Hebrews 2:14 Commentary and Bible Study

Human nature failed and fell in Adam. Human nature must succeed and triumph in order for there to be a restored humanity, the elect of God, the people of God on this glorified earth eternally. If they are to be saved, if one is going to come and be their representative, then ‘he also himself likewise’ must ‘take part of the same; that through death’, through the atonement, ‘he might destroy him that hath the power of death’. Christ took a common nature with us and the Word was made flesh. He too became a partaker of flesh and blood, yet without changing his divine nature in any way: he did not diminish any divine attributes, or mix or merge his two natures, but kept them entirely separate yet united in one person. The word ‘same’ is plural referring to both flesh and blood. He had to take human nature in order to be united with his people, to be their representative. Only as man could he take our place under the law and earn a perfect righteousness for us. Only as a man could he bear the punishment for our sins, experience death for us, and suffer our eternal punishment. Only by personally grappling with death himself and experiencing its power could he defeat it. In his divine nature as the immortal God, he was so far beyond the reach of death that he could not engage with it as he must. To experience death, he not only had to take human nature, but fallen human nature. He had to be born in the likeness of sinful flesh, yet without sin. He had to enter into a mortal body subject to death in exactly the same condition in which we are born. Does Satan have the power of death? Is the text saying too much? Well, in a sense it is, because Satan does not have the power of death. Only God has the power of death. Death is the punishment which he inflicts on mankind because of the failed covenant of works made with Adam. He determines the circumstances and the time of death for each person, in that sense Satan does not have the power to inflict death. So if death was first sent by God, how is it said to be a power possessed by the devil? It is his, as it were, by theft and not by right. He does have the power to tempt to sin, which brings us down to death. So it may accurately be said that he wields the power of death though he does not wield the final executive power to bring about the death of anyone. Although he does not have final power over death to apply it to whom he will, when and where he will, nevertheless he takes advantage of God’s determination to punish sin with death. He drives men and women into sin and holds them in its power, because he knows that God’s justice makes them liable to death. In that sense he was a murderer from the beginning and still delights to destroy all that he can. But grace breaks that connection and destroys Satan’s power, so that he is rightly said to be destroyed by Christ on Calvary's cross. Christ came to destroy him who had the power of death, by taking his power away from him, albeit a stolen power. He did so by taking away the power of death itself. He became Lord of death so that he could decide who should and who should not suffer death, though all are guilty and therefore deserve death. He came to free whom he wished from death’s power so that the devil could no longer ensure that death was the universal state of all who sin. He came to take the keys of death so that he could set free any whom he wished from death and to release all his people, his elect chosen from before the foundation of the world, and he came also to defeat the devil and to destroy him and his works. As a result of the work of Christ, the devil has no power anymore against the elect, because Christ has redeemed from death and cast out the accuser of the brethren. However, even with the devil destroyed, his activity does not cease straight away, and death is not ended immediately. According to God’s timetable, that must wait until the coming of Christ. Now, God’s people have life in their souls, but that life is hidden, for the world does not know them. The saints continue to experience death, but by faith they rejoice in the hope of the resurrection, just as Christ was raised from the dead. They walk by faith not by sight, but soon all things will be made visible.