It Is Not for the Angels

Good Morning Cities Church, on this blistering Sunday morning I walked outside. It was 24 degrees and I thought, ‘it's a heat wave.’ Speaking of heat, you know what else has been hot and fire. The book of Hebrews, just straight fire. I love it. I have loved the last few weeks of going through this book. There's so much good stuff. I'm so excited to continue through this letter. Let's pray and then we'll dive into our passage.

Father in heaven, you are so kind, merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. I sense your kindness and mercy daily. Thank you. Now Lord, I ask that you would use your word to edify your people this morning. Would you shape us, mold us, help us to be more like you? God, would you raise up people in this congregation that love Jesus? Would you cause us to be confident that Jesus is better? May that be true, may that shape and inform who we are, how we love our lives. God, I also pray that you would raise up workers from this congregation, church planters and missionaries and pastors, deacons, deaconesses, gospel workers. Would you use your word to raise people up? People who believe that Jesus is better, people that will go out and labor in your harvest field. And lastly, God, I pray this morning, if there's anyone here under the sound of my voice who does not know you, anyone here who is not genuinely born again, God would you save them today, would you rescue their souls? In the matchless name of Jesus. Amen.

Recap

Jesus is Exalted

Well, before we dive into the the middle few verses here of Hebrews chapter two, let’s do a little bit of a recap. In Hebrews chapter one, we saw that Jesus is exalted, he is the exact imprint of the nature of God.

Jesus is the radiant Son of God. Highly exalted, Jesus is better. That’s what we see in Hebrews chapter one. Jesus is superior and worthy of worship.

The Exhortation

And then we see in the first few verses of Hebrews chapter two, that there's an exhortation: because Jesus is better, there's something we ought to do. Mainly we ought to pay close attention to what he says, pay much closer attention to Jesus.

Jesus is better. So pay close attention to Jesus. And the reason why we want to pay close attention to Jesus, because if we don't, if we don't proactively and intentionally pay much more close attention to Jesus, we'll run the risk of drifting away. Obviously that would be very bad.

We want to give extra attention to Jesus, specifically what we've heard about Jesus, and what we've heard that Jesus declared to the apostles, that was then passed down to us.

And he says, in Hebrews 2:4,

“don't neglect such a great salvation.”

This salvation we have is great. Don't neglect your salvation. And if you are intentionally fighting the propensity to neglect the great salvation, if you fight against the potential of neglect, it will keep you from drifting. That's basically the first chapter and a half of Hebrews.

Not For the Angels

Then we come to Hebrews 2:5, the writer gives us another reason why he doesn't want us to drift.

Look at chapter two, verse five. He says this,

“it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking.”

So the writer of Hebrews is saying, here's the flow of the first chapter and a half: Jesus is better, pay attention to him so that you don't drift because God never promised that angels would rule over the future world.

Now if you're like me, you might pause and go, “huh?” That didn't make perfect sense to me at first. Wait a minute. Jesus is better. Pay attention to Jesus so that you don't drift. And the reason you don't want to drift is because angels were never promised to rule over the world to come. That's what the writer has said, and that didn’t make total sense to me at first. Let’s look closely.

First, there's an implication that there is a “world to come.” Another English translation calls it the “future world.”

So we're living in a present age, but there's also a future world to come. And the New Testament alludes to this and gives all sorts of teachings about this future world, this age to come where all things are renewed and made new, where all things are made new in Jesus. And the writer of Hebrews is saying, remember, one of the reasons why not drifting is really important is because it's not the angels who will be ruling in that age to come.

Now when he uses this language, the writer of Hebrews, when he kind of hits on this theme, there's no doubt that many of us will think about the dominion mandate way back in the Garden of Eden. In the Garden of Eden, in the book of Genesis, God created the animals and created all of the creatures, created the universe as we know it. And then he created humans. Genesis 1:26 says:

“God speaking, let us make man in our image after our likeness, let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Later in the book of Psalms, David says, speaking of God's work:

“You have made him humans. You have made him to have dominion over the works of your hands.”

David saying, God created humans, and humans are created to be the governors or the managers of all of God’s creation. And in creation we see a pecking order. Pastor David Mathis mentioned this a few weeks ago. It's God, of course, then the angels, then we have humans, and then we have beasts (or animals). And we are the ones made in God’s image. And we are the ones tasked to have a mandate over this creation.

But the angels are still higher than us in this case. We as humans have dominion. We have this mandate to be good managers of God's creation. But the angels are still more glorious than us. They're more powerful than us. They're involved in, in things like bringing forth God's law.

But God makes it clear the angels are not going to be the ones that are superior in the age to come. The New Testament hints at this and makes comments about the world to come, this future world, where at some point we will outrank the angels.

The apostle Paul alludes to this in 1 Corinthians 6:3 when he says:

“Do you not know that we are to judge angels?”

The word judge can mean reign or have leadership over, in some sense. We don’t know exactly how this is going to play out, but in some sense, we will have the ability to govern over more than just the beasts, but we will actually eventually surpass the angels. Right now the angels are more glorious, more powerful. They outrank us. But in some form, in the future age to come, we will have authority over them.

What is Man?

So the angels are not going to rule in that future world. Well, then who will rule and why does it matter? And how does the knowledge that the angels will not rule play a role in our no longer drifting? What does this business of angels have to do with our ‘not neglecting’ the great salvation? That's the question that the writer of Hebrews is about to answer.

He does this by leveraging the Old Testament as he does multiple times already, and he continues to do, look at verse six. He says, it has been testified somewhere:

“What is man that you are mindful of him or the son of man that you care for him?”

The writer of Hebrews is quoting from Psalm 8. Now, if you go back and you read Psalm 8, what you see is that it's David, who is reflecting upon creation, he's thinking back to the events of Genesis 1, and he's thinking about humanity.

David is thinking about human beings and he’s thinking, he’s probably thinking about the vastness of creation. He’s probably looking at the stars and he's thinking, this is so big. This is so awesome. What is man? Who are we that you care so much about us?

I would imagine David is just shocked by this. He's surprised, humbled by this. We are so small in light of this big creation, and yet you care for us.

As you read the original text in Psalm 8, you sort of get one particular picture. But as you continue to examine how the writer of Hebrews leverages Psalm 8, you get a slightly different picture, or should I say, a more full picture?

Two weeks ago, Pastor Joe gave us example of this when he was looking at the last few verses of Hebrews chapter one. And in Hebrews chapter one, the writer of Hebrews is looking at Psalm 45. If you remember, Pastor Joe covered this in Psalm 45. In Psalm 45 is talking about a particular person. And it's very clear when you read Psalm 45, he's talking about a real human person, right?

Talks about his attributes, his characteristics, it celebrates his marriage. It’s obviously a real human person. And yet also in Psalm 45, it’s very clear that this person is more than just a man. He’s called God. And then it’s said that he has a God. So this regular human being is a God, who has a God. And he would imagine it 3,000 years ago, the original readers of Psalm 45 might not fully understand what that meant.

But those of us living in the New Testament age, we can read the New Testament, particularly the book of Hebrews. And we have a very clear picture of what Psalm 45 is alluding to. It may not have made full sense to them, but we understand and we see the same thing here with Psalm chapter eight. Psalm 8, seemingly is talking about humanity, right?

Mankind is probably what David has on his mind. But as we look at Psalm eight through the lens of Hebrews, we recognize that it's not only talking about humanity, it's not merely talking about humans, but it's also talking about a particular human, a greater human.

Again, verse six, the Hebrews writer is quoting from Psalm 8, what is man that you are mindful of him? He continues to quote from Psalms here Hebrews 2:7, he says “him” speaking of humans, it would seem you made him for a little while lower than the angels. You have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under him.

So if you think about Psalm 8, you would think to yourself, oh, Hebrews is talking about humans. This would seem anthropological. It's talking about humans. However, at second glance in further study, you realize it's not only talking about humans, it begins to allude to a particular human. There's a particular human who is made lower than the angels for a little while.

But just like when humanity was created lower than the angels, and that was not to be forever, this particular human was made lower than the angels for a little while. But that also would not be, that would not go on forever and ever.

Older Shall Serve the Younger

This entire motif of the lower surpassing the greater is foreshadowed. Throughout the Old Testament, we see this idea of the older serving the younger. We see the idea that the older is preeminent but eventually the younger will surpass. There's a flip that happens.

We see this with Cain and Abel. Cain is the older, but God accepts Abel's offering, not Cain’s. We see this with Isaac and Ishmael. Ishmael is the older son of Abraham, but Isaac is the child of promise.

We see this explicitly with Jacob and Esau. Esau is the older brother. But the Bible tells us that the “older shall serve the younger.”

We see this with Joseph, he's one of the younger brothers, but his older brothers will serve him.

We see David as the young boy whose older brothers will then bow down to him.

We see this motif of the younger surpassing the greater, we see this with John the Baptist and Jesus. John the Baptist is first. He's the preeminent one. He's well known. But when he sees Jesus, he says, “I must decrease. He must increase.”

And we see this with the angels. For now, they are more powerful than us. They are more glorious than us. They serve as rulers and guides in this age. But there will come a moment where they, the angels, the older brother, will serve humans, the younger brother.

There will come a moment where we, the younger, will surpass the older. But this motif in the Old Testament is not primarily foreshadowing humans and angels. That's not the most important thing that's being foreshadowed in this motif of the younger and the older.

The most important is the older Adam and the younger Adam, or we should say the, the first Adam and the second Adam, the older Adam. The first Adam was our first older brother. Adam chose to sin and we followed him in that and it brought great corruption on this planet.

However, there is a new older brother, younger than the first Adam. The second Adam is now our new brother. We are joined to him by faith. And he will then surpass the first Adam. The second Adam is better than the first Adam.

Anthropological vs. Christological

When we read Hebrews 2, we realize that it's not only talking about humanity, and I would say it’s not even primarily talked about humanity. It is primarily referring to Jesus. It is Christological, not merely anthropological.

Hebrews 2 is anthropological. It is talking about humanity, but it is talking about more than that. It is not merely anthropological. It is Christological. There’s a commentator I read this week, when someone asked him the question, “Is Hebrews 2 anthropological or Christological?” He says, “Yes.” It’s both. Jesus was superior to angels, above angels in the pecking order, because he was God, but he became lower than the angels for a period of time.

Why? Because he wanted to fulfill a particular mandate. God the Father made Jesus for a little while lower than the angels. And then Jesus in his ascension is crowned king. There's a coronation that happens. The Father crowns him with glory and honor putting everything in under subject, putting everything in subjection under the feet of Jesus. And Jesus rises above the angels. He made lower for a little while and then he surpasses them and goes back to being superior over the angels.

And he will bring with him those who are joined to him by faith. The imagery, you could think of a massive structure with a large staircase. And as humans, we were created by God to to climb this staircase, to go from the bottom to the top of the staircase, this massive structure, and then enter into the throne room of God to experience his presence.

We were going up these steps, toward the presence of God, on our way to surpassing angels. But then we sinned, the first Adam leads us into destruction, and we reject God. And so then we fall down those steps.

Then, God, who’s at the top, stoops down and becomes man, he comes down the steps, becomes one of us, to then bring us back up again.

Christ brings us with them and he says, “you will reign with me forever.” We will surpass the angels, because of Jesus.

Revelation 2:26,

“The one who conquers, I will give authority over nations.”

Revelation 5 says,

“God has made them a kingdom and priest, they shall reign on earth.”

Revelation 20:6 says,

“Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them. They will be priests and they will reign with him.”

We will reign with Jesus. If I'm honest, I don't fully understand exactly what that means. But I know that there is a grace at work in our lives, propelling us toward that future age, moving progressively beyond the older brother.

What About Jesus?

What does this passage tell us about Jesus? It tells us that Jesus is fully God and fully human. In fact, I've heard one theologian say that Jesus is truly God and truly human. He is genuinely human, legitimately human. In fact, he's the ‘most human’ human ever. He is truly human.

In the early church, there was a heresy called Docetism that basically said that Jesus only appeared to be human. He seemed to be human. No, no, no. If he only looked human, if he didn't actually come down those steps, if he just stayed up there mimicking a human, then he doesn’t actually come down and get us.

But he had to be actually be a human to come identify with us. And then when he conquers, he then goes up those steps again and he brings us with him.

What About Man?

What does this passage tell us about us? It tells us that we are more sinful than we realize, and simultaneously more valuable than we realize.

We could not make it on our own left to our own accord. We would fall down those steps every time and be damned to hell. Righteously, God would not have been wrong if he said, “To hell with you, literally.” But God abounding in steadfast love, he enters the human story and he makes a way because he sees us as valuable.

Humans shall reign in the future, not the angels. This is why we ought not neglect our salvation. Because there is a future. There’s an incredible future that God has set for you. Do not neglect this great salvation because God has a plan for you, the younger brother, to surpass the older brother, to reign with Christ forever.

Tim Keller says,

“In the gospel, we see this. We are more sinful and more flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe. Yet at the same time, we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.”

We are more sinful and more flawed, but in Christ we are more loved and more accepted. And that's ultimately what the writer of Hebrews is alluding to here. That you as humans were so sinful, you needed a savior. But you're so valuable that God himself became that savior and we will reign with him forever.

All Things Subject

Look at verse eight, it says that God is placing “everything under” the subjugation of man, through Christ. Yet at present, we do not see everything subjected to Jesus.

All things are being subjected under Jesus and ultimately being subjected under humans because we are in Christ. In this world, it doesn’t look like it's subjected to Jesus. Right about now, we look around and we see disease and devastation. Divorce, miscarriages, disappointments, and heartbreaks.

We see war and famine. We see abortion-on-demand being celebrated. We see toxic politics and corrupt governments. We see absurd views of sexuality. We see a world that does not seem to be subjected to the lordship of Jesus. And the writer of Hebrews is addressing this tension.

He says, yes, at present time we do not see these things subjected. That doesn’t mean that they're not subjected. Everything has been brought under the Lordship of Christ. And God is in the process of making that clear. And the primary instrument he uses to do that is humanity. Through us, he's bringing all things. It will be clear to everyone that all things have been subjected to Jesus.

Theologians refer to this as ‘inaugurated eschatology.’ In layman's terms, this is referred to as the the ‘already, but not yet.’ Christ is already ruling and reigning over everything, but we don’t yet see it in its full manifestation. It doesn’t seem like everything has been subjected to Jesus. That's what he says in Hebrews 2:9, but here’s what we do… we see Jesus.

We can take a step back. We don’t see every, it doesn't seem like everything is subjected to Jesus. But you know what we do indeed see? We see Jesus. Humanity has seen Jesus. And that changes everything.

And the writer here says that we see that Jesus “tasted death for everyone.” Jesus suffered, died a wicked death. Should have been me on that cross. It should have been you on that cross. But Jesus dies in our place. He suffers. And then he raises from the dead. He ascends into the throne room of God, he surpasses the angels, and he's coronated as the king. He has conquered death.

So when you take a step back and you see that this world doesn't look like it's subjected to Jesus, the writer of Hebrews is reminding you, ‘yeah, you don't see that right now, but you know what you do see is Jesus exalted high, coordinated as king, having already defeated death and the grave.’

And if you see that, you see Jesus is already taken out the big bad enemy death, well then, you know he's going to take everything else out as well.

Application

When you have moments in your life where you sense that God is not in control of this, where you’re tempted to believe that Jesus is not ruling and reigning over these things, you ought to pause and remember Jesus was made superior again, above the angels.

Remind yourself of that, and it will strengthen you in the face of moments where it seems like Jesus is not in control.

This is why the writer of Hebrews is saying,

“pay close attention to what we’ve heard.”

We've heard that he rose from the dead. We've heard these things. When you’re tempted to drift away from that, intentionally, proactively pay much more closer attention to Jesus.

Last thought, in the last few words of verse nine, it says that Jesus tasted death, and then it tells us how he did it.

It says in verse nine, by “the grace of God”… by the grace of God… Jesus tasted death for everyone. As we look to Jesus, it is by that grace of God that we will be strengthened and encouraged.

The apostle Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 15:10,

“By the grace of God, I am what I am… his grace toward me was not in vain… I worked harder than any of them. Though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. The grace of God that is with me.”

Paul is saying, I worked really hard to get where I’m at, but it wasn’t my efforts that got me where I’m at. It was the grace of God. The implication is, let’s work hard. But remember that it is not our work that propels us forward. It is the grace of God.

We work hard, we do all that we do. We listen to the commands of Jesus. We give extra attention. We pay much closer attention to what we've heard about Jesus. We work hard to make sure we understand Jesus. We work hard to make sure we obey the teachings of Jesus. And as we do that, God bestows his grace that strengthens us.

It is not our work that propels us. It is the grace of God with you that propels you, the grace of God that strengthens you and prepares you for the age to come, the age when the younger shall surpass, the older, when humans shall reign with Christ, when we judge angels in the world to come forever and ever.