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Author's Intention:
Having presented the reader with such a strong argument in favor of the deity
and majesty of Jesus, the author now urges the reader to hear God speaking in the person
of Jesus, and to see God in the person of Jesus.
Let us hear God speaking to
us
in the person
of His Son:
2:1 Therefore
we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we
drift away.
Therefore, in view of the fact that Jesus is Sovereign Lord, and considering His
obvious superiority to angels, let us pay far more diligent attention to the
message that God has written with the shed blood of His Son - lest we become
indifferent to life-giving truth.
2:2-4 For
if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every
transgression and disobedience received a just reward, God
also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles,
and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will?
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`My son, give
attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them
depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart; For they are
life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh.' (Proverbs
4:20-22) |
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For if we are obligated to heed the words that God has spoken to us through the
messengers that He has used throughout the ages, and if there are sure
consequences that result when we disregard those words, then we surely have no
hope of escaping the inevitable repercussions should we take for granted the
ennobling, life-giving truths that speak to us of our eternal salvation, . . .
¤ that salvation which has
been secured at infinite cost by Jesus, and that has been introduced to us by
Him,
¤ that salvation which has
been substantiated with such convicting power by `those who were eyewitnesses
and servants of the Word,' (Luke 1:2)
¤ that salvation which has
been repeatedly verified through God-given signs, wonders, diverse miracles, and
the various endowments of the Holy Spirit that the Lord has seen fit to bestow
upon His servants.
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`For God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish
but have everlasting
life.' (John 3:16) |
Let Us See God
In The Person Of His Son
2:5-8 For
He has not put the world to come, of which we speak, in subjection to angels.
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? You
made him a little lower than the angels; You crowned him with glory and
honor, and set him over the works of Your hands. 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.
Please understand, therefore, that the future world that we have been telling
you about will not be governed by angels, but by
Jesus, . . .
¤ for even though Jesus
became a man,
¤ and even though the
Psalmist has alluded to the lowly state of man by inquiring of God why He should
have concerns about man, and why He even bothers to remember man, (See Psalm
8:4; 144:3)
¤ and even if, for a little
while, Jesus was subordinated to angels whilst He was in the body of a man,
¤ and even if, right now,
we do not yet see all things in subjection to Jesus, . . .
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"We are looking
forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness." (2
Peter 3:13 NIV) |
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. . . the fact is that the Father has
nevertheless raised Him to the place of highest distinction and has confirmed
His eternal preeminence. In that future world, the kingdom of glory, He who
traded His royal throne for a crown of thorns will have unlimited dominion over
the entire universe, and all things everywhere will move with a harmony
heretofore unknown.
2:9 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.
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"And without controversy
great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh,
justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the Gentiles,
believed on in the world, received up in glory." (1 Tim 3:16) |
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Having considered these facts, therefore, let us not see Jesus as a man, but as
a gracious God who elected to become a man; let us see Him as a God who was
compelled by His infinite and perfect love for His fallen children to stoop to
take on the flesh of man, . . .
¤ so that He could stand as
the representative of mankind,
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"God sent forth His Son,
born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the
[condemnation of the] law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus." (Galatians
4:4-5; 3:26) |
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¤ so that, as our
representative, He could perfectly obey God's law on our behalf, and prove to
the universe that when man submits his life to the indwelling of the Spirit, it
is possible for man to obey God's law,
¤ so that, as our
substitute, He could take the penalty of our sinfulness upon Himself, submit to
the most cruel torture, and die in our place,
¤ so that, ultimately, He
could have the joy of offering to a world of undeserving people the hope of
salvation, the gift of eternal life, and adoption into the heavenly family.
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"I will divide Him
a portion with the great, . . . because He poured out His soul unto death,
and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors." (Isaiah 53:12) |
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And so, dear friends, as we
consider some of the more significant reasons why Jesus forsook the glories of
heaven, and why He willingly subjected Himself to the limitations of humanity,
let us not imagine for one moment that He is now inferior to angels or on a
level with man. Though we valued Him at no more than a few silver coins, and
though we crowned Him with a crown of thorns, God has exalted Him to the highest
place and crowned Him with the eternal glory and honor that His spotless
character and His loving self-sacrifice so richly deserve.
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"And being found in
appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even
death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave
him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
(Philippians 2:8-11) |
2:10 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 author of their
salvation perfect through sufferings.
We do need to realize, however, that by crowning the Crucified One, God has
taught us an all-important lesson, and that is that the cross is the only way to
the crown. In other words, that the pathway of suffering and self-sacrifice for
others is the pathway that leads to victory in the Christian life - for it is in
suffering that self dies and our characters are molded, and it is in suffering
that we are equipped to minister to those who are suffering - and, after all,
character and ministry are the legs upon which the victorious Christian life
stands.
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"It pleased the LORD to
bruise Him; He has put Him to grief." (Isaiah 53:10) |
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This is why God, the One
who made us and who gives purpose to our lives, saw fit to lead Jesus along the
pathway of suffering. As our Representative and Substitute, Jesus had to gain
the victory on our behalf, and that victory could only be secured through
suffering - a level of suffering that would find its highest expression on the
cross of Calvary.
2:11-13 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, saying:
"I will declare Your name to My brethren; in the midst of the congregation
I will sing praise to You." And
again: "I will put My trust in Him." And again: "Here am I and the
children whom God has given Me."
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"But now the
righteousness of God apart from [our keeping of the] the law is revealed,
. . . even the righteousness of God which is through faith in Jesus Christ
to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by
His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." (Romans
3:21-23) |
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And so it was that our Most Holy Jesus became a man, not in order to lower
himself, but in order to lift us up, to save us from impending doom, and to make
us holy. He saw that we were lost, and that our own righteousness had no more
value than filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6), and so He came to give us the gift of His
righteousness, a gift that comes packaged in two distinct wrappings . . .
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"God imputes [puts to our
account] right-eousness apart from works." (Romans 4:6) |
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Gift 1:
His imputed righteousness: From the very moment that we accept
Jesus as our Substitute and Saviour - as the One who lived and died as our
representative, and who paid the full price for our sins - and we invite Him to
take control of our lives, in that very moment God accepts Jesus' life and death
as though it were our life and death - His righteous character is considered by
God to be our righteous character, we are treated by God as though we had never
sinned, and we are considered to be members of the heavenly family.
In this way we are made holy by
His righteousness that is put to our account. This righteousness is all His and
none of ours, yet God considers it to be ours, not because of anything we might
have done, but as a free gift that we receive in exchange for simple faith.
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"As through one man's offense
judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one
Man's righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in
justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made
sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous."
(Romans 5:18) |
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"But we all, with
unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory [character] of the
Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory.
[character to character], just as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2
Corinthians 3:18) |
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Gift 2:
His imparted righteousness: With a God who is so incredibly gracious, with a
Saviour who is much more than wonderful, with a verdict of eternal innocence
written alongside our names, and with a perfect righteousness credited
unworthily to our
account, we can only be inspired by God's unfathomable love and His unmerited
kindness. And it is with this backdrop that Jesus invites us to come and to
learn of Him (Matthew 11:29) - to learn of Him who is the very embodiment of
love, so that His love may be implanted in our hearts. In practical terms, the
more we spend time with Him in Bible study, prayer, and meditation, and the more
we fellowship with Him in seeing to the needs of the less-fortunate, the more
our characters will be changed into the likeness of His divine character.
In this way we are made holy by
His righteousness that is put into our hearts. This righteousness is also all
His and none of ours, for it is always and only the result of Jesus living out
His life in us. As such, we cannot claim any merit or feel any pride should we
possess some degree of this imparted righteousness. We can only gratefully
acknowledge that our own filthy-rag righteousness has no eternal merit
whatsoever, and that His righteousness, received by faith, is the only
righteousness that is acceptable to God.
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"God . . . [1] has saved us and
[2] called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time
began." (2 Timothy 1:9)
`He
is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of
the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the
dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was
pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to
reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in
heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Once you were
alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your
evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body
through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and
free from accusation - if you continue in your faith, established and
firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.' (Colossians
1:17-23)
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"He has made us
accepted in the Beloved." (Ephesians 1:6) |
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Thus it was that Jesus made
Himself one with mankind - to be rejected in the person of us so that we could
be accepted in the person of Him. And now, having clothed Himself in human
flesh, He is not ashamed or embarrassed about calling us His brothers and
sisters - for we are His family twice over, . . .
¤ firstly, because He became a
member of the human family through His incarnation,
¤ and secondly because of
His victory as the representative of the human family. Thus, on the basis of His
victory on our behalf, we are adopted into the
heavenly family from the moment that we exercise faith in Him - and this not because of
any merit on our part, but only because He loves us with a love that is far
stronger than the fear of torture or death.
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`Now if we are
children, then we are heirs - heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if
indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his
glory.' (Romans 8;17) |
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The evidence that we are members
of His family is overwhelming for, after all, . . .
¤ why would Jesus refer to us as
His brothers if He did not consider us to be members of His very own family?
(See Psalm 22:22)
¤ And why would He refer to
us as God's children if He did not consider us to be His very own brothers and
sisters? (See Isaiah 8:18)
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"Behold what manner of love the
Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Praise the
LORD! Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For His mercy endures
forever." (1 John 3:1; Psalm 106:1)
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2:14-15 Inasmuch
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, and release those who through fear of
death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
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"Christ has redeemed us
from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. He [the Father]
made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the
righteousness of God in Him." (Galatians 3:13; 2 Corinthians 5:21) |
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We can appreciate, therefore, that just as we, His children, are flesh and
blood, so it was that Jesus, our representative, took on humanity - body, soul
and nature - and He thus entered into all of the experiences of mankind. But He not only
took our nature upon Himself, He also took our condemnation upon Himself, and by
so doing He disarmed the devil - the evil one who had so long delighted in the
fact that God's very own Law of Love pronounced the sentence of death upon us.
And just how did Jesus
disarm the devil? By taking our condemnation upon Himself. By being executed
in our place, He satisfied the demands of the law that held us in condemnation
and, as a result, the devil no longer has any claim over us. Jesus, the
Innocent, was incarcerated and put to death in the person of us, so that we, the
guilty, might be set free and granted eternal life in the person of Him. He
lowered Himself to the very depths of humiliation and human wretchedness so that
we might be lifted up to glory and eternal companionship with Him.
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"He will swallow up death
forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces. The
creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought
into the glorious freedom of the children of God." (Isaiah 25:8; Romans
8:21; See 1 Corinthians 15:50-58) |
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More than this, by dying our death in the flesh, our eternal death that is,
Jesus has triumphed over death and liberated us from the nagging fear of death
that plagues the lives of unbelievers. For, even though we are still subject to
death, we know that through faith we can partake of Jesus' victory over death -
for where there is no faith, death is a testimony to the power of the devil, but
to us who believe, death is but a quiet "womb" in which we rest for a while, a
"womb" from which we will be delivered into life eternal.
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"There is no fear in love. But
perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one
who fears is not made perfect in love." (1 John 4:18)
"For if we live, we live to the
Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we
are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He
might be Lord of both the dead and the living." He "has abolished death and
brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. - `O Death, where is
your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?' " (Romans 14:8; 2 Timothy 1:10; 1
Corinthians 15:55.)
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2:16-17 For
indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of
Abraham. 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.
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"The Word became flesh
and dwelt among us." (John 1:14) |
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We can appreciate, therefore, that it was not Jesus' design to be the Saviour of
fallen angels, but to be the Saviour of mankind. And in order for Him to be a
merciful and faithful High Priest, He was obliged to take on the nature of man,
and to experience humanity in every respect, . . .
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"He made Him who
knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of
God in Him. He is the propitiation [peace offering] for our sins: and not
for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." (2
Corinthians 5:21; 1 John 2:2) |
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¤ firstly because, as the
sacrificial Lamb of God, as the One who was to stand as our substitute and
surety, He had to suffer as a man, to bear our shame as a man, and to die as a
man,
¤ secondly because, as our
perfect Pattern in all things, He had to live as a man, to be tempted as a man,
to give us an example of obedience as a man, and to gain the victory as a man,
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"No one has ever
seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made
him known." (John 1:18 NIV) |
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¤ thirdly because, as the
ambassador of God, it was necessary for Him to represent the character of God in
a form that we could relate to, that we could comprehend, and that we could emulate,
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"God was in Christ
reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to
them." (2 Corinthians 5:19) |
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¤ and, fourthly because, as
God's trustworthy Servant, as the One appointed to be our Advocate and
Intermediary, He was to stand at the head of humanity, as a man, reaching up to
the Father on our behalf, and reaching out to us on behalf of the Father . . .
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"So now, since we
have been made right in God's sight by faith in his promises, we can have
real peace with him because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us.
For because of our faith, he has brought us into this place of highest
privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward
to actually becoming all that God has had in mind for us to be." (Romans
5:1 TLB) |
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"Come to Me, all you who
labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon
you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will
find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."
(Matthew 11:28-30) |
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- He reaches up to the
Father with both hands. With the one hand He presents His shed blood as being
sufficient to purchase our pardon. With the other hand He presents His victory
as a man as though it were the victory of mankind.
- Then He reaches out to us
with both hands. With the one hand He presents to us the grace, the mercy, the
love and the righteousness of God. With the other hand He motions for us to come
to Him, just as we are, and He thus invites us to enter into a meaningful, daily, love relationship
with Him - that he might live out His life in us and bring us to victory.
2:18 For
in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those
who are tempted.
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"For we do not
have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we
have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are - yet was
without sin. He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are
going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness." (Hebrews 4:15; 5:2 NIV) |
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"He was despised
and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering."
(Isaiah 53:3 NIV) |
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Therefore, considering what Jesus endured as a man, let us be encouraged by the
fact that He can relate fully to the challenges that face us, for He is no
stranger to human sorrow, hardship, trial, temptation and suffering. Thanks to
His personal experience as a man, He understands our weaknesses and our needs
and, as such, He is well qualified to comfort, to sympathize, and to support us
through our times of difficulty and anguish.
With a Friend like Jesus,
and knowing the extent of the undeserved kindness that He has poured out upon
us, we cannot help but to feel confident about the future - and we surely do
have every reason to entertain a hope for eternity that is absolute.
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"Let us then approach the throne
of grace [the throne of unmerited kindness] with confidence, so that we may
receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. For if when we
were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more,
having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." (Hebrews 4:16;
Romans 5:10)
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"Now to Him who is able
to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of
His glory with exceeding joy, to God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and
majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen." (Jude 1:24)
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