Hebrews 2:10-18

“For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. 11 For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, 12 saying: ‘I will declare Your name to My brethren; in the midst of the assembly, I will sing praise to You.’ 13 And again: ‘I will put My trust in Him.’ And again: ‘Here am I and the children whom God has given Me.’

“14 In as much then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. 16 For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham. 17 Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18 For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted“ (all verses are NKJV).

Jesus is our Great Savior, and in Him and Him only, we have any hope to have an eternity with God. Oh, what hope we have, a secure hope that steadies us in the storms of life, a hope that transcends death! Just before I began to write this, I found out that the man who preached at my father’s funeral almost 40 years ago died last evening. He had suffered from cancer and heart issues for some time, and the journey here had come to an end. But even as I was processing the information, I could see my dad greeting him and welcoming him home. What a joyous reunion that must have been! Hope. This is the thing, the power, the strength, and the will that sustains us in troubled times, the Hope we have in Jesus, by Jesus, and through Jesus, our Great Savior. Today, we will explore His place as the Captain of our Faith.

• We get the Glory, He the suffering, verses 10-13

It would not be hard to conceive that God, the All-Knowing, could have devised a plan to redeem man without Jesus’ suffering. It was certainly in His power to simply scrap the progress and start over again. We have all done that; we begin to make something, draw something – in my case – write something, and it simply does not come together. And we discard it, delete it and scrap it so we can start over with a clean slate.

We do not know how long Adam and his wife were in the Garden of Eden before Adam sinned. It may have been many, many years. During this time, God has visited them, sat with them, and befriended them. And so, when the sin (no surprise to God) came, He was not inclined to simply wipe them out and start over. He set about to make a way to bring them back to the glory they once had before the fall. This journey would take God to places He had not previously known in an experiential way.

Jesus would have to suffer; God had never suffered. Jesus would have to want, be hungry, be thirsty, be tired, and on, but God had never wanted before. Jesus would have to be cared for by others; God had never needed anyone’s care before. Jesus would feel pain; God had never felt pain before. Jesus would need someone to carry His cross, which God had never needed before. Jesus would have to die; God had never experienced death before. Jesus would be judged by man; God had never been judged by anyone before. Why? Why would God subject Himself to mere dust? Mere red clay? WHY? Because He loved all of us. He loved and still loves this man He made and breathed into us the breath of life. To show His love, He would submit to suffering and make a sacrifice that cost him not just something but everything.

2 Samuel 24:21-24, “Then Araunah said, ‘Why has my lord the king come to his servant?’ And David said, ‘To buy the threshing floor from you, to build an altar to the LORD, that the plague may be withdrawn from the people.’ Now Araunah said to David, ‘Let my lord the king take and offer up whatever seems good to him. Look, here are oxen for burnt sacrifice, and threshing implements and the yokes of the oxen for wood. All these, O king, Araunah has given to the king.’ And Araunah said to the king, ‘May the LORD your God accept you.’ Then the king said to Araunah, ‘No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price; nor will I offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God with that which costs me nothing.’ So, David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.”

King David refused to offer a sacrifice to God that did not cost him something. In like manner, Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice to God the Father on our behalf, and it was the most expensive price ever paid to redeem mankind ever. Once we are redeemed, we are told that Jesus is not ashamed to call us His brethren, and we are now children of God; we get the glory of being the sons and daughters of God. Jesus took the suffering to give us this wonderful gift. Look at these quotes from two great Christian scholars:

1. “To make perfect does not imply moral imperfection in Jesus, but only the consummation of that human experience of sorrow and pain through which He must pass in order to become the leader of His people’s salvation.” (Vincent)
2. “We know that had he only been God yet still He would not have been fitted for a perfect Savior unless He had become man. Man had sinned; man must suffer. It was man in whom God’s purposes had been for a while defeated; it must be in man that God must triumph over His great enemy.” (Spurgeon)

• We get eternal life; the Devil gets defeated, verses 14-16

Satan had used the serpent to tempt Eve, then Adam sinned when he ate the fruit. God promised mankind that He would send a Redeemer who would crush the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15). To do so, Jesus became flesh, just like the man Adam who had fallen. And in this human body, He defeated Satan by defeating death. This gives us hope in our frail human bodies that just as Jesus conquered the grave, we who are in Jesus will one day as well.

Jesus is the Captain of Our Faith, the firstborn from the grave, the ultimate grave robber. He has literally destroyed the power of death on all who believe in Him and trust in Him.

1 Corinthians 15:55-57, “O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?’ The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The very enemy that Satan introduced to man, death, the very enemy that haunted us for 4,000 years and still does to some degree today, was destroyed by the man Jesus. He died as a man, laid in the grave as a man, and rose from the dead as a man with flesh and bone.

Luke 24:39, “Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.”

Jesus appeared that very first night of the resurrection, and the disciples thought they were seeing a ghost or a spirit. But Jesus assured them by showing His scars, and then He ate fish with them. Jesus defeated death in the flesh just like ours, and so, we no longer have death as an enemy. When we stand at the graves of passed-on loved ones, we can sing “I’ll Fly Away” heartily even through the tears for the temporary loss, and we can shout, ‘God is good; He has made a way when there was no way. He made a way and, in the process, showed us His love by dying on the cross, suffering, and taking our deserved pain so that we can become children of God, His brethren.

Further, not only are we no longer just children of the first Adam, sold under death. We have become the children of Abraham, not physically but spiritually. We are children of Abraham according, as well, to Romans 4:16-22:

“Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all (as it is written, ‘I have made you a father of many nations’) in the presence of Him whom he believed—God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, ‘So shall your descendants be.’

“And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform. And therefore ‘it was accounted to him for righteousness.'”

Abraham is a father to many nations, not just the Jews. Yes, he is the father of the Jews as far as genetics and bloodline are concerned. But he is a spiritual father to many nations, Gentile nations, because he simply believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. He did not have to be circumcised or do any work for salvation. He believed, and God gave him eternal life. You and I are called, like Abraham, to simply believe God. The thief on the cross was never baptized, never gave out a track, never attended or joined a church; he simply believed that Jesus was who He was and that he would raise from the dead. He said, “Lord, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”

• We get Heavenly help for this life, verse 18

We are not alone. No, we are not surrounded by aliens; rather, we are constantly accompanied by Jesus in the person of the Holy Spirit who lives in us. Jesus promises in Hebrews 4: 14-16:

“Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us, therefore, come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

We do not have to face life or the circumstances, even death, alone. Jesus is there. He has experienced life as we do with its ups and downs. He has been loved and hated, befriended and betrayed, tempted (never sinning) and beaten, spat upon, been falsely accused, lied about, hunted for death, had family division, and He died young. Jesus was poor, not that good-looking apparently (Isaiah 53:2), got lost in the crowd, and was hated by religious people. Jesus can walk you through any part of life, any trial, any pressure, any issue from experience and help you. He can carry you when you cannot carry yourself. He will be the friend to the friendless, He loves the unlovable, He lifts the fallen and identifies with the outcasts.

Jesus will never leave us, ever. He knows what it was like to be abandoned in His hour of need. He is the Captain of Our Faith, our fearless, battle-tested leader who is in it for us; yes, for you and me. We are His trophies, redeemed from the grave, dusted off, and perfectly presented to His Father as Brethren and ‘Sisteren’ too, precious to Him; children of Abraham, children of God. Is He your Captain?

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

How to Connect with Us

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Email: missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca

 

Hebrews 2:1-9

“Therefore, we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. ² For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, ³ how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him, ⁴ God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will? ⁵ For He has not put the world to come, of which we speak, in subjection to angels. ⁶ But one testified in a certain place, saying:

‘What is man that You are mindful of him, or the son of man that You take care of him? ⁷ You have made him a little lower than the angels; You have crowned him with glory and honor, And set him over the works of Your hands. ⁸ You have put all things in subjection under his feet.’

“For in that He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we do not yet see all things put under him. ⁹ But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.“ (NKJV)

It was necessary for us to explore what would seem to be a moot point last week, that Jesus is not an angel. But it was obviously necessary because God wrote it for us to read, know and understand. Once we have established that Jesus is not an angel, we can now move on with the rest of what He has to say in the book of Hebrews. He begins Hebrews 2 with “Therefore” (based on the fact that Jesus is not an angel; we can now move on; I can teach you some other things). Once again, Hebrews is to saved people, and it assumes that the reader has a sound doctrinal foundation. Let us look at this chapter together.

• Drifting Away, verse 1

The idea of drifting has to do with a ship that is moving away from its moorings because it is not anchored to anything. The boat does not have to do anything; it is just bobbing with the tide and the movement of the water. The writer is encouraging that we should be anchored to something, and that something is Jesus’ salvation that He offers us freely. If we are not actively tied to the doctrines of the Scripture, we can drift away; not deliberately, not by active rebellion, but by apathy. We just drift with the tide, the winds of change that blow ever so slightly, and soon we are no longer doctrinally sound. We have ‘buts’ for every statement of God’s in the scripture. We add caveats to God’s precepts, and we water down even the very Gospel that saved us.

This is the idea that the writer adds in verse 3; we “neglect so great a salvation.” Soon we begin to doubt the importance and the exclusiveness of the Gospel of Jesus. We begin to think that there are other ways to heaven, and we are no longer adamant about what Jesus said – “I am the Way.” It takes nothing to go to Hell; we are born on the way there. It takes an act of God to change our course. Are you drifting away? Have the doctrines become benign and seemingly tedious? Have we begun to water down the Gospel or add to it with works, and by doing so, stealing the thunder of God’s grace?

The Gospel was spoken by Jesus himself. He is the one who paid for it, He is the one who sends His Holy Spirit, and the one who will hold us accountable for it. But unless we are actively reading, studying and applying the Gospel, the truths of the scriptures, and living them out daily, we will drift away from the absolutes of the Bible, and so on. We will even neglect the very salvation that we have in Jesus and stop sharing the Gospel, or worse, share a false Gospel that is even more destructive.

Not only do we show contempt for Jesus, but we also show contempt for God who confirmed that Jesus was, in fact, the Messiah by miracles and other supernatural events like the Mount of Transfiguration. Then God followed up the miracles by sending His Holy Spirit to indwell us and to empower the local New Testament churches all around the known world at the time. God confirmed that this salvation was the one; this was the special gift from God that all men need to know that is available to all men free of charge. Jesus paid it all, God sanctioned the sacrifice, and the Holy Spirit secures us forever.

God does not take our salvation lightly; He did all He could to make it possible for all men everywhere to be saved. And to this very day, 2000 years or so later, the Gospel of Jesus is still all people need to be saved (see Acts 16:31). Jesus, Jesus, Jesus; there is just something about that name.

• Jesus’ Humanity, verses 6-9

One of the very important doctrines that God brings to the forefront here is Jesus’ humanity. Jesus is not half man and half God. He is, in fact, 100% God and 100% man. One of the false doctrines of some of the early churches was that Jesus was God but only seemed to be human. This is wrong. Jesus was 100% human. He experienced everything that a human would experience. He was a baby and nursed at his mother’s breast. He had to be carried. He had to be washed. He had to learn how to roll over, crawl, and walk, and He fell as other kids did as well. He had to learn the language and how to speak it. He had to deal with siblings and make friends. Jesus had the whole human experience; He even had to learn how to use the washroom.

Like God, we know that He created the whole universe (see John 1: 1-4). But as a man, He also had the creation under Him as part of the Adamic instructions. Go back and see Genesis 1:25-27:

“God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that crawls upon the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, and over all the earth itself and every creature that crawls upon it.’ So God created man in His own image; in the image of God, He created him; male and female He created them.” (Berean Study Bible)

Jesus, the man, was under this decree from God as well as being the Creator; He now has the Adamic dominion over the earth and all that is in it as well. Jesus died as a man to taste death for everyone (see Hebrews 2:9). Only a man could do that. God cannot die. Thus, it was essential for Him to come as a man, true flesh; he could bleed, feel pain, suffer and die for you and me. In turn, we get the Holy Spirit, and in us, God lives.

1 Corinthians 3:16, “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”

1 Corinthians 6:19, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?”

2 Corinthians 6:16, “Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, ‘I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.'”

Ezekiel 36:27, “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be