Hebrews has brought us to one of the great reversals at the center of the Christian story. Humanity was created for glory and honor and appointed to exercise dominion over the works of God’s hands, yet the world we presently see does not look like Psalm 8 has reached its destination. Human beings exercise remarkable authority within creation while remaining subject to suffering, corruption, and death. Hebrews does not hide that discrepancy or attempt to explain it away. “But now we don’t see all things subjected to him, yet.” Instead, the author directs our attention toward the place where God’s purpose for humanity has already begun to appear: “But we see…Jesus.”
The Son described in Hebrews 1 as the One through whom God made the ages entered the human condition described in Psalm 8. The One greater than the angels became, for a little while, lower than the angels.
He entered mortality, suffered death, and is now crowned with glory and honor. What we do not yet see completed in humanity generally, we see accomplished in Him. Hebrews explains why His path to that glory passed through suffering and, more importantly, why what happened to Jesus matters for anyone besides Jesus.
Hebrews 2:10–13 (WEB)
> For it became him, for whom are all things and through whom are all things, in bringing many children to glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one, for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, “I will declare your name to my brothers. Among the congregation I will sing your praise.” Again, “I will put my trust in him.”
Again, “Behold, here I am with the children whom God has given me.” The language is startling when placed beside everything Hebrews has already said about the Son. The One through whom God made the ages suffers. The One whose throne endures forever is identified with mortal human beings. The One worshiped by angels calls them His brothers. Yet none of this represents a retreat from the glory established in chapter 1.
Hebrews is beginning to show us what that glory looks like when the Son enters the human condition in order to accomplish salvation. Jesus has not simply reached humanity’s intended destination; He has entered our condition so that He might bring others into that destination with Him. Bringing Many to Glory
Hebrews 2:10 begins by identifying God as the One “for whom are all things and through whom are all things.” Similar language has already been associated with the Son in the opening chapter, where God made the ages through Him and creation is described as the work of His hands.
Hebrews is not attempting to separate the Father from the Son as though one created while the other merely watched. The New Testament can speak of creation as from God, through the Son, and existing for God without treating those statements as competitors. Here the emphasis falls upon the fittingness of God’s saving purpose: the God for whom and through whom all things exist is bringing “many children to glory.” That phrase connects directly with the argument immediately preceding it. Psalm 8 described humanity as crowned with glory and honor.
Hebrews acknowledged that we do not presently see humanity possessing everything that description anticipates, but then directed us toward Jesus, who suffered death and is now crowned with glory and honor. Verse 10 tells us that His arrival at glory is not an isolated event because God intends to bring many others there with Him.
Salvation in Hebrews therefore continues to expand beyond the idea of merely escaping punishment. Deliverance from judgment certainly belongs to salvation, and Hebrews will have much to say about sin, sacrifice, forgiveness, and judgment, but God’s purpose is not exhausted by preventing something terrible from happening to sinners. He is restoring human beings to the destiny for which they were created. The glory and honor anticipated in Psalm 8, already realized in the risen and exalted Christ, become the destination toward which God is bringing His children. Paul describes Christian salvation with similarly expansive language.
Romans 8:29–30 (WEB)
> For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
Whom he predestined, those he also called. Whom he called, those he also justified. Whom he justified, those he also glorified. Whatever questions Romans 8 raises within larger theological debates, the destination Paul describes is unmistakable: conformity to the Son and participation in glory. Jesus is the “firstborn among many brothers.”
Hebrews uses different language but presents a closely related picture. The glorified Son does not stand alone. God is bringing many sons and daughters into the glory already manifested in Him.
That makes the incarnation and suffering of Jesus inseparable from the human destiny Hebrews has been describing. The Son did not become human merely because humanity provided a convenient location in which He could die. He entered our condition in order to bring human beings through that condition and into the destiny God intended for them. The salvation of humanity therefore takes place not through the abandonment of the human vocation but through its fulfillment in Christ.
Perfect Through Sufferings That makes the next statement considerably more surprising. Hebrews says that it was fitting for God, “in bringing many children to glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings.”
At first glance, saying Jesus was “made perfect” sounds like saying He was previously imperfect. That would create an obvious problem after everything Hebrews has already said about Him, and it would become even more difficult when the letter later explicitly describes Him as without sin.
Hebrews 4:15 (WEB)
> For we don’t have a high priest who can’t be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who has been in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin.
Hebrews is therefore not describing a morally defective Jesus gradually improving His character until suffering finally made Him good enough.
The word translated “perfect” is teleioō, which can describe bringing something to completion, accomplishing its intended purpose, or bringing someone into the state necessary for a particular role. Hebrews will use this language repeatedly, and its meaning must be determined by the author’s argument rather than by importing our ordinary English sense of “perfect” as though the statement necessarily implies a previous moral defect.
Here the context concerns Jesus as the One who brings others to glory through suffering. The WEB calls Him the “author” of their salvation, translating the Greek archēgos, a term capable of describing a leader, founder, originator, pioneer, or champion. No single English word captures everything the term can communicate, but “pioneer” is particularly helpful within this context because Jesus enters the path His people must travel and reaches its destination ahead of them. He does not stand safely at the destination explaining how others might find their way there; He enters the human condition, passes through suffering and death, and emerges into glory. His being “made perfect” through suffering therefore concerns the completion of His saving mission rather than the correction of a moral deficiency. The Son had no sin requiring improvement, but the incarnate Son had a mission that could not be completed without entering fully into the condition of those He came to save. A Savior untouched by human suffering could not accomplish the particular salvation Hebrews is describing. A Savior who never entered mortality could not taste death for others, and a high priest who never shared the human condition could not become the merciful and faithful high priest the author is preparing to describe.
This is one of those places where careful reading prevents us from creating a theological problem out of biblical language. Isolating the words “made perfect” and forcing them into our normal English categories can make Hebrews sound as though Jesus began morally deficient and required suffering to improve Him. Following the argument produces a much more natural reading. The Son is brought through the sufferings necessary to complete His role as the pioneer of salvation because the people He is bringing to glory live in a world where suffering and death stand between humanity and its intended destiny. He does not save them by avoiding that road but by traveling it Himself.
It Was Fitting Hebrews says something stronger than merely stating that Jesus happened to suffer. The author says that this course of salvation “became”
God, or was fitting for Him. The suffering of Christ was not an embarrassing complication that God managed to convert into something useful afterward. It belonged to the wisdom of His saving purpose.
That does not require us to declare suffering good simply because God can accomplish good through it. Hebrews has just treated death as part of humanity’s present problem, and the verses ahead will describe human beings as held in slavery through fear of death. Scripture does not require Christians to rename evil as good in order to preserve divine sovereignty.
The point is instead that God’s method of salvation is appropriate to the problem He intends to solve.
Humanity’s problem is not merely ignorance, so God does not simply send a better teacher. It is not merely a shortage of moral inspiration, so He does not merely send a better example. Humanity is sinful, mortal, alienated from God, and subject to death. The Son therefore enters the condition of the people He intends to save. He lives within their world, suffers within their world, and ultimately dies within their world.
The One bringing many children to glory travels the road they could not successfully travel and passes through the enemy they could not overcome. Philippians describes the same movement from another angle.
Philippians 2:6–11 (WEB)
> who, existing in the form of God, didn’t consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, yes, the death of the cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave to him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Humiliation gives way to exaltation, and obedience passes through death on its way to glory. Hebrews is developing the same pattern according to its own argument. The One made lower than the angels because of the suffering of death is now crowned with glory and honor, and the pioneer of salvation fulfills His appointed role through suffering. The cross is not an interruption between incarnation and glory but the road through which the incarnate Son reaches the destination on behalf of the people He came to save.
The One Who Sanctifies Hebrews explains the relationship between Jesus and those He brings to glory.
Hebrews 2:11 (WEB)
> For both he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one, for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brothers… The language of sanctification will become increasingly important as Hebrews develops its priestly and sacrificial argument, so we should resist loading every later use of the term into its first appearance. At its basic level, sanctification concerns being made holy or set apart for God. Jesus is the One who sanctifies, while His people are those who are sanctified. The remarkable part of the sentence is the solidarity Hebrews establishes between them: they are “all from one.”
Exactly how that phrase should be understood has been debated. It can be taken as referring to a common Father, common human ancestry, or more broadly to the solidarity Jesus has assumed with those He sanctifies.
Hebrews does not pause to settle the question because the conclusion drawn from the phrase is clearer than the precise grammatical route by which we arrive there. Jesus stands in genuine solidarity with His people, and because of that solidarity “he is not ashamed to call them brothers.”
Coming after Hebrews 1, the statement is staggering precisely because nothing established there has been surrendered. The One through whom God made the ages, the radiance of God’s glory, the exact representation of His being, the One who sustains all things by the word of His power and sits at the right hand of the Majesty on high, identifies mortal human beings as His family. Hebrews is not lowering Christ in order to elevate humanity.
The force of the statement depends upon His glory remaining exactly what the author has already declared it to be. The wonder is that this glorious Son genuinely entered human solidarity deeply enough to identify those He sanctifies as His brothers and sisters.
Hebrews makes the statement even more striking by saying that He is not ashamed to call them brothers. That does not mean Jesus ignores what is shameful about human sin or simply declares sinners admirable as they are. Hebrews will speak seriously about sin, judgment, discipline, apostasy, and holiness. Christ’s solidarity with sinners never requires Him to redefine sin as harmless. The point is that the people He sanctifies are not embarrassing liabilities whom He reluctantly allows into His kingdom while maintaining a safe distance from them. The Son has identified Himself with them in order to bring them where He has gone.
“I Will Declare Your Name to My Brothers” Hebrews supports that claim by turning again to Scripture.
Hebrews 2:12 (WEB)
> saying,
“I will declare your name to my brothers. Among the congregation I will sing your praise.”
The quotation comes from Psalm 22:22, and its location within that Psalm is significant. Psalm 22 begins with the famous cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”—words Jesus speaks from the cross in Matthew 27:46. The Gospel narratives contain several additional connections with the Psalm: the sufferer is mocked, his trust in God becomes an object of ridicule, his garments are divided, and lots are cast for his clothing. Psalm 22 therefore became an important part of the scriptural framework through which the early church understood the suffering and vindication of Jesus.
Hebrews quotes not from the opening lament but from the point at which suffering begins giving way to praise.
Psalm 22:22–24 (WEB)
> I will declare your name to my brothers. Among the assembly, I will praise you. You who fear Yahweh, praise him! All you descendants of Jacob, glorify him! Stand in awe of him, all you descendants of Israel! For he has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, Neither has he hidden his face from him; but when he cried to him, he heard.
The movement of the Psalm matters. The suffering one now stands among his brothers declaring God’s name and praising Him in the assembly, and Hebrews places those words upon the lips of Christ. The Jesus who suffered is the Jesus who stands among the congregation. The One crowned with glory has not reached glory and left His people behind; the movement from suffering into vindication becomes part of Hebrews’ explanation of His solidarity with the people He is bringing to glory.
There is also a remarkable picture of worship contained within the quotation. Hebrews 1 showed angels worshiping the Son, while Hebrews 2 depicts the Son among His human brothers declaring the Father’s name and singing praise in the congregation. Those images do not compete with one another. Together they display the range of what Hebrews has said about Him. The One worshiped by heaven has genuinely entered humanity and stands among the people He sanctifies.
“I Will Put My Trust in Him” Hebrews follows Psalm 22 with a much shorter quotation.
Hebrews 2:13a (WEB)
> Again, “I will put my trust in him.” The wording is generally connected with Isaiah 8, particularly because the quotation immediately following it unmistakably comes from Isaiah 8:18.
Isaiah speaks during a period of political fear and covenant unfaithfulness in which Judah faces threats and is tempted to place its confidence in human alliances rather than Yahweh.
Isaiah 8:17–18 (WEB)
> I will wait for Yahweh, who hides his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him. Behold, I and the children whom Yahweh has given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from Yahweh of Armies, who dwells in Mount Zion.
Hebrews applies the language of trust to Christ, and that matters because trust is a genuinely human posture toward God. The eternal Son whom Hebrews has identified so strongly with God enters a human life characterized by faithful dependence upon the Father. His humanity is not an external appearance beneath which He remains untouched by ordinary human existence. Jesus prays, obeys, depends upon the Father, and entrusts Himself to Him. He lives as the faithful human being humanity was created to be. That contrast becomes especially meaningful against the biblical story already standing behind Hebrews. Adam’s rebellion was a refusal to remain faithfully beneath God’s rule, while Israel’s wilderness history repeatedly displays the consequences of failing to trust the God who redeemed them. Jesus enters the same human vocation without repeating that failure. His dependence upon the Father is not evidence against His divine identity but evidence of the reality of the humanity He assumed.
Hebrews will not protect Christ’s deity by turning His humanity into a costume.
“Behold, I and the Children God Has Given Me” Hebrews continues:
Hebrews 2:13b (WEB)
> Again, “Behold, here I am with the children whom God has given me.”
In Isaiah, the prophet and his children function as signs within Israel. Their names and presence bear witness to God’s word in the middle of Judah’s crisis. Hebrews takes that scriptural language and applies it within its developing Christological argument, where it becomes another expression of the solidarity between Christ and the people God has given Him.
The repetition of family language throughout the passage is difficult to miss. God is bringing many children to glory. The One who sanctifies and those who are sanctified belong together. Jesus calls them brothers. He stands among the congregation. Finally, He presents Himself together with the children God has given Him. Hebrews is preparing us for the argument that follows immediately in verse 14: “Since then the children have shared in flesh and blood, he also himself in the same way partook of the same.”
The logic is already taking shape. The children belong to flesh and blood, and the Son has identified Himself with those children; therefore, He enters flesh and blood. The Old Testament quotations are not decorative proof texts collected because they happen to contain convenient family vocabulary. They advance the argument. Psalm 22 gives us the suffering and vindicated One standing among His brothers, while Isaiah gives us the faithful One trusting God and standing together with the children God has given Him. Together they provide scriptural language for the solidarity Hebrews is about to develop through incarnation, death, priesthood, temptation, and mercy.
The Son Among His People Christian theology can sometimes become so concerned with protecting the deity of Christ that His humanity begins functioning as little more than the clothing deity wore for thirty-some years. The concern behind that instinct is understandable because any Christology that diminishes the identity established in Hebrews 1 has badly misunderstood the letter.
Yet Hebrews itself protects Christ’s divine glory without keeping Him at a safe conceptual distance from humanity. The same author who has described Him as the eternal Creator now insists upon the depth of His identification with human beings.
The Son truly became one of us without ceasing to be who He eternally is. The One greater than angels became, for a little while, lower than angels. The One through whom all things were made entered the creation He made. The One whose years never fail entered mortality. The One worshiped by angels calls human beings His brothers. The One seated at the right hand of God is portrayed standing within the congregation and praising God alongside them. None of that diminishes His glory because Hebrews presents His willing identification with humanity as essential to the saving work through which many children are brought to glory.
Nor is that identification sentimental. Jesus does not call humanity His brothers from a comfortable distance while
The passage joins suffering with flesh and blood, death, fear, slavery, temptation, and priestly mercy. describes reaches into the deepest parts of the human condition because the salvation being accomplished requires more than a distant declaration of forgiveness. The pioneer must actually enter the road His people travel in order to bring them through it.
Not Ashamed The phrase at the center of the passage deserves the emphasis Hebrews gives it: “He is not ashamed to call them brothers.” We might have expected the warning to run in the opposite direction. The New Testament certainly warns Christians against being ashamed of Christ, and a crucified Messiah could easily become an object of ridicule within the ancient world.
Hebrews, however, is interested here in something more surprising. The question is not whether these unimpressive, mortal, struggling human beings are ashamed to associate with Jesus. It is whether the glorious Son is ashamed to associate with them.
Everything established in chapter 1 makes the answer remarkable. The people being sanctified have nothing with which to impress the One through whom the ages were made.
They do not sustain creation by their word. Angels do not worship them. Their years fail, their bodies weaken, their obedience falters, and eventually they die. Yet the Son enters their condition and identifies them as family, not because humanity secretly possessed enough greatness to deserve divine admiration, but because God determined through Him to bring many children to glory.
That keeps the glory described in this passage from becoming an exercise in Christian self-exaltation. Hebrews does not direct us inward to discover that we were glorious all along. The previous passage has already forced us to admit the opposite tension: we do not presently see humanity possessing the destiny for which it was created. Our hope lies in the One who already wears the crown. Jesus is the pioneer because He reaches the destination first; He is the sanctifier because the holiness of His people comes through Him; and He is the brother who has entered their condition in order to bring them where they could not bring themselves.
Grace, in Hebrews, is therefore not merely pardon issued from a safe distance. The Son has associated Himself with the people He saves and has done so without shame.
The Pioneer Does Not Arrive Alone
Hebrews 2 began by warning Christians not to drift away from the salvation announced through the Lord. By the middle of the chapter, the author is beginning to show us just how great that salvation actually is. Humanity was created for glory and honor but now lives beneath the power of sin, suffering, corruption, and death. We do not yet see everything subjected beneath human feet, but we see Jesus: the faithful human being who entered suffering and death and emerged crowned with the glory humanity was created to possess.
Hebrews 2:10–13 explains why seeing Him gives hope to anyone else. His glory is not an isolated achievement belonging only to Him. God is bringing many children to glory, and Jesus is the pioneer of their salvation.
His being perfected through suffering does not imply that the sinless Son required moral improvement; it means that His saving mission reached its appointed completion through His genuine participation in the suffering human condition. The road to humanity’s restoration passed through suffering and death, so the One who came to lead humanity into glory traveled that road Himself.
The scriptural quotations then show just how seriously Hebrews takes that solidarity. Psalm 22 places the suffering and vindicated Christ among His brothers in the congregation. Isaiah portrays the faithful One trusting God and standing with the children God has given Him. The One worshiped by angels has entered the family of humanity, and the One crowned with glory is bringing others into that glory with Him.
The pioneer has reached the destination, but He has not abandoned the people for whom He opened the road. The glory of Hebrews 1 and the solidarity of Hebrews 2 belong to the same Son, which is precisely what makes the statement so extraordinary. He is not ashamed to call them brothers.