"Many Sons To Glory" Series

“But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone. 10 For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings. 11 For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, 12 saying, “I WILL PROCLAIM YOUR NAME TO MY BRETHREN, IN THE MIDST OF THE CONGREGATION I WILL SING YOUR PRAISE.” 13 And again, “I WILL PUT MY TRUST IN HIM.” And again, “BEHOLD, I AND THE CHILDREN WHOM GOD HAS GIVEN ME.” NASB

“But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. 10 In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. 11 Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. 12 He says, “I will declare your name to my brothers; in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises.” 13 And again, “I will put my trust in him.” And again he says, “Here am I, and the children God has given me.” NIV

We return briefly to verse 9 today for the sake of expanding further on our understanding of what has been said.

In saying that He tasted death for everyone, we must be careful to avoid letting that word, ‘taste’ slide through our thinking virtually unnoticed and leave the sense of someone sipping a small amount of wine or testing a sauce by dipping the tip of a spoon and tasting it.

Let us not think that Christ in some way ‘sampled’ our plight in the way a child might be blindfolded for a brief time that they might get a ‘taste’ of what it is like to be permanently blind.

He experienced death. Jesus tasted, as it were, the bitterness of sin. He drank the cup dry. He took upon Himself all the Father’s wrath against sin and went down into death as our Substitute.

And do not miss that it was according to God’s grace! “…by the grace of God He might taste of death for everyone”.

“But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Rom 5:20-21

Self-sufficient, man-centered, liberal theology so prevalent in our day rejects this truth. But it is the very heart of the Gospel.

Both the Old Testament and the New explicitly warn of the consequences of sin. Ezekiel 18:4 says, “the soul who sins will die”, and Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death”

We are taught that since all of mankind was in Adam’s loins when he sinned, therefore all who came from him came with a nature to sin and enslaved to the power of sin, therefore, all died.

God’s purpose in sending the second Person of the Trinity, the Anointed Son, was to redeem men back to Himself and the only way to do that was to send a Substitute; someone to die in their place; to taste of death for everyone.

Now don’t be thrown by that word ‘everyone’ either. “For many are called, but few are chosen”, said Jesus in Matthew 22:14, and although the call goes out to everyone to repent and believe the Gospel and be saved, it is the chosen who will respond to the call and live. Since none of us knows who are the chosen and who are not, it is our duty to respond to the call in our own heart and then extend the invitation to all, all around us.

RIGHT AND PROPER

So let’s go to our text and build upon this foundation.

A modern English version of the Bible words verse 10 this way: “It was right and proper that in bringing many sons to glory, God…should make the leader of their salvation a perfect leader through the fact that he suffered.”

Now all other translations I checked used the word ‘fitting’, and a couple of the older ones said ‘it became Him’. These are the more literal translation of the language and they are right. However I appreciated this English version saying ‘right and proper’, because it helps us get a clearer sense of the author’s meaning.