What the Bible says about Jesus Christ as the Archegos
(From Forerunner Commentary)
The word for "God" in this verse is elohim, a Hebrew word that is plural in form but can be used in a group sense like the English word "church" or "team," which describe a number of people forming one unit. Elohim, we could say, is a "kind." According to God Himself, mankind was created "after the God-kind."
Adoption can be a wonderful thing, but humanity is much more than adopted. God has actually sired us! Luke writes in Luke 3:38 that "Adam [was] the son of God." Some say that adopted children are special because they were chosen by their parents, but the Bible says that more than being just the physical offspring of God, Christians have been chosen by God before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). That is an incredible idea to consider.
Nothing produces offspring that is destined to be something different from its parent; it is a law of nature. In fact, Webster's Dictionary tells us that one of the definitions of reproduction is "the process among living organisms by which new individuals of the same kind are generated."
In John 3:3-8, Jesus relates a Christian's life, upon spiritual regeneration, to the process of being born into a new life. He says that to enter into the Kingdom of God, we must be born again. The apostle Paul, writing about the same thing, says that we become a new creation (II Corinthians 5:17). In I Corinthians 15:47-49, Paul writes that, as we have borne the image of the first man, Adam, "we shall bear the image of the heavenly man," Jesus Christ.
Job knew that he needed to be changed, saying in Job 14:14, "If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait, till my change comes." This hope helped him to have the patience and faith to endure his many trials. David knew that he would be resurrected in the likeness of God, as he writes in Psalm 17:15: "As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness." And of course, the apostle John says that although we do not know exactly what we will be like, when our change comes, "we shall be like [Christ], for we shall see Him as He is" (I John 3:2).
Quoting Psalm 8:4-6, Hebrews 2:5-9 says that man was made for a little while (margin) lower than the angels. In the Hebrew of Psalm 8, the word "angels" is elohim, which indicates that David referred, probably not to angels, but to God.
After stating this, the apostle goes on to remind us that Jesus Christ is the "Captain" of our salvation (Hebrews 2:10). This word "captain" is archegos, one who leads the way so that others may follow the same path. In an army, is the private, corporal, or sergeant any less of a human being than a lieutenant, captain, or even a general? Of course, the answer is "no." The soldier has less skill and authority than his superior officers, but they are just as human as he is. What is more, in keeping with the analogy, the soldier has the potential of someday becoming an officer.
God has and will always have supreme authority, and at His right hand, Christ is second-in-command. Everybody else will fit perfectly somewhere into the framework of how that Kingdom functions—but we will not be anything less than elohim—of the God-kind—any more than one human being is less than another.
Jesus Christ is the King of kings and Lord of lords. The prophecy in Revelation 5:9-10 says that God has made men to be kings and priests to God, and they shall reign on the earth. Christ gives the most conclusive proof that we will be much more than angels when He says in Revelation 3:9 that He would make those who persecuted the faithful members of His church worship before their feet. To worship anything less than God is idolatry, and Christ is certainly not condoning that, something He condemns elsewhere in the same book (Revelation 22:15).
God's Kingdom is a Family. God is the Father, Jerusalem above is our Mother (Galatians 4:26), Jesus Christ is "the firstborn among many brethren" (Romans 8:29), and we are His sisters and brothers (Mark 3:31-35). When we are changed to spirit at the resurrection from the dead, we will be full members of the God Family, Elohim. Truly, this is the highest expression of "like father, like son."
John Reiss
'Like Father, Like Son'
Comparing the various biblical accounts with the traditional teaching reveals that Jesus could not have risen with the sunrise on Sunday morning. Notice John 20:1: "Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb" (our emphasis throughout). Jesus had already been resurrected!
If this part of the "Easter story" is incorrect, what else is wrong? Taking all the clues together, we find that the Bible indicates a Wednesday crucifixion and a late Sabbath—Saturday—resurrection, since, to fulfill the sign of His Messiahship, He had to remain in the tomb a full three days and three nights or 72 hours (for a complete explanation, see "After Three Days").
Most professing Christians believe that Christ's resurrection focuses on the fact that, having suffered crucifixion and then being buried in the tomb, He was dead, but three days later, He was alive again. As far as it goes, this is true. Jesus Himself writes to the church at Smyrna in Revelation 2:8: "These things says the First and the Last, who was dead, and came to life." However, we must be careful not to be satisfied with the basic truth that He returned to life, for if we do, it does a grave injustice to the spiritual magnificence and significance of the event.
His was no ordinary resurrection, if any resurrection could be considered so. Other resuscitations down through history have been shown to be what we would call "reviving from clinical death": The person's heart stops, his breathing halts, and in fact, he is dead, yet suddenly, he returns to life. In a similar way, just a short time before His own death, Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11), and later, at Christ's death, "many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many" (Matthew 27:52-53). These people were all returned to physical life, and while they are astonishing miracles and must have caused untold wonder and joy among their grieving relatives, their mortality was merely postponed. They would die again.
Jesus' resurrection was something altogether different: He was raised to everlasting life; He would live forever! In his first sermon on the day of Pentecost, Peter informs the gathered crowd, "God [the Father] raised up [Jesus], having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it" (Acts 2:24). Paul explains what happened in a similar way in II Corinthians 13:4, "For though He was crucified in weakness, yet He lives by the power of God." Finally, the risen Christ Himself says to the apostle John, "I am He who lives, and who was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen." (Revelation 1:18). The life that the Father returned to Him was not mere physical life but the immortal spirit life of God.
Because He has passed from death to life, He makes our salvation and eternal life possible. Paul writes in Romans 6:8-9, "Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more." He puts it succinctly in Romans 5:10, ". . . we shall be saved by His life," that is, the life He now lives as our Savior and High Priest. Hebrews 7:24-25 tells us, "But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them." In His final prayer with His disciples, Jesus begins with this thought: "Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him" (John 17:1-2).
In these verses, we see hints of a momentous product of Christ's resurrection that contains weighty implications for us. Paul writes in Hebrews 1:3, ". . . when He had by Himself purged our sins, [Jesus] sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high." Peter also mentions this in his Pentecost sermon: "This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear" (Acts 2:32-33).
Because He was raised from the dead, having paid for our sins in His sinless body, the Father has exalted Him to sit with Him on His throne, where He has the power and the authority to "pour out" the Holy Spirit on the elect, giving them the ability to have a relationship with God and to have eternal life through a similar resurrection. Paul writes in Philippians 3:8, 10-11: "Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, . . . that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, . . . if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead."
In this way, He is "the captain of [our] salvation" (Hebrews 2:10), the archegos, the Forerunner and Trailblazer, who opens the way before God's people and makes it possible for them to attain what He has. And this potential is not limited to some kind of quasi-angelic existence, for the apostle John writes, ". . . when He is revealed, we shall be like Him" (I John 3:2). Paul concurs in I Corinthians 15:49: "As we have borne the image of the man of dust [Adam], we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man [Jesus]." Man's potential reaches to the divine!
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is nothing to be taken lightly. We would do well to consider it deeply since it is so vital to God's purpose and to the eternal future of God's elect.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Raising Our Conception of the ResurrectionRelated Topics: | After Three Days | Christ's Death, Resurrection, and Ascension | Crucifixion Not on Friday | Crucifixion of Jesus Christ | Easter | Easter Sunday | Everlasting Life | Jesus as the Archegos | Jesus Christ as High Priest | Jesus Christ as Intercessor | Jesus Christ as the Archegos | Jesus Christ's Resurrection | Lazarus Foreshadows Jesus' Resurrection | Resurrection | Resurrection of Christ not on Sunday
The Pathfinder, the Archegos, the Author of our salvation went before us. He is pulling us back to Him once again, saying, "This is what you can become. Don't neglect it!" (verses 1-3). "Pick up the pieces," He is saying, "and go on."
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Fourth Commandment (Part 4)
The NKJV reads "captain of their salvation." The KJV reads "author of their salvation," and He was made "perfect through sufferings." The word "author" or "captain" is translated from the Greek term archegos. It is a word capable of many translations. In secular Greek, in their pantheon of gods, Zeus was called "archegos" of the gods, meaning he was the head or the chief of all the gods. Incidentally, "head" or "chief" is archegos' simplest literal meaning.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Wilderness Wandering (Part Five)