Heb No.4 But we see Jesus 2v1-9

Last week we were looking at the opening verses of the second chapter which really, as I suggested to you, could be put in brackets because they contain a little bit of practical and very important application of all that the writer to the Hebrews had been saying in the first chapter. But when you come to the fifth verse of chapter 2, you will discover that he's really continuing his argument in part, not that it wasn't complete, he is underlining what he has already concluded in the final verses of the first chapter. You remember just to set the whole study in relief that the writer of this epistle is concerned to show the supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He's superior to the prophets, he's superior to the patriarchs, he's superior, as I shall be showing you later on in the third chapter in particular, to Moses. But perhaps higher than the prophets and the patriarchs, and maybe even Moses, in the Jewish economy of theological concept, were the angels. And the writer gave seven evidences, you remember, in those opening verses of the first chapter to pinpoint his conclusion that Jesus Christ is even superior to them.

And he takes up his reference to the angelic hosts, and he's going to refer to them in the fifth verse of the second chapter, and also in the ninth verse of the second chapter. And particularly in the ninth verse, he has to deal with an objection that might well be put to him. If Jesus is higher than the angels, then how do you understand his death? Because Jesus went to the cross, and the cross was a terrible place.

Jesus became a man. Jesus died in awful agony. Now, if he is greater than the angels, then how do you understand that? Because not one of the angels went through the dignities that Jesus Christ suffered.

So, you see, he's going to deal with this point, not adding to what he has already argued concerning the angels in the first chapter, but substantiating, underlining his conclusion, as he gives us further insight into the position of Jesus before he came on this earth, what was achieved through his death, and more importantly, what has followed as a consequence from Calvary and its shame and its pain. But just for starters this evening, which sounds like a phrase from University Challenge, come to the fifth verse of the second chapter, for here the writer is making further comment about angelic government, angelic government. For unto the angels has he not put in subjection the world to come, of which we are making reference.

The writer here is peering into the future, and in God's tomorrow, in the world that is yet to be, the angels will not have authority. And the implication, therefore, follows that in the world as it is now, during what we call the dispensation of grace, angels have influence. Angels have some involvement.

Now, you remember that this was such an exciting topic, as we touched on it from the first chapter, that I gave you a supplementary study on the whole ministry of angels, these neglected yet rather wonderful beings. And I went so far as to say that if you don't understand something about the story of angels and the position that they have held in heaven, and the fall that occurred in the celestial dimension, you will never completely grasp the significance of Calvary, nor understand the enormous nature of the battle that ensues in this world right now. Jesus went to the cross of Calvary to expose principalities and powers.

What does that mean? Well, it's Paul who uses the expression in Colossians. And he seems to be suggesting, indeed, he is declaring, that present with us in this world, there are forces of evil, and there are also forces of good. There are evil angels.

A third of heaven's hosts were seen ejected from the heavenly dimension when Lucifer fell. And their influence is felt in this world at this moment. And the Bible makes no apologies for admitting to such a concept.

But not only are there righteous angels or unrighteous angels that exercise their influence, there are also good angels. And in references that I've given you, but won't spend time this evening in giving you the scenery, the background too, in the Old Testament, there is more than a hint of the involvement of angels over the affairs of men in the ancient world. It seems as though some angel in particular had governmental responsibility for Israel, and for Greece, and for Persia.

And when you move into the New Testament, the concept is sustained and developed. And Jesus makes reference to angelic beings who work for, who are involved in the affairs on this earth for the benefit of mankind. Thus the 14th verse of chapter 1, speaking of angels, are they not all ministering spirits, assistants sent forth to help those who shall be heirs of salvation? So now, even though unrecognized by the majority of people in this world, and alas, unrecognized by Christian people, to some extent, angels have influence, angels have a concern for what is happening.

But in the world which is to come, in God's tomorrow, then they shall have no influence. The world that is to be is not subject to the angels. It is subject only to the Christ of God.

You know full well that when the Bible talks about the kingdom of God, it does so in a double sense. Jesus, for instance, is depicted in Mark's gospel as preaching that the kingdom is at hand. And we believe that when anyone accepts Jesus as their own personal savior, they enter into the kingdom of God.

And you and I at this moment are members of that kingdom. But there's a more wonderful realization of that, which is future. If that were not so, then it would be absurd to pray, for example, the Lord's prayer, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, as it is in heaven, so let it be the case on earth.

Here is the idea that the kingdom of God in its consummation, in its absolute sense, is yet future. It's arrived at the present, and those who are members of the body of Christ, who are Christian people, they know it. They've got evidence of it.

Supernatural power would just save them. Authentication of the gospel, as referred to in the fourth verse of this chapter, that also attests the fact that the kingdom has come. But there's a future fulfillment of it.

Not everyone recognizes who Jesus is. Not everyone appreciates that the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. But that day is to dawn.

And when that day dawns, and Jesus Christ is seen to be Lord of all, then there shall be a remarkable transformation, a new heaven, and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. Heaven shall come down on earth, and God shall be all and in all. This world which bears the marks of sin and rebellion and discord, which like cancer has undisciplined growth, which creates problems, all that is going to be attended to.

And when Jesus returns, and He is Lord of all, He shall rejuvenate the heavens and the earth, as well as complete your physical redemption. For then you shall receive a body like unto His glorious body. And in that age which is to come, it will not be angels to whom the world is put under subjection, but the Lord Jesus, who shall govern not only Himself, but also through those who are called to be heirs of salvation.

Well then, this concept of the Lord Jesus Christ and the absolute government that He shall visibly assume compels the author in his argument to think a little bit more about the Lord Jesus Christ in terms of the Son of Man. And this you discover in the sixth through to the eighth verses. And not only is He going to talk to us about the Lord Jesus Christ, He's going to talk to us about you and me, ordinary men, ordinary women.

So having referred to angels now and then, He goes on to speak of the Son of Man, the first and the last. Now the sixth verse introduces this slight change in emphasis in the argument of the writer of the Hebrew epistle. And he's quoting a psalm.

And in a most delightful way, he quotes this psalm. He doesn't say turn to Psalm 6, or rather turn to Psalm 8. He says, someone, somebody, somewhere says this. It doesn't really matter to the writer of the Hebrews who that person is, because his word is in Scripture, and it bears the authority of God upon it.

And maybe also you could come to the conclusion that the people who were reading this epistle, Hebrews themselves, had such a knowledge of the Old Testament that when the writer of the letter quotes an Old Testament Scripture, he can presume that they know where it comes from. My, how times have changed from that era to the present era. I find one of the hardest things in preaching the gospel to a mixed company of people is that there is such a great ignorance amongst those who first of all come along to the church, and even ignorance amongst some who come on a Sunday night for many years.

And one has constantly to risk wearying those who are mature in the faith by going back to basic principles and spelling out well known Bible stories, because there is a degree of ignorance amongst the congregation. And one wants everyone to follow what's being said. But if I'm right in drawing this deduction, then happy was that man who wrote the epistle to the Hebrews because he was writing to, he was preaching in written form to a congregation who knew the Old Testament Scriptures, referring to the Eighth Psalm, and the Eighth Psalm talks about the Son of Man, man in general, man like ourselves.

And when you read that Psalm, you often must identify your own experience with that of David, he looks up to the heavens, he sees the moon and the stars. Maybe he's lying down on the grass around Bethlehem's hills. And at nighttime, he gets a sense of his own smallness, to use a lovely but not well known word, a sense of his own creatureliness.

There he is so insignificant, a little speck on planet Earth, which relatively is only a small sphere amongst all the heavenly planets. And his mind is blown by the concept of the greatness of God. And he says, what is man? That thou Lord God art mindful of him, or the Son of Man, that thou visitest him.

And yet, though man is small, and insignificant, when compared with the vastness and the grandeur of nature, and the universe, the galaxy, man is just not an ordinary creature. We may be referring to man in general here. But man in general is special.

What is man that thou visitest him? What makes me have significance? What makes you have significance? The fact that God has visited the earth in the form of Jesus. Here by implication is reference to the incarnation, God wanting to tabernacle with man. Man made in the image of God in the first place, enjoyed fellowship with the Lord, that fellowship was broken through sin.

But God didn't leave it there. Though it was a great tragedy, God had a greater plan of salvation to thwart the tragedy. And man is visited in the form of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So from man in general, in the sixth verse, you move to man in particular. In the seventh verse, thou madest him, who? The Lord Jesus Christ, a little lower than the angels. Obviously, Adam was the first man to whom scripture refers.

But sometimes in the New Testament, Jesus is called the last Adam. He comes to undo the damage, the damage caused by the first Adam who sinned and with his sin, so all who are in his loins ourselves sinned. But the last Adam, Jesus Christ, made a little lower than the angels, comes into this world to do a great and wonderful work.

Here is the New Testament concept, not the psalmist. He couldn't have seen this clearly. Very often when the Old Testament writers were prophesying, they did not fully understand what they were saying.

There's a great deal in the Old Testament that comes to the fullest of meaning only as you look at it through the New Testament. And one of the choice expressions that Jesus loved to use to describe himself was the Son of Man. And when it is used here in terms of the Lord Jesus, it is in the sense that he is the unique one.

He is the one who is designated to be the Redeemer. Thou madest him a little lower than the angels. And if you take this back to the original, and I think it's brought out in the NIV, the concept is of Jesus being lower for a little time, for a short space of time.

What does all this mean? Well, Jesus, the Son of God, when he became incarnate, in position, he assumed a level lower than that of the angels. He took upon himself flesh and blood like yours, like mine. He was going to be humiliated in a way that no angel was ever humiliated.

He was going to be abased in a fashion that few men could ever say they had been abased in such a degree. Yet this voluntary humiliation of Jesus, all the pain and all the derision of Calvary would just be for a little time, so that the last Adam could undo the work of the first Adam. And all this is being referred to in the seventh verse.

The psalmist could not fully have understood all that he was predicting, when he used the terminology of the Son of Man, and began to speak of him, not as man in general, but man in particular, made a little lower than the angels. So then, here you've got another twist, another change, only by a slight degree, in the subject matter of our verses. I remind you, the author has been talking about angels now, and their lack of influence then.

This causes him to come back to Jesus, because he's going still to substantiate his main thesis, that Jesus is greater, is superior than all the angels. But you remember, I said there was an objection that he had to counter. How can he be superior to the angels? When he went to the cross, and the Jewish scripture says, cursed is every man that hung upon a tree.

And Roman writers said, let the name of the cross be removed, even from the lips of a Roman citizen. Such a hurried place, such a terrible concept it was. Then how can he, who is greater than the angels, be superior, if he went to the cross? And the answer becomes very, very plain.

And to see it fully, I must take you into the third aspect of our study this evening, in which I bring you to the idea of vision, short and long. Vision, short and long. There are some people like me, who are short-sighted.

There are other people who are long-sighted. And to fully understand what the Lord Jesus Christ achieved on Calvary's cross, you've got to have double vision. Not only short-sightedness is required, but long-sight.

You have got to be able to evaluate the happening of a moment, and to place it within the context of eternity. Thou madest him a little lower than the angels. When Jesus visited this world, he was not recognized by the vast majority of people.

He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. But look at the second part of the seventh verse. Thou crownest him with glory and honour, and did set him over the works of thy hands.

Here are two concepts joined together, humiliation and exaltation. What is it all about? Well, when you understand that, you will fully comprehend the writer's argument that Jesus is supremo, even to the angels. When Jesus died, it was the end of everything as far as the disciples were concerned.

You remember the state of abject hopelessness that was obviously in the breasts of those two on the Emmaus road. They were talking about Jesus, and we overhear them saying, we had thought that this should have been the man who would have redeemed Israel, should have been, who would have. But it didn't happen like that.

He died the death of a criminal. He died the most awful death that man has ever invented to rob his fellow of life. And yet the remarkable thing is that if ever appearances suggested what they were not, then the death of Jesus is the greatest example.

Because those with short-sightedness thought it was hopeless, it was finished. But from the tragedy, in quotes of Calvary, comes the triumph of the resurrection. And the greatest pinnacle that Jesus ever attained to in his life was that moment when he died.

Death was not a brat tamed by the devil and exploited by the devil to handicap the Lord Jesus. The devil may have power in this world in a limited sense, but he never had and does not have absolute power, and not so power over Jesus Christ. No man takes my life from me, says Jesus.

I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down. I have power to take it up again.

What seemed to be a tragedy was all part of God's eternal plan for the redemption of the world. When Jesus went to the cross and darkness dropped as a blanket over that scene, far from being the end of everything, it was the beginning of everything. Jesus was made a little lower than the angels, temporally, so that ultimately he can be crowned with glory and honor.

I find it impossible to get over the words that are required to bring this mind-bending concept to you. When Jesus died, it was as a result of the predetermined counsel of God. He wasn't caught on a hook with a piece of bait that the devil had dangled in front of him.

It was the other way around. If anyone was caught, it was the devil himself, fallen angel in chief, Lucifer. Now, those with double sight see what happens after the death of Jesus on the cross.

God raises him again in the power of an endless life, to quote this author later on, and Jesus is crowned with glory and honor. Death could not keep its prey. Jesus, my Savior, he tore the bars away.

Jesus, my Lord, up from the grave he arose with a mighty triumph over his foes. And the triumph continued. Resurrection, ascension, exaltation, glorification, and now he has that supreme position of authority, seated at the right hand of God.

So marvelous was the achievement of Jesus. The cross replaced by the crown, the Via Dolorosa is renamed after Calvary, no longer the road of sorrows, but the Via Doxa, the road of glory. Jesus crowned with glory and honor.

But, and the writer has to say this, there's a point that seems illogical. If this is so, and Jesus has all authority, and in double vision, we take the long view of Calvary and realize that it was for the joy that was before him, Jesus endured the cross. Why do we not have a greater visible indication that he is supreme? The eighth verse, in that he put all in subjection under him.

God put all in subjection under Jesus Christ. He left nothing that is not put under him. But says the writer with honesty, now we see not yet all things put under him.

And that, of course, is true. Look at our world. Waiting in Heathrow Airport in the early hours of this morning, I was flicking through Time magazine and Newsweek, neither of which I bought, I settled for the Telegraph.

And even that wasn't a very good choice. It just happened to be the cheapest. The indication there of chaos.

Does Jesus really rule? Here we are in this country, investing millions of pounds in weapons to defend ourselves, the government feeling bound so to do, to secure if it is possible, the safety of those in this island home of ours. Does this indicate Jesus's rule? Absolute absurdity. Absolute chaos.

That seems to be the scene in so many areas in our world today, particularly in the realm of politics. But you see, this is where the double vision must come in. We don't see Jesus like that visibly now.

But ultimately, we shall do. Because when Jesus Christ returns, and this is basic to the writer's argument throughout the whole of these verses, when Jesus Christ returns, he shall do so in power and great glory. And not only will he complete the bodily redemption of Christian people, but he shall complete the redemption of the world.

He shall rejuvenate the world, the world suffered through the sins of our first parents. And from the world shall be expunged every taste, every hint of corruption and decay. That he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.

And that could sustain the translation should taste death for everything. As though not only has man had redemption made possible through the atoning death of Christ, but cosmic redemption is a consequence of the work of the Lord Jesus. There's a new world coming.

To this the scripture often refers, and in that great and glorious day which is yet to be, the triumph of the crucified shall be seen to be complete. So then, our author has virtually finished his piece of argumentation from this fifth verse through to the ninth. Remember, he spoke about angels and the influence and authority and the rebellious nature of some of them in this world now.

And the fact that they will have no influence in the world which is yet to be. He speaks about man in general, and then man in particular, the Lord Jesus Christ. He speaks about vision.

And the way you view Jesus immediately on his death, and the way you view the aftermath, and keep your eyes fixed on the thought that this same Jesus is going to return to this world in power and great glory. That leaves us only to do one thing. And that is to comment on the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ has tasted death for every man.

We see Jesus, who suffered. We see Jesus, who's crowned with glory. We see Jesus, who has tasted death.

It's a synonym, really, that means it, it means exactly the same as the word suffering. Earlier on in this verse, why did Jesus suffer? Well, he suffered for every man. That is every man who he will bring to glory.

Because of salvation, the 10th verse, this is not universal redemption. There are some who come to this verse and quote it completely out of context. There you are, Jesus Christ has tasted death for every man, i.e. every man lives because of what Jesus has done.

Every man ultimately converted. That is a travesty of scriptural teaching. Jesus Christ has tasted death for every man.

And the definition of every man is found in the 10th verse. Those who he brings through to glory, many sons, who have made by the grace of God, Jesus Christ, the captain of their salvation. You'll see how wonderful this teaching is, how tidy it is.

There are no rugged edges. If you have not followed the argument this evening, then it's not because of any illogicality within this writer to the Hebrews. It's as a result of my own ineptitude to make things clear from Scripture, which are wonderfully set forth.

Jesus Christ, our glorious Lord and master, who has achieved cosmic redemption for all who put their trust in him, our Lord Jesus, who one day shall return and visibly set up his kingdom. He shall rule forever and ever. And the angels will not have the world subject to them.

Jesus Christ shall be the ruler and God his father shall be God of all and in all.