Art Toombs Ministries
Online Bible Commentary
Not Everyone is a Child of God
Hebrews 2:10 For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. 11 For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, 12 saying: "I will declare Your name to My brethren; In the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You." 13 And again: "I will put My trust in Him." And again: "Here am I and the children whom God has given Me." (NKJV)
The early Eastern Church (Dionysius and Clement, both of Alexandria), from the very beginning, claimed Paul was the writer of Hebrews. The Western Church later agreed.
Luke translated the letter to the Hebrews into Greek, according to Clement in the second century. Luke was with Paul during his second Roman imprisonment and was his amanuensis during Paul’s final days (2 Timothy 4:11). It is logical to assume that Luke was also Paul’s amanuensis for this letter.
The anonymity of the letter could have been on purpose, because of Luke’s (and possibly Timothy’s and Mark’s) contributions. Or, the anonymity may have been because of Paul’s unpopularity among Jews, or because of the persecution of Paul, and other Christians, by Nero in Rome.
My conclusion is that this was Paul’s last writing, written in late 67-early 68 A.D. However, the identity of the writer is not crucial. The author of all Scripture is God, the Holy Spirit.
The subject of the Book of Hebrews is two-fold. The first part, Heb. 1:1-10:18, references the superiority of Christ. The second part, Heb. 10:19-13:25, references exhortations to obedient living..
Prior to this passage Paul wrote of the superiority of Christ over the prophets, the angels, and man. In this passage he continues to proclaim the superiority of Christ over man.
Paul begins by writing “For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings” (v. 10). The phrase “It was fitting for Him” begins this verse in the literal Greek and completes the context of the previous passage which spoke of the suffering and death of Christ on the cross.
It was fitting for Christ to be crucified because… He was made perfect to be the Savior, “through sufferings”. The perfect Savior had to be sinless and had to suffer the penalty of our sins.
Christ is the One “for whom” and “by whom” are “all things”, referring to the creation. Christ was the One who paved the road for all to have eternal life in Heaven, bringing “many sons to glory”.
Christ is the “captain” of “the salvation”, meaning he came first. He was the first to be resurrected from the death, which gives proof that Christians will also be raised from the dead.
The word “captain” is mentioned three times in the New Testament and always refers to Jesus. It is a descriptive term, not a title, and, therefore, not capitalized.
Paul continues with “For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren” (v. 11). Verse eleven continues to identify Christ as the “Him” of this passage.
This verse is an example of the figure of speech called the simple ellipsis of repetition which supplies words out of the preceding or following clause. In this case the words “all of one” refer to God the Father, who is mentioned in the following verse.
The meaning of this verse is that both Christ, the One who sanctifies, and those who are sanctified, Christians, are all sons of one Father, so that Christ is not ashamed to call them brothers. The word sanctified means to be set apart for God.
Paul continues with “saying: "I will declare Your name to My brethren; In the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You." (v. 12). This verse is taken from Psalm 22:22.
In the Psalm, David was proclaiming to his Messiah, Christ. Here it is used of Christ proclaiming to the Father that He will praise the Father to his brothers and through hymns at the gatherings, “ecclesia” in the Greek. This verse is a figure of speech called a redundancy, used for the purpose of giving extra emphasis to the Lord praising His Father.
Next, Paul writes “And again: "I will put My trust in Him." And again: "Here am I and the children whom God has given Me." (v. 13). This verse is taken from Isaiah 8:17-18.
Isaiah proclaimed these words to his Messiah, Christ. Here Christ proclaims these words to His Father. Christ is saying that He will put His trust in the Father, and so will the Father’s other children that the Father gave Him.
Even though everyone was created by God, not everyone is a child of God. All Christians are children of God. They are the only children of God.
We are all made in the image of God, but only Christians are children of God, and brothers and sisters of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. This is our place in the family of God.
We should not believe things that are not consistent with the Bible. To believe in Jesus is more then believing that He existed.
Everyone believes that He existed because it is a historical fact. To believe in Him, and to receive Him, means that we believe in the teachings of the Bible. We agree with them, and we are doing our best to live them.
These are the real Christians, the real children of God.
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