A Perfect Savior

English Standard Version Chapter 2

5 For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. 6 It has been testified somewhere,

“What is man, that you are mindful of him,

or the son of man, that you care for him?

7  You made him for a little while lower than the angels;

you have crowned him with glory and honor,

8  putting everything in subjection under his feet.”

Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. 9

First of all, I want to draw our attention to something

The Psalm that the author quotes at the beginning of this passage as you probably recognize, is Psalm 8.

But, if you were listening closely as i read his quotation of Psalm 8, you probably noticed something different

Here is how he renders Psalm 8:5.

English Standard Version Chapter 2

“What is man, that you are mindful of him,

or the son of man, that you care for him?

7  You made him

ESV

which is different than what you will read in in Psalm 8:5 “5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.” ESV

So, without getting us too confused on this, what is happening here is a translation choice that the editors of the ESV and some other more modern translations have chosen to make

In Psalm 8, the word that is translated “a little” is the Hebrew word m’at (me AT)

And that word simply means, a little, or a few

And it changes senses depending on its context

When it comes to Psalm 8, we have grown accustomed to reading this Psalm with us humans in mind

“what is mankind that you are mindful of them? You have made us a little lower than angels and have crowned him with glory and honor”

Which fits

But if the Psalms are ultimately about Jesus (which we have already said that they are)

And if Psalm 8 is talking about Jesus

Then saying “Jesus was created to be a little lower than the angels”, doesn’t fit at all

I mean, the author just got done making the exhaustive point in chapter 1 that Jesus is in fact far superior TO the angels

And so, what some of the modern translations have done is

When they came to the Greek rendering of this verse in Hebrews, they said, you know what?

The Greek word used for “a little” also has a very acceptable translation of “a little while”

And since we are clearly talking about Jesus

And since we have established the point that He was not created to be lower than the angels,

They decided to go with the translation, “He was made for a little while lower than the angels”

Which holds true.

Jesus was, for a little while, in His human form, a little lower than the angels, just like mankind for whom he came to die

I hope that makes sense and that I didn’t confuse you:)

But nevertheless, the passage we read today is that Jesus is our perfect Savior

We have already seen that Jesus is

The perfect Word of God

He is Far Superior to the Angels

Now, because of that, He is our perfect Savior

And to make this point, the author gives us at least 3 things to think about

Our Savior

Has been given everything

Has suffered for us all

Has become our high priest

Jesus has been given everything

Before He left this earth, Jesus said, “All authority in Heaven and on earth has been given to me”

This is a continuing theme in the NT. Jesus over all

We talked about this when we studied Colossians

let me just remind you have what Paul says about Jesus in Colossians 1:15–18 “15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.”

Jesus has been given everything and has all dominion and power

The author of Hebrews uses Psalm 8 to set this point up

NKJV 4 What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him? 5 For You have made him a little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with glory and honor.

The original intent of mankind was this: God created us, man and woman, to have dominion over the world

In Genesis, it says that God created man and woman

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.”

But right after that, because of the disobedience of Adam, sin entered the world

and just like that, this charge to have dominion over the world was in jeopardy

because what happened was, Adam and Eve were thrown out of the Garden

And the mandate to have dominion over the earth was put into jeopardy

Because, in a sense, mankind does have dominion over the earth

But in a sense, we fear that we don’t have dominion over the earth

enmity between humans and animals

there are animals that you simply don’t want to mess with unless you have a really powerful gun, or something

And we are reminded every now and then that, even though we think we have dominion over the animals, occasionally, they have dominion over us

Even the tiny mosquito is a creature that causes close to one million deaths world wide per year

Between humans and the earth

you farmers feel this struggle more than any of us

sometimes coaxing a good yield from the soil is a struggle

As I understand it, weeds and other types of pests are becoming more complicated, and it is harder to control these things

Between humans and nature

this, for sure is something that we don’t have dominion over

We don’t control when it rains or doesn’t, when it freezes or doesn’t, when it snows, or when the winds blow

The mandate to have dominion over the earth is something that has become a big struggle for us because of sin

But then came the perfect man, Jesus.

And the author of Hebrews uses Psalm 8 to make the point that, yes, mankind was created to have dominion over the earth,

but it is actually Jesus, the perfect man, who fulfills this mandate perfectly

He says,

it was Jesus who, for a little while, became lower than the angels

It was Jesus, who is now crowned with glory and honor

It was Jesus, who now has everything put in subjection under His feet.

BUT, he goes on to say, right now we are living in some tension

while everything has been made subject to Jesus,

We don’t SEE it that way yet

Everything IS under His control, but that’s not how we see it

We are in that “already, but not yet” time where the ultimate fulfillment of God’s plan has not yet come to pass

We know that Jesus will one day be revealed as King of Kings, and Lord of Lords over everything

But right now, we see Jesus revealed in the Gospels as One who humbled Himself and became subject to suffering and death

Our perfect Savior has suffered for us all

What an incredible thought.

you mean our Savior, the One who came to redeem us, the One who has been given all authority and power

This man, Jesus, suffered and died for us?

yeah! That’s what we’re saying here!

vs. 9 We see Him who for a little while was lower than the angels

We see Him, now crowned with glory and honor

Why? Why is He crowned with glory and honor?

Because He suffered death (because of the suffering of death). THAT is why He is now crowned with glory and honor

Another illustration of upside down nature of the Kingdom of God

Most people, in order to gain glory and honor, go out and conquer something or someone

In March, we have this epic basketball tournament of 64 teams

And the goal is to be the national champion

And if you become the national champion, you are crowned with glory and honor.

you win the trophy

you get invited to important events, maybe even the White House to see the President

Your names become household names

You receive glory and honor

but in order to win glory and honor, you have to conquer.

you have have a good regular season record. maybe even win your conference championship

and then you have to beat 6 other teams in the tournament on your way to becoming the national champion

this is the way that we think about glory and honor. It comes through conquering

But Jesus, in His upside down kingdom, received glory and honor because He was willing to experience the suffering of death

not go out and conquer His way to glory and honor

not go out and seize glory and honor

But to receive glory and honor, given to Him by The Father, because He was obedient to God’s will

Philippians 2:8–9 “8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,”

This is hard for us to grasp sometimes the nature of God’s honor system..that God’s honor comes to those who are obedient, even to the point of giving up everything, even their own lives

You remember that story from Matthew 20: the mother of James and John comes to Jesus and says

Hey, Jesus, when you establish your kingdom, could my boys have the places of honor

And Jesus uses this request as a teaching opportunity

Matthew 20:25–28 “25 But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 26 It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, 28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.””

Do you desire glory and honor? Well it comes, not in conquering. Not in always getting your point across. Not in being successful in everything that you do

but in giving up your life

to serve Jesus first and foremost

And to serve one another, sacrificially

Why did Jesus have to die? Why did He suffer death?

So that He might taste death for everyone vs. 9

He suffered and died so that we don’t have to taste death

we say, “but we still taste death”.

most of us are intensely familiar with death through the passing of a close family member or loved one

they are physically not with us anymore. We know that one day we will also taste death

That’s true.

But there is more to death than our bodies physically dying.

There is also the possibility of separation from God for eternity

And I believe that in some way, Jesus, in death, had a taste of what that might be like

“my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

giving us a picture of what it could be like to die apart from being reconciled with God

In His mercy, He did not want us to go through the suffering, the death, and the separation from God that sin brings to us

And because of that, He was willing to “taste” death, or experience death for everyone

Isn’t this amazing? What does this do to your heart?

So that we might be brought to glory

Hebrews 2:10 “10 For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.”

It was fitting that He, for whom and by whom all things exist

this is God that He is talking about here

God the Father

And the reason that I believe the author is referring to The Father right here is because he goes on to say

...in bringing many sons to glory, should make The Founder of their salvation perfect through suffering

God’s purpose was for “many sons (and daughters, I might add) to be brought to glory”

isn’t this incredible? God’s plan was that we should experience glory

And so, by the suffering and death of one man, that is God’s own Son, Jesus,

He brought us all into glory

He brought many sons to glory. He multiplied the sacrifice of one man to be effective for all who believe

And when he talks about “glory”, he’s not talking strictly about future glory, Heaven, if you will

But he is talking about glory right now!

That is, the very presence of God. Back into fellowship with The Father!\

We could talk about this a long time

being changed from glory to glory

The Holy Spirit dwelling in temples

but our sinfulness made this impossible

And so, Jesus suffered and died in order to pay for our sinfulness and bring us into glory

He suffered and died in order to destroy the devil, vs. 14

“...through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil”

this goes back to something we talked about too briefly in chapter 1 where he makes the point that Jesus is far superior to the angels, to the spirit realm

Well, one of the greatest demonstrations of His superiority is that

Through His death, He destroyed the devil, the one who used to, anyway, have the power of death

Jesus became like one of us, finite people, those who live under the shadow of death

those who experience death in a very physical and real way

Jesus became just like us in order that He might destroy the devil

When Jesus, the perfect man said, “I will die and pay for sins which I did not commit”, he destroyed the devil

now the devil is still real, and still active, and is still powerful

but he is a defeated foe and his end is determined

But the point is, that death is not the end for us

sad were the life we may part with tomorrow if tears were our birthright and death were our end!

He suffered and died in order to deliver us from slavery to the fear of death (vs. 15)

Man, this is a huge one.

you know, I don’t know why exactly, but over the past year, I have thought A LOT about how I would respond if I knew without a shadow of a doubt that my life was to be taken from me in a violent way

Martyrs, people who chose death, faced death willingly and joyfully without fear

Michael Satler

how many people around the world live in abject fear of the unknown and especially death?

The vast majority of people do!

But folks, we don’t have to! Jesus died so that we can know what our end is

Paul asked in an explosion of praise, “death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting?”

The last reason set out here for the suffering of Jesus is this:

Our perfect Savior has become our perfect High Priest

it says here in verse 17 that Jesus had to become like His brothers in every respect

Why? In order to become a merciful and faithful high priest vs. 17

first, to be in the service of God

to make propitiation for the sins of the people, or to make atonement for the sins of the people

To help those who are being tempted

This is such amazing news for us!

Jesus was made to be a high priest for us

The author here is drawing on the OT to set this up

There were priests who served in the tabernacle and in the temple

they served in the presence of God

But it was the High Priest (only one of these), who represented the entire priesthood

he represented the entire population

it was He who served in the presence of God

it was he who, once a year, made propitiation for the people

he appeased the wrath of God against sin by taking some blood back into the Holy of Holies and sprinkling it on the Mercy Seat

His role was defined by God and crucial to the people’s ongoing relationship with God

So, this is what the high priest did year after year. He served in the presence of God, and made propitiation for the sins of the people

And this is what Jesus did as well

He came to this earth and served His Father, doing His will

And in His death, He made propitiation for the sins of the people. He paid for sins

But Jesus is, in fact, a much better high priest than any high priest that came before Him

Because (and Hebrews makes this point later on), His death was once and for all.

it paid for sins completely and does not have to be a yearly sacrifice

Because He did, and continues to do something that the OT high priests had no power to do

He helps those who are being tempted!

in other words, He comes to our aid before a potential sin, in fact becomes a sin!

Before we look at something that we shouldn’t, say something that we shouldn’t, respond in a way that we shouldn’t, try to get away with something that we shouldn’t, listen to something that we shouldn’t

Before any of that happens and becomes something that we need to repent of, and something that needs to be covered with His blood

Jesus is standing by as our High Priest ready and able to help us through those things that we are being tempted with

isn’t this incredible?

The OT high priests had no such ability. The only thing that they could do was to offer burnt offerings, and come into the Holy of Holies at the appointed time and plead for mercy for people who had already sinned!

Jesus, on the other hand, has the power to help us in our time of need

And He does it with understanding because He knew first hand the suffering that comes with temptation

He knows first hand the struggle of overcoming temptation

He knows, He gets it! He understands!

And in His mercy, He stands by, ready and able to help you through the temptations that you are facing

questions for reflexion

→ How does knowing that Jesus willingly stepped into your weakness and pain change the way you relate to Him in moments of struggle or temptation?

→ In what areas of your life do you need to invite Jesus to act as your present Helper, not just your past Savior?