The NT epistle for Candlemas, or the Presentation of Jesus in the temple, is Heb 2.14–18. With its emphasis on the humanity of Jesus, it complements the gospel reading of Luke 2.22–40.
Hebrews can be a challenging read, with dense theological ideas and unusual grammar, but it is also compelling and memorable. The author (whom we do not know) is clearly deeply rooted in the Greek OT (the Septuagint or LXX) and yet uses the language of Greek philosophy. Having emphasised Jesus’ exalted nature in the first chapter, he now expounds his full humanity, which leads into the idea of Jesus as the merciful High Priest for us.
Come and join Ian and James as they explore these questions! Revd James Blandford-Baker is vicar of Histon and Impington, two villages just north of Cambridge.
Full written commentary behind the discussion can be found on the blog.
The video on the gospel reading for this week of Luke 2.22–40, the presentation in the temple, can be found here.
You can read the written commentary about it here, and the discussion mentioned in that video of whether the Holy Family were ‘poor’ here.
Timely, in light of the previous tangential comments on the article
Victory how?
It is from within the sacrificial system.
Jesus as clean spotless High Priest; propitiation. Done for us, in our place, stead.
My mother lived most of her life in fear of death.
Last week, a cousin who lives in Thailand phoned. I hadn’t heard from him for a few years after the death of his mother, my aunt.
Was I alright? Was I still alive?
Afte some chat, he quickly went off the line after I said that I’ll be eternally alive with Christ.
Keener in the IVP Bible Background commentary writes (abstracted, numeration, mine):
1. Jesus had to become part of humanity, as in Psalm 8:4-6 to become a new forerunner, a new Adam for humanity.
2. 2:16. Still expounding Psalm 8:4-6 reminding readers that Christ acted as a forerunner for God’s people (Abraham’s seed; cf perhaps Isaiah 41:8-9 for the world to come, not for angels.)
The OT called Abraham’s chosen descendants ‘children of God e.g. Deut 32:19; Hosea 11:1.
3. The writer is addressing Jewish believers who have long believed that a great destiny awaits them in the future.
4. Christ is already exalted above the angels (2:7,9) as his people will be in the age to come(2:5).
Propitiation / Expiation / Atoning sacrifice
is the original a hard concept to translate? Which is best? Which comes closest to the true meaning?
“Through his ‘great salvation’ he made expiation or propitiation for the sins of the people …It is perfectly permissible to translate this verse, 17, as Christ’s work in making ‘expiation’, but as Bruce has made clear, ‘if sins require to be expiated, it is because they are against someone who ought to be propitiated’
An OT priest committed himself to ‘the service of God’ and part of jos essential ministry was on behalf of the congregation was to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”
The Message of Hebrews, Raymond Brown. TBST, IVP
I have been told that Tyndale invented the word ‘atonement’ from ‘at-one-ment’ to translate the idea. Perhaps this was because he had no better single word.
In Heb 2:17 where the ESV has “to make propitiation for …”, that is translating the Greek verb hilaskomai. It only occurs twice in the NT, the other place being in Luke 18:13, the tax collector saying “God, be merciful to me.” It occurs 12 times in the LXX. In most of these the context is God forgving or pardoning (or not in one case).
In most cases the corresponding Hebrew verb is kip.per. This is a Piel form. The root verb means ‘cover’ (hence the name of the little Jewish cap). Of course, this is also related to “Yom Kippur” – the Day of Atonement (as we say).
There are two closely related words in the NT. There is hilasterios, which appears in Heb 9:5, translated by the ESV as “mercy seat”. This is the most common usage in the LXX, describing a part of the Ark – in Hebrew kap.po.ret (from the same root as before). It is also in Rom 3:25:
“whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood,…” (ESV)
There is also hilasmos, also twice in the NT, in 1 John 2:2 and 1 John 4:10, the latter is:
“[God] loved us and sent his Son to be the propitation for our sins.”
Note how the above corresponds to what James and Ian were saying about God’s initiative in this.
These make me uncomfortable with the idea of propitiation in these context. To propitiate is to appease or seek favour with someone. If God is clearly the initiator of Jesus being a hilasmos, and this is about appeasing, who is being appeased?
I would suggest that ‘expiation’ is a better fit. This is about removing the effects of something. The Piel is an intensive form of the verb, and so an ‘intensive’ covering of sin might be expressed as, e.g., “blotting out”, another picture of forgiveness found, e.g. in Psalm 51.
Did not Jesus’ suffering and death ‘appease’ God’s wrath on man’s sin?
So both expiation and propitiation.
Hebrews 2:14
For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same…
“That through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” — HEBREWS ii.14, 15.
Here is the centrality of theology – the GOSPEL {Gresham Machen
American theologian)
From the beginning this was the Gospel declared in the holy Scriptures
3:14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
There is a special and ordained connection between the incarnation and the death of our blessed Lord. Other men die in due course after they are born; he was born just that he might die. He came “not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give” his “life a ransom for many.”
It is therefore evident that the theology which magnifies the incarnation at the expense of the atonement is fundamentally, fatally defective.
The gospel here is the Gospel of Emancipation – of DISTRUCTION AND DELIVERANCE.
To give but one example, Christ says, “I came not to bring peace but a sword” (Matt. 10:34). This sword is of two edges – to slay and to heal.
Mankind is often represented as trying to “slay their demons” through all kinds of phychological efforts. We are witness to the nature of our times and to the errant theologies of our Sentimental Times.
We live in a sentimental time that prioritizes subjectivities over objectivity, emotions over reason, feelings over facts.
The rise of sentimentality has been evident for many decades now, but things seem to be reaching a fever pitch, which is why one Jewish political commentator is forced to remind us incessantly that
“Facts don’t care about your feelings.”
When we lose sight of this obvious truth, when we become more concerned with how someone feels about what God has said instead of the facts of what God has said, we will face tremendous temptation to blur the clear lines of God’s commands and soften the hard edges of his truth.
A sentimental age cannot endure such truths. It wants only that which makes us feel good, instead of that which makes us actually good.
A sentimental age wants pleasantness, not discipline that feels painful for a time but which eventually yields a harvest of peace for those who are trained by it (Heb. 12:11).
It wants only hugs but never rebukes, even those given gently with great love (Eph. 4:15; Gal. 6:1).
It wants only winsomeness, but never strongly-worded denunciation (1 Kings 18:25–27; Ps. 2:4; Prov. 3:34; Matt. 12:34; 23:33; Gal. 5:12).
It wants to heal sick souls without hurting feelings,
to redirect the wayward without correcting,
to grow the immature without pruning,
to excise sin without cutting.
But this will never work, for you cannot crucify the old man without calling him to a cross.
To be sure, Christ does heal and soothe.
There is a balm in Gilead! But Christ kills before he heals (Mark 8:35; 8:34
We also live in therapeutic times in which everyone is a victim but never a sinner.
This outlook naturally follows the rapid decline of belief in God, truth, and objective morality.
In the absence of these facets of reality, the fundamental problem of humanity must be completely recast.
For if God and morality do not exist, then our basic problem cannot be moral or religious; it must be psychological instead. In this framework, the solution for what ails us never includes the faith and repentance that Christ made fundamental (Mark 1:15), only sympathetic counseling and psychotropic drugs.
And this situation is more dire than Christians seem to realize. For, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer rightly observed,
The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the Cross of Jesus. The greatest psychological insight, ability, and experience cannot grasp this one thing: what sin is. Worldly wisdom knows what distress and weakness and failure are, but it does not know the godlessness of man. And so it also does not know that man is destroyed only by his sin and can be healed only by forgiveness. Only the Christian knows this. In the presence of a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother I can dare to be a sinner. The psychiatrist must first search my heart and yet he never plumbs its ultimate depth. The Christian brother knows when I come to him: here is a sinner like myself, a godless man who wants to confess and yearns for God’s forgiveness. The psychiatrist views me as if there were no God. The brother views me as I am before the judging and merciful God in the Cross of Jesus Christ.11 SEE @biblehub.com/sermons/auth/king/christ’s_work_of_destruction_and_deliverance_rev_john_h_james.htm
The difference was established long ago, when ‘I believe’ lost precedence to ‘I feel,’ the caveat of the therapeutic.
And if the therapeutic is to win out, then surely the psycho-therapist will be his secular spiritual guide.”- A Pseudo Priesthood.
Jer 6:14 They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.
Jer 8:11 For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.