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Chapter 2: Obey this Son and His Higher Salvation

Summary 2. 1-9

This Son is so much higher than the angels, and the salvation He
brought is so much more perfect than that which came through
angels, hence, since the old law was strongly binding, all the more
must we avoid slipping away from that which the Son brought us,
given to us with such guarantees, first being told us by that Son,
and confirmed with God as witness through various mighty works, as
He willed.

It was not to angels that God made the world to come subject; His
Son Himself did not take on an angel's nature, but a human nature
in respect to which He was made a little less than the angels. Yet
the Father has made all things without exception subject to this
Son who even suffered death for us all.

It was fitting that the One for whom all things exist, through whom
all are to be led to salvation, should be made perfect through
suffering and so become the leader to salvation through suffering.
He, the Son, who sanctifies, and those whom He sanctifies, are all
from the one race. Hence He is not ashamed to call them brothers.
In becoming like us even in suffering that conquered the devil and
made true atonement for sins, He delivered those who all their life
long were in the servitude of fear of death. For He did not take
hold of angels, but of the seed of Abraham. Hence He needed to be
like His brothers in all things, to become a faithful high priest,
to make atonement for the sins of His people. For in that He
Himself suffered and was tried, He is able to help those who are
being tried.

Comments 2. 1-9

This is a passage both simple and yet loaded with rich thought. The
basic idea is that He who brought our salvation is so much higher
and brought so much higher a salvation than that which the angels
had brought became one of us, and suffered, so as to be a high
priest able to know how to help us. All the more we must take care
not to drift away from that salvation.

But now it is good to take a bit of time to put together into a
sort of synthesis the chief points of Hebrews on this matter, to
make it easier to follow individual things as they will come up
later on.

Temporal salvation though the law was given through angels. There
was even a rabbinic tradition that the angels were almost mediators
of the old law. An echo of this appears in Galatians 3. 19, which
spoke of a law "ordered through angels by the hand of a mediator,"
Moses. Josephus (Antiquities 15. 5. 136) spoke of the law as coming
through angels. That law was strictly binding. Those who violated
it "with a high hand" were "cut off from the people": Numbers 14.
30. Deuteronomy 27. 26 pronounced: "Cursed is everyone who does not
keep all the things written in the book of the Law". (Hence St.
Paul even boldly says that Christ "became a curse for us" (Gal 3.
13) by deliberately coming under the curse (Dt. 21. 23) so that in
His overcoming the curse we too might overcome it. Atonement in
that ancient regime was only for things not done with a high hand
(Numbers 15. 30), but for sins of ignorance, sheggagah, of which
Leviticus 4 speaks. Yet God's Holiness, which is His love of all
that is right, insisted on reparation of the moral order when it
was violated even in ignorance.

Hence Hebrews concludes: If that ancient law , even though given
only through angels, had such force and power, what shall we say of
the salvation given us through the Son? We must be careful not to
"flow away" to even gradually depart from it.

The salvation He brought was first testified to by the Son Himself,
and then through other witnesses, and mighty works. The mighty
works were not only miracles- they were such- but also signs, that
pointed further to the full meaning.

Hebrews does not at this point make clear the sense in which that
word salvation is used. Since the genre of Hebrews is homiletic, we
cannot and should not expect a systematic presentation of the full
range of the idea. But we in the light of later and full revelation
- to borrow an expression used by Vatican II (Lumen gentium #55) in
speaking of the Church's higher understanding now of Genesis 3. 15
and Isaiah 7. 14 - can fill in what a homiletic presentation could
not be expected to give. It will help us to understand many things
that lie further ahead in this Epistle if we take time at this
point to make a more systematic picture than what the homiletic
presentation of our Epistle gives.

At first sight, there seems to be a contradiction. 1)On the one
hand, Hebrews 9. 28 and 10. 14 will say that the death of Jesus
made atonement and sanctified us once for all. That one sacrifice
made us perfect. 2) Yet on the other hand, we read in this chapter
than we must take care not to drift away. The warning is given even
more strongly in 3. 12 and 4. 1. In fact, in 10. 26 we read that
now there is no further sacrifice for sin.

How solve the contradiction? First, we know there can be no
contradiction, for the Holy Spirit is the chief Author of all of
this Epistle and of all of Scripture. So we must find a way to make
sense of all passages together.

But the solution to the seeming contradiction is simple: there must
be two phases as it were. In the first, Jesus earns, and makes
available final salvation. In the second, we need to avoid making
ourselves unable, by repeated sin, to receive what He has earned.
(This involves the syn Christo theme of St. Paul, of which we will
speak later. Further, in our comments on 13. 10 we will see that
there is still, in the second phrase, an altar of sacrifice, even
though Jesus has made atonement once for all).

In the first phase, then, Jesus paid, once for all, the debt of
sin. That concept, that sin is a debt, which the Holiness of God
wants repaid -- that concept of debt runs all over the Old
Testament, Intertestamental Literature, the New Testament, the
Rabbis and the Fathers: Cf. Wm. Most The Thought of St. Paul, pp.
289-301. As for that payment, Jesus had made it once for all,
infinitely.

The Mass, in the second phase, is indeed a sacrifice since it
contains the two elements of a sacrifice: outward sign, and
interior dispositions (from Isaiah 29. 13 we easily see that the
two elements are needed, for God there complained that they honored
Him with their lips -- outward sign - but that their hearts -
interior dispositions - were far from Him). The outward sign on
Holy Thursday was the seeming separation of body and blood,
standing for death; on Friday the outward sign was the physical
separation of body and blood. In the Mass the outward sign goes
back to that of Holy Thursday. But the interior disposition in all
of these is simply obedience, with which He entered into this world
(10. 7) and which He continued through all His life on earth, and
which disposition He still retains now in the glory of heaven - for
death makes permanent the attitude of heart with which one leaves
this world. So it is not His interior disposition that is repeated
or multiplied, but the outward sign is multiplied in the Mass.

The admonition of Hebrews shows the force of the warnings about the
second phase, of not sinning further. If we do, we, as it were
logically call on Him to die all over again. If the penalties for
violating the ancient law, given only through angels, were so
strong and severe, we must not expect to be able to sin "with a
high hand" now, and get away with it.

But suppose someone does sin? Later in this Epistle we will read
that there is no hope if one falls away. Yet the Church has
understood from the beginning that she has the divinely given
authority to forgive sins. Some of the earliest texts, such as
those from the Shepherd by Hermas, seem to say we can get
forgiveness only once if we sin again. But patrologists in general
see that sort of saying as a psychological move to deter souls from
sinning freely. Baptism is even spoken of as "the seal", by which
God marks us as His property. One should never break the seal by
sinning again. Yet, Jesus told Peter he must forgive seventy times
seven times, that is, without limit. God Himself, having received
the infinite price of redemption, which pays for all grace, cannot
refuse to give that which His Son has so dearly and painfully
earned: cf. Rom 8. 32.

What then do we say of the severe warning given in 10. 26 that if
one falls away, there is no hope of pardon? This refers to those
who sin not only gravely but so repeatedly that they become hard or
blind. Then God may indeed be willing to give forgiveness, but the
blind soul is incapable of taking it in. The great case of this is
the passage in which Jesus, speaking of the sin against the Holy
Spirit (of attributing His casting out of the devil to the devil)
says this sin will never be forgiven, neither in this life, nor in
the life to come. Even there, the words of Jesus did not mean God
was unwilling to forgive. In fact, on His very first appearance to
the Apostles after His death and resurrection, as if He was eager
to give out what He had so dearly paid for, He told them (John 20.
23): "Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven then." He did
not say except... . . - for, as we said, the price of redemption
was infinite, so that after accepting it, the Father can deny
nothing that that infinite price has earned: Romans 8. 32 -only
that the sinners of whom He spoke had made themselves so fully hard
and blind that even though God would send grace, they were closed,
impervious to it. But again, the sense is that such souls may
become so very hard that even though God on His part would still be
willing to forgive - having accepted the infinite price of
Redemption, He is always willing-- the soul has made itself
incapable of receiving, for its blindness keeps it from perceiving
the first movement of a grace that might lead to repentance.

How can it happen that a soul becomes unable to take in the
forgiveness God is willing to give? The first thing an actual grace
needs to do is to put not the mind the thing God wants to lead a
soul to do. But if it has allowed the pulls of creatures to pull it
so far and so tightly that the gentle movement of grace is drowned
out, as it were, then that soul cannot be forgiven.

A comparison will help to clarify. We think of a galvanometer, that
is, a compass needle on its pivot. We put a coil of wire around it,
and send in a current. Then the needle dips the right direction and
the right amount, measuring the current. It will do that correctly
if there are no outside pulls, such as 33, 000 volt power lines or
a mass of magnetic steel. Then two forces strike the needle: the
outside pulls, and the current in the coil. Now that current in the
coil stands for grace, in our mental meter. Grace is always gentle,
in that it respects our freedom; the outside pulls, if one lets
self be strongly caught or hooked by them, take away freedom. They
drown out the pull of the current, grace, in the coil. Then the
soul cannot register what God is trying to tell it: repent, be
sorry. If grace cannot do the first thing, it cannot do the second
and third either. So that soul is deprived of grace. Without grace,
it is lost. Hence the stern words of 10. 26 saying it is impossible
to be restored again.

(Even in the case of a hardened sinner, there is an extraordinary
grace, comparable to a miracle, that could get through even such
resistance. But God cannot make the extraordinary to be ordinary.
It is only if some other soul - cf. Col 1. 24 -- puts into the one
pan of the two-pan scales, as it were, an extraordinary weight by
prayer and penance, then it will be quite in order for God to
depart from the ordinary way, and to give an extraordinary movement
of grace. So that soul could be rescued).

The error of Martin Luther is clearly nonsense, it supposes that
after all these warnings of Hebrews, after the warning that it is
virtually impossible to be restored if one once having received
grace should fall away -- it is impossible to suppose that once
Jesus has earned salvation, we may now sin as much as we want so
that,"no sin will separate us from the Lamb, even though we commit
fornication and murder a thousand times a day" (Luther, Works,
American Edition, Epistle to Melanchthon of Aug 1, 1521: Vol 48. p.
282). If that were true, what would happen to the Holiness of God,
the characteristic in virtue of which He loves all that is right,
hates all evil, and acts accordingly, e.g., in Ezekiel 28. 22:
"They shall know that I am the Lord when I inflict punishments on
them, and I shall show myself holy in her [niqdashti]." Or in
Isaiah 5. 15-16: "God, the Holy One, will show himself holy
[niqdesh] by moral rightness [sedaqah]." How could a soul befouled
with fornication and murder a thousand times a day be at once
joined in eternal embrace to Him who is as Malachi 3. 2 says,"like
a refiner's fire? Who can stand when He appears?" The just soul,
says St. Paul (1 Cor 3. 16 and 6. 19) is a temple of the Holy
Spirit. Would that Holiness dwell in such filth? Or why would St.
Paul himself be hard on his body, fearing, as the context shows, he
might lose, not just some added prize, but his eternal salvation if
he did not tame that rebellious flesh? In 1 Cor 9. 27 he [in the
literal version] says: "I beat my body under the eyes, and lead it
around like a slave, so that after preaching to others, I may not
be rejected" at the judgment.

(Actually, even the above does not show the depth of the error of
Luther. In what he himself considered his best work, The Bondage of
the Will, [trans. James I. Packer and O. R. Johnson, F. H. Revell
Co. , Old Tappan, N. J. 1957] Luther insisted, on p. 273, that we
have no free will, that our will is like a beast on which either
God or satan will ride, so that the soul does good or evil and goes
to heaven or hell, but has nothing to say about which one rides
[pp. 103-04]. So that though God damns the great majority [p. 101]
yet those damned are "undeserving" of being damned [. 314] To say
that is blasphemy, that is, insulting to the Goodness and Holiness
of God).

We move ahead after our prospective summary picture: We meet a
remarkable expression in verse 6: "Someone has testified
somewhere." Actually it was in Psalm 8. Did not the writer of
Hebrews know it was Psalm 8 he was quoting?. He hardly would not
have known it, the Psalms were so familiar to all Jews. But they
did not have our handy system of chapter and verse. And also, it
may reflect an attitude that as long as it is Scripture, it makes
no difference from what part it comes. Still further, the author of
Hebrews was not thinking in the Protestant mode whereby Jesus
should have said to the Apostles: "Write some books - get copies
made - pass them out tell people to figure them out for
themselves." What errant nonsense! The Church depend on its own
ongoing teaching, as Jesus Himself had done.


Verse 5 had introduced an interesting thought. God did not entrust
the world-to come to angels, but only to the Son, of whom Hebrews
has been speaking.

The world to come would be the Hebrew ha olam ha ba, that is the
world that comes after this world. the future life. But as to the
present world, God administers things through angels. It is
interesting to notice the way the Septuagint renders Deuteronomy
32. 8: "When the Most High distributed the nations, when He
dispersed the sons of Adam, He set boundaries for the nations,
according to the number of the angels of God."St. Thomas, in his On
Separate Substances 79 says that angels are the "universal
executors of divine providence."

It may be that there may be an echo of this idea in Daniel 10. 20-
21 which speaks of the "prince of Greece"and the prince of Persia.
The great prince who speaks to Daniel is to fight against the
prince of Persia. (In 12. 1 we hear that Michael is the great
prince, who is the guardian of Israel). We must remember that the
passage in Daniel is heavily apocalyptic, and so it is hard to
determine what the sober content is. We could, if we wished,
suppose with the Septuagint of Dt 32. 8 that God did assign
different angels to different regions, that after some of them
fell, they still retained some power - cf. St. Paul in Eph 6. 12
speaking of the world-rulers of this darkness" and also the many
mentions of spiritual powers in Colossians, which at one time were
mistakenly understood to mean nine choirs of angels- -b ut if we
watch the cont ext in

Colossians, we see, especially at Col 2. 15, that they are really
evil spirit powers -- again, Paul is using the terms of his
opponents in Colossians to combat them, and so we need to take
these names as his own thought.

To leave these speculations behind, it does seem, with St. Thomas,
that God uses angels to administer things in the present world. But
Hebrews say that will not be the case in the world to come: there
all is in the power of the Son.

To return to verse 7: That son was indeed "made a little lower than
the angels", and suffered death. But at the end, the Father will
subject all things to Him, who is then crowned with glory, all His
enemies being made His footstool (cf. 1 Cor 15. 27-28, which even
uses part of this passage of Psalm 8; and also Psalm 110. 1: "Until
I make your enemies your footstool". All creation (cf. Romans 8. 19
-25) will be made clearly subject to Him. But before that
exaltation, He was made lower, and was "Son of Man". |That
expression was sos often used by Jesus of Himself- it was, on the
one hand, part of His gradual self-revelation; on the other hand,
it would serve as a means of alluding to Daniel 7. 9-14 where one
like a Son of Man is presented to the Ancient of Days, and receives
everlasting dominion -surely it is Jesus, who identified Himself as
son of Man so often, and not the Jewish nation as a whole, which
never did receive universal, everlasting dominion.

He was indeed made lower for a time, for He emptied Himself (Phil.
2. 7) and became obedient even to death on the cross. He followed
the will of the Father in not using His divine power for His own
comfort-- and so He "tasted death for all", suffering terribly -
but after His resurrection that phase is all over. Then He
announced (Mt 28. 18-20) to the Apostles: "All power has been given
to me in heaven and on earth". As God He always has the power. He
had it always even as man, but would not exercise it as man until
the moment set by the Father when, as Romans 1. 4 says, He was
"constituted Son-of-God-in-power."

Summary 2. 10-18

It was really suitable that God, for whom all things exist and
through whom all things are, should make perfect through suffering
the one who leads all to their salvation. For the Son who
sanctifies and those who are sanctified come from the same human
race. So He is not ashamed to call them brothers in saying:"I will
declare your name to my brothers, and in the midst of the
congregation I will sing your praises." And similarly the Son said:
"I will place my trust in Him, the Father, and the Son adds: "Here
I am, I and the children God has given me."

Since then the children of God have flesh and blood, the Son too
partook of the same flesh and blood, so that through death He might
bring to nothing the enemy who held the power of death, the devil,
and might deliver those who were subject to lifelong bondage in
fear of death. He took on not an angelic nature, but human nature,
that of the children of Abraham. And so it was right that He become
like His brothers in all respects, so as to be a merciful and
faithful high priest for their responsibilities to God, so as to
make atonement for their sins.

Since He Himself endured trial and suffering, He is fit to help
those who endure trial.

Comments 2. 10-18

The words "it was fitting" do not mean that things had to be that
way, merely that it was suitable in God's love of good order, of
all that is right. Just as the Holiness of God --cf. our comments
above on His Holiness -- loves all that is morally right, so too He
loves all things in proper arrangement and order. This idea is
expressed well by St. Thomas in I. 19. 5. c. We need to paraphrase
(because of the clumsy Latin): In His love of all that is in right
order, God is pleased to have one thing in place to serve as the
reason or title for giving a second thing - even though that reason
does not really move Him. (He cannot be moved).

(This principle helps explain why God wills the Mass, to provide a
title or reason for giving out that which was once-for all fully
earned, bought and paid for, by Jesus' death. It helps explain why
it pleased Him also to involve the cooperation of the New Eve, Our
Lady, in fulling the condition of the New Covenant, obedience (cf.
Rom 5. 19 and Lumen gentium ## 56 and 61) -- similarly her
obedience joins in the interior of His sacrifice, and in the
rebalance of the objective order, giving obedience for
disobedience. She was there by decree of Divine Providence (LG ##
58 & 61) as the New Eve. And it helps to explain why the Father
willed her cooperation also in the giving out of the fruits of the
Great Sacrifice, (in the subjective redemption), and even joined
ordinary Saints to the same process of giving out).

(Pope Paul VI, in his Constitution on Indulgences of Jan 1, 1967,
explained the need of this rebalance of the scales, of the
restoration of all the values of the objective order, damaged by
sin. The essential work of rebalance of course is the once-for-all
sacrifice of Jesus; yet in virtue of the syn Christo theme and
principle of which we spoke in comments on 2. 1-9, His members are
called upon to be like Him in this rebalancing for their own sins).


It is specially remarkable that Hebrews speaks of making the Son
perfect. Was and is He not perfect precisely as the Son who is God
also? Of course. Was there something lacking to His human nature?
Of course not, it was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in
the spotless womb of the Virgin Mary.

We begin by noting that the expression make perfect comes from the
word the Septuagint uses (teleioo) in speaking of consecrating a
High priest. We turn then to the Hebrew of the same passages, and
we find that in Exodus 29. 9 and 29 where the Septuagint has
teleioo, the Hebrew (mala' yad) literally means "fill the hand". --
The probable origin of the expression is to fill the hand of the
priest with gifts to offer to God, as part of the ritual of
ordination (cf. 1 Kings 13. 33, where however the Greek renders the
Hebrew literally,"fill the hand"). Hebrews uses the same word
teleioo in speaking of Jesus being made perfect also in 5. 9 and 7.
28. It uses the word for the followers being sanctified in 7. 19
and in 9. 9; 10. 1 and 14. To explain: Hebrew has a series of
contrasts of Jesus and the old regime. The old regime had priests
who could not make their people perfect (7. 19 and 9. 9). The old
sacrifices gave merely legal purity for cultic purposes, and could
remit sheggagah, involuntary sins. But they did not forgive sins
committed be yad ramah, with a high hand: Numbers 15. 30: "Anyone
who sins with a high hand... insults the Lord, and shall be cut off
from among his people."

(Sheggagah means involuntary sin, a violation of the law of God
committed when the doer does not realizing he is violating. Later
when he finds out, he is obliged to offer a sacrifice to make up:
cf. Leviticus chapter 4. The reason: The Holiness of God loves all
that is good and right. A violation even one done in good faith is
still objectively a violation, a disturbing of the scales of the
objective order. Hence God wants it rebalanced. Cf. the case of
Pharaoh who in good faith had the wife of Abraham. Genesis 12. 17
says God struck Pharaoh and his household with severe plagues
because of this. Jesus Himself in Lk 12. 47-48 said that the
servant who violated orders knowingly would get a severe beating,
but,"the servant who did not know his master's wishes, but did
things [objectively] deserving blows, will get off with fewer
stripes."

This theme sheggagah is abundant in OT, NT, Intertestamental
Literature, Rabbinic literature As we said, it depends on the
infinite Holiness of God. Cf. Simeon ben Eleazar, in Tosefta,
Kiddushin, 1. 14: "'He [anyone] has committed a transgression. Woe
to him. He has tipped the scales to the side of debt for himself
and for the world."The sinner takes from one pan of the scale what
he has no right to have. The Holiness of God wants it rebalanced. A
creature could rectify only a finite imbalance. But the imbalance
of even one mortal sin is infinite, so IF the Father willed perfect
rebalance, only by sending a Divine Person to become man could it
be done. Cf. also Paul VI, doctrinal introduction to Indulgentiarum
doctrina of Jan 1, 1967. (Imagine then the attitude of God to
someone who says it is all right, if one has faith, to commit
fornication and murder a thousand times a day!) Cf. Wm. Most The
Thought of St. Paul, pp. 80-82 and 294-300. The great Day of Yom
Kippur could atone only for sheggagah, not for sins done be yad
ramah, voluntarily: cf. Hebrews 9. 7. Rich Jews at the time of
Christ used to have a sacrifice offered in the Temple every day,
just in case they might have committed some violation without
realizing even - even though they had not yet become aware of such
[Leviticus required a sacrifice only when later on they actually
became aware of having done such a thing]: cf. A. Buchler, Studies
in Sin and Atonement, KTAV, 1967, p. 425.

In contrast, the priesthood of Jesus and His sacrifice really did
make atonement for all sins.

In the old sacrifices, a person was required to be qadosh, holy,
fit for cult. In that of Jesus, a person must also be qadosh, , but
now it is not merely cultic fittingness but moral fittingness that
is required. The sacrifice of Jesus does confer moral fitness.

Verse 10 says that "It was fitting for Him through whom all things
are, for whom all things are... to make perfect (teleiosai) Him who
was the leader of [His people] to salvation, through suffering. For
in His suffering, Jesus became both the priest and the victim of
the perfect sacrifice. Hence suffering was called for.

We can fill in a bit. The redemption has three aspects: 1)sacrifice
2) new covenant 3) payment of debt or rebalance of objective order.

In sacrifice, the essential is the interior without which all would
be vain: cf. Isaiah 29. 13. That interior was obedience, in Jesus,
obedience even to death on the cross: Phil 2. 8-9. That obedience
involved suffering by the will of the Father. Actually, infinite
atonement could have been had from any action of the God-man, yet
by positive will of the Father, which He obeyed, He went so far as
the painful suffering of death on the cross. And so He was made
perfect or consecrated (for Greek teleioo does reproduce the idea
of Hebrew mala' yad, to consecrate), by this suffering. In that He
became the perfect High Priest. In the act of sanctifying, as the
new propitiatory (Romans 3. 25) He won all forgiveness for all, not
just a passing over (cf Rom 3. 25) of sins without a full atonement
being made in the objective order.

This was the blood of the new covenant (Jer 31. 31-33), without
which blood (Heb 9. 22) there is no remission, it was the sacrifice
which could really remit sins, not just pass them over (Rom 3. 24-
25).

Further, sin is a debt, which the Holiness of God wants repaid (cf.
Wm. Most, The Thought of St. Paul, pp. 289-301). He wanted the debt
repaid even in the case of involuntary sheggagah, in Leviticus 4.
But the repayment then was not full and there was no repayment for
sins done be yad ramah. But the suffering of Jesus more than
outbalanced the guilty pleasures of all sinners of all times.

The one who sanctifies (Heb. 2. 11), and those sanctified are all
of the same race, human. Hence it counts for all. Cf. 2 Cor 5. 14:
"since one died, all have died" , and most fully paid the debt.
Hence He calls us His brothers: "I will announce your name to my
brothers." Since the brothers all had flesh and blood, so He too,
their leader to salvation, also had flesh and blood. Thus He
overcame the curse (Gal. 3. 13, by becoming "a curse" for us, and
by death He destroyed the rule of him who had the power of death,
the devil. He delivered those who had been subject to the fear of
death throughout all their lives - not just fear of physical death,
but even eternal death.

He did not take on an angelic nature, but the nature of the seed of
Abraham. And so it was fitting that He be like His brothers, and
become a merciful and faithful High Priest before God for them,
making propitiation for their sins. In that He too suffered, He can
understand in an experiential way (and not just through the
knowledge He had thorough the vision of God) what it is like to
suffer, and so can help those who are tried. (Cf. also comments on
5. 8 below).