Hebrews chapter 2. Remember what
Hebrews is all about. Hebrews is a polemic against
Judaism. It is where Paul has come and
written to his brothers in the flesh, like his genealogical
brothers, his ethnic brothers, who are also in the faith. In doing so, he really plays... a big part in helping us understand
the Old Testament, helping us understand what the shadows and
types of Old Testament Judaism really was. We also need to recognize
that when we see the Old Testament, when we see Judaism, that the
Judaism of Moses and the Judaism of Abraham and the Judaism, let's
just change the word, the worship and the knowledge of grace and
of God from these patriarchs was not the same faith that the
Jews, the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin had in the day of Jesus. So that there is a big difference.
And in the day of Jesus, as we've already talked about, these Jewish
people looked at their lineage, looked at their bloodlines, looked
at their obedience, looked at the precepts of the law, looked
at all of the rituals and the worship and the prayers and the
learning and the knowledge and the wisdom. They looked at all
of these things and they thought to themselves, surely we are
God's people, look at us. Would you look at us? And just as we see Jesus using
that very example about the Pharisee and the publican, we see that
very thing played out in the rebuke and the edification. See, one thing Paul does not
do is he doesn't just give a letter of the not gospel. He gives the
letter of the true gospel, and in doing so he explains how these
things that they looked upon for centuries weren't the gospel,
but they were to point to the one who is the good news, who
is Jesus Christ. and that faith alone in Him solely,
period, is one's only hope. And what is it that we have faith
in? In the person of Jesus Christ and that He is who He says He
is, God in the flesh. He has done what He says He has
done, which is to redeem His elect by His blood and He has
promised what He has promised which is eternal life as we see
He has also been raised from the dead. So as Paul started
this letter out He makes certain for the reader to grasp the sufficiency
and the preeminence of Jesus Christ. He shows and he tells
the readers about the reality of Jesus as God, that He is the
God of all creation and that He is above all things. And so
now what Paul is going to do as he continues is he's going
to say, we better pay attention to this. Now, of course, he's
talking to Jewish people who trusted in their works, who trusted
in the power of God to manipulate their lives, that if they ever
stood before God, though they would not be perfect in their
life, they felt that they would be better than they used to be,
so therefore they would have some grounds of boasting. And
then they would claim that it was God's work all along, but
that is a false gospel. It is a false gospel. Not that
the gospel doesn't transform our heart and mind, not that
the love of Christ doesn't compel us on to love and good deeds
and good service to one another, but there are times when our
flesh may set a table for itself and we begin to think that that's
good enough, that we have security in what we've become rather than
what Christ is and has done. And so he says in chapter two,
we'll read a few verses and then talk as is our protocol and M.O. for our Wednesday night read-throughs.
Therefore, we must pay closer attention to what we have heard,
lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared
by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience
received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect
such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the
Lord, and it was attested to by us, by those who heard, while
God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles,
and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, distributed according to His
will. For it was not to angels that God subjected the world
to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere.
What is man that you are mindful of him or the son of man that
you care for him? You made him lower for a little while than
the angels. You have crowned him with glory
and honor, putting everything in subjection under His feet. Now in putting everything in
subjection to Him, He left nothing outside of His control. At present
we do not yet see everything, we do not yet see everything
in subjection to Him, but we see Him who for a little while
was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory
and honor because of the suffering and of death so that by the grace
of God He might taste death for us all. So we're gonna stop there,
and we're gonna go back. This therefore, in this next
sentence here in verse one of chapter two, is because of this
truth that God the Father calls Jesus Christ Lord, and calls
the Son God, and calls the Son God the Creator, and commands
the angels to worship him, that Jesus in every way is God. As the Father is God, so the
Son is also God. But the Father is not the Son,
and the Son is not the Father. Yet both, as God, are eternal,
not to have a beginning, and will never have an end. And because
the person of Jesus Christ is through whom God now speaks,
His revelation... We need to understand this about
the Word of God. This is going back two weeks. We need to understand
about the Word of God that the written scripture is the sole
revelation of God to anyone. And specifically, namely, to
His people, to the elect. So that we aren't looking for
visions, we aren't looking at signs, we aren't determining
based on an outer perimeter of our ability to think cognitively,
to assume something. We are able to see the revelation
of God in its 1,000th percent completion in these written words. There is nothing left to know
concerning God. There is nothing left to know
concerning the revelation of God. There is nothing left to
know concerning the person of God because he is fully revealed
completely, eternally in Jesus Christ the Son, who now speaks
as the Living Word that became flesh, John 1, 18, and who is
also now being spoken of, not just from God of the Old Testament,
but the God of the New Testament, which is the same God, and the
apostles now, instead of the prophets, And in this letter
now, Jesus Christ the Son is being displayed and shown and
revealed as God. He is speaking. So if Jesus Christ
and the story of Christ through the apostles writings is the
manifestation and the witness of the revelation of God for
the elect unto their salvation and redemption. That's why Paul
starts out chapter 1 like he does. that he made purification
for sins and he sat down at the right hand of majesty. So this
is what's in play here. How is a man righteous before
God and how does that man know and have assurance and confidence
of that standing? So then Paul says, therefore,
We must pay close, closer attention to what we've heard. What does
he mean? Closer attention to the gospel proclamation. Let's
make this clear. I've heard testimonies, even
Brother Ben and I earlier today were listening to a testimony
that said, this man said, I gave my life to Jesus Christ and I've
never been the same person again. That's not a gospel testimony.
And I'm gonna say any of you who are listening at home or
any of you who are on the World Wide Web, it's the first time
in my life I've ever really addressed any non-audience, but you need
to recognize if that's your testimony of eternal life, you are condemned
before God the Father this very day. Now, saints, the testimony
of eternal life is who Christ is and what he accomplished for
his people. And so we better pay closer attention
to what we've heard. The proclamation of the gospel
is to say that God has finished the work of redemption. Not offered
it, not provided it. Jesus said it is finished. He
spoke as we saw this last Lord's Day. He spoke the words, I thirst
in order to fulfill the prophecy because in his omniscience, he
knew that he was finishing the work of redemption for the elect.
So gospel proclamation is to tell of the work of Christ. that
it is done, and that you who are His have eternal life." But
he says, we better pay closer attention to what we've heard,
lest we drift away from it. Now, this motif is going to carry
us throughout the rest of this letter, all the rest of the chapters,
all the way to the end, over in chapter 13. This motif of
listening to the testimony concerning Jesus Christ, the God-man, paying
attention to this testimony, having confident assurance in
this testimony, and resting in this testimony. You know who
the testimony is, right? Jesus. Because if we drift away from
this testimony, we have death. We don't want to drift away from
this. And he goes on to say there in verse 2, for since the message
declared by angels proved to be reliable, what angels? All
the messages of angels. As God sent angels to speak to
Joshua, as God sent angels to speak to Moses, as God sent angels
to speak to Abraham, to Jacob, to the shepherds, to Mary, to
Elizabeth, to Zechariah, to all the prophets. And as God Himself,
Jesus Christ the God-man, speaking to God the Son, speaking to some
of the prophets of old. God's angels told of Him. God's angels showed that who
they said He was is who He was in the incarnation, at the birth
of Christ. Behold, here is God. Here is Emmanuel, God with us.
The government shall rest upon His shoulders. And all of these
things that angels have declared, angels have declared them. It's
interesting to me that people look for that type of thing,
that the cults of our culture today are always looking to see
something miraculous when all they need to do is open the pages
of this scripture and see and hear the face of God in the face
of Jesus Christ, hear the voice of God in the lens of scripture,
and that everything that He is is evidence to them through this
witness. But they'd rather see something
happen in the sky. I've seen people share this stuff
lately. Oh, this virus is a sign of the
times. No, it's not. It's a temporal sign of judgment,
just like the first cold, just like the first stubbed toe, just
like the first death in the Garden of Eden to cover the sins of
Adam and Eve. God created it for his purpose. But I don't
want to I don't want to subject the gospel to that. We're done
with that. Let's continue to look at the glory of Christ,
the glory of Christ, everything. that is to be known, even that
is declared by angels, prove to be reliable. And we also learn
through the message of angels, through the message of prophets,
through the message of God, through the scriptures, that every transgression,
that every disobedience received a just retribution. And if this
is true, if God is an all-consuming fire, if God is truly just and
righteous, if God is really loving wrath, then how in the world
are we going to neglect or escape the wrath of God if we neglect
such a great salvation? That's the question he asked
there. How are we to escape this judgment, this justice, if we
neglect such a great salvation? So listen to the rhetoric of
Paul. He asked this question not so that we would answer it,
because he's already answered it. But he's going to answer
it again and again and again and again and again with different
pictures. He's going to answer it through Abraham. He's going
to answer it through Moses. He's going to answer it through
the priesthood. He's going to answer it through the oracles.
He's going to answer it through the law. And he's going to show
that all of these things were showing us grace. Showing us the true righteousness
of God who is Jesus Christ the Lord. and that the only escape
is that He died in our place. Already has He died. That is
our means of escape. Because the gospel is not about
how we escape justice or escape death. The gospel is about the
glory of God for His provision and for His absolute sovereign
work to transfer and to snatch and to tear His people out of
death and put them in life who is Jesus Christ. For if we are
not found in Jesus, His death is not ours. If we have not been
given to Him, we will not, nor can we, believe. Because believing
is believing that He died for us and we were given to Him by
the Father. neglecting the salvation. Paul
is saying, as I've already said, as a motif, we better pay attention
to what we've heard lest we drift away. Because if we drift away
from the simple grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, from the simple
grace of the gospel of free and sovereign grace, then we are
walking on dangerous places. And it is the problem with natural
man. We have a problem in our flesh
to want to try to have something that we can touch and feel and
hold to. We want some way to have some pacifier that actually
has texture. We want something to numb the
focus of our mind. Yet, the only thing that saves
us is the Lord Jesus and His finished work. And if we neglect
this simple message through any means, we have neglected salvation. How can then we be sure that
we've escaped the wrath of God? This message was declared first
by the Lord, this message of grace, this message of the Lord
Jesus. The Lord Himself preached the
truth of Christ and then it was attested to by us to us by those
who heard. Those who heard this message,
the prophets and now the disciples, apostles. While God also bore
witness. How is it that God bore witness?
When God was at Sinai with Moses, they bore witness to his glory.
Keep in mind that the Exodus is about the imprisonment and
the slavery of the Israelites who were God's chosen people. who were saved not for themselves
and for their sake and for their own name, but as God would say
many times through some of the prophets, specifically Ezekiel,
not for your name am I doing this, but for the sake of my
own. God brings them out of captivity, out of death, out of slavery. This is a picture of the wages
of sin. And he does so by the blood of
a lamb, which is a picture of the finished work of Jesus Christ,
to the place where now, for generations beyond, they are to remember,
they are to remember this Passover as a way of looking to the final
hope of redemption in the Lamb of God who takes away their sins.
But sadly, the practices of the preview and the pondering on
that which is to come became the sufficient hope that they
found satisfying to their soul. Why? Because God does not grant
repentance to all people. And the very nature of the change
of disposition, which is what repentance means, is that you
have saving, true, gracious, and divinely granted faith to
believe in the witness of God concerning His Son. I pray that this is not the first
time that we have heard this, for I know that I have said these
things for years. God proved His message as they
moved out of this area of the Exodus, as they moved out of
Egypt. They saw the power of God through the plagues. They
saw the power of God at the Red Sea. They saw the power of God
at Mount Sinai, the Shekinah glory of God, the tempest, the
heaviness and the gravity of God's righteousness just as a
shadow. And then he saw, we've seen the
testimony then through the teaching ministry of Jesus, through the
witness of the apostles, through the witness of those men who
did miracles and signs and were given gifts by the Holy Spirit
to do that which God had sent them to do for His purposes only. Not the purposes of humanity,
not the sake of culture or community or intimacy or love or good housekeeping
or anything else, but God gives gifts according to His will.
And those gifts even testify. Doesn't Jesus say that in John
chapter 5, I believe, when He's talking to the Jews? And they
are accusing Him of being a sinner, they're accusing Him of being
a man of ill-reproach, they're accusing all sorts of things,
and He dares tell them that Moses, they appeal to Moses, and Jesus
says to them, Moses will indict you before the Father because
Moses wrote of Me. We see in other apostolic writings
where The Bible says that the Son of
God, Jesus, is the one who led Israel out of Egypt. That the
Son of God, Jesus, is the one who brought down judgment on
Sodom and Gomorrah. That the Son of God did these things. Because Jesus, the Son, is God.
And Jesus cannot be ignored, yet many people do ignore Him
because they have not been granted the sight to see. And this scripture
here begins to help us realize the gravity of not listening
to the gospel. Beloved, in my years of being
in ministry, and I use the quotes for that, being in ministry,
there has always been a majority of people who have an assurance
based on what they've decided to believe concerning the testimony
that they've decided to hear concerning the Jesus that they've
decided to create. It is very rare that someone
comes who says, I am a believer, or I am a Christian, or I am
a saved individual, that they have a testimony concerning the
Son that is found here in this text. Broad is the way that ends
in destruction, narrow is the gate that leads to righteousness,
and few will find it. At best, many religious people
have a somewhat Christian humanism about them where they have changed
and they live in such a way that they feel confident that they
are indeed in Christ. Because after all, they said
the prayer, they did the work, they came to church, they've
served the Lord, they've done and done and done and done. But
the trueness of it is, is that God, the Holy Spirit, as He wishes,
through the testimony of Scripture, causes us to be born again to
a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead
as he grants us a change of mind which is saving faith in that
proclamation. We better pay attention. We better
pay attention to our testimonies. We better pay attention to the
teaching of what man calls the gospel. I sent an email day before
yesterday to a gentleman that I do not know, but I've seen
him online a few times. He's not a pastor, but I did
notice in several of his videos that he had a Bible. And I can
see a good sense of a Christian worldview in his production,
but I like to talk with him specifically about a couple of ideas that
I have that might fit well with some of the things that he's
doing. But the question that I ended the email with is, could
you tell me how you would define the gospel? And dependent upon
this man's answer, would it be dependent upon whether we can
work together? There's something to be said
where we can dig holes together and feed people together and
we can wash cars together, we can do all sorts of things together,
we can work with unbelievers, we can work with false believers,
we can do all sorts of stuff. But when it comes to the point
of declaring the gospel, there is only one. And you can't partner
with people, listen to this, you can't partner with people
who use the law as evangelistic. You can't partner with people
who try to make people aware of their guilt and fear them
into coming to some logical conclusion about the narrative of scripture.
That's not salvation. You can't come to a place where
someone can go door knocking and then walk people through
certain certain points or patterns or prayers and say, okay, now
that you've said that, if you really believe it, then you're saved.
You can't partner with people who have a different gospel.
It is good news because it is what God has done, not because of what we do with
it. I often think of this every time
I contemplate it, and I've even said it today, and I also said
it Monday. I've never met a person on the
counseling desk or a couple who were in the throes of marital
frustration and discord who were contemplating divorce who weren't
sincere on the day of their wedding. If you were to ask them the week
after their wedding or the week leading to it, most people would
say, absolutely, I'm giving my life to this woman or to this
man as long as I live till death do us part, for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health, in the good times, in the bad times,
when she's pretty, when she's ugly, when he's thin, or when
he's fat, or whatever it may be, or however those vows come
across. I've never met someone who says,
no, I was just lying the whole time. I wasn't really sincere.
I was hoping it would work out, but I really wasn't serious about
it. They're usually always serious. And there are exceptions. I don't
need to hear them. The point of the illustration
stands. But yet a year later, two years later, three years
later, five years later, 20 years later, 30 years later, something
happens and that commitment wanes. The feelings fall away. The faithfulness
in your heart and your spirit begin to deteriorate. And the
next thing you know, you find yourself not caring if that person
ever comes back home. Is it that level of sincerity
that you need in order to be saved? Is it that level of affirmation
that you have to have in your confidence of submitting to your
life to the headship of Jesus? Well, let me give you this, wives.
If you do not submit to your husband in all things, you are
not submitting to the headship of Jesus. Let me give you this,
husbands, if you're not loving your wife as Christ loved the
church by giving up your rights and laying down the very life
you have, you are not submitting to the Lordship of Jesus. So
where does that leave our hope? It leaves our hope in that which
we listen to, that which we pay attention to. Beloved, it is,
even through a text message exchange that I had this afternoon, with
a brother in the Lord Jesus on a professional situation. It
was a beautiful exchange of woe and worry and then gospel trading. The trading of the gospel of
free and sovereign grace that no matter how the world looks
and our circumstance looks and how much a little tiny bit of
reprieve over here or a little bit of help over here or a little
bit of solace over here might give us a sense of peace. It's
only temporary. It's only going to last a moment.
It's only going to give us hope until the next big bump in the
road or the next time we stomp our toe or something difficult
takes place. The only thing that truly matters
is that Christ saved us through His life, death, and resurrection. And Christ is our rock. There are some so-called theologians
who would say that the rock on which you build your house is
obedience. That is demonic and blasphemous and wicked beyond
my ability to place adjectives upon it. The rock is the foundation
of the finished work of God the Son. who satisfied the conditions
of righteousness, not just in himself as his ontologically,
but in his obedience and his death, proven by his resurrection
from the dead. And building your house upon
the rock is to set everything you are on that promise, that
he's the rock. In verse 5, for further explanation,
Paul says, for it is not to angels that God subjected the world
to come of which we are speaking. It is not to angels that we're
talking about this glorious hope. It is not to angels that God
promised the day of rest. They are servants and they do
their due, but it is angels, as we see Peter writing in his
first epistle, right after that incredible first 10 or 11 verses,
about our joy that is often expressible as we rejoice, looking to that
which God has accomplished, which is the salvation of our souls,
to which angels peek into. They look longingly, and they're
interested in the working of the Lord Jesus concerning the
salvation of His elect humans. It's sort of like many times
I've watched neurosurgery on television. Don't ask me why,
but I'm infatuated by the fact that things can be done that
way and the knowledge that God has granted humanity to be able
to take the body and fix it by His grace. Yet that is not me
doing and it is not me witnessing. It is just me witnessing this
mighty work. And if that gives me pause to wonder in awe, what
should the gospel do for us? It should make us broken in the
sense of overwhelming joy and overwhelming mystery. As Paul says there, this wasn't
to angels. that God has made this promise
through the Lord Jesus Christ. It has been testified somewhere,
he says, Psalm chapter 8, where he goes, what is man that you're
thinking of him, or the son of man that you care for him? You
made him, the son of man, the son that you have begotten, lower
than the angels, you have crowned this man with glory and honor,
putting everything in subjection under his feet. Understand that
Jesus Christ, the eternal Son, who is God, the eternally God
of the Son, has not been eternally human. But he became like that which
he created, that he may suffer in place of his elect that he
created to satisfy the wrath of God and all righteousness
through his death. And then it continues to reiterate
the preeminence of Christ, verse 8, putting everything in subjection
under his feet. This bites at people. As Paul says in 8B here,
this bites at people. This hurts us sometimes as Americans. We are in control. The Constitution
gives us the ability in the first 10 amendments and the preamble
there too gives us the privilege to say we are little kings. Yet in the sense of all the kings
of all the kings of all the kings, there is only one true king. has everything under his control. Now, in putting everything in
subjection to him, he left nothing outside of his control. He left
nothing outside of the control of Christ. Remember Sunday, the
arrest of Jesus, the trials of Jesus, the accusations of Jesus,
the questioning of Jesus. the beating of Jesus, the scourging
of Jesus, the crucifixion of Jesus, the drinking that Jesus
did, the conversations that Jesus had, the weather, the wind, the
clothing that they cast lots for and divided, the things that
they said, the sign that they put over His head, the very fact
that He cried out for thirst and then said it was finished,
that is all under His control. He did it as He willed it, as
the Father had sent Him to do, in obedience and subjection to
the Father's will, which is the will of the Son to be food, John
4. And that means nothing is outside
His control. Nothing. People argue, well, I don't see
everything in control of Christ because you can't see it. And when Jesus was a man, it
says in verse 9, we see him for a little while was made lower
than the angels. Jesus, who is now crowned with glory and honor
because of the suffering of death. People say, well Jesus died.
How was he in control? He was in control. The Gospels
say that he was in control. He laid his life down as he wished
and as he willed, he took his life up again. Why? So that he might by the
grace of God, taste death for everyone. Now, who is everyone?
Those reading this letter, everyone that I'm talking to, all of you,
Christ has died for you, beloved saints in the Lord Jesus. You are the elect. Jesus did not taste death for
all humanity. He tasted death for His elect
of all the nations of the earth. For if he tasted death for you,
you will not perish. Salvation, above all things,
should be at the top of the list for us to recognize that it is
in subjection to Him. He controls salvation. And that's what He's going to
talk about for the rest of this letter. Jesus controls the salvation
of His people. For, verse 10, it was fitting
that He, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing
many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation
perfect through suffering. Now that perfection there, that
word perfect, does not mean that Jesus got better to a place of
perfection. Jesus was already perfect. What
it means is it means He completed His work. So, it was fitting
that He, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing
many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation
finished in His work through suffering. He perfected salvation. He finished salvation. He accomplished
salvation. He applied salvation through
His death. And I'm going to pick up here
next week, I'm not only going to teach it now, I'm going to teach it
again next week, these next few verses. For he who sanctifies,
that means he who sets apart for God, he who makes holy, and
those who are made holy have one source. That is why he is
not ashamed to call them brothers. saying, I will tell of your name
to my brothers in the midst of the congregation. I will sing
your praise. And again, I will put my trust in him. And again,
behold, I and the children God has given me. What does this
show us, beloved? This shows us that Jesus saved
everyone He intended to save when He died on the cross. The
saints of old, the saints of then, and the saints of today,
and the saints of tomorrow. He is able to save to the uttermost. He is the one who is our salvation. He established this salvation. He accomplished this salvation. He applied this salvation so
that in His suffering, He did save all His people. This is the witness that we best
pay close attention to, lest we fall away. Now how is he going
to approach this falling away and listen to the witness? From
this point forward, Paul is going to show many of you are falling
away because you're putting your toes on the shoulders of Moses,
while you're keeping your other toe on the shoulder of Jesus.
You can't do that. The proclamation to believe by
faith is Christ is all. He is all. Salvation is all of
Christ. Period. Not yeah but, not and
but, and then you must but. It is all of Christ. That is
what saving faith believes. Flesh stands on another toehold. And I have a little illustration
I use with my high schoolers last or this school year to examine
that and I'll talk about it next week. But we don't have a toehold. Toehold is death. Christ alone
is the rock, the foundation, the hope, the promise, the rest. He's what Moses was all about.
He's what the promised land was all about. He's what Melchizedek
was all about. He's what Abraham was promised.
All of it. It's what's going to unfold for
us here. so that we who are holy have
our holiness because Christ made us holy because he died and granted
our salvation justly. And I hope that Romans 3 echoes
in your ears when you hear this, specifically in chapter 3 verse
21 through 25 where Paul says, For the righteousness of God
is manifested apart from the law, though the law and the prophets
bear witness to it, the righteousness of God to be received by faith. For God put forth Christ as the
satisfaction of his judgment against his people. Propitiation. It's paid. He's done it. The power of death is one. And
that's where we'll start next week. Let's pray. Father, we
long for that rest, O Lord, in days like this, where we're really
not even truly suffering. We're not being persecuted. We're
just whiners, Lord. We're whiners. We whine. And
that's okay. Because your Scripture shows
us, even here, that Christ understands our temptation. and sympathizes
with us. But oh, Father, you teach us
that Christ has perfected us in Himself. That while we moan
and complain, though we shouldn't, our hope is not in the lack of
moaning. Our hope is not in the amount
of faith we have. Our hope is in Christ. Period. And nothing else. Let us rest in this truth. Father, as Your Word is written
this night, we have preached it as it's written, without inferring
anything that's not there. And by the pure witness and the
testimony of Your Holy Spirit, God, You know that what we have
said is on this page and in the context of this letter. It is
not necessary that we divide the Word of Truth through infusion
or inference, but Father, You have determined to testify concerning
your Son through this simple writing, and that by your Spirit
you cause us to see it and believe it, that our hope may rest in
you. And the pictures of antiquity and historical things show us
that you've been doing the same thing throughout all the ages,
and that you've fulfilled them in Christ, and until the day
He comes, let your church say so. It is in Christ's name we
pray, in all things. Amen.