Jesus and His Angels - Part Two
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We're gonna read the entirety of Hebrews chapter two. That's the text we're gonna be looking at today. So if you're able, please stand,
stand for the reading of God's word and hear this for what it is, the true, the living, the authoritative word of God. Hebrews chapter two. For this reason, everything that was written in chapter one for this reason. We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard so that we do not drift away from it.
For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation after it was first spoken through the Lord? It was confirmed to us by those who heard. God also testifying with them by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by the gifts of [00:01:00] the Holy Spirit, according to His own will, for he did not subject to angels the world to come concerning, which we are speaking.
But one has testified somewhere saying, what is man that you remember, him or the son of man, that you are concerned about him? You have made him for a little while lower than the angels. You have crowned him with glory and honor. You have appointed him over the works of your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet for in subjecting all things to him.
He left nothing that is not subject to him. But, but now we do not yet see all these things subjected to him. But we do see him, him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, Jesus. Because of the suffering of death crown with glory and honor. So that, that, so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone, for it was fitting for him, for whom are [00:02:00] all things and through whom are all things in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect.
The author of their salvation through suffering for both. He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one. For which reason he's not ashamed to call them brothers saying, I will proclaim your name to my brethren. In the midst of the congregation. I will sing your praise. And again, I will put my trust in him and again, behold, I and the children whom God has given me.
Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise, also partook of the same, that through death he might render powerless him who had the power of death. That is the devil. And might free. Those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. For assuredly, he does not take on angels, but he takes on the seed of Abraham.
Therefore, he had to be made like his brethren in all things so that he might become a merciful [00:03:00] and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For, since he himself was tested in that which he has suffered, he is able to come to the aid of those who are tested.
May God add a blessing to the reading, the hearing, and the correct understanding of his word. Please be seated.
So we are in a series on the, uh, book of Hebrews, and the first two chapters in the book of Hebrews speak of Christ's superiority over the angels. So last week we had part one on Angels, and this week I'd like to do part two. And this will be somewhat brief and this will be included in the email tomorrow.
So you'll see all the notes and all the verses. So you don't have to take a whole lot of notes here. But last week we looked at the nature of angels. We're gonna. Pick that up again. But last week we saw that they were spiritual beings. Holy ones, that angel was actually a [00:04:00] category. The the major category is spiritual beings, and there's all kinds of spiritual beings.
Angels is just one subgroup. And we also looked at the, the various ranks and hierarchy. So this week I want to continue with their nature, their attributes, and their task and function. And again, I wanna keep this fairly, uh, brief, but you can study this on, on your own. Uh, and by the way, I didn't say it, but the handout that I'm referring to is in your bulletin.
So there's, uh, a handout with fill in the blank for sermon notes, and then there's one with some discussion questions and some bible verses. And if you open it up, the chart that I'm referring to is on the back of that. And again, I will also email that to you. Um, but as we said last week, and this is important, angels are created.
And one of the things we didn't talk about, but what I wanna bring up today is angels were created good. All angels were created good. They were created holy. But there was a fall. And the Bible doesn't say a whole lot about that fall. I've got some verses there for you, but the angels fell and it, [00:05:00] it appears from Revelation chapter 12, and I don't know how specific we should take the number, but Revelation chapter 12 talks about a rebellion and it talks about Satan taking a third of the angels with him.
Now since angels are only one subcategory, I don't know that that's the full picture. I don't know that scripture's trying to give us the full picture there. But what scripture does communicate is angels have fallen, angels are in rebellion, and Satan seems to be their leader. And you'll notice on the handout, and this was not a, uh, a typo or anything, Satan is not capitalized because I never capitalized Satan.
He doesn't even deserve a capitalization, but he seems to be their, their leader. There are also many in number. We, we don't know how many angels God, uh, created. But in Revelation chapter five, verse 11, uh, John writes that myriads of and myriads of angels were before the throne. And it's interesting because the word myriad is plural and a myriad back in that day was about [00:06:00] 10,000.
So myriads of myriads is no less than a hundred million angels. Before the throne of God. So they are many in number. Uh, we learned that they're rational, they're wise, they're smart, they're intelligent, probably smarter than we are. They're moral. They're also very powerful. And it, they, they appear to be immortal.
Uh, they appear to be like us. Finite in the sense that we we're all created but immortal in the sense that we will live on into eternity. The good angels will continue to live in heaven. The bad angels will be thrown ultimately. Into the lake of fire. And then their task and their function. Uh, one of the things that's actually not on your list, so you can add it, but angels are guardians.
We talked about guardian angels last week and what that might mean and all that, but angels also guard the throne of God. We see that in Isaiah six. We see it in Ezekiel one. We see it in Genesis, uh, chapter three. God set a cher him at the entrance to Eden, [00:07:00] and he guarded, guarded it. And if you read Genesis and, and you read it in context.
The garden was the throne of God. The garden was constructed in the words used in the garden. When you compare it to the tabernacle, the garden was a tabernacle. The garden was a temple. So to put this cherub in, in front of it and guard the entrance, that was one of the functions that these spiritual beings did.
Probably the one we're most familiar with is they worship God. They worship God continually. And then last but not least, they help us. They serve us. And we need to be careful there. It doesn't mean that we currently exercise authority over the angels 'cause we don't, but Jesus does. And as we'll see, today we are in Christ.
And I just wanna read the last verse of Hebrews chapter one to sum up angels. And then we'll move on to our text. Wow. Are they not all ministering spirits send out to render service for, for the sake of those who will, who will inherit Salvation [00:08:00] Angels serve God by serving us. Later. In the book of Hebrews, the writer will talk about the possibility of entertaining angels and not even knowing that it, it's an angel.
And yes, contextually he's referring to Abraham, but he also seems to be referring to us. You may have encountered an angel and you don't know about it. They serve us. Number one on your outline, on your sermon outline is warning a better message? Warning a better message. The book of Hebrews is sprinkled throughout with warnings and I will have more to say about the various warnings, uh, in a future sermon.
But I just wanna say one thing about warnings right now. Warnings remind us that theology. And practice go together. You see, it's sad because you talk to most C Christians, and we are, I've said this before, but we are people of the polls. We tend to go to the [00:09:00] extremes. And you have one group of Christian Christians and all they wanna do is talk about theology and use fancy, you know, 10 syllable words and and things like that.
And, and theology is important. And then you have another group of Christian that I just wanna live Jesus. I just wanna live my life in a way that's pleasing. We gotta bring that in the middle. You see all these warnings, they're a reminder that Theology and Life go together. Chapter one of Hebrews was chock full of theology and the beginning, the first four verses of chapter two, he goes straight into a warning because you know this live like this.
Theology and practice go together. Living right requires right belief. If you're gonna live a life that glorifies God, it requires right belief. So look at verse one in chapter two. For this reason, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard so that we do not drift away. For this [00:10:00] reason, what the author is saying is everything I wrote about in chapter one, Jesus is superior to the angels.
Do you believe that Jesus is God? Do you believe that Jesus is king and he's on his throne and he's currently reigning right now, and you believe that Jesus is creator and not only is he creator, he sustains it to where your life would vanish if he quit thinking about you. Do you believe that? Then heed the warning.
Because this warning is based on all of that theology from chapter one. We must pay closer attention to what we have heard so that we do not drift away for if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty. How will we escape if we neglect?
So let's back up. We must pay closer attention and that you can't. There's no stronger word. Another way, [00:11:00] one translator said, you probably, we ought to translate that we must pay closest attention. In other words, the gospel is serious business, and if we get the gospel wrong, it's bad. You'll remember Paul's words in the book of Galatians.
If anyone comes to you with a different gospel, a gospel different from what I've preached, even if it's an angel. Let him be anathema, let him be damned. The gospel is serious, and what the writer is saying here is if, if the revelation at Mount Sinai, if the law given through angels, we'll talk about that in a minute, but if the law given through angels was so serious that the first generation died in the wilderness because they didn't heed it, what's gonna happen to us if we don't heed the words of Jesus Christ?
If we allow ourselves to drift away, and I, I wanna give you a, a, a picture of what [00:12:00] it means to drift away. It's kind of the two pictures I want to give you. One of them is like if you threw leaves into a river, a flowing river, and you just watch the leaves and they just slowly and passively drifted away.
You see, that's what happens in the gospel. We read the Bible, but we really don't study it. We'll, we'll come to church. We'll listen to a sermon, but we don't go home and talk about it. We don't think about it throughout the week. We're not memorizing scripture. This is a picture of the American church and what has happened.
We have drifted away from the truth of the Bible. Uh, another way to look at it leaves drifting away. Another way to look at it is marital problems. Uh, Stacey and I have done a fair amount of marriage counseling. We've read a fair amount of books on marriage counseling. Stacey would tell you that she's experienced a difficult spouse, so she's got that experience under her belt.
Okay. Um, but it's usually, sometimes it is, but usually it's not like one event. What happened in your marriage? [00:13:00] Usually it's just neglect. It's just neglect. It's not paying attention to one another. It's not focusing in on one another. It's not working at it. Oh, she loves me. I don't need to earn her love.
And there's a sense in which you don't, but y'all don't want to. Y'all don't wanna show her or him that you love them. And typically in marriage counseling, it's just, I don't know what happened. We just drifted apart. And it's the same picture. Do you focus in on Christ? Because the gospel is also a covenant, just like marriage.
And that's why Paul says marriage pictures, the gospel. And just as we can drift apart in our marriages, by not paying attention, by not focusing in on the other one, we can drift from the gospel by not paying attention, by not focusing in on it, by not thinking of it, thinking of it on a regular basis. He speaks about the word spoken in, in and the prepositions very important.
God [00:14:00] spoke through angels and there's a bunch of verses in the handout that I gave you beginning at Deuteronomy 33, but it's apparent that at Sinai, and remember the picture, Exodus 19, nobody was to touch the mountain and there was smoke and there was fire and there was lightning. And one of the, I don't know why Moses doesn't describe it in Exodus 19.
He does describe it in Deuteronomy 33, but there were thousands upon thousands of angels around the mountain. And God, the law was mediated through these angels. God is the one speaking, God is the one who delivered the law, but somehow angels were involved. Stephen talks about it. You remember Stephen in the book of Acts?
They, he was stoned for his faith, and at the, at the very end of his defense, he says these words, it's Acts chapter seven, verse 53, you Jews. Who received the law as ordained by angels, yet you didn't keep it. So, angels were cyan and God used angels in the giving of the law. [00:15:00] And look how he look, how he describes the law.
It was unalterable. So much so that every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty. And I just wanna say something about the law because like I said, on Tuesday nights, we're talking about evangelism. And if you're going to share your faith, you need to know how to explain sin. And the best way of explaining sin is to know the law, to know what God calls sin.
And yet we tend to neglect the law. I've even heard pastors, I've even heard sermons, mock penalties found in the Old Testament because they seem to, who would stone somebody for committing adultery? And yet God says every penalty was just every penalty, just like the law itself reflected the very character of God.
And if those folks were punished for not listening, how much more severe will we be punished if we don't [00:16:00] listen? Look at verse three. How will we escape? How will we escape if we neglect, if we stop caring about. So great to salvation after it was first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard so the gospel serious.
We have been doing a series on the five Solas, and it was the last Sola that I looked at that that led me to do the book of Hebrews, solely Dale Gloria, all Glory belongs to God. The gospel is not about you and me. The gospel is about the glory of God. Our lives are about the glory of God. Soli de Gloria, Sola Christus, that's what led me to do Hebrews because Hebrews is a book all about Christ alone.
It is the work of Christ alone that saves us. It is the work of Christ alone that were to imitate Sola Scriptura. And I only did one week on Sola Scriptura, and I'm [00:17:00] probably gonna go back 'cause I wanna do more than just one week. But scripture alone. You see this whole the first four verses of Hebrews is about heeding the gospel and taking the gospel serious.
And yet this idea of rejecting Sola script Torah is alive and well in our world today. It is alive and well in Bonner's Ferry. There are quote unquote Christian groups who would reject Sola scriptura. That would reject, and I did my best to explain it. So of s scriptura means that scripture is our ultimate authority.
It doesn't deny other authorities, it doesn't deny the authority of the church. It doesn't deny the authority of elders, but everything is to be judged on the basis of scripture. And most churches, even if they say they, they hold to that, they don't practice it because sermons are full of stories and not scripture.
Or they just outright, reject it and there are bodies that reject it. [00:18:00] And when you reject Sola Scriptura, it typically leads to a watering down of the gospel. It typically re leads to a rejection of justification. By faith alone, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia and the writer of this book is warning us, don't go there.
In these last days I've spoken to you in my son and prior to that I spoke through the prophets and we've seen contextually that it is the Old Testament and, and the words of the Son We find in the New Testament. The New Testament. The Bible is the only place that you find God breathed, revelation.
Everything else is an interpretation and an understanding, and we need those things, but we need to go to the Bible. How will we escape? We neglect such a great salvation. And then he, he lays it out. It was first spoken through Jesus to the apostles and then it was transferred to us. So the author and the [00:19:00] readers of this epistle are second generation Christians.
The apostles are first generation, the readers and the writer, whoever he is. I told you, I think it's Luke. I think it's some combination of Luke and Paul. Luke being the main author, but whoever it was, a second generation Christian writing under the authority of the apostles. Then he adds in verse four, God also testifying with them by both signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to his own will.
And just a, a real short comment there, and you can look at this later, but one Corinthians chapter 12, verse 11 kind of says the same thing. It's the spirit of God, the Holy Spirit who hands out spiritual gifts. And there's a question in your bulletin on the discussion questions for you guys to look at later.
What do you understand about spiritual gifts? What is your spiritual gift? Because the Bible promises each and every one of us, if you are in Christ, you have a spiritual gift and you're supposed to be exercising that gift in the church. So it's kind of important to know what [00:20:00] your gift is. But the other thing, and just a, a quick comment is the author of Hebrews does not mention the Holy Spirit that often.
He mentions him here and he mentions him and he refers to him, and he talks about him as a person. The spirit of God has a will. He's not a force, he's not an energy. He's the third person of the triune God, and he is as much God as the Father and the son, but he's a different person. We believe in a trinity.
And it is the spirit of God who hands out gifts. Number two, on your outline, Jesus incarnate.
Jesus Incarnate. The word incarnate literally means in fleshed, I don't, I don't wanna get crass or anything, but just to help you wrap your head around it. Carne asada. Alright. It's a flesh burrito. Okay? It's beef, it's meat. Okay. To be in incarnate simply means that Jesus took on flesh. He really became a human [00:21:00] being.
He didn't stop being God. He didn't mix God with humanity. No. He has the nature of God. He has the nature of man, and they're joined and is mysterious, and they will be joined for the rest of eternity. But they're not mixed. There's no watering down of God. There's no in in, in a divine sense, elevating of man.
Yes, man is elevated in Christ. But he's human.
Verse five, for he, speaking of the Father, did not subject to angels the world to come concerning, which we are speaking Now, this is a very important verse because several words and phrases and ideas from this verse have already been talked about, and they're gonna be picked up on and talked about. Some more.
So the first one is to subject and what, what the writer is saying is the father did not subject the world to come to angels. And that's important because we don't know exactly what it was that the Hebrews were [00:22:00] believing, but we know that they were toying with some form of angel worship. And we know that there was at least one Jewish sect in, in, in this day and age that believed that Michael was gonna rule the world to come.
Now, whether or not they believe that or not, we don't know the extent. But he makes very clear the world to come will not be ruled by angels, will not be put into subjection and to subject is a military term. It means to line up under. So the world to come is not gonna be lined up under angels. It's gonna be lined up under Christ.
We'll get to that in a minute. So that's what he's talking, but what's really important? What is this world to come? What is the proper way of understanding this world to come? And for some of you, this is gonna be new. I, I get that, but I beg of you Consider it because the writer of Hebrews is doing something throughout this book and he, he, he already started it in chapter one.
[00:23:00] He's going to compare to covenants. He's going to compare the old covenant under Moses and he's going to compare the new covenant. Under Christ. Another way of looking at it, he's going to compare the old covenant who has Adam as its head to the new covenant that has Christ as its head. And I submit to you that when the biblical writers talk about these different covenants, they describe them as different worlds.
Already in verse one, the writer said in these last days, so he believes he's writing in the last days of something I submit to you. It's the last days of the old world, of the old covenant system and there's a new covenant system coming. It's already been initiated. But in just a few years, Jesus is going to obliterate Jerusalem.
He's going to take out of contention, all the semblances, all the reminders of the old covenant system. The temple's gonna be gone, the sacrifices are gonna be gone. The priesthood is [00:24:00] gonna be wiped away because there's a new world. Again in uh, Hebrews chapter one, he talks about writing in the last days, and he talks about Jesus through whom the Father has made the world.
And I shared with you a couple of weeks ago when we looked at that verse, it's just not the normal Greek word translated world here. In fact, a better translation would be age. And not only that, but it's plural. And what he's saying is Jesus is the creator of the ages and worlds and ages in this book correspond to covenants.
You are a new creation. Most of us believe that, that for whatever reason, that's an easy one to accept. That implies a new world. That implies new reality. This is the language of the Bible. The new covenant Age is the age of the new heavens and the new earth. It's not complete. It's not fully consummate.
Theologians talk about a now and a. Not yet. There's more to come, but we need, the church [00:25:00] needs to start believing. That we're in the new world, we're in the new age, and Jesus is in control. It may not always look like it. We'll see that in a minute, but he's in control. We keep, I, I had a, a really good friend, he's a pastor and, and he once told me, he says, Mike, I'm just tired of fighting the battle we always lose.
The church always loses I submit to you. It's because we think we're supposed to. And that's not what the author of Hebrews is describing. Because in this new world as we'll, see, Jesus is in charge and Jesus has a plan. Verse two, but one has testified somewhere saying, what is man that you remember him or the son of man, that you are concerned about him?
And I shared this with you last week. I'll share it again this week. And kids, uh, there's a, in your handout, there's a question about what are the, what are the Old Testament verses that the writer refers to in chapter two? And the first one is Psalm eight. [00:26:00] He quotes Psalm eight here, and what I shared with you last week is, and what we need to remember is anytime, anywhere in the New Testament that a writer cites a verse, you want to treat it like a hyperlink.
You all know what hyperlinks are. You're reading a document online, you see something in blue and underlined. You click on it, it brings up another document to help you understand what you're reading. Well, these are hyperlinks. So when the author cites a line from Psalm eight, we need to go back and read the entirety of the Psalm because his readers would've understood it.
And he's not just communicating just this verse. He's not practicing what we like to call proof texting. That's what Satan did. Go back and read the Temptation of Christ. Satan was proof texting. No. What the writers, what the apostles did, what the writers of scripture did is you need to understand the entire context.
And when we go back to Psalm eight, and I'm just gonna summarize and in your handout, in the bulletin, I've given you an outline of every passage cited in the Old Testament. So I [00:27:00] gave you an outline of Psalm eight. It is a Psalm of praise and wonder. It begins with praise. It ends with praise. And right in the middle, he, the, the writer's just blown away at God's creation, but he's blown away at the crown of his creation.
He's blown away at man. And we, we read in, uh, Psalm eight, that, that man, for just a little while, he's supposed to be below the angels and he's supposed to rule the world. He's supposed to have dominion, just like Genesis chapter one. He was supposed to exercise dominion, but we're reminded of something else as we read these words.
It never happened, not the way it was supposed to. We ought to be reminded when we read Psalm eight, when we read Hebrews two, we ought to be reminded of Genesis chapters one to three because all of this is true in the garden. Adam and Eve were given dominion, but they sinned immediately and they lost that dominion.
And not until Christ comes do we actually regain it, fully [00:28:00] regain it. What is man that you remember him or the son of man, that you are concerned about him, but you have made him for a little while lower than the angels. It's only supposed to be a short period of time. You have crowned him with glory and honor.
You have appointed him over the works of your hands. Verse eight. You have put all things in subjection under his feet, and then he summarizes for in subjecting all things to him. He left nothing that is not subject to him, but. And Stacey and I have this ongoing joke and, uh, when we compliment one another, Hey Stacey, that was a great meal, but, and she knows I'm, I'm, I'm joking.
And, and occasionally she'll do the same thing to me, you know, later, later Sunday afternoon, Mike, that was a pretty good sermon, but, and you always fear that, but, okay. And you ought to fear this one as well. God has subjected all things to man verse nine, but. [00:29:00] We do not see him. I'm sorry, uh, still in verse eight, the last half of verse eight, but now we do not yet see all things subject to him.
The world hardly looks as if it's subject to man. There's disease, there's death that things seem outta control. Man hardly has control over this world. Man has hardly taken dominion over this world, but there's a second, but, and this is the good, but in verse nine, but we do see him. We see Jesus incarnate.
Keep in mind, chapter two is all about the incarnation of Christ. It's all about why he became flesh. He had to become flesh in order to redeem us. We do see him who is made for a little while lower than the angels, Jesus, because of the, because of his suffering and death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone.
Couple of things we wanna point out. The hym is Jesus, I already mentioned [00:30:00] that suffering and literally the words are suffering of death. And it's important because every time this word for suffering is used in the book of Hebrews, and if I find an exception to this, I'll share it with you. But every time that word is used, it is speaking of his crucifixion.
And in the Greek, it's actually the word passion. His passion of death. Alright, and we as Protestants, we typically don't use that word passion, but it refers to his death, it refers to his crucifixion, Mel Gibson's movie, the Passion of The Christ. And Catholics tend to use that term a lot. They speak of the passion of Christ, and it's a good word, it's a biblical word.
The author of Hebrews uses it. It refers to his death and his suffering on the cross. So because of Jesus' death on the cross, because of his passion on the cross, he's been crowned with glory and honor. We've already read that. He's on the throne. Do you believe it? He's in control. [00:31:00] You see, he was subjected.
He was made a little lower than the angels for a short period of time. It refers to his incarnation. It refers to what theologians call his humiliation. When he became man, the entire time that Jesus was on earth is known as his humiliation. And it's not until his death, burial, and resurrection and ascension into heaven that he reenters his glory and he did it for us.
He became incarnate to us. What was the purpose that he might taste death for everyone. And that's another phrase we gotta talk about. What is the author talking about? That Jesus, there, there's two problems with this verse. What does it mean that he tasted death? And what does the phrase for everyone mean?
Is the author of Hebrews teaching us that Jesus Christ died for every single individual, man, woman, and child? So first, what does it mean that Jesus tasted death? And I, I've heard theologians, I've read commentaries where there's all kinds of. [00:32:00] Grammatical gymnastics to taste. Death is simply a way to say that Jesus experienced death.
Jesus died. It's not like he stuck his toe in the water and just barely got wet. No, Jesus died. That's what it means to taste. We're gonna, this word's gonna come back up later. Taste it of the heavenly gifts. It means Jesus experienced the full force and the full brunt of death. He died as a human being.
He was dead for three days. Okay, but what does the phrase mean for everyone? And I wanna give you a different translation. One that is closer to the text, literally what the text says so that he might taste death on behalf of all. And it actually makes a difference. How you understand it, okay? Number one, it was substitutionary.
Jesus died on behalf of all. Whoever is in that group. Jesus took your place. That is the [00:33:00] plain meaning of the text here. That means if Jesus died for you, your sins have been paid for. And the author's gonna get into more of that here momentarily. Your sins are paid for, they have been covered, they have been perpetuated.
They no longer, God no longer sees your sin. He sees you clothed in Christ. The death of Christ was substitutionary. But what does the for all mean? In other words, is the author teaching a universal or a specific atonement? And it is so important for understanding this book because he's gonna come back to this topic over and over again.
He's gonna talk about the high priestly work of Jesus, and then he's gonna talk about his death, and he's gonna put it in terms of the day of atonement. Jesus' death actually accomplishes atonement. If he died for you. Your sins are atoned for you cannot miss that in this book. And just these words [00:34:00] on behalf of all it was substitutionary.
So was it universal or was it specific? What did the death of Jesus Christ result in? Did the death of Jesus Christ result in a possible salvation or a guaranteed salvation? Are those for whom Jesus died possibly saved or are they saved? Yes, it plays out in time, but is it a guarantee? I wanna give you five reasons in our immediate context that argues for a specific atonement.
Number one, in chapter one, verse three, it talks about Jesus made purification for sin and, and this is important and I hope I'm explaining it well, and I hope you understand it. And if you don't, please see me afterwards. But what scripture is saying is when death, when, when Jesus died on the cross, sin was dealt with, sin was taken out of the way, it was purified.
Alright? Jesus [00:35:00] doesn't die for sin. That doesn't get forgiven, not according to these words. He had made purification of sin that is a completed action in the Greek. When he had made purification from sin. He sat down at the right hand of majesty on high, and that's the second reason why I believe this is specific, is this book constantly talks about the high priestly work of Christ.
And when this book compares the work of Christ with the work of the the Levitical priesthood, the Levitical priest was never described as sitting down. The high priest is never described as sitting down because sitting down is a euphemism for my job's done. No. Even when we get to chapters eight and nine and we talk about the day of atonement, year after year, after year after year, it had to be repeated.
Jesus sat down because Jesus sacrifice actually brought about real atonement. Number three, the words that refer to believers in this book, believers are called brethren. [00:36:00] Believers are called children whom God has given to Christ. In chapter two, verse 13, which mirrors John chapter six, go home and read John chapter six.
Today, Jesus, when teaching about his death, he says that the Father, whoever the father gives me, those I will save and nobody snatches out of my hands whom the father has given me. And in this book, it's the same words were described as those whom the father has given him. And then in chapter two, verse 10, it talks about his death bringing many sons to glory.
And again, the way this is written, the way the grammar is written, this is accomplished work. It's going to happen. He will bring many sons to glory. Fourth reason why I believe it's specific is in chapter two, verse 14, it talks about death and the devil being rendered powerless. Now we're talking spiritual death here.
Obviously physical death continues to take place. I believe someday that will come to an end. I believe [00:37:00] that's what Paul teaches in one Corinthians 15. But right now the focus is on spiritual death and spiritual death has been rendered powerless. Those for whom Christ died once they come to faith, I know it plays out in time, but once they come to faith, they're not spiritually dead anymore.
It's what this book is communicating. And last but not least, and we'll look at it here in just a moment. Unless I run outta time. Propitiation we're taught in verse 17 that Jesus makes propitiation for the sins of his people. And I'm just gonna jump ahead 'cause I know I'm gonna run outta time and I'll have to pick this up later.
But propitiation literally means that God is satisfied God for whoever Jesus died for.
God is no longer angry at. If Jesus died for your sins, God is no longer angry at your sins. He no longer holds your sin against you. [00:38:00] Now, we have to be careful here because a lot of times we take this idea that Jesus makes perpetuation and the Father is now satisfied and his wrath has been, uh, soothed and we think, oh God, is this mean the Father?
Is this mean angry God and Jesus is this good loving God? No. Jesus is every bit as angry at sin. Jesus is every bit as holy as the Father. Jesus in his divine nature must consume sin. If he encounters it, you see God satisfied himself. That's what the author of Hebrews is communicating to us. God became a man.
God took it upon himself to go to the cross, and God satisfies God. God, father, son, and the Holy Spirit are not divided. It was one plan and they each took a role. And God satisfied God in propitiation kids. Uh, there's another, uh, on your handout, I believe there's a question about, uh, Jesus being the last Adam, that [00:39:00] Jesus obeys God perfectly.
Jesus did what Adam couldn't do, and that was to obey God. Perf perfectly. Number three on your outline, Jesus, our high priest, Jesus, our high priest, verse 10. For it was fitting for him. For whom are all things, through whom are all things, and bringing many sons to glory, to perfect. The author of their salvation through suffering.
So a couple of things on this verse. It was fitting for the father, and here's what the author's saying. Jesus became incarnate. Jesus came to this earth for one reason to die. That was his purpose. We're gonna find out in just a minute. That was actually his goal. Okay, so it was fitting Why? Because the wages of sin is death.
Paul teaches in Romans chapter six, and if the wages of sin is death, then if Jesus is gonna be our substitute, he must die in our place. And so Jesus came to earth and it was fitting to [00:40:00] Father, son, and the Holy Spirit. It was fitting that he comes to earth simply to die again, more than just simply but to die.
And this death would bring many sons to glory. And it was fitting that the father would perfect the author of Thou Salvation Through Suffering. There's that word again through, through His passion, through his death on the cross. But we tend to misunderstand that word when it says that the son was perfected through suffering.
We tend to think, when we talk about perfected, we tend to think that there was something wrong that had to be made right, and that's not true of Jesus. There was nothing wrong or lacking in Jesus that had to be made right. But. The author is using the exact same word that John uses in 1930, and you will remember this verse, Jesus is on the cross.
These are the last words of Jesus on the cross. Therefore, when Jesus had received the sour wine, he took one last taste of sour wine so he [00:41:00] could clear his throat. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he yelled in a loud voice to tell us, die. It is finished. Then he bowed his head and he gave up his spirit.
This Greek word alai, it is finished, is the word translated perfect in the text of Hebrew, and the idea here is Jesus had to die. The goal of Jesus Christ was to die and experience a passion on the cross. That is his perfection. That is his end goal. That's what that word means. It's not that Jesus was lacking something.
For both. He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one, so he's not ashamed to call them brethren. And there's a, there's a lot to say about this verse. We've talked about sanctification. Okay. In fact, I spent several sermons trying to explain the difference between justification and sanctification.
We are justified by faith alone, period. [00:42:00] It is a work of God alone. We are justified by faith alone. However, we are sanctified through faith and works. You see, sanctification is a process that we take part in, and justification and sanctification are joined. They can never be separated, but they can be distinguished.
And the gospel as presented by Paul is the gospel of justification. By faith alone, it is the death of Jesus alone and my believing in the death of Jesus alone. That saves me. Works do not save me. Salvation comes with works. We're promised that in Ephesians chapter two, but works do not save me and it's important to make that distinction.
But what the author here is using sanctification in a slightly different sense. He's using it for the totality of our salvation. Jesus sanctifies us in the sense that we are, we've been set apart for God and in He's referring to the totality of [00:43:00] our, our salvation. He justifies us. He redeems us. He perpetuates for us.
He cleans us up through the process of sanctification, we've been made special. We have been made holy because of the work of Jesus Christ. So the author here is looking at it like a snapshot, and he's looking at the whole thing. It. But here's the interesting thing. It says, the one who sanctifies Jesus and those who are being sanctified are all from one.
And a lot of translations will say from one father, but father's not in the text. And most likely the idea here, and if you want the technical explanation, see me later, it again has to do with the incarnation that we are from one lump of humanity and Jesus became a man to save men. Verse 12. And in verse 12 kids, the next verse that cited is Psalm 22.
Okay. And I think what I'm gonna do, because I am gonna run outta time and I don't wanna rush this, um, I, [00:44:00] I'm gonna go ahead and, and, and wrap this up, and then I will come back and I will do the second half of this next week. I had a feeling this might happen, but, um, how do you, how do you summarize what I've done so far?
And here's what I hope is firing off in your minds, compassion, kindness, and grace. What have we learned so far? Well, we've learned that Jesus, God. Became a man. Jesus took on flesh, and that was a humiliating thing for Jesus. He came to earth. He humiliated himself by taking on flesh. We've learned in these first two chapters that Jesus is superior to the angels.
We've learned that Jesus is creator and king, and that he was creator and king prior to his incarnation, and he's still creator and he's king in a slightly different sense. He sits on the throne of David after his incarnation. [00:45:00] But he's always been creator. He's always been king in his incarnation. He's our priest and our brother.
So again, compassion, kindness, and grace should be firing off like fireworks in your mind. And I don't know how good a job I've done this morning, but I know this, if my words have made any sense. You should be blown away at how much God loves you. You should be blown away at the compassion of Father, son, and Holy Spirit at his grace.
So we must pay closer attention. That's the message, that's the warning. Are you paying close attention to the gospel? Do you study it every day? Are you in the scriptures every day? Do you go to your knees every day? Do you pray every day? Do you confess your ongoing sin every day? Do you make it a goal to fellowship with other [00:46:00] Christians on a regular basis so that iron sharpens iron so that those who love you and care about you can actually exhort you?
Do you have anyone in your life that has the guts to come up to you and tell you you are in sin and you need to knock it off?
We have a better message and we need to pay attention to it. We're part of a better covenant. We have a better head. We're no longer in Adam, but we're in Christ and there are better blessings. Eternal life. The finished work of Jesus Christ, a complete sacrifice. My sins are taken out of the picture. I know that sometimes it's hard for us to wrap our heads around because we still sin, but they're covered.
And that shouldn't give you a false sense of security that should break your heart when you sin. It should break your heart. When you disobey your Lord and Savior. It should break your heart. When you disobey the one who has so much compassion [00:47:00] for you, it should drive you to your knees into confession.
It's not a false sense of security that I'm talking about here, but it's trusting in God. It's trusting in Christ. We have better blessings. We see that Christ fulfills Psalm eight on our behalf. Jesus became a man so that he could fulfill the prophecy of Psalm eight. And Jesus is no longer lower than the angels.
He's been resurrected. He's ascended, and he's seated at the right hand of the Father. And according to Ephesians chapter one, so are we in a spiritual sense. So you have to ask yourselves. Why is the church losing? Why are we losing today? The early church defeated the greatest Empire at the time to ever exist.
In about 300 years, we've blown pretty [00:48:00] much everything God's given us in less than 200.
Maybe just maybe the message of the book of Hebrews is very relevant to us today. Let's pray. Father in heaven, help us understand this book. Sometimes, Lord, it's heavy. Sometimes there's just things we need to learn. There's just things, do I believe this? Do I not believe this? Do I understand this? So father's gonna take work on all of our parts.
But Father, I pray spirit of God. I pray that you will encourage us, that you'll teach us that it is well worth it. The work to understand this book and to understand the work of Jesus Christ will literally transform us. It will transform us individually. And then Father, it will transform this church. And Father, with your grace and with your blessing, it will transform Northern Idaho.
It will transform Bonner's Ferry. May we be a voice in this community. May we be the voice of truth. May we be the [00:49:00] voice of Christ. Help us to love the lost Lord. But Father, help us to love Christ. Help us to love the work that he has done on our behalf. Help us to love everything that the writer of Hebrews teaches us about him.
Help us to understand and to be blown away at everything he's done for us. Father, I pray that we will meditate upon these truths all week and that we will come back excited to learn more. Father, thank you for, for your spirit. Thank you that we are in dwelt by your Spirit and it's by the power of your spirit in the name of the finished work of Christ, that we pray these words and all of God's people said, amen.
Amen. Take your.
