He Became The Life-Giving Spirit

Hebrews 2:16

“For indeed He did not receive the form of angels to Himself, but the seed of Abraham He received to Himself.” (mast) 

The context is clearly talking about Christ taking bodily form to himself according to a man’s nature (Heb.10:5).  But the Greek verb tense is the present form; however, the middle passive voice makes it a completed act to himself by his death and resurrection. It is by one act that souls are released from the power of death’s corruption (Heb.2:14-15). Therefore, it is in the present tense because that is the state in which Christ remains according to the glorified form of taking on the seed of Abraham’s faith (Rom.8:29-30; James 2:1). But to interpret the verb as “giving aid,” which doesn’t exist anywhere in the Greek manuscript, is misleading the reader.

Again, the verb voice for epilambanetai is middle passive, which means it can be both passive and reflexive. The verb is used twice in a contrast comparison of the word spermatos, which the angels do not possess but are genitive of in spiritual form only. Spirits do not have a physical body, but they can take the appearance of a body (Gen.18:1-2, 9-10, 13-14, 16-18, 20-22; 19:1, 10-13). They have no “seed” in themselves to procreate, but Jesus took the “seed” of the woman (Gen.3:15; 1Jn.4:1-3). Therefore, the contrast between angel and seed here is the physical nature and form of the humanity that Christ “received to himself” or took to himself to redeem the sinful soul of man, corrupted by the spiritual nature of the serpent’s lie that led him into death, to himself again as Heb.2:14 already established as flesh and blood (Phil.2:5-8; Rom.6:3-6; 1Cor.15:45-49; Matt.16:17). But notice that Christ does become “spirit” again through his resurrection and transfiguration in glory (emphasis: 1Cor.15:45). But it is a spiritual body with new features greater than the angels, possessing characteristics of both spirit and flesh (1Cor.15:35-39, 42-44; 1Jn.3:2; Jn.20:19, 26-27; Lk.24:31, 36-39; 2Cor.3:17-18; 4:3-6).

But to demonstrate this, the body of Adam had to be done away with through death (1Cor.15:20-22, 26, 50-57), which the soul of Christ was inherently fused with according to the created order by taking this “seed” to himself (Lk.1:30-31, 35; Matt.1:18, 20; Rom.8:3-4). But Jesus, before he took on flesh, was already like the angels, a soul fused with God in Spirit without a physical body (Jn.4:22-26). Therefore, He does not take on the form of an angel to appear as a man of flesh and blood as He did for Abraham (Gen.18:22; 19:1), but neither does he empty himself of the spiritual nature that fuses his soul to God in the Spirit (Lk.23:46; Jn.14:20; 17:3, 5, 20-24). He is both soul and spirit and one with God in the Spirit (Jn.10:30-38; Lk.10:21). But the human nature, according to the natural man (1Cor.2:11-16), takes on seed that reproduces in physical form that is fused as soul and body according to corruption (Matt.10:28; Ps.51:5; Isa.38:17; Ps.16:10). Therefore when Christ takes on flesh (Jn.1:14; 1Cor.15:47), there is a new creation of man that was not like the man which previously existed (Eph.2:13-18; 1Cor.15:45-49; Jn.10:8-9; Eph.4:23; Phil.1:27).

It is true that Christ did not become flesh to redeem angels, angels neither need redemption nor can be redeemed (Jn.6:70; 9:39; Acts 13:9-11; Lk.15:7; Heb.6:4-8), which was presupposed and superimposed according to the textual point of Heb.2:18, but he did become flesh to redeem the soul of man and prepare a spiritual body for that man in the house of God like the angels (Matt.18:10; 22:27-32). It is their angel that seats them on Christ’s right or left hand (Eph.1:3, 20; 2:6; 3:10; 6:12; Rev.12:7-8; 1Cor.6:3; Matt.25:41). Therefore the old man, which grows corrupt, must be put off and the new man, which was created by the image of Christ, must be put on to keep the soul from corruption because of the body of death (Eph.4:17-24; Rom.6:5-6; 7:24-25; Acts 2:23-24, 31; 13:34), which Christ gained victory over in his resurrection from the dead (1Cor.15:54-57), for there is one incorruptible soul (1Cor.15:50; Ps.51:5; 1Pet.1:4, 23; Jn.1:14; 1Pet.3:4), and it is the human body that corrupts the soul to the point of death by the image of Adam (1Cor.15:22, 33; Gal.3:13-14; 4:4-6), whose character was destroyed in the death of death by the death of Christ (Rom.8:3-4; Phil.2:5-7; 1Jn.3:8).

Therefore, Christ could not take on the form of an angel to save the soul because the soul was bound in death (Matt.16:18; Acts 2:27; Rev.1:18). This is why the traditional translators superimposed “giving aid” to angels as the interpretation, but that is not the point of the verse; nevertheless, that remains true (1Thess.5:19-22). Angels are in a state of glorious perfection (Ezk.28:14-15), whereas man was not created in perfection but in the innocence of the knowledge of God (Gen.2:16-17; Rom.5:13; Gen.3:4-5, 22). Therefore, when they sinned, they fell eternally, which is why as we grow in knowledge, we must also grow by grace (2Pet.3:17-18), for if we are sent out by knowledge alone (1Cor.8:1-7; Lk.9:55), we fall like the angels apart from grace (Eph.2:8-10; Gal.5:4-5; Lk.2:34; 10:18-20; Jn.1:51). We must have the “seed” of Abraham rather than the seed of the serpent as our foundation of faith (Gal.3:16, 27-29), for it was the head of the serpent that Christ crushed by his death (Jn.3:14; Gen.3:15). We must be transferred from Adam’s condemnation into Christ’s resurrection if we are to receive the glorious body prepared for the redeemed souls, a body like the angels (Rom.8:10-11, 23; Rev.21:17).