Who He Helps

Hebrews 2:16 For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham.

16 οὐ γὰρ δήπου ἀγγέλων ἐπιλαμβάνεται ἀλλὰ σπέρματος Ἀβραὰμ ἐπιλαμβάνεται.

Given a discussion I have had recently on Facebook, this verse really leaps out at me.  Here we see that Jesus helps the σπέρματος Ἀβραὰμ.  The word σπέρματος is a genitive singular and it means "seed."  This would be very confusing except that this word can also be used in the singular to refer to a collective plural.  It's sort of like how a farmer would buy a bag of seed today.  You could say "seeds," but you don't have to in English and you don't in Greek either.

Why is this significant?  We know from the Old Testament that the "seed" of Abraham has two meanings.  One refers to Christ Himself as Paul explains in Galatians 3:16.  However, one does not have to read much in the Old  Testament to see how Israel is described as the seed of Abraham as well.  As my Old Testament professor pointed out over and over again, the three megathemes of the Old Testament are land, seed, and blessing.

Here we see that Christ helps the seed of Abraham.  Just taking this text at face-value, I don't see what else it could mean other than the author of Hebrews is identifying the church with the seed of Abraham.  It is possible that since this is written to a Jewish audience he is telling them that Christ helps the seed of Abraham, but that is just a subset of all the people who He helps.  I find that logically possible, but highly improbable.

To be fair I consulted my MacArthur Bible Commentary on this verse and, sure enough, that is the argument that he uses.  He writes that since the readers were Hebrews they would identify themselves with this description.  True, but it seems like that ignores the flow of the chapter.  We just had references to the "children God has given me," for example.  Read it for yourself and I think you'll see that the scope of the chapter refers to all of God's children in Christ.  I don't think it makes contextual sense to take this verse and limit it to those who are actually genetically linked to Abraham.

What do we do with this?  As a friend of mine says, Israel is the key to the Bible.  How we read the Bible depends on what we do with Israel.  If we take Israel to refer to the literal people who are genetically linked to Abraham then we read the Bible and particularly the Old Testament one way.  But if we understand the church to be the fulfillment of Israel then we read it another way.  A verse like this has me leaning in the latter category.  But frankly that gives me a lot of hope because that lets me read the Old Testament in a way that it actually has meaning to me rather than to a group of people that I will never truly be a part of, despite being grafted in.

Of course, I still have not studied any of this in a structured way so I am open to criticism and correction.  Please comment if you have thoughts on this matter.  Did I completely miss the point of this verse?

Note: This is the 1000th post for this blog.  I love round numbers like that.  I want to thank those of you who read this regularly.  I really write it for my own benefit as it serves as a way for me to get deeper into something I've read each day.  But if you've enjoyed it or been edified I'd love to know in the comments.