John Calvin Commentary Hebrews 2:16

"For verily not to angels doth he give help, but he giveth help to the seed of Abraham." — Hebrews 2:16 (ASV)

For truly, or, For nowhere, etc. By this comparison, the biblical writer enhances the benefit and the honor with which Christ has favored us by putting on our flesh; for Christ never did so much for angels.

Since it was necessary that there should be a remarkable remedy for humanity’s dreadful ruin, it was the design of the Son of God that there should be some incomparable pledge of his love toward us—a pledge angels did not share with us.

That he preferred us to angels was not due to our excellence, but to our misery. Therefore, there is no reason for us to boast as though we were superior to angels, except that our heavenly Father has manifested toward us that more abundant mercy which we needed, so that the angels themselves might from on high behold so great a bounty poured on the earth.

The present tense of the verb (in Scripture) is to be understood with reference to the testimonies of Scripture, as though the biblical writer sets before us what had previously been testified by the Prophets.

But this one passage is abundantly sufficient to lay prostrate such men as Marcion and Manicheus, and fanatical men of similar character, who denied Christ to have been a real man, begotten of human seed. For if he bore only the appearance of man, as he had previously appeared in the form of an angel, there could have been no difference; but since it could not have been said that Christ became truly an angel, clothed with angelic nature, it is therefore said that he took upon him man’s nature and not that of angels.

And the Apostle speaks of nature and intimates that Christ, clothed with flesh, was a real man, so that there was unity of person in two natures. For this passage does not favor Nestorius, who imagined a twofold Christ, as though the Son of God was not a real man but only dwelt in man’s flesh. But we see that the Apostle’s meaning was very different, for his object was to teach us that we find in the Son of God a brother, being a partaker of our common nature. Therefore, not being satisfied with calling him man, he says that he was begotten of human seed; and he expressly names the seed of Abraham, so that what he said might have more credibility, as it was taken from Scripture.