The Humanity of Jesus

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

Engagement

When a loved one dies, we naturally want to think that they are in a better place - a place free from sickness and pain and sorrow. And I think it is that desire that has driven many in our world to develop some very unbiblical ideas about what happens to our loved ones after they die. Probably the most common of those ideas is that when someone dies, heaven gets another angel.

I’m not really sure where that idea originated, but as I’ve said before, it certainly is perpetuated by the way angels are portrayed on TV and in movies. But I’m pretty sure the idea was around long before Clarence got his wings in “It’s a Wonderful Life”.

Tension

But what if I were to tell you that, according to the Bible, that if our loved ones became angels after they died, that ought to be a huge disappointment? What if becoming an angel is actually not a promotion, but rather a huge downgrade?

Truth

That is one of the main ideas that we’ll be discussing this morning as we continue our study of the book of Hebrews. So go ahead and open your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 2 and in just a moment you can follow along as I read beginning in verse 5. But before I do that I do want to point out that one of the difficulties we are going to encounter in this passage is identifying who all the pronouns are referring to, especially all the “he’s” and “him’s”. So I’m going to pause at several points and help us identify who the author is referring to.

Hebrews 2:5–8 ESV

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.

With one exception that I’ll cover in a moment, the pronouns “him” and “his” in this section refers to man, as we see clearly in verse 6, where the author is quoting from Psalm 8. The point that both David and the author of Hebrews are making is that while man is temporarily “a little lower than the angels”, that is not going to be the case in the long run.

In order to see why that is the case we need to go back to Genesis where we read that God made man in His own image and then gave him complete dominion over the rest of creation:

Genesis 1:28 ESV

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.”

I mentioned there is one place where the pronoun “he” does not refer to man. It is in verse 8, where it refers to God:

…he {God] left nothing outside his [man’s] control...

This is merely reiterating the idea that at the creation, God left nothing out from under man’s dominion.

But when man sinned, one of the consequences was that man’s dominion was taken away, and right now man clearly doesn’t have dominion over anything, including himself. We’re subject to the destructive forces of natural disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes and floods. We’re ravaged by disease and we grow old and are eventually conquered by death. And those very same animals who were originally under Adam’s dominion to the point he could call them to himself in order to name them, now often have dominion over man.

This is why, right now, for a little while, clearly angels have some advantages over humans. They don’t get sick. They don’t die. They don’t get impacted by natural disasters or have to flee from predators. But there is going to be time when man is restored to God’s original design and be restored to their dominion over all creation, and that includes the angels:

1 Corinthians 6:3 ESV

3 Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life!

In verse 9, we see that the author begins to use those same pronouns - “he”, “his” and “him” - to refer almost exclusively to Jesus. We know this because Jesus is identified by name in verse 9. With that in mind, let’s read the rest of the chapter:

Hebrews 2:9–18 ESV

9 But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. 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. 11 For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, 12 saying, “I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.” 13 And again, “I will put my trust in him.” And again, “Behold, I and the children God has given me.” 14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. 16 For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. 17 Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18 For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

We are now ready to identify the main idea we’ll be developing today:

Jesus became a man so that I can become who God designed me to be

In chapter 1, the author of Hebrews used the Old Testament Scriptures to prove that Jesus is 100% God. In this chapter, he uses the Scriptures to prove that Jesus is 100% man. That does not mean in any way that Jesus ceased to be God or that His deity decreased in any way. He was and is 100% God and 100% man at the same time.

Sometimes it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the doctrines of Jesus’ deity and humanity are merely theological ideas for us to debate intellectually. But as we’re going to see this morning, these are essential truths that will sustain us when we are in the midst of trials and temptations.

The author is addressing a heresy called Docetism that had arisen shortly after the resurrection of Jesus. The Docetists taught that Jesus’ body only appeared to be real and believed that he could not feel pain. They believed his body was only “spiritual” and therefore, when Jesus walked on the beach, He did not leave footprints in the sand. So much for all those “Footprints” poems that are quite popular today.

The author is arguing here that not only is Jesus fully human, but it is his humanity that makes it possible for us to be restored to God’s original plan for us in the future and which sustains us in the midst of trials and temptations in the present.

Application

By now, I hope all of you know that I try to make my messages really practical and suggest some ways that you can apply what we’re learning each week. But this week’s message is going to be a bit different. I’m not going to suggest anything for you to do, per se.

Instead, my prayer is that you would have the same experience I had this week as I kept reading this passage over and over. I was just completely overwhelmed by how much Jesus must love me to have humbled Himself and become a man in order to make it possible for me to become who God designed me to be and to make it possible for a wretched sinner like me to be able to have a personal relationship with a holy God. I pray that your sense of awe and wonder for a God who loves you like that would be rekindled in a powerful way today.

Truth

In 1 Corinthians 1, Paul wrote that the crucifixion was a “stumbling block” for the Jews:

1 Corinthians 1:23 ESV

23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,

So in this section of Hebrews the author answers two questions that some of the Jewish Christians were struggling with:

How could Jesus be greater than the angels if He died and angels never die?

If Jesus died, how could He possibly be the Messiah?

I have to agree that those are very good questions that need to be answered. It really doesn’t make sense to our human minds that God send a Messiah who would die on a cross rather than be a victorious conqueror. And it certainly doesn’t make sense God would rescue us through the death and resurrection of His Son. But in verse 10 the author of Hebrews argues that “it was fitting” for Jesus to become a man and die on a cross. And in the verses that follow, he explains why the only way Jesus could restore us to the dominion of God’s original creation was for Jesus to become fully human and why it wasn’t possible for angels, or for anyone else, to accomplish that.

By nature, Jesus is obviously greater than the angels, as we saw in chapter 1. But for a little while He willingly let Himself be made lower than those angels He had created in order to restore me to the place of dominion that God originally created me for.

The writer of Hebrews doesn’t in any way discount the difficulties that his audience are facing. The persecution they are undergoing is real. But he also makes it clear that Jesus not only understands their suffering, He went through far greater suffering Himself in order to make it possible for them to one day be able to be restored to the life that God had designed them for.

So why in the world would they ever want to return to their old Jewish religion that offered no such hope?

That is the same question we need to answer today. Knowing that Jesus became a man to make it possible for us to one day become the people who God designed us to be, why would we ever settle for anything that this world offers us that is far inferior?

Let’s use our remaining time to consider why it was necessary for Jesus to become a man in order to restore us.

HOW JESUS’ HUMANITY MAKES IT POSSIBLE FOR ME TO BECOME WHO GOD DESIGNED ME TO BE

He overcame death

Not just death itself, but also the fear of death, which is a tool that Satan uses to put us into slavery.

The only way for Jesus to overcome death was to be completely human and to actually die a physical death on the cross. That is why He had to be made lower than the angels for a time, because angels don’t die. As it says in verse 17, “he had to be made like his brothers in every respect”. And that means He had a physical body that was subject to pain and suffering and death, just like ours.

If Jesus didn’t physically die on the cross, then His resurrection is a fraud and we have no hope of a future resurrection either. But as a man, he did indeed die and was raised back to life to prove His power over death - both spiritual and physical death.

He reconciled me to God

The writer of Hebrews is going to go into much more detail about the idea of Jesus being our high priest. But for now, it is sufficient to understand that the role of the high priest in the Old Testament was to act as an intermediary who brought man to God through the carrying out of sacrifices.

But all the high priest could do was to show the way to God and temporarily atone for the sins of the people by sacrificing animals on their behalf.

Jesus didn’t just come to show us the way to God, He became the way to God. In verse 10, He is called the “founder” of our salvation. That word literally means a “trailblazer”. Jesus didn’t just tell us how to be made right with God, He led the way by dying on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins and reconcile us to God. And again, He had to be 100% human to do that.

We’re also told in verse 17 that Jesus is the “propitiation” for our sins. That’s a fancy word that means that Jesus appeased God’s wrath on our behalf. Every single one of us is a sinner who deserves to face God’s wrath. But on the cross, Jesus satisfied that wrath by taking it upon Himself.

He makes me part of His family

In verse 11, we learn that our righteousness and the righteousness of Jesus have the same source. That is because the only righteousness we can possibly have is that which is imputed to us through faith in Jesus.

2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV

21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

As a result of having the righteousness of Jesus imputed to us like that, we are also told that Jesus is not ashamed to call us His brothers. And then the author goes on to quote from Psalm 22, which is a Messianic Psalm, and two other Old Testament passages to confirm that idea.

I want you to think about this for a moment. If Jesus was only God, but not a man, He could call us a lot of things, including some of the things He called His followers during His earthy ministry. He could call us His subjects, His servants, His disciples, His sheep and even His friends. But He couldn’t really call us His brothers, because we would have a nature that is completely different from His. But because He chose to take on flesh and blood and become like us, He can also call us brothers.

This is one of those ideas that I can’t fully wrap my mind around - the fact that the God of the universe would not be ashamed to call me His brother. But I sure do rejoice in that!

He helps me when I suffer

After my knee replacement surgery, I went to physical therapy a couple days a week for a while. While it was difficult, I actually enjoyed my sessions with one exception. At the end of each session Branden would have me get up on the table and he would take and bend my knee as far as he could get it to bend. And then after I quit screaming, he would give me a minute or two to rest and then he’d do the same thing again. And then after one more rest, he’d do it a third time. I have a high pain tolerance, but, even with my pain medication, that was the most excruciating pain I’ve ever gone through.

But that pain paled in comparison to what Jesus suffered on the cross. So whenever I’m tempted to complain about whatever trial I’m going through or to think that God can’t possibly understand my pain, whether that be physical, emotional or spiritual, I just need to remember that one of the reasons Jesus took on a human body was to show me He knows what I’m going through. When I am facing some temptation that is about to overwhelm me, I need to remember that Jesus was tempted, too, but that even in his humanity, He was able to stand firm and not sin. We’ll talk about that some more in a few weeks when we get to this verse:

Hebrews 4:15 ESV

15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

As we’ve seen this morning...

Jesus became a man so that I can become who God designed me to be

Inspiration

Hopefully you can see now why I said that becoming an angel after I die would be such a downgrade. No angel can ever be the recipient of the salvation that Jesus provided for me. The angels that rebelled against Jesus have no hope of redemption and are already sentenced to facing God’s wrath for eternity. No angel ever has the possibility of being called Jesus’ brother. And no angel will ever have dominion over God’s creation. Like the rest of that creation, they will actually be ruled over by those whom Jesus has saved.

I am grateful that Jesus has saved me and made it possible for my sins to be forgiven so that I can have a relationship with God. If that was the extent of what Jesus did for me by taking on a body of flesh and blood that would be more than enough. But as we’ve seen this morning, in His humanity, He has done far more.

Because the God who created this entire universe was willing to humble Himself and put on a body and experience suffering and pain and temptation, one day I will also be restored to the person that God created me to be. I will have the privilege of becoming far superior to the angels. In fact, I will have dominion over them, as well as the rest of God’s creation. Knowing that makes it possible for me to endure anything that I might face in this world.

Action

We’re going to close our time this morning by meditating on the awesome privileges we have been given through Jesus. I’m going to give all of us a few minutes to do that personally and quietly right where you sit. And then we’ll do that together as we sing some songs that focus on the death and resurrection of Jesus.

[Prayer time]