LOOKING BACK (Hebrews 2:1-9)
Our eyes were lifted up to see the amazing grace God lavishes on His children. We broke the passage down into these sections:
- God’s Big Plan for Little Man (v5-8a)
- Little Man’s Big Rebellion (v8b)
- Big God Rescues Little Man (v9)
God has planned to do more than restore us to the place where we were before we rebelled against His loving rule (Adam and Eve were made a little lower than the angels). He intends to put this world in subjection to us, crowning us with glory and honor! He is able to do this because Christ came into the world to fully experience death for everyone and to lift us up from the pit of our sin to sit with Him in glory! We are joined to Jesus in His death to sin, in His resurrection, ascension and heavenly reign, when all His enemies will be His footstool! This union with Jesus is called being “in Him” in the Bible. Our glorious destiny and His are linked in a way that no-one can uncouple, because we are “in Him”! As the hymn-writer said:
In Him the tribes of Adam boast
More blessings than their father lost
LOOKING AHEAD (Hebrews 2:10-18)
We covered some of the material in this passage in last week’s post, but here are a few more things for us to ponder as we prepare to hear God speaking to us in His Word this coming Sunday;
There is an appropriateness (or a rightness) about the plan God has executed to rescue us. The writer says (v10) that it was “fitting”, or “right” that Jesus should suffer in order to be the founder of our salvation, Who makes us holy (sanctifies us). Jesus was made lower than the angels for a little while (without giving up any of His “Godness”, He became also a man) so He could die for His people. We mentioned last week that since man had offended God, man had to pay for the offence, but that man’s life had to be of infinite value if many sons would be brought to glory. So Jesus had to die as a God-man to rescue us. Here are some of the ways, expressed or implied in the passage, in which this suffering of Jesus is gloriously fitting:
- Jesus was able to stand fully in our place to receive the punishment that should have been ours
- Jesus fully identified with us – He has become bound to us eternally as a man – He will never give up the body that He dwelt in here on earth but will keep it forever
- Therefore Jesus is our brother. God has become Father to Jesus the man in the same way that God is our Father. Also, in Jesus, God has become our Father in the same way He is Jesus’ Father.
- Therefore also, Jesus is perfectly suited to be our high priest, because in His body He has sinlessly endured all the temptations we face, has lived among sinners in a corrupt world and has a fellow-feeling for all our weaknesses. He grew tired, He wept, He was persecuted. He knows what it is like to be us.
So there is a Divine symmetry, purpose, elegance and genius to God’s rescue plan – it was completely “fitting!” I hope your heart is warmed by the depth and the richness of these truths. They reach far beyond our ability to understand, but we should expect that when we are studying the heart and the purposes of an infinite God, and thank Him for the wonderful things we are able to see, understand, and even sense!
Lastly, the writer tells us that Jesus was made perfect through His suffering. This can’t mean that Jesus wasn’t perfect until He suffered – as though there was some blemish or sin in Him that His suffering cleaned away. All the Scriptures tell us that He knew no sin and no-one could ever find sin in Him. Rather, I think it means that by becoming a man and being made like us in every respect, by coming to dwell among us in a sinful world, by dying as our substitute and for our sins, by joining Himself with us so intimately and eternally as our brother, Jesus is perfectly suited to save to the uttermost all who put their trust in Him. This is what the writer is saying here – Jesus is intimately acquainted with our condition. Jesus has done everything that is needed to rescue us, so no one who comes to Him for salvation can possibly be lost! Everything He experienced and suffered makes Him the perfect Savior for us!