Well, since I won't get to be
with you Sunday night, it's a good blessing just to be together
tonight. So nice to see everybody. I've enjoyed your very kind welcome,
and we've really been mindful and thankful for all of your
prayers and love and concern for us in Albany, and it's just
nice to be able to get to see you this evening. I'd like for
you to turn with me to Hebrews chapter 2. I'd like to preach this evening from
The thought found in verse seventeen regarding Christ made like unto
his brethren. Let's just read that one verse
to start with. Wherefore, in all things it behooves
him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a
merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God,
to make reconciliation, literally propitiation for the sins of
the people. Now, as you well know, it's at
this season of the year, perhaps more than any other, that lost
men most grievously distort the glory of Christ. And I think
they do that primarily in this way. They do that by separating
and isolating Christ's birth from his death. Now, let me explain.
Their overemphasis on the lowliness of his beginnings so completely
overshadows and diminishes the majesty of his end and his triumph
over sin that most people mistake our sovereign savior for a mere
babe in a manger. They don't see Christ for who
he is. It's by isolating his birth from his death. But even
though the first few chapters of Matthew and Luke, I'm sure,
have been read and reread quite a bit for the last couple of
weeks, they're the favored texts of this holiday, the biblical
record simply refuses to allow the Lord's death to be eclipsed
and obscured by his birth. It just will not happen. I'll
give you a few examples of that. Before Christ was even born,
the angel told Joseph, thou shalt call his name. Jesus, Savior,
for He shall save His people from their sins. That's not a
job for a child. That's not even a job for a man.
That's a job for the God-man. The gifts the wise men were inspired
to present in the same way spoke far more loudly of Christ's death
than they did His birth. And when they had opened their
treasures, they presented unto Him gifts, gold for Christ the
King. frankincense for Christ the sacrifice
and murder for Christ the God man who died. The age of seven
you remember the high priest and he was in the temple on duty
that day when Christ was circumcised. He said it best. He said Lord
now let us tell my servant to part in peace for mine eyes have
seen by salvation. It wasn't just looking he didn't
see a good looking baby boy he saw the Lord's salvation. Even
from his birth, there was no mistake about his identity. I've
heard a man preach the other day on TV in Albany. He said,
no one understood what he was going to become. I said, no,
you missed it. No one understood what he already
was and had been for all eternity. When you isolate, it goes like
this. If we separate the incarnation
of Christ from the cross of Christ, all we're left with is a silly
little celebration called Christmas. But if we view, as we should
all the scriptures, if we view the birth of Christ through the
lens of his death, then what do you have? You've got the glorious,
effectual savior of his people. That's better than Christmas
ever thought about being. Now, we always do consider with wonder
and amazement the God who somehow became man without altering the
nature of his deity, didn't diminish it to one degree. Neither did
he alter the nature of his humanity. He was made like unto his brethren. But even though we look at that,
and that's usually what's presented at this season of Christ, and
what a wonder, what an amazement, the question is not what he became,
nor how he became it. The question is why. Why did
he come that way? If you miss that, you miss the
whole message, the whole message. And that's what our verse teaches
us. Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like
unto his brethren to make a propitiation for his people that joins at
that place being made like unto his brethren incarnation with
the purpose of it, his death. You must keep them together or
you'll distort the whole person of Christ. Now, I'm sure you
can tell by my tone and I'm not trying to remind you of the reason
for the season. And I'm not in the least bit
interested in putting Christ back in Christmas. He has nothing
to do with it and it has nothing to do with him. If Christmas
is celebrated, it should be, as our pastor has taught us for
years. If it's celebrated at your house, it should be a time
for family and friends and renewing acquaintance and has nothing
whatsoever to do with the gospel. It's not a gospel celebration.
The only time you read the first few chapters of Matthew and Luke
was at Christmas. Just don't. Just don't. Read them some other
time. You'd be better off not reading them at all as to just
read them as a Christmas story. I'm sure you're missing the message.
What Christ began in his incarnation, what he accomplished through
crucifixion, and what he now reigns over at the right hand
of power is so infinitely beyond the religious foolishness surrounding
Christmas that the two have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
I'm preaching, as Todd read earlier, found also in verse 10 of our
chapter 2 of Hebrews, I'm preaching the Christ who was made a little
lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with
glory and honor that he, by the grace of God, should taste death
for each one of his own. That's the Christ I'm preaching
tonight. I simply want to share with you for the next few minutes
three very clear teachings in this passage from verse 10 on
through the end of this chapter, three clear teachings that show
us the inseparable bond between the birth of Christ and his death.
You just cannot see Christ as one or the other. It's all one
piece. I want to show those three things
to you. First of all, this passage shows us that Christ's incarnation
was a matter of obligation. and obedience. Look there at
verse 17 again. Notice the word behooved. Wherefore in all things
it behooved him. That's Old English. It's the
Old English or actually it's the Greek word for debt. He had
a debt to pay. He came like he came because
he was obligated to come that way. Why? Because he couldn't
be made like unto his brethren if he wasn't made like us. He was born like we were. He
knows what it is to be a baby. He knows what it is to have the
limitations of developing motor skills. You know, we often, I
think too often over, we certainly don't want to diminish his deity
in our minds, but we don't want to wash away his humanity. If
you do that, you miss the whole notion of his suffering. He separated
a man. He knew what it is from birth
to be like us. And it behooved him to do so.
Look over in Hebrews chapter 10. Look at verse 4 of that chapter. This clearly reveals the obligation
that the Father placed upon him. Verse 4, For it is not possible
that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Wherefore,
when he cometh into the world, speaking of Christ, he saith,
Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not. But a body has now prepared
for me, and that word prepared carries the idea you've equipped
me with it. You've equipped me with what
I needed to have to represent these people and to accomplish
what you said, your obligation. Look on down, verse 6, in burnt
offerings and sacrifices for sin you had no pleasure. Then
said I, lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of
me, To do thy will, O God. It was as difficult for Christ,
as a man, to come and do the Father's obligation as it is
for us. He knows the limits of the flesh. He had to struggle
with the same human limits that we struggle with. Look over in
the one that Claire read a few moments ago. Turn back to Philippians
chapter 2. This thing of His incarnation. was an obligation,
and therefore Christ's fulfilling of the obligation was nothing
short of just pure obedience. Look in chapter 2 of Philippians,
verse 5. Let this mind be in you, which
was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, that
word form is, it's hard to apply to God, it's what you see when
you behold something, it's it's image, it's form. And the best
way I can say that is whatever angels saw when they looked at
God the Father, whatever form he had in their perception was
the same form that Christ had in their eyes. He had the same
form. He was deity in every sense. When they saw one, they saw the
other. It was exactly the same. So being in that purely and perfectly
divine form. He didn't think it robbery, something
that he had to make sure and keep from slipping away. It wasn't
like he was afraid of losing his deity. It was his. It was
his from all eternity. He couldn't lose it. He wasn't
afraid that if he didn't clutch it at night when he went to sleep,
so to speak, he was God. He didn't wrestle what that is
was. He didn't think it robbery to be equal with God, but he
made himself Of no reputation, that word is the word emptied.
And what did he empty himself of? Certainly not, as many would
suggest, that he emptied himself of his deity, but he did empty
himself of his form. And let me tell you something
about that. Here's what made obedience to the Father's obligation
for him to be made like his brethren difficult. When he became a man,
he became a man forever. There's a man in glory. right
now. He laid aside, taught his divine
form, whatever that means. He laid that aside for good when
he came to this world. That's obedience. That's an obligation,
and that is obedience, that obligation. Being found in fashion as a man,
he humbled himself and became obedient. See it right there?
The obedience stands between two things. It stands between
being found in fashion as a man, that was his first act of obedience,
and his last act of obedience was tied together by that thing,
even the death of the cross. The two cannot be separated.
It was an act of obligation and obedience. Now secondly, Christ's
incarnation is a matter of justice and justification. Turn back
to our text in Hebrews 2. Look at verse 10. Now, the him that's referred
to in the very first phrase of chapter 10 is God the Father. It comes from verse 9, that he
by the grace of God should taste death for every man, for it became
him, that is, God. Now, that word became is quite
interesting. It's the word to conform to. It speaks of what's
fitting, what ought to be. It's what is becoming to him,
for it became the Father. And obviously, he's talking about
the Father, but look at the description. For whom are all things? Everything
in this universe is for God's glory. And by whom are all things? Everything He made, He made for
His own glory. In bringing many sons unto glory, God has always
intended on saving His people, and it is becoming to Him in
saving his people to make the captain of their salvation perfect
through sufferings. It became God. There's something
in the nature of God the Father that could not have been honored
and fulfilled had not Christ come, made like unto his brethren.
And what could not be accomplished was God's justice could not have
been manifested and revealed in this world. It's exactly what
Paul taught in Romans 3. Let me read those to you again.
Romans 3.25. It's the same teaching he's teaching
here. And by the way, when you read Romans 3.25 and 26, do remember
that he's talking purely about an issue that only comes up in
terms of linear time. Our reality. Our reality is a
time-bound reality. Time is most notably defined
in terms of the succession of events. God doesn't know succession
of events. Everything is always now to him.
That's why Christ is a lamb slain from before the foundation of
the world, because eternity knows no sequence of events. We know
sequence of events. God does not know that. And that's
why you've got to read these verses in that light. He's talking
about us. Christ, whom God hath set forth. That word set forth is to put
up on display as proof. God is proving something here,
and he's proving something to time-bound creatures, whom God
has set forth to be a propitiation. I wish we used that word more
often. It's a good word. Propitiations,
I find myself often using atonement, which is not a bad word. Propitiation
is a much more, I think, a fuller word and a more biblical word. But propitiation only has two
things in it. Propitiation, and here's how God's justice is honored,
propitiation is always the death, bloody death, of a sacrifice
and the satisfaction of the God who demanded it. Those two things
are always present in propitiation. It takes a death and it always
results in satisfaction. We're talking about justice.
We're talking about the one thing that modern religion is bereft
of. There is no justice in modern religion. Modern religion is
a god of love who's trying to do something for you if you'll
let him. But the whole notion of justice has been disbanded. Their god can lay all the sins,
in their minds, this is nothing biblical about this, but he can
lay all the sins of all God's people on his son and still send
them to hell. There's no justice in that. Men
aren't even that way. if I pay a debt for you, and
the debt is paid, they can't come and get you and put you
in jail. They wouldn't let you do that. Don't you think that
God's at least as just as we are? That if He would demand
your salvation at the death of His Son, that He would honor
the debt paid? You know He would. You know He
would. We're talking about then God has set Christ forth to be
a propitiation through faith in His blood to declare His righteousness,
to declare God's righteousness. He's proving Who He is to top-down
creatures, look on down, to prove His righteousness for the remission
of sins that are past through the forbearance of God, to declare,
I say, at this time, at the time just after Christ's paying of
the penalty for sin, at this time He's declaring God's righteousness. Why? Well, He did it for this
reason. All of God's saints, not a single
one of them ever, ever went to purgatory. No Old Testament saint
ever had to suffer. Not for a single sin. Abraham
lied twice about his wife and never paid a single moment in
hell for either one of them. His son Isaac did the same. Jacob
was a deceiver. David was, you know the story
right on down. And not a one of them paid for
one of their sins. Why? Because God's just. Because God's not bound by time.
Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
That means there is no time when Christ was slain. He's always
been slain to God. And for God to forgive David
and Abraham and all of them, He didn't have to wait for the
cross. The cross was an already done thing for God. It's always
been that way. But for us, it's not always been
that way. And so God proved His justice by sending His Son. And His Son's covered His Son's
death covered the sins of every one of God's people who ever
lived and ever will live. That's justice. That's justice.
And where there is a just God and where there is a Savior made
like unto his brethren, there is justification. Look over in
Hebrews chapter 5. Our text says, In verse 10, it's
talked about, it became God, it honored His justice to send
His Son to suffer in the flesh, and it made Christ perfect through
suffering. Now, that's a hard thing for
me to get my mind wrapped around, because when you think about
God, and Christ is God in the same sense that God the Father
is God, and yet He's talking about God being made perfect. Now, what's up with that? There's
inherent in the idea of perfection. There's this idea of being made
complete. What was Christ lacking? In the
same way that there is something in the nature of God as a just
God that demanded Christ come in the flesh, there's something
in the nature of Christ suffering in the flesh that could not be
completed and fulfilled if he hadn't done it. He had to go
through being made like unto his brethren and making a propitiation
on the cross to be the Christ. He could not be who He is without
doing that. Look here in chapter 5, verse
7. Speaking of Christ, who in the days of His flesh, and look
at the reality of our Savior's flesh, His humanity, who in the
days of His flesh when He'd offered up prayers and supplications
with strong crying and tears unto Him who was able to save
Him from death. You remember that? That's talking about the
Garden of Gethsemane. It came twice. The first time he came
and he said, he said, Father, if it be your will, let this
pass from me. And a little while later, he came back and he said,
Lord, if it's possible, if this is not possible, that's what
he asked me, if it's not possible that this cup should pass from
me, nevertheless, I will be done. That's what he said there. He
was heard in that he feared. That word's not the word phobia
type of fear. Trembling fear is the word that
speaks of reverential fear. God heard that man's trembling,
agonizing plea. I don't want to do this. I really
don't want to do this. He was a man. He had, there is
in him, there was in him the same self-preservation nature
that's in us. It was hard for him, and I say
more so. It was harder for him to willingly
just lay down his life than it is for us. He was laying down
his life under the weight of God's wrath on the sins of all
his people. I don't want to do this. Father, if there's any
other way, I really don't want to do this. And yet, look on
down in verse 8. Here is what he needed to learn.
Though he were a son, the eternal Son of God, Yet he learned. How can God learn anything? I
don't know how to explain that. I just know that he had to go
through this experience to be who he is. Though he were a son,
yet he learned obedience by the things which he suffered and
being made perfect. I don't understand that. How
God needed to be made complete, or how God needed to be made
perfect, but I know it took him being made like unto his brethren
for the suffering of death to be who he is. All right. Let me look at one last thing.
It's not only a matter of obligation and obedience, it's a matter
of justice, justification. I'm sorry, I'm cutting that last,
I need to finish that verse. Verse 9. Being made perfect,
he became the author. That word is cause. He became
the sole cause of eternal salvation. Well, I'm saved because I made
a decision about 20 years ago. So you're the cause. Are you
the cause? Well, I'm saved because I was baptized about five years
ago. Oh, so you're the cause of your
salvation. Well, I'm saved because I've been faithful. Oh, so you're
the cause of your salvation. I'm talking about those who have
another cause. He is the sole cause, and what
does that mean? That means that His suffering
and death from His birth, despised and man of sorrows, rejected
of men, all the way to His final being made perfect by complete
obedience to God, He is all. He's all the cause of my salvation.
Do you still struggle with, well, I feel good on the days I do
well, you know, I'm faithful today so I feel like I'm good
and safe, and yesterday I didn't feel too safe because it wasn't.
If your salvation is up to your faithfulness, you need to reconsider
who is the cause of your salvation. My salvation is already finished.
The cause has already been complete. He's made perfect and I'm made
perfect in Him. Alright, one last thing. This
thing of his incarnation was likewise a matter of substitution
and particular redemption. Look back in our text in verse
seventeen again, Hebrews two. Wherefore, in all things, in
all things, it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren,
in all things. Now in chapter four, verse fifteen, the writer
makes one precision on that statement. The same exact wording in the
original makes one precision. Verse 15, for we have not a high
priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,
but was in all points, it's the same language, in all things,
tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let's pause there for just
a minute and we'll soon be done. Yet without sin. Now, don't misunderstand
that to mean that Christ's suffering in the place of his people brought
him in no contact with or he had nothing to do with sin. And
if you understand it that way, you'll totally misunderstand
his sufferings and his death. Christ, when it says, was tempted
in all points of life as we are yet without sin, it was only
in two ways that he was without sin. He never, as Paul says in
2 Corinthians 5.21, he knew no sin. God has made him who knew
no sin. He knew no sin in two ways. He
knew no sin by commission. Which one of you condemns me
of sin? He never knew sin by commission. And according to James' teaching
in James 1, he never knew sin by temptation. Man is tempted
when he's drawn away of his own lusts and enticed. Christ never
knew sin that way. Never the first time. Never knew
sin by way of commission or by lust. By desiring it. He never
did have a friendly relationship with sin. But you can mark it
down. Our Savior knows sin. My Savior
knows my sin better than I know my sin. He knows the weight of my sin.
Peter said he bore my sin in his own body. That's very personal. That's extremely personal. He
knows the weight of my sin. He knows the weight of my sin
better than I do because he carried the ones I've not carried yet,
that I've not committed yet. He knows the weight of my sin.
He knows the shame of my sin. My sins are more than the hairs
of my head. He knows the shame of Mark Daniel's
sin. He knows the guilt of my sin.
He knows what it's like, what I, as a religionist, feared all
my days of standing guilty before God. He knows that. He knows
the guilt of my sin, standing before a holy God with burning
eyes of wrath for my sin. He knows the guilt of it. He
knows the accountability of my sin. He knows what it's like
to be held accountable for my sins, and he knows one thing
about my sin I'll never know. He knows what it is to be punished
for my sins. He knows my sins better than
I do. He sure does. He was tempted in all points
like as we are, yet without committing sin, yet without finding any
pleasure in my sin when he bore it, but he sure knows my sin.
He knows it inside and out. He knows what it is to be like
us. He's very, very closely acquainted with us. In all things it behooved
that he was made like unto his brethren. And also, it says,
not only is it a matter of that complete successful substitution,
but it's a matter of particular redemption. Go back up into our
text in verse 11. Both he who sanctifies, obviously
that's the Lord Jesus, and they who are sanctified, that's his
people. And look at this little phrase.
are all of one. All of one what? Both Christ and all his brethren. Sanctification is being made
separate from sin. Christ and all of his brothers
were separated from the same sin by the same sanctifying death. Did God kill an innocent man
on the cross? God couldn't do that. Christ had to be sanctified. He sure did. He had to be separated
from my sin. He wasn't the refitter of that
sin, but he bore it as his own. My sins, he called them. The
same death that sanctified him from sin sanctified all of his
people from sin. Look at what this passage says
down through here. Look at this, following verse 11. He that sanctifyeth
they who are sanctified are all of one, all the same sanctifying
death, for which cause he's not ashamed to call them brethren.
We're as sanctified as he is. Saying, I'll declare thy name
unto my brethren. In the midst of the church will
I sing praise unto thee. Notice how specific he is about
who he died for. Again, I'll put my trust in him
alongside his brethren. He trusted God. Again, behold,
I am the children whom God hath given me. Or is everybody God's
child? Is everybody God's brother? Are the righteous and the wicked
equally God's children? No. Are the righteous and the
wicked equally Christ's brethren? Obviously not. No, he has brothers
and he has people who aren't his brothers. There's a church
and there's the non-church. He's not talking about doing
this for everybody. For as much then as the children,
verse 14, the children are partakers of flesh and blood. He also himself,
likewise, took part of the same. that through death he might destroy
him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver
them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject
to bondage. For truly he took not on him
the nature of angels. Now what price did we worship?
Let me tell you this, if he had taken on him the nature of angels,
angels would be saved. That's exactly the truth. Well,
he took on him the nature of man. Well, let's just read closer.
He took on him the seed of Abraham, if he had taken on him the nature
of man, every man would be saved. Now that's just the Bible truth
about that. And that's why the scriptures are inspired in the
precision that they're inspired in. It didn't say he took on
the nature of every man. He took on the seed of Abraham.
He took on the seed of those people pictured in that ancient
tribe who were always and only chosen for one purpose. that
they might exemplify his eternal purpose in his chosen people
in Christ Jesus. People, the seed of Abraham is
all of God's elect. He took on their nature insofar
as him taking on their nature was like taking on the nature
of all men is pure coincidence. Because he didn't come with any
purpose in mind of taking on anybody else's nature, but the
nature of those who are the seed of Abraham. He died for his people
to come down. Verse 18, for in that he himself
hath suffered being tempted, I'm sorry, last part of verse
70, I'm sorry, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. And
the people is always in the Old Testament a reference to the
people of God. Now, what's a person to do? Verse 18 tells exactly what to
do. For in that he himself hath suffered That word suffering
in the New Testament is not just the fact of it. We're very quick
in our society to kind of summarize things in a painless way. He
died. Four letters to describe an awesome
experience, an agonizing experience. He got shot. It was far more painful than
the four letter words in that word. That's the way it is in
this word, the word suffering. And the original language was
not just the fact of it, it was the feeling of it. For in that
he himself has felt our weakness. He has carried the weight of
our sin. For in that he himself knows
by personal experience what it is to be a man. In that he himself
has suffered being tempted, he is able to succour, to help them
that are tempted. And let's finish with chapter
4, verse 16. Let us, therefore, come boldly,
confidently. You know, if there's ever a place
in this world where a sinner can know before he ever sets
out that it's a place where he'll be welcome, this is where it
is. You know, any sinner who never
came to Christ because he felt like he just wasn't good enough
just didn't ever see Christ. Do you see the suffering Savior
made at all points like unto His brethren? Knows you inside
out, knows you better than you know yourself. You'll come. You'll
come. Wherefore, let us come confidently
unto the throne of grace. He knows me. He knows I am the
flesh. He knows, my friend, that we
may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Is this a time of need for you?
Do you need a Savior like that who knows your sin, knows the
weight of it, the guilt of it, has already borne it? Do you
need that kind of Savior? I say come boldly. He'll hear
you. He hears everyone who does. Let's
pray.