A saviour for all, a saviour for sure

Bex White

Hebrews • Sermon • Submitted 4 years ago

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Hebrews 2:5–18 NIV

5 It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. 6 But there is a place where someone has testified: “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, a son of man that you care for him? 7 You made them a little lower than the angels; you crowned them with glory and honor 8 and put everything under their feet.”, In putting everything under them, God left nothing that is not subject to them. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them. 9 But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. 10 In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. 11 Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. 12 He says, “I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters; in the assembly I will sing your praises.” 13 And again, “I will put my trust in him.” And again he says, “Here am I, and the children God has given me.” 14 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. 16 For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. 17 For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. 18 Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

A saviour for all

Guilt and Innocence

How would you explain the Christian gospel? What images would you use?

Maybe you would use the famous one of a judge, hearing the case of a bank robber, who had stolen a million pounds. He’s found guilty. He can’t pay. Everyone expects him to go to jail, but then the judge says “go free, I’ll pay it myself. I’ll pay the £1 million and go to prison too”. The criminal walks away with a clean sheet, and in gratitude lives a life free of theft.

There’s nothing wrong with that story. For many of us here, it makes sense. It’s clear, and it captures some of the.. unfairness of the gospel. The sinless man paying the penalty for the rest of us.

But not everyone in the world thinks in terms of guilt and innocence, punishment and penalty.

Shame and honour

Some cultures think in terms of shame and honour. Shame is about reputation - about face. It’s not so much about what you do, though that matters, but it’s about who knows it. Honour is about connectedness. What I do impacts on the honour of my family, my community. Shame is catching. In the guilt/innocence paradigm, it’s amazing that Jesus, being innocent could pay the penalty for what I, being guilty, have done. In the shame/honour paradigm, honour can be transferred from a high-status person to a low-status person, but it can also be lost through association. I guess the most extreme example of this is honour-killing, where someone, usually a girl or woman, is killed because that’s the only way to restore honour to the family and community. Shame isn’t just over what we have done, but can be over what has been done to us. So someone who has been abused can be shamed.

How would you explain the gospel to someone from that paradigm?

This really matters, because a huge proportion of our world, and many of our neighbours, live in this, or perhaps live in some mix of the two. If we talk to them about the perfect judge, stepping in to pay the penalty, it might not land so effectively. Sure, the prison sentence is taken away, but everyone still knows the guy robbed a bank. How can his family hold their heads up high? How can he be restored?

So we have guilt/innocence and honour/shame, and I want to share one final paradigm which is maybe less commonly talked about, and that’s fear/power.

Fear/Power

In the last 20 years in the West, our cultural guardians have pretended that we’ve all moved on from superstition. We believe in science. And we do. Yet right now, in this moment we live in, the limitations of science are being exposed. If we say we follow the science on Covid, which science? The science that Sweden are following? Or France? Or Russia? Or China? I’m not trying to denigrate science. I am really thankful for the science that keeps my husband alive with type one diabetes, and that developed the computer that I wrote this sermon on! But it’s not the authority it’s sometimes portrayed as. We pretend as a culture that we are past superstition, but in many ways it never went away. There are still horoscopes, still the belief in “spirituality”. But overall it’s true that most people in our society here go about their day not really thinking about spiritual powers.

That is not the same elsewhere. And again, it’s not the same for all our friends and neighbours. I’ve had a colleague in tears because she believed that someone was cursing her. Another colleague left her abusive husband and his family practiced voodoo on her.

If you go to Eastern Greece or to Turkey you have to be particularly careful with your tacky souvenirs, as almost everything has this little evil eye design embedded in it.

If we tell the story of the judge to someone from the fear/power context, maybe they’ll wonder how the thief was protected from the ill-will of his victims. Having entered into evil, how can he ever escape its clutches.

So that’s a very long intro, and a very long way of explaining that I think this passage shows us the breadth of salvation in Jesus. That’s why I’ve called this section A Saviour For All. Not because I think the Bible teaches that all will be saved, but I do think it teaches that all can be saved. In other words, this great salvation, what Jesus offers, imputes innocence to the guilty, bestows honour on the shamed, and gives power to those living in fear.

And by the way, we don’t have to pick one of those. Whatever our culture, whatever lens we look at our human plight with, I believe that this passage teaches that we are all guilty, shamed and in fear, and therefore the good news of innocence, honour and power is for all of us if we accept it!

Gospel of innocence for the guilty

So how does Jesus deal with our guilt? He took our punishment.

Hebrews 2:9 NIV

9 But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

And he became:

Hebrews 2:17 NIV

17 For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.

Gospel of honour for the shamed

Jesus was temporarily lowered in status. Verse 9 says:

Hebrews 2:9 NIV

But then:

CROWNED WITH GLORY AND HONOUR

The kind of crown that is being talked about here is less a royal crown, and more like an athlete’s medal. A sign of victory. A sign that the wearer has earned honour. So he was temporarily lowered, God in human form, born to poor parents and suffering the most shameful death imaginable in that culture. And then, He is crowned with glory and honour. But it doesn’t stop there, because we read on in verse 10 to find out God’s intention to bring many sons and daughters to glory.

So through taking on shame, He actually shares His subsequent honour. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that there have been great waves of Christian conversion among the Dalit in India - the so-called untouchables.

And remember how we heard how the shame/honour paradigm is not just about individuals, but about families? Well we are not only invited to share in the honour of the risen Jesus, but we are also invited into his family.

Hebrews 2:11 NIV

11 Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.

Some of our friends have lost their families - the cost of following Jesus. For someone from a cultural background that is less individualistic than Britain, that is devastating. And yet Jesus offers honour and a family name, a great family name, to those who come to Him.

Gospel of power for the fearful

And what of those living in fear of the dark powers at work in the world? I don’t believe the answer is to say that those powers don’t exist.

Verse 14 says:

The New International Version Chapter 2

In His death he provided atonement for the guilty, he took on shame so that the shamed could receive honour, and now we see that by his death he broke not only the power of death itself, but the power of the one behind death - and the writer explicitly names the Devil here, the one in charge of all those other dark powers that people fear.

So the gospel, in Jesus, offers hope for those living in fear of the power of death, in fear of the devil and demons.

That’s a whistle-stop tour of how Jesus is a saviour for all - that is, in every culture and in every time, the gospel offers salvation to all, no matter their plight. Whether we are guilty, shamed or in fear - we are offered salvation in Jesus Christ. And I hope that it has encouraged you to start thinking a bit more about how we might frame the gospel. The message doesn’t change. This passage was written almost 2,000 years ago, yet is relevant across every culture today. But how we frame it, how we retell it, needs to change. I don’t think it’s ever about limiting the gospel, and saying it’s only about shame/honour, or somesuch. But rather it’s recognising that humans have different names for our chains, and the gospel is the hammer that breaks every chain.

But if we are in one of those chains, or maybe all three, how can we be certain that what Jesus did was enough? Maybe we are deeply attracted to the idea that we can exchange our shame for honour, or our guilt for innocence, or even our fear for power, but what are Jesus’ credentials.

A saviour for sure

I believe that the writer of Hebrews begins here what he or she will go on to unpack much more later on, that Jesus is a saviour for sure.

The One foretold

Firstly, and throughout this book, the writer takes great care to show that Jesus wasn’t just some random, but that He was the one foretold in the Hebrew Bible, the one that the prophets and the psalms and the torah all pointed to. Over and over again he or she weaves in quotes from the scriptures.

Years ago I was an NVQ assessor. My job consisted of getting alongside people in their work, and helping them to produce a folder of evidence that they met certain criteria. Once they had done that, they got a qualification. I used to use a matrix - a grid with the criteria down one side and the names of the pieces of evidence down the other.

This spreadsheet shows that little Jonny can “use spreadsheet software effectively, design a system to process multiple types of data, store data securely” etc etc. In a way, that’s what the writer of Hebrews does through the book - bringing in evidence from across the Bible to show that Jesus meets the criteria for God’s saving messiah, the highest of high priests, the once-for-all sacrifice.

Fully human pioneer

He was the pioneer. As Nikson says, if I’m going to go somewhere, I’m going to follow the one who has gone there before me. Jesus went into death, and out the other side. He was fully human, so what applies to Him can apply to us:

The New International Version Chapter 2

14 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. 16 For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. 17 For this reason he had to be made like them, m fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. 18 Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

This passage, and indeed this book, go into great detail about this great salvation, and about why we can depend upon it. We say to the judge - how do I know you’ve paid the full fine, served the full sentence? How do I know that you’ve dealt with the dishonour to my family? How do I know that I’m not under any curse from my victim?

And the answer is in the incarnation, the death, the resurrection and the glorification of Jesus. All of it. Not just one part, but the full story. It’s Advent and Christmas and Good Friday and Easter Sunday and the Ascension and Pentecost, with none of the chocolate but all of the gospel!

Salvation for all, and salvation for sure.

Application

So how will we respond to this great salvation? I know that some of you here have not yet made your mind up about Jesus. I want to ask you to consider those three things - guilt, shame and fear. Do you recognise yourself in any of that. Do you recognise a need for a saviour? The invitation is for everyone. It’s for you, today. And if you want to respond to Jesus, we will have a time of prayer immediately after this message, and then I want to invite you to let one of us know, to join in the family that Jesus makes us part of. We are not saved to be alone.

If you know him, if you already call Jesus your Saviour, prepare for the therefore.

The next passage begins:

Hebrews 3:1 NIV

1 Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest.

Prepare to fix your mind and fill your mind with Him and what He has done. Both through our study of this great book of Hebrews, but also through advent and then into Christmas as we celebrate the incarnation. Remember that He took on flesh, a lowly status, to be able to win glory and honour for us who didn’t deserve it. He tasted death to defeat it, and the power behind it.