1 – We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.
2 – For, since the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment,
3 – how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation?This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord,was confirmed to us by those who heard Him.
4 – God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles,and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to His will.
5 – It is not to angels that He has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking.
6 – But there is a place where someone has testified: “What is mankind that You are mindful of them, a son of man that You care for him?
7 – You made them a little lower than the angels; You crowned them with glory and honor
8 – and put everything under their feet.” In putting everything under them, God left nothing that is not subject to them. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them.
9 – But we do see Jesus, Who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because He suffered death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.
10 – In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for Whom and through Whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation Perfect through what He suffered.
11 – Both the One Who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.
12 – He says, “I will declare your name to My brothers and sisters; in the assembly I will sing your praises.”
13 – And again, “I will put my trust in Him.” And again He says, “Here am I, and the children God has given Me.”
14 – Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—
15 -and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
16 – For surely it is not angels He helps, but Abraham’s descendants.
17 – For this reason He had to be made like them, fully human 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.
18 – Because He Himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted.
- This week I did an Internet search to find descriptions of a real man. Here’s what I came up with. A real man:
…makes his wife breakfast in bed on Valentine’s Day. Any REAL MEN do that this morning? I see too many “uh-oh” expressions! - A real man still does this…opens the car door.
- A real man stays faithful. He doesn’t look at other women because he’s too busy looking for ways to love his own.
Now—leaving our “love theme…”
- A real man—doesn’t run around calling himself a “real man.” He’s just real.
- A real man doesn’t eat honey—he chews bees.
- A real man grows his own scarf—guy with beard.
- A real man always does it in one trip.
Well these are entertaining and even a little inspiring but the fact is, the only place to REALLY see what a REAL man—a TRUE man—is supposed to be like—is to look at Jesus. You see Jesus—and only Jesus—gives us a picture of what God originally intended when He made Adam. This is why Paul refers to Jesus as “the last Adam” —as in the FINAL WORD when it comes to a REAL man. (1st Cor 15:45)
If you’re our guest I’ll let you know that last week we began a study of the book of Hebrews—and one thing we learned is that the Jewish Christians who first read this book were drifting away from their faith in THE TRUE Man—Jesus. By the way—this is a warning we should heed because DRIFT is something that Christians deal with all the time. I mean, our fallen culture is always pulling at us—with sort of an immoral undertow. In fact, D. A. Carson warns, “People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to the Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. No—
- We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance.
- We drift toward disobedience and call it freedom.
- We drift toward superstition and call it faith.
- We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation.
- We slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism.
- We slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.”
Understand—when it comes to this spiritual drifting Carson talks about—there is no friction—no dramatic sense of departure—we usually don’t even realize it’s happening. But before we know it we’ve let go of our foundation—we’ve gotten off course in our journey toward Christlikenss—we’ve lost our first Love.
Well that’s what was happening to the Jewish believers of the 1st century were facing. To escape persecution for their faith in Jesus—many had drifted away–to the point where they were embracing the belief that Jesus was just a great angel. This would be an easy drift to get into as a Jewish believer because angels were a big part of their history. I mean, God used His angels to do powerful things for and with His chosen people.
- Remember, on the first Passover the death angel killed the firstborn of all the people of Egypt.
- Then, an angel with a pillar of fire led the people through the wilderness.
Act 7 reminds us that an angel spoke to Moses on Mt. Sinai giving him God’s law. - When Stephen was being stoned he said the same thing to his executioners, “You who received the law as ordained by angels did not keep it.”
And don’t get me wrong. Angels ARE a big deal. They play an important part in furthering God’s kingdom. This is reflected in the fact that they are mentioned over 100 times in the Old Testament and 160 times in the New. The Bible tells us that angels exist in vast numbers. For example, in Revelation 5 they are described as assembling in a great throng “numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand..” In most cases Angels are invisible—like the deal with Balaam and his donkey—or when Elisha’s servant had to have his eyes opened miraculously to see that he was protected by a circle of angels manning chariots of fire. When angels ARE visible they usually have a human-like appearance. But sometimes they shine with glorious light like the angel who told the Shepherds of Jesus’ birth. Other times they have appeared as fabulous winged creatures known as seraphim and cherubim. The Hebrew word for angel is “malak” and means “messenger.” As God’s messengers, angels can wield immense power—for example slaying entire armies like in 2nd Kings 19—or delivering captives like Peter in Acts 12.
So this drift is somewhat understandable and as you can see, the writer of Hebrews addresses it by talking about angels a lot in these first two chapters—not to deny their God-given purpose—but to warn the Christians of his day against drifting from worshiping Jesus to worshiping these amazing angelic beings. Let me put it this way. The writer wanted them to wake up and realize they were drifting toward worshiping the messengers instead of the Message Himself.
And sadly there are a lot of people today who, like these ancient Christians embrace an unbiblical—unhealthy opinion of angels. Historian Joseph Loconte notes that many people are obsessed with angels, particularly angelic beings who seem tailor-made to meet our every need. Dr. Loconte writes: “Take, for example, Angels 1O1: An Introduction to Connecting, Working, and Healing with the Angels,” a book written by metaphysician Doreen Virtue. In her book we are informed that, in contrast to the ideas of sin and guilt in some religious traditions, angels love every person unconditionally. They help everyone who calls on them, regardless of their religious faith or lack of it. She writes, ‘They look past the surface and see the godliness within all of us so angels aren’t judgmental, and they only bring love into our lives. You’re safe with the angels, and you can totally trust them.’
[Doreen] Virtue lists the many ways that angels can be counted on to assist people, even in mapping out their travel plans. For example, she says angels will:
- Help you get an extremely nice, warm, friendly, and competent customer-service representative when calling an airline to book reservations.
- Help you avoid lines at check-in, and work with sweet and competent personnel.
- Let you sail through airport security without being searched.
- Protect and deliver your baggage so that your suitcases are the first ones on the luggage carousel when you’re there to collect it
[Angels] make no demands on us; rather, they wait to be summoned to help us overcome every difficulty. [Virtue claims], ‘You never have to be afraid that the angels would ever ask you to do anything that would make you feel afraid.’ With her appearances on CNN, Oprah, and The View, Virtue’s message—shared by many other authors in the field—clearly has a large audience. She writes, ‘I’ve discovered that the quickest and most efficient route to happiness is through connecting with the angels, So whether you need help with your health, career, love life, family, or any other area, the angels can help you. Yes, even your sex life can be improved with a little angelic assistance.’”
Well, the writer of Hebrews deals with foolish thinking like this by reminding his readers then and now—that Jesus was and is greater than any angel. In fact, he says that in this life an angel won’t do—no—you need a REAL man—THE true Man—Jesus. He says Jesus—the TRUE MAN—is able to do FOUR things no angel could ever dream of because for a while like you and me He was made lower than the angels—but UNLIKE you and me Jesus—the TRUE MAN—never sinned. Keep your Bibles open to Hebrews 2 as we look at these four things Jesus has done for us.
(1) First, as a REAL man—the TRUE MAN Jesus has made it possible for us to regain our greatest DESTINY.
No angel could ever do that because as it says in verses 5-8. “It is not to angels that Jesus has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. But there is a place where someone has testified: ‘What is mankind that You are mindful of them, a son of man that You care for him? You made them a little lower than the angels; You crowned them with glory and honor and put everything under their feet.’ In putting everything under them, God left nothing that is not subject to them. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them.”
Now—the writer is quoting Psalm 8 in sort of a tongue in cheek way—for it was a very familiar psalm. The gist of what he writes is something like this: “Isn’t there a psalm somewhere that talks about God making man a little lower than angels—but putting EVERYTHING under THEIR feet? Oh—yes—it’s in Psalm 8!” That would have gotten the first readers’ attention—and helped them to remember that we were supposed have dominion over the entire created order. According to the book of Genesis this was God’s plan—but man sinned and because of that—as verse 8 says—that God-given destiny—our intended dominion over the world—-well it hasn’t worked out too well.
And, you know, inside all people have a sense of this lost destiny. We have never forgotten this position of dominion God gave us and we long to regain it. Ray Stedman writes, “This is why we have to explore the depths of the sea. It’s why we have to get out into space. It’s why we cannot keep off the highest mountain. We have to get up there—even though we have not lost anything up there—and know when we get there we will only see what the bear saw—the other side of the mountain. But we have to get there.”
Well Stedman is right. We each have this remarkable vestigial recollection of God telling us we are designed to have dominion. The trouble is that—because of the fall—when we fallen beings try to exercise dominion we just mess things up more because our ability to do so is no longer there. For example, when we try to have dominion over the animal kingdom—we hunt or fish them out of existence. Then when we try to repopulate a species like when we put wolves back in the Rockies—the wolves destroy the cattle grazing there that we need to fill our stomachs. The fact is, since the fall most of the animal kingdom is subservient to man only out of fear—no longer out of affection. Much of the animal kingdom is no longer able to be tamed at all. And when we do tame them it’s by intimidation—we say, “DO THIS OR I WILL WEAR YOU OR EAT YOU.” But many times people are eaten by the animals!
The ground originally produced good things naturally and abundantly for man to have for the taking. Now it produces thorns, weeds, and other harmful things in great abundance. I’m thinking of plants like kudzu and poison ivy. I mean, whatever good things man now gets from the earth come only by tiresome effort. Extremes of heat and cold, poisonous plants and reptiles, earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, disease, war—all these were released on man after the fall. Virtually everything God had given for man’s good and blessing became his enemy and man has been fighting a losing battle with that enemy ever since.
Think of it. We try to control viruses like Zikah—but we never can. We try poisons and pesticides to kill the mosquitoes that carry it but that just pollutes our water. We make antibiotics to fight bacteria—but they only last a few years at best before the bacteria become resistant. We usher in great advances in technology but we make zero progress when it comes to morality. I mean, wherever you look the truth of verse 8 is obvious. “We do not see everything subject to man.” This is what Paul is describing in Romans 8:20 when he says, “The creation was subjected to futility.” C. K. Chesteron hit the nail on the head when he said, “Whatever is or is not true about men, this one thing is certain—man is not what he was meant to be.”
Then verse 9 says, “But we do see Jesus!” This sentence is a reminder that during His earthly ministry Jesus demonstrated the dominion man was intended to have. He calmed the storm. The fish of the sea obeyed Him and swam into Peter’s nets. Jesus healed the sick—and even raised the dead back to life. Jesus is the picture of the TRUE MAN—Man as he was meant to be.
And the best evidence of that is His dominion over sin itself—the sin that frustrates our efforts to regain our destiny. As I said a moment ago, Jesus lived a SINLESS life—a life that was pure in thought, word, and deed from the moment He drew His first breath in that Bethlehem cave until He drew His last on that Roman Cross.
Because of that Jesus is able to restore our destiny. Colossians 1:27 says “There are those to whom God has planned to give a vision of the full wonder and splendor of His secret plan for the nations (sons of men). And the secret is simply this: Christ in you. Yes, Christ in you bringing with Him the hope of all the glorious things to come.” Part of these “glorious things to come” is eternity when as Revelation 22:5 says, “There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign forever and ever.”
One thing that brings me comfort when I think of people like my dad—and dear friends like Bill Wehunt and Dick McLain and Bob Johnson—and Walt Owen and Irene Smith and Dorothy Bradley—and so many others who have died—is the fact that they are not just in Heaven sitting on clouds playing harps. No—they are enjoying the DOMINION God promises. They have realized their DESTINY! Even now God has them doing tasks of amazing eternal significance.
I know I probably quote too many old hymn texts but here’s one that comes to mind: “Soon He’s coming back to welcome me—far beyond the starry sky. I shall wing my flight to worlds unknown. I shall reign with Him on high.”
But with Jesus’ help we don’t have to wait until we die or He returns to enjoy the benefits of this dominion. With Him in us and with us we begin to taste this dominion—and this leads me to the other three things Jesus—the TRUE man has done for us.
(2) For example, He helps us deal with—have dominion over—our greatest FEAR.
Look at verse 15: “Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death—He might break the power of 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.”
Nothing prevents us from having dominion more than the death that comes for us all. But this fact—that the death rate holds steady at 100%—isn’t stopping several billionaires who are trying to lead the human race out of mortality into dominion over death itself.
First, there’s billionaire Peter Thiel, co-founder of PAYPAL who has invested heavily in organizations like the SENS Foundation—which is devoted to developing “rejuvenation biotechnologies”—although nothing’s panned out yet.
Then there’s William Andreg, the founder of a Silicon Valley nanotechnology start-up called Halcyon Molecular—who claims that he plans to live for “millions, billions, hundreds of billions of years.” That might be difficult because Halcyon Molecular quietly went out of business last summer.
Then there’s Russian transhumanist multimillionaire Dmitry Itskov who launched the 2045 Initiative, which offers the promise that humans be immortal by the year 2045—just as soon as we “make a leap into artificial, machine bodies.”
But the billionaire who brings the most fiery passion to the cause, by far, is Larry Ellison, who has given out more than $40 million to the Ellison Medical Foundation—which is working to understand “lifespan development processes.” According to Forbes magazine, Ellison’s net worth is $43 billion. Recently Ellison said, “Death makes me very angry. It doesn’t make any sense to me. Death has never made any sense to me. How can a person be there and then just vanish—just not be there?” There’s that old DOMINION memory surfacing again! Like Ellison, inside we know death should not be something we have to deal with. We should rule over it. But we don’t—because of sin. As Paul says, “All have sinned—and the wages of sin—the consequence of sin—is death.”
These billionaires may make their boasts—they may pretend NOT to fear death—but they do. They are enslaved by that fear such that they spend their vast fortune in silly futile ways—trying to escape this fear. And they are not alone. Most people live in a constant fear of death—and that keeps them from life—which makes sense because that’s what death is—the absence of life. Think of it—when someone is hit by a car and lies in the road. Does the paramedic run over there and look for signs of death? No—he or she looks for signs of life—if there is no life—the person is dead.
Well, people whose hearts are still beating miss out on life—there are no signs of REAL life in their existence—because this fear enslaves them as it does all people who don’t know Jesus. As Mike Mason says, “Our lives are like the unfolding of a murder mystery in which we ourselves turn out to be the victim.” Bertand Russel put it like this, “Brief and powerless is man’s life; on his and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark.” People fear death because it separates us from all we know—because they fear not existing—and because they fear everlasting punishment.
The New York Times recently (2015) reported that television commentator Larry King “is obsessed with death.” His day begins with reading obituaries, and he ponders who will give the eulogy at his funeral. He smiles as he thinks it might be Bill Clinton, and then his face becomes blank as he says, “But I won’t be there to see it.” He has had “a heart attack, quintuple bypass, prostate cancer, diabetes, and seven divorces.” He was 77 years old when the television news station CNN dropped him, and when this happened he really became aware that there will come a day when he dies. When he learned from television of the death of Osama bin Laden, this drove him to jump up on his feet. “I needed to be on the air. I needed a red light to go on.” He realized he had nowhere to go. To move against aging and death, he takes hormone pills for human growth, four of them each day. He plans on his body to be frozen so that someday he will live again. The New York Times writer reports: “It’s nuts, concedes King—but at least it gives him a shred of hope.” Larry King says, “Other people have no hope.” Actually without Jesus KING has no hope either—and he knows it.
The only hope we have is in the ONLY Man Who defeated death—Jesus—which means the death rate is not actually 100%. It’s 99.99999999999999999999999999999%! When Jesus walked out of His own tomb on the third day He took away Satan’s main weapon—Jesus took the sting out of this thing that causes us fear. Now death can no longer harm us. All it can do is take us to Heaven! And that knowledge frees us. Since we no longer fear death—we can truly begin to live. We can experience the joy of living for things of ETERNAL significance. And that leads me to mention another reason Jesus—the TRUE MAN—is better than angels.
(3) As the TRUE man, Jesus removed out greatest BURDEN.
Look at verse 17. “For this reason Jesus had to be made like them, fully human 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.” You see, sin not only kills our physical bodies—it kills our relationship with God. We stand guilty before Him. And inside all people know it—and the burden we bear is the knowledge that we can’t do anything about it. I mean, we can’t undo the sinful things we’ve done any more than we could un-ring a bell. Think of it—when we speak hateful words to our spouse or children or parents or neighbor we can’t take them back. We can say we’re sorry but that doesn’t really cut it. When we gossip we damage a reputation and that can’t be undone. A simple apology doesn’t do. The fact is we’ve all committed sins that we can’t, on our own, make right. We are all guilty…guilty as sin—every single one of us. We carry this burden around inside.
By the way, research published in The Journal Psychological Science found that people’s feelings of guilt are lessened after they experience pain. Some volunteers were asked to think and write a short essay about a time they had been mean-spirited or unkind to someone. Others were asked to write about a routine event in their lives. Then they were asked to put their hand in a bucket of agonizingly ice cold water and keep it there as long as possible.
Then they were asked to reflect on the pain they experienced and any feelings of guilt. Researchers found that those that were feeling guilty of an unkind act inflicted upon themselves more pain—that is, they kept their hand in the agonizing ice water for longer than those who had thought and written about a routine event in their lives. The “guilty ones” reported that feeling the pain somewhat alleviated their feelings of guilt. The Psychological Science study concluded: “Researchers explain that we tend to associate pain with justice, as a form of punishment. So when we’re feeling bad about an immoral act we committed, experiencing pain makes us feel like we have rebalanced the scales of justice, and therefore it resolves our guilt.”
Well, according to the Bible, we should feel the pain of guilt when we fail to keep God’s law. But punishing ourselves won’t rebalance the scales of justice—any more than our good works. No—the only way to remove our guilt is through Jesus—the TRUE MAN—Who did NOT sin—and was therefore able to be punished for ours—to take our guilt on Himself. Like the old camp song says,
He paid a debt he did not owe
I owed a debt I could not pay
I needed someone to wash my sins away
And now I sing a brand new song: Amazing Grace
All day long, Christ Jesus paid the debt that I could never pay.
This is why Christians can feel like a load has been lifted—through Jesus’s death on the cross—Jesus’ paying the wage for our sin—we are no longer guilty. We stand innocent before God. Everything you have ever done wrong: every lie, every hateful thought, every selfish and malicious deed—everything that you have ever done that could offend a holy God or hurt a human being-–it’s been forgiven by the blood of Jesus.
If you are a Christian, would you join me in a SIGH of relief! FORGIVEN!!!! Doesn’t that feel good! Talk about a LOAD OFF!
So—to review—as the TRUE MAN Jesus is able to restore our greatest destiny, to deal with our greatest fear—to remove our greatest burden—and then there is one more thing He does that no angel could ever do.
(4) He enables us to overcome our greatest WEAKNESS.
Look at verse 18, “Because He Himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted.” Like us, Jesus was tempted—and He suffered for it—so we can know that He knows exactly how we feel when we face temptation. This means when we pray—it’s not like we are praying to someone who can’t relate to our human predicaments. Jesus can! As the TRUE MAN Jesus faced what we face—what every human faces. You know, many people have the idea that Jesus was beyond human during His time on earth. I mean, there are people who think Jesus kind of floated around in perfectly white robes with perfectly combed hair, and the elements of this world never affected Him. That’s not true. The Bible tells us He was a man just like us. When He worked with wood He got splinters. When He got dust in His nose, He sneezed. When He banged His thumb with a hammer He got a bruise. When He missed a meal He got hungry. At the end of the day He was tired and needed sleep. Fully God—yes—absolutely—but in His time on earth He was also fully man. As our text says, “He too shared our humanity.” (verse 14) And that means He shared I the temptations we all face—but He never yielded—not once.
Now, some people hear that and think that it is impossible that Jesus knows completely how we feel. Since He never yielded He doesn’t really understand the power of temptation. Well, C. S. Lewis points out that those who RESIST temptation actually know more about its power than those who stumble and yield. He writes, “A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of the wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it—and Christ, because He was the only man Who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man Who knows to the full what temptation means.”
Jesus—the only One Who knows fully temptation’s power—because He is the only One Who resisted it. And He offers to help us resist as well. It’s like the old children’s song, Jesus Loves Me, puts it, “I am weak—but HE is strong!” Through Jesus we have access to power—power to resist temptation. We are no longer doomed to fail—with Jesus help we can have the strength to turn from sin. Our greatest weakness is no more. It’s as if all the kryptonite in the DC universe was done away with—Superman’s greatest weakness GONE!
Verses 2 and 3 sum this message up well. It says the law delivered by angels is, “binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment—how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation?” In other words—we can’t achieve our destiny on our own—we can’t fight our greatest fear on our own—or remove our greatest burden or our greatest weakness. The LAW doesn’t work. It has no effect on any of these four things—only faith in JESUS does. So what’s your plan—how will you deal with these things—the frustration of life—temptation—sin—death—if you IGNORE this?