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"He Is Not Ashamed to Call Them Brethren"
Family Structure in Hebrew 2:10-18 and Jesus Christ's Fraternal Roles in Atoning for Humanity
Matthew L. Bowen
Matthew L. Bowen, "'He Is Not Ashamed to Call Them Brethren': Family Structure in Hebrew 2:10-18 and Jesus Christ's Fraternal Roles in Atoning for Humanity," in The Household of God: Families and Belonging in the Social World of the New Testament, ed. Lincoln H. Blumell, Jason R. Combs, Mark D. Ellison, Frank F. Judd, and Cecilia M. Peek (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 243‒64.
Matthew L. Bowen is an associate professor of Religious Education at BYU–Hawaii.
A key component of the message of Hebrews about Jesus as divine Son and atoning High Priest is his solidarity with humankind that grows out of his sibling relationship with them.[1] Hebrews describes Jesus’s atoning role as both a high priestly and a familial one:
It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters,
Saying, “I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.”
And again, “I will put my trust in him.” And again, “Here am I and the children whom God has given me.”
Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,
and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.
For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham.
Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested. (Hebrews 2:10–18 NRSV; emphasis added)
Jesus’s atoning sacrifice and high priestly role are inseparably connected to his role as brother in the family of God. Moreover, Hebrews’s familial explanation that because “the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same” (Hebrews 2:14)[2] had implications for the meaning of sacrament fellowship for ancient disciples, as it does for Latter-day Saints today.
The picture of Jesus Christ as atoning brother given in Hebrews 2:10–18 accords with the resurrected Jesus’s words to Mary at the tomb as preserved in John 20:17, in which he describes himself and his disciples as belonging to a heavenly family: “Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not [mē mou haptou; or, JST “hold me not”—i.e., “do not detain me” or “don’t keep holding on to me”]; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God” (emphasis added). Paul’s words in Romans 8:29 reflect the same familial paradigm: “For whom he [God] did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be [ō,[3] or foreordain to be] conformed to the image of his Son, that he [Christ] might be the firstborn [ōٴdzٴǰDz] among many brethren” (emphasis added in this and other scriptures).
To understand Hebrews’s view of Jesus as atoning brother, it is necessary to examine Hebrews’s Christology, including Jesus as “firstbegotten” (ōٴdzٴǰDz, Hebrews 1:6) in a divine family subject to “the Father of spirits” (Hebrews 12:9). Thus, I will endeavor to show that the concepts introduced in Hebrews 2:10–11 and expanded on in 2:12–18—sonship or daughterhood, making perfect (KJV, or fully initiating, Greek ٱō),[4] making holy/
A Note on the Hellenistic Jewish Concept of Family
Years ago, biblical scholar Will Soll wrote, “Study of the Jewish family in the Hellenistic period is still in its infancy.”[5] Nevertheless, ongoing research in this area has continued to yield a better understanding of Jewish family in the ancient world[6] and thus in the New Testament writings generally[7] and in the Letter to the Hebrews in particular.[8] While applications to relationships that have in recent times been characterized as the “nuclear family”—i.e., husband-wife, parent-child relationships—are certainly valid, in the Mediterranean world Hellenistic Jewish and non-Jewish families alike shared a deep commitment to the extended family, especially the patrilineal kinship group.[9] Further, the contours of the Abrahamic covenant and covenant identity gave the notion of family special distinctiveness and impetus in Judaism, including during the New Testament period. To belong to the “seed of Abraham” (Hebrews 2:16) meant belonging to that high and ancient family through whom “all the families of the earth [would] be blessed” (Genesis 12:3; 28:14).
In New Testament Greek, the concept of family could be expressed with a number of different terms depending on the degree of consanguinity in view: oikos (corresponding to Hebrew bayit / ê and the Latin domus) was used “to denote a living domestic group.”[10] With respect to the Letter to the Hebrews, John Dunnill observes that oikos is “certainly the author’s primary group concept, for it appears in Hebrews ten times” contrary to Paul who preferred the word “church” (ŧ), which occurs only twice in the letter.[11] David F. Wright notes that “in the New Testament, oikia (‘house, household’) is the ordinary word for family, although patria (from the Latin 貹ŧ, ‘father’) is also used.”[12]
The term oikia also had a significant connection with the concept of “church,” with the development of congregations from early Christians meeting together in members’ homes as house churches,[13] a practice that continued widely within Christianity until the fourth century AD. Wright continues,
The primary use of the word oikia is in reference to the church. The solidarity of the family as the building block of the spiritual family of God is evident in ‘household’ conversions and baptisms (John 4.53; Acts 11.14; 16.16, 31–34). Not only is the whole church the household of God (Eph. 2.19; 1 Tim. 3.15; 1 Pet. 417), but also most early Christian congregations were family or house churches, meeting in domestic buildings and led by the householders, including women and husband-and-wife joint leaders (Acts 2.46; Rom 16.3–5; 1 Cor 16.15, 19; Philem 1–2).[14]
In terms of the “church” as a family and household in the Greco-Roman era, it would have been natural for a Hellenistic Jewish Christian audience to see God the Father in the role of the paterfamilias (Latin, literally “father of the household”) as Hebrews does (see Hebrews 12:7, 9; compare 1:5). Patria in the sense of “family” constitutes a near-synonym of oikia when it means the household or people living in a house rather than the building itself.[15] The relationship of patria to the term 貹ŧ (“father”) whence it derives is evident in the wordplay in Ephesians 3:14–15: “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father [ton patera] of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family [pasa patria; or, every family] in heaven and earth is named” (Ephesians 3:14–15). One can also find in Hebrews a strong emphasis on Jesus as Son in God’s “family” (oikos) and as one who presides over God’s family: “Christ, however, was faithful over God’s house [oikos] as a son, and we are his house if we hold firm” (Hebrews 3:6 NRSV).
Kinship Terminology, Family Structure, in Hebrews 2:10–18 and Jesus’s Role as Brother in the Divine Family
In Hebrews 2:10–11, Hebrews presents his Hellenistic Jewish audience with several bold concepts: a shared sonship, a divine brotherhood, a transferable holiness (i.e., consecration) and ٱō (full initiation).[16] He uses these concepts not only to place his audience in an intimate, familial relationship with God and Jesus Christ but also to raise their awareness of their familial relationship with each other: “It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters” (Hebrews 2:10–11 NRSV).
Apprised that they are sons and daughters of God, as well as brothers and sisters of a divine Son—and of one another—the audience better understands their obligation to conduct themselves in a manner befitting the divine family to which they belong, which they do by “go[ing] on unto perfection” (Hebrews 6:1), or full initiation. (I so render the term ٱō here and elsewhere, since it conveys both the idea of perfection or completion—i.e., full and the contemporary connotation of “those who have completed an entire series of initiations”[17]—see further below). Moreover, they honor the family of God by not “neglect[ing] so great salvation” (2:3), by “do[ing] the will of God” as Jesus did (10:36), and not “draw[ing] back unto perdition” (10:39). They see themselves within a divine plan undergoing the process of “perfection” or “full initiation” (ٱō)[18] that their “brother” has already faithfully completed and who is actively helping them along the covenant path.
Ancient Israelites saw Jehovah as their Redeemer; or more precisely, as their “kinsman redeemer” (Hebrew ō’ēl), the family member responsible for buying back other family members out of slavery; Jesus’s role as “brother” (adelphos) in relation to other siblings—“the children” (huioi)—in the family stands within same conceptual frame work to the older Israelite-Jewish kinsman-redeemer concept. The familial notion of “many sons” or more inclusively, “many sons and daughters” (polloi huioi) in Hebrews 2:10 (compare NRSV) is of paramount importance to Hebrews’s overall message, although many treatments of Hebrews seem to overlook or underplay this aspect of the letter’s theology.[19] If a royal “son”[20] will be heir of all things (1:2) including God’s name (1:4),[21] what are the implications for “many sons and daughters”? [22]
The phrase “many sons and daughters” recalls the phrase “in a Son” from the introduction. Jesus, the “son” of Hebrews 1:2, belongs to the “many sons and daughters” now spoken of in 2:10, as does the letter’s audience. Hebrews’s diction does not suggest that the “many sons and daughters” mentioned here are “unholy creatures” estranged from God.[23] Rather, Hebrews expects to help his Hellenistic Jewish Christian audience identify themselves more closely to Christ through his use of kinship terms, so that they will want to remain in the church family. His point is not that “the sons and daughters are God’s creatures”[24] but that they are God’s family. Hebrews nowhere refers to the “sons” as creatures. As Ben Witherington III notes, the use of kinship terminology here “is not just the language of fictive kinship.”[25] For Hebrews the stakes were high: an emphasis on an abstract creator-creature dichotomy would have undermined the author’s careful rhetorical strategy. It would have maintained distance between the members of the family—God the Father, Christ the Son, and “the many sons and daughters” (which include the letter’s audience)—rather than drawn them nearer together. Kiwoong Son notes that “the author constantly emphasizes Jesus’ solidarity with humanity.”[26] Hebrews’s repetitious use of kinship terms thoroughly achieves this rhetorical effect. Hebrews expects the audience to identify closely with Jesus, and thus with God, because they do in fact belong to this divine family.
At this point the audience is also to remember Hebrews’s bold citation of LXX Psalm 44:7, which the author casts as God addressing “a son” as God: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever . . . ; therefore God, your God has anointed you” (Hebrews 1:8–9). Regarding Hebrews’s quotation of this text, Luke Timothy Johnson writes,
If I have understood these passages correctly, then the Christology of Hebrews is far from a mechanical or static juxtaposition of “two natures in one person.” Instead the composition daringly suggests that the human Jesus grew progressively into the full stature of being God’s Son. Through his human faith and obedience he progressively opened himself to the mystery of God. Such opening to infinite mystery stretches the human beyond all measure, and inevitably involves pain and suffering at every level, just as pain and suffering themselves have the capacity to open humans to the mystery of God.[27]
Hebrews’ overriding point is that the “sons” and daughters are to follow the Son, even if through unjust suffering, into the same glory. Although in Hebrews the addressee of this psalm is Christ, its original addressee also remains in view: the Davidic Israelite king, the royal son. If this “son” can be addressed as “God,” then the implications must also be truly great for the “many sons and daughters” addressed in Hebrews 2:10: they have capacity for divine enlargement. Readers are to recognize themselves as sons and daughters, endowed through Christ with such a capacity.
The Enthronement of the Son of Man as a Family Enthronement
The mere mention of huioi (“sons and daughters”) in Hebrews 2:10 also recalls a psalm the audience has heard in Hebrews 1. Hebrews had just made extensive use of LXX Psalm 8:5–7 (KJV 8:4–6), which speaks of humanity (ԳٳōDz) and the “son of man” (huios anthrōpou) whom God has “made . . . lower than the angels for a little while” (compare Hebrews 2:6–7) and whom he has “crowned . . . with glory and honor” (doxē kai timē estephanōsas).
As with previous psalms, Hebrews reads LXX Psalm 8 Christologically, identifying Jesus as the one enthroned. In this Christological reading, Jesus becomes the “son of man” (huion anthrōpou) of whom God “is mindful” (compare Hebrews 2:7).[28] The description “son of man” (huion anthrōpou) used as a divine title description invokes contemporary Messianic interpretations of LXX Daniel 7:13 and the exalted figure of the one “like a son of man” (hōs huios anthrōpou; compare Aramaic kĕbar ʾĕnāš) described there, who was given an everlasting kingdom. It also recalls the “Son of Man” from the Enoch literature.[29] By citing this portion of Psalm 8, Hebrews imports the various scriptural images associated with these other significant biblical texts into the discussion. When Jesus used “Son of Man” of himself, he invariably did so as a messianic self-reference with implied messianic claims.
Although Hebrews reads Psalm 8 Christologically to describe the process of Jesus’s enthronement, the original reading of the psalm—the more generic anthropological reading—applies to the audience, who see themselves as the humanity (ԳٳōDz) that will be enthroned at some future time—the “many sons and daughters” of Hebrews 2:10.[30]
When Hebrew states “they who are sanctified are all of one” (Hebrews 2:11; emphasis added), “one” (Greek henos) can be read as a masculine or a neuter genitive. Koester prefers a “theological” versus an “anthropological” interpretation for this phrase.[31] According to this theological view, “the unity between Christ and human beings has God’s action as its source. This takes ‘one’ (henos) to be masculine, referring to God . . . ‘all of one’ means that they share a common origin in God.”[32] If we take henos to be masculine, then certainly God is inferred. Koester is quick to add, “Christ was uniquely the Son of God (1:2, 5), but others are sons of God in an extended sense (2:10). Christ can call them his ‘brethren’ (2:11b) because of this common parentage.”[33]
Hebrews’s rhetorical strategy is to unify the audience with God and Jesus, not to subtly set up ontological partitions or engage them in theological hairsplitting. Hebrews recognized that strengthening the faith and commitment of Hellenistic Jewish Christians was an immediate and pressing need. Many of these church members were faltering in terms of their participation in meetings with other believers in Jesus and gravitating back to their traditional participation in the synagogue only (see Hebrews 10:25). Hebrews employs familial language as part of a larger strategy to persuade Jewish Christians (the implied audience of his letter) to remain in the faith by demonstrating the superiority of what they have received in Christ over what they had previously: a better priesthood, atonement, Savior, and family.[34] They would be forsaking this better priesthood, atonement, Savior, and family and the eternal blessings pertaining thereto by “neglect[ing] so great a salvation” (Hebrews 2:3) and “draw[ing] back” even “unto perdition” (Hebrews 10:38–39). In this light we can see the strength of Koester’s “anthropological” interpretation of Hebrews 2:11, which reads henos as a neuter, “referring to a common bloodline (compare Acts 17:26).”[35] Thus, as an ambiguous term, henos could refer not only to God but to Adam, bloodline, stock, family, and so forth. “The extraordinary thing about Hebrews 2:11,” observes Witherington, “is that it stresses that both the sanctifier and the sanctified are part of one human family, being children of God.”[36]
Witherington also notes that Hebrews “uses the language of shame here. Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters for the very good reason that we belong to the same human family.”[37] Limiting the application to the “same human family,” however, somewhat undersells Hebrews’s rhetorical strategy. Hebrews intends the letter’s audience to see themselves as siblings in the same divine family with God as Father, hence his earlier ambiguous use of henos. The audience will encounter the same concept in Hebrews 12:9: “We have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us . . . : shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?”
Hebrews, as Patrick Gray observes, “takes quite seriously the notion that God’s Son is the brother of all the faithful and explores the implications for those fortunate enough to have the same father.”[38] He insightfully notes that “the common parental bond in tightly knit families promotes feelings of affection and solidarity among brothers, and in turn harmonious sibling relationships bring joy to parents like nothing else.”[39]
Hebrews 2:10 states that God’s purpose in Jesus, whom Hebrews mentions for the first time in Hebrews 2:9, was “leading many sons and daughters into glory” (translation mine). As Johnson notes, the circumstantial participle I have rendered as “leading” (Greek agagonta; KJV “bringing”) “can be connected either to God or the Son.”[40] Thus, Hebrews here skillfully exploits another ambiguity. The rhetorical effect of this ambiguity is the audience understanding the “leading” in terms of both God and the Son. The ambiguous participle thus suggests their unity in purpose.
Significantly, Hebrews’s use of “leading many . . . into” (Greek agagonta . . . eis; KJV, “bringing . . . unto”) recalls “when he bringeth” (Greek ŧ, an aorist subjunctive form of ō) from Hebrews 1:6. The Father’s “leading in” of the firstborn into “the world” (Ǿdzܳŧ) paves the way for Jesus’s or the Father’s “leading many sons and daughters into glory.”[41] Thus, in a direct way, being “brought into” or “led into . . . the world” links with “the glory” (doxan) into which God—or Jesus—is leading the “many sons and daughters.” Latter-day Saints can hear the temple echoes in both Hebrews 1:8 and 2:10, especially in the latter where those being led (agagonta) into glory are the saints themselves.
A clever polyptoton, or stylistic repetition,[42] connects the circumstantial participial “leading” (Greek, agagonta) with the “leader” (Greek ŧDz; KJV “captain”) in Hebrews 2:10. The word ŧDz, as Johnson points out, “is rich in nuance. Any translation can capture only some of its aspects.”[43] Clearly implied in the appellation, says Witherington, is “someone who does something first.”[44] Gray goes further: “Jesus’ temporal priority as elder brother is signaled by his designation as ŧDz in 2:10.”[45] Hebrews thus expands and enriches Jesus’s image and role as ōٴdzٴǰDz, or “firstborn,” first broached in Hebrews 1:6. Johnson further points out that ŧDz “combines the sense of originator and leader.”[46] The use of ŧDz again recalls the chain of scriptural quotes from the LXX Psalter, reminding them of the “beginning” (archas) in Hebrews 1:10 in which Jesus participated as “Lord” (kyrios) and creator.[47] So God leads his sons and daughters, and Jesus his brothers and sisters, into glory. For Johnson, the “glory” into which the sons and daughters are lead “is synonymous with ‘so great a salvation’ (2:3) and the ‘the world to come’ (12:5).”41 Not only does Hebrews’s use of the word in Hebrews 2:11 immediately remind the audience of the “salvation” mentioned in Hebrews 2:3, it also recalls Hebrews 1:14 and the “salvation” of which they are about to be heirs if they remain faithful. To “neglect” that salvation would be to despise the glory and honor of God, of Jesus, and of the divine family to which the audience themselves belong.
ձō: The Perfection and Full Initiation of God’s Family
It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect (ٱō) through sufferings.
For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. (Hebrews 2:10–11 NRSV)
For the first time, the audience encounters a verbal cognate of ٱō, a term that is frequently taken as “fulfillment” or, in the KJV, “perfection,” but also closely relates to terms for become an “initiate” (teleios) and “initiate” (ٱō) in a religious context.[48]
What is ٱō in Hebrews’s view? Or what dimension of it does he intend to convey? Certainly, the Latinate term “perfection” cannot convey the full, intended meaning or what an individual in the Greco-Roman world would have envisioned when they heard a verbal or nominal form of ٱō. Biblical scholar Craig Koester renders ٱō as “make complete,”[49] but this phrasing is equally insufficient in capturing and conveying its nuances. Johnson notes the wide range of contemporary connotations had in the Hebrews’s world:
The language of perfection (ٱō) is widespread in Hellenistic culture. The basic idea is to be complete or whole (Aristotle, Metaphysics 1021B). In philosophy the term applies to those who have accomplished full moral maturity (Plato, Laws 356A; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.128). Religiously, such language applies to those who have completed an entire series of initiations, as in the Mysteries (see Plato, Phaedrus 249C; Philo, Life of Moses 2.149).[50]
Thus, the word ٱō had an important ritual dimension which would not have been severed from its other semantic senses. In other words, one could not become morally “perfect,” experientially “complete,” or “whole” without receiving all the necessary initiations, rites (i.e., ordinances), and mysteries pertaining thereto.
The ritual or cultic implications of this term, ٱō, in Hebrews’s contemporaneous context are too often overlooked in modern exegesis. Johnson suggests that “since Jesus is the first of ‘many sons’ his perfection must be the perfection of his humanity.”[51] Here, the meaning of ٱō comes into sharper focus: The family is being fully initiated—ritually and experientially—into their Father’s supreme sphere of existence (doxa), to which Jesus grants them access. Jesus, the architect or initiator (ŧDz) of the siblings’ salvation, had to first be fully initiated himself. But initiated how? Hebrews says, “through sufferings” (Hebrews 2:10).
Hebrews’s mention of “sufferings” (貹ٳŧō) here reminds the audience of “the suffering of death” (to pathēma tou thanatou) that Jesus “tasted” “on behalf of all” in Hebrews 2:9. Thus, in Hebrews 2:9–11 Hebrews adds important new dimensions to the audience’s concept of suffering. The audience is to understand that suffering can be a vicarious, priestly activity. For them, it is an experiential process that “fully initiates” one into the divine realm and divinity, as it did Jesus. As DeSilva puts it, “The sufferings are recast as proof of the believers’ legitimate desc[ent] from (or adoption by) God, and hence their legitimate share in the honor of God together with Christ.”[52]
If Hebrews’s language has been ambiguous in its cultic (temple) overtones up to this point, it is no longer. The phrase “For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified” (Hebrews 2:11; ho . . . ōn kai hoi hagiazomenoi) recalls such temple-related passages as LXX Leviticus 11:44–45, where God commands “being holy” or “being consecrated” (ٳŧٳ) and to be “consecrated beings” (hagioi esesthe) “because I the Lord am holy” or “because I the Lord am a consecrated being” (hoti hagios eimi egō kyrios, translation mine).[53]
Johnson makes the following significant observation: “If the language of perfection would already suggest for readers of the LXX a connection with priesthood and sacrifice, then the statement in 2:11 follows naturally: the one who makes holy and those who are being made holy share the same source.”[54] The sheer proximity of “perfect” (ٱō) in verse 10 to “sanctifier” or “consecrator” (ōn) and “those being sanctified” or “those being consecrated” (hoi hagiazomenoi) suggests a close affinity of these concepts in the author’s mind, an affinity which he signals to the audience. The sequence of the verbal forms functionally suggests Father, Son, and sons and daughters: to fully initiate (the Father’s purview), the consecrator (ambiguously, Jesus or the Father), and those who are being consecrated (Jesus, the sons and daughters). Perfection or full initiation into the divine is a family affair, as the Prophet Joseph Smith recognized in his interpretation of Hebrews 11:40 in terms of ancestors and the Abrahamic covenant: “God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect [ٱōٳō]” (see further Doctrine and Covenants 128:15, 18).
“Partakers of Flesh and Blood”: Mortality, Sacrament, Covenant, and Christ’s Atonement
Here I will note only briefly the sacramental or eucharistic echoes of Hebrews’s description of Jesus’s partaking of the human experience: “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers [Ǿōŧ] of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part [meteschen] of the same” (Hebrews 2:14). Hebrews’s combination of the verb Ǿōŧ evokes possibly the earliest NT description of the sacrament and its meaning, one given by Paul to the Corinthian saints who were not treating that ordinance with due reverence, in which he uses forms of the same key terms: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion [ǾōԾ, fellowship, sharing, partaking] of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion [ǾōԾ] of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers [metechomen] of that one bread” (1 Corinthians 10:16–17).
The verb for “take part” or “share” (meteschen) also brings out the close alignment of what the anointed God-Son and his “fellows” or “sharers” (metochous, Hebrews 1:9)—i.e., his brothers and sisters among whom he has declared the Father’s name (Hebrews 2:12; LXX Psalm 21:23; compare John 17:6)—are sharing in. Succinctly summarized, Jesus Christ fully partakes of (or shares in) the flesh and blood (along with the full range of experiences) of his brothers and sisters. His brothers and sisters, in turn, symbolically partake of his flesh and blood as willingly sacrificed for them in his fully experiencing them. In the ordinance they are drawn ever more tightly and irremovably together.
Given the house-church setting of early Christian “sacrament” or eucharistic meetings, which included families, households, and others in a church family, this ordinance clearly performed a family unity function for the New Testament–era saints. It was this type of meeting and this ordinance that Hebrews knew his Jewish Christian audience (as the seed of Abraham) would forsake to their own peril (see Hebrews 10:25). Latter-day Saints today, too, can better appreciate just how thoroughly family-centric the sacrament and Christ’s atonement are when viewed in this light.[55]
A Latter-day Saint Reading of Christ’s Experiential Family Atonement in Hebrews 2
Restoration Scripture, including the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, and the words of latter-day apostles and prophets, provides additional insights into the message of Hebrews 2. For instance, Hebrews’ statement that “he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect” (2:17 NRSV; KJV “in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren,”) should be understood in terms not only of the totality of Jesus’s incarnation in mortality, but also of the type of experiential atonement detailed in Isaiah 53 and Alma 7:11–13. It helps us see how, in a real sense, Christ’s atonement began with his birth and concluded with his resurrection (compare Mosiah 3:5–10), although the realization of its full intended effects on “the seed of Abraham” (Hebrews 2:16) and on all God’s children remains a work in progress (compare Jacob 5).
Hebrews links Jesus’s full brotherhood with humanity directly to his priesthood and the high priestly role that he would carry out in atoning or making reconciliation for our sins: “Wherefore in all things it behoved him to [NRSV, he had to] be made like [dzǾōٳŧԲ] unto his brethren [NRSV brothers and sisters] that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation [hilaskesthai] for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted” (Hebrews 2:17–18). Elder Jeffrey R. Holland explained why it was necessary for Jesus to “taste death for every man [and woman]” (Hebrews 2:9), physical and spiritual, and why it was necessary to “be made like” his brothers and sisters to completely understand them: “It was required, indeed it was central to the significance of the Atonement, that this perfect Son who had never spoken ill nor done wrong nor touched an unclean thing had to know how the rest of humankind—us, all of us—would feel when we did commit such sins. For His Atonement to be infinite and eternal, He had to feel what it was like to die not only physically but spiritually, to sense what it was like to have the divine Spirit withdraw, leaving one feeling totally, abjectly, hopelessly alone.”[56]
Hebrews indicates that Jesus’s brothers and sisters could also “made like” him through priestly service. For example, Hebrews describes Melchizedek described as being “without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like [ōōdzԴDz] unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually” (Hebrews 7:3). For Latter-day Saints today, this has implications for all those who receive the full blessings of the Melchizedek Priesthood, blessings made available today in the holy temple.
We can see how closely Hebrews’s conception of Christ as Firstborn, divine Son, atoning Brother in a family, and high priestly archetype corresponds to the Apostle Paul’s view of Christ and the saints’ relationship to him: “For whom he [God] did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be [ō or, “foreordain to be”] conformed [symmorphous] to the image of his Son, that he [Christ] might be the firstborn [ōٴdzٴǰDz] among many brethren” (Romans 8:29).
Later in the letter, Hebrews expounds upon the importance of Jesus having experienced the full range of human temptations and challenges through his atonement mentioned in Hebrews 2:17–18 and how this experience was an essential aspect of his high priestly service to God’s family: “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). When Alma avers that Jesus took upon him and experienced “pains,” “afflictions,” “temptation of every kind,” “death,” “infirmities,” and the effects of “sins” all “according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people [compare Hebrew ʿô, his kin] according to their infirmities” (Alma 7:11–13), he similarly described a fully experiential atonement. The descriptions of Jesus’s familial and high priestly service in performing his atonement here, as in Hebrews 4:15 and Alma 7:11–13, are consonant with Isaiah’s description of the Suffering Servant and his experiential atonement. Peeler describes how Hebrews 2:8–16 culminate in the description of Jesus’s familial and high priestly atonement in Hebrews 2:17–18 in being “made like” his brothers and sisters “in all things,” “in all ways,” or “in every respect”: “In the preceding verses, the author sketches out what ‘all ways’ [KJV “all things”] entails. The brothers and sisters of Jesus share in blood (2.14), and they anticipate death with fear (2.15). Consequently, his participation in flesh and blood and his facing of the reality of death make it evident that Jesus became completely human.”[57] She further states, “It is God who made Jesus like his brothers and sisters in all ways. Because the Son’s obedience to the Father’s will accomplished this transformation, Jesus in taking hold of the seed of Abraham (2.16), rescued them.”[58] Importantly, Jesus did all this in fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant, making the complete fulfillment of that covenant for all the Father’s children on this earth—all the families or kindreds (nations) of the earth (Genesis 12:3; 22:18)—possible.
Conclusion
A close examination of Hebrews’s rhetoric reveals how prominent the idea of family is in his mind. The prevalence of honor/
We have also seen from the lengthy, climactic verbal construction of 2:10, offset with repeated instances of ambiguity, that the act of making perfect or initiation (ٱō; compare ٱō) is emphatically the action “appropriate” to God, because of his ties as parent to his children. We conclude with this thought by Gray: “Judged by Plutarch’s portrait, Jesus is the consummate older brother. Plutarch readily admits that the portrait is an ideal one for which very few are qualified to sit as model (Frat. Amor 478C). Bad brothers are easy to find.”[59] Faithful readers of the Letter to the Hebrews can be grateful that they belong to family of Jesus.
As faithful readers of the Letter to the Hebrews, Latter-day Saints should better appreciate the strength of their own doctrine which emphasizes Jesus’s “brotherly” role (vis-à-vis creedal Christianity). Nevertheless, they should also better understand Christ’s brotherly role in a family context that differs somewhat from modern western individualistic conceptions of “family,” especially the way that the achievements of individual family members glorify, bring honor to, and advance the family’s success collectively. Jesus did this to the utmost in glorifying Father and the name of the family (3 Nephi 11:11; 23:9; Ether 12:8).
Notes
[1] Richard D. Draper and Michael D. Rhodes, Epistle to the Hebrews (Provo, UT: BYU Studies, 2020), 4. They write, “The question of who actually wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews has been debated from at least the early second century AD and continues unresolved up to the present time.” They further observe, “Most Latter-day Saints believe the author was Paul. This view is often based on Joseph Smith’s references that unite the Apostle with that Epistle. Noteworthy, however, is the absence of any statement by the prophet that he had spiritual confirmation or any other evidence as to the authorship” (page 5). Indeed, “the Church has not issued a definitive statement declaring an official position on who wrote Hebrews” (page 5). For further discussion, see Lincoln H. Blumell, Frank F. Judd Jr., and George A. Pierce, “Hebrews and the General Epistles: Hebrews, James, 1–2 Peter, 1–3 John, and Jude,” in New Testament History, Culture, and Society: A Background to the Texts of the New Testament, ed. Lincoln H. Blumell (Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2019), 447–49.
[2] All citations are to the King James Version unless otherwise noted.
[3] W. Radl, “proorizō,” in Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1990–93), 159.
[4] H. Hūbner, “ٱō,” in Exegetical Dictionary, 3.344–45. See also “ٱō,” 3.346.
[5] Will Soll, “The Family as a Scriptural and Social Construct in Tobit,” in The Function of Scripture in Early Jewish and Christian Tradition, ed. Craig A. Evans and Jack A. Sanders (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998), 166.
[6] See, e.g., Shaye J. D. Cohen, ed., The Jewish Family in Antiquity (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993–2020).
[7] Mark D. Ellison, “Family, Marriage, and Celibacy in the New Testament,” in Blumell, New Testament History, Culture, and Society, 35–52.
[8] See, e.g., Amy L. B. Peeter, You Are My Son: The Family of God in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Bloomsbury, 2014).
[9] Joseph Hellerman, The Ancient Church as Family (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2001), 27–58.
[10] Timothy M. Willis, “Family,” in The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, ed. Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, 5 vols. (Nashville: Abingdon, 2007), 430.
[11] John Dunnill, Covenant and Sacrifice in the Letter to the Hebrews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 34.
[12] David F. Wright, “Family,” in The Oxford Companion to the Bible, ed. Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan (New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 224.
[13] On house churches, see Mark D. Ellison, “The Setting and Sacrament of the Christian Community,” in Go Ye into All the World: Messages of the New Testament Apostles (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2002), 145–66.
[14] Wright, “Family,” 224.
[15] See Walter Bauer, “patria,” in A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., ed. Frederick William Danker, trans. William F. Arndt, F. Wilbur Gingrich, and F. W. Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2000), 788 [hereafter cited as BDAG], contra U. Hutter, “patria,” in Exegetical Dictionary, 3.57–58, who limits it to the place of a family’s origin or the idea of race or kinship more broadly.
[16] The author prepared his readers for Hebrews 2:10–18 with an elegantly crafted Christological introduction (sometimes called an exordium, Hebrews 1:1–4), which describes Jesus “a Son” who has been “designated heir of all things,” through whom God “made the worlds” (Hebrews 1:2) and who has been enthroned “in the heights” (Hebrews 1:3). Hebrews has also treated Jesus’s status as Son in terms of two important biblical royal rebirth or adoption formulas (“Thou art my Son; I today have begotten thee,” Greek Old Testament or Septuagint [hereafter LXX] Psalms 2:7 and “I will be to him as a Father, and he shall be to me as a Son,” LXX 2 Samuel 7:14). In the scripture chain that follows, Hebrews uses biblical texts to further establish Jesus’s status as divine Son whom God “led into the world” to be “the firstborn” in a family: “And let all the angels of God worship him” (Hebrews 1:6 quoting LXX Deuteronomy 32:43). Additionally, he quotes LXX Psalm 44:7 (KJV Psalm 45:7) as God addressing his Son as God: “But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; . . . therefore [O] God, even thy God, hath anointed thee” (“Your God has anointed you, O God,” Hebrews 1:8–9). Sometimes called a catena (Latin “chain”). Kenneth L. Schenck, “A Celebration of the Enthroned Son: The Catena of Hebrews 1,” Journal of Biblical Literature 120 (2001): 484, writes, “The exordium [introduction] introduces the catena [scripture chain] at the point of Christ’s session at God’s right hand.” He suggests that the catena of LXX quotations “should be read as a hymnic celebration of the accomplishment of salvation” (Ibid., 473).
[17] Johnson, Hebrews, 96. See also Kevin B. McCruden, “Christ’s Perfection in Hebrews: Divine Beneficence as an Exegetical Key to Hebrews 2:10,” Biblical Research 47 (2002): 40–62.
[18] See below for more on ٱō as initiation.
[19] See, e.g., Andrew Lincoln, Hebrews: A Guide (London: T & T Clark, 2006).
[20] Schenck, “A Celebration of the Enthroned Son,” 472.
[21] See also Philippians 2:5–11. 1 Enoch 48:1–5 makes a point of the Son of Man’s receiving a new name. This is an important aspect of royal enthronement. It is not insignificant that this is a major theme of early Christian Christology and soteriology, and it may help explain Enoch’s popularity among the earliest Christians.
[22] The concept of “many sons and daughters” of God in a family would have been not unfamiliar to the letter’s addressees. They would have been familiar with texts like LXX Hosea 1:10: “you there shall be called sons and daughters of the living God” (Greek humeis ekei klēthēsontai huioi theou zōntos; translation mine). Given that Hebrews relies on his audience’s knowledge of the Psalter elsewhere, we may posit that they also would have been familiar with LXX Psalm 81:6, “I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High” (KJV, Psalm 82:6l; Greek egō eipa theoi este, kai huioi hypistou pantes). If so and if they interpreted it anthropologically (as Jesus does in John 10:34–35), even the idea of “sons” of God being called “gods” would not have been alien to a Hellenistic Jewish audience. Hebrews prepares the audience from the very beginning of the letter for this concept of sonship: “[God] has spoken to us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:2, emphasis added). Here “by his Son” (Greek en huiō) can be rendered literary as “in his son,” or “by a Son” (NRSV).
[23] Lincoln, Hebrews, 89, asserts that is “the worldview Hebrews presupposes.”
[24] Craig R. Koester, Hebrews: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 227.
[25] Ben Witherington III, Letters and Homilies for Jewish Christians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Hebrews, James, and Jude (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic/
[26] Kiwoong Son, Zion Symbolism in Hebrews: Hebrews 12:18–24 as a Hermeneutical Key to the Epistle (Milton Keynes, UK: Paternoster, 2005), 183.
[27] Luke Timothy Johnson, Hebrews: A Commentary (Louisville: Westminster/
[28] For Hebrews, the title “son of man” “provided a neutral, scriptural term for Jesus from his pre-existent being in eternity till his post-resurrection honor and glory.” Michael D. Goulder, “Psalm 8 and the Son of Man,” New Testament Studies 48 (2002): 29.
[29] See, e.g., 1 Enoch 46:1–4; 48:2; 69:26–27, 29; 71:14.
[30] Hebrews is constantly pointing the audience’s attention back to the imagery of the introduction: “a Son” who is the “reflection” of his Father’s glory, who has been made heir of all things, the kinds of “sons and daughters” they are supposed to become. Although the complementing action of Hebrews’s earlier use of eprepen—i.e., “what” was appropriate—still remains unresolved at this point, Hebrews has just answered the implied “why” of eprepen: God the Father’s action was fitting or appropriate because the beneficiaries of the action are family, the sons and daughters. It was also fitting, as Draper and Rhodes note, “given the honor and glory it would bring to the Lord” as well to the family as whole; Draper and Rhodes, Epistle to the Hebrews, 151. Moreover, “it was fitting for Jesus to be perfected through suffering because of what it would allow him to do and to be,” as well as for what it would allow Jesus to empower the sons and daughters of the family of God to do and to be; Draper and Rhodes, Epistle to the Hebrews, 151. Knowing that the as-yet-unspecified action was appropriate because of the parental bonds between God, the Son, and the children maximizes the impact of the infinitive complementing eprepen upon hearing it.
[31] Koester, Hebrews, 229.
[32] Koester, Hebrews, 229.
[33] Koester, Hebrews, 229.
[34] The hermeneutical hazard in Hebrews’s message, especially removed from its first-century context, is that it can be misapplied, as Romans 2:29 often has been, as a basis for the false doctrine of supersessionism (or replacement theology); that is, the later, errant gentile Christian belief that the gentiles had “replaced” the Jews in God’s plan. Since the Epistle to the Hebrews is fundamentally an inner-Jewish message about Jesus as Messiah, written by a Jewish author to a Jewish audience, it cannot validly be used to support notions of gentile supersessionism which, sadly, have constituted a longstanding basis for antisemitism in the Christian world. In following President Russell M. Nelson’s injunction “to lead out in abandoning attitudes and actions of prejudice,” Latter-day Saints today should also lead out in repudiating antisemitism and supersessionism. See Russell M. Nelson, “Let God Prevail,” Ensign, November 2020, 94. See also Matthew L. Bowen, “‘What Thank They the Jews’? (2 Nephi 29:4): A Note on the Name ‘Judah’ and Antisemitism,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 12 (2014): 111–25. For a thorough treatment of these issues as they relate to both Jews and Latter-day Saints, see the studies in Mark S. Diamond and Andrew C. Reed, eds., Understanding Covenants and Communities: Jews and Latter-day Saints in Dialogue (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, in cooperation with the Central Conference of Rabbis, 2020).
[35] Diamond and Reed, Understanding Covenants and Communities.
[36] Witherington, “Letters and Homilies for Jewish Christians,” 135. Hebrews’s ambiguous use of henos suggests an array of possible thoughts and associations. John 10:30 and John 17:22–23 are examples of how a first-century audience might connect being “one” or from “one” (hen/henos) with divine status: “I and my father are one” (egō kai ho 貹ŧ hen esmen). “One” (hen) here functions grammatically as a neuter singular predicate nominative and thus would function somewhat differently than henos as a masculine or neuter genitive in Hebrews 2:11. John 17:22–23 might be understood similarly: “And the glory which you have given me, I have given to them in order that they should attain a state of (divine) oneness, just as we are one; I in them and you in me in order that a they should come to a state of (divine) oneness” (translation mine, with emphasis added for the Greek hen, which is taken as a neuter).
[37] Witherington, “Letters and Homilies for Jewish Christians,” 154. As Johnson notes, the statement “he is not ashamed” may constitute “an example of litotes, or understatement, meaning in truth, ‘he is proud to call them brothers’”; Johnson, Hebrews, 98. It is an “understatement that intensifies”; Lanham, A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms, 95, defines litotes as “denial of the contrary; understatement that intensifies.” DeSilva observes that “In [Hebrews] 2:11, [Hebrews] reminds the believers that they share a common lineage with Christ, such that Christ without disgrace owns them as kin”; David A. DeSilva, “Despising Shame: A Cultural-Anthropological Investigation of the Epistle to the Hebrews,” Journal of Biblical Literature 113, no. 3 (1994): 457. Jesus is honored by his family and by extension so is God the Father (compare Moses 1:39). Again, the high social value of accomplishments and deeds that advance the family and its honor in Greco-Roman society best explain for Hebrews’ Hellenistic Jewish Christian audience why the full-initiation (ٱō) of Jesus, the architect or initiator of salvation for the “many sons and daughters” was “becoming” (KJV, “it became him”) or “appropriate” (eprepen).
[38] Patrick Gray, “Brotherly Love and the High Christology of Hebrews,” Journal of Biblical Literature 122, no. 2 (2003): 339.
[39] Gray, “Brotherly Love and the High Christology of Hebrews,” 339.
[40] Johnson, Hebrews, 95.
[41] Hebrews’s use of “glory” in 2:10 recalls first, and notably, the glory of the Father in 1:2, of which Jesus is the apaugasma, the “radiance” or “reflection.” Secondly, glory in 2:10 recalls the “glory and honor” (doxē kai timē) wherewith humanity has been and will be crowned (Hebrews 2:7), and the “glory and honor” wherewith Jesus, as “Son of man” has been crowned, as in Hebrews’s Christological interpretation of Psalm 8. The effulgent glory of the Father (reflected in the glory of the “crowned” Son with the glory into which God and Jesus are leading “the many sons and daughters.” Thirdly, in “glory and honor,” we find a further expression of the honor/
[42] Lanham, A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms, 117, defines polyptoton as “repetition of words from the same root but with different endings.”
[43] Johnson, Hebrews, 96.
[44] Witherington, Letters and Homilies for Jewish Christians, 63.
[45] Gray, “Brotherly Love and the High Priest Christology of Hebrews,” 340.
[46] Johnson, Hebrews, 96.
[47] The mention ŧDz also recalls Hebrews’s more immediate use of ŧ in Hebrews 2:3 referring to the “beginning” of the salvation (ōŧ) which was spoken by Jesus as Lord (kyrios). The presence of forms of beginning (ŧ) and Lord (kyrios in both Hebrews 1:10 and 2:3 suggests a deliberate tie between those two passages. It seems even more probable then that the appellation introduced here in Hebrews 2:10, “the captain of their salvation” (ton ŧDz tēs ōŧs autōn), is an allusion to, or a play upon, what Hebrews has just mentioned in Hebrews 2:3 and earlier in Hebrews 1:10. The word “salvation” (ōŧ) requires little commentary here. A Greco-Roman audience, including a Hellenistic Jewish audience, would have been familiar with this word from its abundant use in both biblical and non-biblical contexts. They would have been familiar with its cognate “savior” (ōŧ) as an epithet of gods and rulers, including the God of Israel (in the LXX). In practical terms, “salvation” recalls the “so great a salvation” (ŧ첹ܳŧ . . . ōŧs) that Hebrews warns against neglecting in Hebrews 2:3.
[48] BDAG, 995: “pert[aining] to being a cult initiate, initiated. As a t[echnical] t[erm] of the mystery religions, [teleios] refers to one initiated into mystic rights.” See further BDAG, 996. “As a term of mystery religions consecrate, initiate, pass. Be consecrated become a [teleios.”
[49] Koester, Hebrews, 229.
[50] Johnson, Hebrews, 96; emphasis mine.
[51] Johnson, Hebrews, 96.
[52] DeSilva, “Despising Shame,” 457. In DeSilva also cites Aristotle, Rhet. 1.5.5., observing that “noble birth comes from either father or mother; there must be legitimacy [ŧdzŧ.”
[53] Although, it is unclear whether Hebrews’s Jewish Christian audience would know or be expected to know Matthew 5:48, we note that this passage seems to paraphrase the final phrase in Leviticus 11:45, thus: “Be ye therefore perfect [teleioi], even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect [teleios.”
[54] Johnson, Hebrews, 97.
[55] If the sacrament can be connected with Christ’s sharing in flesh and blood with humanity, it also symbolizes his “taking hold of” (epilambanetai, KJV “he took on,” NRSV, “help[ing]”) the seed of Abraham.” Draper and Rhodes observe, “what drove the Lord to become mortal was his care for Abraham’s posterity”; Draper and Rhodes, Epistle to the Hebrews, 161. For Hebrews and his audience, the word epilambanomai had a covenant sense and it helps us see a deeper connection between the sacrament and the Abrahamic covenant, both of which the saints partake as the literal or baptized “seed of Abraham.” This is the same verb (epilambanomai) that Hebrews uses in a covenant sense when quoting Jeremiah 31:31–34 in Hebrews 8:9–12 (“when I took them by the hand [epilabomenou] to lead them out of the land of Egypt”).
[56] Jeffrey R. Holland, “None Were with Him,” Ensign, May 2009, 87–88.
[57] Peeler, You Are My Son, 105.
[58] Peeler, You Are My Son, 105–6.
[59] Gray, “Brotherly Love and the High Christology of Hebrews,” 435.
