Hebrews 2:14,15 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Forasmuch then as the children Believers, who are Christ's spiritual seed; are partakers of flesh and blood Of human nature with all its infirmities; he also took part of the same See on Philippians 2:8; that through his own death, he might destroy the tyranny of him that had By God's permission; the power of death The power of bringing death on all mankind by tempting our first parents to sin. Hence he is called a murderer from the beginning, and a liar, and the father of it, John 8:41. It is observable that the power of death, ascribed to the devil, is called κρατος, and not εξουσια, because he had no right to it. It was a power usurped by guile. And all the baneful effects of this power Christ at the resurrection will remove, as far as they relate to the righteous. The word καταργηση, rendered that he might destroy, properly signifies, that he might render ineffectual. “Since the Son of God is said to have partaken of the flesh and blood of the children in the same manner that they themselves partake of these, namely, by being born of a woman; and since he was born into the world in that manner, to render him capable of dying, that through his death in the flesh he might frustrate the malicious contrivance of the devil, who first introduced death into the world; we are thereby taught that he is the seed of the woman, which at the fall was promised to bruise the head of the serpent; and that the serpent who deceived Eve was not a natural serpent, but the devil, who, because he assumed the form of a serpent on that occasion, is called (Rev 20:2) the great dragon, or serpent; and that old serpent, the devil. See on 2 Corinthians 11:3. The intention of the devil, in seducing our first parents, was to destroy them, and thereby put an end to the human species. This malicious design the Son of God rendered ineffectual, by assuming our nature, and in that nature dying as a sacrifice for sin.” Macknight. And By his death making atonement for their sins, and procuring for them pardon and holiness; that is, both justification and sanctification, both a title to heaven and a meetness for it, and also an earnest of it by the Holy Spirit in their hearts, he delivers them Even all who are made God's children by faith in him; who Before they received this deliverance; were all their life-time, through tormenting fear of death, subject to bondage In a slavish uncomfortable state of mind. And every man fears death, more or less, who is not savingly acquainted with, and united to Christ; who is not justified through faith in his blood, and regenerated by the influence of his Spirit, and therefore is not begotten again to a lively hope of a heavenly inheritance. Death is unwelcome to him if he knows what death is. But he delivers all true believers from this bondage.