One of Us
(Hebrews 2:5-18)
1. Some people make a big deal out of small problems, some of which they should actually find amusing: “Today, for our 25th anniversary, my husband and I had dinner on a cruise ship, a dinner we had been planning for months. Upon boarding, I realized the expensive dress that I had bought just for the occasion had exactly the same print as the chair covers and the carpet. The cruise lasted 8 hours.”
2. Sometimes, I confess, I can be one of those people. If I am in a bad mood, stressed, or impatient, I can make mountains out of molehills. That is something I don’t like about myself, and something I try to restrain.
2. But then there are REAL problems: A rough week for the City of Kokomo. We got hit hard, but, praise the Lord, no one died and no one was seriously injured.
2. But that doesn’t mean there were no heartaches or losses.
3. When someone’s house burns down and lose most of their things, our hearts sympathize with them. When a tornado takes out 15 houses and people lose all, we tend to say, “well, at least no one died.”
4. But God treats us as individuals, even if we are one of many; He not only knows about how we feel, He knows from experience how we feel, because God the Son has become Man in the person of Jesus Christ, and experienced human nature in the full sense of the term.
5. Some of the ancient Jews, however, had trouble with the idea that God could become a Man., thus lowering Himself even below the angels? Why would He do such a thing? It was an argument they used against their Messianic Jewish brothers to persuade them to renounce their faith in Jesus and return to the fold of non-Messianic Judaism.
6. So Apollos — or whoever wrote Hebrews — addresses this issue in the section of Hebrews we are examining. Why would the divine God become a mortal man?
Main Idea: Even though angels are above humans, the human nature of Jesus was only temporarily below that of angels: Our salvation made His temporary humility necessary. That’s how much He loves you and me.
I. He Became MAN So He Could ELEVATE Redeemed Mankind (5-9).
A. Psalm 8, define the DIGNITY of being human, but places us below the angels.
B. Mankind lost His original DOMINION, and still does not experience it fully.
C. Jesus tasted death for each of us that we might REGAIN what was lost.
• The idea of His incarnation is connected to His death. He became man primarily to die as the sacrificial Lamb of God.
• He is the ultimate Man, the Second Adam, Who became a little lower than the angels and was then crowned in glory — and we are crowned because we are in Him…
• He tasted death by drinking the full cup of God’s wrath (Gethsemane)
D. Not only will we one day have dominion, we will JUDGE the angels!
I Corinthians 6:2-3, “Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life!”
II. He Became Part of the HUMAN Family So We Become Part of His DIVINE Family (10-13)
A. His completion (perfection) in the human experience included SUFFERING (10)
God knows all things, but He knows what it is like to be human not only by omniscience, but also by experience — He walked in our shoes.
B. His COMPANIONS (Hebrews 1:9)
C. His BROTHERS
D. His CHILDREN
III. He Became Human So He Could Conquer Both Death and SATAN (2:14-16)
• When were kids, my sister and I would hold a button when my parents drove past a cemetery. I didn’t know why, but it was a variation on a superstition that you were to hold your breath as you past a cemetery or you would die.
• A few years ago, a superstitious 19-year-old man who fainted while holding his breath (for the very same reason) as he drove through a tunnel northwest of Portland, Oregon causing a 3-car crash.
His car drifted across the center line and crashed head-on with a Ford Explorer. His car then bounced off the tunnel walls and collided with a pickup.
The 19 yr. old was cited for reckless driving, 4th-degree assault and 3 counts of reckless endangerment. (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/man-holding-breath-in-oregon-tunnel-causes-three-car-crash/) via Jeff Strite, Sermoncentral, atered.
• God gave us the fear of death to help keep us alive (caution). But believers in Jesus need not fear death, although we may fear the process of death or the consequences to those left behind.
A. Satan tempted man to sin and thus brought DEATH to creation.
B. Through this, Satan became established as the “GOD of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4)
C. Jesus INVADED death and DEFEATED Satan.
1. Craig Koester put it this way: “Unlike others, Jesus did not encounter death as a slave, but as an assailant; he intruded into death’s domain in order to overcome it.”
2. Fear of death is called, “slavery.”
3. Should we be afraid to die if we know Christ?
D. God did not provide salvation from an EASY CHAIR!
IV. He Became Human So He Could SYMPATHIZE with Us As Our High Priest (17-18)
A. He became like His BROTHERS
B. He can thus be a SYMPATHETIC High Priest
C. Jesus not only knows WHAT you feel, He knows HOW you feel!
“….Then shall the Lord raise up a new high priest…And he shall execute a righteous judgment upon the earth…And he shall open the gates of paradise and shall remove the threatening sword against Adam…And Beliar [Satan] shall be bound by him, and he shall give power to his children to tread upon evil spirits…” [Ben Witherington III, Letters and Homilies for Jewish Christians, pp. 158-159, quoting William Lane]
This apocryphal book dates back well before 200 BC.
