Today’s message is from Hebrews 2:1-18. Last week Tom talked about Hebrews chapter 1. In chapter 1, the writer—we refer to the writer of Hebrews because he didn’t identify himself in the book—he’s generally believed to be the apostle Paul. But, since the writer didn’t say, we don’t know for sure. And by the way, we say writer not author because it’s God who is the author. In chapter 1, the writer of Hebrews is comparing Jesus with angels. He talks about how much greater Jesus is than angels.

Jesus is “the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” (If you look at Jesus, you see God.) “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Col. 1:15-17)

Jesus is the Son of God: “You are my Son; today I have become your Father.” (Heb. 5:5b, Psalm 2:7) How much greater is Jesus than angels? Hebrews 1:6b says, “Let all God’s angels worship him.” Angels are the reference point. Jesus is vastly greater—greater beyond all comprehension—than all angels. All things were created by Jesus and through him. Jesus created angels and Jesus created us. (And Jesus was not himself created, by the way. He always was. He is “without beginning of days or end of life.” (Heb:6:7) He was, is and always will be the Son of God.

Now let’s go on to today’s passage. In today’s passage, the writer of Hebrews compares Jesus after he became a man (and us, also) with angels. As we read the passage, remember that we are reading the word of God. It has been given to us by God through the writer of Hebrews. It has been given to us by God so that we may know him better.

¹We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. ²For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, ³how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. ⁴God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him. ⁹But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

¹⁰In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. ¹¹Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. ¹²He says,

¹⁴Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death— that is, the devil— ¹⁵and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. ¹⁶For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. ¹⁷For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. ¹⁸Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. (Hebrews 2:1-18)

To the first four verses of today’s passage the NIV gives the title Warning to Pay Attention. Verse 1 says, “We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.” Therefore (we must pay more careful attention, therefore...) refers to the fact of who Jesus is. He is far above all things. He is our Creator. In chapter 2, we will see that he is also our Savior.

What is the message of salvation? It’s the message that there is heaven and there is hell—that there is eternal life and happiness and that there is eternal death and destruction—eternal shame and contempt according to what the angel told the prophet Daniel.

The majority of people acknowledge that there is heaven and hell, but don’t overly concern themselves over it. We tend to concern ourselves much more about our immediate situation than about things that we think are in the distant future, even when the things in the distant future are more important than anything that we may come up against in the present. (And, you know, I say distant future, but that distant future may be no more than a heartbeat away! You never know!)

You know, we (that is, people) can hear the word of God—God’s message—and be convicted by it: “I’m convicted. I know I’m a sinner—but not just yet. There is too much to pursue in this world. I’ll get around to it after while” You gradually drift away until there is no more conviction. Finally, it’s too late.

People who are not believers can hear the word of God, be convicted by it, but not act on that conviction and drift away and be lost. But we as believers can also drift away. We can accept God’s salvation and rejoice in it. We can have strong conviction to be separate from the world—to be in the world, but not of the world—and then gradually drift back to the world and hardly notice that it’s happening. (I happen to believe that if you are really a believer, God will bring you back. Tom believes that it is possible to lose your salvation after you are saved. Does anyone want to volunteer to find out? Of course it wouldn’t prove anything anyway. If you died in your sin, maybe you weren’t really saved in the first place. And if a dozen people came back to Jesus after drifting away, how would we know that the thirteenth wouldn’t be lost?)

Let’s look at verses 2 and 3a. Verses 2 and 3a say, “For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?” (We’re back to angels again.) But what about God’s message—the message spoken by angels? Let me ask you this: Have you kept God’s commandments—always kept them—never broken a single one? Have you never stolen one single thing—not even stolen time that someone else was paying for? Have you never coveted someone else’s possessions? Those are two of God’s commandments. There are eight more. How about this one? “You shall have no other gods before me.” You say you don’t worship any pagan gods? (Quite a few people can’t even say that these days!) Well, maybe you can say that you have never worshipped any pagan gods, but here’s the real question: Is there anything, anything, more important to you than God—anything more important than knowing what he wants you to do and doing it? We must have no other gods before God. Is there a single person who can say, “I have never broken any of God’s commandments?” (Rhetorical question.) How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? Let’s look at verse 3b.

¹⁶He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. ¹⁷The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” We are the poor. We are the prisoners. We are the blind. We are the oppressed. Now is the year of the Lord’s favor. This scripture is fulfilled in our hearing. Jesus makes us free.

We’re back to the comparison with angels again: “It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come.” The writer of Hebrews is quoting from Psalm 8. But if it’s not to angels that he subjected the world to come, then to whom? The Psalm says that it is to man. That’s us.

David wrote this psalm. He was marveling at the work of God. And of course God was speaking through him. He said that God made man a little lower than the heavenly beings. The writer of Hebrews says angels. The writer is quoting from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament that was in use at the time he was writing. The translators of the Septuagint expressed heavenly beings as angels.

God made us rulers over all the works of his hands and put everything under our feet—all the flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all of God’s creatures and all the earth. It says so back in Genesis chapter 1 verse 26:

Let’s look at verses 8b and c. Verses 8b and c say, “In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him.” The reason we don’t see everything subject to man is what? (Anyone?) It’s sin. We have disobeyed God! Adam sinned and we have all followed in his footsteps. That’s the reason for our present situation! We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God! Now let’s look at verses 9-13:

Jesus is our redeemer. We all deserve death, but Jesus suffered death in our behalf. In order to do that, even though he was God, he had to become one of us, “a little lower than the angels”. (And I’ll say a little more about that later. He had to become one of us.) Even though Jesus is God, we are Jesus’s brothers. (But I have to point out: This doesn’t apply to everyone. This just applies to believers. If you don’t belong to Jesus, you are not his brother and you are still dead in your sins and transgression. You are still a slave to sin. So trust Jesus, surrender yourself to him. You will know the truth and the truth will make you free.)

By becoming a man—one of us—and by obeying God the Father perfectly, Jesus was able to defeat the devil who holds the power of death. Had Jesus not obeyed God the Father, had he given into any of Satan’s temptations, he would not have been able to save us from our sin. He would not have been the perfect sacrifice. We would still be dead in our sins and transgressions. What if Jesus had bowed down and worshipped Satan so that he would give him the whole world and all of its kingdoms as he tempted Jesus to do? Well, it’s pretty obvious that Jesus would have sinned and we would still be dead in our transgressions and sins. But, what if Jesus had turned the stones into bread or jumped off the top of the temple as Satan had also tempted him to do? That doesn’t seem like much compared with bowing down to Satan. But we would still be dead in our transgressions and sins. We would be without hope. (And I’m pointing these thing out because we tend to think that there are big sins and there are insignificant sins. There are no insignificant sins!)

Verse 15 says that we were held in slavery by our fear of death. How were we held in slavery by our fear of death? You know, Adam and Eve had only one commandment from God before the fall. They were not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They were free to do anything else they wanted. (And I have to believe that it would not have even entered their minds to do any of the things that God later commanded us not to do. It would not have even occurred to them to worship any other god but God their Creator. Nor would it have occurred to them to harm each other in any way. They loved God and they loved each other.)

After the fall though, because of the fear of death, we became slaves to sin and to the law. What Adam and Eve would have done naturally, we were forced to do as slaves. (And I know that the law was not given until Moses and that only Israel received the law, but everyone has some sense of right and wrong. All religions still have some sense of right and wrong. Even those who claim to be atheists have a sense of right and wrong.) Without God grace, all of us, if we do anything right, act out of fear of punishment rather than in love. Yes, we act in order to obtain some benefits other than avoidance of punishment, too. We act to obtain the favor or respect of other people for our own benefit.)

¹⁶For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. ¹⁷For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. ¹⁸Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. (Hebrews 2:17, 18)

You know, God planned this redemption before he created anything. God planned for Jesus to die for our sins before he created anything. He is the Lamb of God who was slain from the creation of the world. (Rev. 13:8) We have no idea what would have happened if there had been no fall. We can speculate, but that’s all it would be—speculation. But there was a fall and there is sin. And God did plan for our redemption! When this is all over, we will be like Jesus and we will see him as he is. (1 John 3:2) I don’t understand it, but somehow all this is necessary for us to become like Jesus. Jesus, our creator, became like us so that we could become like him!

You know, we (especially some of us who like science fiction) like to think about robots, robots that act and think like people. It seems possible to create such a thing—a robot that would be run by a computer and would act and react just as a person might in any given situation. The robot would appear to feel pain, grief, anger, pleasure—all the feelings that we experience. (Now notice that I said the robot would appear to experience these things. It would appear to be conscious. We might even feel sympathy toward it. But after all, it would only be a machine, so how could it be conscious or experience anything.) And further speculating, we might try to make some kind of virtual reality link with the robot to try to experience what the robot was “experiencing”.

Now, the reason I bring this up is that we might be tempted to think that’s what Jesus did—some kind of virtual reality thing to experience what we experience. I don’t think it was anything like that. And I don’t think we are anything like robots, robots who “think” only figuratively, only by analogy to people.

And I don’t think God prepared anything like a robot body for Jesus. Hebrews 10:5 says, “You prepared a body for me,” but I don’t think it was anything like what we might think of. Jesus became a real man, just as we are real men and women. And we will become like Jesus, like Jesus is now, pure and holy and perfect, and with imperishable bodies. We will be like him and see him as he is. God is making us to be like himself.

Well, all of these things are beyond my understanding and, I think, beyond any human understanding. Maybe we will understand when we become like Jesus. But God loves us and wants us to be like him. Jesus is able to understand our temptations in some way that he was not able to before he became a man. He is able to intercede on our behalf. He was able to atone for our sins. God love us and wants us to be like him. What greater gift could there be?