Monday, January 22, 2024

Sigurd Grindheim on Hebrews 2:17 and the Intercessory Work of Christ

  

There are good reasons to conclude [that] the averting of God’s anger is essential to the author’s use of the term hilaskomai. As high priest, Jesus ministers to God on behalf of the people and represents the people before God. He represents them in order to prevent the wrath of God from calling upon them. Because he is human, Jesus can serve as humankind’s representative and face God’s wrath, and because he is divine, he can offer an effective restitution.

 

If the author of Hebrews intends to communicate that God’s disposition towards humans has changed, it is striking that he does not use the verb hilaskomai (“propitiate”) with God as the object. . . . Reconciliation begins with God’s desire to be merciful and is effected by the sending of the Son and by the Holy Spirit’s work to unite him with humanity. It would be misleading, therefore, to present God as the object of propitiation.

 

One might add, as a supplementary point, that Christ’s sacrifice also affects the sinner, not only God. It provides cleansing from sin and ensures that one’s conscience is free from guilt (9:14; 10:22). Both propitiation and expiation are involved. (Sigurd Grindheim, The Letter to the Hebrews [The Pillar New Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2023], 194, 195)

 

Unlike his sacrifice, Jesus’s intercession is not described as a ministry that is completed once and for all. It occurs continually, as it is related to his living forever. To Chrysostom, this fact shows the humble nature of Jesus’s priesthood, as he constantly assumes the position of a supplicant (Homilies on Hebrews 13.6) (Ibid, 369)

 

Homilies on Hebrews 13.6 reads thusly:

 

6. Hebrews 7:25 Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost, that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever lives to make intercession for them. You see that he says this in respect of that which is according to the flesh. For when He [appears] as Priest, then He also intercedes. Wherefore also when Paul says, who also makes intercession for us Romans 8:34, he hints the same thing; the High Priest makes intercession. For He that raises the dead as He will, and quickens them, John 5:21, and that even as the Father [does], how [is it that] when there is need to save, He makes intercession? John 5:22 He that has all judgment, how [is it that] He makes intercession? He that sends His angels Matthew 13:41-42, that they may cast some into the furnace, and save others, how [is it that] He makes intercession? Wherefore (he says) He is able also to save. For this cause then He saves, because He dies not. Inasmuch as He ever lives, He has (he means) no successor: And if He have no successor, He is able to aid all men. For there [under the Law] indeed, the High Priest although he were worthy of admiration during the time in which he was [High Priest] (as Samuel for instance, and any other such), but, after this, no longer; for they were dead. But here it is not so, but He saves to the uttermost.

 

What is to the uttermost? He hints at some mystery. Not here only (he says) but there also He saves them that come unto God by Him. How does He save? In that He ever lives (he says) to make intercession for them. You see the humiliation? You see the manhood? For he says not, that He obtained this, by making intercession once for all, but continually, and whenever it may be needful to intercede for them.

 

To the uttermost. What is it? Not for a time only, but there also in the future life. 'Does He then always need to pray? Yet how can [this] be reasonable? Even righteous men have oftentimes accomplished all by one entreaty, and is He always praying? Why then is He throned with [the Father]?' You see that it is a condescension. The meaning is: Be not afraid, nor say, Yea, He loves us indeed, and He has confidence towards the Father, but He cannot live always. For He does live always.