Hebrews 2:11 Commentary and Bible Study

In order to suffer for those many sons of man, the Lord Jesus had to take our nature and therefore he was made a little lower than the angels that he, by the grace of God, might taste death for every man. It is impossible for the Son of God to suffer in his divine nature because that nature is not capable of suffering, being forever perfect and blessed beyond measure. Suffering involves lack of something essential to happiness, but God cannot know any lack. Christ has been able to experience suffering only because he has taken our nature upon himself and by taking this he has been able to complete the task assigned to him by the Father. He has become the sanctifier of the elect.The word sanctified is used in an unusual sense here and stands for the whole of the work of salvation, since justification is not mentioned with it. When the two terms occur together, sanctification must refer to the gradually change that takes place in the heart of the believer by which they are conformed to the image of Christ as holy habits and tastes are increasingly built into their lives. But here sanctification refers to the totality of the change that results from all that Christ does for us. We who are atoned for and cleansed are all of one; our sins were on Calvary. Christ said to his Father, ‘Put their guilt and their punishments upon me.’ Your behaviour and mine, if we're saved people, was upon Christ and he suffered it in our place. How could we more closely be identified than that? We are of ‘all of one’; he becomes our representative. All of one what? All of one family, all of one stock, all of one disposition, one likeness. Not that we share his divinity. No, but his character is imparted to us gradually in life and totally at death, when we're translated into eternity. So we are of one and we must keep that likeness and treasure it. Because he has taken our nature, he is not ashamed to call us brethren with all the implications that this name brings. This is the writer’s link to his next thought as he moves rapidly through his arguments. Christ can only call us brethren because he is also one of us, possessing a real and complete human nature. He and his people are members of the same spiritual family (Mark 3:32-35). ‘He is not ashamed’ means he is delighted to do it. It's what pleases him as much as anything to call us his brothers and his sisters. If he had not taken our nature, he would certainly be ashamed to call us brethren, for man is infinitely below God in his being.