108 JAMES SWETNAM is responsible for the trust 21. The author of Hebrews, by way of explanation, indicates immediately after using the verb eprepen that all things exist ¶ because of God and through God, i.e., God has unlimited possibilities in responding appropriately to the faith-trust of Jesus and his disciples. And thus, by implication he is responsible for the trust in the first place. What follows in the rest of 2,10 explains what God thought was “ appropriate ” in the circumstances: “it was appropriate for God that he lead many sons to glory inasmuch as he perfected the originator of their salvation through sufferings” 22. That is, given the fact that God’s act of perfecting Jesus was accomplished through the sufferings of Jesus, it was appropriate that God lead many sons to glory thereby 23. The act of “perfecting” Jesus (teleiow) is interpreted in various ways, ¥ of course. It seems to be incontestably an allusion to the act by which the priests of the old dispensation were consecrated 24. In the context of Hebrews it refers to the act by which Jesus was consecrated as heavenly high priest, i.e., the act by which Jesus received his heavenly body, i.e., the resurrection 25. Given that Jesus was a sacrificial victim, and given his faith- trust, it was appropriate that in consecrating Jesus heavenly high priest by raising him from the dead, i.e., “through sufferings”, God led many (other) sons to glory through. Jesus, in fact, is the originator of their salvation precisely because of this free choice of God. Jesus is the originator of the sons’ distinctive faith-trust and its perfecter as well (cf. Heb 12,2). That is to say, he is the originator of the distinctive faith-trust that he maintained to its fulfillment in his being raised from the dead by God, and in this The covenant relationship which is the background of the “testing” in 21 Hebrews involves obligations on God’s part as well as man’s (obligations which God has freely assumed of course as the initiator of the covenant). Involved in 2,10 is the Greek idiom in which a modal participle becomes 22 the main verb and the main verb becomes a modal participle. Cf. ELLINGWORTH, Hebrews, 160, and M. ZERWICK, Graecitas biblica (Scripta Pontificii Instituti Biblici; Romae 51966) 88 and 88, n. 1. The use of the aorist tense for both the act of perfecting Jesus by God and 23 the leading of many sons to glory by God implies that the two actions are in some way terminated in parallel, even if the leading of the sons into glory has yet to be realized fully. Cf. SWETNAM, “ÃEj enov in Hebrews 2,11”, 520, and LANE, Hebrews Ω¥ 24 1–8, 57. Cf. H.-F. WEISS, Der Brief an die Hebräer (KKNT 13; Göttingen 151991) 25 206 : “Das hierbei von Gott als Subjekt ausgesagte teleioyn ist im Kontext – ˜ zumal von V. 9a her – eindeutig auf die Erhöhung des Sohnes zu beziehen”. Cf. also SWETNAM, “ÃEj enov in Hebrews 2,11”, 520. Ω¥