Hebrews 2:11-12 says, “For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of One, for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, ‘I will declare Your name to My brothers; in the midst of the church I will sing hymns of praise to You.’” Christ the Sanctifier is of the Father, and the believers as those being sanctified are also of the Father. For this reason, He called them brothers, declared the Father’s name to them, and sang hymns of praise unto God the Father. This took place after His resurrection. According to John 20, the resurrected Christ as the firstborn Son of God came to meet with the disciples as His brothers.
He who sanctifies is Christ as the firstborn Son of God, and those who are being sanctified are the believers of Christ as the many sons of God. Both the firstborn Son and the many sons of God are born of the same Father God in resurrection (Acts 13:33; 1 Pet. 1:3) and have the same divine life and nature. Hence, He is not ashamed to call them brothers.
According to Hebrews 2:11, “Both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of One.” He who sanctifies is Christ, and those who are being sanctified are the believers. Hence, Christ and we the believers are all of One. The Greek word translated “of” actually means “out of.” This means that Christ and we, the Sanctifier and the sanctified, are all out of one source, one Father. The source surely does not refer to position but to nature, to disposition. The Sanctifier and the sanctified are all out of one source, one Father. The Father is the source of the Sanctifier, and He is the source of all the sanctified.
He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all out of One. Because of this, He is not ashamed to call us brothers. Rather, it is glorious for Him to call us brothers because He and we are of the same source. He has come from the Father, and we also have come out of the Father.
The Sanctifier is the Son of God. In His original state and before His incarnation, the Son of God could not sanctify us. However, the Sanctifier today is not only the Son of God but the Son of God incarnated. If He had never been incarnated, He would be unable to sanctify us.
As the incarnated One, Christ is the Son of Man. This Son of Man could not sanctify us until He was crucified, resurrected, glorified, and exalted. These are His qualifications for Him to be our Sanctifier. The incarnated Son of God needed to pass through death and resurrection so that His humanity might be born of God and that He might be glorified and exalted into the position of His being Sanctifier.
In order to be the Sanctifier, Christ had to be produced as the firstborn Son of God (1:6). The Firstborn can sanctify us because He, like us, has two natures and because we have the same natures that He has. Our Sanctifier is not the only begotten Son of God; He is the firstborn Son of God, the One who has the human nature as well as the divine nature. Because He and we are of the same two natures, He can sanctify us. Only when the firstborn Son was produced could the Sanctifier come into His office to do His sanctifying work. This means that He had to pass through the process of incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, glorification, and exaltation. After passing through this process, He became the firstborn Son of God. In other words, the firstborn Son of God was produced. This is our Sanctifier. He is qualified to be our Sanctifier, and we are qualified to be the sanctified.
He is qualified to be the Sanctifier because He is the firstborn Son of God, and we are qualified to be the sanctified because we are the many sons of God. He was qualified through His incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, glorification, and exaltation. After passing through this process, He became the firstborn Son of God. Our qualifications to be the sanctified are that we have the propitiation for our sins (2:17), that we have been released from the slavery of death (vv. 14-15), and that we have been brought forth to be the many sons of God (v. 10). Now both He and we are qualified. He is the qualified Sanctifier, and we are the qualified sanctified. We are fully qualified through the propitiation and resurrection of Christ.
We have seen that the Sanctifier and the sanctified are all out of One. This means that they are all out of one Father. Both the Sanctifier and the sanctified are sons born of the same Father. Since He and we are born of the same Father, we are His brothers. We and He have all come out of the same source, and we share with Him the same life and nature. In this life and nature we are now under His sanctifying work to transform us from being natural and to conform us to His image so that we may be glorified with the glory of God. Sanctification is to separate the reborn sons of God unto God, to transform them metabolically and organically with the element of the divine life, to conform them to His image, and to glorify them with His glory. The meaning of God’s sanctifying work is that the firstborn Son of God is working on the many sons of God.