Communion message by Rev. Dr. Lynn Fowler at Moe New Life Christian Centre on Sunday 19th January 2020.
Communion message by Rev. Dr. Lynn Fowler at Moe New Life Christian Centre on Sunday 19th January 2020.
Message preached by Rev. Dr. Lynn Fowler at Churchill Christian Fellowship on Sunday 19th January 2020.
THE BOOK OF HEBREWS – PART 16
3:2 who was faithful to him who appointed him, as also Moses was in all his house.
The writer here is quoting from Numbers 12:7, “My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all My house.”
The context of the quoted verse is particularly interesting and relevant to our study. Miriam and Aaron had rebelled against Moses, suggesting that they should get “equal billing” as far as the leadership of Israel was concerned, because God had spoken to them as well as to Moses. God tells them that, whilst His normal means of communicating with His prophets is through dreams and visions, He treats Moses differently. With Moses He speaks face to face, and verse 7 suggests that the reason for this is Moses’ faithfulness.
Moses’ position is based on his relationship with God. Because of that relationship, God has entrusted him with leadership within his “house” (ie the people of God.) Moses has been faithful in that leadership, discharging all his duties without wavering, and even going beyond what was required (as when he suggested that God should blot his name out of the book of life rather than destroy Israel for the sin with the golden calf – Ex 32:32). That faithfulness has led to God bringing him into an even more intimate relationship with Himself, and entrusting him with even more “state secrets.”
With that background, the writer lines up the faithfulness of Christ against the faithfulness of Moses. Moses was faithful over a small section of God’s “house” – the Nation of Israel. Christ was faithful over the far greater house, the whole of mankind and ultimately the whole of the universe. For all his faithfulness, Moses had to initially be prodded to accept the job, and a number of times stood at the point of quitting, though never actually giving up. Christ willingly embraced the Father’s plan of salvation for man and restoration of the Kingdom, and even at His darkest moment declared “not My will but Yours.” Moses was privy to some of God’s secrets – certainly more than any other prophet of his day; Christ was the Word of God, the One through whom those aspects of God’s character and works that could not be seen in the creation were revealed. Moses was willing to give his life for the people, but his life could never have been a sufficient atonement for their sin. Jesus did give His life for the world, and His life was totally sufficient. Moses had been faithful, Christ was infinitely more so.
… to him who appointed him …
Faithfulness in itself is only half the story. Faithfulness misplaced can be worse than useless. We have all heard of people who have been utterly faithful to a company – or perhaps even a church or a denomination – only to find that, when the crunch comes and the organization’s “bottom line” is better served without them, they have been dropped like a hot potato. We have known people who have been faithful to friends, family or spouses, only to find that the other party has found greener pastures on the other side of the fence. Perhaps we have even personally experienced such betrayals of our faithfulness.
On the other hand, some have faithfully laboured at a job or pursued a vision, only to find at the end of the day that they come up empty-handed, and realize that they should have been doing something else. As someone once said, there is no point in struggling to get to the top of the mountain only to get there and find that we are on the wrong mountain! It is vital that our faithfulness be to the right person, and to the right vision, or it counts for nothing.
Christ’s faithfulness was to “Him that appointed Him” – God the Father. He had come to save man, but He was not faithful to man: if He had been, He would have followed Peter’s admonition to avoid the Cross. He had come as Israel’s Messiah, but He was not faithful to Israel: if He had been, He would have obeyed all the laws of the Pharisees. His faithfulness was fixed on the Father, and on the Father’s will. Had it not been so, He could have been distracted by any of a thousand different voices, and in faithfully following them become unfaithful to the One who called Him and the task to which He was called.
This in turn meant that Christ’s faithfulness was effective, because He was faithful to the Faithful One. God the Father would never back down from His commitment to and through His Son.
3:1 Therefore, holy brothers, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession: Jesus
In the light of all that he has said about Christ in the preceding chapters, the writer now invites us to think more deeply about Him. From now on he will be comparing Christ, not with the angels, but with Moses and the whole of the Old Covenant system.
He invites us to this consideration as “holy brothers” (this of course also includes “sisters”). In using this term of common lineage, he was speaking to his readers both as Jews, sharing a natural bloodline, and as Christians, sharing the bloodline of Christ. By the word “holy” he is referring to three things: (1) The imputed righteousness of Christ, received at our new birth, by which the Father sees us “in Christ” as holy; (2) The fact that we are sanctified – set apart – for the Kingdom of God; and (3) The fact that we are called to so walk in Christ that the righteousness which has been imputed to us is also manifested in our lives.
The “heavenly calling” is beginning to speak of the comparison of Christ to Moses. When God sent Moses to the Israelites in Egypt, He called them to go out of Egypt (the “type” or foreshadowing of the old life of sin and bondage) into the promised land (the “type” of the Kingdom of God.) Our call is the fulfillment of that ancient shadow: we are called out of a place not of natural bondage, but of spiritual bondage; and we are called not into a natural land, but into the spiritual land of the Kingdom. Already, without even mentioning Moses, the writer has shown that what Christ brings is far greater.
The writer refers to Christ as “Apostle and High Priest”. The word “apostle” does not appear in the Old Testament. However, the meaning of the word is “sent one.” At Moses’ first encounter with the Lord in the burning bush, God said to him, “Come now therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.” (Ex. 4:10) This is confirmed in verse 14, “Thus shall you say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.'” In fact verses 10 to 15 of this chapter contain five statements that God was sending Moses. He most certainly was a “sent one” – in New Testament terms, an apostle.
Of course, the Jews considered Moses to be the single most outstanding character in their entire history. After all, he had led them out of Egypt and overseen the establishment of the nation. He had been instrumental in receiving the Law from the hands of God, and in enforcing that Law in the life of the nation. He had overseen the building of the Tabernacle and the establishment of the priesthood and the sacrificial system. Under his leadership, a rag-tag bunch of exiles with no vision or unity had become a nation and a force to be reckoned with. No other leader in Jewish history had held the position or the authority of Moses.
If the writer to the Hebrews wants to show that the system established by Christ is superior to that established by Moses, he must first show that Christ is greater than Moses. To do that, he must show common ground between Christ and Moses (remember, you can’t compare apples and oranges – much less apples and railway locomotives!) Like Moses, Christ was a “sent one” – an apostle. Unlike Moses, Christ can be called the Apostle. Over the centuries, there had been many sent by God, though none considered as great as Moses. Jesus Himself had those He had appointed as apostles during His earthly life, and others, like Paul, who were apostles sent as resurrection gifts to the church (cf Ephesians 4). Only Christ, however, had been sent directly from the throne of God. The others were on earth, sent by God to other people on earth. Christ alone had been sent from heaven to earth. His human life was in itself the fulfillment of His apostolic call.
The writer also refers to Christ as “High Priest”. This relates not directly to Moses, but to the priestly and sacrificial system instituted through him. Moses was not the High Priest, Aaron was. It was the beginning of God’s Old Testament version of the “separation of church and state.” The leader of the nation (in later days the king) could not be the High Priest. In fact, after the establishment of the Kingdom, the King and the priests did not even come from the same tribe. (The Word of God does not tell us why this was so, but my guess would be that it was because God well understood the nature of the human heart, and knew the potential danger that would have been in giving both political and religious power into the same hands.) In Christ, however, the two come together. He is not only the sent one, but also the spiritual leader.
Again, whilst there were many High Priests throughout the Old Testament and right up to the time when the Book of Hebrews was being written, only of Christ could it be said that He was the High Priest. As the writer will show later in the book, this was because His was a different order of priesthood, one which by its very nature was greater that that of Aaron.
It is a good point to consider that we now have just one High Priest – one “priest over the priests.” Since the Word makes it clear that all God’s people are priests (1 Peter 2:9, Rev. 1:6), this totally rules out the idea of the ministry as a “priesthood.” Ministers in the New Covenant must never assume the role of standing between God and the people as the Old Covenant priests did. (It also rules out the totally unbiblical concept, promoted by many in the church today, of the husband as “priest” of the household. The husband’s headship never places him between his wife and God. To do so would make him her “high priest”, a role that belongs only to Christ.)
2:17 Therefore he was obligated in all things to be made like his brothers, that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people. v18 For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted.
Even though our English translations place these two verses at the end of the second chapter, they rightly belong with the thoughts being introduced in the third. The writer has completed his comparison of Christ with the angels, and has conclusively shown that He is superior to them in every way. Now he moves on to the primary theme of the book, Christ’s superiority in His priestly service. In this context He will compare Christ with Moses, with Joshua, with the Sabbath, with the Old Testament priesthood as a whole, and its sacrifices in particular, and with Melchisedeck.
Therefore he was obligated in all things to be made like his brothers
This first part of verse 17 acts as a bridge between the long argument in chapters one and two and what follows. For this reason … because as representative Man He was reclaiming all that God had originally given to mankind. For this reason … because He was to taste death for everyone. For this reason … because He was the Captain bringing many sons to glory. But also for this reason … that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest.
that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people.
Primarily, priesthood is about two things: access and representation. Under the Old Covenant, only the priests had access to God. The people could come into the outer court of the temple, but they could not enter into the temple proper, the Holy Place. That was for the priests alone. Yet even the priests could not enter into the inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place. Only the High Priest had that privilege, and then only once a year, under cover of the smoke of the incense, and with a rope tied around his ankle so that if he were to die in the presence of the Lord, the other priests could pull him out without being killed themselves.
That was not how God had intended it to be. He had told the people of Israel, “Even though the whole world is Mine, you will be for Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (Ex. 19:5-6) In other words, God wanted a nation of people who had free access to Him, and would truly represent Him to the rest of the world. The people, however, chose a second-hand relationship, and cut themselves off from the possibility of entering the presence of God. Part of Christ’s mission in restoring the world to the plan of the Father was to restore that access to the Throne of God. For Himself, He already had that access, and had done for all eternity. In order to restore that access to man, it was necessary for Him to be so totally identified with man that when He entered the Throne Room, we entered with Him. In our own sinful natures we could never enter the presence of the holy God, but in Christ we can enter freely.
There was really only one reason for the Old Testament priest to have access to God, and that was so that he could represent man before God, and God before man. Since God’s people had chosen not to have a face-to-face relationship with Him, someone else – the priest – had to represent them before Him, and to be His representative in their midst. As God’s representative, the priest was to teach the Law and ensure that the people understood their covenant obligations. He was also the one who enforced that Law – no “separation of Church and State” in those days! Even kings were subject to the enforcement of the Law by the priests, as is illustrated by the story of Uzziah in 2 Chronicles 26.
As the people’s representative before God, the priest had to take the people’s prayers and petitions – and even their thanksgiving – to God through the sacrificial system. Most importantly, he had to carry the sins of the people, both those of individuals and those of the nation, before God, and ensure that those sins were “covered” by the blood of the animal sacrifices that were offered. That was the only way they could continue in their covenant relationship with God.
In order to be God’s representative, the priest had to be godly. Hence there were, for him, far more stringent restrictions on his lifestyle than there were for the common people. Yet no matter how closely the priest followed the requirements of the Law, he could never meet the standards of God’s holiness. The best that the best priest in Israel could ever hope to be was a partial and very imperfect representation of God. Christ, however, was not merely the perfect representation of God, but He was God: all the fullness of the deity in bodily form. (Col. 2:9)
In order to be man’s representative, the priest had to be human. Obviously, this was not a problem for the priests of the Old Testament. They were human. Whether or not they chose to acknowledge it, they were subject to all the same weaknesses, testings, trials and temptations as those whom they represented. Therefore, Christ also had to be fully human. He could not represent man unless He was one of us.
As God, Christ could only give us the Law. He could show us what God is like: His holiness, righteousness, justice, compassion, power, truth … But God had already revealed Himself, at least partially, to man, and man’s response had been to push Moses forward as a go-between. As God, Christ could not be the mediator between God and man, because man would simply have sought out another go-between to stand between himself and Christ.
As man, fully identified with us, He became the perfect mediator: able to enter the Throne Room and take us with Him, able to bring the perfect sacrifice – Himself – to provide full expiation, not merely covering, for our sins, able to restore the relationship between both individuals and the body of mankind and God.
For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted.
There is another aspect of Christ’s mediation. The priest of the Old Testament not only brought reconciliation between man and God, but between man and man. He was the settler of disputes and the dispenser of justice. For this role, it was a distinct advantage if he had lived a bit! If the priest had experienced trials, losses, struggles and heartaches, he was much more likely to be able to deal compassionately with those who came to him.
The word “testings” is translated in the KJV as “being tempted”, but the original word has a much broader application than simply the temptation to sin, relating more to a testing of character which may come through temptation as we normally understand it, or may come simply through the trials and difficulties of life. Undoubtedly, Christ knew both well.
It is difficult for us to comprehend that Jesus, who was God, could have experienced genuine temptation to sin, especially when we understand that for temptation to be real there must be the possibility of yielding. Yet Scripture makes it clear that such a possibility must have existed, otherwise His victory over sin would have been meaningless.
Perhaps we can understand it more readily if we consider that the greatest sin for Jesus would have been to walk away from His mission as Saviour and Redeemer. If we then think about His struggle in Gethsemane, when the full horror of what fulfilling that mission would cost broke upon Him, we can see something of the reality of temptation for Him. What caused Him to break out in a sweat of blood, and to plead desperately with the Father to take this cup from Him? Surely not just the physical trial that awaited Him, as horrific as that was. No, the sinless One suddenly comprehended the fullness of the sin of mankind that was about to be dumped upon Him. Yes, He had walked for thirty-three years in this sin-steeped world, He had seen sin in its ugliest – but that was only from outside. Now He was about to experience it from within: all the sewerage of man’s sin was about to be dumped over Him, so that it touched not only His body but the very depths of His soul. He was about to “become sin”, and though it is unlikely that any of us will ever, this side of heaven, fully comprehend what that meant, we can surely understand the power of the temptation to flee to the farthest reaches of the universe and beyond to avoid it.
We have salvation only because He overcame that temptation, and chose His Father’s will above the screaming of His body, soul and spirit. But beyond salvation, we have help, we have comfort. The temptation He felt that night was beyond any we will ever experience. He knows what temptation feels like, and is able to walk with us when we experience it. The emotion He knew that night was beyond any heartbreak, any fear, any horror that we will ever know. When we walk through those things, He is able to understand. The rejection, and the physical suffering, that were His portion, were beyond any we will have to walk through. He is able to help us when we go through trials.
Truly, He is a High Priest who has identified with us in the very depths of our experience and beyond.
2:14-15. Since then the children have shared in flesh and blood, he also himself in the same way partook of the same, that through death he might bring to nothing him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might deliver all of them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
Unlike angels, which are pure spirit and therefore cannot die, God created man with both a spiritual and a physical nature. Our bodies are not, as some people teach, merely a house in which our spirit lives (“man is a spirit who has a soul and lives in a body”), but rather an integral part of who we are. Each of us is one person who is spirit, soul and body, just as God is one God who is Father, Son and Spirit. That our bodies are an essential part of our nature is evidenced by the fact that at the end of time God will raise and transform them, and reunite them with our spirit/souls.
It is because our bodies are essential to our humanity that the Son of God had to come in a body. Had we been only spirits living in bodies, it would not have been necessary for Christ to take on a human body in order to identify with us. As an illustration, consider this: all people live in houses of one kind or another. Yet it was not necessary that Christ live in a house. He could have spent His life in the desert, sleeping under the stars, and still have been fully our Saviour. Although people live in houses, they are not essential to our nature, so Christ did not have to live in a house in order to identify with us. Our bodies, however, are essential to us, and He could not identify with us without taking on a human body.
It is our three-part nature that makes death possible. To understand this, we need to understand what death is. It is not non-existence. On the property where I live, there is a large dead tree. It is not non-existent. It is there – I can see it and touch it. On sunny days it casts a shadow, on rainy days it gets wet, and on windy days it sways back and forth. Over time, more and more branches are breaking off from it. One day, the whole tree will topple over, and eventually it will decay and disappear into the ground. When that happens, it will no longer be a dead tree – it will be part of the soil. As long as it is a dead tree, it still exists – but it cannot carry out any of the functions it had while it was a living tree.
So we see that death means to be existing but non-functional. When we are physically dead, the person still exists but his body cannot carry out the functions of a living body. We can also be “spiritually dead”, meaning our spirit cannot carry out its function of communication with God; or “emotionally dead”, as in a breakdown, when our emotions are incapable of carrying out their function of responding to our surroundings. All of this is possible because we are three-part beings – spirit, soul and body – so that we as a total being continue to exist even when part of us is not functioning.
For pure spirit beings, such as angels, there can be no death. If an angel could cease to function as an angel, it would cease to exist. (The devil and his minions are still angels, but their angelic functions are turned to the service of self rather than the service of God.) Therefore, no angel could have taken on the role of Saviour, because no angel could have died for our sin. For the same reason, Jesus did not come as an angel, but as a man, with the same death-capable physical body as every other human being.
that through death he might bring to nothing him who had the power of death, that is, the devil
In the garden, God told Adam and Eve that if they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil they would die. By deceiving them into eating from that tree, the devil brought death upon them. They immediately died spiritually – their spirits were no longer capable of communication with God, as evidenced by the fact that they hid from Him, rather than looking for what had been, up until then, sweet communion. They also immediately began to die physically. The life-force which, if they had remained obedient, would have kept their bodies in perfect health and wholeness, was cut off from its source in God.
More than that, the devil’s deception – and Adam and Eve’s sinful acceptance of it – brought death on all mankind. They no longer had spiritual life, therefore they could not pass on spiritual life to their children; and they now had limited physical life, so could pass on limited physical life. Every child born from then on came into the world spiritually dead and physically dying.
Even beyond that, the position which the devil gained as the result of Adam and Eve handing their dominion of the world over to him gave him the power to bring death in a multitude of lesser ways. Through sin he had the power to bring death to relationships, death to dreams, emotional death, financial death. Every area in which man does not enjoy the fullness that God originally intended for us is an area of minor death, and results from either our own sin, the sin of others or the corporate sin of mankind.
Christ destroyed the devil not by annihilating him, but by stripping him of his power. Colossians 2:15 tells us that He disarmed principalities and powers, making open show of them through the Cross. By reversing the choices made by our first parents, Christ took back the dominion of the earth. By paying the death penalty for every person, He made it possible for life to be restored – spiritual life first, and ultimately physical life. He also made it possible for all the minor deaths in our experience to be replaced with His life. The devil’s power to bring death has once and for all been broken.
and might deliver all of them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
Christ’s victory would be meaningless if it could not be applied to the human heart. The innate knowledge of our own mortality, and the concern – even if unconscious – of what may follow death, lies behind every religious and legalistic bondage known to man. That fear has prompted man, even if unwilling to worship the true God, to create gods for himself. It has driven him to superstition and all kinds of occultic practices. Even in the worship of the true God, it has caused him to embrace a legalism that seemed to offer some degree of certainty.
By removing the sentence of death, Christ has removed the fear. By replacing death with His life, He has given us the ability to live in freedom.
2:11 For both he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one, for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brothers,
In talking about the One who sanctifies and those who are sanctified, the writer is referring back to the previous verse, “in bringing many sons to glory.” This embraces both the original meaning of the term “sanctify”, to set apart for God, and the derivative meaning, to purify or make holy. It is awesome to think that God can take the fallen, sinful, corrupt and broken race of man, and both set apart for Himself and cleanse and purify both individuals and a corporate body, the Church. Yet for Him to do that, he had to become one with man. He had to descend to the level of man in order to raise man back to his standing in the image of God. That could only be accomplished by Christ, who took on humanity in its fullness.
The fact that Christ humbled Himself to become man, and more than that to suffer as man on behalf of man, does not in any way diminish His eternal glory. Those who looked at the man and saw someone lower than the angels (and therefore less worthy of honor) were missing the point. This whole humiliation was for a purpose, that by identifying with us He might bring us to a place of identification with Him.
He is not ashamed to call them brothers.
The Pharisees of Jesus’ day would cross to the other side of the road rather than be seen even in proximity to one they considered a “sinner.” To allow such a “sinner” to touch them, as did the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her hair at the house of Simon the Pharisee, was cause for great alarm and dismay. To have identified with them to the point of calling them brothers would have been utterly unthinkable.
Yet Christ, the only one to Whom the term “sinner” could not ultimately be applied, did not share their problems. The very reason He came was to identify with sinners. His purpose was to make them sons of His Father. So, even to those who were not currently in that relationship, He speaks, “calling the things that are not as though they are”, and calls them His brothers.
v12. saying, “I will declare your name to my brothers. Among the congregation I will sing your praise.”
The Gospels do not record Jesus as personally speaking this quotation from Psalm 22:22. The Psalm is one of those that clearly refer to the Messiah, and the writer here is taking the fact that the Psalm refers to Messiah as speaking these words to mean that Messiah actually spoke those words, even if it was in His pre-incarnate existence rather than during His earthly life. This is an interesting insight into the level of authority that the Scripture writers attributed to the Word. As far as the writer to Hebrews is concerned, it is not merely the attitudes or principles of the Psalm that are true, but the very exact words, to the extent that they can validly be used to give support to his current argument.
I will declare Your name
In the Bible, a name is far more than just an identifying tag. The name shows – and in some cases even shapes – the character of the person. Thus Abram (the exalted father) becomes Abraham (the father of many), Jacob (the supplanter) becomes Israel (who wrestled with man and God), Simon (the reed) becomes Peter (the rock.) The name also carries the full weight of the authority of the one who bears it.
So when Christ came to declare the name of the Father, He was not just identifying God as YHWH – something they had known for centuries. Rather, He came to reveal the character of YHWH. In Him they saw a side of God that they had never known nor even imagined. We have only to look at the differences between Jesus and the religious leadership of the day to realize how unlike their understanding of God, God really was.
Not only did Christ reveal aspects of God’s character that they had never imagined, He also revealed a name of God that they had never known: Father. They were incensed that Christ should refer to God as His Father, and totally baffled when He talked about men becoming sons of God. Yet it was precisely this relationship that He came to restore, and precisely within the context of this relationship that He could refer to those He redeemed as “brothers.”
Beyond this revelation of God’s character, Christ came in God’s authority. The thing that characterized His ministry, that made Him stand out from the scribes and rabbis of the day, was His authority. The people had never seen such authority and power. Even the stories of Moses and the prophets paled by comparison.
Among the congregation I will sing your praise.
At first glance this part of the quote seems to have no relevance to the writer’s argument, and it could be that it was included simply to complete the thought. Yet when we look at it more closely, we do see a further strengthening of the theme. It is in the midst of the congregation, the people of God assembled together to worship, that Messiah praises the Father. He could well have placed Himself at the front of the congregation, as their leader and priest. That is, after all, His rightful place. Yet He does not assume it, but rather stands in the midst, one of the crowd, identified totally with those around Him.
v13. Again, “I will put my trust in him.” Again, “Behold, here I am with the children whom God has given me.”
This quote is taken from Isaiah 8:17b-18. It was written as Isaiah struggled unsuccessfully to turn the nation back to God. The implication appears to be that what Isaiah, and indeed all of the prophets, could not do, Christ could do by His identification with man. The emphasis changes slightly, for here the redeemed are not Christ’s “brothers” but His “children”, born from the struggle and blood of His death, carrying His spiritual DNA, bound to Him eternally. Why? Because He trusted the Father enough to lay aside all that it meant to be God, and fully enter in to what it meant to be man; trusted the Father sufficiently to enter into a place from which He could not by Himself return, unless the Father was with Him; trusted the Father to the point where He could not even produce His own results (children) but was dependent upon the Father to give them to Him.
2:10. For it became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many children to glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
Those who serve as officers in the armed forces, if they behave in a manner that brings discredit on the force, may find themselves facing charges of “conduct unbecoming an officer.” The understanding is that, the higher the rank, the higher the standard of conduct that is expected, and the more the person concerned is expected to be mindful of the needs and rights of others. There may be some who would argue that trial, torture and death as a common criminal were unbecoming to the One who claimed to be Messiah. After all, the Jews were looking for a political savior, one who would come in manifest victory and sweep away the hated Roman rule once and for all, and establish His earthly throne in Jerusalem.
In response to such arguments, the writer points out that God’s behavior in sending Christ was totally becoming. To demand that His stated penalty for sin be paid in full was in line with the highest standards of His justice and righteousness. To pay that penalty Himself on man’s behalf was completely consistent with the highest standards of His love and mercy. It was fitting that God do this, for He was the only one who could. That He would do so to restore the Kingdom was totally appropriate to his glory and majesty.
for whom are all things, and through whom are all things
Much as we might like to think otherwise, the universe does not exist for man. God created it for His own pleasure. Even man’s redemption is not just for man’s sake. There is a far greater purpose at stake, the purpose of the Kingdom of God. He is the King of the universe, and His retention of that position is essential to the life, the balance, the very existence of all creation. It was fitting that He do whatever was necessary to restore that position on earth, where it had been violated through sin.
At the same time, as the Creator He is the One by whom all things exist. This includes not only the material things we see around us like trees and hills and animals, but the immaterial things like love, mercy and forgiveness. Without God, these things could not be, and as their source it is only fitting that He make them available to mankind.
in bringing many children to glory
The Gospel is about far more than individuals receiving forgiveness for their sins and being able to go to heaven when they die. It is about the restoration of the glory and honor that God gave to mankind in the creation (see verse 7); restoring man to the place of rulership on earth as God’s sub-regent. To achieve this it was necessary for Christ to become so identified with man that He became representative Man, undoing the sin which had lost the Kingdom and taking a position of rulership. In doing so, He opened the way for others to enter into His victory and also be restored to the position for which God first created man.
to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
The word translated “author” means a supreme leader, and is translated in other places as “prince.” In keeping with the military role of princes in the ancient world, it also has the connotation of one who goes ahead of the army in battle. Christ is a prince, but He came as a warrior to take on the forces of darkness and conquer them. By this, He was able to lead the army of God in victory.
The means of that victory, however, was not what we might expect – and certainly not what the ancient Jews expected. He could only win by losing. Only by laying down His life in obedience, could He undo the disobedience of Adam.
“Make … perfect” does not suggest in any way that there was any moral improvement needed in Christ. There was not a moment of His existence when He was not without sin. He was, is, and always will be morally perfect. Nor could there be any increase in His perfection as God, or in the perfection of His knowledge or ability.
However, a perfect substitute for man could only be one who had walked where man had walked. In order to overcome temptation and enter into the victory of that overcoming, He had to truly experience temptation. It was only in the suffering that His identification with man was forged. Through that suffering, He became the perfect substitute – one fully able to represent man, whilst at the same time making those different choices that would undo the effects of man’s rebellion.
2:5 For he didn’t subject the world to come, of which we speak, to angels.
Having completed his detour into the consequences of neglecting the truths which he is teaching, the writer now returns to his previous argument, that in every way Christ is vastly superior to the angels. Previously he has presented Christ as the rightful King, now he turns to the other side of that truth. A king is still king, regardless of whether or not his subjects are truly in subjection to him. However, the time is coming when all will acknowledge the Lordship of Christ, and bow the knee before Him. (Philippians 2:9-11)
God has not done this for any angel. There has never been a time when God has made man subject to the rule of angels. Even though, through the fall, man effectively handed the rule of earth over to a fallen angel, satan, this was never God’s purpose.
the world to come
Many commentators see this as referring to the Church, but surely the Church is only the beginning of the fulfillment of God’s plans. He tolerates insubordination in the world at the present time, waiting for the full number of those who will willingly submit their lives to Christ to come in; but the time is coming when the choices will be final, and the rebellious will be driven out from His presence.
v. 6But one has somewhere testified, saying,
“What is man, that you think of him?
Or the son of man, that you care for him?
7 You made him a little lower than the angels.
You crowned him with glory and honor.
8 You have put all things in subjection under his feet.”
Uncomfortable though it seems to us in the western world, trained as we have been to quote our sources carefully, the almost off-handed way in which the writer refers to the source of this quote (“someone”, “somewhere”) was quite common in the ancient world. He expected that his readers, well schooled in the Hebrew Scriptures, would have no difficulty in recognizing the quote, which is from Psalm 8:4-6.
what is man
The Hebrew is much richer at this point than the Greek, and the word used for man means “weak, wretched or miserable” man. As the Psalmist looked at himself and the world around him he recognized his own weak, sinful nature, and that of the rest of mankind, and wondered why a God big enough to create the vastness of the heavens would bother Himself with such a failing and insignificant creature.
You made him a little lower than the angels
The Psalmist then answered his own question: God had regard for man because He had made him a little lower than the angels. The word used for angels in the Hebrew is “elohim”, which may be applied to either God or the angels, and because of this some people have suggested that this verse should be read “You have made him a little lower than God.” However, the writer to the Hebrews clearly translates it as “angels”, and on the principle that we should always interpret Scripture by Scripture, this is how we must understand it.
“A little lower” may mean either lower in position, or lower for a little while. To me, it seems that the two meanings can stand together: in creating man, God gave him a kind of “probationary” status in which, for a period, he would be in a position lower than that of the heavenly beings. This was still an incredibly high position, in rank, in power, and in authority. What’s more, God who knew the end from the beginning knew that it was always His intention to ultimately seat man “in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6) from which he would judge the angels. (1 Corinthians 6:3) Clearly it was not God’s intention that man would forever remain in a position lower than that of the angels. He was placed there for a time, to test his obedience and to prepare him for the rulership to come. It is also clear that the angels to whom man was “made a little lower” were the holy angels of God, not the fallen angels, satan and his hordes.
Even in that probationary state, man had been crowned with glory and honor. He was made in God’s likeness, to be just like Him. When the rest of the earthly creation looked at man, they would see something of the glory of God, and they were to honor him as God’s representative, God’s vice-regent, on the earth.
In making man His vice-regent, God placed him over all the earthly creation. He was to subdue the world and rule over it: to make sure that every sentient creature on earth was subject to him, and indeed that even the earth itself obeyed his commands. When Jesus spoke of one with faith being able to cast a mountain into the sea, He was giving a glimpse of the kind of authority and power that was originally given to man. Everything on the planet was to be in subjection to him.
Verse 8b. For in that he subjected all things to him, he left nothing that is not subject to him. But now we don’t see all things subjected to him, yet.
Having completed the quote, the writer re-states the final line for emphasis. All means all. There was nothing on the planet that God did not make subject to Adam.
What he doesn’t say, but we need to understand, is that included the serpent. Satan had already fallen and been cast down to earth, where it was God’s intention that he should come under the authority of the man whom He had created to rule in His place.
Unless we understand that, we will not fully understand the great chasm that exists between the first sentence of this verse and the second. God’s intention was that all things should be under man’s feet, but when we look at the world around us, it seems that more often than not all things are on top of man. What happened? Very simply, man failed to take the position of authority he had been given over the fallen angel who had been placed under him. Instead, he listened to satan’s lies and effectively brought the creation into subjection to him. So now, instead of the world being subject to man, it is subject to the devil and the demonic forces. God never intended for the world to be ruled even by the elect angels, yet because of man’s rebellion it came to be ruled by fallen angels!
Verse 9. But we see him who has been made a little lower than the angels, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that by the grace of God he should taste of death for everyone.
But we see Jesus… what a triumphant statement! Man’s rebellion and disobedience was not the end. Satan’s unauthorized rule over the planet was not to continue. God had a plan! Where man had failed, another Man would come who would not fail.
God could not undo what man had done; only man could. Thus it was necessary for another Man to come in the same position as the original man, with the same mandate and the same authority, and to endure the same test. Therefore the One who created the angels became, for a little while, lower in position than them. This was not His natural position, nor was it His eternal position. Rather, it was a temporary, voluntary stepping down in order to lift man up. It seems there were those at the time who considered Christ to be less than the angels, firstly because He was human and secondly because He died. How could a man, whom God’s Word said He had made “a little lower than the angels” be above them? How could One who died be superior to those who could not die? The very ordinariness of Jesus in His earthly life made it difficult for many to accept Who He was.
So the writer quickly points out two things: Firstly, this was for a purpose, the suffering of death. As God, the Son could not suffer death, for God cannot die. Even had He come as an angel, He would not have been able to die. Only as man could He do the one thing most necessary to reconcile man with God. Secondly, we see Him not merely as a man dying on a cross, but crowned with glory and honor. The abasement was only temporary, a necessity to fulfill God’s purposes; the glory will continue forever.
that by the grace of God he should taste of death for everyone.
Just as His humanity was necessary in order for Jesus to be able to identify with mankind, and thus become the sin bearer, His divinity was necessary for the scope of that sacrifice. Had He been only man, even in His sinlessness He would only have been able to die for one other person. One human life is worth one human life. Only because He was God, and therefore infinite, was He able to represent the vast number of people who have lived and will live throughout the history of the world. One infinite life is worth an infinite number of human lives.
His resurrection and glorification are the evidence that salvation has indeed been accomplished for all mankind.