more could morality be passed over as unimportant, for it was established as vital through the suffering and the death for sin of this perfect Man. By it was revealed that He Who is love is also light, and that He Who is light is also love. That He is both light and love (1 John 1:5; 1 John 4:8; 1 John 4:16). For His light shines and necessarily condemns mankind, and in that light mankind are revealed for what they are, while His love seeks to win mankind to Himself and makes provision for that purpose, and for their sin, through His own Son’s suffering. And because His crowning is ‘over all things’ it is finally also over the angels. As the Man, crowned with thorns, He would be made Lord of all, rising triumphantly from the dead and taking His seat on His Father’s throne because of Who He was, the One Who was already crowned with glory and honour. Compare the ‘Lamb as it had been slain’ Who ruled in Heaven (Revelation 5:6).

‘Crowned with glory and honour, that by the grace of God he should taste of death for everyone.’ We should note carefully how this ‘crowned with glory and honour’ is sandwiched between two references to His sacrificial death, and intimately connected with them, which must in our view, as we have seen, suggest that we are to see His crowning, not as being the result of, but as being the essential groundwork for, and included within, His suffering. He was crowned that He should be fitted to be a sacrifice, as on a par with first-created man, and even above him. That He should be revealed as ‘the second man’, the One Who replaced and followed the first. He was crowned that He might taste death for those who had ‘lost’ their crown, and admitted it, that is, ‘for everyone’, men of all races, who would hear and respond. And it was His suffering that was His triumph, the revelation of the fullness of His glory and honour, as by it He defeated sin and death and the forces of darkness who held sway in the world.

Just as hidden behind the living earthly Man was the glory of the transfiguration, unseen, so hidden behind the suffering Man was the glory of the triumphant King, unseen. This comes out in the use in John’s Gospel of the words ‘being glorified’ as including His being glorified in death (John 12:23-24 compare John 7:39). It was when the crown of thorns was placed on His head that the first stage in His glorification by suffering began (Matthew 27:28-29; Mark 15:17), that He entered into His glorification. It was then paradoxically that He was revealed by the crown of thorns as crowned with glory and honour, as being the suffering Servant and Messiah, Who could ‘taste death for everyone’. (For the son of man who entered into triumph in Daniel 7:13-14; Daniel 7:27, had first been ‘perfected’ in suffering (Daniel 7:21-22; Daniel 7:25)).

While the soldiers mocked, and the angels worshipped, standing by for God’s command and perplexed that it never came, for even they did not understand, it was God Who, unknown to all, put that crown upon His head. He overruled man’s mockery. It was the next stage in His victory. It was a crown of honour. The One Who had been crowned with glory and honour in life was now crowned with glory and honour in facing death. For in the final analysis that crown was the declaration that the King was here, and was highly honoured, and was entering into the battle that would determine the destiny of the world, mocked it is true by man, but honoured by God (see Isaiah 50:5-8; John 18:37). It was the declaration of the way that victory and salvation would be achieved, through suffering (see Isaiah 52:13 to Isaiah 53:12).

By that crown He was crowned with glory and honour, even while the ‘royal’ robe was put upon Him, and the ‘royal’ sceptre placed in His hand. Even while He turned His back to the smiters, and to those who plucked off the hair, and did not hide His face from shame and spitting (Isaiah 50:6). The world intended it to symbolise His humiliation. But God intended that it should symbolise His path through suffering to glory. It was a crown declaring the victory to be achieved through suffering. It symbolised the fact that the crowned Messiah was on the way to His heavenly throne, initially to face His destiny and win the victory in triumphant suffering (Isaiah 53:3-10), after which He would be lifted up and be ‘very high’ (Isaiah 52:13), seated at God’s right hand.

For while His death seemed to much of the world to be a pointless tragedy, in reality it was a triumph which brought Him great glory even while it was in process. For a brief while the powers of darkness thought that they had won. Angels shook their heads in perplexity. Disciples wept and felt ashamed. But the crown of thorns was the perfect revelation of what He was about to do. It was Messiah’s crown, and it led on to the cross and victory. It was the crown of His glory and honour which was now being manifested. Through His royal suffering He thrust off the principalities and powers of evil, making an open show of them and triumphing over them in the cross (Colossians 2:15), defeating them for ever so that although they retired to carry out their activities from ambush, they knew that their power was broken. For even in His death He was revealed as superior to the angels. Through it also He broke the power of sin to destroy men. Through it He took away the fear of death for those who are His own. And through it, as the crowned One, He bore the sin of many and was raised in the glory and honour with which He had been crowned.

In many ancient festivals men were selected out to be brought to the gods in one way or another, and in preparation were crowned and robed. And thus was Jesus crowned and robed by God in preparation for that moment when He would offer Himself to God. And by it He was glorified. It was through the cross that He triumphed and was made glorious and received the ultimate honour. Now was the judgment of this world. Now was the prince of this world cast out (John 12:31). And while the resurrection was its firstfruit (1 Corinthians 15:20; 1 Corinthians 15:23), and the final proof of victory, it occurred because the victory had already been won, and the crowning had already taken place on the victorious field of action, in the glorious but persecuted life of the Son of Man, and on the battleground of the cross.

‘That by the grace of God he should taste of death for everyone.’ And His life, and His suffering, and His crowning and His triumph at the cross were so that by the grace of God, the unmerited love and favour of God active on our behalf, He should be fitted for and finally taste fully of death ‘for everyone’, that is, potentially for all, and effectually for all those who believe. He offered Himself as the Saviour of all men, but He was essentially so only for those who believe (1 Timothy 4:10). The idea behind ‘tasting death’ is not of simply having a sample, it is of tasting it to the full. None but One Who was perfect, the crowned Lord of creation, could truly taste of death to the full, because for no other could it be so awful and so real. Only One Who enjoyed full and perfect life and was crowned with glory and honour could then move on to appreciate the awfulness of death.

‘By the grace of God.’ And this was by the compassion and love of God reaching out through Him to the undeserving, to those who merited nothing. It was all of grace. Who can ever begin to measure the depths and height of that grace? In this was love, not that we loved God but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10; John 3:16). Was ever love like that?

(The alternative choris theou - ‘apart from God’ - found in some few witnesses has little early support in manuscripts, although some see it as original because of its unusualness, often seeing it as a marginal note incorporated by a copyist. But in view of the widespread and overwhelming nature of the early manuscript evidence against it this seems unlikely. It may equally well have been an emendation in order to separate God from the possibility of being directly associated with Jesus’ dying, although some do see it as referring to His sense of forsakenness from God as depicted in Mark 15:34. It is even possible that someone who was thinking in those terms, while they were copying, ‘saw’ choris even though it was not there. It would not be the first time that someone read a different word than was actually there because that was the way in which their minds were working).

So when He rose from the dead, and ascended to God, and took His place on God’s throne, He was not being ‘glorified’, He was not being crowned with glory and honour, He was rather manifesting the glory and honour (as the transfiguration had previously done) that was already His through His anointing by God, His glory as Lord of creation, and finally through the cross, the glory and honour which He had already achieved when He cried out ‘it is finished’ on the battlefield. His receiving of dominion (Daniel 7:13-14) was but the confirmation of His crowning during His life of warfare. No other crowning of Jesus is ever described in Scripture than the crowning of Jesus in mockery by the world. And that was the greatest possible symbol of His triumph achieved through suffering. No other crown would fit His brow. The crown of thorns, like the living ‘slain Lamb’ (Revelation 5:7), is the symbol of all that He is. All His other crowns arise from that (Revelation 14:14; Revelation 19:12).

Note on ‘Crowned with glory and honour.’

To summarise briefly. As we have seen, in the passage this phrase has a number of facets, each of which is important.

1) It described what happened when man was created and given dominion over creation (a position which he went on to partly forfeit) - he was ‘crowned with glory and honour’, he was made lord of creation - Hebrews 2:7.

2) It described the position taken up by Jesus coming as representative and sinless man, as He Himself took the place that man had forfeited, receiving man’s crown of glory and honour as representative man because of His holiness and purity (Hebrews 7:26; Hebrews 9:14; becoming ‘the second man’ and ‘the last Adam’ (1 Corinthians 15:45; 1 Corinthians 15:47). He came as ‘He Who knew no sin’ (2 Corinthians 5:21), to Whom God said ‘You are My Son’ (Mark 1:11), and of Whom He said ‘This is my Son, my chosen’ when He was transfigured before God and spoke of His ‘exodus’ which He would accomplish at Jerusalem (Luke 9:35; Luke 9:31). And He revealed Himself, as man, as lord over creation, both over the animal creation and over nature. And when He stood before Pilate, and Pilate asked Him if He was a king, He basically assented, and it was then that He received and appeared before men as wearing the crown of thorns and the ‘royal’ robe (John 18:37; John 19:5). And it was because He had been ‘crowned with glory and honour’ as representative, sinless man, thus being ‘reinstated man’, and becoming ‘the second man’, and in His humanity the lord of creation, that He was able to suffer on man’s behalf - Hebrews 2:9.

3) It described what He accomplished at the cross, as He was ‘crowned with glory and honour’ as a result of being glorified through His sufferings as expressed in the symbol of His crown of thorns, given to Him in the course of His victorious self-sacrifice and triumph - Hebrews 2:9 - that He might taste death for everyone, defeating both angels and sin.

4) It does, of course, finally within it include His final resulting position as Lord of Glory, but this was itself accomplished through His being sinless man and suffering man and, on the cross, victorious man. It was that which resulted in His final resurrection and exaltation and His thus being openly revealed as the One Who had been ‘crowned with glory and honour’. But that is the consequence of His crowning with glory and honour, not the basis of His sacrifice on behalf of man, whereas Hebrews 2:9 depicts a crowning which is the basis of His suffering. And in Heaven it is as ‘the Lamb as it had been slain’ in the midst of the throne (Revelation 5:6), as the King Who wears the crown of thorns, that in glory and honour He rules and works out man’s destiny in the opening of the seals.