The Death of Death Through Death (Hebrews 2:14-15)

We turn now to the book of Hebrews, to chapter 2, Hebrews chapter 2, and we're going to read together verse 9 through verse 18, the end of the chapter, Hebrews chapter 2. Verse 9, but we do see him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely Jesus, because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

For it was fitting for him, for whom are all things and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings. For both he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one father, for which reason he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will proclaim your name to my brethren 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 God has given me. Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death, he might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.

For assuredly, he does not give help to angels, but he gives help to the descendant of Abraham. Therefore, he had to be made like his brethren in all things, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

For since he himself was tempted in that which he has suffered, he is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted. Let's bow together before we begin. Our father, we would never have the truth if you had not revealed it.

And we would never be able to understand the truth if you do not illuminate it to us. And we would never be able to obey the truth if you did not enable us to do so. And so we ask that you would send your Holy Spirit today to do all of these in our lives, in the lives of those who are yours.

Open our eyes and give us grace. Help us to understand your word, that you may be glorified in and through your people, the church, both now and forever, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Before God, by his sovereign grace, saved me, I was terrified of death.

And when I say I was terrified of death, I mean I was terrified of death, not just it kind of haunted me of being out there somewhere, but every thought of death struck fear into my heart. And my fear of death was almost palpable.

It's not that as a kid that I thought that I would die anytime soon. I didn't. In fact, I lived with a reckless abandon of any kind of sanity or safety or anything like that. For now, I regret having lived like that just simply because I feel it in every joint every morning.

But I wasn't, I was afraid of death because it was somewhere far off. And I knew I was going to have to anticipate it and expect it. And I always figured as a kid that probably by the time I got to the ripe old age of 40 or 45, I would be languishing on my deathbed and facing with nothing else to look forward to and nothing else to live for.

I would be facing the inevitability of death. But that was a long ways away. When you're 14, 15 years old, 40, 45. I mean, you're invincible till you're 20. That's how I lived. But then you got 20 years that you can sort of your life and then you get to 40, 45 and just get ready to die right after that.

And I expected that when I was that old, old like that, that I would, I would then have to deal with death. And I just kept it out of my mind. I didn't think about it. I didn't allow myself to think about it.

And every once in a while I would creep in. We'd go to the family, the funeral of a family member, my grandmother or an uncle or a cousin or something like that, or a family friend. And, and it would haunt me for a day or two, but I was able to put it out of my mind because death terrified me, terrified me.

And I lived in slavery to that fear. And that is not an exaggeration. I lived in slavery to that fear. And that is the, the very language that the book of Hebrews uses in chapter two, that we live in slavery to fear all the days of our lives.

And I used to wonder when I would allow my mind to think upon death. I used to wonder what was on the other side of death. These were the things that terrified me. What was on the other side of it? I didn't know I had never gone into there and come back out.

And I didn't know anybody who had gone into death and come back out. So I didn't know what awaited me on the other side of that. I didn't know if I was going to be able to face it, if it was going to be a fearful thing.

When I got on the other side of death, was I prepared for it? Was there a way to prepare for it? How would I get prepared for it? And what does it look like to be prepared to die? And what awaits me on the other side, family and friends?

And what's going to happen to my body? I know my body will be dead, but I always wondered in my mind, is my soul connected to my body in such a way that I'm like somebody in a coma who is aware of what's going on around them while I'm sitting in the casket, decaying and rotting from now until whatever comes next?

Would I be sitting in the casket fully aware that I was buried and in the ground, but unable to move my body? I didn't know that. Or would I go into a state of sleep? I don't know. Was it torment? Even as a kid, I knew, I knew that I had done wrong things.

Some things in secret for which it seemed reasonable that I would have to reckon with those in some way eventually. And all of that terrified me. And I lived in slavery to that all my life. Unbelievers live in slavery to the fear of death.

Unfortunately, some Christians live in slavery to the fear of death. And that's what we're going to be dealing with today in Hebrews chapter 2. We're focusing on verses 14 and 15 of our text in chapter 2.

And just a word of review here to set up the context. Remember, we are dealing with what has been accomplished through the suffering of Christ. He is incarnated. He became for a little while lower than the angels so that he might affect something on behalf of his people.

He does this through death, which is mentioned in verse 14. And one of the first things that we see that comes out of the death of Christ in verses 10 through 13 is that he is identified with his brethren, those whom he calls brethren, the children of God, whom the father has given to him as his brethren.

He calls us brethren and he is not ashamed to do so. And so we are with him and we are one in the family of God and in his incarnation and in his death, he is identified with us. There is a real identity between Christ and those whom he has come to save.

God has made him of one family with those whom he came to save. So we are in that family and our elder brother has gone before. He is the author, the founder of our salvation. He's pioneered the way into death, through death and out of death and resurrection.

And he bids us to follow him. That's verses 10 through 13. Now we're looking at verse 14 and we're going to see that in the death of Christ, two things were accomplished. First, Jesus destroyed the works of the devil.

And second, he's delivered his people from the fear of death. I want you to look at how verses 14 and 15 are structured. First, verse 14 says, therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise also partook of the same.

That is a statement regarding the incarnation of Christ and his true and genuine and real identification with us in his humanity. That through death, he does two things. And each of these things in the NASB is introduced by that word might.

That through death, he might do this first and then he might do this second. Now the word might there doesn't mean that there's just generally a possibility that this could happen. It means that he came with this intention, that he might do this.

This was his intention in doing it. That's the sense of which that translates to the subjunctive voice there. He came with this intention or for this purpose, that he might do two things. Number one, render powerless him who had the power of death, that is the devil.

And the second thing is that he might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all our lives. That described me before I was a believer. I was subject to the slavery of the fear of death all my life.

Christ came to do two things, to render powerless the devil, to destroy him and his works. And second, to liberate those who through fear of death were slaves to Satan all of their lives. So we're going to look at those two things.

That's kind of the structure of it. And those are going to be our outline for this morning. I want you to notice first of all, before we look at him rendering powerless the devil, I want you to notice the statement of Christ's incarnation.

It describes his full humanity in verse 14. Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood. Now, who are the children? These are the children mentioned in verse 13, whom Christ calls brethren.

These are the children who belong to the father, who have been given to the son in eternity past. These people that he has come to save, they are the children. They are the one whom Christ calls brethren.

He calls us brethren. So that is us. So since we, as his people, whom have been given to him by the father, verses 11, 12 and 13, since we are his people given to him by the father, we share in flesh and blood.

And the word share there is the word for fellowship, koinonia. That's what it comes from. And it has the idea of participating with somebody or being in partnership with something. And it describes something that a bunch of people have in common.

What is it that we as his children all have in common? It is our humanity. Flesh and blood is a shorthand for that. In other words, all of us as his children share in and participate and have fellowship in a common humanity.

And everything that is entailed in humanity, everything that is involved in our humanity, our weaknesses, our mortality, our frailty, our idiosyncrasies, we share in these things of what it means to be human.

And so that is what we share in. That's what we have fellowship in. And all of us share the similar experiences of humanity. And it doesn't matter whether you are dark-skinned or white-skinned, what your ethnic background is.

It doesn't matter what part of the globe you're born on. It doesn't matter whether you're born to a rich family or a poor family, or whether you're tall or short or athletic or unathletic or have lots of ability or no abilities.

All of us share in this common pool of humanity and all the experiences that go with that. We get sick. We know what it is to fail. We know what it is to be frustrated. We know what it is to be disappointed.

We know what it is to be betrayed. We know what it is to grow up and to struggle with things and to have to learn things. That is the common experiences of humanity. And that's what we fellowship in. But Christ came and he took flesh and blood himself, verse 14, he himself likewise also partook of the same.

And the word partake there does not describe a fellowshipping or a sharing in it in the way that we share in humanity. That's a different word. And that word describes the act of reaching out and taking something that did not naturally belong to him or was not naturally his and taking it to himself to participate in it.

So here's the picture. You and I are humanity. We share in humanity and we experience humanity because that is common to us. It is ours by nature of what we are and who we are. But Christ, since we partake in that and fellowship in that, Christ reached out and took something that was not his by nature, that is humanity, and he brought it to himself to participate in it to share in flesh and blood just as you and I do.

So his incarnation is a real and true and genuine incarnation. And there is a difference between how we share in humanity and how he shares in humanity. We share in humanity because it's who we are by nature.

He shares in humanity because he reached out and took something that did not belong to him. It was not his by essence, by nature. And he brought it to himself. He joined himself to a real human nature in the person of Jesus Christ so that he might experience our humanity in all of its fullness.

It is not just an experience in humanity that is superficial. It's not that he tried it on. It's not that he dabbled in it, but he experienced the real genuine elements of what it means to be human. As a result of him reaching out and taking something that didn't belong to him and experiencing it fully, we are able to reach out and take hold of something that does not belong to us and we are able to experience it.

Peter describes this in 2 Peter 1 verse 4 when he says that by the promises given in God's word, he has granted us his precious and magnificent promises so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature.

That is, we as believers partake of the divine nature. How does that happen? When the Spirit of God indwells us and we have his power and his illumination and his strength and we experience what it means to be indwelt by the Spirit of God and when we who were dead in our trespasses and sins are made alive with a life that comes from the being of God himself, it is a life that is divine and eternal that lives in us, we become partakers, enjoyers and sharers in the divine nature.

So Christ reached out and took something that didn't belong to him, took it to himself so that we, in exchange, might experience something that does not belong to us, the divine nature. He took the human nature so that we could experience the life and fellowship and joy of what it means to be in communion with the divine nature.

Not that we become in any sense divine, but that we do get to experience the divine being through the life that he gives us and through the fellowship that we enjoy in the Holy Spirit. It's profound, isn't it?

He himself likewise also partook of the same and that is a real and genuine true incarnation. When we say that Christ was incarnated, we do not believe that he laid aside a divine nature, became less than God and took upon himself of humanity, but rather in the fullness of his divine nature, he veiled or clothed himself in real and true humanity and it was not just a superficial sharing but a profound identification with us.

Now that is to say that there is no hint or suggestion in scripture that part of humanity is sinfulness. So when we say he experienced all that it means to be human, we don't mean sin because sin is not what it means to be human, is it?

Is it possible for humanity to exist without sin? It is, right? Because Adam and Eve were fully human before they fell and it is possible for humanity to exist without sin because we will be fully human and without sin eventually.

So there was a time when humanity existed without sin, there will be a time when humanity will exist without sin. In the meantime, we exist in sin, but it would be wrong for us to say that our expression or understanding experience of humanity is true and genuine humanity.

In fact, I would say Adam was more human than we are in that sense because true and genuine humanity is humanity as God created it. The only humanity that we experience is a humanity that has fallen and marred by sin and infected by sin.

That's the only humanity that we experience. Christ experienced what it means to be human apart from and without any sin and without any inclination to sin and without any desire to sin at all. Completely sinless and perfect humanity, but real genuine humanity.

That's why when we look at the Lord Jesus Christ, we see evidence of His divinity and we see evidence of His humanity. In fact, we see that even in the book of Hebrews in chapter 1 verse 8, the author says that Jesus Christ was declared by the Father to be God as the Father said to the Son, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.

He ascribes that to Christ. So it's full deity. And then in chapter 2, He partook of flesh and blood in the same way that we do. He reached out and took humanity so that He could experience it and He could be identified with it and He was made with one family with those He came to save.

And He suffered death. That was the goal of His incarnation. Look at verse 14. It is through death and now He's going back to, of course, the subject of His death. His humanity and the incarnation had this in view that eventually He would die.

His taking of a human nature and dwelling in a human body, the aim of that was not on His first coming to rule and to reign. The aim and the goal of that was so that He might die in the stead of those whom He came to save.

So He partook of that and through that, He accomplished these two things. Render the devil powerless and to deliver His people from the fear of death. Look at how, look at what He says in verse 14. That He might, this is the first thing, render powerless him who had the power of death that is the devil.

Now that's how the NASB translates it. Render powerless. If you're reading the NIV or the King James, New King James or the ESV, then it's rendered destroyed. It comes from a word that is sometimes translated annihilate.

It's okay if you want to translate it destroyed or kind of understand it in those terms. Just so long as if in your mind by destroyed you don't mean or think that Jesus wiped out of existence the devil.

He clearly did not do that, right? That's not what this word means. It doesn't mean to wipe something out of existence. It means to bring something to nothing, to render it inoperative or to make it ineffective of no effect.

That's the idea there. So it's not that Jesus destroyed or wiped out the existence of the devil so that he no longer exists and annihilated him in that sense. But it is that in relationship to believers, to you and I, if you're in Christ, in relationship to believers, the devil has been rendered inoperative and unaffected and of no account.

His power over us has been and is entirely broken because of what Christ has done. He's been stripped of his power, of his ability, and of his authority in terms of the believer, not in terms of the unbeliever.

The unbeliever still exists as part of his kingdom. But we who have been rescued from the dominion of darkness, in terms of us, the authority, the power, and the ability of the devil has been entirely nullified.

Colossians 1 verse 13 says that Christ has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son. We've been taken out of one kingdom entirely. This realm in which unbelievers exist and over which Satan exercises a delegated authority, in that realm we've been taken out of there and put into the kingdom of This was darkness.

We have gone from complete darkness to a kingdom of light. That is a complete transfer. That happens at the moment of salvation. Colossians 2 verse 15 says that God, when he had disarmed the rulers and authorities, made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through him.

Satan has been completely destroyed in terms of his power and ability. We used to be in bondage to Satan through sin. Ephesians 2 verse 2 says we once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, that spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.

The same spirit that rules over the unbelievers in their kingdom. We once walked in lockstep in that kingdom, doing all of his bidding, doing what the master told us to do, but we've been taken out of that kingdom.

John 8 verse 44 says that you are of your father the devil. This is Jesus speaking to the Pharisees. You are of your father the devil and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there's no truth in him.

Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature for he is a liar and the father of lies. You have some people whose father, spiritually speaking, is the devil. That's an unpopular message, but it's true.

First John 5 verses 18 and 19, we know that no one who was born of God sins, but he who is born of God keeps him and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are of God and the whole world lies under the power of the evil one.

Is there ever a time in your life when you could be more convinced of that truth than today? The whole world lies under the sway, the power, of the authority and the influence of the evil one. Does that include us?

No. We've been taken out of that kingdom and put into another kingdom. My relationship to the prince of darkness has entirely changed because of my salvation. A change has taken place that has forever severed any of his power or authority over me and so I don't need to to bind the devil, to rebuke the devil, to reprove the devil, to focus on him at all because I've been taken out of that kingdom and placed into a new kingdom and that relationship has been entirely severed.

I'm different today than I was back then. Entirely different relationship. And now the ones who are caught in Satan's snare are held captive by him to do his will, 2 Timothy 2 .26 says. So this is the state of sinful and unredeemed man.

He cannot obey the law of God. He cannot love God. He cannot fulfill the will of God. He cannot stop sinning. He cannot divorce himself from his sin. He cannot turn from it or give it up because his nature loves it too much and he is in bondage to the devil in his kingdom of darkness, of lies, of death and that is where he exists, unable to deliver himself.

That is the condition and state of the unbeliever. That does not describe the believer. We belong to an entirely different kingdom. We have been delivered out of that entirely. Salvation is complete deliverance from all of that.

We've been taken out of darkness into light. We've gone from death into life. We've gone from condemnation into no condemnation. We have gone from being a slave to Satan to being a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That transformation is complete for those who are in Jesus Christ. We have been completely removed from that kingdom so that in terms of the believer he has come and he has destroyed him who had the power of death.

Now what does that mean that he had the power of death? That's kind of an interesting phrase that the devil would have the power of death. What does that mean? What is the power of death and how does the devil exercise it?

There are some people who sort of envision Satan like this. He is out there wandering around looking for people to kill and God's up in heaven trying to keep everybody alive and the devil's trying to kill everybody and every once in a while the devil gets one past the goalie and is able to take him out without God noticing but God's doing his best to keep everybody alive.

They view Satan as if he is an independent sovereign who exercises the dominion of life and death over the entire world and everybody in it and that if I die were to die today it's because Satan managed to gain a victory.

That's not how scripture describes either the devil or God. Do you remember what God said to the devil when he appeared and wanted to attack Job? What did he say to him? You've got everything except you cannot take his life.

Now that means that Satan cannot take his life. It doesn't mean that Satan can try. It's that he does not have that authority. Now Satan may kill me today but that is only because God would give him authority to do that and the ability to do that.

Every last day of my life and of your life is written down in God's book. He knows the day of your birth. He knows the day of your death and there is nothing that can ever happen to you that will hasten the day of your death and make it come one day sooner than you are appointed to because God knows and he knows infallibly the day upon which you will die and he cannot be shown to be in error and he cannot be surprised by the day of your death.

He is appointed. It is written down in his book. When you are going to die you are going to die and there is if God says it's time for you to die there is no physician on the face of the planet that can keep you alive one minute longer than God's appointed time and if God says that you are going to live you can stand in the middle of a battlefield and take a nuclear weapon to the chest and it is not going to kill you.

If God should so now we know that God might use a nuclear weapon to your chest to kill you but you get what I mean there's no way that you can die if God has said you're going to live. So in what sense then does Satan exercise the power of death?

In this sense why is there death in the world to begin with? Because Adam sinned and fell. Now who tempted Adam to fall? The devil did that. So the devil through his temptation brought sin into the world and thus in Adam's sin all men die.

There's the death sentence upon all of humanity because all of humanity has fallen in Adam. The devil's intention and desire is to keep men in bondage to sin and as long as one is a slave of sin he is under the sentence of death because the the wages of sin is death and death is the penalty for our sinfulness and so the devil who brought sin into the world brought death into the world put a death sentence upon all of Adam's progeny and all men who are under the power of sin are under the sentence of death.

That sentence which will be executed which is a physical death it is a spiritual death and it is an eternal death and unless one is delivered from the power of sin by having sin atoned for and paid for on their behalf unless one is delivered from that he remains under the sentence of death.

So the devil is interested in keeping men in bondage to sin so that in being bondage to sin they might be under the sentence of death and in that sense the devil has the power of death and he exercises it.

He keeps men who are in his kingdom men and women in his kingdom in slavery to the very thing that is their death sentence that is how he exercises the power of death. So it is not that he runs around trying to trying to kill people and God tries to keep them alive is that he keeps men who are in his kingdom under a death sentence by keeping them in darkness and in the kingdom of darkness.

So the very thing first thing that Christ has done is he has destroyed him who had the power of death that is the devil. Our relationship to him has entirely changed because we've been taken out of that and so his authority and power over us has been completely nullified.

The second thing that Christ came to do through his death verse 15 he might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. The unbeliever has every reason to fear death.

When I was an unbeliever I had every reason to fear death. The believer has no reason to fear death. The unbeliever has every reason to fear death. The Christian no reason to fear death. If you're sitting here today and you are a Christian and you are afraid of dying we're going to deal with that in just a second as to why that is but I want you to tell you from scripture you have no reason to fear death none whatsoever because Christ has delivered us he has freed us those of us who through fear of death we were slaves to the fear of death all our lives.

Now what is the fear of death this is not this is not the natural desire to live when talks about the fear of death here it's not describing the natural desire to live so we all have that that's part of of an instinct in us we enjoy life we don't want it to end right we look forward to the next day there is a natural desire to go on and to see what the next day has we enjoy living in this world we enjoy the delights and the pleasures that God has given to us that is a natural desire to live.

That's not what he means here by the fear of death nor is he describing here a natural avoidance of death that instinct that we have to avoid dying. When you are up on a high place and a scary place and you're the scaffolding is shaking and you're several stories above ground your heart begins to pound and you break out in a sweat.

Right and you start to shake. Some of you are shaking at the very thought of it right now what. What causes you to do that. A natural desire to live and a natural fear of death. When somebody swerves into your lane you don't just say well just plow right into the front of them.

You would swear swerve out of that lane. Right. Somebody breaks into your house. Your heart would begin to race. Your blood would begin to pump your adrenaline. You would have an adrenaline rush. Why.

Because you desire to live and you are afraid of dying. That's natural and that's instinctive. And that instinct exists in all kinds of creatures. Uh all over the planet. Right. If it didn't deer hunting would be a lot easier.

But they have a natural instinct to continue to live now. That instinct in us is part of the image of god in us. Because god is a god of life. And because god is the one who gives life and he lives eternally.

The desire that we have to live beyond this life is a god-given desire. It is natural and it is right. And it is part of the image of god in us. It all of creation seems to feel most instinctively that death is an unnatural state of things.

The death is unnatural for us and we avoid it. We don't like to think about it. We want to walk away from it. We hate to talk about it. Why. Because we at the at the core of our being we know that it is an intruder it is an intruder into a very good creation.

And we know that it is unnatural in that sense. So what he is describing here let me back up for just a second. It is possible that as we grow older and we have run our race and we get tired or we get sick that we start to lose some of that instinct.

Or maybe maybe it'd be better to say that the instinct becomes a little bit muted it expresses itself less. It's still there there's still the desire to live. And maybe a desire to live years ago. But over the course of time it is possible for us to simply give up living.

And i've known people who do this right. A spouse dies and they've been married for 60 years. And you read in the headlines all the time and they just they just almost like give up the will to live. And that's possible.

But that's an unnatural thing. So by the fear of death here the author doesn't mean the natural desire to live or the natural avoidance of death. What he is describing here is the terror of dying and death.

A terror that is caused by the uncertainty of the unknown what lies behind a terror that is caused by an uncertainty as to what is going to become of my body after i have died. The terror that is caused by this sense of justice when we know that we have done something we have done deeds of darkness and even deeds which are unknown that have never been atoned for never been reckoned with.

And yet we have this sense of justice that suggests to us that that must be dealt with in some eternal sense. And that is enough to cause the fear of death. Or we're afraid of the pain that we think is associated with the fear of death.

It's going to be painful to die man i'm not looking forward to that. Might take weeks might take months might take years. And i got to go through and endure all of that pain. And the the pain and the anguish that might be accompanied with that because we don't know how that's going to come.

Is it going to be quick or is it going to be slow. These things cause the fear of death. Sometimes the death the fear of death is caused by simply the the frustration or the anxiety that comes with not knowing if what we are going to leave behind what's going to happen to it.

Right. Remember in ecclesiastes this was solomon's frustration. He lacked knowledge he lacked understanding in his natural state from his from his godless perspective of what awaited him. And so solomon would say things like who knows whether the spirit of amanda sends upward and that beast sends downward.

Who knows this. Who knows what justice looks like on the other side who knows what will become of everything i have accumulated i've built all of this up. Somebody else is going to come and take it. He might be a wise man he might be a fool.

But who knows. Who knows whether life exists after this life or not. Who knows if there's any purpose to living. Solomon didn't know these things and it was that uncertainty that caused him to be in angst over all of it.

And we we approach death that we think of death. And we experience death in terms of not something that just happens to us. It's not something that happens to us like we get our hair cut or we stub our toe.

But it is like a foreign power that rules over us. Is it not. And every joy is a muted joy because every joy comes with the reminder that this is not permanent. And every delight comes with the reminder this is not permanent.

And every achievement with the reminder that i will eventually die like sands through the hourglass. So are the days of our lives just tick tick ticking away. And that clock is on the back wall of life and we're approaching it.