All right, turn if you would
to Hebrews chapter two. Hebrews chapter two, I'm gonna
read from verse five down through the end of chapter two, but we're
gonna look at the first couple chapters selections from there,
but Hebrews two, beginning with verse five. It is not to angels
that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking,
but there is a place where someone has testified, what is man, that
you are mindful him, the son of man, that you care for him.
You made him a little lower than the angels. You crowned him with
glory and honor and put everything under his feet. In putting everything
under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. Yet at
present, we do not see everything subject to him. But we see Jesus,
who is 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. In bringing many sons
to glory, it was fitting that God, from whom and through whom
everything exists, should make the author of their salvation
perfect through suffering. 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. He says, I will declare your
name to my brothers. In the presence of the congregation,
I will sing your praises. And again, I will put my trust
in him. And again, here am I and the
children God has given me. Since the children have flesh
and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death
he might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is the
devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery
by their fear of death. For surely it is not angels he
helps, but Abraham's descendants. For this reason, he had to be
made like his brothers in every way in order that he might become
a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and
that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because
he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those
who are being tempted. Let's pray. Father, we're thankful indeed
that we have another opportunity to come before you and sing praises
to you and to hear from your word. Lord, we pray that you
would speak peace and joy and comfort into the heart of your
people. We continue to remember the Terrell family, and Bonnie
and Mary in particular, but the whole family. Lord, pray that
you would comfort them. And Lord, there are people here
who've gone through some things this year. Lord, I pray that
you would bring a comfort to their heart as well, that you
would comfort them with the comfort of Christ. As we Look into your
word here in a moment, Lord. I pray that the Spirit of God
would speak through the Word of God, and that you would bring
the message you would have us to hear. We ask this in Jesus'
name. Amen. You can take out your hymnals
once again, and we'll turn them to number 151. O come, all ye faithful, number
151, and we'll stand as we sing. O come, all ye faithful, joyful
and triumphant, O come ye to Bethlehem. Come and behold him, born the
King of angels. O come, let us adore him. O come, let us adore Him, Christ
the Lord. God of God, light of light, lo,
He abhors not. created. O come let us adore him, O come
let us adore him, O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord. Sing, choirs of angels, sing
in exultation. Sing, all ye citizens of heaven
above. Glory to God in the highest. Let us adore Him, Christ the
Lord. Yea, Lord, we greet Thee, born
this happy morning. Jesus, to Thee be glory given. in flesh appearing, O come let
us adore Him, O come let us adore Him, O come let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord. All right, you can make your
way back to Hebrews. And like I said earlier,
we'll look a little bit into chapters one and two here, some
selections. But as you're making your way
there, I know for a lot of people, this is a special time of year. And for others, maybe not so
much. I know that, although we can
say right now, we've turned the corner on daylight, right? So days will get longer now. But the middle of winter, people
tend to depression. And sometimes the holidays can
make that a bit more difficult. For others of us, I was brought
up Roman Catholic, and I see a lot of the trappings of Roman
Catholicism in the holiday, and it becomes something of a struggle
for me to see it in context. So when I figured out the dates,
I thought, well, I can go to First Thessalonians and pretend
Christmas isn't in three days, because, I mean, Eric did a great
message last time. He covered all the Christmassy
stuff, and I can move on. But I came across in my reading
Hebrews, and I thought, what a wonderful passage for us to
look at. And part of the reason is, is
it's dealing with a misunderstanding about the person of Christ. Now,
one, I guess, downside or danger of
Christmas is there can be so much emphasis put on the babe
that you take out of context what Jesus came here to do. So
as we look at Hebrews this morning, I'm gonna look at it from a couple
different aspects, but one of the things that I want you to
see is there are three things here in these first two chapters.
There is Jesus as the son of God, his deity. There is Jesus
as the son of man, his humanity. And then maybe a term or an idea
that you haven't thought about much, there is Jesus as the victorious
son or as the one who is crowned. So as we think about that, I'd
like you to have, as we look into this passage, I'd like you
to think about those three ideas, and like I said, we'll pull out
a little bit here from the first couple chapters. Part of the
reason why the writer of Hebrews, and for the longest time I insisted
on it being Paul, I used to pick on, Joe about that a little bit,
but whoever the writer of the Epistle of Hebrews was, he was
dealing with a mature Jewish Christian audience. So this stands
a bit in contrast to Thessalonians. If you remember in 1 Thessalonians,
he's dealing with brand new believers. These are believers who've been
believers for a while, and there's a danger, seemingly, that they
want to go back to the trappings of Judaism. And if you think
about it, Christianity is pretty, in its core message, is pretty
stripped down. It's a emphasis not on what we
do, not on the pomp and circumstance that we produce, but on what
Christ has done. And the writer of this epistle
wants these Jewish believers to see that Jesus is greater
than, and he has three primary greater thans in the entire epistle. One is greater than angels. And
it's always interesting, the angels are emphasized even in
this day and age for Christmas. And he says Jesus is greater
than Moses, we won't get into that, and Jesus is greater than
Aaron or the great high priest, but that background stands behind
this opening and this message that, and I keep wanting to say
Paul, that the writer of Hebrews has for us. So chapter one, verse
one, God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in
time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days
spoken to us by the prophets. by his son, whom he has appointed
heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds, who
being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his
person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when
he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand
of the majesty on high, having become so much better than the
angels as he has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name
than they." So here in this first section the writer is saying
that Jesus as Son of God is superior to the angels. Probably not a
thought that we would contest or be concerned by, although
in our day and age sometimes you do have to defend the deity
of Christ, but there's no doubt here that the writer of this
epistle believes in the deity of Christ, that the son of God,
not a son of God, because the angels can be called a son, or
sons of God, and believers can, by our inheritance, be called
sons of God, but Jesus, by his very nature, is the Son of God. And what he does here is he points
out this in various ways. He says he is the heir of all
things. And he not only is the heir of
all things, verse two, he was appointed that. Well, that might
not speak to you much of his deity, but By right, he had this inheritance, I guess is the best
way to put it, and he didn't have to do anything to earn it.
He didn't have to be associated with anybody for it to be his. And chapter one, verse two, it
says, that through whom he also made the worlds. And we know
from the account in Genesis that God is the creator. And it's through Jesus that God
made the worlds. And then it says in verse three
that he is the radiance, or as the translation I have in front
of me says, the brightness of his glory and the express image
of his person. So he is both wisdom of God and
word of God, or as another passage says, that Jesus exegetes, or
he shows forth God to us in his representation and if we want
to make sure it's he's the express image or the exact representation
of his being. God, very God, the same divine
nature and yet distinct in person. And not only that, verse three
it says that he sustains all things by his, or upholds, as
my translation says, all things by the word of his power. He is the powerful God. And then it says that he provided
or purged out our sins and sat down, verse three, at the right
hand of majesty in heaven, and that was the seat of honor and
dignity. Well, the writer of Hebrews doesn't
just state these facts. He goes on and he cites texts
of scripture. And he makes this comparison
because there was this tendency or desire in the hearts of some
there to go back to Judaism and to exalt the angels, the messengers
of God from the Old Testament, from the Old Covenant. He says,
to which of the angels, verse five, did he ever say, you are
my son? You are my son and today I have
begotten you. There is no created being and
the angels are created being that can say that God has said
of them exclusively that they are the son of God. You are my son. And that is a
citation from Psalm 2 and potentially 2 Samuel chapter 7. And then again, I will be to
him a father and he shall be to be a son. And then verse six,
let all the angels of God worship him, which is either a variant
in Deuteronomy 32 and or a citation of Psalm 97. And those are beyond
our time to talk about today. Just understand if you've heard
of the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament,
let all the angels of God worship him is in Deuteronomy 32. And then in the Dead Sea Scrolls,
The Hebrew text that was found there that is also stated there
so all the angels don't deserve worship, God alone deserves worship. But he's not done yet, he says,
but to the son, verse eight, he says, your throne, oh God,
is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is
a scepter of your kingdom, and he's citing there from Psalm
45. And then in chapter one, verse 10, you, Lord, in the beginning,
laid the foundation of the earth, and he's citing there from Psalm
102, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will
perish, but you remain, and they will all grow old like a garment,
like a cloak you will fold them up, and they will be changed,
but you are the same, and your years will not fail. No created being can claim that. No created being can say, I am
equal with God in this way. And then in the most cited, I
believe if I'm not mistaken, the most cited Old Testament
text in the New Testament, we read in verse 13, sit at my right
hand until I make your enemies your footstool. And you see a
bit of a hint there of that Christ as the victor theme that's coming
up, but here he's using it as a defense that Christ is the
son of God, that he is equal with God. And I don't know how
much you've thought about it, Theology is one of those things
that you can spend a lot of time at and expend a lot of energy
and not learning anything of profit, but I would say here,
here is an area where you can have some profit. The Father
was not sent to redeem the world, and in fact, If you wanted to,
you could turn over to 1 John, in 1 John chapter four. And since I don't have it written
down, I'm not gonna try to go from memory. In 1 John chapter four, verse
14, we have seen and testify that the Father has
sent the Son as the Savior of the world. So God the Father
did not appear in human flesh as Jesus
did and in fact the father even though he and the son and the
spirit are equal the father sends the son into the earth as the son of God to redeem a
people for himself. So when we think about Christmas,
we have to think about not only man being born, a virgin birth,
but the Son of God becoming incarnate, the second
person of the Trinity becoming incarnate so that he could accomplish
that which God the Father had sent him to do. So Jesus, we
see here, or as our writer says, we see
Jesus here as superior to the angels. But we also see Jesus
made, chapter two, and verse seven, made a little
lower than the angels. And here is a mystery for us
to consider. One of the things about this
time of year that can be a good contemplation, how is it that
God is able to redeem fallen humanity? Well, it wouldn't be
enough to have a sinful human And it wouldn't be enough to
just wave his hand. I mean, God could have decided
to do it, but he didn't decide to do it that way. It wouldn't
have been just to just say, well, it's okay, I'll just forgive
you. But God himself, the Son of God, came and became a man
so that we might be saved. We were made a little lower or
potentially this could be translated made for a little time lower
than the angels, but certainly in our humanity we're not angels. If you read about angels, you
read Ezekiel or you read any of the older New Testament accounts,
of the angelic beings, we certainly are not them. We're not messengers
who are able to go stand before God in our being without being
humbled or astonished or afraid of the holiness of God. We can't
stand before him and say, holy, holy, holy. Angels can do that,
but we're made Humanity is different. We are,
for a time, a little, now, he was made, for a time, I should
say, a little lower than the angels. And once again, the writer here
is citing scripture. So he says, I'm gonna tell you,
verse five, he has not put the world to come of what we speak
in subjection to angels. He's thinking again of this rulership
that Christ will have He's thinking of this position of honor that
Christ will have after putting the world in subjection to himself.
And he says, the world to come is not in subjection to angels,
but, and then he quotes from Psalm 8. And it's interesting
here, he says, one testified in a certain place saying, and
he assumes that his readers know which place he's talking about,
but it is Psalm 8, what is man that you are mindful of him,
or the son of man that you take care of him? You have made him
a little lower than the angels, you have crowned him with glory
and honor. Set him over the works of your
hands and you have put all things in subjection under his feet
now, of course Well, maybe not, of course, but you could read
this and you can read commentaries and you can look at it and you
can read Psalm 8 apart from Hebrews 2 and think, well, he's talking
about men, he's talking about Adam, right? Adam was put on
this earth to do what? To subdue it, if we read the
Genesis account. But there's this little thing
of sin that came in. And while this is true to an
extent of us as humans, obviously God is thinking of us in providing
for us a savior, God is concerned about us, and yet I believe the
fuller understanding of this, the better understanding of this
of Psalm 8, and I'm saying that based on how the writer of Hebrews
uses it here, the better understanding of this is that it is Christ
who is put in this humiliation, as it were, in this subservient
position, this humanity where somehow, in a mystery, God the
Son becomes a man without ceasing to be God. He is conceived in
the womb of Mary miraculously. He is born of a virgin. He lives a sinless life, but
he lives as a man. He thirsts, he hungers, he feels
pain, he experiences emotions. And in that sense, when we read
this, it's a bit more poignant. What is man that you are mindful
of him, the son of man, the son of man, that you take care of
him? Because God did take care of
his son. Certainly his son had the mission
that God had given him to accomplish him. but God was there with him,
empowering him and helping him. And yet it is also true of us.
What is man that God is mindful of us that the greatest gift
that we could get either under a tree or not under a tree this
time of year, the greatest realization we could have is that Christ
died to save us from our sin. Well, he is the son of man, and
he is fully human, and oddly enough, in the day and time that
the writer of the Epistle of Hebrews wrote, probably this
was more in contention than Jesus' deity, because it's a bit of
a scandal to think of a mean and lowly birth like this being
what God would do in order to save humanity. But he makes it
clear here, if you look down at verse 11, he says, for both
he who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all
of one. We're all of one, we're all of
the same family, it says. He's not ashamed to call us brethren,
that he will declare the name of his brethren in the midst
of the assembly. And we are called children. The Son of God was given a group of people that are called
children, here am I and the children whom God has given me, a citation
from Isaiah 8. And then in verse 14, it is much
then as the children have partaken of blood and flesh, he himself
likewise shared in the same. So we can't talk about Jesus
coming and only appearing to be a man. He shared in humanity. He had flesh and blood. In verse
17, he's made like his brothers in every way, save, of course,
sin. The writer here doesn't make
that point, but I think that's clear from elsewhere in the New
Testament. Jesus, fully God, Jesus fully
man, you know this time of year the the babe in the Cradle No
crying he makes actually is a heretical thing to say because he was a
fully human so the the little Lord Jesus did did cry but He is made like us and that is
something that gives us hope. Verse nine, it says, we see Jesus
who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering
of death, crowned with glory and honor. And if it sounds like
this has been said before, he's saying it again, that he by the
grace of God might taste death for everyone. So Jesus in his
humanity went to the extent of even experiencing death. He didn't
kind of die. He didn't appear to die. He didn't
swoon to be revived by the cool temperature of the cave that
he was put in. But Jesus actually experienced
death and separation from God the Father in a way that we can't
understand in bearing the sins of his people. Well, we have Jesus as God, Jesus
as man, but we also have Jesus as the victorious son. And if you were to look at chapter
2 and verse 5, we see he hasn't put
the world to come in subjection to angels. And then to verse
eight, you have put all things in subjection under his feet. And then he goes on to say, not
part of the citation, in that he put all in subjection under
him. He left nothing that is not put
under him, but now we do not yet see all things put under
him. What does that mean? Well, we
are creatures of time and space, and we know historically that
Jesus from eternity past, if we can use that term, is God. And we know that Jesus in time
came to be a man. He wasn't always a man, but he
came in time to be a man. And we know that there is a second
advent to come, that Christ will return, and that is when everything
will be finally and completely put under his feet. But because
it is certain, because God is outside of time and God does
everything that he wishes, this crowning with glory and honor
is as good as done. Yes, it is future
in some aspects, but it is certain and in some aspects it's already
done. How did he do this? Well, it
seems like an odd way to do it. Chapter 2 verse 9 that we read
earlier says what he did. for the suffering of death, crowned
with glory and honor, that he, by the grace of God, might taste
death for everyone. It is his death and his suffering
that allows him to be the victorious son. What a humiliating thing. I know that there have been probably
more When I say recent, I mean the last 40 years, but in more
recent time, probably television and reality shows based on humiliating
people. But there was a time where, and
I think it's still true of us today, if somebody said, hey,
you have an option. There's a job where you can go
work, You can do a good job. We'll give you all the tools
to do a good job. And then we'll just kind of move
you up the ranks and everybody will see what kind of a good
job that you've done. And there's another option. You won't have to work as hard.
We're just going to humiliate you. We're going to put you in
front of people for them to mock you and to make fun of you and
to treat you in a way less than you deserve. Well, I don't know
about you, but I think I would choose option A. And actually,
that is really not only in our work-a-day world, the preference
that we have. We want to be recognized for
what we do. It's also true, I think, of our
religious inclination. We want to think that something
about us something about how we have acted, something about
how we have related with other people, something about our deeds
has caused us to be acceptable before God. And here we have
Jesus who suffers death. We have Jesus who is made perfect
Verse 10, through suffering. We have Jesus dealing with death. Verse 18,
he suffered being tempted. We have Jesus who is in the place of suffering and
humiliation. And if we think about Easter,
I guess if we're gonna use the common terms for holidays, don't
think about Christmas apart of thinking about Easter, and don't
think about either one of them without thinking about the return
of Christ. But Jesus had to endure the cross
despising the shame of it. But that was the way to victory. By his death, he was able to
destroy the one who holds the power of death. Now we don't
necessarily always think of Satan in that way, and of course Satan
is given that ability. I think it's Luther who said,
Never forget the devil is God's devil. He can't do anything apart
from God permitting him to do it, and of course the book of
Job teaches us that, but death is Satan's hold on us. And if you think about how we
live, we do live, as our text says, in fear of death, in bondage
because of death. But if we understand what Christ
has done in destroying death, that he's won the crown of honor
before God, that victory is certain, that glory and honor are his
and ours by our relationship to him, we can be free from that
slavery. we can be free from that slavery. The writer says here in verse
16, he does not give aid to angels, but he does give aid to the seed
of Abraham. So it's the children, the brothers
and sisters of Christ through election, It's his people, as
Matthew 1 says, that are redeemed. So Jesus is the one who conquers
death for his people. Well, as you think about it,
And as you celebrate or don't celebrate the holiday, as you
enjoy or don't enjoy your holiday festivities that are coming up,
don't think of Jesus just as the babe in Mary's womb. Don't think of him as the child that is often glorified, I think,
wrongly, but think of him as son of God. Think of him, of
course, as son of man, but also think of him as the one who by
his death, because he suffered death, is able to bring us to
glory. If you're suffering, understand
he has suffered for you as well, and because Jesus has suffered
for his people, we can trust in him to deliver us from our
suffering or through our suffering. Pray that we would see Jesus not only this week, but for the
rest of our lives and for all eternity. Father, we thank you
for your word. We thank you for the time that
we have had to look into it. Lord, I pray that we would see
Jesus as son of God, son of man, and the victorious one. Lord,
I pray that you would Give each one of us strength to forsake
looking at ourselves, forsake looking at our goodness, or even
our own failings and sufferings, but you would instead have us
look to Jesus as our only hope. We ask this in his name, amen.