Hebrews 2:10-18

Your Union with the Humbled Son

With these verses, the preacher completes his first point made in 1:4 that as a result of his incarnation and his finished work, Jesus is declared to be far superior to even the angels and therefore He has been given a name that is far greater than they.

But the preacher's point has raised an important question:  how can we say that Jesus is far superior to the angels when he was made for a little while lower than the angels?  How can Jesus be superior when He has taken on your humbled state?

We saw last week the beginning of the preacher's answer in vv. 5-9.  That the eternal Son of God assumed your weakness, which resulted in the fall, that he might take your nature to new glorious heights that you would now enter into the very glory, God had planned for you, to a new level of glory that far exceeds even the angels.

But now in out text this morning we see even further why Jesus had to be made like you, by taking on your humanity, so that he could completely clean up the mess that you got yourself into through your rebellion against God. 

The preacher's conclusion this morning is summed up in vv. 17-18, where he not only summarizes the conclusion of his first point, but points us forward to the next point and even further into his sermon regarding Jesus' high priestly heavenly ministry.  Jesus has become one of you not only to pay for your sins and raise you into glory, but that you might now have a merciful and faithful high priest at your side in every moment of trial, temptation, and suffering.  Jesus is a real Savior.  He has not simply gone to heaven to sit down and wait for the end.  He is with you even to the end of the age.  And he has come for you not only to conquer death itself but even to forever remove your fear of death.  He stands for you as your compassionate and faithful high priest continually pleading your standing before God and coming to your aid with the full grace and mercy of heaven in your daily times of need.

Let's look more closely at the preacher's fuller explanation of why Jesus had to be made, for a little while, lower than the angels. 

In v. 10, the preacher expands further on his last thought in v. 9 that by God's grace Jesus has tasted death for you.  You can imagine the listener asking, "how can Jesus' suffering to the point of death be a display of God's graciousness"?  How can it possibly be appropriate that God would show us His grace through the suffering of His Son?

The preacher answers, "it was in fact appropriate for God" because of what God's plan was designed to accomplish.  Look back in vv. 6-8 (READ) where the preacher quotes from Ps. 8.  Here the Psalmist marvels that God would grant man such honor and glory that He would make man reign over all that He had made.  And further from 2:5 we see that this glory and honor would give to man even the rule of angels.  While man was made for a little while lower than the angels, God's plan was to raise them to a position of glory above even the angelic hosts of Heaven.

But the fall, humanly speaking, ruined all of that.  Now fallen, man has lost his right to rule over God's creation and in fact is now ruled over by the prince of darkness, the accuser of God's elect.  But God's plan never fails.  As Isaiah proclaims:

Isaiah 46:9-10  9 "Remember the former things long past, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me,  10 Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, 'My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure'.

And so in order to accomplish His sovereign plan, God ordained before even the foundation of the earth that He would send His Divine Son on a mission for you, that the Son would come to earth and so identify with you that He would take up your very flesh and rescue you from your own self-imposed shame and death and condemnation.  Therefore, in light of God's marvelous plan of grace, the suffering and death of His Son was entirely appropriate to fulfill the divine plan of Heaven.

And this is all completely consistent with God's own character for He is both the source and the goal of all that He has revealed to you in grace.  He is the One through whom are all things and He is the One for whom are all things.  The One who has created everything owns it all and therefore He has every right to do with it whatever is necessary to achieve His final goal for man, which is to bring many sons to glory (v. 10).

This has always been God's plan from the very beginning as we saw in vv. 6-8 -- that God would bring all of his children into glory with him by making Jesus taste death for you. 

The picture that the preacher draws for you this morning is of the Son coming to secure your salvation by gathering for Himself a whole host of people who will inherit their own adopted sonship through union with the True Son.  He has been sent on a mission from God to do all the work that is necessary for you to become fellow heirs with the One who according to 1:2, has become the heir of all things upon finishing His priestly work on earth.

Therefore, you future glorification with Christ is forever secured in the One who has already been glorified on account of his finished work and made to sit at the right hand of the Majesty on high (1:3).

Now, as the Father has already led the One Son into Heaven, that he might reign in glory and in honor over even the angels in the world to come (2:5) so He is currently, through the same work of the Son, bringing you to enter into that same glory and honor of the Son.

Now consider the incredible grace of God that He has done all of this by "perfecting the 'author' of your salvation through suffering" (v. 10; cf. v. 9).  The word here is literally, the "leader," or we might translate it "your champion" of salvation.  Jesus is your hero who has come to your rescue by taking on your human flesh so that He could serve you through suffering and ultimately His own death.  By His own will to do all that God had ordained, He was locked into mortal combat with the one who held the power of death.  And He overthrew your enemy in order to release you from this evil tyrant.  Now, because of his righteous suffering and death, He has been raised from the dead and exalted into Heaven at God's right hand -- a position of honor and glory that no angel could ever achieve -- and He has received a new name which is above every other name in all of creation. 

Jesus is your champion who secured your salvation through the suffering and death he endured in your flesh and was raised to glory and power over all, that you might forever enjoy the fruits of His glorious victory and power over your foe.  God perfected Jesus, ultimately displayed in Christ's own glorification and exaltation, that He might be your reigning champion through suffering and death.

In other words, the whole plan of God for you has been achieved -- the raising of many sons to glory -- by God's own raising of His Son to glory through His own suffering and death.  He has now entered into this new office as your high priest, as your champion, now equipped with all the power of Heaven and earth to raise you to glory because of His own righteous suffering on your behalf.

Again the preacher emphasizes the union between the true Son and the many sons in v. 11.  It is because Jesus is the One who sanctifies you and through union with Him that you are sanctified that both Jesus and you belong to the same Father.  Further it is because Jesus sanctifies you through His own suffering and death that He has sanctified you or consecrated you that you might appear before the Father and be accepted by Him.  The preacher says latter in the sermon:

Hebrews 10:14  For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

Hebrews 13:12  Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate.

You have been consecrated to God through the cleansing blood of Jesus. 

Now you see here the radical distinction between the unique Son of God and the many sons in that you are eternally loved by the Father and welcomed into His glorious, holy presence because of the work of the Son alone.  Through His own work, the Son has the right to sanctify others.  And the only reason why you may appear before the holy Judge of all creation and call him tenderly, Father, is because you have been sanctified by the perfect work of Jesus Christ.

In spite of the clear fact that Jesus alone is holy in Himself and your holiness is derivative and dependent wholly upon Christ alone, nevertheless, both Jesus and you have one Father in Heaven.  Because of Jesus, you both have one Father and it is for that one sacrifice on the cross that you can look up the Heaven and rightly pray, "Our Father who is in Heaven."

It is because of Jesus' cross that you:

Romans 8:15-17  have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!"  16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that you are children of God,  17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.

Galatians 4:4-7  [And] when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law,  5 so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that [you] might receive the adoption as sons.  6 Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!"  7 Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.

It should truly amaze you that God's perfect plan has included you into the family of God as equal heirs with Jesus, your elder brother.

It is because, in grace, God has made Jesus taste death for you, that he was perfected through suffering, that you now have equal access to God as Father with Jesus.  And further, grace upon grace, that Jesus finds absolutely no shame in calling you, "Brothers."

Even though you have done nothing except sin and rebel against His own Father, because He has taken on your nature and purchased you with His own blood, He does not hesitate to call you his own brother.

Do you see the radical difference here between Jesus' love for you and the hatred of the brother of the prodigal son? (cf. Luke 15:11-32).  The older brother was furious at the sounds of celebration of the returning son.  He wanted his brother to be ostracized and excluded because, after all, he wasn't as obedient as the older son.  He left the father and squandered all that the father had worked for.  He sought the pleasures of this world instead of the loving embrace of their father.  But Jesus rejoices over you and is in no way ashamed to call you "brother."

But think about a further difference between Jesus and the older brother.  It is doubtful that the older brother ever knew the full extent of the younger brother's fall.  It is doubtful that he ever knew just how low the brother lived his life that he would end up eating out of a pig's trough. 

But Jesus does know you.  He knows just how far you have sunk your teeth into the pleasure's of this world.  He knows the full extent of your rebellion to the Father.  He knows your true heart and where your treasures really lie.  Nothing can be hidden from His all holy and penetrating eyes into the deepest recesses of your heart and yet He loves you infinitely and that because of His work alone, together you call upon the One Father in Heaven.  But even further as the preacher will tell you latter in the sermon even the Father:

Hebrews 11:16  is not ashamed to be called [your] God; for He has prepared a city for [you].

Do you see the marvelous grace of God?  It is because of the work of sacrifice and death of the Son alone that you have been given this incredible privilege of calling the Son's Father, your own Father and that you might share in the glory above even the angels who ever live to behold the face of God.

Now, in vv. 12-13, the preacher provides the biblical support illustrating how Jesus does not blush in calling you fellow brothers, fellow heirs to God the Father.  The first quote is from Ps. 22, a psalm most likely repeated in full from the cross.  The first part of the Psalm cries out in desperate agony and pain out of intense suffering and affliction.  But then at this verse, the Psalmist suddenly turns from lamenting to joyful thanksgiving in God's salvation.  At his exaltation, Jesus now sings, in the assembly of all those who were bought with His own blood, the praises of the Father. 

The next two quotations come from Isaiah (8:17-18) which serve to show that Jesus fully identifies with you in His absolute trust and dependence upon the Father.  And further it is because of His faithfulness and obedience to the Father's will, that you have been gathered there in the first place.  You are assembled before God only because of grace.  The grace shown in Jesus' sacrifice and in the eternal electing love that the Father has chosen you and given you to the Son.

And all of this is because the Son has chosen to taken on upon Himself your human nature -- flesh and blood -- that He might become your Redeemer (vv. 14-15).  It is in the incarnation that we see the first and essential bond between you and the Son.  But the bond is only strengthened further in that the Son has taken your end in death as His own end that He might be made like you in all things (cf. v. 17).

Why did He do all of this?  In order that He might nullify the power of the evil tyrant who possessed the power of death and that he might rescue you who were once enslaved under his power (vv. 14-15).

Now the devil did not possess the power over death within himself, but only gained the power when you chose in Adam to relinquish your own dominion over creation in placing yourselves under the prince of darkness.  Once he took up the reigns of power, you became his slaves paralyzed by fear of death.  You were hopelessly lost, destined for destruction.  But God executed his divine plan at the perfect time by sending His own Son to take up your flesh and by taking on your humanity the Son chose gladly to fully enter in your hopeless condition and render powerless him who had the power of death.  Here we see the depth of Christ's love for you and the full extent that he was willing to go to render your enemy impotent and to forever silence his threats of death.

But Jesus' death was radically different from your own.  He did not die for his own rebellion.  Rather, He came to deliver you from the throws of the devil through his righteous, obedient life and to pay your penalty through His vicarious death.  He came as your champion to defeat your enemy that you might be delivered and gloriously transferred to the kingdom of light.  As Jesus describes in the Gospel of Luke:

Luke 11:21-22  "When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are undisturbed.  22 "But when someone stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied and distributes his plunder (cf. Isa. 42:14; 49:24-26; 59:15-20).

Jesus is your champion and He has broken the back of the devil and secured your glorious redemption that you no longer have to fear death.

Now, He did not do this for angels but he came for you so that you might share in the eternal fellowship of the Triune God (v. 16).  He became like you in all things, yet without any sin (cf. 4:15; 7:26), that he might become your compassionate and faithful high priest (v. 17).  As your high priest, God poured out his wrath for your sin upon Him and his death completely satisfied God's condemning judgment against you.  There is now no condemnation for you who are in Christ Jesus.  Now through His sacrifice you have life and life eternal with one who comes to your aid.  And He can come to your aid and wants to provide for you because He has suffered under the same testing with which you have been tested (v. 18). 

Jesus is the perfect Savior because He has entered fully into your life.  He understands your weaknesses.  He knows your frailties.  He was not ashamed to fully identify with your sinful, fallen race.  He experienced everything that you face day to day so that He can fully sympathize with your life.  And through all of that he remains altogether compassionate and faithful towards you.  He was put to the test like no other and because of his faithfulness to God He can meet your every need and come to your aid.       

Do you see the amazing love of God toward you in Jesus Christ?  Do you see how wonderful the gospel truly is?  Jesus Christ is the fullest measure of God's love toward you and He has done everything that you need that on any day, at any moment you need Him, you will find today and forevermore that He is able to provide for you all that you need.

That's why Jesus had to be made for a little while lower than the angels!  He was made in that way that you might have a merciful and faithful high priest before God so that you can now draw near with confidence to the throne of his grace so that in your hour of darkness you might receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (cf. 4:16). 

Amen!

-SDG-