The Pioneer of Our Salvation

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We continue our study from the book of Hebrews.
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Last time we were together we began looking at Hebrews chapter 2, and we will continue that study at Hebrews chapter 2 verse 9.
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So turn with me please to Hebrews the second chapter beginning at verse 9.
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There we read, But we see Jesus made for a little while lower than the angels because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor so that by the grace of God he might experience death in behalf of everyone.
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For it was appropriate for him for whom are all things and through whom are all things and bring many sons to glory to perfect the pioneer of their salvation by means of suffering for both the one sanctifying and those who are sanctified are from one source for which reason he is not ashamed to call them brothers saying
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I will proclaim your name to my brothers in the midst of the church I will sing your praise and again
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I will put my trust in him and again behold I and the children God has given me.
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Therefore since the children share in flesh and blood he himself partook of the same in order that he might destroy the one having the power of death namely the devil and deliver all those who through fear of death were enslaved their entire lives for surely he does not take hold of angels but he takes hold of the offspring of Abraham therefore he had to be made like his brothers in order that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest regarding the things of God so that he might make propitiation for the sins of the people for since he himself was tempted in that which he has suffered he is able to help those who are being tempted.
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Amen. Now we are as you may recall unless you were not with us last time working through the book of Hebrews when
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I am preaching and so we have this morning this evening and the next
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Lord's Day to continue that study it has been a little while it was
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May 31st the last time that we had an opportunity to be working in Hebrews but I am sure that everyone is right up to speed with exactly what was said the last time and I do realize that we are once again demonstrating that we are an odd group that is to work verse by verse through a book like Hebrews is not easy
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I recognize that these studies are not the easiest studies to follow but I am absolutely convinced that we are dealing here with a book that is one of the most precious treasures in all of the
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New Testament and it is in some ways an undiscovered treasure for a large portion of the church today for the simple reason that one of the difficulties is we have to keep going back to the
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Old Testament we have to keep going back to looking at the context of Old Testament passages and it is not easy to do that in an entertaining fashion and in a church where entertainment is the big deal then you can understand why
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Hebrews might be lightly touched upon a few texts look at but not working through it to any depth and I really believe that the glory of this book comes out when we go through that work and it is work
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I recognize that I thank you that most of you at least make a very strong effort to not fall asleep and to make that very obvious as we are attempting to work through these things
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I truly believe especially that when it comes to the issue of the atonement that is the book of Hebrews that gives us the clearest dogmatic teaching on the purpose mechanism nature meaning of the atonement of Christ and when we look at the sticky sentimentality that parades itself as a theology of the cross in many places today
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I truly believe that one of the reasons is because of the neglect of this book of Hebrews now we had worked through the 8th verse the last time we were together and unfortunately the 8th verse actually ends halfway through a sentence specifically at present we do not yet see all things under his control but then where we began in verse 9 we see
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Jesus made for a little while lower than the angels and one of the issues that I mentioned the last time we were together is that verse 9 not only contains a very important at least in our day textual variant that we need to look at but it is also one of the most commonly cited texts in opposition to our own belief as a reformed body that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ was specifically intended to redeem the elect that is the doctrine of particular redemption specifically the phrase at the end of verse 9 that he might experience literally it's the word taste death on behalf of everyone now as is the case in the vast majority of instances in my experience and due to the fact that I have been rather active in promoting reform theology over the years
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I get to listen to a lot of folks preaching about how wrong I am it is my experience that in the vast majority of these instances you simply have the verse quoted and then you move on the assumption being well it's just so plain in and of itself no one could possibly miss what is being said but the problem is that when you simply quote a verse and move on you are assuming things that may or may not be true in the vast majority of instances they are not true at all but what about it it does say that he experienced death tasted death who pair pawns in behalf of all does that mean every single individual indeed some point out that the term that is used here is frequently used of all things so is there some sort of cosmic redemption here in behalf of all angels and demonic beings and everything else there have been some who have gone there well
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I think if we simply work through the text and then come back to this verse and say what was actually being spoken of here the truth will be very very clearly proclaimed but there is much that we want to see in this text many statements made here that we dare not zoom by in a concern to be prepared to answer that particular verse and so let's try to handle the text as carefully as we can and so as you recall the discussion was about the son of man and the son of man being exalted to this lofty status and yet we do not yet see all things under his control but we do see
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Jesus verse 9 made for a little while lower than the angels because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor so that by the grace of God he might experience death in behalf of everyone now there's a lot of discussion in the commentaries as to how to string together these various phrases and to exactly what time periods they are making reference
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I'm not going to go into a lot of depth on that but I just want to make sure that you notice something made for a little while lower than the angels now we obviously tend to think of the idea of being lower than the angels well that means angels are above us in some sort of rank of being well maybe in the sense that they have a particular capacities and abilities that we do not in this current life have maybe but I don't know that's really what the idea of being made lower than is really is what this is about what is important to notice is that one of the things that's going to be emphasized in this text is the reality of the incarnation the reality of the incarnation notice a little farther down since the children share in flesh and blood he himself partook of the same flesh and blood he is made a little lower than the angels he truly entered into human experience
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I cannot emphasize this enough in the history of the church there have been so many errors that have been propounded that have partaken of a denial of the incarnation either on the one side saying that Jesus truly wasn't
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God made man or on the other side he truly wasn't man at all he was just simply a divine creature the balance is always provided in the pages of scripture and we need to recognize that Jesus was not just some being who sort of flitted about from here and there that didn't really have a human experience those
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Jewish leaders who saw him knew that there was a man standing in front of him he walked on dusty roads he ate food he drank water he became tired he slept in the bow of the ship when the storm had to wake him up he was so tired from the ministry that was his there are so many important lessons to be drawn from that but I think one thing we're going to see clearly from this text is that if you do not have a true view of the incarnation you have no basis for redemption at all none the whole point that the author is going to be driving home is that he must partake of flesh and blood and it was interesting to me
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I had not seen this before it's another reason why you go verse by verse through things but when you look at that first phrase we see
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Jesus made for a little while lower in our thinking when we hear this made for a little while we think oh well he was just only for a little while lower than the angels and so many
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Christians so many Christians when you ask them who is Jesus today well he's
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God yeah okay but is he still the God man what about that physical body was his so many
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Christians they have never even given it a thought and they just sort of see
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Jesus as he was before the incarnation now as if that union that incarnation has ceased to exist but the form of the word that is used here in verse 9 does not say that he just was made for a little while in the sense of was made and then stopped existing in that way he continues to exist in that way that human nature he took on he continues to have it wasn't just a temporary thing the
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God man remains the God man and that is vitally important for it is he as our faithful high priest as the rest of the text will say who stands in the presence of the father you're going to see how important all this is but it's important to emphasize it right at the beginning so he goes on to say verse 9 he was made for a little while or in the angels now he has been crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death
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I would put those together even though in the language you could you could render it because the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor you need to see that the crowning with the glory and honor is due to the suffering of death one of the key proclamations of the early church is always that before glorification before that exaltation comes what comes suffering the church has always understood this well the true church has always understood this and you can almost always see where the true church has gotten off the track in history when glorification comes without the suffering if we follow him who in my rendering
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I called him the pioneer of our salvation the founder of our salvation the leader of our salvation if you follow him his path was through humiliation and suffering prior to the exaltation remember the carmen christie chapter 2 therefore
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God has highly exalted him what was therefore he had humbled himself he had made himself of no reputation and became obedient to the point of death even the death of the crown and so here you have
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Jesus we see him crowned with glory and honor because the suffering of death what does the world see the world sees a defeated self -proclaimed messiah the world doesn't see him crowned with glory and honor but we do with spiritual eyes and notice it is important verse 8 we do not yet see all things under his feet we see there's all sorts of people in this world that do not bow to Jesus Christ we see all sorts of evil in this world but we see
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Jesus we see him crowned with glory and honor who is this we it's interesting to me that Hebrews 2 .9
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is referring to the redeemed those with a spiritual insight into the gospel itself he has been crowned with glory and honor because the suffering of death so that by the grace of God he might experience death on behalf of everyone now again there's all sorts of discussions some have said that this crowning with glory and honor actually takes place before the cross possibly in the transfiguration something like that because they just they see a chronological order here
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I don't know that he's really arguing chronologically however but two things we must emphasize in this last phrase the first is the textual variant that I mentioned to you before that is by the grace of God by the grace of God now the vast majority of Greek manuscripts all of them that we have that would go to the period prior to the 5th century all say by the grace of God so why do
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I even bring this up I bring this up because the fact that we live in a day where people want to disbelieve and they want reasons to disbelieve and there are lots of people out there cashing in on helping people to not believe one of those people is a man by the name of Dr.
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Bart Ehrman and Dr. Ehrman is the distinguished professor of religion the head of the department of religion at the
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University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and Dr. Ehrman is an apostate he is a former
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Christian by his own profession and he always brings that up himself it's part of his testimony shall we say of being a as he calls himself a happy agnostic
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I'm not really certain how happy Dr. Ehrman is but as it may he is a happy agnostic and his books against Christianity are always at the top of the
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New York Times best seller list and Dr. Ehrman likes to emphasize the fact that there is a textual variant right here in fact he says that it changes the entire message of the book of Hebrews well
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I disagree with that but be that as it may there are some manuscripts specifically the most important manuscript is a manuscript number 1739 now why should you care about manuscripts 1739 well 1739 is an important manuscript it's from the 10th century 10th century yeah that's a long time down the road well it is but we can tell that it is a copy of an earlier manuscript a much earlier manuscript okay so it's important well what does 1739 and a few others say it says so that apart from God he might taste death for everyone now the two words in Greek look very much alike they don't sound alike in our language obviously but that's not really relevant at this point apart from God same term that's used over in John chapter 1 where it says apart from him was nothing made that was made well what would that mean if that were actually the original reading well
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I think it would simply refer to the fact that Christ dies upon the cross and there is no there are no angels that come to minister to him during that time he is surrounded by his enemies he is beaten by the
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Gentiles mocked by the Jews his own disciples run away from him people stand at the foot of the cross mocking him and so from the world's perspective
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God's gone away in fact if you think about the citation from the 22nd
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Psalm my God why have you forsaken me many people have read that to think that there is some sort of a separation between the father and the son
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I don't think that that is the case I think Psalm 22 as we will see here maybe this morning is understood to be a messianic
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Psalm and the psalmist who begins saying my God my God why have you forsaken me by the end of the
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Psalm is speaking of his own vindication but be that as it may from the world's perspective it looks like Jesus dies alone as a complete failure and indeed even the disciples themselves remember in Luke chapter 24 the two disciples on the road to Emmaus what do they say when
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Jesus himself joins himself with them and their eyes are supernaturally kept from recognizing him what do they say to him well we thought he was going to be the one to deliver
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Israel we hoped but now they are downcast because well the one to deliver
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Israel would never be dying upon a tree and so that is what the meaning of the text would be now like I said
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I guess Dr. Ehrman's argument is well this would be the only place in Hebrews where it says that by the grace of God Jesus died well that's assuming that the book of Hebrews is supposed to exist all unto itself we don't have the rest of the
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New Testament and that somehow that changes the message of Hebrews which it clearly does not but because it's put into print by a scholar not only does
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Dr. Ehrman repeat this but much lesser scholars who simply go by what they've read in books like that repeat this with great confidence before their college classrooms and just simply demonstrate that they haven't thought things through very well themselves in the process so there is the textual variant you are now up to speed on it and unlike what is often said one of the accusations that Dr.
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Ehrman makes all the time is well we sweep these things under the rug we don't want to tell anybody about things like this well that's not how we operate around here certainly those of you who attend regularly the adult
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Sunday school class know that we've run into many issues like this and we try as best we can to take them on head on because I think that is the context in which to do those things so having said that then so going with the grace of God I think there's reasons to stick with that so that by the grace of God he might experience death in behalf of Pantas everyone everyone of who well obviously there are those who would say that means every person on the planet earth is that how a
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Hebrew Christian would have understood that word when he or she first read this epistle or heard it read out
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I don't believe so I think a Hebrew Christian would have understood that to mean oh
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Jews and Gentiles everyone around the world same thing in the book of Revelation men from every tribe tongue people nation and I do point out that it is we see
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Jesus we don't yet see all things subjected who's the we would not the everyone one be the we possibly but let's leave that to the sides the moment let's ask ourselves does the context answer this particular question
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I believe as we work through the rest of the second chapter we will see without question that it does but what he does what
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Jesus does is that he tastes death not just simply in the sense of just taste something for a moment but to experience he experiences death substitution narrowly in behalf there is the
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Greek word that is used there very important word of substitution whatever you're going to do with this this all
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Jesus experiences death in behalf of that all and if his death is propitiatory and it removes the wrath of God against sin for all and you make that all people then there's only one consistent conclusion you can come to you need to become a universalist you need to believe that everyone's going to be saved because the wrath of God against sin has been removed for every single person in light of that just be consistent
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I don't find very many people who are consistent but I think that's something important to point out so he doesn't just feign death he experiences death his is a true death on the basis of that we go on for it was appropriate for him for whom are all things and through whom are all things and bring many sons to glory to perfect the pioneer of their salvation by means of suffering so who is this him at the beginning of the verse it was appropriate for him now we have another text of scripture in Colossians chapter one all things are through and for Jesus but you'll notice that the one here described for whom are all things and through whom are all things is the one bringing many sons to glory and he is the one perfecting the pioneer of their salvation by means of suffering so it would seem that we have the father in view here it is the father who let me remind us once again is the fountainhead of all of salvation the danger that many
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Christians I think face is they see Jesus as the nice kind warm accepting guy and the father as the stern mean judge and he's way off in the distance and he's angry and Jesus comes between and protects us from the mean terrible horrible judge and unfortunately is an understanding that many people have but if we've listened at all to Ephesians chapter 1 if we've listened at all to Paul's real theology what is the fountainhead the source of all of the grace seen in the gospel but the father himself and so speaking of the father for whom are all things and through whom are all things he is bringing many sons to glory didn't it just say all sounds like in the very next sentence there is a recognition not of universalism but of a specific group and if you remember as we read through this that happens more than once a little bit farther down the text what do we have makes propitiation for whom the sins of the people not every person but the people and of course the
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Jewish reader of this knows exactly what that's referring to he brings many sons to glory can he do that does
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God have the capacity in of himself to bring many sons to glory
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I know I'm preaching to the choir well we don't really have room for a choir anyways some of you may not realize this was originally a church of Christ building that's why we've had to stick those instruments out there they did not stick the choir in the baptistery we don't have room for that because they didn't have instruments or choirs before we got this building but I am preaching to the choir in the sense that you all know the answer to the rhetorical question yes
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God has the ability to do that but what does that mean think about what it means to describe
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God the Father as the one bringing many sons to glory is that just simply saying he's made it possible for many sons to be brought to glory that's a radically different message it's a radically different message to say that God makes it possible for us to bring ourselves to glory
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God will help us, God gives grace God puts a plan together but ultimately it's up to us as to whether we get to glory that's a different statement than to describe
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God as the one bringing many sons to glory to bring them to glory means the whole process not just to get it started not just to get them on the road but to complete it bring them all the way and every form of synergism every form of presentation of the gospel where you take the power of God and the power of man and you blend them together in every form of synergism the result is it is man that controls the ultimate destiny of himself oh, he may confess that I can't do it apart from God and I need
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God's grace and all the rest of that stuff but what he won't confess is that God has the power to save men in and of himself and I would suggest to you the book of Hebrews has been grossly misrepresented over the centuries
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I remember doing it I happened to be watching the video of this because I was really unrelated to this particular topic but I did a debate in 1999 on Long Island with another apostate now a man who became a
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Roman Catholic and he just kept pounding away 51 % of the time the book of Hebrews says we can fall away how do you how do you take the text and go that's 51 % you only got 49 %
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I win that's not really a meaningful presentation as to the text itself but his point was look, the book of Hebrews says you can fall away, the book of Hebrews says you can be a true
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Christian, you can fall away now there's no question we already worked through one of the warning passages back a few sessions ago as we were working through the very beginning of Hebrews chapter 2 there's no question the book of Hebrews talks a lot about falling away it's a work of exhortation written to the gathered people of God and there were people who were in danger of going back to the old ways no question about any of that but what gets missed because mankind is so focused upon his own abilities and himself and it's all about me me me me me is how often this book emphasizes the power of God to save to the uttermost those passages just get they just get read into oblivion but we dare not do so God is bringing many sons to glory that's why in eternity to come we will glorify
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Him, not ourselves we won't look to ourselves and say oh
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I was so good look at all those people in hell I was just a little better than them because got the same grace you know
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God just lathers that grace out there you know and that I accepted it
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I was more sensitive I was smarter something I don't know no we will not stand there rejoicing in ourselves we will glorify
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God's grace because God's grace actually is powerful and it accomplishes something we will confess that if we've been brought to glory it is because of the power of God alone not because we enabled
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His power to somehow do so so in bringing many sons to glory and I doubt
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I'm going to get past this next phrase because we've got I know it's warm I'm not sure how actually we're doing better today than we did last week actually not quite as many bodies in here to warm things up I know it's a little warm right about now is when normally it's not happening for me right now thankfully but the tummy starts grumbling and it's really easy to get distracted but I think we may be looking at one of the most important phrases we've looked at so far so I would invite you to tune back in take this a little while I think it will be spiritually worthwhile in bringing many sons to glory to do what?
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to perfect the pioneer of their salvation by means of suffering let me give you some facts and then we'll step back and try to figure this out
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I translated the term pioneer it can mean origin or source they can also mean the one who blazes the trail that's what the pioneers were they're the ones going out there into the west remember when there weren't any roads to follow
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I mean you can drive from St. Louis to California today no one's going to call you a pioneer because it's pretty easy to do somebody did it before you did and so the idea is that he is one who is leading no one went there before him he's the one blazing the trail and so these sons who are being brought to glory someone leads the way and it is the son of God, the unique son of God he is called the pioneer of their salvation he is the one who leads them on that path of salvation he is the one who shows the way not that he needs salvation he is the one providing that way but what on earth does it mean for him to be perfected by means of suffering through suffering to be perfect what did
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Jesus need to be perfecting from or of there are some obviously who have read into such a text some pretty heretical ideas that Jesus has to learn to be a savior that he has to get better at it something along those lines but having read the first chapter about who
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Jesus is the eternal creator of all things Yahweh in human flesh probably not what the writer is actually saying but there is something to perfect through suffering the pioneer their salvation perfect through suffering what sufferings and you see it is really easy for us to automatically hear the term suffering and say oh well that is the cross and most of the time most of the time that is a pretty safe guess certainly we would not dismiss the suffering of the cross as being a part of this but did you notice something at the very end of the chapter for since he himself was tempted in that which he has suffered he is able to help those who are being tempted there is suffering again but here there is a suffering related to temptation well was there temptation in the cross yeah we see it in the garden but there is temptation all through the life and ministry of Jesus you have the temptations at the very beginning of his ministry
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Satan showing him the kingdoms of the world take the shortcut take the easy way but Jesus remains faithful and so the writer seems to be identifying not just the suffering of death upon the cross but the sufferings that were those of the man of sorrows as the incarnate one living amongst sinners facing the temptations that is why he is able to help those who are being tempted none of us have ever been tempted to take the easy road out of being the savior of the world so that is obviously not what is in view there he is able to help those who are being tempted because he has been tempted and he has experienced the suffering of temptation so why do
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I emphasize that because it is the only way I can see to understand this idea of how he was perfected how was
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Jesus perfected through suffering this is the only way
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I can understand this there was nothing lacking in the incarnate one when he was born in Bethlehem he was the perfect God man now we know that as man he grew and matured man has to if he is going to be a man that has to happen that is why
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Luke says what he does about Jesus but what is it in Christ's life that comes about as a result of his steadfast obedience to the
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Father in all things why do we need a perfect sinless savior well on the one hand all of us can answer that one
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I imagine all of our young people can answer why did Jesus need to be sinless well because if he was a sinner then he couldn't have died in our place because he is already under the cursed law you have to have a spotless non -blemished sacrifice quite true but see this is where we miss the other aspect and this is where there is a lot of controversy today a lot of people say this just isn't biblical what
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I am about to say our confession says it by the way I believe what we have in sight here is that in Jesus's perfect obedience to the
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Father in his life not just in not sinning but in fulfilling all righteousness he loved
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God perfectly he fulfilled the greatest commandment perfectly you see if all we had in the righteousness of Jesus Christ was forgiveness for our trespasses all that would do would bring us back to a moral neutral point the problem is
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God's law requires obedience what's the greatest commandment love the
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Lord your God with all your heart soul mind and strength anybody here done that of course not so how can you ever stand before a holy and just God when you have not fulfilled the positive command of the law but Jesus did through his entire life of obedience a life of obedience that would have brought about suffering you live for God you positively fulfill the commands of God when you live in a world filled with nothing but sinners and you're going to suffer he by his positive righteousness his fulfillment of the commandments of God provides us with a righteousness that when it is imputed to us yes all of our sins nailed to his cross but his perfect righteousness imputed to us his active and passive obedience as our confession puts it is credited to us so when we stand before him we do not stand before a holy judge clothed partially in the righteousness of Christ and partially in our own righteousness he was perfected through suffering as the pioneer of our salvation we stand before God we stand before him aren't you glad I didn't just jump over these texts here is the foundation here is the foundation for any believer
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God is bringing many sons to glory how can we be certain of that final glorification how can
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Paul say what he said in Romans chapter 8 for new predestined called justified glorified
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God does all that why because who can bring a charge against God's elect
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God has justified Christ has died in their behalf how will he not with him freely give us all things here is the same message he brings many sons to glory having perfected the pioneer of their salvation through suffering he's perfected in that he has fulfilled the commands of God so that the righteousness that we receive from him is full complete lacking that is why we have real peace of course those words are directed to those who have fled to Christ if you have not confessed him these words not apply to you do not think that all this means everyone's fine no he's talking to those who believe in Christ for the believer perfection of righteousness what a tremendous truth to hold on to what a precious possession let's thank the
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Lord for his revelation of it to us indeed our Heavenly Father we are thankful for these wonderful words we often confess that we stand before you clothed only in the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ and this is true but now we've come to understand through these words once again the glory the completion the perfection of that righteousness which is ours oh help us to live in light of these truths help us to live in obedience to you because we know what you have done for us stir our hearts out of love for you pray in Christ's name