Welcome welcome.
And thank you for taking the time to come and rejoice in the Lord, pray, and consider His word.
Let’s pray.
Scripture says (in Hebrews 4:12)
“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
Yet another reason we’ve put it to music – to cause us reflection, and to divide and pierce our soul from our spirit, and to help us discern where we are in our lives relative to Him.
So let’s take some time in His Word put to song, some time in silent prayer, and then when we come back, we will pick our study back up of Hebrews 1 beginning around verse 9 . . . and I think we’ll wrap the chapter up today!
CORPORATE REFLECTION
CORPORATE PRAYER
Okay so we left off last week in chapter two of Hebrews where the writer (again) does some comparisons between angels and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The passages that follow, from verses six through until the end of the chapter almost, are some of the most cumbersome in the Book of Hebrews.
In verses six through eight (as we discussed last week) the writer talks about the “construction and existence of man” and I think we can all agree that understanding exactly his point is more than difficult.
And then after talking about Man, who he says will (eventually) “SEE” all things put under him (again, I suppose, like it was in the garden of Eden) he adds in verse 9-11
Hebrew 2:9 “BUT,” (and here lies his point, in my opinion) . . . But we see Jesus, 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 every man.
10 For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
11 For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren,
So while Jesus (in flesh) was made a little lower than heavenly angels, He was so made so that He could do a work no angel could accomplish – taste death for every man.
These three passages are filled to the brim with important biblical principles that upon our first reading may escape us.
Let me put it to you this way – I planned on covering the rest of chapter two today and filled my allotted space on just the first two passages they are that important.
So I edited myself back (or the Holy Spirit of wisdom and truth cut me back) and we will reasonably approach understanding what verses 9-11 signify and suggest.
Because of their complexity, let’s read them again together. The writer had been taking about Man, and then says (at verse 9)
Hebrew 2:9 “BUT we see Jesus, 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 every man.
10 For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
11 For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren.”
Hang on folks. We are in for a radical and amazing ride.
Speaking of Jesus, the writer essentially explains to us why Jesus was made flesh, and says:
Hebrews 2:9 But we see Jesus, 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 every man.
We do not see that man, while made glorious and given preference by God, has any dominion over death.
Like Pandora’s box, we (man) opened the reality of death and could do nothing to shut it back down.
“But,” the writer says, we do “see” Jesus, who, in verse nine, is said to have been made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death.
And having overcome death, the writer says that He is “crowned with glory and honor that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.”
And while it is obvious He suffered it seems the writer is attempting to show to the Hebrew reader (first) that because of His work He is now exalted – in places far higher than the angels.
This was the point and its relationship to his comparison to angels – that Jesus, made a little lower than these heavenly creatures was made this way for as to . . .
“suffer death,” “tasting it for every human being.”
And it seems that the writer is saying it is because He suffered death on behalf of all of Man he was “crowned with glory and exalted.”
Philippians describes this redemption from death (and the exaltation of Jesus Christ for redeeming Man from death.
Speaking of Jesus Philippians 2:8-11 says:
(listen closely)
(read slowly)
8 “And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
9 Wherefore (as a result) God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:
10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
11 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Now listen, we have to remember that when we read scripture there are passages that speak to Christ and his divinity and there are passages that speak to Jesus and His humanity.
Pre-incarnate Christ – not known as Jesus but as Jehovah – could not “become exalted” – He already was exalted, He was nad is the Alpha and the Omega, God, eternal.
So whenever we read about Jesus becoming exalted, or reaching exaltation, glory, or learning, or growing – we are talking about Him as an incarnate Man.
This is why Paul says in his epistle to the Philippians that He “humbled Himself” when he found Himself in the fashion of a Man.
Listen closely – upon our spiritual redemption, our being born-again, we too enter into a similar place as the Lord when He found Himself in the fashion of a Man.
No, we were not born a child of God (like He was) but we become one at regeneration.
Neither did we have the fullness of God in us like He did at birth, but we have it in us at rebirth.
No, we are not God’s sons and daughters like the only begotten was at birth but we become Sons and Daughters as we learn to let our spirit overcome our flesh through suffering.
And while we will not overcome our flesh perfectly (as He did) we can learn, like He did, to control it and walk far more by the Spirit than the demands of our flesh.
Here’s the point. Even though God from the beginning, as one made a little lower than the angels (meaning man) Jesus had to, through the suffering of His fleshly will taking a back seat to the will of the Father, became exalted and glorified when He ultimately overcame death.
Hebrews 5:8 gives us some insight into this, saying (about Jesus) “Though he were a Son” (capital S, mind you, meaning the Son of God in spirit), “yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.” (Which is talking about Him learning to keep His flesh obedient to the Spirit within Him).
Well, when we are born-again and the Holy Spirit makes a home inside our heart and mind, we too can learn to subject our former flesh to “God within us.”
It is a thoroughgoing biblical expectation of all who will be called Sons and Daughters and therefore heirs of His glory.
And like I mentioned last week, it occurs in the same way it occurred for Him . . . through . . . suffering.
When I talked about Christian suffering last week I did not mean to infer that our suffering had to be physical or material. If your heart is set on the physical or material then it will be.
But all we can really say about Christian suffering is biblically speaking it is NOT about fleshly approaches to a sanctified life.
That is religion.
It is Man telling you and me that if we DO this and if we DO that you will meet the expectations God has for you.
Ours is a climb, but it is a climb in the mountains of faith.
The believers at the church of Galatia, it seems, allowed themselves to believe that it was up to them to re-embrace elements of the law as a means to perfect their Christian walk.
We take such actions when we are losing faith, not growing in it – did you know that?
Show me a person or people who have legislation in place as a means to supposedly get perfect in the flesh and I will show you a person or people who have failed in living by faith and have instead turned to physical legislation to govern their faithless hearts.
In his epistle to the Galatians Paul wrote:
Galatians 3:1 O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?
2 This only would I learn of you, (or this is the only question I have for you) Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
3 Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?
It seems a misunderstanding occurs between the biblical reality that Christians must learn to grow in faith and die to the flesh and the means by which we accomplish this.
And part of this problem exists because as regenerated human beings we continue to exist in physical corrupt bodies which house the eternal holy God.
It is easy to get our wires crossed and to put our flesh in the drivers seat of our Christian journey rather than our spirit.
But it must all be by and through our spirit. This is where the suffering occurs, friends, even though (listen) even though our fleshly natures reflect what our spirit has decided to be and do.
Get it.
Let me give you an example that I gave this morning that illustrates both the truth and the problem with Christians getting their wires crossed.
I likened becoming Christian to a person standing out in a vast dry deserted place – like Patagonia, where the wind is cold and bitter. In this state they cry out to God and receive Him.
Receiving Christ is like stepping from the plains of Patagonia into a lush green field with grasses and plants so high you can’t see what lies ahead.
But our environment is a perfect temperature and extremely comforting.
And we walk forward as babes through the lush garden of Christian infancy we will (at some point in time) come out into a clearing and will find ourselves standing at the base of our mature Christian walk –Mount Everest – the tallest mountain in the world.
This is our first crisis of faith – it is at this moment when maybe we wonder about doctrines or maybe we get insulted by another Christian, or maybe we discover that our pastor is human.
Will we move forward through the low lying hills of things that challenge and test our faith?
As we do we notice that the gentle rolling slopes at the base of Everest are getting a bit more challenging.
Many at this point stop and make a life camp right then and there – ahppy with the views and environment of the low lying hills of Everest.
But NOT Christ and not Sons and daughters of glory.
These continue to climb.
But then we will arrive at our first major obstacle – a deep crevasse. Some stop.
Others continue.
Following Him, those who pursue find themselves delivered from that challenge and their faith and trust in His ability to deliver them stronger.
But Everest does NOT get easier the higher you climb, it gets tougher and tougher.
Steep inclines
Super steep inclines.
Vertical, barely hanging on by fingertips through the night.
Snow.
Deeper snow.
Neck deep snows.
Wind.
Fierce wind.
Blow you off the mountain wind.
Little oxygen.
Less oxygen.
Nothing left in you and me at all as we crawl up onto the top.
(beat)
That is the point. Nothing left in you or me in getting to the top of all God will see us through.
The problem with illustrations like this is that while we appeal to physical elements to tell them – climbing the mountain, traversing cracks, reaching the top, etc., ALL of it, ALL of IT, in the truest Christian sense is first spiritual.
It is our growing in faith and love through the journey NOT taking action.
The action will follow but only as they represent the internal faith and love we possess in the heart and head.
In other words, like the Lord’s parables, this is all physical imagery to illustrate spiritual warfare and Christian struggles aimed at killing faith and love.
In other words it is by and through spiritual means that Christians climb, suffer and face warfare.
In summary, it is in and through spiritual suffering that we allow His will to do the work instead of our own.
What opened us all up to access true spiritual growth and success and to have the temerity to allow our spirit to overcome our carnal fleshly will was the insufferable work of “the captain of our faith,” Christ Jesus, who, “made a little lower than the angels,” tasted death for all men by and through His suffering.
By FAITH, trusting in the finished work of our captain, we climb in love expeting to reach the summit of His expectations for us as Sons and Daughters.
In light of all the writer of Hebrews is presenting it seems that there was possibly some rising objections to Jesus’ person from them (to which we are not privy) and the writer appears to be responding to them through these arguments.
One objection appears to have been that Jesus was a man and another was that he died.
From these facts maybe they were wondering how he could be God (if he was made a man that died) or maybe even more to the point they wondered, “How could he even be superior to angels?”
The writer seems to respond to this by showing that he voluntarily became man (He who made all things was “made lower than the angels),” and secondly, even though he suffered and died, he was ultimately crowned with “glory and honor.”
All of this is even difficult for some Christians to comprehend.
God becoming flesh?
God suffering in His flesh?
God in flesh dying?
And then God in flesh being glorified and exalted? Why? He was God prior and was fully glorified and fully exalted, right.
Right. But not as man.
And because of Him – His suffering and tasting death for all men (through Him) all man has been redeemed and some, who humbly climb, will be made joint-heirs with Him.
Listen again to Romans 8:17:
“And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.”
So back to verse 9 in Hebrews 2, the writer says:
Hebrew 2:9 BUT we see Jesus, 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 every man.
When the writer writes that “Jesus was made a little lower that the angels for the suffering of death,” what death did Jesus suffer? Was it just physical? Or spiritual too?
Be VERY, VERY, VERY careful how you respond to this. Think!
“What death did Jesus suffer and taste for all human kind? Was it just physical? Or was it spiritual? Both?
There is debate on this.
I won’t go into all the positions out there but I would suggest that the answer you embrace speaks volumes on a number of other theological positions you in good conscience must maintain, depending on which answer you accept.
Let’s talk about Our Lord’s suffering and tasting of physical death first.
We know He died and rose again and therefore any Christian who suggests that He did not overcome physical death by and through His resurrection is simply not a Bible-believing Christian.
What is interesting to me is there are a number of Christians who do not know that because of His overcoming physical death all – good and evil – will be physically resurrected – the just and the unjust.
In light of this and scripture we also know that there are some resurrections that are “better” than others. (really?)
Hebrews 11 says, referring to believers who in faith were tortured and would not accept deliverance did so that:
“. . . they might obtain a better resurrection.” (that’s Hebrews 11:35)
So I think that we can say that Christ, by virtue of His death and resurrection, in the least, suffered and tasted and overcame physical death and all will benefit thereby – to some extent or another.
So, the question that remains is “Did Jesus also suffer, taste, and ultimately overcome spiritual death Himself and then to what end?”
Biblically speaking – I may be wrong, but do not believe I am, it only makes sense to me that Christ suffered (tasted) both physical and spiritual death for all humanity.
Go with me back to the Garden of Eden to the first Adam.
God told Adam that “in the day” he ate the forbidden fruit he would surely die.
But upon eating it he did not surely die (physically), but lived on for 930 plus years.
However, in the day he ate He surely did die – spiritually. And as a result He lost the direct spiritual access he had with God and was kicked out of the Garden of Eden where God walked “in the cool of the day.”
And then some 900 years plus later Adam died physically.
First spiritually (which was immediate) and then physically (which took some time.
Christ came and suffered for both spiritual and physical death, making the way for those who receive Him here to be first spiritually regenerated and then ultimately physically regenerated as a direct result of His finished work.
Our spiritual rebirth (by and through Him) being immediate when it occurs and our physical resurrection occurring later and in different states of glory, as it were, depending on the walk.
It would only stand to reason that if the Adam and the world fell into spiritual and physical death because of His sin, then Christ, the second Adam, also overcame both spiritual and physical death by
Suffering them.
Tasting them.
And then overcoming them.
Now there are some wild teachings out there that Satan entered Jesus (because He became sin for us (as it says in 2nd Corinthians 5:21) and that he went to hell after His physical death filled with Satan.
Many television name it and claim it pastors teach this.
I would stick with the Bible and see if there is another option of showing us when and how Jesus died spiritually.
I would look to the model of Adam (whom Paul calls the first Adam) and suggest that Jesus (whom Paul calls the second Adam) tasted of these deaths in the same order as Adam did – spiritually first, and physically second.
And because all scripture points to His suffering and death for humankind on the cross I would also suggest that it all took place when He hung there in the balance for us.
Let me see if I can sketch out how this may have been through the Word.
Nailed to the cross, prior to being lifted up, Jesus possessed physical life in His body and spiritual life – or a total connection to the Father.
He was the light that came into the world, a light that shined into the darkness, and He was these things spiritually, as his physical person was without power and accomplishment.
Running through His statements on the cross, this is the order.
First, He said:
“Father forgive them for they known not what they do.”
In Luke’s account (chapter 23) we read it was when they crucified Him that the Lord uttered these words.
The next line He uttered was to a theif on the cross and He assured Him with,
“Truly I say today you will be with me in paradise.”
Then Matthew 27:45 then gives us what happens next in the chronology.
He says
“Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.”
I would suggest that it was here, during these three hours that “the light of the world” died spiritually for Adam and the sins of the world and for the first time in His eternal existence He found Himself, like Adam immediately found Himself, separate from God.
The next verse in Matthew tells us what happened next:
“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
At this point, I would suggest, that God showed that He had NOT forsaken Him because of two factors:
First, Jesus was able to continue to show love, concern, and allegiance to the Father’s will after this.
Had the Father not returned, He would have accomplished this without Him – and Jesus Himself said He could do no thing unless directed by the Father.
I would also suggest He overcame spiritual death here on the cross because light returned to the earth.
At this point in the chronology, John tells us Jesus shows concern and love for His mother, saying
John 19:26 When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son!
27 Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother!
John then tells us with scripture then being completely fulfilled Jesus said, due to the onslaught of physical death:
“I thirst.”
Then John says He said:
“It is finished.”
And then Luke writes:
“And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.”
If spiritually dead after the cross, I do not believe:
Light would have returned to the world when it did.
That Jesus would have expressed love for His mother or that He would have said
“Father into your hands I commend my spirit.”
So, from what I can tell, taking the import of His work on the cross and the light of earth disappearing and in the midst of the dark Jesus cried, “My God, why have you forsaken me?”, and the fact that the light returned, and then Jesus commends His spirit into the hands of God, that when scripture speaks of Him suffering and/or tasting death for every man it refers to both spiritual and physical death.
And like Adam, He died spiritually first, then physically.
So, the result of Jesus tasting and suffering physical death and overcoming it by and through resurrection is what?
The resurrection of all – to some state or another, with some resurrections being “better” than others, right?
That being said, If or since Jesus also suffered/tasted spiritual death and then overcame it, what do we say?
Do all overcome it as well?
If Jesus did not suffer and taste and overcome the spiritual death brought on by Adam but only reconciled physical death, it makes sense that only some would receive the gift of spiritual regeneration.
But if there was a universal payment of spiritual death completed by and through the spiritual death of the Son, the implications are significant.
Take all this into account as we now re-read Hebrews 2:9 one more time:
9 But we see Jesus, 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 every man.
All this being said, however, we do see that there is a huge difference from being just a recipient of a resurrected body (because of His finished work) and receiving a “better resurrection” through suffering AND being a recipient of spiritual life (because of His finished work) and becoming a Son or Daughter of glory, a co-heir with Jesus Christ.
It is to this subject where the writer of Hebrews takes us next, saying in verses 10 and 11
10 For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
11 For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren.”
We’ll get into the importance of these passages next week.
QUESTIONS
PRAYER
SONG
