John Brown, Hebrews Quote 6

Hebrews by John Brown   p. 134

    The Apostle’s assertion is, that it “behoved” the Divine Saviour “to be made like unto His brethren in all things.”  The expression, “in all things,” though in itself universal, is plainly to be limited.  It is to be limited, plainly, to the whole of those things necessary to the end in view.  And even with regard to these the conformity is not necessarily a complete and perfect conformity.  It plainly was not necessary that He should be conformed to His brethren in personal guilt or depravity.  This, so far from conducing to the gaining of the object in view, would have completely obstructed it.  The conformity referred to includes a conformity of nature.  They were men; and it was necessary that He should be a man, possessed of a body capable of suffering death, and a soul endowed with all the faculties and affections of human nature.  But the conformity was not complete.  His human nature was formed in a miraculous manner, and did not subsist by itself, but in union with the divine.  These particular differences were as necessary as the general conformity in nature was to the great end of His being a successful Saviour.  He was conformed to His people not only in nature, but in condition.  They are in a suffering condition; and He, when on earth, was in a suffering condition—exposed to the same kind of sufferings as those to which they were exposed; though these sufferings produced very different effects on His innocent and all-perfect mind from what they do on the minds of guilty, depraved men.

        This conformity both of nature and condition was becoming and necessary.  “It behoved Him.”  On the supposition of His being divinely appointed to save men as a high priest, this conformity was absolutely necessary.  He could not have made “reconciliation for the sins of His people”—He could not in the same degree have executed the duties of a Saviour—had He not been “in all things made like unto His brethren.”
The language here, as well as in the preceding context, seems intentionally so fashioned as to convey the idea that our Saviour was not originally conformed to His brethren:  “It behoved  Him to be made like” to them.

    The great object to the gaining of which this conformity of Christ to His brethren is necessary, is His being “a faithful and merciful high priest,” “to make reconciliation for the sins of His people.”  The object is twofold:  that as a high priest He might “make reconciliation for the sins of the people;” and that, in the discharge of His duties as high priest, He might show Himself at once “faithful and merciful.”  We have already seen that His conformity to His brethren implied two things—participation of their nature, and fellowship with them in their state of suffering.  The first of these was necessary to His being a high priest, and “making reconciliation for the sins of the people;” the second was necessary to His being “a merciful and faithful high priest,” in the way and degree in which His people stood in need of mercy and faithfulness.