Christ is Not Ashamed to Call Us Brethren

The author of Hebrews is unknown, and the content of the book can be hard to comprehend, especially from your first reading. It really is a text you need to move slowly through, where you can look back to the Old Testament quotations to try and better understand the illustrations the author provides. Today we will look at a small excerpt from Chapter 2 that has some amazing statements about Christ and His people.

​ 
Hebrews 2:11-15 (NASB1995), “11 For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, 12 saying,
“I will proclaim Your name to My brethren, In the midst of the congregation I will sing Your praise.” 13 
And again,
“I will put My trust in Him.”
And again,
 “Behold, I and the children whom God has given Me.”
14 Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”[1]
 
The first question I had when I read these verses was how can both Christ and believers be from one Father, if Christ has always existed into eternity past? It seems as though the text implies that Christ and man both have an origin. But that is not what the text is really saying, and we know this because of what the author of Hebrews writes about Christ’s eternal existence and His nature as God in the book.

Hebrews 1:8 says, “But of the Son He says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, And the righteous scepter is the scepter of His kingdom.” Clearly, by attributing a quotation from Psalm 45:6-7 to Jesus Christ, is attributing the title of God also to the Son, declaring that He is fully God within the trinity. The author likewise writes that Christ is sinless in 4:15, “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.” And he also expounds later on in 7:26-27 on the characteristics of the Son of God, “26 For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; 27 who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.”

So, this linkage of the believer to Christ, as they are from one Father, cannot mean that Christ has sin or that Christ is anything less than the Father in terms of being fully God. It also cannot mean that Christ had a beginning as a created being would have a beginning, and we know this from Hebrews 13:8, “8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” If He has always been the same, if He was not created (as we see in John 1), then He has always been the Son, He has been sinless, He has always been God and has always been infinitely greater than ourselves.
​
So, when I see that we are as believers and Christ as God are both from one Father, it isn’t meant to imply that we are equal with Christ or that Christ had a beginning; it’s meant to show that in two different senses we are both from one Father, man (as sons) and Christ (as the Son). For Christ, He is eternally begotten from the Father. John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And in John 1:14 it says, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Since Christ had no beginning but He is begotten, Christ is an eternally begotten Son of the Father, and He has always existed as the Son, since He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. While Christ is from the Father in the sense of being eternally begotten, man is from the Father in the sense that we are drawn by Him and gifted to His Son.

John 6:37-39 says, “37 All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. 39 This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.” And in 6:44, “44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.”

Believers, those who are sanctified (Hebrews 2:11), are from the Father in the sense that we are drawn and gifted to the Son to inherit salvation [2], Christ is from the Father in the sense that He is the eternally begotten Son. What happens then, is that Christ, in His incarnation, since He took on the flesh of mankind, became not only our savior in His life, crucifixion and resurrection, but He also became our brother as He was wrapped in flesh just as we are. And since those who will become believers are chosen by the Father to be gifted to the Son, Christ in His perfect union with the Father, of course doesn’t find shame in claiming us as His brethren!

This passage shows us the humility of Christ in His incarnation to take on the flesh and blood of humanity, so that He could take our sins and the wrath of God on Himself to free us from our bondage to sin. And in this humility, even though we are from one Father in two different senses, Christ is not ashamed to call us brethren. What a beautiful picture of the love Christ has for us, that He would find pleasure to call us his brothers and sisters!

We see something similar in Matthew 12:48-52, “48 But Jesus answered the one who was telling Him and said, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” 49 And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, “Behold My mother and My brothers! 50 For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.”

Through faith in Christ (genuine belief, trust, and commitment), we become part of the family of God. Christ finds no shame in claiming us as family. So the meditation for us today then is this: why do we find shame in claiming Him?

Even though we know that Christ became a man, that He bore our sins on the cross, and that He rose again from the dead, and even though we know He finds joy in claiming us, why are we continually scared to claim Him? We should be unashamed to claim Him as He is unashamed to claim us.

Imagine there was once a righteous king who ruled a kingdom with justice and understanding. This king is kind, infinitely wealthy, generous, and owns many estates. In his kingdom, a peasant girl lives not far from his castle. The King has known her for years, she is poor, often dirty, and doesn’t have many friends because she is reserved to spending most of her time taking care of pigs. Since the king often strides through the kingdom riding on a pristinely white stallion in his ethereal green garments, he has noticed her many times working tirelessly.

The king loves to stop and mingle with the people, to ask them how he can help them, and often, to offer them a better way of life. On one particular evening, the king decides to stop and speak to the peasant girl. He offers her a new job to work in his castle, where she can have nice clothes and clean water, where she can take as many breaks as she desires, and where she can be free from the daily struggles of feeding pigs and neglecting her friendships. Here, the king’s intention is to befriend her, provide for her, and doesn’t expect much in return, for he doesn’t need her to work in the castle, he has plenty of workers in the castle already.

If the king made this offer to the girl, what reason would she have to say no?

She might say that she likes feeding pigs, she prefers the dirt and the mire, because at least the filth and the pigs are hers. And you know, she prefers being alone because she’d rather be in her own thoughts than sharing them with a friend over cookies and tea. Besides, she wouldn’t fit in at the castle, that’s where all the uppity people are. That’s where the people are who have last names and numbers and reputations. Who is she to be around them all, even if the king himself wants her there?

And that would be all well and good if she said no, but clearly, it wouldn’t be wise. Her thoughts are silly. After all, the king’s castle is full of people just like her, poor peasants who had nowhere else to go, and he simply offered them a better way of life. Any reason she could come up with for denying the offering of the king would really be quite unreasonable.

And that’s the kicker, we have a similar situation before us and we act unreasonably. A King has come to us, He has ventured from His castle to us, and we need not take the opportunity He offers us for granted. He may come today on His horse, offering his hand to us, but tomorrow He may not. Of course, if you say yes to his offer, you are going to let go of the crumbs you have before you and accept a full course meal ahead of you. You will say goodbye to the pigs and the mud and hello to the white stallions, the golden-grey curtains, and the dawn-feather pillows. In saying yes to one thing you are saying no to another.
​
While this illustration breaks down in a number of areas (as most illustrations do), it helps paint the picture for us that we have something so much greater than our sin before us, but yet, however unreasonably, we prefer our sin. For those who are already believers, we should implore each other to be joyful and bold about claiming the name of Christ, a humble King who isn’t ashamed to claim us, who wants to befriend us and offer us life. Oh, how grateful we should be!
 
Cite: Faucett, D. (2024). Christ is Not Ashamed to Call us Brethren. Science Faith & Reasoning. Retrieved from: https://www.scifr.com/articles/christ-is-not-ashamed-to-call-us-brethren
 
References:
1.All Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible 1995 translation by The Lockman Foundation.
2.Beyond John 6, we also see in Hebrews 2:13 the Son’s affirmation of the children God has given Him. Ephesians 1 speaks to the predestination and adoption of the sons of God; and since believers are chosen by the Father, we are from the Father.

Daniel T. Faucett

M.S. Biology
​Director of Science Faith & Reasoning
Host of Science Faith & Reasoning podcast and Coffee With John Calvin ​podcast