Part 2: As a Man, He Bypasses the Angels (Hebrews 2)

Listen  or read the following transcript as D. A. Carson speaks on the topic of the person of Christ from Hebrews chapter 2.

I would like to invite you to turn to Hebrews 2. This is really part two of one sermon. The title for the whole thing is “Jesus is Better Than the Angels.” In part one he eclipses the angels. In part two, here, as a man he bypasses the angels.

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“We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. But there is a place where someone has testified: ‘What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor and put everything under his feet.’

In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. He says, ‘I will declare your name to my brothers; in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises.’ And again, ‘I will put my trust in him.’ And again he says, ‘Here am I, and the children God has given me.’

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants.

For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”

This is the Word of the Lord.

I want to begin this second hour with three important observations on the argument of Hebrews before we plunge into verses 5–18, on which we will focus most attention tonight.

First, at various points in his document, the author inserts a very solemn warning. This is the first of them: chapter 2, verses 1–4. Another one shows up in chapter 5, verse 11 to the end of 6:12, and another one in chapter 10. There are some minor warnings as well, but those are the three big ones. We will spend a bit of time looking at one of them in the fourth session.

One of the things to observe about these warnings, however, is that each of them deploys a form of a fortiori argument. That is, it’s a ratcheting up argument. If this, then how much more that. Here the argument is we must pay more careful attention. That is, more careful attention than was demanded under the terms of the old covenant. Verse 2: “For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?”

This reference to angels is perhaps not as difficult as one might first think. I challenge you, as I challenged myself a few years ago.… I was trying to think, “What passage does the author have in mind?” So I got out a concordance and looked up every instance of angels in the Pentateuch. They’re all over the place. You just forget about them. Your eyes drift over the passages with angels, and you don’t recognize how often they’re there as genuinely mediators of the old covenant.

To start with, Exodus 23:20, Deuteronomy 32:8, Deuteronomy 33:2, and on and on and on. This reference to angels being involved in the mediation of the old covenant is also an argument to which Paul refers, if you’ll recall, in Galatians, chapter 3, verse 19, as well. But if you think it inappropriate, use a concordance.

Now all of these arguments presuppose a certain superiority, a climatic superiority to the new covenant. If that was dangerous, now much more is this? If that was important, how much more serious is it to ignore this? All of that sort of argument presupposes, then, the climatic superiority to the terms, characteristics, and so forth of the new covenant.

Secondly, the author of Hebrews makes some of the smoothest transitions from one section to another of any author in the New Testament. They are very smooth. He just weaves his way from one to the other, one to the other, again and again and again. That’s one of the reasons why it’s a bit difficult to outline the book, because these transitions are so smooth, you almost don’t realize you’ve changed subjects until you look back and say, “How did I get here?”

We’ve seen one of them already in 1:4. You’re talking about the great superiority of Jesus as the focal point of revelation compared with the antecedent revelation. It’s climaxed by the statement, “… he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” So by this means, by this climatic sitting down at God’s right hand, the one who mediates all of God’s sovereignty as the mediatorial King. So by this means, he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited (because he is already intrinsically superior) is superior to theirs.

Thus, you’ve moved into the argument with the angels. Do you see? You discover this smoothness again and again and again, in and out of the transitions, likewise, or the excursuses on warnings. For example, at the end of chapter 5, verse 10, we’ve been hearing arguments in this passage about priesthood, and we’ve been introduced to the importance of the Melchizedekian order. Then the author quietly says, “We have much to say about this …” Well, I guess so. All of chapter 7 is coming up with it, and then entailments in chapters 8, 9 and 10.

“We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn.” So he goes on with his warning, and then he comes to the end of the passage, and after he has talked about the warning and the certainty that God will preserve his own people and a result, 6:19, “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul …” It goes inside the inner curtain. “… where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.”

Then he picks up the argument again. Smooth, you see, because he has brought up the curtain and the tabernacle and the one who has gone inside. He is into priestly themes again after the order of Melchizedek; he slips back into the main theme. He is running through these smooth connections again and again and again.

Now the reason I mentioned that is because it has a bearing on how we understand chapter 2, verse 5. At the end of the excursus, the warning, the author writes, “It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking.” Now at one level, of course, this is connecting back to 1:14, before the excursus. “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?” Excursus. “It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come …”

So in one sense, he is connecting with his theme on angels, but there’s something deeper than that. What is meant by this expression, “the world to come, about which we are speaking”? Where has he been speaking about it? If he says, “The world to come about which we are speaking,” what does he mean? What is he referring to?

It helps to recognize that the word for world here is not the common one in the New Testament, kosmos; it’s oikoumenÈ, from which we get the word ecumenical. But oikoumenÈ here has been used once already in chapter 1. Namely, in verse 6. “And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, ‘Let all God’s angels worship him.’ ”

Now then, it is possible to read the word world, oikoumenÈ, in verse 6, to refer to this world, in which case, verse 6 is talking about the incarnation. “And again, when God brings his firstborn into this world, he says, ‘Let all God’s angels worship him.’ ” It’s talking, then, about the incarnation, and I think probably a slight majority of commentators take it that way. I think it’s a mistake.

The term oikoumenÈ simply means the habitable world as opposed to arid desert places or the like. Elsewhere, Hebrews does speak of Jesus’ entrance into the kosmos, into the world, where it is talking about the incarnation. Jesus did enter this world in incarnational terms. “The Word became flesh …” The eternal Word became what he was not. He entered the world. Chapter 10, verse 5. There the word is kosmos.

But here in chapter 1, verse 6, judging by the context of the preceding two verses that I spent some time expounding in the last hour, the reference is not to this world and Jesus’ entrance into it at the incarnation, but it is a reference to Jesus’ entrance into the heavenlies, into the heavenly world, in consequence of Jesus’ exaltation.

Do you see what we’ve had in verses 5 and 6? “For to which of the angels did God ever say, ‘You are my Son; today I have become your Father’?” That’s a great enthronement passage and applied to Jesus. Then judging from the entrance verses, the opening verses where we’re told that Jesus finished his work of purification and sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high with all of the Father’s authority. The Father’s authority? The Father is saying, “Today you are my Son.”

That’s the enthronement, and because of that, because of Jesus’ entrance into the heavenlies and his enthronement as the Son par excellence, then you have, likewise, the fulfillment of the word spoken first to David, now with reference to great David’s greater son. “I will be his Father, and he will be my Son,” and again, to have another quotation, “… when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says …” That is, in this triumphant heavenly dimension. “Let all God’s angels worship him.”

Now if that’s what is going on, and I think it really has to be taken that way, then verse 5 must be read a certain way as well. “It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come …” This is not simply referring to this planet but the heavenlies, still to come in all of their fruition, perhaps seen majestically as the whole sweep of the new heaven and the new earth, the heavenly dimension into which we have already begun to enter.

That’s why the church is seen as already gathered around Christ in the heavenly Jerusalem in Hebrews, chapter 12. Christ has gone ahead of us. He has gone into the heavenlies, and that’s his domain. All authority is his. Now his authority extends over the whole universe, but there is a sense in which the Devil and all of his minions still function down here.

There is a sense in which even the angelic beings have some kind of function down here. Isn’t that what we read in verse 14 of chapter 1? The angels are ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation. Guess where we live? So the angels are working down here. But it is not to angels that God has subjected the world to come about which we are speaking. No, there’s a bigger dimension than that.

In other words, the connections I’m suggesting between 1:5 and what precedes are a little more comprehensible if you see not only a word link of angel to angel, 1:14 to 2:5, but this oikoumenÈ word. The world of which we are speaking ties you back to 1:6, this heavenly dimension, into which Christ has entered by his exaltation to the right hand of the Majesty on high. That’s what is going on. As we’ll see, it shapes how you understand the following verses in very powerful ways.

See Deuteronomy 32:8, which reads, “When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided all mankind, he set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the sons of [God].” That is, the angels of God. Thus, it sounds, as if the distribution of the nations is bound up with the distribution of the angels of God, as we see likewise in Daniel when certain angels seem to have a function for Persia or some place.

Now let me hasten to admit, in case somebody has quickly flipped back to chapter 32, verse 8, of Deuteronomy. In your Bible, it reads, “… according to the number of the sons of Israel.” The reason for that is that the MT, the Masoretic Text, has that, but not only does the LXX refer to angels, the Septuagint, but the Dead Sea Scrolls’ Deuteronomy, which is a thousand years earlier Hebrew text than the Masoretic Text, also has the same thing.

That’s very powerful attestation that is the original reading, and certainly that’s the way Hebrews takes it. God distributed the nations according to his distribution of the angelic beings, a theme that crops up several times, but “It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come …” That brings us, then, to the last connection to be observed.

Thirdly, the word angel itself occurs not only here, which ties this passage back to chapter 1, it also occurs in chapter 2, verse 16. “For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants.” We’re come back to the place of that argument in the flow in due course, but that shows the writer is still thinking about Jesus’ relationship to angels.

Even though he’s been talking about the incarnation and Jesus becoming a man and a high priest all through chapter 2, it shows that he is still thinking about Jesus’ connection with angels, all the way through to the end of chapter 2. Now then, let’s come to our set text, which is chapter 2, verses 5–18. I think it is helpful to break it into two large parts. First, the big picture, verses 5–9, and then, second, the details of Jesus’ solidarity with human beings, verses 10–18.

1. The Big Picture

We’ll follow it in three steps: human destiny, human failure, and the solution.

A) Human destiny

Verses 5–8a: “It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come …” The ultimate abode. Rather, “… there is a place where someone has testified …” Don’t you like the way this author refers to Scripture? “There’s a passage somewhere that says … something.” I think this writer has senior moments. It’s rather encouraging.

In one sense, you see, it’s probably also a way of mutely saying that all of Scripture is God’s Word, and whether you can attach a particular verse and number to it is not nearly as important as recognizing it is God’s Word. “But there is a place where someone has testified: ‘What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the angels …’ ” That is the best rendering. Not, “… for a little while …”.

“You made him a little lower than the angels …” That’s what the Hebrew says; it’s the most natural way of taking the Greek. “… you crowned him with glory and honor and put everything under his feet.” That’s what the text says. In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. That is, of course, Psalm 8. It’s one of the first ones that my kids memorized when they were still barely getting out of diapers. It’s a great Psalm.

What does it mean? What does the expression, “son of man” mean in verse 6? “What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” Many people have tried to argue that this is a reference to Jesus; it’s a christological title, and they will argue that is the case based on things that are coming up a little later on in this chapter. I beg to argue, instead, that if that argument is made they have not understood either the psalm or this chapter.

This is a line of parallelism in Greek. “What is man that you are mindful of him or the son of man that you remember him?” Man is parallel to son of man. In Hebrew, it’s a gentilic. That is, it’s a way of referring to something by putting a son of in front of it. When Saddam Hussein referred to “the mother of all wars,” he did not mean by this that it was literally the progenitor of all wars; it was merely a way of saying it would be the biggest of all wars, in some ways.

These Semitic and more broadly Near Eastern locutions that speak of son of or mother of, they are so often of this order of things, and to argue that they have separate reference just doesn’t make much sense. You say, “Yes, but in the Old Testament doesn’t son of man sometimes have a certain christological titular force?”

Well, yes, unambiguously it does in Daniel, chapter 7, verses 13–14, on which many of the New Testament uses are based. There “one like a son of man” appears before the Ancient of Days and receives an eternal kingdom. That is picked up quite clearly in the New Testament. But don’t forget that son of man as an expression is also used 80 times in Ezekiel.

When God addresses the prophet Ezekiel, he says, “Son of man, do this. Son of man, do that.” It’s a gentilic. He’s not suggesting that Ezekiel is the Messiah or that Ezekiel is a figure presaging the Messiah. It’s merely a gentilic; it’s a form of address to a human being. As opposed to God who is speaking, Ezekiel is just a son of man.

So likewise here, the whole point is not whether or not there is a noble figure who is a messianic figure referred to as the son of man who reaches a certain stature. That’s not the issue at all. If so, it makes no sense of what is said at the end of verse 8. “Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him.” It doesn’t make any sense at all.

Rather, what the psalmist is saying is, “When I see the stars and the glory all around, this spectacular universe with untold lightyears upon lightyears, everything from the tiniest subatomic particle to the farthest reaches of intergalactic space. When our science takes us to new depths and breadths and heights and limits …”

We have hummingbird feeders out our window. We’re bird watchers. We have six or eight different kinds of feeders pulling in different birds. If you ever watch two hummingbird pairs go after each other.… They’re very territorial; it’s like a World War II dogfight. It’s just fascinating, and we have it right outside the window. They hide in the tree and one comes up.… It’s very, very interesting.

Those little wings, even when they’re just putting their little beak in to get a little bit of syrup, are going at 140 beats per second. If you could put a stethoscope on the heart, you wouldn’t even hear it; it’s going so flipping fast you couldn’t even hear it. You wouldn’t even hear the individual beats. God designed it all, thought it all out.

We have a woodpecker feeder out there, too. We have four different kinds of woodpeckers. One woodpecker is called a rose-breasted woodpecker because it has rose, in fact, on its head, not on its breast. Why it’s called a rose-breasted I’ll never know, but it’s called a rose-breasted woodpecker.

It’s one of these interesting little beasts. It goes in and it grabs things and to get the force to do it, it has special tail feathers that give it leverage at the other end. Have you ever watch that in a woodpecker? They’ve got to push at this end in order to get some power at that end. It’s fantastic. Then the colors.… They are wonderful.

David looks around, and then he says, ‘When I see all that, what is man that you’re mindful of him? Or the son of man, that you visit him?” Yet the truth of the matter is that this God has ordained that in the order of power, we’re a little lower than the angels, and yet, God has put all things under our feet principally. That’s the order of creation.

That’s why Adam was given the right of naming everything at creation. That’s a mark of power. It wasn’t just because God couldn’t think of any names so he wanted Adam to help. It was a mark of power. It was a way of speaking of vice-regency. A wonderful thing. Put everything under his feet.

In fact, “In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him.” That means, in other words, that all the created order is under him, including angelic beings. We may be a little lower than angels, but in principle, in putting everything under, the angels are at best not more than ministering servants to us.

B) Human failure

 Now we come to the dilemma. “Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him.” We don’t see the angels subject to us. We don’t see the created order subject to us for all our technology, do we? Just when we think we’ve got some new thing solved we get some bigger earthquake somewhere or some new virus. Twenty years ago, who thought of AIDS? Now no matter what we do medically, even with the very best scenario, 40 million people will die. That’s the best scenario.

What about self? In the twentieth century, the bloodiest of all centuries, apart from war we managed to bump off about 100 million people … apart from war … and apart from disease. This is by brutal genocide and assassination: About 20 million Ukrainians under Stalin, about 50 million Chinese under Mao, about a million and a half Armenians, about a third of the population of Cambodia, about a million Hutus and Tutsis, and on and on and on. You add them all up, about 100 million. Apart from war. Oh, we see not yet everything under his feet.

All of this, as we see a little farther on in the passage, bound up with death and the Devil and the fear of death. This is a broken order, despite the glories of Psalm 8, despite the promise. It’s one of the things you become exposed to when you travel in the so-called Third World. You go to places of India and you see side slums that are beyond any sort of slum that you would ever find in this country. Walk in the streets of Calcutta.

Visit parts of East and Central Africa where the AIDS virus has decimated just about everybody between the age of about 15 and 65. You see misery that is past anything we find in the Western world, no matter what stratum of society you face. Oh, we do not see everything under his feet yet. No, we don’t.

C) The solution

 “But we see Jesus …” Verse 9. The relevance of this utterance, “We see Jesus,” is precisely the incarnation. Otherwise the flow of the argument makes no sense at all. Psalm 8 has promised what happens to human beings, and we don’t see human beings with this degree of authority. We don’t see human beings with this degree of reigning right, but we see Jesus, who is a human being.

“[He] was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” In other words, he has joined us. He has become one of us. He has entered our domain, and thus, he too, was made a little lower than the angels. Not for a little while, that is true, because it’s bound up in the sequence. The sequence of thought is he was made a little lower than the angels, and now he is crowned with glory and honor, but it is not in the word little itself as far as I can see.”

“But … now crowned,” that is, he is risen to human beings’ true destiny, to humanity’s true vocation. He is the one in whom primal glory and sovereignty are restored to human beings. That’s the point. He is, thus, the primal human being by entering our domain and becoming one of us, and thus, showing what Psalm 8 leads to. How so? “Because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God …” That is, this was by God’s plan. “… he might taste death for everyone.” That is, for all without distinction whatsoever.

In this sense, of course, he does fulfill Psalm 8, not because he is the son of man in some sort of titular sense but precisely because he is the first human being to fulfill the vision of Psalm 8 and opens up the way for human beings more generally to fulfill Psalm 8. This is the sweeping vision. That brings us to …

2. The details of Jesus’ solidarity with human beings (verses 10–18)

This large section is divided into two parts. The details of Jesus’ solidarity with human beings. First, viewed from the perspective of God and his grace, verses 10–13, and then second, viewed from the perspective of us fallen human beings and our need, verses 14–18.

A) The details of Jesus’ solidarity with human beings viewed from the perspective of God and his grace (verses 10–13)

We discover, first, the God who determines what is appropriate. Verse 10. You see, we’ve already been introduced to the grace of God so that by the grace of God Christ might taste death. Now verse 10: “In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God …” It was appropriate for God. It was appropriate that God. “… for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.”

Now what is meant by this, “It was fitting”? It was appropriate? What is meant by that? This cannot possibly mean that by some external standard, God is judged fit in what he does. “Oh, this was an appropriate move for God, wasn’t it?” And we judge appropriateness by some external standard. That doesn’t make any sense at all. It was appropriate for God, granted who he is. Namely, he is the one “… for whom and through whom everything exists.” It was appropriate for this kind of God to take this step. Now that is a formidable thought.

Turn for a movement to Philippians, chapter 2. This is the great so-called “Christ Hymn.” In verse 5 of the NIV we read, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped …” Now that’s pretty close to the original, “Who, being in very nature God …”

The trouble is when you have that sort of expression in Greek you can understand it in one of two different ways. In the King James Version, it is written as a concessive. That is, “… although he was in the form of God,” but you can equally read it as a causal, “… because he was in the form of God.”

Now in the first case, “Although he was in the form of God he didn’t think that this equality with God was something to be seized and grasped, but emptied himself” that’s already a very rich thought, but the causal is stronger, and Peter O’Brien in his commentary makes a great case for it. Do you hear what is being said then?

It was precisely because equality with God was already his. He didn’t have anything to prove, because this was the kind of God he was. He emptied himself and made himself a nobody, because godhood was already his. He didn’t have to seize it and grasp it because that was already his. He emptied himself and made himself a nobody, for this is the kind of God we are dealing with. That is precisely the thought that’s found here.

It’s not that the author is pronouncing judgment on God by some external standard, but rather, granted that this is the God “for whom and through whom everything exists.” Not just through whom, that is, it comes into existence by him; that is, it is all derived existence, unlike his own existence, which is self-existence. He alone is God. He is self-existing. Everything else in the created order has derived its existence from him, but not only has it derived its existence from him, it all exists for him, and that is the ground in Scripture of all human responsibility.

Have you talked to someone about your faith sometime to get a response that runs something like this? “Look, Charles, I’m really pleased if this Jesus stuff helps you. I mean, you know, we all have to find our own spiritual path, don’t we? For me, it’s crystals. The vibration is pretty good, and if you find Jesus helps you, then I’m happy for you. I’m not criticizing you. You know, we all have to find our own path, but quite frankly, I don’t like it when you stuff your Jesus down my throat, so back off!”

Now what do you say? Well, you might have to back off a little bit. Discretion is the better part of valor. There’s always next week. You don’t want to be needlessly offensive. But sooner or later don’t you have to smile and say, “You know, backing off is the one thing I can’t do, because you see, if I’m right then your very thinking that you’re independent of this God is the biggest sign of the danger that you’re in. He made you, and you owe him.

You don’t have the right to back off. You’re going to give an account to him whether you like it or not. You don’t have to give an account to your crystals. You’re going to have to give an account to the God who made you whether you like it or not. That’s why I can’t back off, because you’re in big trouble! And I want to tell you some good news about your trouble. You don’t even see your trouble!”

Isn’t that what you have to say? In other words, creation grounds human responsibility. All things were made by God and for him. Interestingly enough, something similar is said of Jesus in the Colossians “Christ Hymn.” “All things were made by him and for him.” Now we’re told, here, this God is the one for whom and through whom everything exists. Now it’s fitting for this God who is self-existent, who is the one against whom all offense has been offered, who is so completely independent that he is not dependent on anyone else, on anything else.

It’s fitting for that God, that kind of God, to take decisive action. It’s fitting for him. You see, the argument is very similar to that kind of reading of Philippians 2 as well. It was appropriate for God, granted this kind of God, to do things this way. What is it, then, that God judges to be appropriate? We see the God who determines what is appropriate and then what God judges to be appropriate.

First, the God who determines what is appropriate. Verse 10: “In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family.”

This word author is a tricky one. We speak of Jesus as “the author and finisher of our faith.” The word is archegos, and it is not very common in the New Testament. It shows up in Hebrews and then also a couple of times outside of Hebrews. It shows up, for example, in chapter 12, verse 2, and it is sometimes rendered author, sometimes champion, sometimes leader, sometimes pioneer. It’s not an easy word to render at all.

In chapter 12, verse 2, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.” If I understand this word correctly in its background, however, it means something like champion and pioneer. He’s not just a pioneer in that he goes first, but he’s not just a champion in that we don’t have to go anywhere. He’s the champion who opens the way, but he goes first.

Thus, you see, in this passage, likewise, he is the first human being who fulfills the dream of Psalm 8. He’s the senior brother, so he’s not ashamed to call us brothers (we’re going to read a little farther on). You see, he’s more than a champion who does something on our behalf; he’s the pioneer who goes first. But he’s more than a pioneer. He doesn’t just go first; he’s the champion who makes it possible for all the rest of us to go.

He is the one who defeats death and the Devil. He is both the champion and the pioneer. Thus, not only in verses 14–16 is he the hero, the protagonist, the champion who comes to the rescue of his people and saves them even from death, but he’s the pioneer who goes ahead of them, their older brother opening the way so that they become fully human as it were, rising to the vision of Psalm 8.

What then does it mean to say that Jesus was made perfect through suffering? What does that mean? “It was appropriate for God to make him perfect through suffering,” we’re told. What does that mean? We’re somewhat embarrassed by this language because it seems to suggest at first blush as if somehow Jesus was imperfect until he was made perfect, and we don’t like to think of imperfections in Jesus, do we?

Part of the answer is linguistic. In the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, which the author here quotes again and again and again, the verb to perfect or to make perfect, teleioÛ, is used very frequently in ceremonial texts, especially ceremonial texts to signify the act of consecration when a priest takes office: Exodus 19 several times, Leviticus 4, Numbers, and so on. It shows up again and again and again.

The full expression is literally to perfect the hands or to fill the hands. That is, to complete the hands. In Exodus 29:33, it is explained by the verb hagiazÛ, to sanctify. That is, to complete the hands or to fulfill the hands. To perfect the hands is thus parallel in the language to sanctify, to consecrate, to set aside, to make holy, to consecrate for service.

The point is that Jesus is consecrated for his priestly service, he is perfected for his priestly service, precisely by becoming what he was not. In eternity past, he was not perfected for it. Do not misunderstand me. It’s not that he had moral imperfections. That’s not the point at all, but in eternity past he couldn’t have suffered. He couldn’t have died. He couldn’t have borne our sins in that substitutionary way.

He wasn’t one of us. He had to become one of us. He had to be perfected … to be set aside for this priestly duty … precisely by becoming a human being, precisely by suffering with us and for us, precisely by going to the cross. That is what sanctified him, perfected him in this way, put his hands full of all priestly duties. Do you see?

He was consecrated for this task through his incarnation, his humiliation, and his sufferings. So it is not surprising, then, that in verse 11, the author uses the word hagios, holy, which is cognate you see with sanctify, hagiazÛ. Thus, the one who makes us holy, since he has been consecrated for the task, and the ones who are made holy must all belong to the same family.

That’s part of the priestly order of things. He’s got to be one with us if he’s going to do anything for us. That’s the whole argument, and it was fitting for this kind of God … who owns the whole show, to whom all must give an account, for whom everything exists … to ordain that this one who is one with God should now become one with us and be perfected in suffering.

Secondly, what Jesus judges to be appropriate. Verse 11b: “So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.” Now that’s remarkable. He made us. We shook our puny fists in his face and told him this was our world and we wanted no part of him. Then he donned our flesh and is not ashamed to be called our brother.

You watch children at a certain age, you know boys who are 13 or 14 years old, ashamed of the brothers who are 9. You watch a 14-year-old sister with a 10-year-old brother. They want to enter the house by another door. If their friends are around, they’re ashamed of them. Sometimes even when we’re older, we have a black sheep in the family. You’re all so spiffy and nice when you go to church, and “This is Uncle George. He’s the drunk.” Of course, you don’t say this in front of Uncle George, but if you know he’s coming next Sunday, you warn everybody first.

Sometimes even in the church.… Has your church collected more than its share of twits and misfits? I’ve yet to be inside a church that doesn’t have a few. When I was a young man it used to embarrass me. If people came in that I wanted to evangelize and they see the church has got more than its share of twits and misfits, then how are you going to evangelize? They’re going to think the church is nothing but a place of ignorant, silly, goofy people with IQs running about 36.

I’ve changed my mind. For a start, the church, for all its faults, is still the most compassionate, tolerant society on God’s green earth. So we are going to attract more than our share of twits and misfits, and we should view them as badges of honor. They’re people made in the image of God, but it’s more than that. If Jesus isn’t ashamed of calling me, “brother,” what right have I to start judging whom I will consider a brother?

That’s what Jesus judges to be appropriate, and in case we haven’t got it, we get three proof texts, one after another. I don’t have time to go through them in detail. Let me just pick up one or two. The first is from Psalm 22:22. Psalm 22, written by David, is a messianic psalm; that is, it is messianic because it points typologically beyond David to great David’s greater son. There are elements in Psalm 22 that have to be referring to David and no one else.

Yet at the same time, there are elements in it that point beyond David to great David’s greater son, the Messiah, who would fully experience the sufferings described in this psalm. Then after deliverance from this intense suffering, this messianic King proclaims God’s name to his brothers. “I will declare your name to my brothers; in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises.” Then Isaiah 8:17–18. Again, imbedded in the context of a major messianic prophecy, Isaiah 7–11. I shan’t unpack it here.

B) The details of Jesus’ solidarity with human beings viewed from the perspective of us fallen human beings and our need (verses 14–18)

We discover, the purpose of the incarnation, those excluded by the incarnation, and the implications of the incarnation.

First, the purpose of the incarnation. Verses 14–15: “Since the children have flesh and blood …” That is, we’re human beings. “… he too shared in their humanity …” That’s how you know what flesh and blood means. Flesh and blood does not have some technical, ontological sense. It simply means human beings. “… so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil …”

Do you see that? He shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death. The purpose of the incarnation was to die. The purpose of Christmas is Good Friday. When we’re born, our purpose is not to die. That’s the inevitable result unless Jesus comes back first, but it’s not the purpose. I wasn’t born to die … to die to self, no doubt, but not to die as Jesus died. But Jesus was born precisely to die. That is, he became one of us. He took on flesh, precisely so that he would die our death. That was the purpose.

The reference to the Devil’s power over death is important. The Devil does not have power over death inherently, as if the whole order of things is chopped up into various domains and God has authority in certain domains and the Devil has authority in other domains by some sort of inherent right.

That’s not the point at all. Rather, the Devil gains his power over death by his seduction of the human race, by his insistence that God, if he’s a God of justice, must pronounce the judgment that he himself has said flows out of disobedience; namely, death. And with this comes, then the fear of death.

Such evangelism as I do these days is largely done in university settings. It’s where I live. It’s where I work. As a result, the kind of evangelism that I do is not usually amongst churchified people who have all kinds of nice civilizational limits on their behavior and speech. Amongst students, you can talk about almost anything, almost anything.

I can get a batch of students in and say, “Well, let’s talk about homosexuality tonight. What do people think?” Bang! I’ve got a discussion right off the bat. I can go anywhere with it. “Let’s talk about pedophilia tonight.” Everybody is interested. But if I say, “I’d like to tell you how my dad died,” there is instant silence. It’s the last taboo. This generation who will talk about anything won’t talk about death.

So at one level it doesn’t fear death because it has so badly suppressed it that it’s not even on the horizon. It’s just bad manners to talk about it. It’s not done. It’s not kosher. It’s bad taste. In that sense, you see, there’s not a lot of fear of death. It’s not as if people go around cringing in fear, but on the other hand, how deep is the fear if people are so afraid of it they don’t even talk about it.

Now with various forms of health service and health insurance and Medicaid and all the rest, we’ve gradually built into our psyche the view that society at large, through the medical services, owes us life. They owe it to us, and if they bust a gut to save us but do something wrong, we sue, because they owe us life. The one thing we can’t talk about very easily with many people is death.

You who are pastors, haven’t you had your share of funerals of different sorts? One of our retired faculty members, Warren Benson, died three months ago. There was a great memorial service/funeral. He had a stroke, and three weeks later he was dead. Just like that. He’d been lecturing, both at our place and down at Southern Seminary.

He was 73, fit, trim, alert, no signs of slowing up too much … and he was gone. He was a godly man, had a godly wife, and although the shock, I’m sure, is horrible, yet there was a sense in which that whole service was right on the portals of heaven. His wife, Lenore, thinks so, too. Haven’t you had your share of the other kind, too?

I remember a woman of a church I was serving some time back phoning me and saying, “Look, my neighbor across the street, they’re in big trouble. Both the parents are drunks. Their kids are right off the charts. The father has been told if he doesn’t stop drinking he’s going to die. Nobody talks to them. Would you do something?

So I went around at 3:30 in the afternoon or so, knocked on the door, knocked on the door, banged on the door, knocked on the door, banged on the door. Finally, he came to the door. He was wearing a tux from the night before. He had barely rolled out of bed and stank of booze and vomit. You got inside the house, and you could see dog feces everywhere. It was just horrible.

I got him to change his jacket and brought him off to a restaurant and got some coffee in him. I had introduced myself. I went and saw him every two days, and every time I saw him he was stone drunk. I hauled him out, got some coffee into him. Finally I said to him, “Is it true the doctor says if you continue this, you’re going to die?” “Yes. I’m gonna die.” By this time I knew him pretty well. I said, “My dear friend, if you die, you are going straight to hell.”

His reply? “I’d rather be dead than married to that bitch.” He died. His wife, 13 years older, on her second or third marriage, equally drunk, phoned me to take the funeral. She hired the biggest funeral hall in town and then put notices in all the papers that this was a private funeral and no one was allowed to come but the immediate family. She arrived drunk. Next to her was her 28-year-old son by one of her previous marriages who just fired hate at me. Next to them were the two kids, a girl, 13, who was a nymphomaniac, and a boy, 14, who was a kleptomaniac.

When we finally got out to the cemetery, I went to the back of the hearse, she staggered out around the back, dragged my arm, hauled me over to another grave and said, “Come and let me show you where I planted the first one.” I know you’ve all got your horror stories. I just happen to be at the front. You can tell me yours.

Isn’t there a time when death makes you feel outraged? Outraged. This is not the way it’s supposed to be. This is outrageous. It was outrageous for Warren. It was outrageous for this drunk. It’s not the way it’s supposed to be, but although death is the last enemy, it no longer has the last word. For Christ shared in our humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

Isn’t it wonderful to watch Christians who are getting old and decrepit and weak, who have one foot genuinely planted in heaven and simply don’t have fear of death. I know some Christians do, but an awful lot do not. They really do not. That’s not normal. It’s what ought to be normal, but it’s certainly not average.

Secondly, those excluded by the incarnation. Verse 16: “For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants.” Not angels, but Abraham’s descendants. Now how this has moved beyond Abraham’s descendants to the race at large we’ll come to in due course. There’s already been a hint of that a little earlier where we’re told, for example, that he might taste death for everyone; that is, for all without distinction. But here, the exclusion is angels.

Has it ever struck you that there has arisen a Redeemer for fallen human beings and not for fallen angels. All of these angels that we want in our television programs to go around protecting us? No fallen angel will ever be redeemed. We’re told in Revelation 20 that Satan and all of the fallen angels are cast into the burning lake of fire where they are tortured forever. That’s what the text says. The eternal Word did not become an angel; he became a human being. He identified with us.

Lastly, the implications of the incarnation. Verses 17–18. There are three of them, and by this means, the author is introducing massive themes that he will unpack in subsequent chapters. This qualified him to become faithful High Priest, to make an atonement for his people, and to respond pastorally to their temptations and see himself face temptations. All of those themes are taken up later, so we will not deal with them here.

Jesus! What a Friend for sinners!

Jesus! Lover of my soul;

Friends may fail me, foes assail me,

He, my Savior, makes me whole.

Jesus! What a Strength in weakness!

Let me hide myself in Him.

Tempted, tried, and sometimes failing,

He, my Strength, my victory wins.

Jesus! I do now receive Him,

More than all in Him I find.

He hath granted me forgiveness,

I am His, and He is mine.