Hebrews 2:8-11

Interpreting Psalm 8 in Light of Hebrews 2

Welcome to the Truth in Love Podcast. Thank you for watching. We appreciate it. Thank you for your support. Would you give us a like, follow, share, subscribe? We appreciate when you do that. Let us know that you're watching.

Let us know that you're praying for us. We want to support each other. We don't need to grow our ministry. We don't need a big ministry. We just love partnering with each other to get the gospel out and share the word of God.

So that's, that's what we're here for. To share his truth and share it with others and do it with you. And that's why we appreciate you so much. I'm back with Dan and we are back in Hebrews. Dan of the Presbyterian, Rob the Baptist.

We are working together to, to swim through these waters and we're, we're getting into some interesting territory. And we're, we're learning about interpretation of God's word. How to do it, how to do it correctly so that we don't miss anything.

In our, in our last podcast, we were reminded of how some folks miss stuff. And I think it happens today as well. And it happens to me that we miss stuff. We talked about how Jesus didn't encounter with the leaders of Israel.

And he told them, how, how are you leaders of Israel? And, and not know this, that you shouldn't know this. You know, he, he traveled with the guys on the road to Emmaus and he had to explain of himself in all the Old Testament, which is what they of course should, should have been seeing, should have been seeing that whole time.

But we need to, we need to seek God about how he would have us to interpret his word so we can understand it accurately and understand our God more accurately. Because we don't, we don't want to, we don't want to misrepresent him.

I mean, that, that's another thing that we touched on last time. He, he created us to image him. So we want to understand him and that imaging, we want to do that correctly because he, he deserves it.

He deserves that glory to be imaged in the right way, imaged correctly. And so, and I appreciate Dan as he shares with us not only what, what he believes is the correct interpretation, but, but how he arrives there and how we should look at it.

What are your thoughts, Dan?

I don't know. No, I was, we're, we're, we're going to be looking at another quotation maybe towards the end of this, towards the end of this, this podcast. And this quotation comes from Psalm 22. And, I was just reading through that Psalm real quick and it kind of blew my mind.

So let's, let's hurry up and get there. It's pretty cool.

Christ, the Son of Man, and the Holy Spirit in Scripture

Nice. Okay. Well, we, we worked, seen fairly quickly through verses five through eight. And of course, crammed in there like a sandwich was Psalm chapter eight. And we, we read through Psalm chapter eight last time in the last podcast.

And you were talking about the different, different layers because we can see where we can see where that Psalm, we can see where here, the author of Hebrews is talking about man. I mean, what is man, mankind, men and women, human beings?

What is, what is man that he would remember us or be thoughtful of us? Right. He would say that's all we've done after, after all we've done, all we deserve. We deserve his, his wrath. However, he would deem that necessary, whatever it is, whatever it would be that, you know, we deserve it.

So what is man that he is mindful of us? And then in Psalm eight, and then here in this quotation, you talked about how it refers to the son of man. And we know that, that Christ refers to himself a lot as the son of man.

Old Testament, he gets that from the Old Testament, Daniel chapter seven, Psalm eight, where we're not sure if the author there is specifically speaking of Christ, but we do find out looking at a biblical theology, theology, um, and, and looking at the Bible as a whole, we know and learned that Jesus is referred to in Jesus' verse himself as the son of man.

Yep. So that's,.

That's how we're pulling that out of there. Yeah. And Jesus is all over this new Testament interpretation in Hebrews. So if Hebrews has it there, if our interpretation leaves it out of our interpretation of Psalm eight, uh, we've gone off track.

Right. Because, because it wasn't just the author of the Hebrews that thought that that was a connection. All scripture is inspired by God. Yeah. Therefore, um, this, that was written down through the author of the Hebrews, excuse me.

Oh goodness. I was coughing last time burping this time. It was, it was, it was a given ultimately the ultimate author of both passages was the Holy Spirit. One through David, one through Paul, the author to the Hebrews, Matthew, maybe, I don't know.

You made a good, good case unknowingly for Matthew just a little bit ago. Yeah. Um, or a case almost as good. Um, yeah. So if, if we don't include in our interpretation, what is included for us in scripture, we're wrong.

So Christ is clearly in Psalm eight as understood in Hebrews two. So we read Psalm eight, Christ is there and we should find him there. Yeah. And, and the new Testament of course.

Is our safety net. If we just have the old Testament, which I don't know, this is going to be difficult because we're, we're saying that they should have seen this, but the new Testament and Christ himself speaking to us in these last days is making it clear, clearer, clearer.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's making it clearer. Yeah. Um, you, would you also have to remember that, uh, one thing that Christ said that he, when he was, he was going to send us the Holy spirit, that the Holy spirit would guide us into all truth.

So while it was there, uh, while some of the things should have been plain enough to see, um, at least in symbolic form and types of shadows, they may not have known names or places or exactly how it was going to go down, but they should, they should have, a lot of them did know that there was a savior coming and who was going to save them from their sins.

It was pointed to in the, uh, the sacrifices and the story of Abraham, um, back in Adam, you know, all of those.

And that kind of helps answer, uh, sorry to take a rabbit trail here, but it, it made me think about, uh, one of our fellow laborers, uh, contributors to the podcast, Matt breeding. He wanted us to talk about why, why Jesus had to ascend so that the Holy spirit could, could come down and descend upon us.

And that's one of the reasons that God's plan was so that we could carry out this, the spiritual work that we, he created us to do that he intended for us to do. We need the Holy spirit to guide us in all truth and to apply all those things without the Holy spirit and him working in all of us, we can't accomplish.

We saw that throughout the whole old.

Testament. We can't accomplish the Genesis. Yeah. Can't accomplish the thing of the creation account. You have the, the father who, um, decided to create, we know from Hebrews that, um, Christ was the one who spoke the world into existence and the Holy spirit was one who was hovering over the face of the waters.

So if there was a, if there was someone to be on the earth, one of the members of the Trinity on the earth, while the spoken word was being made manifest upon the earth, it was the Holy spirit. So it's the same way in the new creation.

Um, when the word of God is speaking, the, the thing that is being recreated or created a new in the new heavens and new earth is going to be done by, by the power of the Holy spirit. I'm going to.

Cough again. I wasn't quick enough last time to kiss to me, but. Oh, good stuff. So we are, um, we're at the end of verse eight. Um, right. In the end of that quotation, you have put all things in subjection under his feet for in subjecting all things to him.

He left nothing that is not subject to him, but now we do not see yet all things subjected.

To him. Right. Uh, you can look at this one of two ways. Uh, you can look at this, uh, in the creation aspect, uh, especially with what we saw out of some eight, um, creation dominion mandate from, uh, Psalm eight was all over the place.

And that was used, um, to talk about the world to mankind being over the angels. But how that, that doesn't, that's weird to us right now. And even brings that up. Uh, now in putting everything under subjection, he left nothing outside of control.

And at that point, everybody's like, Whoa, hold on a second. There's a lot of stuff that is outside of our control right now. Things are not going well. Um, and it says at present, we do not see everything in subjection to him.

So the whole Genesis thing where we're supposed to have dominion over the creatures, where we're supposed to be in control of, of what's going on, um, at least in a representative way with Christ still being our head from ruling from heaven.

Um, but as we see over here in verse, uh, let's see verse 15, it and, uh, and deliver those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. That was us still, still isn't a lot of cases of subject to lifelong slavery.

Um, slaves of death, subject to death. Um, there are things that rule over mankind. So when we see dominion, we don't see mankind as having that dominion. Now, some people will say, but this isn't talking about mankind.

And I'll tell you what, I'll grant you that, but let's do the, the two lenses thing that we were talking about last time. Imagine what the blue lens, you know, 3d glasses, one red, one blue, put them together, seeing 3d.

Imagine what the blue lens, you understand that there are real actual promises of man having dominion over the world. We will, um, judge angels. Um, and we will have dominion over the creatures. Um, just like it was in the garden only.

It'll be a little bit better because we will not have the ability to fall into sin. I think that's being shown here now. Like I said, about Psalm eight, um, if we don't see Christ then we are missing the point.

Some people may say, Hey, whoa, up a second. I don't think this is about Christ. Granted let's put on our red red was right on this side, red spectacle, a red lens.

And look at this very same passage. Now you have a blue and red monocle. Yes. Two monocles.

So if you put on your red one and you look at it now and putting everything in subjection to him, read Christ, he left nothing outside of his control. Great. Um, at present we did not see everything in subjection to him.

Well, Christ must sit at the right hand of the father until all his enemies are made a footstool for his feet and then comes in. So, okay. But what do we see? And here's the point. Here's the point I think is important.

No matter which way you come at the first, the part of verse eight right there. In fact, you should probably think of it a little bit of both. When you get to verse nine, you're going to start to put your glasses on at the same time.

You're not going to be looking at it through red and blue. You're going to start to see it in 3d. And this is where it starts to pop out at us, but we see him. So we do. We, we know the subjection of the earth is coming.

We know full well that not everything is in subjection yet. But what do we see? We see him who for a little while was mid lower than the angels, namely Jesus. Yeah. So we don't see everything the way that it should be.

We don't see man ready. I'm not ready to judge angels. These guys are scary looking. Yeah. When we see angels, now we fall down and that's to say, don't be afraid. Stand up. Don't worship me. Stop that.

We screw that up every time we come across it. But what do we see? Christ Jesus is seated upon his throne. He's crowned already. Do we have everything in subjection to us? No. But does Christ have a crown of glory upon his head?

Absolutely. Yeah. He, because of the suffering of death, death is not something that God does, but it is something that men do since we've fallen. And it's also something that Christ did in his union with God, between God and man.

When he came to the earth and he became a babe, he took on flesh, took to himself, like, like the, the catechism says a, a reasonable, a, oh man, I should know this one, took himself a true body and a reasonable soul.

Oh, he truly God and truly man. Yeah. Yeah. So that he, so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone.

Christ's Death, Glory, and the Conference Announcement

Let me interject something real quick here. You reminded me of something that I was quoting. I was quoting myself from last night's late or depends on this recording is going to air later. So my reference is all for you who are listening or watching.

Time doesn't matter. Points are made up. That's right. So the labors podcast that I was quoting from in our last truth and love podcast, I was quoting myself. But this one, the podcast before that in the labors podcast, big John was talking about the, we often think about the miracle that God came down, made himself lower than the angels.

But when you talk about God dying and God doesn't die, that was a point that big John was bringing up. Oh, what a miracle that I've, I don't know that I've really contemplated that God died. And that's something that God doesn't do, cannot do in, you know, in the form that he is in and of himself, he had to come and be lower than the angels, but, but God died.

Right. It's, it's, it's tough to think about because because of a lot of things, but he really truly went and paid for our sin. So the deity wasn't destroyed. There was no time where the second person of the Trinity was not, there was no time where he, where, where Christ son of God from heaven was ever truly dead, but Christ as man, his body stopped, his heart stopped beating his lungs, lungs stopped breathing, died.

Yeah. So that he, he, he entered into mankind for the purpose, well, several purposes of one of which was to, was we see here to become King through death because he conquered death. Yeah. No crisis, prophet, priest, and King.

One of the ways that he shows himself as King is by defeating his enemies. One of the ways he defeats his enemies is by defeating sin, death, and the devil and causing sinners to repent. Yeah. And that comes from his death upon the cross.

Now the payment was made to the fathers, his role as a priest, he foretold it all as a prophet, but as a King, he took the, the life that he could give and defeated death with it. And that's just beautiful.

It's also why our government should submit to Christ, but we'll get to that on the 30th.

Hey, that's a good plug. 2023 labor's conference, April 27th through the 30th. And let me say this. We do want to hear, we definitely want to be present and listen to dance because Dan's been plugging my ear full of what he's going to be presenting.

I mean, just, just small snippets. And I'm, I'm anxious to hear what he has to say, but let me also say this. If you look at the program, it says April 27th through 30th and it's labeled April 27th is the Thursday night.

It's labeled the pre-conference. Don't let that throw you off. That's going to be my night to give a presentation. Don't let that throw you off either. It's, it's part of the conference. Come Thursday night if you can.

I would enjoy having somebody to present to you. That will be a good thing. But we do invite you to come. VerticalLifeNC .Church .Conference. You can see all there is to see about the conference, the sermons, the sermon topics, the breakout sessions.

And if you're going to come, especially on Saturday, we would love for you to register and there's a button, a place for you to register on that website. Do what? Free registration. Free registration.

The conference is free. We want to make this, this conference, I hope will be different than the other ones. In one aspect, we're not getting any big names to come speak at the conference and that's probably one reason why we can keep it free.

But it's not, it's not about the speakers. It's about God's word. It's about God's glory. It's about his son. And I've experienced this. I'm sure you've experienced this. There's so many conferences with great speakers and great topics and you know that you will be edified.

You know you would learn so much but it costs so much money. The tickets are outrageous. If you have a ministry that you like to, you know, set up a booth to share with other people, it costs so much money to have a booth.

But I know that there's costs involved. You have to pay for the conference center. You have to pay for the power. You have to pay for the travel expenses, the fees for the speakers to come. You know, all those things cost money and that's understandable.

I know that and I'm not trying to put anybody down. That's one of the things that we want to try to keep unique about this conference. We're going to exalt Christ. We're going to preach the word and we're going to do it in love, share the truth in love.

But we want to keep it free and also something else unique about this conference is going to be the broadcasting setup to where we are going to be broadcasting prior to and during and after the main sessions.

You're going to have some laborers talking with you, interacting with you, answering your questions. And then after the session, you'll have those same laborers talking about what we just heard. I'm not seeing that anywhere and I think that's going to be unique for this conference.

So God is doing good things and he's been gracious to us to do them through us. I'm sorry for the long plug, but you... Nameless plug. It was good to bring it up because we need to share. And then again, I haven't looked at my calendar, but I hope this episode airs prior to the conference.

Or that would have been irrelevant. If not, we're going to make it air before the conference.

Okay, that'll work. That'll work. Well, we can do what we want.

That's right. That's right. The times are made up and the points don't matter anyway.

But yeah, please, verticallifenc .church .conference. Go check it out. But we could camp out and we should camp out, even if it's just individually right there and in that portion of that verse, because it's so glorious.

And Dan has just described in so many ways how glorious this is and the truths of this passage that because of the suffering of death, he was crowned with glory and honor that God died. And it wasn't through a feat that he accomplished, a physical feat, an exam that he took.

It wasn't anything like that where somebody has to accomplish something in our normal way of thinking that somebody would obtain something. This is totally completely opposite of how you would think somebody would earn a prize.

You don't earn a prize through death. Usually death demonstrates the loser. If you're in a gladiator battle, the one who dies is the one who lost. But in this case, the one who died is the one who gained the victory.

The one who died is the one who defeated his enemies. And this is why I think scripture says that it's foolishness to the world. It's foolishness to those who are perishing, but it's beautiful and glorious to those who are being saved.

The Founder of Salvation Made Perfect Through Suffering

Yep. It's also fitting. It says so in verse 10. Lead us on, brother. It's fitting that he for whom and by whom all things exist, that's Jesus, when he created the world to uphold it by the word of his power, in bringing many sons to glory, that's those who believe, those are those who are kind of hidden throughout in the blue lens all the way throughout this previous section, should make the founder of their salvation perfect.

Now, hold up a second. I thought Jesus was already perfect. And that's true. He was, is, and will always be perfect. This is, he was made perfect. How do you do that? How do you make perfect something that's already perfect?

Well, think of it this way. He was already perfect. He was made complete. Like everything that was perfect about him was completed there. Think of it this way. Him being from the beginning of time, God, perfect, had his, his idea, his plan, his role to play in the salvation of mankind.

He being the son of God always had that there. And yet he hadn't yet done it. It's kind of like a team of kind of like, this is a terrible analogy because it breaks down pretty quick, but bear with me.

A team that has got a 25 and 0 record is a perfect team. They have a perfect season. If they get to the end and they win the championship, they will have been made perfect, but they were perfect all along.

Don't read into it too much. The analogy will break down somewhere. So Christ who was perfect, is perfect, will continue to be perfect, was made complete or perfected or finished his work as he moved through death and brought salvation to men.

Yeah, right there. So in case you thought I was making it up, somebody else made it up first. And then it says, this is this, for he who sanctifies those who are sanctified. So the one who sets apart and those who are set apart and one who has had their sins put away, and the one whose sins have been put away all have one source or are one, or here it says in the new American standard Bible are from one father.

In other words, they're all one, they're unified, they're linked up together organically. There is something that's connecting them at the core. One of the things is the incarnation. Another thing is, as we will see in just a second, adoption.

Now look at this, what it says. It says, that is why he is not ashamed to call them, those who are being saved, brothers. Not ashamed to call us brothers. And if he's brothers, we share a father. And if we share a father and we are brothers, we are family.

And that is incredible. Because not everybody's got a good family. And yet here we are, true family. Hey, church family, can you open my fruit snacks? Even better, because now Christ has come and made us brothers.

How incredible is it that we can say that my brother is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. My brother is ruling over, he's the King of Russia. How do I know that? Because Russia exists and he's the King over everything.

But look at this, this is why I was telling you right before we got started, and we've only got a minute and a half, so we may turn this into a teaser for next week too. But look at Psalm 22 real quick.

Psalm 22 is quoted. It says, I will tell of your name to my brothers in the midst of the congregation, I will sing your praise. Isn't that fantastic? It's good. It calls us brothers. It's him calling us brothers.

Now listen to verse one of Psalm 22. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me from the words of my groaning? Then it goes on. You took me, yet you are he who took me from the womb.

On you I was cast from my birth, from my mother's womb. You have been my God. I am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, it is melted. But you, oh Lord, do not be far off.

You, my help, come quickly to my aid. Deliver my soul from sword, from precious life, from the power of the dog. Save me from the mouth of the lion. You've rescued me from the horns of the wild ox. And then here comes ours, and I skipped around through the Psalm, but here's ours.

I will tell of your name to my brothers in the midst of the congregation. I will praise you. All of that coming from my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Which is the words of Jesus as he was on the cross, dying for the sins of people like you and me, making those who are not his brothers, his brothers, taking those who are not his family and making them his family, bringing to the father's sons, which we get to when we get to Isaiah later on, but bringing to God the father's sons who are not sons, a people who are not a people, drawing to himself, making a family out of those who hated him, drawing from what was wretched and despicable and making them pure and clean, taking what was once cast off and made a hater or an enemy, making them family and family so much that we would die for one another, Christ for our sins and us and martyrs in service of Christ, dying to ourselves each and every day and living for Christ Jesus.

It's just a beautiful thing. It is. And that Psalm right there is a.

Perfect example of what I was trying to illustrate in the last laborers podcast, where I gave the example of looking at life through a paper towel tube. Things can look really bleak when you're looking at the other end of that paper towel tube, but when you remove the paper towel tube and you see the whole picture, and that's what that Psalm did.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And all this list of things that are so horrible and so wrong, but then he removes, he broadens his view and he can see the greatness of God, the sovereignty of God, the glory of God.

And it doesn't take it away from the bleakness of what's in front of you, the horrendous nature of what's in front of you. It doesn't take away from the cancer, the disease, the divorce, the loss. It doesn't take away from that.

But if you can remove those blinders, remove that thing that's causing you to view things so narrowly and widen your view and see Christ, you'll be able to say, I will proclaim your name to my brethren in the midst of the congregation.

I will sing your praise despite the bleakness and the horrible nature of things that's in front of you.

Yep. Verse 30 of that Psalm says, posterity shall serve him. It shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation. They shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn.

That he has done it. So what an awesome God we serve. He's in control. He's working all things together for his glory and our good to those that love him, those who are called according to his purpose.

And so we delight in what we just read tonight. We delight in what we just learned. We delight that Christ defeated his enemies through his death and he was crowned with glory and honor and we want to crown him and give him the glory and honor that he deserves.

I was thinking about that last section of verse eight and the two other things that it was speaking to me or helping me to understand is how God sees things. Broadening your view of understanding God and how he sees things.

The reason we can view these verses the way we view them is because the way, the nature of God himself and how he sees things. God is, Jesus has complete victory. He's won complete victory. It's all done.

He said it's finished, but yet it's not all been worked out. So both things are happening at the same time in God's economy, in God's realm where he's seeing things. It's finished. He's won the victory, but yet he's working all those things out in a process.

And then that process is the other thing that I saw there in verse eight is helping us to understand his kingdom, this world to come that he speaks of in verse five, that his kingdom is going to be like a mustard seed or leaven.

All things are seen as being subjected to him. He's won the victory, but yet we don't see all things being subjected to him because it's being worked out. And that's the nature of his kingdom starts out small and it's going to grow super huge.

It's going to start out as a small piece of leaven and it's going to leaven the whole lump. And Christ is victorious, was victorious, is victorious, and will continue to be victorious until the whole earth is his.

Adoption, Union with Christ, and Living in the “Both/And”

Right. And here's another cool thing. By virtue of our adoption into Christ, it is truly said that we are seated with him now in the heavenlies. How cool is that? We're not even there. I'm in upstate New York, but no, I'm seated with Christ in the heavenlies.

My mediator, my brother is there and he's brought.

Me with him. How cool is that? The both and, but we live in the both and, and we want you, if you do not know Christ as your savior, to live in the both and, even though we can live in the victory of Christ, live in that reality, that knowledge that he has accomplished all things, is finished, and things can still be bleak.

We go through terrible things because sin is still in this world, but victory is being accomplished. It was accomplished and it's being accomplished. We live in the both and, and we want you to live in the both and, where you are, you have been adopted, where you can say that you are seated with him currently in this present time.

And if you do not know Christ as your, as your savior, then we would plead with you to turn to him today. Turn from your sins, turn from yourself. As the author of Hebrews is pleading with his audience, turn away from the old self, turn away from the old ways, the old covenant, and turn to Christ.

Don't turn back, turn to him and keep going in that direction, because he's the greatest. He is God who came down himself to die for us in our place, took the wrath of God upon himself, and then God will give us what he earned in his life, his righteousness.

He will impute it to us, and all these things are just glorious truths that we could, that we'll spend eternity pondering on and glorying in and giving Christ the honor and glory that he deserves because of it.

So come to him in repentance and faith.

Dan, would you close us in prayer? Sure. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this evening, for being able to talk about your word, to look into it, to be encouraged by what you've left for us, by your spirit, by the Christ who is ruling and reigning now in heaven, our brother and friend.

I pray that we would recognize him as who he truly is, that he is brother, friend, king, prophet, and priest, all of these things, one to be worshiped and adored, and we thank you for all the blessings that you have given through him.

In Christ's name we pray,.

Amen. Amen. Thank you so much for watching. We appreciate you. Let us know if we can pray for you. Let us know that you are watching. Give us a like, follow, share, subscription, so that we can continue to get out there and share the gospel.

Let me pop this back on here real quick. Remember that Jesus is king. Go live in the victory of Christ. Speak with authority of Christ and go share the gospel of Christ. We hope to see you real soon, and we hope to see you at the 2023 Laborers Conference.