What Is (This) Man?

Please stand for the reading of God's word. The Old Testament scripture reading this morning is found in Psalm 8.

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. You have set your glory above the heavens.

Out of the mouths of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes.

You still the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place.

What is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him. Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.

You have given him dominion over the works of your hands and you have put all things under his feet. All sheep and oxen and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. The New Testament reading is

Philippians 2, 5 through 11. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ, who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form.

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so 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. You may be seated. Well, let's take our

Bibles and let's turn to Hebrews 2.

You follow as I read this chapter. Our text for this morning is verses five through nine.

Let's read the entire chapter. Therefore, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard lest we drift away from it.

For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?

It was declared at first by the Lord and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the

Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. Now, it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come of which we are speaking.

It has been testified somewhere. What is man that you are mindful of him or the son of man that you care for him?

You made him for a little while lower than the angels. You have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.

Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him, but we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely

Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone.

For it was fitting that he for whom and by whom all things exist and bringing many sons to glory should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.

For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying,

I will tell of your name to my brothers in the midst of the congregation. I will sing your praise. And again,

I will put my trust in him. And again, behold I and the children God has given me.

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death that is the devil and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Let's pray. Father, would you now open the text of scripture to us that we do not see this as just a dead book, but as the living word of God intended to guide our thinking and change our attitudes and move us to more godly behavior.

We pray, Lord, as we gain an understanding of your purpose for us this morning, you would help us to realize the glory that Jesus has for us.

Help us now as we seek to understand, again, for your glory and for our good, in Jesus' name, amen.

I'm gonna tell you one of my pet peeves, and I'm almost afraid to say this because now you're gonna be, maybe you're gonna be afraid to say anything in front of me and then you'll think

I'll get irritated, but I'm gonna tell you this pet peeve anyway. Many folks say something like this.

I am so looking forward to a glorious eternity, life forever in heaven.

You say, why is that a pet peeve? Because we will not spend eternity in heaven in some other dimension above space.

We will spend eternity on a gloriously renovated new earth.

Now, don't get me wrong. Heaven is a real place, and those who have died have gone there.

It is a temporary glory, a temporary glory now for those who have died, but we are not gonna spend eternity floating in the sky.

We're not gonna spend eternity walking among the clouds. We are going to spend eternity here on this earth that it will be renovated and new.

Now, do you realize that that glory, that salvation means doing forever what human beings were created to do?

That's glory. Doing forever what human beings were created to do. Glory means living lives that are fully and truly human.

That's what our passage indicates to us this morning. Let's take a look at it. Now, before we do, let's get a feeling for the context of this passage.

You recall that Jewish Christians, which is why this book is called Hebrews, Jewish Christians were beginning to pay the price for following Jesus, and they said, well, this is too steep.

This is too steep, and so they're tempted to compromise their commitment to them and they thought, well, we can go back to the

Old Testament religion. After all, that's legal, and after all, that was from God, but the writer warns them not to do that because it would be going back to something that was inferior and powerless.

He argues you cannot go back because Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament and is both the final answer to our problem of sin and he is superior to everything else found in the

Old Testament. That is why you cannot compromise without great cost. Now, we have seen our pastor friend remind us, his readers, that the old covenant law, which they wanted to follow, was mediated by angels.

It was one of the means that God used to communicate his word, one of the various means, as he says in the very opening of this book, that God used to communicate his will.

However, Jesus has come as the final revelation from God, superior to all the previous forms of revelation, including that old law covenant that was mediated by angels.

Now, why does he make this such an issue? Because to go back would be to neglect this great salvation that Jesus brought and to incur great judgment.

And so, as we saw last week, his exhortation is, pay close attention to the superior message of the gospel.

Do not neglect it. You do so at great peril to yourselves. Now, our

Hebrew pastor continues to reason with you about this great salvation, this superior message that came through Jesus, verses five through nine.

Let's look at that. Now, it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking.

It has been testified somewhere. What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him?

You made him for a little while lower than the angels, and you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.

Now, in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him, but we see him, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely

Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone.

Now, he begins this section with that word for. Whenever you see for or therefore, you need to say, okay, he's drawn a conclusion.

He explains now why this is such a great salvation. One of the reasons why this is such a great salvation, man is destined to rule the world, but that destiny is intimately tied to Jesus.

Part of that great salvation is that we are destined to rule the world, and that is intimately tied to Jesus.

Again, he talks about angels, right? Now, you may be here saying to me, I'm just not that interested in angels, so why don't we just skip this part?

Well, even if you have little interest in angels, you have to understand why

Jesus is so important, okay? Whether or not you're interested in angels is beside the point.

He's trying to make a point that you can't ignore Jesus. This is why Jesus is so important for you.

So what do we find here? Here's what we find. You must understand that angels are not destined to rule the world to come, verse nine.

Now, if it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking, all right?

There is a world yet to come, and the writer already mentioned it. He mentions it in chapter one, verse six, where he talks about, he makes his, or I'm sorry, let all

God's angels worship him. Let all God's angels worship him. We saw that that's speaking of the world of glory, where Jesus ascends to glory, and the angels are supposed to worship him, where Jesus ascends to that kind of life that is yet to come for us.

It's a future salvation that we will inherit, inherit, that he says in verses 13 and 14 of chapter one.

He's looking to that future salvation that we will inherit. Now, in the rest of the book, the writer often refers to the future world.

For example, in chapter 11, he calls it a future homeland and a city. In chapter 12, he calls it

Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.

In chapter 13, he refers to it as the city that is to come. And so he does have a view toward the world to come.

And he says, now, God did not give angels authority over that world to come.

He didn't give angels that kind of authority. Powerful as they are, unbelievably powerful beings that far surpass us in their power, they have not been given the task of ruling the created order.

That's not their task. In fact, what has he told us in verse 14? They're actually ministers to us, their powers to be harnessed for our sake, who will inherit the salvation to come.

And so powerful as they are, they were not given the task of ruling the created order. They have not been given the authority either to rule in the world to come.

Rather, as I just said, they're ministering spirits to those who inherit salvation, that is, who inherit that new creation.

They're ministers to us of that. They're not rulers of that. Well, then who will rule this new world?

Who will rule this new world? If powerful angels will not rule this future created order, who will?

And that's when he says that you must understand that human beings were destined to rule the world.

Human beings were destined to rule the world. Now, what he does is he turns to a passage that mentions the relationship of men and angels, and he begins to quote it in verses six through eight.

All right? Now, it's not that, I think he's just starting to quote it. He's not saying, well, I know somebody said somewhere as if he doesn't know it.

In fact, actually, I think he's quoting it as he writes it because he leaves out one phrase from Psalm eight.

You've crowned him with glory and honor. You've given him dominion over the work of his hands. He left that out and then just put in the last sentence, putting everything in subjection under his feet.

The point is, he starts quoting this passage, which is from Psalm eight, which you've heard already this morning.

Now, Psalm eight is a meditation on creation. The psalmist looks back at creation, and he's writing his meditation of creation.

And so, from verse six through the beginning of verse eight, he's quoting a portion of Psalm eight.

And as you look at that Psalm, here's what you notice. As the psalmist looks at the night sky, he's overwhelmed by the glory of God.

He's overwhelmed by the glory of God. He sees the moon and billions of stars out there that God merely, if you will, the work of his hands, he just like flung them out there.

He just kind of, whoa. And all those billions of stars appeared, and the moon appeared and started shining.

And as he looked at that, he's overwhelmed by an incredible sense of insignificance.

Have you ever felt that way? Ever been somewhere and you've looked out and you feel like nothing?

He looks at those stars, he looks at the moon, he looks at all creation. He says, as I look at these innumerable stars,

I feel like a speck. Why would the

God who snapped them into existence ever pay attention to a speck, right?

He asks the question, is God concerned about, does he care about insignificant specks like me?

That's the question he asks in that Psalm. He looks at the created order, and he even sees that man is less than these powerful creatures called angels.

Does that mean that angels are superior to man and that they're intended or they're given authority to rule?

And as you read the Psalm, he says, no, you have crowned him.

That is, you have crowned human beings. You have crowned mankind with glory and honor.

God has crowned man with glory and honor, not the angels. Even though little lower than the angels, he has crowned man with glory and honor.

Now, what is that glory and honor? He's meditating on the creation, and he says that glory and honor is his authority over the created order.

That is our glory and honor. We have been given authority to rule over all the created order.

In Genesis chapter one, verse 28, we see it, and God blessed them.

And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on earth.

He rules the creation. Angels do not. Man rules creation.

He was given authority. He was given dominion over all of creation. And notice, everything in all creation has been subjected to his authority.

Nothing was left outside of his control. That's what he quotes. Putting everything, you've crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.

Man is the Lord of creation. God's original intention for human beings was for them to rule creation for the glory of God.

That is his glory and honor. They were called upon to rule the earth and to domesticate it for the glory of God and for the good of creation.

He answered to God alone, not any other being. This is his glory and honor.

But our pastor now starts to comment on that passage. He gives us a commentary.

He says, I've read Psalm 8, but what do I see? Well, the first thing he says is, now

I'm putting everything in subjection to him. He left nothing outside of his control. He let

God put everything under his rule. But then he goes on to say this.

At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.

He says, there's a problem here. Man is crowned with glory and honor. What is it? To rule over creation.

God put everything under his rule. Everything without exception, the created order was put under his rule.

But if you look around, it doesn't look like that. If this is his glory and honor, what happened?

It doesn't look like that. Well, we all know what happened, so does he. The curse of sin entered, so that creation resists our efforts to rule it.

Ferocious beasts attack us, and animals that should be awed by our presence are dreaded by us.

The earth does not give us what we work so hard to attain. You know that every day of the week, don't you?

It's hard. The sky, the air, the sea, and everything in them opposes us.

Work is not fulfilling, but drudgery. One writer put it this way.

Instead of putting the creation under our feet and serving as God's kingly stewards, it eventually puts us six feet under it.

Now, the curse of sin has not only corrupted our relationship with creation, it has corrupted our understanding of that relationship to creation, so that we do not achieve the glory and honor that God expects or that God gave us.

We are told today that we are nothing more than part of the natural process, that we are nothing more than part of nature and its process.

We're told, just leave it alone. You are no more than an intrusive species, and nature rules and defeats us.

We merely die as part of the process. At least that's some people's understanding. Other people's understanding of nature.

Instead of nature ruling and defeating us, we will tyrannize and destroy it.

We will do whatever we want for money, power, or ease. We don't care about ruling creation for the glory of God.

We will rule it for our power and our money and our ease. From flattening mountaintops to carelessly using up all our resources, we don't care.

What God originally declared very good, we declare good only insofar as it enriches us.

And so, we don't see man crowned with glory and honor. It doesn't look like that.

Death and an obstinate creation has derailed man from accomplishing his purpose, from living with glory and honor, from achieving his destiny.

But there is a glimmer of hope, and he kind of gives us a glimmer of hope in this verse. He says, at present, we do not yet see everything.

He holds out this glimmer of hope. He implies, he seems to imply, yet there will come a time when man will rule the created order as God intended.

So, says the writer, even though human beings were crowned with glory and honor, that is to say, with authority over creation, they have failed in fulfilling

God's original intention, God's original purpose for humanity.

He crowned us with glory and honor, but as we look around, it doesn't look like it. Our destiny has been derailed.

We're not fulfilling God's original, at least, we're not fulfilling as we should

God's original intention, God's original purpose for humanity. Well, if man cannot fulfill

God's original intention to rule, then what hope is there for human beings to rule in the world to come?

What hope is there for us to rule in the world to come, that perfect world?

And here he says, you must understand that Jesus achieves the destiny of human beings to rule the world.

Jesus has achieved that destiny. Jesus has done it. Look at Jesus and what do you see?

So, look at verse nine. Look at Jesus, what do you see? But we see him, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely

Jesus, what? Crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone.

Look at Jesus and what do you see? Well, first, you see that like every other man, like every other human being, he was made a little lower than the angels.

He was made a little lower than the angels. He lived on earth as a true human being, fully human in this world.

He had the same, he faced the same weaknesses and the same challenges. He faced them all.

He even faced the ultimate challenge, death. He became a human just like you and me.

But something else happened that shows his humanity. And notice, we're talking about someone who's made a little lower than the angels, namely

Jesus, crowned with glory and honor. This is something else that shows his humanity.

He was also crowned with glory and honor. Now, what does being crowned with glory and honor mean in this context?

From Psalm 8, it means ruling over creation. He also was crowned with glory and honor.

What man was intended to accomplish but lost, he regained and accomplished.

Jesus regained the very purpose for our existence to rule over creation for the glory of God.

He's done it. You see, Jesus was resurrected. He ascended, he is exalted, and he sits at the right hand of the majesty on high as we saw earlier.

Jesus rules supreme over all creation. Although he is God, as the first chapter asserts, here we find he is also man, and he is the

Lord of creation, what God intended for all of us, that we'd be the lords of creation. He is that.

The role ascribed to humanity in creation is now realized by Jesus.

That's the point. I think I, obviously, you see, I can get excited about this.

Jesus is truly, truly what a human being is supposed to be.

You see, he fulfills God's original intention for humanity, and so he will rule the world to come, for nothing will escape his rule, all right?

Jesus has accomplished. He is the first. Well, he is now the first truly human being, because he has accomplished what

God intended for humanity. But here's the interesting point. How did he fulfill

God's original intention for us? How did he attain dominion over all creation as a human being?

How did he do that? And this is the, this is one of the reasons why

I think no one could make this up. No one could make this sort of stuff up.

What does it say in our text? How did he achieve what God always intended for humanity to do?

How did he achieve this crowning of glory and honor? How did he achieve this rule over creation?

He did it, note, by dying, by dying.

Because, okay, Jesus is crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone.

He suffered and he tasted death. He knows what it's like to live under the curse. He tasted death.

He knows exactly what that is like. Have you ever thought this thought? I want you to think this thought with me. What does death feel like?

None of us in this place this morning, in fact, no one in the entire world who is alive today knows what death feels like.

No one knows that. You have never experienced death. Oh, I've been with people when they die.

I have been there. I don't know what they're feeling. I don't know as they, as if you've ever been with someone who's making that, sometimes it's a slow, torturous path to the end of life and you see their breathing labor.

You don't know. Can they hear me? Are they thinking? We don't know any of these things.

Jesus does. Jesus does. He has experienced literally everything that's possible for a human being to experience, including death, but this death was not just part of Jesus' experience of living under the curse.

It was the expression of God's marvelous grace. It was by grace that he tasted death.

Why? Because he didn't just experience death as a human being.

He tasted death for you. He tasted death for me. He was the substitute who defeated death on our behalf and because he died such a death,

God elevated him to the place of glory and honor and gave him the rule and gave him that place, gave him the thing that we're supposed to do.

Because he died, he was given glory and honor and in his reign, in his reign, look at him.

He's crowned with glory and honor. You see the destiny of all who belong to him.

Death, the ultimate expression of the curse, becomes the vehicle that defeats the curse and restores us to the place of glory and honor.

Death can only be conquered by death. The death deserved by human beings can only be undone by one who dies as a human being and we can only rule the world as God intended when we triumph over death.

You see? Jesus reigns because he's the first man who because of his suffering overcame death.

Now listen, this is funny. We got, recently we got, like we always do, every year, this time of year, a note, a letter from Sheila's Flowers.

As we, you know, we get a lot of flowers from Sheila's Flowers. They always send out the letter that is encouraging us to buy

Easter flowers from them and it was fascinating to read in this letter as they wrote,

Easter's about rebirth, the rebirth of Jesus. No, no, it's not about rebirth as if the same thing, just as if Jesus is resuscitated and continues.

It isn't rebirth, it's resurrection. Don't be surprised if that shows up on Easter Sunday but it's not rebirth, it's resurrection.

Jesus has been raised never to die again. He's the only human being at this point.

He's the only man who has a body that will never die.

All those who have died before us have not been resurrected, right? He's the only one and because of that, in that resurrected body, he rules over creation and we will share in that same victory if we belong to Jesus, not reborn but resurrected and now doing what

God intended us to do from the very beginning and so it is. Jesus achieved our original purpose of glory and honor, our purpose of glory and honor by defeating death and reigning in glory and honor and all who belong to him will also experience victory over death and will reign in the world to come.

Do you know that? In the world to come, we will do what

God always intended us to do. What we're doing now is just a shadow of what

God always intended human beings to be and to do but in that glorious, marvelous eternity, we will fulfill our destiny of ruling the created order in the way that God always intended.

This then is part of this great salvation. This great salvation that he's talked about makes us truly human for it restores the very purpose of humanity, ruling the world for the glory.

It is inconceivable that you would turn to a message that does not accomplish the purpose of God for humanity.

It is inconceivable that you would forsake the revelation that secures our victory over death.

Jesus succeeded where the rest of humanity has failed.

He is the true human being who genuinely lived the kind of life that we are intended to live under God and crowned with glory and honor.

In Jesus, we can be restored. Listen to me. I don't know anybody's hearts here.

I do know this. You either rest in Jesus and become what

God intended you to be or you will face judgment for not relying on the death that Jesus died.

He died in our place. And as the writer goes on to show, to erase the barrier between us and God, but unless you trust, you will be judged.

And you will never see the purpose for which you were created. You will suffer judgment.

Why would you do that? Why would you ignore this, Jesus? Why would you stubbornly say,

I don't wanna believe that? Why would you do that? When glory awaits, glory and honor.

By tasting death, Jesus defeated death. By suffering, he won the victory over the sin that keeps us from being truly human, created to live and rule for the glory of God.

Why would you pass that up? God help us with hope to look forward to that day when because of what

Jesus did, we will be what you intended us to be. Thank you for such a great salvation that erases the barrier between us and you, that makes us your friend and that makes us truly what you intended us to be.

Thank you for a savior. Who achieved our destiny so that we can enjoy that destiny.

Thank you for a savior who by his death was crowned with glory and honor.

Oh, help us to look and to rest in him. We pray this in his name, amen.