(17) Wherefore.—Since it is “the seed of Abraham,” His brethren, that He would help.

In all things.—These words must be taken with “made like.” In all respects (the single exception does not come into notice here, see Hebrews 4:15) He must be made like to “the brethren” (a reference to Hebrews 2:12): like them, He must be liable to, and must suffer, temptation, sorrow, pain, death.

That he might be.—Rather, that He might prove, or become (the words imply what is more fully expressed in Hebrews 5:8), a compassionate and faithful High Priest. The high priest was the representative of men to God; without such likeness (see Hebrews 5:1-2) He could be no true High Priest for man. The order of the Greek words throws an emphasis on “compassionate” which is in full harmony with what we have seen to be the pervading tone of the chapter. One who has not so understood the infirmities of his brethren as to be “compassionate,” cannot be their “faithful” representative before God. But the word “faithful” is still more closely connected with the following words. If through the power of sympathy which the Saviour has gained “by sufferings” He becomes “compassionate” as our High Priest, it is through “the suffering of death” (Hebrews 2:9) that He proves Himself “the faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation (or rather, propitiation) for the sins of the people.” The word “high priest,” hereafter to be so prominent in the Epistle, is brought in somewhat suddenly, but several expressions in this chapter (see also Hebrews 1:3) have prepared for and led up to the crowning thought here brought before us. The characteristic function of the high priest was his presentation of the sacrifice on the Day of Atonement, that expiation might be made for the sins of the whole people, that the displeasure of God might not rest on the nation on account of sin. (Comp. Hebrews 2:11.) The words rendered “propitiate” and “propitiation” are not of frequent occurrence in the New Testament (Luke 18:13; 1John 2:2; 1John 4:10—see also Romans 3:25), but are very often found in the LXX. The subject receives its full treatment in Hebrews 9, 10.

Hebrews

WHAT BEHOOVED CHRIST

Hebrews 2:17I BRING these words: ‘It behooved Him,’ into connection with similar words in an earlier verse of the chapter, on which I was lately preaching: ‘It became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.’

In the latter words the sufferings of Jesus Christ and His consequent perfecting for His work of Messiah are considered, in an aspect somewhat unusual with scripture writers, as being in accordance with the divine nature, and worthy of God. ‘He, by whom are all things,’ had no other way of electing His highest purpose of redemption than through the sufferings of Jesus Christ. ‘He, for whom are all things,’ could win men to be for Him only through these sufferings. And so the paradox of the Cross was worthy of God and like Him. In my text the same series of historical facts, the life of Jesus Christ and His death, considered as a whole, are regarded not as worthy of God, but as that which ‘behoved’ Christ, ‘It behooved’ is stronger than ‘it became.’ The one phrase points to the conformity of the thing in question with God’s character and nature; the other declares that the thing in question has in it a moral necessity or obligation, and that Christ’s assimilation to His fellows, especially in all the ills that flesh is heir to, was laid upon Him as a necessity, in view of His purpose of redemption and the helping of His fellows.

So then we have here, in the words which I have read, and in the context, three thoughts on which I touch now. First of all, the completeness of Christ’s assimilation to us, especially in regard to suffering; second, Christ’s sufferings as necessary for the fulfilment of Christ’s design; and lastly and more especially, Christ’s sufferings as indispensable for His priestly office. Now look at these three things briefly.

I. Note, first of all, the emphasis of that expression, ‘it behooved Him to be made in all things like unto His brethren.’

And observe that the ‘all things’ here, concerning which our Lord’s likeness to mankind is predicated, are not the ordinary properties of human nature, but emphatically and specifically man’s sorrows.

That will appear, I think, if you notice that my text is regarded as being a consequence of our Lord’s incarnation for the help of His fellows. ‘He laid not hold upon angels, but He laid hold upon the seed of Abraham.’ Wherefore, ‘in all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren.’

Now, if the likeness here be the possession of true manhood, then my text is mere tautology, and it would simply be saying, ‘He became a man, wherefore it behoved Him to become a man.’ The same conclusion is, I think, fairly to be deduced from the last words of our chapter, where the fact of His suffering being tempted, is stated as His preparation to help, and as His qualification as a merciful and faithful High Priest. That is to say, the ‘all things’ of which our Lord became partaker like us His brethren, are here the whole mass - in all its variety of pressure and diversity of nauseousness and bitterness - the whole mass of human sorrow which has ever made men’s hearts bleed and men’s eyes weep.

Christ, in His single manhood, says the writer, gathered unto Himself every form of pain, of misery, of weariness, of burden, which can weigh upon and wear out a human spirit; and no single ingredient that ever made any man’s cup distasteful was left out, in that dreadful draught which He emptied to the dregs ere He passed the chalice to our lips, saying, ‘Drink ye all of it.’

This is the great lesson and blessed thought of our text that no suffering soul, no harassed heart, no lonely life, has ever been able to say, ‘Ah! I have to bear this by myself, for Jesus Christ never knew anything like this.’ All the pain and sorrow of adverse circumstances, that try some of us, He knows who had ‘not where to lay His head’; who was a poor man all His days, to whom the women had to minister of their charity, and who depended upon others for His sustenance in life, and for cerements, and a grave in death. The sorrows that belong to a physical frame overwrought and crushed by excessive toil; the sorrows of weakness, of sickness, the pains of death - He understands them all. The sorrows that come from our relations to our fellows, whether they be the hopeless, quiet tears that fall for ever upon broken affections and lost loves, or whether they be the bitter griefs that come from unrequited affections and unappreciated aims, and benefits flung back, and hearts tortured by ingratitude - He knows them all. And the loftier and less selfish, more impersonal, griefs that make so large a portion of the weight and heaviness of the noblest spirits, they all cast their shadows across His pure soul, and the shadow was the deeper and the darker because of the very purity of the soul on which it fell. Purity is ever sad in the presence of foulness; and love is ever sorrowful when bowed with the burden of another’s sorrow; and both these sources of pain and grief, which diffuse their bitterness through the lives of the best men, weighed in all their gravity upon Him who felt the world’s sorrow and the world’s sin as a personal grief because His soul was perfectly unselfish, perfectly pure, perfectly united to God, and therefore perfectly clear- sighted. All the miseries of all men forced themselves into and filled Christ’s heart, Dear brother! you and I have but a drop given to us; He drank the whole cup. Our natures are not capable of sorrow as varied, as deep, as poignant as the sorrow of Jesus Christ; but for each of us surely the assurance comes with some subtle power of consolation and strength, ‘In all their afflictions He was afflicted’; and none of us can ever meet a sorrow with whose face Christ was not familiar, and which He Himself has not conquered for us.

II. So that brings me to the next point suggested here, viz., our Lord’s varied, all-comprehensive sorrow was a necessity imposed upon Him by the purpose which He had in view.

The context gives us that assertion in distinct language. Adopting the improved and accurate rendering of the Revised Version of the previous verse, we read, ‘Verily not of angels doth He take hold, but He taketh hold of the seed of Abraham; wherefore in all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren.’

Now the word rendered here, ‘taketh hold,’ is the same word which is employed in the narrative of a very striking incident in the gospels, where the Apostle Peter is ready to sink in the water; and Jesus Christ ‘stretched forth His hand and caught him.’ And that story may serve as an illustration for us of the meaning of the writer here. Here we are all, the whole race of us, exposed to the pelting of the pitiless storm, and ready to sink beneath the waters, and Jesus Christ stretches forth His strong, gentle hand and lays hold of our tremulous and feeble fingers, and keeps us up above the surges which else would overwhelm us.

Now, says my text, no man can help another unless he stand by the side of, and on the level of, that other. ‘He taketh hold, not of angels, but of the seed of Abraham’; and, therefore, He must have a hand like theirs, that can grasp theirs, and which theirs can grasp. Unless the Master had Himself been standing on the heaving surges, and Himself been subjected to the beating of the storm, He could not have revived and held up the sinking disciple.

And so our Lord’s bitter suffering, diffused through life and concentrated on the Cross, was no mere necessary result of His humanity, was not simply borne because, being a Teacher, He must stand to His principles whatever befell Him because of them; but it was a direct result of the purpose He had in view, that purpose being our redemption. Therefore to say, ‘It behoved Him to be made in all things like unto His brethren,’ is but to declare that Christ’s sufferings were no matter of physical necessity, but a matter of moral obligation. He must indeed suffer. But why must He? ‘It behoved Him to he made like unto His brethren’; but why was it obligatory upon Him so to take the bitter bread that we eat, and to drink the water of tears that we drink? For one reason, and for one reason only, because He loved us and willed to save us.

So I beseech you to feel that underlying the bitter necessity which my text speaks about there is the voluntary endurance of Jesus Christ. Ah! we do not think enough about the necessity, all through His life, for a continual repetition of the great act of self-surrender of which His incarnation was the first consequence. At the beginning of His earthly career He emptied Himself, out of love to us; and step by step, and moment by moment, all through His life, there was the continual repetition of the same act. Each one of His sufferings was the direct result of His will at the moment to perfect the work which He came to do. At any instant He might have abandoned it; and that He did not was solely owing to His perennial love. For His own determination to save and succour us was the one cord that bound this sacrifice to the horns of the altar. The Man Christ, at every moment of His life, gave Himself; and as each fresh billow of sorrow rolled above His bowed and compliant head, it rolled because He still willed to save and help His fellows.

This voluntary submission of our Lord to all the sufferings which befell Him because of His determination to come to the help of His brethren ought to make us feel how that whole life of His was one pure efflux of infinite and unspeakable love; and we ought to see in it the gift which ‘became’ the divine mercy indeed, but which also ‘behoved’ the Man Jesus, to the end that all our sorrows may be comforted and all our evil taken away.

We know not, nor ever can know, by what mysterious process the Son learned obedience by the things which He suffered, nor can we understand how it was that the High Priest, who would never have become the High Priest had He not been merciful, became yet more merciful by His own experience o£ human sorrow. But this we know, that somehow the pity, the sympathy of Christ, was deepened by His own life; and we can feel that it is easier for men to lay hold of His sympathy when they think of His sufferings, and to be sure that because in all points He was tempted like as we are, ‘He is able to succour them that are tempted.’ Comfort drops but coldly from lips that have never uttered a sigh or a groan; and for our poor human hearts it is not enough to have a merciful God far off in the heavens. We need a Christ who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities ere we can come boldly to the Throne of Grace, assured of there finding grace in time of need.

III. Lastly, we have here the specification of the main purpose of our Lord’s sorrows - ‘that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things appertaining to God to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.’

That defines more closely what He has to do, if He is to help us, and what He does do when He takes hold of the seed of Abraham. There are but two remarks that I would make on this part of my subject. The one is - let us learn what is the true nature of Christ’s help. It is the help of a priest who comes to offer a sacrifice which takes away the burden and the guilt o£ sin from the world.

Christ’s help is not merely the help of a wise Teacher. Men do not want only teaching. Their need goes far deeper than that. Christ’s help is not only the help of One who declares to His fellows what God is. Men’s needs go deeper than that. Christ’s help is not merely the help of One who sets forth in sweet attractive colours the beauty of holiness and the charm of purity. Men’s needs go deeper than that. We do not only need to know what God is, we need to have our relation to God altered. We do not only need to be told what we ought to do, we need that the past shall be cancelled, and the fatal bias and tendency towards evil within ourselves be taken away. Christ is not the Helper whose help goes down to the depths and the roots of men’s necessity, unless He is Priest as well as Prophet and King. He comes to do something as well as to say something; comes to alter our relations to God, as well as to declare God’s heart to us. In a word, we must say even to Christ, ‘Vain is Thy help, and impotent is Thy grasp, unless Thou dost bring by Thy sufferings reconciliation for the sins of the people.’

And then, notice again how here we have Christ’s priestly office extended over His whole life of suffering. The popular representations of the gospel, and the superficial grasp of it which many good people have, are accustomed to draw a broad line of demarcation between Christ’s life and Christ’s death, and to concentrate the whole of the sacrificial and expiatory character of His work in His death only. My text goes in the other direction. It says that all that long-drawn sorrow which ran through the whole life of Jesus Christ, whilst it culminated in His death, was His sacrifice for the sins of the world. For all sorrow, according to scriptural teaching, is the fruit of sin; and the sinless Christ, who bore the sorrows which He had not earned, in bearing them bore them away.

And though the shell of them and the outward appearance of them may be left, the inward reality and the bitterness of them is gone. It is exactly in reference to the ills of life as it is in reference to the other penalty of sin which consists in death. The outward fact continues, the inward nature is altered. For he who can say, ‘Christ my Lord suffered for me,’ finds that sorrows become solemn joys, and all things work together for good.

The Cross is the climax of His sacrifice, but His whole life is sacrifice and expiation, because His whole life is the life of a sinless ‘Man of sorrows acquainted with grief.’

So, then, we have to look to Him, in all the meek endurance of His life, and in all the mysterious darkness of His death, not merely as the pattern of patience, as the Teacher of the sanctity of sorrow, as the first of the martyrs; but we have to look to Him, and to feel that ‘the Lord hath made to meet on Him the iniquity of us all.’

Brother, He became like us in our sorrows that we might become like Him in His gladness. Each of us, singly, was in His mind and in His heart when He bowed Himself to the flood of sorrows, and yielded His soul to the Cross of shame. So let us stretch out our poor hands to Him who reaches His tender omnipotent one across the billows, and grasping the hands with the print of the nails, we shall find that we have exchanged portions, and that He who has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows has bestowed upon us His gladness, and crowned us with the glory of the blessedness which He had with the Father before the world was.

Hebrews 2:17-18. Wherefore in all things — That essentially pertain to our nature, and in all sufferings and temptations; it behooved him — In respect of the office, duty, and employment he had taken upon him; or it was highly fit and proper, yea, necessary, in order to his design of redeeming them; to be made like his brethren — That is, a mortal man; that — By experience of suffering in himself; he might be a merciful and faithful High-Priest — Merciful toward sinners, affected with the sorrows and sufferings of others, and the more inclined to pity and relieve them; and faithful toward God, in discharging every other part of his office, as well as in relieving his suffering members. A priest or high-priest, is one who has a right of approaching God, and of bringing others to him. His being faithful is treated of, Hebrews 3:2, &c., with its use: merciful, Hebrews 4:14, &c., with the use also: high-priest, Hebrews 5:4, &c., Hebrews 7:1. The use is added, from Hebrews 10:19. “The Son of God, who made men, no doubt had such a knowledge of their infirmity, as might have rendered him a merciful intercessor, though he had not been made flesh. Yet, considering the greatness of his nature, it might have been difficult for men to have understood this. And therefore, to impress us the more strongly with the belief that he is most affectionately disposed, from sympathy, to succour us when tempted; and, in judging us at the last day, to make every reasonable allowance for the infirmity of our nature, he was pleased to be made like us in all things, and even to suffer by temptations.” In things pertaining to God — That were to be done either for men with God, or for God with men; to make reconciliation for — Or to expiate, as ιλασκεσθαι signifies, the sins of the people — Not the people of the Jews merely, but the people of all nations, whether Jews or Gentiles, who, in repentance and faith, should turn to God. Hence St. John tells us, he is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world, offering sacrifice and interceding for them, and deriving God’s grace, peace, and blessings upon them. For in that e himself suffered, being tempted — See Hebrews 4:15; he is able — Has a greater fitness and readiness; to succour them that are tempted — And he has given a manifest, demonstrative proof that he is able so to do. Our Lord was not only tempted immediately after his baptism in the wilderness, but his whole life was a continued scene of temptation, as we learn from Luke 22:28 : Ye are they who have continued with me in my temptation. Christ’s temptations, like those of his brethren, arose from the persecutions and sufferings to which he was exposed, as well as from direct attacks of the devil by evil suggestions, such as those mentioned Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13.

2:14-18 The angels fell, and remained without hope or help. Christ never designed to be the Saviour of the fallen angels, therefore he did not take their nature; and the nature of angels could not be an atoning sacrifice for the sin of man. Here is a price paid, enough for all, and suitable to all, for it was in our nature. Here the wonderful love of God appeared, that, when Christ knew what he must suffer in our nature, and how he must die in it, yet he readily took it upon him. And this atonement made way for his people's deliverance from Satan's bondage, and for the pardon of their sins through faith. Let those who dread death, and strive to get the better of their terrors, no longer attempt to outbrave or to stifle them, no longer grow careless or wicked through despair. Let them not expect help from the world, or human devices; but let them seek pardon, peace, grace, and a lively hope of heaven, by faith in Him who died and rose again, that thus they may rise above the fear of death. The remembrance of his own sorrows and temptations, makes Christ mindful of the trials of his people, and ready to help them. He is ready and willing to succour those who are tempted, and seek him. He became man, and was tempted, that he might be every way qualified to succour his people, seeing that he had passed through the same temptations himself, but continued perfectly free from sin. Then let not the afflicted and tempted despond, or give place to Satan, as if temptations made it wrong for them to come to the Lord in prayer. Not soul ever perished under temptation, that cried unto the Lord from real alarm at its danger, with faith and expectation of relief. This is our duty upon our first being surprised by temptations, and would stop their progress, which is our wisdom.Wherefore in all things - In respect to his body; his soul; his rank and character. There was a propriety that he should be like them, and should partake of their nature. The meaning is, that there was a fitness that nothing should be wanting in him in reference to the innocent propensities and sympathies of human nature.

It behoved him - It became him; or there was a fitness and propriety in it. The reason why it was proper, the apostle proceeds to state.

Like unto his brethren - Like unto those who sustained to him the relation of brethren; particularly as he undertook to redeem the descendants of Abraham, and as he was a descendant of Abraham himself, there was a propriety that he should be like them. He calls them brethren; and it was proper that he should show that he regarded them as such by assuming their nature.

That he might be a merciful and faithful high priest -

(1) That he might be "merciful;" that is, compassionate. That he might know how to pity us in our infirmities and trials, by having a nature like our own.

(2) that he might be "faithful;" that is, perform with fidelity all the functions pertaining to the office of high priest. The idea is, that it was needful that he should become a man; that he should experience as we do the infirmities and trials of life, and that by being a man, and partaking of all that pertained to man except his sins, he might feel how necessary it was that there should be "fidelity" in the office of high priest. Here was a race of sinners and sufferers. They were exposed to the wrath of God. They were liable to everlasting punishment. The judgment impended over the race, and the day of vengeance hastened on. "All now depended on the great high priest." All their hope Was in his "fidelity" to the great office which he had undertaken. If he were faithful, all would be safe; if he were unfaithful, all would be lost. Hence, the necessity that he should enter fully into the feelings, fears, and dangers of man; that he should become one of the race and be identified with them, so that he might be qualified to perform with faithfulness the great trust committed to him.

High priest - The Jewish high priest was the successor of Aaron, and was at the head of the ministers of religion among the Jews. He was set apart with solemn ceremonies - clad in his sacred vestments - and anointed with oil; Exodus 29:5-9; Leviticus 8:2. He was by his office the general judge of all that pertained to religion, and even of the judicial affairs of the Jewish nation; Deuteronomy 17:8-12; Deuteronomy 19:17; Deuteronomy 21:5; Deuteronomy 33:9-10. He only had the privilege of entering the most holy place once a year, on the great day of expiation, to make atonement for the sins of the whole people; Leviticus 16:2, etc. He was the oracle of truth - so that when clothed in his proper vestments, and having on the Urim and Thummim, he made known the will of God in regard to future events. The Lord Jesus became in the Christian dispensation what the Jewish high priest was in the old; and an important object of this Epistle is to show that he far surpassed the Jewish high priest, and in what respects the Jewish high priest was designed to typify the Redeemer. Paul, therefore, early introduces the subject, and shows that the Lord Jesus came to perform the functions of that sacred office, and that he was eminently endowed for it.

In things pertaining to God - In offering sacrifice; or in services of a religious nature. The great purpose was to offer sacrifice, and make intercession; and the idea is, that Jesus took on himself our nature that he might sympathize with us; that thus he might be faithful to the great trust committed to him - the redemption of the world. Had he been unfaithful, all would have been lost, and the world would have sunk down to wo.

To make reconciliation - By his death as a sacrifice. The word used here - ἱλάσκομαι hilaskomai - occurs but in one other place in the New Testament Luke 18:13, where it is rendered "God be merciful to me a sinner;" that is, reconciled to me. The noun (ἱλασμός hilasmos - "propitiation") is used in 1 John 2:2; 1 John 4:10. The word here means properly to "appease," to reconcile, to conciliate; and hence, to "propitiate" as to "sins;" that is, to propitiate God in reference to sins, or to render him propitious. The Son of God became a man, that he might so fully enter into the feelings of the people as to be faithful, and that he might be qualified as a high priest to perform the great work of rendering God propitious in regard to sins. How he did this, is fully shown in the subsequent parts of the Epistle.

17. Wherefore—Greek, "Whence." Found in Paul's speech, Ac 26:19.

in all things—which are incidental to manhood, the being born, nourished, growing up, suffering. Sin is not, in the original constitution of man, a necessary attendant of manhood, so He had no sin.

it behooved him—by moral necessity, considering what the justice and love of God required of Him as Mediator (compare Heb 5:3), the office which He had voluntarily undertaken in order to "help" man (Heb 2:16).

his brethren—(Heb 2:11); "the seed of Abraham" (Heb 2:16), and so also the spiritual seed, His elect out of all mankind.

be, &c.—rather as Greek, "that He might become High Priest"; He was called so, when He was "made perfect by the things which He suffered" (Heb 2:10; Heb 5:8-10). He was actually made so, when He entered within the veil, from which last flows His ever continuing intercession as Priest for us. The death, as man, must first be, in order that the bringing in of the blood into the heavenly Holy Place might follow, in which consisted the expiation as High Priest.

merciful—to "the people" deserving wrath by "sins." Mercy is a prime requisite in a priest, since his office is to help the wretched and raise the fallen: such mercy is most likely to be found in one who has a fellow-feeling with the afflicted, having been so once Himself (Heb 4:15); not that the Son of God needed to be taught by suffering to be merciful, but that in order to save us He needed to take our manhood with all its sorrows, thereby qualifying Himself, by experimental suffering with us, to be our sympathizing High Priest, and assuring us of His entire fellow-feeling with us in every sorrow. So in the main Calvin remarks here.

faithful—true to God (Heb 3:5, 6) and to man (Heb 10:23) in the mediatorial office which He has undertaken.

high priest—which Moses was not, though "faithful" (Heb 2:1-18). Nowhere, except in Ps 110:4; Zec 6:13, and in this Epistle, is Christ expressly called a priest. In this Epistle alone His priesthood is professedly discussed; whence it is evident how necessary is this book of the New Testament. In Ps 110:1-7, and Zec 6:13, there is added mention of the kingdom of Christ, which elsewhere is spoken of without the priesthood, and that frequently. On the cross, whereon as Priest He offered the sacrifice, He had the title "King" inscribed over Him [Bengel].

to make reconciliation for the sins—rather as Greek, "to propitiate (in respect to) the sins"; "to expiate the sins." Strictly divine justice is "propitiated"; but God's love is as much from everlasting as His justice; therefore, lest Christ's sacrifice, or its typical forerunners, the legal sacrifices, should be thought to be antecedent to God's grace and love, neither are said in the Old or New Testament to have propitiated God; otherwise Christ's sacrifices might have been thought to have first induced God to love and pity man, instead of (as the fact really is) His love having originated Christ's sacrifice, whereby divine justice and divine love are harmonized. The sinner is brought by that sacrifice into God's favor, which by sin he had forfeited; hence his right prayer is, "God be propitiated (so the Greek) to me who am a sinner" (Lu 18:13). Sins bring death and "the fear of death" (Heb 2:15). He had no sin Himself, and "made reconciliation for the iniquity" of all others (Da 9:24).

of the people—"the seed of Abraham" (Heb 2:16); the literal Israel first, and then (in the design of God), through Israel, the believing Gentiles, the spiritual Israel (1Pe 2:10).

It behoved him: the last reason why God the Son assumed and united the human nature in the seed of Abraham to his person, and was by it made like his brethren, and for a little while lower than the angels, was, that he might be capable to receive and execute the office of priesthood, by which reconciliation of sinners to God was to be effected: for he could neither be a sacrifice nor priest without it. ’ Wfeile signifies not only its being necessary, but becoming, meet, convenient, and right, both on the account of his mediatorship, suretiship, priesthood, and of his very work, considering the two parties whose cause he was to manage. It was fit this Person should be God, that he might be just to God, and satisfy him; Adam had betrayed God’s interest before, he would not therefore rely on a mere man: and man, that he might feelingly understand the state of that nature, and be a complete Saviour of it, Zechariah 13:7. By this Person God had no unfitness nor disparagement in treating with sinners, which in a mere creature he would. For what creature could have mediated with him? Who durst undertake it, but this Son of his in their nature, whose heart he engaged to it? Jeremiah 30:21. And fittest for man, he being near in nature to us, and coming out of the midst of us, and by it communicating the benefit of his mediation to us. The intention of Christ’s merits arise from his sufficiency, but the extension of them from his proper personal fitness, and so reneweth men of the same nature with him, and not angels.

To be made like unto his brethren; a man having a true body and soul like them in every thing, which was necessary to make him a complete Redeemer; agreeable to them in all things necessary to their nature, qualities, conditions, and affections; like them in sorrows, griefs, pains, death.

Merciful; knowing and sensible of the misery of sinners on the account of sin, pain, and loss, and so inwardly touched with them, as compassionately and effectually to relieve them. How transcendent are his bowels of mercy, pity, and compassion to them! Alas, man and angels cannot reach it! Isaiah 53:3,4 63:9. If he should be otherwise the least moved, and desert their cause, or accuse or plead against them, what a world of them must perish for ever! He tells the Jews so much, Hebrews 8:12; compare John 5:45. A Moses may miscarry in his mediatorship, and did so, Exodus 32:19; but he can never, he is always merciful.

And faithful; he is faithful also to penitent believers, as well as to God. They may safely trust themselves and their cause with him, and depend on him, he will never deceive them. He will satisfy God fully, and give him his due, and discharge that trust reposed on him. And to souls relying on him, he will go through his work, performing all, till they reach that for which they trusted him, Isaiah 11:5 1 Corinthians 10:13 1 Thessalonians 5:23,24.

High Priest; an officer that was to order sacrifice, and all matters wherein God was concerned, according to his written law and rule. This priest must be a man; and a partnership in our conditions, both of temptations and miseries, must qualify him for it. Of this office he treats largely in Hebrews 7:1-10:39. Amongst the officers of this kind he is the prime, chief, and head of all that ever God had, and hath in his person performed and fullfilled what all of them in theirs did but weakly shadow forth. He was actually in the flesh installed in it, of which hereafter.

In things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people: the compass of his business lieth in all Divine matters, all those wherein sinners are concerned with God, Hebrews 5:1; satisfaction, intercession, and blessing, are his great concerns. His principal work is to bring God and sinners together; ilaskesyai properly signifieth to make one propitious or gracious to another by sacrifice. This High Priest, by the sacrifice of himself, satisfied God’s justice, removed his wrath, procured his pardon as to all sins of omission or commission, however aggravated, for penitent, believing sinners; and so makes God and them friends, and fits them for communion with him here, and for the enjoyment of him for ever, 2 Corinthians 5:19,21.

Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren,.... The adopted sons of God, who were brethren before Christ's incarnation, being from all eternity predestinated to the adoption of children: Christ's incarnation was in time, and after that many of the brethren existed; and it was only for their sakes that he assumed human nature; and therefore it was proper he should be like them in that nature, in all things: in all the essentials of it; it was not necessary that he should have it by natural generation; nor that it should have a subsistence in itself as theirs: and in all the properties and affections of it, that are, not sinful; for it did not behove him to be like them in sin, nor in sickness, and in diseases of the body: and in all temptations; though in some things his differ from theirs; none of his arose from within; and those from without could make no impression on him: and in sufferings, that there might be a conformity between the head and members; though there is in some things a difference; his sufferings were by way of punishment, and were attended with wrath, and were meritorious, which cannot be said of theirs; but that he should have an human nature, as to its essence and perfection, like to theirs, was necessary: it was proper he should be truly and really man, as well as truly God,

that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest; he could not be an high priest, offer sacrifice for sin, and make intercession, unless he was man; nor could he be a "merciful" and compassionate one, sympathize with his people in their sorrows, temptations, and sufferings, unless he was like them in these; nor would he be a "faithful", that is, a true and lawful one otherwise, because every high priest is taken from among men:

in things pertaining to God; in things in which God has to do with his people, as to preside in his name over them, to declare his will unto them, and bless them; and in things in which the people have to do with God, to offer to God a sacrifice for their sins, to present this sacrifice to him, to appear in his presence for them, to carry in their petitions, and plead their cause as their advocate:

to make reconciliation for the sins of the people; of God's covenant people, the people he has chosen for himself, and given to his Son; and whom Christ saves from their sins, by making satisfaction for them, to the law and justice of God, which is here meant by reconciliation: and in order to this, which could not be done without blood, without sufferings and death, it was proper he should be man, and like unto his brethren: the allusion seems to be to the two goats on the day of atonement, one of which was to be slain, and the other let go; which were to be, as the Jews say (p), "alike", in colour, in stature, and in price; and so were the birds to be alike in the same things, that were used at the cleansing of the leper (q): and the Jews tell us (r), that the high priest was to be greater than his brethren, in beauty, in strength, in wisdom, and in riches; all which is true of Christ.

(p) Misna Yoma, c. 6. sect. 1.((q) Misna Negaim, c. 14. sect. 5. (r) T. Bab. Horayot, fol. 9. 1. Maimon. Cele Hamikdash, c. 5. sect. 1.

{16} Wherefore in {d} all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a {e} merciful and {f} faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.

(16) He applies the same to the priesthood, for which he would not have been suited, unless he had become man, and like us in all things, sin being the exception.

(d) Not only concerning nature, but qualities too.

(e) That he might be truly touched with the feeling of our miseries.

(f) Doing his office sincerely.