Ver. 8. πάντα ὑπέταξας.. . . “ Thou didst put all things under his feet.” In the psalm ‘‘all things”? are defined as “6 all sheep and oxen, yea and the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passes through the paths of the sea’’. But to our author the scope of the ‘‘all” has
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3 ~ » Εν γὰρ τῷ ὑποτάξαι αὐτῷ τὰ πάντα, οὐδὲν ἀφῆκεν αὐτῷ
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μένα. 9. “τὸν δὲ βραχύ τι παρ ἀγγέλους ἠλαττωμένον βλέπομεν ᾳΑειςή.3;
Phil. ii. 7,
᾿Ιησοῦν, διὰ τὸ πάθημα τοῦ θανάτου, δόξῃ καὶ τιμῇ ἐστεφανωμένον, 8, a
been enlarged by the event. His argu- ment requires an absolutely universal subjection, so that everything obstructive of man’s “ glory ᾿᾿ may be subdued. And having seen this achieved by Christ, he is emboldened to give to ‘‘all” this fullest content. The one point he seeks to make good is that “in subjecting all things to him, he has left nothing, and therefore not the οἰκουμένη péd- λουσα, unsubjected to him”. The ‘‘world to come” is under human do- minion and administration. The angels are left behind; there is no room for angelic government. But this very sov- ereignty of man is precisely that which we do not see visibly iulfilled: ‘‘ for the present (νῦν) we do not yet see all things subjected to him”. ‘True, says the author, but we do see Jesus who for the suffering of death (or that He might suffer death) has been made a little lower than angels, crowned with glory and honour that by God’s grace He might taste death for every man. In other words, we see the first two items of man’s supremacy, as given in the psalm, fulfilled, and the third guaranteed. Jesus was (1) made a little lower than angels ; (2) was crowned with glory and honour; and (3) by dying for every man has removed that last obstacle, the fear of death which kept men in δουλεία and hindered them from supreme dominion over all things. The construction of the sentence is much debated. But it must be ad- mitted that any construction which makes the coronation subsequent to the tasting death for every man, is unnatural; the ὅπως depends upon ἐστεφανωμένον. And the difficulty which has been felt in giving its natural sense to this clause has been introduced by supposing that δόξῃ καὶ τιμῇ ἐστεφ. refers to the heavenly state of Jesus. On this understanding it is of course difficult to see how it could be said that Jesus was crowned in order to taste death. But as undoubtedly the first clause, ἠλαττουμένον βλέπομεν, refers to the earthly life of Jesus, it is natural to suppose that the second clause, which speaks of his being crowned, also refers to that life. The tenses are the same. But if so, what was the crowning here referred to? It was His recognition
as Messiah, as the true Head and King of men. He was thus recognised by God at His baptism and at the Trans- figuration [in connection with which the same words δόξῃ κ. τιμῇ are used, 2 Pet. i. 16-18] as well as by His disciples at Caesarea Philippi. It was this crowning alone which enabled Him to die a representative death, the King or Head for His people; it was this which fitted Him to taste death for every man. He was made a little lower than the angels that He might suffer death; but He was crowned with glory and honour that this very death might bring all men to the glory of supremacy which was theirs when the fear of death was removed; 866 v. 14,15. Fora fuller exposition of this view of the verse, see Expository Times, April, 1896. χάριτι θεοῦ, “by God’s grace,” to men, not directly to Jesus. It is remarkable that Weiss, an expert in textual criticism, should adopt the reading χωρὶς θεοῦ “ apart from God” finding in these words a reference to the cry on thecross “ My God, My God, etc.”’. The other meaning put upon the words, 6 εχεερί God,” needs no comment. The Nestorians used the reading to prove that Christ suffered apart from His Divinity (‘divinitate tantisper deposita οὐ συνῆν ἡ θεότης ”’) but such a meaning can hardly be found in the words. ὑπὲρ πάντος, these are the emphatic words, bringing out the writer’s point that Christ’s victory and supremacy were not for Himself alone, but for men. [Chrysostom strikingly says: οὐχὶ τῶν πιστῶν μόνον, ἀλλὰ Kal τῆς οἰκουμένης ἁπάσης" αὐτὸς μὲν γὰρ ὑπὲρ πάντων ἀπέθανεν - τί δὲ, εἰ μὴ πάντες ἐπίστευ- σαν: αὐτὸς τὸ ἑαυτοῦ πεπλήρωκε. γεύσηταιθανάτον “he might taste death,” 1.6., actually experience death’s bitterness. The Greek commentators suppose the word is chosen to bring out the shortness of our Lord’s experience of death, μικρὸν ἐν αὐτῷ ποιήσας διάστημα. This seemsincorrect. [The tule, sometimes laid down,, that γεύεσθαι followed by an accusative means to partake freely, and by a genitive spar- ingly, cannot be universally applied. The ordinary distinction observed in the use of verbs of sense that they take the