Peter SmytheA Different Kind of Word Preacher

But Jesus, made some little less than messengers we do behold: By reason of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honour, To the end that by the favour of God in behalf of everyone he might taste death. (Hebrews 2.9, Rotherham)

In a series of earlier posts, we explored (in a short way) the history of what scholars call “textual criticism” and showed how a different rendition of text may be applied to Hebrews 2.9. In those posts (see Part 1 here), we said that “by the favour of God” could (read: should) read “apart from God.” With this textual remix, the scripture reads like this:

But Jesus, made some little less than messengers we do behold: By reason of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honour, To the end that apart from God in behalf of everyone he might taste death. (Hebrews 2.9, Rotherham-Smythean remix)

As we’ve covered Jesus’s Descent into Hell, the fact that he was literally made sin, and the goat to Azazel, we can better understand the depth of meaning behind Hebrews 2.9 with the “apart from God” text.

In this verse, the writer of Hebrews (whom we believe is Paul) uses the term “death” twice. The ordinary Sunday sermon speaks of the Hebrews 2.9 death as a physical death only - “by reason of suffering a physical death on the cross” and “on behalf of everyone he died the death of the cross,” but the remix of “apart from God” puts the verse in quite a different context, doesn’t it? We know that a man who dies apart from God does not pass “Go” and goes directly to jail. That man suffers the torture of the damned which is chillingly demonstrated with the rich man in Luke 16. When Jesus died physically on the cross, he died as a Luke 16 man - one “apart from God.”

This Word “Death”

In the Greek, there are two words that are usually translated “death”: nekros and thnetos. For English majors and Rolling Stone fans, nekros is the more familiar word, i.e., necrophilia (sex with a corpse). Nekros is usually used to mean a human corpse or euphemistically as something as useless as a corpse. Thnetos is the more unfamiliar word and it is the “death” used in Hebrews 2.9. Here is what T.J. McCrossan, a late Greek scholar, had to say about thnetos:

The Greek word for a dead human body is ‘nekros,’ but never ‘thnetos,’ which always refers to something ‘subject to death,’ but never, never to a dead body. (T.J. McCrossan, Bodily Healing and the Atonement at 50)

We see McCrossan’s definition played out in some other verses:

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal (thneto) body so that you obey its lusts - (Romans 6.12, NASB)

But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal (thneta) bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. (Romans 8.11, NASB)

In these verses, thnetos could not mean physical death or a corpse - “do not let sin reign in your physically dead body”or “will also give life to your physically dead body”. As McCrossan points out, thnetos means “subject to death.” When you apply this definition to Hebrews 2.9, it brings out more of the spiritual realities of the crucifixion which Isaiah saw in Isaiah 52 and 53 (see Isaiah’s quotes in our 2 Corinthians 5.21 series):

But Jesus, made some little less than messengers we do behold: By reason of the suffering of being subject to death crowned with glory and honour, To the end that apart from God in behalf of everyone he might taste being subject to death. (Hebrews 2.9, Rotherham-Smythean-McCrossan remix)

A comparison to Romans 5.12 also provides the texture of spiritual death to Jesus’s cross:

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death (thanatos) through sin, and so death (thanatos) spread to all men, because all sinned— (Romans 5.12, NASB)

[thanatos is another lexical form of thnetos - they are the same word used in different forms]

In Romans 5.12, thnetos is all about spiritual death, not physical death (although physical death ensues from spiritual death).

“Tasting” Death

As the Net Bible Notes note, the English word “taste” in Hebrews 2.9 doesn’t really give us a full understanding of the word or the verse, i.e., taste is usually thought of as taking a small amount. The Net Bible Notes give us the better understanding of “taste”:

Here the Greek verb does not mean “sample a small amount” (as a typical English reader might infer from the word “taste”), but “experience something cognitively or emotionally; come to know something” (cf. BDAG 195 s.v. γεύομαι 2) (Net Bible Notes on Hebrews 2.9)

Jesus did not just “taste” a little bit of spiritual death, but took the whole bottle when God made him to be sin for us.

[Note: While the Greeks regularly used nekros to describe corpses in the context of physical bodies, all over the N.T. Paul writes that Jesus was raised “out of dead ones” (ek nekron) which is usually translated “from the dead.” When we parse ek nekron or “from the dead” in reference to the resurrection, the context is that Jesus was raised out from those who are corpses in the spiritual sense, e.g., the rich man in Luke 16.]