Hebrews 2:10 says, “It was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and through whom are all things, in leading many sons into glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” The last step of God’s great salvation is to bring His many sons into glory, into His expression. In order to accomplish this, God needs an example, a model. Such a one would be the qualified Captain taking the lead to bring the many sons into glory. Christ is this Captain, the Captain of salvation. Before He became the Captain, however, He had to be perfected through sufferings. Although Christ was perfect before His incarnation, He did not have the experience of human suffering. It was necessary for Him to be perfected through suffering before He could become to the believers the Captain of salvation. The word “perfect” in Hebrews 2:10 means to carry to the end or consummation by completing or perfecting. To be perfect here actually means to be qualified. For Christ to be perfected by God does not imply any imperfection of virtue or attribute in the Lord Jesus, but only the completing of His experience of human sufferings which makes Him fit to become the Captain, the Leader, of His followers’ salvation. Because Christ has been perfected through His experience of human sufferings in the flesh, He is qualified to fulfill the office of the Captain of our salvation. He has cut the way into glory, He has taken the lead to enter into glory, and He is now the Captain bringing the believers into the glory which He has already entered.
One day Christ, who is the example, model, and Captain came into us. He is not only our Savior; He is the One who took the lead to enter into glory, the One who has entered into the full expression of God, the One who, even today, is this full expression. This One, who is God’s expression, the effulgence of God’s glory (Heb. 1:3), is the Christ who has come into us. Therefore, Colossians 1:27 says, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” On the one hand, Christ is in the heavens dwelling in the expression of God. On the other hand, He dwells in us.
When the Captain of salvation came into us, the glory came with Him. In other words, the Captain of salvation came into us to be the glory within us. At the very least, He came in to be the seed of glory. Now, as believers, we have this seed of glory, the Captain of salvation Himself, within us. Because He passed through sufferings in order to enter into glory and because He is now fully qualified to fulfill the office of Captain, Christ could come into us both as the Captain and as the glory. Now as the Captain of salvation, Christ is leading an army of believers into glory. Every day He is leading us into glory, into the expression of God. While He is leading us into glory, He is the glory within us. Eventually, when our entire being has been saturated with the element of glory, the glory will come out of us, and we shall be brought by our Captain fully into the expression of God.
Hebrews 6:20 says that Christ is also the believers’ Forerunner to enter into the veil. The book of Hebrews encourages the backsliding Hebrew believers to go forward to reach God’s goal. They were staggering in the Old Testament as in the outer court. The writer of Hebrews advises them to go on to reach God’s New Testament goal to enter into the veil, that is, to enter the Holy of Holies. For this, Christ has taken the lead, as a Forerunner, to enter into the veil that the believers may follow Him.
To the believers Christ is also the Apostle. “Consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus” (Heb. 3:1). The word “apostle” in Greek means a sent one, one who is sent by a higher authority. As our Apostle, Christ is the One who was sent to us from God and with God (John 6:46; 8:16, 29). God sent Christ to us as the Apostle to share God with us so that we may partake of His divine life, nature, and fullness. Moreover, as the Apostle Christ was sent to care for God’s house, the church, even to be the Builder of the house. Therefore, it is in the church as the house of God that we enjoy Christ as the faithful Apostle sent from God to us.
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