The awesome and deeply profound book of Hebrews (Iv’riym) begins with a revelation of the Son—not only of His divine preeminence, but of His Deity. In other words, the Son of God—Yeshua—is God. Yet it is not the Son’s deity alone which makes Yeshua perfect. Surprisingly, as we learn in Hebrews chapter 2, there was something that at one time even God couldn’t do. That’s why the Son’s perfection comes through His humanity.

The author of Hebrews says of Yeshua in chapter 2 that He was “made a little lower than Messengers” (2:9), or “angels.” This comes in paradoxical contrast with the Son’s portrayal in chapter 1 as actually being “better” and “more excellent” than Messengers. Indeed, the author even tells us that “all things” are submitted to Yeshua (2:8). What this being made “lower” refers to, then, is the Son’s being made a human being (cf. John 1:14). The author is therefore agreeing with what we find presented several times elsewhere in Scripture: he is affirming that Yeshua is both God and man.

But why would the Son of God—the Creator of everything—need to enter humanity in this way? The amazing reason, as revealed by the author, was for the purpose of Yeshua’s “suffering of the death” so that “he might taste of death for everyone” (Heb. 2:9). In other words, the reason why the Son was made a little lower than Messengers—why He was made a human being—was to do something that was previously impossible for God. The Son needed to be made flesh so that Yeshua could die, becoming the sacrifice for the whole world’s sins. It was therefore appropriate for God to go to such extreme lengths in order “to make perfect through sufferings the author of [our] salvation” (2:10). A Son of God who could not suffer and die for everyone was insufficient. Being human was the crucial step that made Yeshua able to accomplish God’s goal for our salvation, therefore making Yeshua perfect.

And why did the Son need to be perfected in this way in order to save us? Why was it necessary that He be able to suffer and die? The author begins answering this by affirming that Yeshua “is not ashamed to call [us] brothers” (2:11). And since Yeshua is our brother, and we all “have shared in blood and flesh,

“He Himself likewise shared of the same, so that through death He might destroy him who is having the power of death—that is, the Accuser—and might deliver those who… throughout all their life were enslaved to slavery.” (Hebrews 2:14-15, mjlt)

This is why the Son, though being God, had to empty Himself (cf. Phi. 2:7): so that Yeshua could share in our flesh and blood—not figuratively, not spiritually, but actually. Yeshua, the Word of God, was made flesh (cf. John 1:1,14)—made to share in the exact same nature as us, His brothers, so that He could do the one thing that God could not: experience death. Paul says that, “having been found as a man, [Yeshua] humbled Himself, having become obedient to death—death even of an execution stake” (Phi. 2:8). And He experienced death so that through that death, He could defeat it forever. In order to destroy the power of death and sin with resurrection power, Yeshua first needed to die. It is only through our shared humanity that Yeshua could become obedient to death, and through that same shared humanity that He was able to defeat our sin and death. “It was necessary,” the author of Hebrews continues, “for [Yeshua] to be made like the brothers in all things, so that He might… make appeasement for the sins of the people” (Heb. 2:17).

Yeshua isn’t perfect because He is God. He is perfect because He is both man and God. The Messiah’s perfection is due in part to what only His humanity could accomplish. He was sent to us so that He could be one of us—to be our brother, to share in our flesh and blood, and to be like us in all things. The Word of God became a human being so that Yeshua could do what was previously impossible for God: to die as a sacrifice on our behalf, making appeasement for our sins, so that we may live with Him forever.

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