Verse 17
17. Wherefore Deduction from the preceding. If, to redeem us, he assumed our nature, he must complete his brotherhood with us by suffering like unto us.
In all things Birth, pain, and death included.
Might be Rather, might become.
Merciful The statement quoted from Calvin by Alford, with approval, must not be for a moment accepted: “Not that the Son of God needed to be formed by experience to a feeling of mercy, but because we could not otherwise be persuaded that he was clement, and inclined to render us aid.” The plain doctrine is not merely that such a fact took place to give us assurance of mercy, (though that was one point to be received,) but that such an assemblage of elements was formed into the divine-human Jesus, that a genuine human sympathy might truly exist. It was not to be a mere assuring show, but a most beneficent reality. There was not merely a divine mind forming anthropomorphic conceptions, but a human mind feeling human sympathies.
High priest This very central term in this epistle is now, for the first time, arrived at; the preparation for its introduction was commenced at Hebrews 2:15. Hebrews 2:14; Hebrews 2:14 affirms the necessity of Christ’s death, in order to become the conqueror of death; this affirms the necessity of his human suffering, that he might sympathize with us sufferers.
Faithful Embracing the double meaning of fidelity and of reliability. Christ is true to his mission, and is trustworthy for its completion.
Make reconciliation for The Greek word signifies, to make propitious. The Greek adjective of the same verb ‘ Ιλαρος , hilaros, (from which comes our English word hilarity,) is equivalent to our adjective propitious; and the word, in its various forms, was customarily applied by the Greeks to their gods when induced by expiation to be gracious: hence, in its biblical use, the verb means such a satisfaction sacrificially made to justice, as that God may deal with us in mercy. Anger can be ascribed to God only as a sense of justice and of subjective purpose against sin. When the demands of justice are obviated, we may behold that purpose of justice obviated, and the face of God beaming upon us in unobstructed benefaction. The objective of the verb is sins, and the meaning is, that Christ’s death so reaches and affects our sins as that God may be propitious to us.
Of the people The Old Testament phrase for the Israelite people, enlarged to a world-wide sense.
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