Hebrews 2:10

‘For it became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings.’

The continual stress on the preparation of Jesus for His supreme task now continues. His crowning with the crown of glory and honour, received during His lifetime as He was ‘anointed’ and took His place as ‘the second man’ and received all the privileges of the first man before he fell, and was manifested at the transfiguration, and which He lived out in the midst of His suffering and endurance during His lifetime, and especially so in His last hours, was all part of the process of making Him ‘perfect through suffering’, perfect that is for what He had to achieve.

And it was that which enabled Him to accomplish the victory, and which depicted His fitness to be the Saviour. For this way of suffering was the way which was ‘becoming’ to God, ‘becoming’, that is, in the eyes of men and angels once they recognise the significance of it all, and ‘becoming’ in terms of the requirements of the Law and of morality. For once men see the truth they recognise that there was no other way. It was through living and suffering at the hands of rebellious man as the true Man that He was made fit to be the perfect sacrifice, and to lead His own to glory through suffering, and it was through suffering that He bore our sins (Isaiah 53:3). And this tied in with what the Scriptures had said must be (Psalms 22:0; Isaiah 50:0; Isaiah 53:0).

So when God ‘for Whom are all things’, as the Goal of Creation, and ‘through Whom are all things’, as the Architect and Upholder of Creation, sent forth Jesus as the ‘Author and Trek Leader of men’s salvation’, in order that through Him He might bring many sons to glory, He made Him perfect for His task through suffering, because He was taking the place of rebellious man. It was ‘becoming’, because it was necessary in the nature of things. For He must be both the victor and the victim. The victor because He had to triumph in life over adversity and walk the pathway of obedience in order to be fitted to be the victim, and the victim because He then bore in Himself the sins of others, dying in their place, while at the same time still being the victor because through the offering of Himself He triumphed. Triumph could not result until the sacrifice was made fit, and the price of sin was paid. And this will be explained in more detail throughout the chapters to come.

So in order to bring about salvation for men it was necessary for Him to be equipped and made suitable (‘made perfect’), it was necessary for Him to take on Himself the qualities required. And this was accomplished by Him being made fully man and by Him suffering as a man. As He endured the contradiction of sinners against Himself (Hebrews 12:3), as He was tempted in all points just as we are (Hebrews 4:15), as He was reviled (1 Peter 2:23) and persecuted (John 5:16; John 15:20), so was He being prepared as the perfect sacrifice. And, as the final battle approached, so the sufferings multiplied. For only thus could He become the ‘author and trek leader’ of salvation, the One Who produced it, and researched it, and brought it about, and bestowed it, and would Himself lead us on to final salvation.

‘In bringing (leading) many sons to glory.’ For God’s aim in all this was to bring ‘many sons’ to share in the glory that Jesus Himself had received, to restore them to what they once were, and more. As in one man many had sinned (Romans 5:12), so from One Man would come the many who would be righteous (Romans 5:19), many sons. And as in one man sonship with God was lost (Luke 3:38; Genesis 5:3), so from One only Son would come ‘many (adopted) sons’. And they, who had once been ‘crowned with glory and honour’ and had sadly forfeited it, would once again be crowned with glory and honour, sharing in His glory (John 17:22), and being reinstated, not only as lords of creation but as lords of all creations, and being enhanced as those who are more fully ‘crowned with glory and honour’ in Him. They would become His ‘brothers’, those whom He called to share with Him, Who was Himself the heir of all things (Hebrews 1:2), in those all things.

There is here a slight play on words, for the writer tells us that in ‘leading’ (agagonta) many sons to glory He made their ‘Leader’ (archegon) perfect through sufferings. The ‘ One Who led’ provided the perfect Leader.

‘‘In bringing (leading)’. The aorist active participle sees the whole of salvation as one completed process.

‘Many sons.’ This is the wonder of the Gospel, not only that Jesus humbled Himself to become man, but that He, through His sacrifice, exalted men who believed, so that they might become ‘sons’ of God, so that they might receive adoption as sons (Galatians 4:4-7; Romans 8:15), a position which He had foreordained for them from the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4; Romans 8:29) . Thus do they become God’s grown up sons, a part of His family. And we rejoice and wonder in the fact that it was for ‘many’ (compare Isaiah 53:11-12). His work was not in vain or receiving of miserly reward.

‘The author of their salvation.’ ‘The author’ is ton archêgon, a compound of archê and agô. It means one controlling an enterprise, one leading off, a trek-leader, a file-leader or a prince (Acts 5:31), one blazing the way, a pioneer in faith (Hebrews 12:2), an author or source (Acts 3:15). Any of the senses suit here, and while ‘author’ might be seen as most suitable because the idea seems to be of Him as the initiator, the play on words with God’s ‘leading’ of them points to ‘Leader’. Thus Jesus is both the author of our salvation, and our file leader in the process (so arose the translation ‘captain’) so that we may see a wider meaning as included. We need not limit it. A caravan or trek leader can fulfil all these functions both of initiating, making ready and seeing through the whole of the trek. He can be the one in overall control from start to finish.

‘Perfect through suffering.’ This is not referring to being made morally perfect, as though suffering had purged Him, for He was already that. It refers to His being made perfect and complete for the task that lay ahead, by being made truly man, by facing up to all that man had to face up to and overcoming it, by being crowned with glory and honour in His reinstatement as the lord of creation as man was originally intended to be, and by being ‘crowned with glory and honour’ with a crown of thorns and suffering as He faced up in death to all the power of sin and of the Enemy and his forces. Thus was He fitted for the task that was His.