To the interposed minatory warning of the three preceding verses now succeeds encouragement, based on the view, which has been now a second time led up to, of Christ being our great High Priest, who can both sympathize and succor.
The passage answers closely in thought to the conclusion of Hebrews 2:1-18., and might naturally have followed there; but that, before taking up the subject of Christ's priesthood, the writer had another line of thought to pursue, leading up (as has been explained) to the same conclusion.
The οὖν at the beginning of Hebrews 2:14 either connects κρατῶμεν ("let us hold fast") with the verses immediately preceding in the sense, "The Word of God being so searching and resistless, let us therefore hold fast," etc.
,—in which ease the participial clause ἔχοντες, etc., is a confirmation of this exhortation (so Delitzsch); or is connected logically with the participial clause as a resumption of the whole preceding argument.
Certainly the idea of the participial clause is the prominent one in the writer's mind, what follows being an expansion of it. And the position of οὖν suggests this connection. It is to be observed that, after the manner of the Epistle, this concluding exhortation serves also as a transition to the subject of the following chapters, and anticipates in some degree what is to be set forth, though all the expressions used have some ground in what has gone before.
Having then a great High Priest who hath passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. The rendering of διεληλυθότα τοὺς οὐρανοὺς in the A.V. ("is passed into the heavens") is evidently wrong.
The idea is that Christ has passed through the intermediate heavens to the immediate presence of God—to the sphere of the eternal σαββατισμὸς. In his use of the plural, τοὺς οὐρανοὺς, the writer may have had in his mind the Jewish view of an ascending series of created heavens.
Clemens Alexandrinus, e.g. speaks of seven: επτὰ οὐρανοὺς οὕς τινὲς ἀρίθμουσι κατ ἐπανάβασιν. Cf. also "the heaven and the heaven of heavens" (Deuteronomy 10:14; 2 Chronicles 6:18; Nehemiah 9:6), and "who hast set thy glory above the heavens" (Psalms 8:1), also "the third heaven," into which St.
Paul was rapt (2 Corinthians 12:2). Cf. also Ephesians 4:10, ὁ ἀναβὰς ὑπεράνω πάντων τῶν οὐρανῶν ἵνα πληρώσῃ τὰ πάντα. The conception of the phrase is that, whatever spheres of created heavens intervene between our earth and the eternal uncreated, beyond them to it Christ has gone,—into "heaven itself ( αὐτὸν τὸν οὐρανὸν);" "before the face of God" (Hebrews 9:24).
From this expression, together with Ephesians 4:10 (above quoted), is rightly deduced the doctrine of Christ s ubiquity even in his human nature. For, carrying that nature with him and still retaining it, he is spoken of as having passed to the region which admits no idea of limitation, and so as to "fill all things."
The obvious bearing of this doctrine on that of the presence in the Eucharist may be noted in passing. (It is to be observed that "the heavens" in the plural is used (Hebrews 8:1) of the seat of the Divine majesty itself to which Christ has gone.
It is the word διεληλυθότα that determines the meaning here) The designation, "Jesus the Son of God," draws attention first to the man Jesus who was known by that name in the flesh, and secondly to the "more excellent name," above expatiated on, in virtue of which he "hath passed through the heavens."
The conclusion follows that it is the human Jesus, with his humanity, who, being also the Son of God, has so "passed through." There may possibly (as some think) be an intention of contrasting him with Joshua ( ιησοῦς, verse 8), who won the entrance into the typical rest.
But it is not necessary to suppose this; verses 8 and 14 are at too great a distance from each other to suggest a connection of thought between them; and besides ἰησοῦν occurred similarly at the end of Hebrews 3:1, before any mention of Joshua.
The epithet μέγαν after ἀρχιερέα distinguishes Christ from all other high priests (cf. Hebrews 13:20, τὸν ποιμένα τῶν προβάτων τὸν μέγαν). The high priest of the Law passed through the veil to the earthly symbol of the eternal glory; the "great High Priest" has passed through the heavens to the eternal glory itself.
As to ὁμολογίας, cf. on Hebrews 3:1. In consideration of having such a High Priest, who, as is expressed in what follows, can both sympathize and succor, the readers are exhorted to "hold fast," not only their inward faith, but their "confession" of it before men.
A besetting danger of the Hebrew Christians was that of shrinking from a full and open confession under the influence of gainsaying or persecution.