This shews us the Christ standing in the midst of those who are saved,
whom God brings to glory, although at their head. It is this which our
epistle sets before us He who sanctifies (the Christ), and they who are
sanctified (the remnant set apart for God by the Spirit) are all of one:
an _expression_, the force of which is easily apprehended, but difficult to
express, when one abandons the abstract nature of the phrase itself.
Observe that it is only of sanctified persons that this is said. Christ
and the sanctified ones are all one company, men together in the same
position before God. But the idea goes a little farther.
It is not of one and the same Father; had it been so, it could not have
been said, "He is not ashamed to call them brethren." He could not then do
otherwise than call them brethren.
If we say "of the same mass" the _expression_ may be pushed too far, as
though He and the others were of the same nature as children of Adam,
sinners together. In this case He would have to call every man His
brother; whereas it is only the children whom God has given Him,
"sanctified" ones, that He calls so. But He and the sanctified ones are
all as men in the same nature and position together before God. When I say
"the same," it is not in the same state of sin, but the contrary, for they
are the Sanctifier and the sanctified, but in the same truth of human
position as it is before God as sanctified to Him; the same as far forth
as man when He, as the sanctified one, is before God. On this account He
is not ashamed to call the sanctified His brethren.
This position is entirely gained by resurrection; for although in
principle, the children were given to Him before, yet He only called them
His brethren when He had finished the work which enabled Him to present
them with Himself before God. He said indeed "mother, sister, brother;"
but He did not use the term "my brethren," until He said to Mary of
Magdala, "Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend to my Father and
your Father, and to my God an your God." Also in Psalm 22 it is when He
had been heard from the horns of the unicorn, that He declared the name of
a Deliverer-God to His brethren, and that He praised God in the midst of
the assembly.
He spoke to them of the Father's name while on earth, but the link
itself could not be formed; He could not introduce them to the Father,
until the grain of wheat, falling into the ground, had died; until then He
remained
alone,
