Okay, let's open our Bibles to
Hebrews chapter 2. As Brother Mark mentioned, I've
been the last few messages preaching on this subject, who is every
man? And that comes from verse 9 of
Hebrews chapter 2, where it's speaking of believers here. We see Jesus. Now that sight
of Christ there refers to the side of God-given faith. I'll
give you an example of that. Think about the thief on the
cross we sung about in the hymn. He saw Jesus, didn't he? And then something happened to
him on the cross and he saw Jesus again in another way. Isn't that
right? What was the difference? There
were many people who saw Jesus in his earthly walk and rejected
him and accused him. The Pharisees, for example, the
Sadducees, the religious elite, looked upon him and said, he's
a blasphemer, he's an imposter, he's a winebibber, all kinds
of things. But then there were others who
saw him in a different way. You remember when the Lord asked
his disciples, who do men say that I am? Some say you're Elijah,
some say you're John the Baptist, some say you're Jeremiah. But
who do you say that I am? Who do you see me as? And Peter
spoke up, you're the Christ, you're the Messiah, you're the
Redeemer. You're the one who was prophesied from the very
beginning of the Old Testament. The son of the living God. You're
my savior, that's what he said. And remember he said, blessed
are you, Simon Barjona. He said, for flesh and blood
hath not revealed that to you, but my Father which is in heaven.
I'm gonna deal, Lord willing, next week I'll deal with that
a little bit concerning the house that Christ built. Talking about
his church. He told his disciples, he said,
blessed are your eyes for they see. Blessed are your ears for
they hear. Now there are people who saw
the same thing that they saw, but they didn't see it the way
they saw it. You understand what I'm saying?
They heard the same message, they heard it in a different
way. I can remember my own situation. When I first heard the gospel,
I did not like it. In fact, I despised it. I hated
it. I went against it. I made it
my goal in life to prove it wrong. And then all of a sudden, The
Lord, by his grace, gave me eyes to see and ears to hear. So when
he says, but we see Jesus, he's talking about God's chosen, redeemed,
regenerate, born again people. You must be born again or you
cannot what? See the kingdom of God. You can't
see it. You can hear about it, you can
see things that are related to it, but you can't see it like
we see it. And that's a special thing, isn't it? That's the grace
of God. That's not the inherent goodness of man. Is it? No. A natural man receives not
the things of the Spirit of God. Neither can he know them. They're
spiritually discerned. He's spiritually dead, you see. Physically alive, but spiritually
dead. And so we have to be born again.
So he says, we see Jesus, verse 9, who was made a little lower
than the angels. That's his humanity without sin. Talking about the humanity of
Christ. He's God in human flesh. God manifests with us. And why did he do it? For the
suffering of death. He had to die. That's the penalty.
That's the price of redemption. See, there is a fountain filled
with blood. Drawn from whose veins? Emmanuel,
God with us, his veins, and sinners plunge beneath that flood, lose
all their guilty stain. I mean, the blood means his death,
his cross. It's the satisfaction of the
justice of God for the sins of all for whom he died. And it
says he's crowned with glory and honor. What's that mean?
That means he was successful. It means he didn't fail. Some of these preachers who talk
about if you don't accept him, he failed to save you. No sir,
he didn't fail to save anyone for whom he died. Now that's
so. And he says that he by the grace
of God should taste death for every man. Now the word man there
is not in the original. It should be every one or every
son, but that's immaterial. Who is the every man? Now he
identifies the every man here. He identifies them as the many
sons who will be brought unto glory. Christ said, all that
the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to
me I will in no wise cast out. This is the will of him that
sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose what? Nothing, but bring it up again
to the last day. Raise it up again to the last
day. The Word of God. They're the many sons brought
unto glory. They're those whom he sanctified. That means he set them apart.
People don't like that. Why would he set these people
apart? That's his business. That's his sovereign will and
good pleasure. And most people don't like to talk about the
sovereign will and good pleasure of God today. They'd rather talk
about their wills and their pleasure. But I'm sorry. Well, I'm not
sorry. Why should I be sorry? This is
the Word of God. And if it steps on my toes or
your toes, then so be it. That's the way it is, isn't it?
Man has no inherent goodness when it comes to God's standard
of goodness. Now, you may be good when you
compare yourself to other people, and that's okay. But that's not
salvation, is it? That's not righteousness in God's
sight. There's none good, no not one. There's none righteous
in No, not one. So where are we going to find?
You say, well, that's unreasonable. Oh, no. God has provided a perfect
righteousness. It's in his son. We see Jesus,
you say. So he set them apart. They're
called his brethren here. They're called his church. The
word church means called out ones. He called them out by the
preaching of the gospel. And then he calls them his children.
And then in verse 16, he says, for verily he took not on him
the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
Now that's what I wanna talk about this morning. I'm gonna
finish this up. He says in verse 17, wherefore in all things it
behooved him to be made like unto his brethren. Now all these
titles, all these descriptions of the every man, they're the
children of God. And how do we know the children
of God? They're his brethren. They do the will of the Father.
By his grace, they come, they are brought by God to believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's who he's talking about
here. He's not issuing some blanket pardon over anybody. He's specifically identifying
his brethren, his people. and this seat of Abraham. We'll
talk about that in just a moment. Look at it, he says, his brethren,
that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things
pertaining to God to make reconciliation, and that's a key. Sometimes you
see that word translated as propitiation in the Bible. Four times, I think,
in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, it was
mercy seat, something like that. And he says, propitiation for
the sins of the people. Now what is a propitiation? It
is a justice, satisfying sacrifice that brings peace between God
and his people. That's what it is. It's the turning
away of the wrath of God. So whoever he's talking about
here, they've been reconciled to God. They are his brethren. He is their merciful and faithful
high priest, and they're also the seed of Abraham. And he says
in verse 18, for in that he himself hath suffered being tempted or
tested, he is able to succor, that means to comfort them that
are tempted, them that are tested. Now, the seed of Abraham. It's clear that in these verses
that whoever the seed of Abraham is, they're the same as the many
sons brought unto glory, they're the same as the sanctified, they're
the same as his brethren, they're the same as his church, they're
the same as his children. That's who they are. They are
the every man for whom Christ died, the seed of Abraham. But
now when you talk about the seed of Abraham, the first thing you
have to understand about that, if you're gonna understand the
Bible, any at all, you have to understand first that Abraham
has a physical seed and Abraham has a spiritual seed. So we need
to know which one is he talking about. And the context will determine
that of the scripture. In fact, really, if you get into
it, when you talk about the seed of Abraham, it can get kind of
complicated. His physical seed. Who are the physical seed of
Abraham? Do you know that the physical seed of Abraham is both
Jews and Arabs? That's right. Both of them were
physically brought from Abraham. You can go back to Isaac and
Ishmael. And you remember what the Bible
says about that. Isaac was the son of promise. Now, whenever
it talks about Isaac being the son of promise, it's more than
just that God had promised Abraham and Sarah a son. That is included. But Isaac being the son of promise
means that the promise of God for the salvation of his people
was going to come through that line. And so it's referring to
Christ, and of course what you read, Mark, in Galatians 3 proves
that, if you follow it along here. So Abraham has both Jews
and Arabs, but in the Bible, sometimes it refers to the seed
of Abraham as being his special physical seed, as one preacher
called it, the Jews, the circumcised. Abraham was given by God the
covenant of circumcision. And so the Jewish people became
known as the circumcised. The Gentiles were the uncircumcised.
Now that was speaking of physical circumcision, which was a token
of their connection, their physical connection with Abraham. And
any Gentile who bought into that nation and wanted to be part
of that nation had to be circumcised physically. But now, physical
circumcision did not mean eternal salvation. You understand that? Paul said, God forbid that I
should glory save in the cross of Christ by whom the world is
crucified unto me and I unto the world. For in Christ Jesus
neither circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth anything but a new creation. And what's the new creation?
Well, that's the new birth. Physical circumcision was a type,
a picture of what the Bible calls spiritual circumcision. And what
is spiritual circumcision? It's the new birth. It's the
cutting away the filth of the flesh by giving us a new heart,
a new mind, new affections, new will, being born again by the
Holy Spirit. That's spiritual circumcision.
So Abraham had a physical seed, he had the Arabs and the Jews,
he had the Jews alone, but Abraham also had a spiritual seed, and
who are they? That's who the writer of Hebrews
is talking about here, the seed of Abraham, the everyman, the
brethren. They are those who have been
delivered, what preached on this last week, they've been delivered
from the bondage of sin and Satan. They are those who have been
reconciled to God. That's what verse 17 tells us.
Now if you'll look with it, turn to Romans chapter nine. Let me
show you where this is made very clear. The issue, now the issue
of Romans nine is this. And I can take you to scriptures.
I preached, I recorded this for TV. It's coming up probably in
May concerning the children of God, the children of Israel,
and all of that, and who they really are, the spiritual seed.
You can go back to passages in the Old Testament where it says
that Israel shall be saved. And over in Romans chapter 11,
Paul writes this, he said, all Israel shall be saved. Who is
the Israel that he's talking about there? He's not talking
about the physical nation there. Now there were some temporal
ceremonial applications to the physical nation. For example,
Isaiah, when he prophesied of it, he prophesied of their future
captivity, and they would be delivered out of that captivity,
but it wouldn't last long. Have you ever noticed this? Go
back and read your Bibles. Every prophecy of the future
gathering together of Israel in what we call the millennial
age, is a gathering of Israel, listen to me, under the headship
of Christ. Look at it. It's not a regathering
of people in a geographical location who are still unbelievers. It's
not. Now somebody says, well, what
about Israel over there today? Should we support them? Economically,
yes. Politically, yes. Religiously,
no. Does that shock you? What concord do believers have
with unbelievers religiously? None. Our head is Christ. You say, well, don't you pray
for their salvation? Yes, I sure do. Somebody said,
well, I believe that in the future, God's gonna save every physical
Jew. Well, I don't think the Bible
teaches that, but I'll tell you, if I'm wrong, I'll be the first
to jump up and down. I'll be glad. How about you?
But you know what? I'd be just as glad if he saved
every physical Arab. Wouldn't you? Because they wouldn't
be our enemies then. I would be glad if he would save
every person in the United States of America. How about that? The
salvation of any sinner is cause for rejoicing, isn't it? Whether
they be Jew or Gentile. So back in the Old Testament,
all Israel was gonna be saved. Well, who's he talking about?
Well, people recognized in the New Testament time, the early
New Testament time, that the majority of the physical Jews,
physical Israel, rejected Christ. Well, does that mean that God
promised something that he couldn't deliver? Does that mean that
God was just playing games and he was unfaithful to his promise?
Look at verse six of Romans nine. It's not as though the word of
God hath taken none effect. You see the fact that the majority
of that nation rejected Christ doesn't mean that God wasn't
keeping his word or wasn't powerful enough to keep it. It's not as
though the word of God hath taken none effect. Look at verse six.
For they are not all Israel which are of Israel. You know what
the name Israel means? It means those who have prevailed
with God. It means prevailing with God.
Remember how that name come about, Jacob wrestling with the angel.
God changed his name from Jacob, the supplanter, to Israel, prevailing
with God, because Jacob prevailed. Now ask yourself this question.
How can a sinner like me prevail with God? How's that possible? Well, I'll join the church and
get baptized and give my tithe. Is that how we prevail with God?
Not according to the Bible. I'll try to be the best person
I can be. You should do that. I should do that. But is that
how we prevail with God? No. There's only one way for
a sinner to prevail with God, and that's to beg for mercy at
the mercy seat. Jesus Christ. Plead his blood,
his righteousness, believe in him. This is my beloved son,
the father said, in whom I'm well pleased. Hear ye him. That's
how you prevail with God. Plead his mercy in Christ. Well, he says, they are not all
Israel, which are of Israel. What does he mean? Well, look
at it, verse seven. Neither because they are the seed of Abraham,
physically are they all children, children of God. But in Isaac
shall thy seed be called. Well, he's making a distinction
between Jew and Arab, but not just Jew and Arab, Jew and spiritual
Jew. In Isaac shall thy seed be called.
How do you know? Look at verse eight. That is,
they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the
children of God, but the children of the promise are counted for
the seed. Now, what is the promise? The
promise of Christ. The promise of salvation by God's
grace in Christ. You see that? You know, the Lord
told Abraham when he established his covenant with Abraham, he
said that you'll be a blessing to the whole earth in thee shall
all families of the earth be blessed. Not just one family.
What is he talking about there? He's talking about God's elect
out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation. That's what
the Bible teaches us. But look over at Romans chapter
two, since we're there at Romans, look at chapter two. Now you
remember what we talked about, the covenant of circumcision.
Physical circumcision was a token of a physical connection with
Abraham. Well what about Abraham's spiritual seed, the children
of promise? Well look at verse 28 of Romans
two. Listen to what he says here.
For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly. Now what he'd
been talking about, the Gentiles and the Jews, and how all of
us by nature are deserving of God's wrath. We're sinners, Jew
and Gentile. And he says, for he is not, and
he said the Gentiles, they deserve God's wrath because of their
sin, but now the religious Jews who had the law of Moses, they
deserve God's wrath too because of their sin. And the fact that
they're a Jew is nothing to boast in, he said. So he says, for
he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision
which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew which is one
inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart. In the spirit, not in the letter,
and that is not according to the written law, whose praise
is not of men but of God. To me, that settles it. But go
back to Galatians 3. This is the passage that Brother
Mark read. What was going on in the churches
of Galatia? Well, these churches had been
established by God through the Apostle Paul on the foundation
of the gospel of God's grace based on the righteousness of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And when Paul left, Judaizers. Now, what were Judaizers? They
were Jews who claimed to believe the gospel, but who demanded
that the Gentiles be brought under the law. Why would they
want to bring them under the law? Well, that, you know, it's
kind of like this. It's kind of like saying, well,
I know you're saved by grace, but you've got to do this. You've
got to do that. You've got to keep this law.
You've got to be circumcised. You've got to be baptized in
order to really be saved, in order to really be righteous.
That's the kind of thing they were preaching. And so Paul writes
this letter and listen to what he says. He says, verse six,
Galatians three, even as Abraham believed God and it was accounted
to him for righteousness. Now what was accounted or imputed
to Abraham for righteousness? Well, Romans four tells us it
was the merits of the obedience and the death of Jesus Christ. I stand before God not in my
works, not in my own righteousness, but in Christ. I'm washed in
his blood. I'm clothed in his righteousness.
That's what Abraham was about. Abraham was an example of how
God justifies the ungodly. What is it to be justified? It
means to be forgiven of all my sins. It means to be counted
righteous in God's sight. all based on a just ground, and
what is that just ground? The blood of Christ, that's the
ground. You see, my faith is not the
ground of it, my faith is the product of it. That's the difference. And so he says in verse seven,
know ye therefore that they which are of faith, those who believe
in Christ, the same are the children of Abraham. That's spiritual
children of Abraham. I'm not a physical descendant
of Abraham, as far as I know. And I really don't care, because
people get into genealogy, and I don't want to offend anybody.
You may be highly into genealogy, I don't care. I can trace it
all the way back to Adam, I know that. And that's good enough,
or bad enough, rather. But I'm not a physical child,
but I'm a spiritual child of Abraham. Now Abraham is considered
the father of the faithful, not because he's the source, of salvation,
only God the Father is there. But he's the archetype, he is
the prime example of how God saves sinners. And so that we
identify with Abraham when God brings us to faith in Christ.
But look on verse eight, he says, in the scripture foreseeing that
God would justify who? Who's it say there? The heathen. Now who do you suppose that means? That's the way the Jews looked
at the Gentiles. How's he gonna justify it? Through faith, that
is through Jesus Christ, the object of faith. Preach before
the gospel unto Abraham, saying, in thee shall all nations be
blessed, so then they that which be of faith are blessed with
faithful Abraham. They which be of faith. They
who believe in Christ. Look across the page, verse 26
of Galatians 3. For you are all the children
of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Jew and Gentile. How do I know
I'm a child of God? Or not. Do you believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ? Now listen, as he's identified
and distinguished in this book. Not just looking up into a cloud
and saying, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. There are counterfeits. But go on, verse 27, for as many
of you as have been baptized into Christ, that means placed
into Christ. It's not talking about believer's
baptism. That's in other places in the scripture. If you're a
believer, you're to be baptized. You're to confess Christ. But
this is talking about our union with Christ, and you put on Christ. What is it to put on Christ?
It's to believe in Him. And he says in verse 28, he says,
in Christ, there's neither Jew nor Greek, Jew nor Gentile. There's
neither bond nor free, there's neither male nor female, for
you are all one in Christ Jesus, verse 29. And if you be Christ,
that's a possessive. If you belong to Christ, Then
are you Abraham's seed, his spiritual seed, and heirs according to
the promise. That's what it says. We'll turn
back to our text. Christ took not on him the nature
of angels. What does that mean? He didn't
come to save angels. He took upon him the seed of
Abraham. He came to save the seed of Abraham. Who are they?
Verse 17. Look at it. Wherefore, or for
this reason, In all things it behooved him. That word behooved
is the Greek word for debt. He was indebted to save a people. Now why was he indebted? Because
he was made our surety before the foundation of the world.
God chose a people and gave them to Christ and put all the responsibility
of their salvation upon him. He took our debt. My sin debt. Before the world was ever created,
before Adam ever fell, Christ was made the surety of his people.
He's called the surety of a better covenant. Now think about it. If you went out and got in debt,
and the paper that you signed to the bank had Bill Parker on
there as your surety, you'd be in trouble. But if you went out there and
got in debt, and Warren Buffett was your surety, or Bill Gates
was your surety, you'd be sitting high and mighty, wouldn't you?
You'd be in good shape then. Well, God's people fell in Adam
into sin and death. We deserve damnation. That's
what we've earned. But we have a surety, and his
name is Jesus Christ the righteous. Now how comfortable does that
make you? Jesus paid it all. All to him
I owe, or some say, all the debt I owe. Sin had left a crimson
stain. He washed it white as snow. Who'd
he do it for? His brethren, his church, his
sheep, he said in John 10. The good shepherd giveth his
life for the sheep. And he said, my sheep, hear my
voice. And so what he says here, he behooved him to be made like
unto his brethren. that he might be a merciful and
faithful high priest. That means he stands in our place
presenting the proper sacrifice which is his own blood and body. We're going to talk about it
in the Lord's Supper. In things pertaining to God,
in other words he wasn't offering himself to you or to me, he offered
himself to God. It was for the glory of God.
It was to satisfy God's justice. It was to bring about everlasting
righteousness and enable God to be just and justifier. In
other words, it's not up to you to seal the deal. He already
sealed the deal. And when God brings us to faith
in Christ, we don't seal it then. It's already sealed. And we just
get the effects of it. We just get the blessings of
it. The Bible says in Ephesians 1.3 that we're blessed with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Accepted in the beloved. And
there he says in things pertaining to make reconciliation, propitiation
for the sins of the people. God is reconciled to his people
and his people are reconciled unto him on one ground It's the
propitiatory work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's his blood
and his righteousness alone. What do you think of that? Boy,
I tell you, I can't fathom the glory of that. Can you? I mean,
no wonder Cowper wrote that hymn. No wonder he didn't kill himself. There is a fountain filled with
blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. Think about that. Sinners plunge
beneath that flood. You see, it's all about God in
Christ. And he did it for the sins of
the people. Sins imputed to him so that we have his righteousness
imputed to us and that he himself has suffered being tested. He
was tested, he was tempted, he died, he passed the test, and
he's able to comfort them that are tested. We go through tests
all the time and we fail. But we're comforted by our great
high priest, aren't we? We're led by him, comforted by
him, all right.