Hebrews 2:5-18
Hebrews 2:5–18 (ESV):
Here we are, four weeks into the book of Hebrews, and one thing you’re probably starting to notice is how the teachings week by week are becoming increasingly cumulative.
Each section builds on what came before it.
In fact, if you quickly scan over the beginning words of each paragraph and chapter, you’ll notice that they almost always begin with a “for” or a “therefore” or a “since then”...
The reason for that is because the author is building a case, like a skilled lawyer might do, and he keeps heaping more and more evidence on the pile as the book progresses, and drawing logical conclusions from that evidence.
In fact, some scholars believe Hebrews is not a letter at all but rather a sermon put into writing. It’s very persuasive and logical in its flow.
The desired outcome that he’s after for his readers is that they would not abandon Christ and revert back into their old patterns (which in that case was religious Judaism) but would fully embrace Him as Lord and Savior, and persevere in Him even in the face of opposition.
If we were to summarize the flow of his argument across the past three weeks, it would be something like this:
Jesus is the full and final revelation of God to humanity. He is God almighty, and upholds all things by His powerful word.
He is superior to angels, who were instrumental in mediating the Old Covenant, given through Moses to Israel.
Therefore, we must pay very close attention to this powerful message of salvation through Christ… we must not drift away from the gospel of Jesus Christ, because to drift from the gospel (or in the case of the original audience, to revert back into Judaism–the law mediated by angels) would be to abandon the only true means of salvation. And if we abandon Christ and neglect such a great salvation, we will not escape judgment.
So he’s already demonstrated that we must not abandon Christ because He is the Supreme Sustainer.
Now he’s going to show that we must not abandon Christ because He is also the Sufficient Savior.
The way he does this is by pointing back to Psalm 8, which is a classic manifesto on the ultimate purpose of man. As we’ll see, since the fall, man has obviously not lived up to his calling. But Christ came as the true man, the greater Adam, the archetypal human, to rescue us from our sins and bring us into our ultimate destiny.
You might title this message, ‘the destiny of man’.
The author is picking back up the theme of Christ superior to angels that he left off on back in 1:14. 2:1-4 is actually a parenthesis, and if you really want to make sense of the flow of his argument, you’ve gotta read from 1:14 straight to 2:5.
1:14 Are [angels] not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?
5 For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking.
By “world to come”, he is referring to the new, updated world once Jesus returns.
Oikoumene (in Greek) is not referring to heaven or some spiritual realm; it’s referring to the inhabited physical world.
In 6:5, it’s called “the age to come”.
In 12:22, it’s called the “Heavenly Jerusalem”.
In 13:14, it’s “the city to come”.
As believers, we are not fixated on this present world; we are not living for this present world; we are looking ahead to the reality “to come”.
He says, that is the reality “of which we are speaking”.
And his point here is that God has not subjected that future reality to angels.
And we wonder, well, who has he subjected it to?
Who has God ordained to rule and reign over that future reality?
The answer might surprise us…
He’s writing to a Hebrew audience so he’s going to use the Old Testament scriptures… He answers our question by way of Psalm 8.
And this is how he frames it:
6 It has been testified somewhere,
The phrase is literally, there is a place where someone has testified…
Now… Why the vague reference?
Why doesn’t he explicitly cite Psalm 8, and say it’s written by king David?
Presumably because he wants to keep the focus on God as the divine author, and appeal to His authority on this matter and not cloud it with thoughts of human authorship. He’s not trying to elevate anyone from the Old Testament except God, in order to show that the Old Testament was designed by God to point to Christ.
So here’s his quotation of Psalm 8:4-6, as he shows us who God has chosen to rule over the world to come…
“What is man, that you are mindful of him,
or the son of man, that you care for him?
7 You made him (man, or humanity) for a little while lower than the angels;
you have crowned him (man) with glory and honor,
8 putting everything in subjection under his (man’s) feet.”
God has subjected the world to come to man.
If you go look at the context of Psalm 8, you see that king David is mesmerized by the grandeur of God’s creation…
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens… When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him?
He’s going, “who are we, that you would give us such a prominent role in your created order?”
This Psalm echoes all the way back to Genesis, where God gave the first dominion mandate to Adam and Eve…
Genesis 1:26–28 (ESV): 26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
So, in God’s original design, man was given dominion and authority over all the earth. Just a little lower than the angels, since we are earthly and they are heavenly. But his point is that eventually that hierarchy will be reversed.
He further emphasizes the rule of man…
Now in putting everything in subjection to him (man), he (God) left nothing outside his (man’s) control.
Key word there is nothing.
In other words, it was designed to be a total dominion.
At this point something in you should be revolting in disbelief.
Everything is subject to man? God left nothing outside man’s control?
Is that what we see to be true in our world today?
I don’t know about you, but I see a weak dominion at best!
D. Shormann was reminding me about the guy who brought mongoose to Hawai’i to control the rat population, not realizing that rats are nocturnal and mongoose are not! Instead, they wiped out a bunch of chickens! So much for dominion over the animal kingdom.
And we can cite all kinds of examples like this. People hunt animals, but animals hunt people too! People subdue the earth in certain ways, but nature turns around and sends a hurricane or a tsunami. People steward the earth in certain ways, but also cause all kinds of devastation.
Chesterton: Whatever else is true about man, this one thing is certain––man is not what he was meant to be.
We look around at our world today and we are all forced to agree: things are not as they should be. Man is not currently experiencing this idyllic dominion described in Genesis 1 and repeated in Psalm 8.
So the author anticipates this pushback, and concedes…
At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him (man).
If you’ve ever lamented over the evil in our world, and the injustice, and the pain, you should feel very vindicated by that statement. The Word of God agrees with you: at present, things are not as they should be.
The reason we do not yet see all things in subjection to man is, of course, because of the fall.
Ever since Adam, as our federal head, sinned, humanity has fallen from our God-intended status and has been enslaved to sin and death, and the world itself has been corrupted too.
But that’s not the end of the story.
Even though this Psalm is designed, at face value, to show the God-given position of man, there is also a deeper, prophetic insight here as to how failed humanity will end up reaching their destiny.
You may have caught a hint of this in the phrase “the son of man” in verse 6.
That is not only a generic description of humanity, it is a messianic title; one that is used repeatedly to refer to Jesus.
He says, we don’t currently see everything in subjection to humanity, that’s true… but what do we see…?
9 But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
What the author is showing us is that this Psalm about humanity ruling and reigning over the earth is also a prophetic passage about Christ, the true and greater human, who would be “made lower than the angels” in his incarnation, and would ultimately save humanity and restore us to our rightful status by dying in our place.
He is TRULY crowned with glory and honor.
Everything is TRULY in subjection under His feet.
Why is Jesus crowned with glory and honor.
The verse tells us, Because of the suffering of death.
In other words, He is crowned with glory and honor not just because He is the Supreme Sustainer of the cosmos, but because He is the sufficient, Suffering Savior of the sinful.
In other words, the author is saying, ‘you want to know why you can’t disregard Jesus? Why you can’t just abandon Jesus?... Because…
He is not just fully God, He is fully man, and fully able to save fallen men and restore us to our God-intended destiny.
It says He has “tasted death for everyone”.
That is the mechanism by which He procures our future reign.
When we think of “tasting”, we think of a mere ‘sample’.
But to “taste” is a Hebrew metaphor that means, “to partake fully”.
Jesus fully partook of our death for us as our substitute, and in doing so He gave us a foothold into eternal glory with Him.
Romans 5:17 (ESV): 17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
Next time we will talk about a big word down in verse 17 of Hebrews 2, propitiation, which conveys this idea of a perfectly atoning sacrifice that satisfies God’s wrath and turns it into favor towards us.
For now, we’re simply going to wrap it up here and marvel over the idea that God has given us a magnificent destiny, to rule and reign, and that it is only possible through the work of Christ for us. More specifically, it is possible because we are united with Him. Our union with Christ is so absolute that we share in His reign over all things.
Ephesians 2:5-6 God made us alive together with Christ … and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
Colossians 3:1-4 You have been raised with Christ… your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
As a result…
2 Timothy 2:12 If we endure, we will also reign with him
Revelation 5:9-10 You have made them a kingdom and priests to our god, and they shall reign on the earth.
Revelation 22:5 They will reign forever and ever.
1 Corinthians 6:2-3 Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? …Do you not know that we are to judge angels?
This is the fulfillment of God’s original vocation for humanity.
Only those who truly embrace Him and belong to Him have this to look forward to. And if that’s true for you, it should be a great comfort and encouragement as you look forward to your future reality.
When we are focused on future glory with Christ, the problems of our lives shrink by comparison. This is what the author hopes to encourage the Hebrews with, since they were facing all sorts of pressure and persecution in their present circumstances.
The same is true for us today. No matter what we are facing, we can be encouraged as we zoom out and remember God’s intended destiny for humanity, and the destiny of all who belong to Christ.
Romans 8:18–23 (NLT): 18 Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. 19 For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. 20 Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, 21 the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 22 For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us.
Humanity has fallen, but the human par excellence has come to save us all.
Because of that, even though we do not yet see all things under subjection to man… even though so much in our world is not as it should be… we do see Christ, who will not fail to bring about all that God intended.
We may not see perfect health in this life, but we do see Christ.
We may not see perfect unity in our family, but we do see Christ.
We may not see a perfect marriage, but we do see Christ.
We may not see our earthly problems solved perfectly, but we do see Christ.
We may not see perfect dominion of man on earth, but we do see Christ.
We see Christ, who tasted death for us, so that we could have everlasting life with Him.
This is yet another proof as to why we must cling ever tighter to Christ… our hope of glory (Col. 1:27)