KASUMIGAOKA
2017/11/26
SERMON: “Why God Became a Man” 「なぜ神は人となられたか」
TEXT: Hebrews 2:1-18
I. INTRODUCTION
Most of the news we hear every day is not good. We hear about the bad things—the selfish, cruel, immoral acts committed by individuals, corporations, and nations against others. It has been said that the peoples of the world—at least in the West—lack a “moral compass.” That means that our human societies do not hold a common standard to show them how they should behave. Of course, even if everyone agreed on a common moral standard (which everyone should follow), that agreement itself could not guarantee that everyone would follow the moral “compass.” The lack of agreement about how we should live is rooted in a deeper uncertainty. It is uncertainty about what “man” is. The way people think about the human race profoundly affects the way they live. What is man? Is our present moral confusion the best we can achieve, or can we become “better” than we are?
Looking back at the course of human history does not encourage optimism. There has always been a “tug-of-war” between those who placed a high value on man and wanted to “improve” human society and those who simply wanted to dominate society for their own personal benefit. On one hand were those who believed that mankind has intrinsic value and must seek higher “moral values”; on the other hand were those who believed that “man” has only a “utilitarian” value which should be used by other people who are stronger and smarter.
But Christianity has a very different view of man’s worth. The Bible insists that man’s importance does not depend on man himself. Our value depends on God who made man “in God’s own image.” We are not the perfect creatures that God originally created. We have been corrupted by the sin of our first ancestors, so we do not now show the perfection of the God who made us. But, as human beings, we still have a unique value that does not depend on our “productivity” or on any silly doctrine of social evolution. Man has a value given to us by our Creator. And we have a moral standard which has also been established by our Creator, and not by our own enlightened rationality. This is the fundamental perspective of the Bible. And it is the message of Hebrews 2:1-18. Man is not the creature he should be, but neither is he just a “failed experiment” that will be discarded in the “garbage can” of history. Man is the special object of God’s enduring interest, and even affection. In God’s eyes, man is so precious that He will not simply abandon us. In fact, God has designed a way for man to be restored to his original position of honor and glory. Let’s look at what Hebrews tells us about this amazing plan God has established to rescue man and restore him to glory and honor. First, in vv. 1-4, Hebrews tells us why this message of salvation must not be ignored. Then, in vv. 5-18, Hebrews provides a summary of God’s plan for saving mankind. The entire plan depends on God’s personal intervention in our human affairs.
II. MAN’S HOPE OF SALVATION
A. GOD’S UNIQUE PLAN (2:1-4)
Hebrews 2:1 introduces this rescue plan with a warning. “We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.” No one should disregard the “way of salvation” that God Himself has revealed to us. We must not ignore it, because this is the one rescue plan that God Himself has devised. There is no other possibility. Here is man’s fundamental problem: We have all violated the moral standard that our Creator gave to us. And as Hebrews tells us in 1:8-9, our Creator God is a God of perfect justice, who loves righteousness and hates wickedness. No one can claim that he has violated God’s law because of ignorance. God has repeatedly shown man how he must live and serve the God who made him. The people of Israel, of course, had received God’s word “through the prophets at many times and in various ways” (1:1). Israel had known God’s law, and violated it openly. But not even the Gentiles can claim that they broke God’s moral standards because of ignorance. As Paul wrote to the Romans, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Rom. 1:20-21). Whether Jew or Gentile, in times past or in the present day, this is our common human problem: “There is no one righteous, not even one. . . . All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one” (Rom. 3:10, 12). The message that God has repeatedly sent us during the long course of human history is that “every violation and disobedience received its just punishment” (2:2). Not only has every human being in every generation died, but every great civilization has—like the empire of the mighty Babylonians—“been weighed on the scales and found wanting” (Daniel 5:27). This is the solemn prospect that awaits our society, too. God who created us will also judge us.
Everyone who considers this should understand the immense importance of the gospel. The “good news” of the gospel is that there is hope for rescue, even from the depths of our fallen, sinful condition. There is a way of salvation that we must embrace fully! We must not “put it off until later.” We need God’s salvation. Hebrews tells us that God will provide no other means of rescue. Each of us must ask himself, “How shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation?” (2:3a) We need to take this offer of rescue seriously! It was “first announced by the Lord,” that is by God’s Son Himself (2:3). Later, this salvation “was confirmed to us by those who heard Him”—that is, by the apostles whom the Lord Jesus sent out as His witnesses. And “God also testified to [the truth of this salvation] by signs , wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to God’s will” (2:4). This is a message of salvation that we must, by all means, pay attention to. And we should receive it with joy!
B. SALVATION THROUGH GOD’S SON, JESUS CHRIST (vv. 5-18)
But how will God carry out His plan to restore man to his former position of glory and honor? The outlines of God’s plan are laid out before us in vv. 5-18. The entire plan depends upon the work performed by God’s Son who voluntarily became “one of us.” God the Son became a man like us, so that the purpose of God for the human race might be realized through Him. These verses consider the incarnation of God’s Son from various viewpoints. Verses 5-9 explain, first, how the eternal Son of God accomplished the purpose of restoring mankind to “glory and honor” by humbling Himself to become a man. Hebrews 1 showed that God’s Son is far superior to God’s angels in power and glory. In 2:5-9 Hebrews quotes Psalm 8 to explain the honor God had given to man when He put all the world under man’s sovereign protection and care. Genesis 1:28 records what God said to Adam and Eve: “Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” God gave this honor and authority not to the mighty angels, but to the human race. It was a position of great power and glory, even though they were a “little lower [or “for a little while lower”] than the angels.” By placing man in that position of sovereign authority, Hebrews says “God left nothing that is not subject to them” (2:8). But by their disobedience to God, Adam and Eve fell from that glorious high position. So Hebrews says in v. 8, “Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them.” Just at this moment, when man’s failure is declared, the name of Jesus appears for the first time in Hebrews. It is the name given to a certain baby born in Bethlehem, who grew up in poverty and obscurity. In v. 9 we are told that this Man—Jesus—“was made for a little while lower than the angels,” but He is now “crowned with glory and honor because He suffered death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.” The important thing we must understand is that Jesus takes man’s position—“lower than the angels”—in order that He might fulfill the original purpose of God for man. This Man Jesus, by humbling Himself to become a man, has done what Adam had failed to do. He has glorified His Father on earth. And God the Father has now raised Jesus far above every creature, including the angels, and crowned Him with glory and honor” (2:9).
Hebrews deals with a second aspect of the incarnation in vv. 10-13. In these verses Hebrews focuses on the family relationship which Jesus established between Himself and those whom He rescues. God’s incarnate Son has become the ideal representative of the human race, because He has experienced all of the “essential elements” of human life. Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, has become a true “brother” to everyone that He saves. Verse 10 says that God leads many “children” to glory by means of the “Founder” of their salvation. Later in v. 11 it says that the Lord Jesus “is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.” Again in v. 12, the Lord Jesus says, “I will declare God’s name to My brothers and sisters.” The point is that God’s Son has fully joined the human family and taken upon Himself the hardships and the sorrows that members of human families must face. As members of human families we learn to bear one another’s burdens. So Jesus took our infirmities upon Himself. He suffered the same weaknesses, the same hunger and thirst, the same physical sicknesses and pains that all men must endure. Matthew writes in 8:17, “This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: ‘He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases.’” In other words, even as He healed others’ diseases, Jesus experienced their pains! Because of this, Jesus can experience true compassion for His human “brothers and sisters,” because He has experienced our physical sufferings. Hebrews says in v. 10 that “it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what He suffered.” The Son of God has always been morally perfect, so Jesus did not become morally perfect through suffering with His fellow human beings. I think this means that Jesus became perfectly suited to “represent” us by the sufferings that He shared with us.
There is one more point that Hebrews explains in v. 11. That is, He makes us a “holy people.” “Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family [lit., “from one”].” Jesus has become our Savior in order to bring us into God’s family. He does not leave us in the miserable, sinful and isolated condition in which He found us. He brings us through the spiritual process called “regeneration” into God’s family. We are adopted into God’s family and counted as children of God! Romans 8: 29 says, “For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” “So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. He says, ‘I will declare Your name to My brothers and sisters; in the assembly I will sing Your praises’” (2:11b-12). Jesus, as the Son of Man, leads His brothers and sisters into the family of God. He teaches His family to know God and to worship Him. In fact, Hebrews tells us, when we worship God (as we are doing in this worship service) Jesus Himself is worshiping with us, speaking to us through the Scriptures and singing praise through our voices to God the Father! Christ is the older brother of this family, and He leads us to put our trust in God, just as He Himself has always done. Not everyone understands what this Christian “family life” is. It is a bond of faith and love that can only be experienced by God’s elect people who put their trust in Jesus Christ. He gives us the right to call God “our Father.” As Jesus declares in v. 13, only “the children God has given” to His Son will know the perfect peace with God that Jesus the Son has secured for them.
The final section of our text, 2:14-18, tells us that God’s Son became man so that He could become our substitute in death. Only those who have flesh and blood can experience the final act of a human life in this fallen world. That final act, of course, is death. Hebrews says in 9:27, “It is appointed for people to die once, and after that to face judgment.” God’s Son became a man for this reason—so that He might die as a man. But in His death, the Man Jesus was different from every other man. For Jesus died, “so that by His death He might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil” (vv. 14). What is “the power of death?” In 1 Cor. 15:56, it says, “The sting of death is sin.” When Jesus died as our substitute, He felt that “sting.” He experienced the “power of death,” the wrath of God against all of our unrighteousness. He bore that pain—the agony described as “everlasting torment” and the “fires of hell.” He took that punishment for our sake, so that we would not face it ourselves. Hebrews also says in v. 15 that God’s Son became a man like us, so that by His death He might set us free from the power of the devil. The devil, or “Satan,” is both the “tempter” and “the accuser of the brethren (Rev. 12:10).” When we fall to his temptations, the devil charges us with all the crimes we have committed against God. It is the devil who urges us to seek the pleasures of life in this world above all the glories of God’s heavenly kingdom. For that reason alone, many have become his slaves, bound to this life and terrified of what may lie before them–after death. But finally, death comes to us all. When that time comes, it is the Son of God alone who will lead you safely into the joy and glory of His eternal kingdom. Death is not to be feared. In fact, as Paul said, “To die is gain!” (Phil.1:21).
The last words of this chapter introduce one of the most important themes of Hebrews: the priestly ministry of the Son of God. As our high priest, Jesus offered His own life as the atoning sacrifice to “cover” our sins. “For this reason,” Hebrews tells us, “He had to be made like them, fully human 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 His people.” We will learn much more about the work of Christ Jesus as our high priest as we continue our study of Hebrews in the coming weeks.
III. CONCLUSION
This second chapter of Hebrews contains the broad outlines of the good news: There is hope for our rescue from the misery and the confusion of this world. But that hope does not depend upon anything that we can do for ourselves. Our salvation lies in the hands of God’s Son—Jesus Christ—who became a man so that He might bring us back to the glory and honor of God’s original design. Believe in Him. Trust Him. This is God’s design. And it is our only hope. Don’t ever forget this good news.