INTRO: (read 2:5-18)
When he writes, “But we do see Him who has been made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus...” the author cannot mean that we see Jesus with the natural eye. Even at the time this letter was written, Jesus had more than 30 years previously, ascended through the heavens to sit at the Father’s right hand.
We read that He appeared to Paul on the Damascus road for the purpose of calling him into service, and through history there have been stories of those who have been blessed with a vision of Christ for some specific purpose.
By and large though, Jesus is no longer to be seen with the physical eye ~ but with the eyes of faith. In truth, it has really always been that way.
There were many who saw Him with the natural eye when He walked this earth, and even then, their reaction to Him; their reception of Him; was characterized by faith or the lack of.
At no point in the gospels do we read that someone was physically attracted to Jesus. Nowhere does it say, “The multitudes were amazed at His noble stature” or, “Mary gazed intently into His azure blue eyes”.
In fact, the only physical description we’re given of the Messiah in all of scripture is in Isaiah 53:
“...He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him. Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.”
They were either in awe of His words and the authority in which He spoke them, or they were enraged and driven to murder by them.
They were bowed low in humility at the wonder of His miracles, or they were incensed and determined to be rid of Him.
They accused Him of being a demon and an illegitimate son of the devil, or they declared Him to be the Christ, the Son of the Living God.
Again, all based upon faith, or the lack of. But not according to what they saw with physical eyes.
So it has been and always will be. When He comes in the clouds of glory, and men gaze on the wounds in His hands and His pierced side, they will wail and mourn, they will tremble in terror of their impending judgment, or they will joyfully welcome the coming of their God and Savior. But all reactions will stem from what they have done with His gospel.
Either they will have suppressed the truth in unrighteousness and gone their own way, or they will have appropriated to themselves the unspeakable gift of grace and righteousness through His death and resurrection, and will look forward to an eternity of bliss.
That’s what God’s word says, and it is true and unchangeable.
So we do not see Jesus the way we see each other, but as we look with eyes of faith, we see so much more. Let’s spend the rest of our time this morning, seeing Jesus.
The writer wants us to see:
- Jesus, made a little lower than the angels
In verses 6 through 8 of this chapter the writer is quoting the 8th Psalm. The psalmist was expressing wonder that God would even be mindful of man. He is saying, “When I consider the majesty and splendor of creation, when I meditate on the fact that all of this is the work of Your hands, I am in awe that such small and insignificant things like men would even catch your notice!”
“Yet,”, he says, “Thou has made him a little lower than God...”
Now don’t let that throw you; the Hebrew word there is Elohim, This word is generally understood by us to simply refer to God Himself. But in the Hebrew text, according to the context of what is being said, it can also mean “gods“, (small ‘g’), “divine being”, “mighty”, “ruler”, “judge”, and so forth.
It is Jewish tradition that has also ascribed the term “angels” to that reference, and thus we have the Greek, “aggelos” (messengers) in Hebrews 2:7
With this in mind, understand that what we are being told here, is that man, far from insignificant to God, is made above all physical creation, just a little lower than heavenly beings, (which is the phrase used in Psalm 8 in your NIV bibles).
The psalmist is talking about created men. But it seems the writer to the Hebrews is allowing both interpretations: that it is in reference to men, but also God-become- Man.
The emphasis then, is on His identification with us, as is the emphasis of this entire portion of chapter 2, from verse 5 through verse 18.
Man is made a little lower than the angels, and for a time, the Son of God became the Son of Man, in subjection to the will of the Father, making Himself a little lower than the angels: why?
Because of the suffering of death.
This is the next thing the writer wants us to see:
- Jesus, in the suffering of death
First, I want us to get a clearer picture of the magnitude of His sufferings and what He willingly submitted Himself to, for our sake.
In Hebrews 10:5, the writer again quotes the psalmist (40:6), and says “Sacrifice and offering Thou hast not desired, BUT A BODY THOU HAST PREPARED FOR ME”
In the Psalm itself, we read “Sacrifice and meal offering Thou hast not desired; MY EARS THOU HAST OPENED (pierced).
Do not take the phrase “a body Thou hast prepared”, to mean that God made a body for Jesus to live in. The eternal Christ was the agent of the Trinity in all of creation.
“All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being” Jn 1:3
Since He is the creator of all things that have come into being, it can rightly be said that He prepared His own body for His incarnation.
This phrase in Hebrews 10 is only the Greek rendering of the Hebrew phrase in Psalm 40, “My ears” can also be rendered “my body”, and “hast opened”, can also be rendered “hast pierced”.
Stay with me now...
In Exodus 21:5,6, provision was made by God, that if a servant loved his master and did not want to leave when the Law said he must be set free, then he could declare to his master that he wanted to serve him for the rest of his life. It was a ‘bond’ of love...he would become a ‘bond-servant’. His master then took him to a doorway (catch they typology here), and placing the servant’s ear against the door frame (the wood), he would use an awl and punch a hole in the servant’s ear (pierce it). The servant then wore a ring of gold in that ear, marking him as a lifetime bond-servant of that master.
This is a type of the obedience shown to the Father by His Christ; “My ear Thou hast pierced”, signifying that the Father has accepted His declaration of ‘lifetime’ (in His case, eternal), humility and obedience to the Father’s will.
So here we have a picture of the Eternal Son of God; who according to John, was in the beginning with God and is Himself, God, willingly taking a body in order to be identified with fallen mankind, for the purpose of being pierced (dying), and buying men back.
So what does taking a body entail?
Weakness. Feeling tired, feeling hunger, feeling the discomfort of the cold night and the hot midday sun. Subjecting Himself to all the temptations that His creation faces, yet without sin; and walking daily through a world filthy with sin, seeing its effects, witnessing death.
Then suffering the ignoble death of crucifixion, after being beaten, spit upon, ridiculed, stripped naked, whipped and tortured, and rejected by the very men He came to save.
But it doesn’t end there.
Having taken this body, although by virtue of His resurrection it is now a glorified body, it is a body, still. He now has a body, which He will have for eternity, and that body will eternally bear the wounds that should have been ours.
The blessed and wonderful difference is, on us they would have been wounds of shame. On Him, they are glorious wounds of victory, which will serve to remind us every time we look on them in timeless eternity, that Jesus paid it all!
And what exactly did He accomplish by His suffering?
~ By the Grace of God He tasted death for everyone.
What a terrible, horrific shame, that so many enter eternity daily, tasting death for themselves, when in truth, He tasted death for them, so that if only they had looked to His cross they never would have had to taste it themselves.
Believer, you who have repented of sin and believed in His shed blood and resurrection for your salvation and newness of life, you will never taste of death. One day you will be raptured along with His church, or you will lay down and breathe your last and enter into His presence as though passing through a door; but you will never taste of death ~ because He tasted it for you.
He took of the cup the Father gave Him, and drank it to the last drop, for you.
Those who taste of death on their own do so needlessly, because they refuse to believe that He tasted of death for everyone.
~ He has brought many sons home to glory.
Jesus asked the confused believers on the road to Emmaus, “Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things, and to enter into His glory?”
So we see that His sufferings were necessary to complete the will of the Father, and His entering back into His glory was necessary in order to take His position as our Eternal High Priest.
By the sprinkling of His blood on the mercy seat, He became our Leader... our Forerunner within the veil (Heb 6:20). Jesus, by His suffering and death, opened the way for us to follow, to the very throne of God.
“...in bringing many sons to glory”
How could we have even begun the path to glory, without His leadership?
God’s will was to bring many sons to glory, but they had to be led, and the way had to be opened for them.
~ As leader, Jesus had to walk the path that we must go.
The wages of sin is death. There was no way out of the state we were in, of sin and guilt and death, except by submission to the judgment of God and surrender to His will. The only defense against our sin nature was to die to it, so to lead us out of this condition, Jesus had to walk in it. He had to be flesh, in order to die to the flesh.
~ He had to be followed. Andrew Murray wrote, “Jesus came and was made like us, we must come and be made like Him”. The path He trod and prepared for us was one of death to self, and dependence and submission to God. The only path to glory is death to self and the world, no matter the cost to us This is the path our leader opened for us; leads us in.
~ He cares for His followers. He is not as a General, who sits atop a hill and directs the battle from safety, but as a ‘Captain’, who leads His followers into the fray, and to victory.
He said, “I will never leave you, nor will I ever forsake you”. He said, “I am with you always, even to the end of the world”. The word He used for the Holy Spirit was “Paraclete”, which means ‘one who comes along side’. He called the Holy Spirit, ‘comforter’. He cares, He comforts, He does not say, “All who are strong enough, follow”, He says, “Follow”, and picks up the fallen along the way.
Rejoice, Christian, that you have such a Leader. He opened the path to glory, He leads you in it, He will bring you home!
Finally,
~ He rendered powerless him who had the power of death, that is the devil; and delivered those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.
Now, Satan has no authority to kill or let live. His ‘power’, was that he held mankind under the constant expectation of death for sin.
This doesn’t have to be proven. Just look around you. Mankind is so afraid of death, that every effort is made to ward it off, from all the money and resources of medical science, to the makers of mascara.
The only people in the world who do not fear death are fools and Christians!
But by His atoning death, Jesus took away Satan’s power to threaten with death, all who believe; and set us free from bondage.
So we see:
- Jesus, crowned with glory and honor
The are some attributes of Deity that we can say Christ has always had and always will. Being God He is Omniscient (all-knowing) Omnipotent (all-powerful), Omnipresent (He is everywhere and there is nowhere that He is not), Immutability (He does not change), ~ and there are His moral attributes: Holiness, Righteousness and Justice, Goodness, Truth. As to His very essence ~ He is Spirit, He is self existent (no one created Him), His immensity (that is, He is not limited to space) and His eternal nature. (He always has been and always will be: has no beginning and no end).
But in relation to the work of Christ, there are some things that he ’became’ by virtue of His finished work ~ and those things all relate to us.
What did He become?
Author of Salvation. He wrote the book, we might say. Being a writer by hobby, I can identify somewhat with this one. When I write a story, it is a creation. I am, in a sense, the ‘god’ of the story. It begins where I choose to begin it; all the characters are given birth by my imagination, and I direct their existence. If ‘John’ gets into a car to drive, he only goes where I take him, and depending on the flow of the story, ‘John’ may head east out of town and never be heard from again, or he may arrive at a certain destination and become the focal figure of the entire story. It’s my story. I am the author.
Jesus planned our salvation, orchestrated all of the historical events that would comprise what He Himself called ‘the fullness of time’, then He appeared on the scene, carried out His perfect plan, and when it was done He cried out in triumph, “It is finished!” He is the Author of our salvation.
Sanctifier. He purchased us with His blood and made purification of sins. He sets us apart to the Father, cleansed and fit for use. His just demand was that we be perfect, as He is perfect. But knowing we could not be that, knowing that we were hopeless, sinful, enemies of God, sin-stained and made utterly useless, He lifted us up to stand in His righteousness, washed away every spot, and introduced us by faith into Grace.
Declarer of the brethren. We are not relegated to ‘coach’. We go first class all the way. The Author of our Salvation; the One who has sanctified us and reconciled us to the Father, joyfully stands in our midst and leads us to the Throne. He ‘sings the Father’s praises’, is the picture we’re given here in chapter 2 verse 12, and He declares, “Behold, I and the children Thou hast given Me!”
When He walked this earth He was not ashamed to sit with society’s outcasts and tell them about the Kingdom of God. He was not ashamed to call to Himself such men as lowly, uneducated Galilean fishermen, despised tax-collectors, even His own betrayer.
And now, as declarer of the brethren, He waves a nail-scarred hand over the vast congregation of the elect, and says “Look Father! Thou hast given Me all these, and I bring them safely home to glory!”
Merciful and Faithful High Priest. When He had completed His death, He rose to enter the Mercy seat in the heavens, in the tabernacle not made with hands, and finished His perfect work by sprinkling His own blood there to make purification of sins. In His identification with His brethren He became like them, yet without sin, suffered, was tempted, tasted of death, entered the Holy of Holies with the perfect sacrifice, then sat down. He had completed all that the Father had given Him to do, and by His obedience to the task He became forever, our Merciful and Faithful High Priest, eternal in the heavens.
Finally, though it’s not specifically stated here, He became our Champion.
He saw us, floundering in our weaknesses, pathetic, hopeless little creatures wallowing in sin and self, and He had compassion on us because we were like sheep without a shepherd.
He saw the devil, head tossed back in merciless mirth, laughing with maniacal abandon at our plight, holding us in slavery to the constant and unrelenting fear of imminent death and eternal separation from God, and in His compassion He entered into the fray.
He took flesh and blood so that through His own death He might snatch the Demon’s own sword away and slash our bonds.
His unfathomable sacrifice for us made propitiation for our sins, and that work is complete and eternal.
And He remains, also eternally, our Helper and Friend.
“Since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted”
Are you tempted friend? Do you suffer? Do you struggle still with sins and with weaknesses?
He is not your accuser! He is able to come to your aid! He is your CHAMPION!
Do you see Him? Do you see Jesus?
Have you looked with eyes of faith and beheld His majesty and His beauty and His glory ~ glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth?
Do you see the Author of your salvation? The One who sanctifies you and ushers you, clean and justified into the Throne room? The One who proudly declares to the Father that you are His? The One who ever lives to make intercession for you before the Throne of Grace? Your Champion, who has already crushed the Serpent’s head and now carries you through, until the day you stand glorified in the place He has prepared for you?
That’s who we’re supposed to see today, believer! That’s the One I urge you to come to today, sinner, lost and undone and in slavery to the fear of death! Turn today and see my Jesus. Made for a little while lower than the angels, for you!
Crowned with glory and honor, in that through the suffering of death He is made fit to bring many sons home to glory. Be one of those sons today.
He’s not your accuser. He’s your Champion! Do you see Him?
