xists. Yet the Apostle does not prove the statement. He appeals to the
intelligence and conscience of his readers to acknowledge its truth.
Whether we understand the word "sanctification" in the sense of moral
consecration through an atonement or in the sense of holy character, it
springs from union. Christ cannot sanctify by a creative word or by an
act of power. Neither can His power to sanctify be transmitted by God to
the Son externally, in the same way in which the Creator bestows on
nature its vital, fertilising energy. Christ must derive His power to
sanctify through His Sonship, and men must become sons of God that they
may be sanctified through the Son. Our passage adds Christ's
brotherhood. He that consecrates, therefore, and they that are
consecrated are united together, first, by being born of the same Divine
Father, and, second, by having the same human nature. Here, again, the
chain connects at both ends: on the side of God and on the side of man.
Now to have dwelling in Him the power of consecrating men to God is so
great an endowment that Christ may dare even to glory in the brotherhood
that brings with it such a gift.

4. Christ's glory manifests itself in the destruction of Satan, who had
the power of death, and his destruction is accomplished through
death.[34] The children of God have every one his share of blood and
flesh, which means vital, mortal humanity. Blood signifies life, and
flesh the mortality of that life. They are, therefore, subject to
disease and death. But to the Hebrews disease and death involved vastly
more than physical suffering and the termination of man's earthly
existence. They had their angel, by which is meant that they had a moral
significance. They were spiritual forces, wielded by a messenger of God.
This angel was Satan. But, following the lead of the later Jewish
theology, our author explains who Satan really is. He identifies him
with the evil spirit, who from envy, says the Book of Wisdom, brought
death into the world. To make clear this identification, he adds the
words, "that is, the devil." The reference to Satan is sufficient to
show that the writer of the Epistle means by "the power of death" power
to inflict it and keep men in its terrible grasp. But the difficulty is
to understand how the devil is destroyed through death. Evidently the
death of Christ is meant; we may paraphrase the Apostle's expression by
rendering, "through _His_ death." At first glance, the wo