Participants: James Rafferty, Ty Gibson
Series Code: BOTB
Program Code: BOTB00003A
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00:21 Welcome friends.
00:22 I'm so glad you joined us for Books of the Book, 00:25 which is the program that explores the Bible book by book. 00:30 Just as the word of God reads. 00:32 We are in the study of the book of Hebrews James. 00:35 We have already had two sessions in this 00:37 series of programs. 00:38 We've had an overview of the book of Hebrews. 00:40 Kind of a flyby overview and then we looked at Chapter 1 00:45 of the book of Hebrews and now we have come to Chapter 2. 00:48 So we want to invite our friends to grab a Bible and 00:52 pull up to the television set there, or if you are listening 00:56 by radio get a Bible and follow along as we move through 00:59 Hebrews Chapter 2. 01:01 Hebrews 2 is where we are picking up because 01:03 we left off here. 01:04 We finished Hebrews, Chapter 1, and were moving into 01:07 Hebrews, Chapter 2. 01:08 We are going to start with verse 1 of Hebrews 2. 01:10 "Therefore we ought to give more earnest heed to the 01:14 things that we have heard lest any time, we should let 01:18 them slip," or drift a way. 01:20 This is beautiful, really this verse, because God is 01:23 drawing our minds again to that relationship, 01:26 theme, don't drift from me. 01:28 Don't let me slip away from You, but He is doing it 01:29 in a relationship to the Word. 01:31 The reason that Chapter 2 begins with the word 01:34 "therefore", is because it is referring back to what 01:37 Paul has just developed in Chapter 1. 01:40 In Chapter 1, he has introduced us to God supreme 01:45 revelation of Himself, in the person of Jesus Christ. 01:48 Paul has informed us that this individual that we are 01:51 dealing with in Christ is none other than the Creator 01:56 of the Universe who, buy Himself has purged our sins. 01:59 He is none other than God, Lord and the Maker of 02:03 heaven and earth down in the latter verses of Chapter 1. 02:07 So, then Paul in Chapter 2, says, "Therefore, we must 02:11 give earnest heed to these things. " 02:13 In other words, Paul is communicating a tone of urgency 02:16 here, he is saying God has done everything He can do. 02:21 There is no further that God can go in self-sacrifice, 02:24 He has given all of heaven. 02:25 And this one gift of Himself in Jesus Christ. 02:28 So if we let this slip through our fingers. 02:31 If we somehow become hardened and insensitive to this 02:36 greatest of all gifts and manifestation of God's love. 02:39 There is nothing more that God can do to reach our hearts. 02:44 Absolutely, and also, I think one of the themes we are 02:47 picking up on here it, we are going to find flowing 02:49 through the book of Hebrews, a relationship theme that 02:52 He is building on is God has always opened, had an open door 02:56 of communication to us. 02:58 He has always committed to us, even from the inception 03:01 of sin, He came looking for us through the prophets, 03:03 has communicated to us and in the last days. 03:05 His last effort, His last focus is to come personally, 03:10 in Human Flesh and connect with us relationally for 03:15 eternity, because Jesus Christ is going to bear human, 03:18 humanity for all eternity. 03:20 And what else can God do but that. 03:23 In other words, in relationship and seeking 03:24 to restore relationship. 03:25 How more can He manifest Himself? 03:28 So James, what we see here is that if we were to 03:31 summarize, Chapter 1, the author of Hebrews is saying, 03:34 Jesus is God. 03:36 If we are to summarize, Chapter 2 of Hebrews. 03:40 The author is saying, Jesus who is God, has become human. 03:46 And this is necessary in order to accomplish, to bring to 03:50 fruition and completion, the plan of salvation. 03:52 This book, the book of Hebrews is Paul's masterpiece of 03:57 Christian apologetics.. 03:58 Now Christian apologetics is defined as the purpose of 04:04 proving Christianity true. 04:05 And so Paul here is using every, he is pulling out all 04:10 the stops, he is using everything he can to help us to 04:13 see God in the correct light and the right light. 04:15 He is doing this by laying the foundation in 04:18 who Jesus Christ was. 04:19 Hebrews, in a sense, knew that Jesus was human, in fact 04:23 He was too human for them to believe that He was God. 04:25 Many of the Jews were ready to stone Jesus for claiming 04:29 to be one with the Father for claiming to be God. 04:31 They knew He was human, and so Paul takes this first 04:35 chapter, and just dedicates it to pulling the point home, 04:40 pushing the point home, that Jesus was God. 04:42 Now he goes back in a sense, to help us understand that 04:46 while He was God, He was also human. 04:48 This is vital for the Gospel. 04:50 This is the most incredible thing that's ever happened 04:54 in all of Universal history. 04:56 There is nothing that human minds can contemplate, 04:59 nothing we can study, nothing we can delve into, there's 05:03 no scientific pursuit, there is nothing that compares 05:07 with the reality of God the Creator of the universe, 05:12 condescending and infinite love and self-sacrifice to 05:16 become a member James, of His own creation of His own, 05:21 what He's made. 05:23 I mean, we are mere human beings, and God didn't remain 05:26 in a lofty separate position, God step down and became human. 05:32 Paul begins to open this up with verse 5 and onward in the 05:37 book of Hebrews. 05:38 He says there in verse 5, "for God has not put the world 05:43 to come, of which we speak in subjection to Angels, 05:48 but one has testified in a certain place," 05:51 he's speaking of David here. 05:52 "What is man that you are mindful of him or the 05:57 Son of Man, that you take care of Him. " 05:59 Here's the question that David urged in Psalms 06:02 Chapter 8,and Paul takes up here and repeats, 06:04 David is contemplating humanity. 06:09 Why are they so important? 06:10 What's the big deal? 06:11 What's so significant about human beings? 06:12 Why does God even care for us? 06:14 How vast the universe is, how large creation is, and 06:18 how tiny our planet is. 06:20 And we're little specks of, little specks of dust on 06:22 this planet and then you think of a Creator God, 06:24 who has created all of this. 06:25 So it's much bigger than all of it, the question comes home 06:29 to the mind, even the scientific mind, the question comes home, 06:31 What is man? 06:33 In comparison to all of this, and the answer that Paul 06:36 drives home is astounding, because he gives an answer 06:41 that elevates humanity in the scale of moral worth before 06:47 God on such an incredible scale, he says in verse 7, 06:50 "You," that is God, "you have made Him a little lower 06:55 than the angels and have crowned him with glory and 06:59 honor and set Him over the works of Your hands. " 07:03 It is very interesting, James, that in this text, 07:05 if you look at other versions, you look at 07:08 the actual Greek here. 07:09 And even in my margin, in my new King James version, it 07:12 explains here that there is another dimension to this 07:16 that Paul is bringing home. 07:18 That actually you don't even need the other translations 07:20 for, because the remainder of the chapter actually fills 07:23 out this picture. 07:24 The way that this verse reads really reads, "You have made Him 07:27 for a little while, lower than the angels. " 07:31 Then Paul's logic goes something like this, human beings 07:35 were made a little while lower than the angels 07:36 because, in the course of time, God was incarnate in 07:41 Christ Jesus became a human being, and then was elevated 07:45 to the right hand of the Father. 07:47 Humanity was, in fact, in Christ, taken in the very 07:51 heavens and seated at the right hand of the Father. 07:54 So Paul is kind of saying, now a part of the plan of 07:57 redemption, is that we as human beings would catch up 08:01 to our position in Christ. 08:03 That we would find our place in Jesus Christ, 08:07 at the right hand of the Father. 08:08 So God is not just restoring us God, God is not just bringing 08:11 us back to this ideally perfection that we had in the 08:14 garden of Eden, down on this earth. 08:15 He is taken as further than that. 08:17 He is actually elevating us, in that restoration, 08:20 to a place by Himself. 08:21 In other words, the plan of salvation the gospel of Jesus 08:24 Christ, involving God becoming a man, means that the 08:28 immortal, becomes mortal and takes upon Himself that 08:31 mortality that human flesh. 08:33 I should say dying in the human flesh, and then glorified 08:36 in that human flesh takes it to heaven and then there with Him 08:39 We sit, as He is the head of the human race, we sit with 08:43 Him on the right side of the Father for all eternity. 08:46 I mean, think about this, right now, as we are sitting 08:49 here having this Bible study, 08:51 right at this very moment, a literal 08:54 human being is seated in the throne room of the 08:59 universe with the Father. 09:00 A specimen of the human race, you could say, 09:04 in Jesus Christ has traversed the entire, 09:07 the entire gamut of redemption. 09:10 He has completely perfected humanity and 09:14 has ascended to the throne room of the universe. 09:17 There is a sense in which according to the 09:19 New Testament Gospel that Jesus is our 09:23 representative there. 09:24 I mean, I'm not there, literally, 09:26 you're not there literally. 09:27 That's why we said we are called upon by faith to 09:30 catch up to where Jesus is by faith. 09:33 The fact is, that in a representative set, as our 09:36 Savior, as a human being, our brother in the flesh. 09:39 Jesus after His incarnation, His death, His resurrection 09:42 and ascension retained our humanity. 09:46 Yes, I like these verses, because these verses in 09:49 Hebrew Chapter 2. 09:50 These verses 5 through 9, give us a set outline of 09:55 the whole plan of salvation. 09:56 We have the creation story right here. 09:58 We have the fact that God's put us on this earth and 10:02 placed everything under us. 10:04 We were given dominion of the whole planet in its 10:06 perfection, in its Edenic beauty. 10:08 Then it says in verse 8, when you put all things in 10:12 subjection under His feet... there was nothing that 10:16 was not put under Him. 10:18 There was nothing that was left out, of that subjection. 10:20 He has subjection of the animals, the earth, 10:22 everything was ours. 10:23 But now, the end of this verse says, verse eight, but now 10:27 we do not yet see all things put under Him. 10:30 That has taken us to the fall. 10:32 That is taken is to the truth of our deception by 10:38 Satan, by the serpent. 10:39 And the fact that we yield ourselves servants to obey. 10:42 We become those servants to whom we obey. 10:44 Romans Chapter 6 tells us. 10:46 And therefore now in obeying the serpent, believing the lie 10:50 in disobeying God and turning our allegiance from 10:53 God to the devil. 10:54 We have given dominion over this earth to the devil. 10:58 He has become the prince of this world that is 10:59 why we see evil. 11:01 That's why we see pain 11:02 That's what we see suffering. 11:03 That's where we see death. 11:04 That's why we see what we see on this planet. 11:06 It was never God's will. 11:07 His will is not being done here, in that context, but 11:11 verse 9 says, we see Jesus. 11:13 So there is a reversal of the effects of the fall. 11:17 I mean, the plan of salvation in a sense in this 11:21 particular context, is God coming into human experience 11:25 and reversing or you could say this way, that He is 11:29 going to carry forth His original plan for the 11:32 human race, as if human beings have never fallen. 11:35 Paul and in other words, He is not putting in a demoted 11:38 position, He's not consigning us to some remote planet 11:41 somewhere in the universe and saying, you know, you 11:44 should be just glad that I spared you. 11:46 He is going the extra mile to say the least He is not 11:49 only redeeming us. 11:51 But then He is taking us into His very closest, 11:55 intimate relationship. 11:56 Literally, according to this scripture, human beings 12:00 are to occupy a position, eventually, 12:03 in relationship with God, that is higher than the 12:06 angels who have never fallen into sin. 12:09 And that is why Paul uses here, for example, the little 12:12 word "yet" in verse 8. 12:13 We do not yet see all things in subjection to Him, 12:17 but verse 9, we do see Jesus. 12:20 Who, who was made a little lower than the angels why, 12:22 because that's where we were made, He became one with us. 12:26 What for, for the suffering of death that He by the grace 12:29 of God should taste death for everyone, for all. 12:31 Why though, why did He need to taste death? is God's wrath 12:37 need to be appeased, is God angry, No! 12:39 The context of this is really clear in Hebrews Chapter 2. 12:43 We see in verse two that the word that was spoken by angels 12:46 was steadfast and every transgression and disobedience 12:50 received a just recompense of reward. 12:52 How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? 12:55 In other words, God is just. 12:57 Does that mean He's not love? 12:59 Does that justice eclipse, His love? 13:02 Absolutely not, there is a common misconception, 13:06 in the world and in Christianity, that there is a 13:09 contradiction or a contrast. 13:12 That is irreconcilable between justice and mercy. 13:15 So people, sometimes James, you hear people place love and 13:20 justice as an opposite or intention with one another. 13:25 They say God is love. 13:26 But God is also just or God is just the God is also love, 13:30 but the truth is that God is love, and both justice and 13:34 mercy are two hemispheres of that same love. 13:37 God is just because God is love. 13:39 God is merciful, because God is love, justice is as much 13:44 dimension or an aspect of love as is mercy. 13:48 Mercy is just as much part of much of love as is justice 13:51 they are not polar opposites. 13:53 They are a paradoxical whole, in God's character. 13:57 That's what we see on the cross. 13:58 When we look at the cross we see mercy. 14:00 When we look across we see justice. 14:02 They come together and meet together, 14:03 they kiss each other. 14:04 Psalms 85 says in the cross and in Jesus Christ. 14:07 I love that verse. 14:08 I love that verse because there is an intimate element. 14:12 Why would God employ this word kiss? 14:16 God tells us through David, in Psalms 85, that at the 14:20 cross and in Jesus Christ. 14:21 Mercy and justice, truth, kiss each other. 14:27 They came together. 14:28 There was a beautiful blending of the two. 14:30 We are going to continue in our study of the 14:33 book of Hebrews, here in Chapter 2 James, 14:35 but we need to take a break. 14:36 So let's go ahead take our break and we'll come 14:38 back after the break. 14:39 Please join us as we continue our study on Chapter 2 |
Revised 2014-12-17