In contrast to the unique idea
that God made Jesus perfect through suffering, the other components of Heb
2:10-11 may be authentic to the early church, considering two conceptual
similarities between Heb 2:10-11 and Paul. Firstly, the statement in Heb 2:10 that Jesus brings many
sons into glory has a conceptual similarity with Paul’s statement in Rom
5:17 that God provides grace and the gift of righteousness to believers through
Jesus Christ and lets them reign in life (cf. Heb 2:10; Rom 5:17). As Attridge
points out, “That believers will share eschatologically in Christ’s glory is a
commonplace” (cf. Phil 3:21; Rom 8:17; 1 Cor 15:43; 1 Pet 1:11) (Attridge, Epistle
to the Hebrews, 83) However, the fact that the glorification of believers
in the context of the Adam-Jesus typology in Heb 2:5-9 resonates with that in
Rom 5:12-17 cannot be taken for granted—cf. 1 Cor 15:22. Secondly, the
statement in Heb 2:11—further explicated in Heb 2:17—that Jesus sanctifies (αγιαζω) his followers has a conceptual
similarity with Paul’s statement in Rom 5:19 that Jesus makes his
followers righteous (καθιστημι δικαιοι)
through his obedience. These two conceptual similarities can be
considered together as the larger theme of Jesu’s glorification or
sanctification of his followers within the paradigm of “one” and “many” in
which both Adam (Ps 8:4-6 cited in Heb 2:6-8a) and Jesus (Heb 2:5-9) function
as the representative of humanity. (Yongbom Lee, The Son of Man as the Last
Adam: The Early Church Tradition as a Source of Paul’s Adam Christology [Eugene,
Oreg.: Pickwick Publications, 2012], 69-70)
