Hebrews / Question
Hebrews says Jesus shared “flesh and blood” to defeat the one who has the power of death and to help those in slavery through fear of death (Hebrews 2:14–15). It concludes that he had to be made like his brothers so he could become a merciful and faithful high priest and make propitiation for sins (Hebrews 2:17). The passage ties his full humanity to his priestly work.
Building on the idea that God’s “children” are human, the writer says the Son shared fully in human “flesh and blood” so he could die. By dying, he aimed to nullify the one described as holding death’s power, identified as the devil, and to free people whose lifelong fear of death kept them in slavery. This unit sits inside Hebrews’ opening argument about the Son’s superiority to angels (Hebrews 1:4), yet it explains why the Son nonetheless entered a low, mortal human condition.
Hebrews 2:14–16 says the Son fully shared the human condition (“flesh and blood”), with a stated purpose: to act through his own death. The passage presents death not only as an event humans suffer, but as a force that holds people in lifelong fear and a kind of slavery.
A common mistake is to turn the wording into a slogan. The better reading keeps the phrase tied to the passage, the speaker, and the problem the book is addressing.
Start with Hebrews 2:14-15, then read the surrounding section so the answer stays connected to the passage's flow.
14Since then the children have shared in flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner partook of the same, that through death he might bring to nothing him who had the power of death, that is, the devil,
15and might deliver all of them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.