A.A. Hodge:

This language is adopted as representing his own view by Calvin in his Commentaries, as on 1 John 2:2. The same was done by Archbishop Ussher in Nos 22 and 23 of his letters, published by his chaplain Richard Parr. The early Reformed Confessions for the most part emphasized the general phase of the atonement… But as Federal Theology more and more gained currency in the Reformed Churches the special bearing of Christ’s death upon the elect necessarily was thrown more conspicuously into the foreground. For if he died in pursuance of the terms of an eternal covenant with the Father, He must needs have died in some special sense for the elect, who were given to Him by the Father by the terms of that Covenant.

A.A. Hodge, “The Consensus of the Reformed Confessions,” The Presbyterian Review 5 (1884): 287-298.

Charnock:

Man is to be considered as respited from the present suffering this sentence by the intervention of Christ; whereby he is put into another way of probation. So those common notions in our understandings, and common motions in our wills and affections, so far as they have anything of moral goodness, are a new gift to our natures by virtue of the mediation of Christ. In which sense he may be said to ‘taste death for every man,’ Heb. ii. 9, and be ‘a propitiation for the sins of the whole world.’ By virtue of which promised death, some sparks of moral goodness are preserved in man. Thus his ‘life was the light of men;’ and he is ‘The light that lightens every man that comes into the world,’ which sets the candle of the Lord in the spirit of man a-burning and sparkling, John I. 9, and upholds all things by his mediatory as well as divine power, Heb. I. 3, which else would have sunk into the abyss. By virtue of this mediation, some power is given back to man, as a new donation, yet not so much as that he is able by it to regenerate himself; and whatsoever power man has, is originally from this cause, and grows not up from the stock of nature, but from common grace.

Stephen Charnock, “A Discourse of the Efficient of Regeneration,” in Works, [1865], 3:210.

Mr. Obadiah Hughes (Annotator)

Heb 2:9:

But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels [Phil 2:7. 8, 9.] for [or by] the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour [Acts 2:33.]; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man [Jn 3:16 & 12:32; Roms 5:18, & 8:32, 2 Cor 5:15; 1 Tim 2:6, 1 Jn 2:2.].

But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels: this second application of the psalmist’s words demonstrates Jesus, the gospel Prophet, to be the man or Adam intended by the Spirit there; and his humiliation and exaltation to be the matter asserted of him: see ver. 7.

For the suffering of death. crowned with glory and honour: the reason or end of his diminution, in respect of angels, for a little while, and of his necessity of his being man, was, that he might be crucified and die, Phil. ii. 7-11, and thereby merit for himself n crown of honour and glory. This was given him for his giving himself to be a sacrifice for sin, and by his own blood to expiate it.

That he by the grace of God; the principle determining. which was God’s good pleasure; he alone, out of his free love and favour to sinners, ordered this, as John iii. 16; 1 John iv. 9. Therefore the Hebrews had no reason of being offended with him as they were, 1 Cor. i. 23.

Should taste death; a metaphor to express to die as a sacrifice, making satisfaction to Divine justice, and expiating sins, Isa. liii.10. All his sufferings in body and soul, which were many and bitter, are here intended, and their completion by death, Matt. xxvi. 39, 42, intimating by his taste of this deadly cup, his sipping of it, but not having swallowed it: and it is a metaphor allusive to the Grecian customs, who put men to death by giving them a cup of poison, as the Athenians executed Socrates.

For every man; to render sin remissible to all persons, and them salvable, God punishing man’s sin in him, and laying on him the iniquities of us all, Isa. liii. 4-6; 1 John ii. 2; and so God became propitious and pleasable to all; and if all are not saved by it, it is because they do not repent and believe in him, 2 Cor. v. 19-21: compare John x. 15. This was evident to and well known by these Hebrews,, as if they saw it, the work, concomitants, and effect of it demonstrating it. And this now in the gospel is evident to faith: it was so certainly visible and evidently true, as not to be denied but by infidels.

Heb 2:14:

Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also [Jn 1:14; Rom.8:3. Phil. 2:7] himself likewise took part of the same [I Cor. 15: 51.55; Col. 2:15; 2 Tim. 1:10.] that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;

Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood: the Spirit having proved the children and brethren sanctified by Christ to be men, proceeds to prove, that the Sanctifier of them was of the same nature with themselves; and so confirms what he asserted, ver. 11, that. they were of one: forasmuch as those were chosen, born of God, and given to him, adopted into his sonship and heirship, and by this, as well as by their humanity, derived jointly with his own from Adam, his brethren, kekoinoneke, these having it in common. The word imports the reality, integrity, unity, and community they all have of the human nature; they are all truly, only, and fully men, and every individual person hath this humanity. These flesh and blood metonymically set out the whole human nature, though the body only be literally expressed by it, a body subject to many infirmities.

He also himself likewise took part of the same; God the Son himself paralesios, had the next and nearest correspondent condition with theirs, even the same as to the kind of it, as like as blood is to blood, properly and truly, only freed from our sinful infirmities, as ver. 17; chap. iv. 15; this word diminisheth him not, but showeth his identity: metesche, took part, he became a partner with the children, and took their nature. It is not the Same word as before, kekoinoneke, as the Marcionites and Manichees corrupt it, as if he had this nature only in common with them, making him only man. But being God, besides his Divine nature, &c., to it he took the human, even their true and full nature, consisting of a body and a soul, and so united them. that in him they became one person; so that hence results a double union of Christ with man. By his incarnation he is of one nature with all the human race, and so is the Head of them: and by his dying for them all the human race are made salvable, which angels are not; and those who repent and believe on him, are actually sanctified and united to him, as his elect and chosen body, and shall be saved by him.

That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death: by his dying on the cross as testator of God’s covenant, and not by his power as a God, (which was most glorious to himself, but most ignominious to the devil, according to the promise, Gen. iii. 15,) did he abolish, or bring to nought, and render powerless without any recovery, not by taking away the immortal life and being, but the kratos the strength and power to kill. For the exousia he authority, right, and command, the keys of death, are in Christ’s hand only, and he useth the strength of this execution in it, as to his enemies; when sinners become penitent believers, then his death satisfying God’s justice for their sin, hath executed the paver as to death, which the devil had by law against them: 1 Cor. xv. 56, 57,

The sting of death is sin, that gives him power; and the strength of sin is the law, that, unless satisfied for, takes part with sin; but Christ by dying takes away the law’s enmity, removes sin, as to guilt. stain, and power, and so brings to nought this power.

That is, the devil; the prince himself, set here collectively for all the rest of his evil spirits, Matt. xxv. 41, who by his lies drew man into sin, and by sin stings him to death; having therefore such power to seduce to sin, he powerfully renders men obnoxious to death; and then, as executioner, having them by the law delivered into his hands, putteth forth his strength to torment and destroy them. Christ by his death doth with price and power redeem them out of his hand, and destroys all his works, takes possession of them, and brings them through death to eternal life.

Paraeus:

And first the Holy Scripture itself teaches us plainly this kind of distinction, and forces us thereunto For you shall find in Scripture sometimes absolutely spoken that Christ “tasted death for all men”; “that he gave himself a ransom for all men,” (Heb. 2:9; 1 Tim. 2:6), “that he is the reconciliation for the sins of the whole world” (1 Joh. 2:2). Again you shall read that Christ “prayed, not nor satisfied himself,” that is offered up himself for the world, but “for the elect which were given him”: “that he laid down his life for his sheep” (Joh. 17:9, 10:15). That “he gave his life to for the ransom of many”: that “he shed his blood for many” (Mat. 26:28; Rom. 8:9): that “the world cannot receive the Holy Spirit, because it sees him, neither knows him”: and “because it has not the purity [?], therefore it is not CHRIST’S. These places carry some show of contrariety, were it not that the former are understood by us of the sufficiency of satisfaction, and the latter of the efficacy and working virtue thereof.

David Paraeus, Certain learned and excellent discourses: treating and discussing divers hard and difficult points of Christian Religion: Collected, and published in latin, by D. David Parreus, out of the writings of that late famous and worthy light of God’s church, D. Zachary Ursine. Faithfully translated (At London: Imprinted by H.L. and are to be sold by John Royston, at his shop at the great North Dore of Paul’s, at the signe of the Bible, 1613), 136-137.