Hebrews 2:10-13 - Humanity required to be the Leader — Phil Coulson

Humanity and the Recovery of Dominion

We'll turn again, please, to Hebrews in chapter 2. Hebrews in chapter 2, and we began a little study this morning looking at the humanity of the Lord Jesus in chapter 2, and particularly made reference to four particular reasons why that essential humanity is taught in this passage.

I don't think we named the reasons, but the first of them we looked at this morning was the essential humanity of the Lord Jesus is absolutely necessary when it comes to the recovery of man's forfeited dominion.

Everything that had been entrusted to Adam and that Adam forfeited, the only way in which it could be restored was by the introduction and the entrance into the world of another man, and through that man, the second man, the Lord out from heaven, through that man, God intended for all that Adam forfeited to be restored.

We noted in verse 5 that the age to come, the millennial age of our Lord Jesus Christ, will be one characterized by universal dominion being back in the hands of a man. It was there, certainly as far as history is concerned, it was in the hands of a man only momentarily.

We don't know how long it was from God speaking to Adam till sin coming into the world. I judge it wasn't long. And for that very brief period, dominion was in the hands of a man. Since then, it's been in the hands of an angel.

You will remember when the Lord Jesus was tested of the devil, and the devil took him to the pinnacle of the temple or rather to an exceeding high mountain, showed him the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and offered them to the Lord if the Lord would bow down and acknowledge him.

The Lord didn't contest that those kingdoms and that that glory was the devil's to give. The whole world lies in the hands of the wicked one who is an angel. Now, it follows that if this age in which we're living is under the domination of angelic beings, but that the age to come will be under the universal dominion of a man, the Lord Jesus Christ, it follows that at some time there has to be a transfer of authority.

There's a time when this has to happen. And the time when this will happen is recorded for us in the book of Revelation and in chapters 4 and 5. And there, significantly, the Spirit of God takes us back into the throne room of heaven.

That's where the sin problem began, according to Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14. And he takes us back into the throne room of heaven, and what we find is a view of the current angelic dominion of the works of God's hands.

There are four living creatures. There are four and twenty elders. In my judgment, nothing to do with the church, angelic beings. And those angelic beings, the highest principalities and powers that there are, the highest hierarchy of them all, four living creatures, four and twenty elders.

And they realize that the time has come in the purpose of God for universal dominion to be returned to the hands of a man. John, of course, weeps initially, because there's no man found worthy. And sure enough, out of Adam's race, there is no man found worthy.

But then, of course, we have that sight of the Lamb, who is also the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and the person of the Lord Jesus comes into view, and He is the one who is worthy to receive honor and dominion and all those things that are spoken about.

And so you will find in Revelation and chapter 4 that the angelic intelligences bow before Him, and they acknowledge Him as the Creator of all things. He's worthy of universal dominion because He's created them all.

But in chapter 5, the song continues, and they declare that He is worthy not just because He's created all things, but He's redeemed all things. It's His redemptive work that is in view, and in light of His creatorial authority and His redemptive authority, then those angelic beings who are the caretaker government presently in heaven, they then gladly cast their crowns of dominion before His feet.

And thus, in those two chapters, we see this glorious occasion when universal dominion passes out of the hands of angelic beings back into the hands of the man, our Lord Jesus Christ. I hope these things excite you because they're going to happen, and every day we live by the grace of God is drawing us closer to that momentous occasion when that all takes place.

So, that's all contained really there in verse 5 of Hebrews chapter 2, and we saw how that those next verses down to verse 8 deal with God's dealings and purpose for man recorded in Psalm 8. It was the glory, honor, dominion that was given to Adam that He forfeited.

It's all that that's going to be restored in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. So, He said, now we look at Adam, we see what God gave him. The thing is, although God put all things in subjection under His feet in verse 8, it is a fact that at the end of verse 8, we do not yet see all things put under Him, or rather, we don't see them anymore.

We don't see all things under the dominion of man because of Adam's fall, but what we do see, what we do see is Jesus. And it's very lovely in the Hebrew epistle especially that when the writer calls our attention to our beloved Lord by using His name that was given to Him at birth, he's drawing attention always to the essential perfect humanity of our Lord Jesus.

So, when Scripture records Him by that name, it's for very good and intelligent reason. I would hope an audience like this would agree and understand that for us, we always give the Lord Jesus His titles.

This same Jesus, said Peter to the men of Israel, whom ye have taken by wicked hands and crucified and slain, God has made both Lord and Christ. Never detract from the dignity of our beloved Savior. He is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Christ’s Suffering and the Meaning of Hebrews 2:9

Now, the thought is, as we continue in the chapter, that if it be the case that this was God's purpose and that universal dominion is to be handed back to the second man, then what about this whole business of the suffering of death?

This would seem a strange thing to the Hebrew reader. I judge that the Hebrew epistle was principally, not exclusively, but principally addressed to the great company of priests who were obedient to the faith, of whom we read in Acts chapter 6.

It is clear that the writer assumes a higher than average knowledge of priestly and liturgical behavior as we read through the epistle. And those men who had been born into the priesthood, the Aaronic priesthood, those men who had seen that in Christ all the things that they were involved with had now been fulfilled, those men had thrown in their lot with Christ and had suffered greatly because of it.

They'd lost status, they'd lost family, they'd lost home, they'd lost everything because they sided with Christ. They were suffering people. And we keep that in our mind as the writer returns to the suffering of the Lord Jesus.

Now, he says that he was made for a little while lower than the angels, and it was for the purpose of the suffering of death, not just for death, but for the suffering of death, and he was made for that little while lower than the angels.

And as he concludes this section, he says we see Jesus, verse 9, who was made for a little while lower than the angels for the suffering of death, that he by the grace of God should taste death on behalf of everything, not just every man, but everything, because creation itself is going to be restored through the suffering and the death of the Lord Jesus.

But then at the end of that verse, we take that central phrase and expression, crowned with glory, so that it reads something like this, we see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels for the suffering of death, so that he by the grace of God should taste death on behalf of everything, we now see Jesus, and he's crowned with glory and honor.

That is consequent upon his suffering and death. The Lord wasn't crowned with glory and honor while he was here. We understand, of course, that in the world of creation, the animal kingdom was obedient to him.

We understand that the birds were obedient to him. The fish were obedient to him. In fact, it's a very telling thing that for 40 days and 40 nights, the Lord Jesus was in the wilderness with the wild beasts.

He came out of that experience without a scratch upon him. He was a few hours, just a few hours amongst a band of men, and they left him unrecognizable as a man. Yes, creation was obedient to him. Creation was subject to him.

It's man who's vile. So, we don't see the Lord Jesus crowned with glory and honor down here. We see him now crowned with glory and honor in heaven, and that's consequent upon the suffering of death, his resurrection, the divine endorsement of all that he did at Calvary, and he's now taken manhood into glory.

And there God has glorified him and will glorify him yet. But the man who was here in humility and who suffered in agony and shame is now crowned with glory and honor. The writer to the Hebrew says, that's the one we want to be involved with.

That's the one we want to study now. That's the one we want to look at. So then, to speak about his suffering and his shame, in verse 10, the next section of the chapter which takes us down to verse 13, we'll have some explanation of that, and we'll read it together please.

Verse 10, for it became him. Now, I'm going to punctuate the reading with comment. I hope that is neither irreverent nor unhelpful, but we need to identify personalities here in verse 10. For it became him.

So we ask, well, who's the him? It became him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory. So we need to identify them. To make the captain of their salvation, we need to identify that captain perfect through sufferings.

The identification is not difficult. The captain of salvation, the pioneer, the originator, is the Lord Jesus. He's the one who suffered. But we then have to think, well, what does it mean? He was made perfect through sufferings.

The originator, the captain, the pioneer of salvation, is involved with those many sons. He's bringing many sons unto glory. So now if the captain is Christ, and we are among the many sons being brought unto glory, it means that the him of the first line of the verse must be the Father.

It is God the Father. It became him, God, for whom are all things and by whom are all things. And we pause there, because if we read Colossians 1 and 16, then all things are attributed to Christ. Well, carefully read now.

The creation of all things is attributed to Christ in Colossians 1. All things were made by him. All things were made for him. The idea that the writer is bringing before us here is that the all things originated with God.

He is the architect of divine purpose. And in this connection, in this idea, God doesn't have purposes, plural. God has a purpose. He is working out all things according to the counsel of his own will.

He doesn't change plan A to plan B. He doesn't have to adapt his plan. There is a plan established in eternity. God is the architect of it. And as he works it out, then the all things were designed by the divine architect, and Christ, as always, is the executor of the Father's will.

What the Father wills, the Son brings into being. And what the Son brings into being, the Spirit of God then energizes. You'll find that's a theme through Scripture. It was true in creation, so that what the Father had designed, the work of creation was done by Christ.

All things were made by him, says John. Without him was not anything made that was made. He is always, the Lord Jesus, is not only the declarer of the Father, but he is always the executor of divine purpose and will.

He is the one who does that work. But what he does in the way of that work, the Spirit of God energizes. So in creation, according to divine purpose, the Lord Jesus called everything out of nothing, all the materials of the universe he called out of nothing.

The Spirit of God brooded upon the face of the deep and energized the material that be made. The great thing is, we pause to say, beloved of God, the same thing was true of your salvation and mine. Our brother's been reading to us in 2 Peter, but in 1 Peter, in chapter 1 and verse 2, as Peter opens his letter to his brethren, he says, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, sanctified by the Spirit unto obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.

You have all three persons of the triune Godhead named in that verse. This is speaking about believers like you and me. Is there someone here young, newly saved? Listen, this is what the Bible says about you as a believer in the Lord Jesus.

Elect according to the foreknowledge of God. That does not mean, by the way, that God knew that there would come a day when you would believe the gospel so he chose you. That stands the whole truth of election on its head.

It means that God responded to what you would do. The Bible teaches very clearly, in my view, that there is individual, sovereign election unto salvation. And how that squares with the equal truth of the responsibility of men to repent and believe the gospel, how that squares with it, I don't know.

And neither do you, and you never will, at least not down here, so stop trying if you are apt to do that. There are certain things, you see, that God in His great kindness and wisdom has revealed to us.

We're in a gymnasium where balls get kicked around and knocked off the walls and up in the air. This is not the sort of truth with which we should do that. Are we happy with that now? We should be humble enough, in accordance with the teaching we've heard today, we should be humble enough to recognize that when God reveals things about eternal divine purpose, they are far beyond the comprehension of minds that have been designed to cope with the things of this life.

Believe them and rejoice in them. Elect according to the foreknowledge of God. The foreknowledge of God is always about persons, not about things. It's not about events. In the book of Amos, concerning the nation of Israel, God said, you only have I known among all the families of the earth.

Does that mean God didn't know about the other families of the earth? Of course not. The thought is that God in sovereign purpose set His love upon them. And He did so because He did so. He's God. He's sovereign.

And He's working to a single eternal purpose where all things beautifully harmonize and blend together. And God set His love upon that nation because He did so. But of course, He had to remind them in later years when they got a bit full of themselves about the whole thing where the chosen people, God had to say, you just remember now, I didn't choose you because you were mightier or better or stronger or more numerous than anybody else.

He said, I chose you when you were still in the loins of your father Abraham. So you've nothing to boast about at all. It was my sovereign choice. So elect according to the foreknowledge of God. And that was brought to realization when the Spirit of God illuminated your heart and mind as to the truth of the gospel.

I'm assuming I'm talking to people who were saved. And when you got saved, whenever it was, it wasn't because the preacher was better than last week's. It wasn't because he was more eloquent or explained the verses better.

It might have been part of it. But no one is saved in this dispensation except the Spirit of God cast divine light into that state of spiritual death and darkness and shows clearly our need and the sufficiency of Christ to meet that need.

And so Peter says, we are elect according to the foreknowledge of God, sanctified, set apart by the Spirit unto obedience. That's our part in it. God never sets a man a riddle. He never sets him a puzzle.

He never says, well, you're better saved than the other boy because you worked it out quicker than he did. God always sets a decision before man. Will I obey or will I not? That was the choice in the garden.

It's never changed. Will I obey or will I not? And Hebrews chapter 6 makes it very clear that it's perfectly possible for people who've been enlightened by the Spirit of God to refuse to acknowledge that enlightenment and choose to continue in darkness.

And that would be a dreadful thing, a tragic thing, if that were ever true of anybody here. Now, we didn't know that. Of course we didn't. All I knew when I got saved on 15th of August 1963, all I knew was I was a sinner and I was headed to hell and I didn't want to go there.

And I knew and I believed with all my heart that the Lord Jesus Christ had given His own life for me. And He had done so in agony and shame. And I thank God for sending His Son to die in my place. I bless the Lord for dying for me.

And I repented of my sins. I confessed them. And I trusted Christ. And God in His rich mercy saved my soul. And I didn't know a thing beyond that. And then I find that all this great work has been done behind the scenes.

And what God had planned in eternity, the Spirit of God had now shone into my soul. And the moment I believed the gospel, the moment I exercised believing faith, I came into the good of all the work that Christ did at Calvary.

Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, sanctified by the Spirit unto obedience, and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. When you read of the blood being shed, it is always to satisfy the demands of God.

When you read of blood being sprinkled, it's to satisfy the needs of man. And the moment I put my faith in Christ, God reckoned to my account all the sufficiency of the sacrifice of His beloved Son at Calvary.

And God in His rich mercy saved my soul. I pause here. I know there's a gospel meeting later, but it'd be a great thing for the Lord might come before that. If there's a dear friend in this meeting today and you're not saved.

And you might be thinking, well, preacher, on account of what you've just been said, if God hasn't chosen me, I'm doomed. Put any thought like that totally outside of your head because it is not biblical.

We preach unashamedly, we preach with tremendous joy, the gospel of God's grace to the whosoever. You say that doesn't stack up. You're absolutely right. And what it reveals is the limitation of human logic and a reasoning mind.

That's what it reveals. God gave us reason. He gave us logical minds to cope with the issues of this world, not to try and dissect the glories of divine truth revealed. So we as believers rejoice in that work that's been done.

And we now realize that the same three divine persons who worked harmoniously to bring a universe into being, those same three divine persons worked together harmoniously to save your soul and mine. And I speak reverently.

When God rested on the seventh day, the rest of pleasure, of course, not the need for recuperation. When God rested to enjoy everything that was very good, He could have created 10 ,000 more universes, and it wouldn't have cost Him anything.

He's a limitless, omnipotent God. But when those same three divine persons worked to save my soul and yours, it cost God His Son, and it cost Christ His life to save a wretch like me. Oh God, help me never to lose the wonder of it.

The old men used to tell us, you lose the wonder, you lose the worship. It's true, isn't it? We become used to being saved. And it's not long before these treacherous old hearts of ours begin to persuade us that there was actually something about us that was worth it.

And indeed, we can perhaps even start to look down a bit on those who don't know the Lord. God preserve us. We need to keep the words in mind constantly, don't we? We often sing them. I'm only a sinner saved by grace.

The Father’s Purpose and the Three Persons of the Godhead

But look at the enormity of it. Look at the enormity of the doctrine that lies behind it. So, coming back to our Hebrew epistle, it says the writer in verse 10, now, it was appropriate for God. This is the thought of it became Him.

It was an appropriate thing in the purpose of God, who's the architect of all things when it comes to divine purpose. It was completely appropriate for God in that purpose, in His desire to bring many sons unto glory, to make the originator of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

Let's just think about those things here. Bringing many sons unto glory. Well, you see, at creation, going back to Psalm 8, God had on earth a son who was glorious. That was Adam. When you read the genealogy of the Lord Jesus in Luke chapter 3, which takes His genealogy right back to Adam, although the words son of, son of, son of, son of, they're italicized, they're not actually there in the text.

Nevertheless, by inference, they are. The whole list begins, He was supposed to be the son of Joseph, who was the son of Heli, and then it goes on. So, the idea follows on, the son of, the son of, and it terminates with Adam, son of God.

You say, well, in what way was Adam son of God? In the same way is the Lord Jesus? No, but He's a son of God because the Bible often uses this term son to speak not of descent or even of gender, but of character.

Do you remember Barnabas? Barnabas is the sort of brother you'd love to have a few of in every assembly. And his name wasn't actually Barnabas, it was given to him as a nickname, a byname as they'd say where I live.

And he was given that name because he was the son of exhortation, he was the son of comfort. That's what characterized him. In John chapter 8, the Pharisees were boasting they had Abraham to their father.

They were casting aspersions on the Lord's origins. And they said, we've got Abraham to our father. And the Lord said, if Abraham was really your father, you would do the deeds of your father Abraham.

But you don't. You do the deeds of your father the devil. So, the Lord wasn't denying that they could go back in their human genealogy to Abraham, but He said, that doesn't constitute you spiritual sons of Abraham.

You just happen by chance to be descended from him. Unless your character is the same as his, don't boast about being a son of his. That's why you see the Lord Jesus is called the son of God. That's his title.

He's son of God. He's not a descendant. He's not a next generation. He's not a lesser person. He is called son of God because he's the one who fully displays the character of God. Apart from God's infinite power and glory seen in creation, we would know very little about God were it not for the fact that He's revealed Himself in Christ.

Philip said with some frustration, simply show us the Father. It sufficeth us. And the Lord said, Philip, have I been so long with you and you haven't learned this yet? He that has seen me has seen the Father.

There's nothing more to see. So as the one who fully expresses all that God is, he's the son of God, the full expression of character. And that's why the Lord Jesus chose for Himself a title, and only He used it of Himself, son of man.

If son of God means the expression of all that God is, then son of man means the expression of all that man should be. Everything God intended man to be, we find in Christ. So if we want to learn about God, we look at Christ.

And if we want to learn about what man should be, we look at Christ. Later on in chapter 10 of this epistle and verse 5, we would understand from the Greek text of that verse that God was in Christ restoring man to what He had always intended man to be.

God made man as He wanted him to be. He was His representative upon earth. Let us make man after our own image, representation, and after our own likeness, resemblance. That, of course, was all lost. Adam was a glorious being.

He was. He was a glorious being. He and his wife at the end of chapter 2 were naked, and they weren't ashamed because they were clothed in glory. When they sinned, of course, the glory departed. And they were left truly naked, and they were ashamed.

So Paul writes in the Roman epistle, for all have sinned in Adam and come short of the glory of God. The glory that God intended man to display cannot be displayed in fallen men like you and me. But in Christ, absolutely.

In Christ, God was restoring manhood to what He ever intended it to be. You say, well, the Lord didn't appear glorious when He was down here. They looked on Him, and, well, there was no beauty, Isaiah said prophetically, that we should desire Him.

Yes, but don't forget, there was an occasion when the Lord Jesus took Peter, James, and John up into the holy mount. Peter never forgot that. It's in the epistle we've been reading from today. Peter says, as he recalled that time all those years ago, he said we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.

He was privileged to look upon the glory of Christ. What glory did he see? It was a glory so great that it made his garments redundant. But it couldn't have been the glory of deity, for no man can look upon God and live.

No. No, it was the glory of perfect humanity. It was the glory of man as God intended man to be. The glory that Christ will display in the millennial kingdom. Peter intuitively realized this, and he wanted to build those three booths.

This is the feast of tabernacles, he said. This is the millennial dawn. Christ in all the full glory of perfect humanity. Of course, the time is not yet for that. And the Lord descended back from the mountain, and we begin to understand this tremendous truth.

We often think, don't we, of how He veiled the glory of deity in humanity. He took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And so He veiled, He didn't relinquish anything of deity, but He veiled the glory of deity in humanity.

But He then also veiled the glory of perfect humanity, so that He would appear like any other man. And thus Paul writes to the Romans in chapter 8, for what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son, listen, in the likeness of sinful flesh.

And for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. In the likeness of sinful flesh. How careful the Spirit of God is as He writes the Scriptures. It wasn't sinful flesh, He was holy and pure, sinless. And it wasn't the likeness of flesh, He was a real man.

But He was in the likeness of sinful flesh, He appeared like any other man. He veiled the glory of perfect humanity, but He gave Peter, James, and John just a glimpse of it. And that's how He will be in the day to come, our glorious Lord.

So, the first man in the garden was a Son of God, in the sense that God made Him to reflect His character. He was a glorious being. Now the purpose of God will never be thwarted, but the wonderful thing that the writer's revealing now is this, that if the first Adam was a Son unto glory, the last Adam, our Lord Jesus, the last Adam, He will be the pioneer, He will be the originator who will now bring many sons unto glory.

Not just one, but a whole family of them. And of course, we're included in that great company. And you dear sisters will understand now, if you didn't before, you will understand that's why the Bible refers to you as sons.

It's got nothing to do with your gender on earth. You are called sons of God even though you are female, you are called sons of God because it's about character in its display. It's not about gender, it's not about offspring or anything like that.

We're the children of God because we have been born into His family by new birth. But we're sons of God by adoption. That is, we've been set into the purpose of God deliberately, carefully by God as those who are the bearers of His character.

So we are all included in this many sons unto glory. It's why I lament personally the increasing habit of casting aside the expression as we address each other of brethren for brothers and sisters. We're losing sight of the meaning and the import of the word brethren.

When I speak to you as my beloved brethren, it's not to do with the fact that you're not Methodists or Baptists or anything like that. And when I refer to my beloved brethren, I might, and if I mean the males only, I'll make that clear.

But the beauty is we are brethren, males and females alike. We are brethren because we're all sons. And a company of sons together constitutes a company of brethren. You see that? It's a high principle.

It takes us beyond the thinking of this world. It's nothing to do with gender. It's nothing to do with descent or family or anything like that. It is that God has graciously set us in divine purpose as sons.

And a company of sons is a company of brethren, small b, of course. But I understand why some people sometimes want just to speak, well, brethrens, and they think the term brethren excludes the women.

It doesn't. It doesn't. If we understand why we use it, it doesn't exclude our sisters. Rather, it lifts the whole thing to a somewhat higher plane. So it became him, it was appropriate for God, the architect of all things, in his purpose in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the one who would be their pioneer, the Lord Jesus, to make him perfect through sufferings.

Christ’s True Humanity and the Incarnation

Now, the thought of perfect is not the opposite of imperfect or flawed, but it's rather the thought of making him complete, making him complete as far as that divine purpose is concerned. And the thought of that completion as far as Christ is concerned is that he might be ascended back to the Father in glory, accompanied by a wonderful company of those who are just like him.

But he will go on to explain the only way he can bring many sons unto glory who are just like him is if, first of all, he becomes just like them. And that's what he's going to take us unto. That it's because Christ, first of all, became just like us in respect of humanity that he can now, he's now able through his sufferings and death, he's now able to take a whole raft of sons unto glory who are just like him.

So it's the completion of divine purpose, and it was necessary through suffering. Well, he then points out in verse 11 that the one who has sanctified, that is, anything that is sanctified is set apart for a particular purpose.

So these sons have been set apart for glory. These sons have been set apart to be with Christ. He's the one who's come to be the pioneer of that work, and so the one who has done the sanctifying work, and those who are sanctified, the sons, he says they're all of one.

And it's for this reason that he's not ashamed to call them brethren. Now, the thought is this. He's going to show us, he's going to come to the detail of the humanity of Christ in a moment. But he said, now the thing is, prophetically, he's quoting Psalm 22, he said, prophetically, Christ has referred to a company of people who now have been identified as the sons who are going to be brought to glory.

Christ is identified with a group of people he calls his brethren. Now, that term would be being abused if he were not the same as his brethren. See that point? For this cause, he's not ashamed to call them brethren.

When Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, what he meant was, it wasn't that he says, I don't go red when I preach the gospel. I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. There's nothing in the gospel that is an insult to my intelligence or that I have to sort of gloss over by slate of hand.

There's nothing in the gospel that doesn't stack up that I have to kind of use some weasel words about. Everything in it totally harmonizes. There's nothing in the gospel at all, says Paul, that would in any way cause shame to come onto me.

Now, if Christ were not truly like his brethren, there were those who could point the finger and say, you're just patronizing. You know, you're not brethren with them at all. You're completely different from them.

How can you call them brethren? Remember Joseph and his brethren? Remember Moses and his brethren? The kind of accusations that came their way? Well, says the writer, look, the one who sanctified these sons being brought unto glory, and those sons themselves are all of one.