The Pulpit Commentary on Hebrews 2:8

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all things in subjection under him, etc. Here the argument from the psalm begins. It is to the following effect: For the subjection of all things, in the Creator's design, to man leaves nothing exempted from his sovereignty.

But we do not see man, as he is upon earth now, occupying this implied position of complete sovereignty. Therefore the full idea of the psalm awaits fulfillment. And we Christians find its complete fulfill-meat in him who, having become a man like us, and is made with us "a little lower than the angels," is now, as man, and for man, "crowned with glory and honor," at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

Or we may put it thus: In the present οἰκουμένη man is not supreme over "all things" in the sense denoted; but in the οἰκουμένη to come "of which we speak," with its far wider bearings, he is, in the Person of Christ, over "all things" thus supreme.

Therefore in Christ alone does man attain his appointed destiny. We may here observe how, even without the enlightenment of Scripture, man's own consciousness reveals to him an ideal of his position in creation which, in his present state, he does not realize.

The strange apparent contradiction between man as he is and man as he feels he should be, between experience and conscience, between the facts and the ideal of humanity, has long been patent to philosophers as well as divines.

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