Our Perfect Savior Part 2

August 10, 2008

Teaching # 11
Hebrews 2:9-18
Our perfect Savior part 2

Remember where we have been, showing the glories of Christ. We know this book was written to Jewish people,3 different sorts. Those that were saved, born again yet were slipping toward legalism and he wrote them to show the perfections of the new and better covenant over the old.

The next group were those who were intellectually convinced of the facts of Christ but had not made a commitment because they preferred to hang onto their old Judaism, and he warns them not to neglect, not to let salvation pass them by, go all the way to commitment.

Then there is the third group, those who totally do not accept Jesus Christ or believe anything about him and it is the Holy Spirit’s intent in this book to lead them to truth, To show them the new and better covenant. In order to do that he has to show that the mediator of that covenant, Jesus, is superior to the mediator’s of the old covenant, angels. So in chapter one he showed that, then in chapter 2:1-4 he paused and gave the first of 5 warning passages in this book. That was the warning to not drift by salvation.

Now, having picked up where he left off, he is answering questions that might be in a Jewish mind.

First: If Christ is God how can he be made lower than angels?

And we saw that his answer was : To restore man’s dominion and destiny it had to be so.

Now the question, “How can you say Christ had to die and why?” is being answered. And last week we observed the first of the reasons why and we saw Christ as our Substitute.

He who never sinned died in the place of we who did sin.

The rest of this chapter will show Jesus’ perfect qualifications as

The Captain of our salvation

The Means of our Sanctification

The Conqueror of our Adversary

The bearer of our Woes.

Look in verse 10 at The Captain of our salvation.

“For It agreed with the nature of God, was fitting, it “became him” to make Christ perfect through suffering

He went through his becoming a man, his suffering and death to be a perfect Captain of our salvation. It agreed with God’s design, it was fitting of God to do this because of his plan to bring sons to glory. So Jesus needed to be born to die.

It also agreed with God’s wisdom. The cross is a pure stroke of genius because there alone is the problem of man’s fall solved.

It also agrees with God’s holiness. He showed us on the cross his hatred for sin, his view of sin.

It also agrees with his power. The cross is the greatest display of power ever. There Christ endured in a few hours what it would take an eternity to effect on sinners.

Also it agrees with God’s love, Grace, giving freely to people who don’t deserve it.

Christ’s suffering agrees with the nature of God and with his design to bring sons to glory, because if he is going to bring sons to glory he needed a way for those sons to get there. He needed someone to take them there. We can’t do it ourselves (all have sinned, none righteous).

If Jesus had just brought us a map to heaven it would have done us no good so Christ became our captain. The term means someone who does something that other people enter in to. “pioneer, who blazes a trail for others to follow. leader, also a prince It is used of the founder of a family with others born into it.

Jesus Christ showed the way HOW? By his obedience. so the way is the way of obedience According to Paul in Rom. 10 “they have not all obeyed the gospel.” It also leads through suffering says 1 Peter 2:21 ff. It led right through death and out the other side. Jesus blazed a trail that led us to God.

So God made Christ a little lower than the angels with the intent that Christ lead us to God.

So this perfect leader, our captain, became like us. Without Christ leading us we have no hope, we could never find God on our own.

( Rom 3:10-12 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understands, there is none that seeks after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. )

It is only as you receive Christ by faith that you enter into God’s presence. (Rom 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.)

So in his death Christ became our perfect captain. That is where it really gets tough to find God is at death. That is where we can’t make it, that is where Christ did make it and Christ solved the death problem. He says “Because I live you can live too.”

1 Cor. 15 asks “death where is your sting? death’s sting is gone for a Christian because our perfect captain has conquered death.

Not only is he The Captain of our salvation he is also The Means of our Sanctification. v.11

Sanctify means made holy before God. In Christ before God we are holy. Our position is “holy.” Not in practice maybe but in God’s eyes we are holy. In Christ. It is HIS righteousness placed on our account. Col. 2 says “you are complete in him” positionally perfect. We are one with Christ

Now check this out Because we are one with Christ...I love this...he is not ashamed to call us brothers. HE calls US brothers without shame.

Through Christ’s Death he conquered sin and he put his righteousness on us and so we became holy and the only way he could do this was to become man and die to pay the penalty. So we are holy in him Heb. 10:14 We are complete in him.

He has removed the possibility of positional sinlessness. You are therefore as pure as God and entitled to be called a brother of Christ in the sense of a common righteousness. God’s grace has given us the position of equality with Christ in holiness. Only possible by Jesus becoming sin for us.

But now we have a problem We don’t act holy and our Christian life is lived so that we grow to where our practice lines up with our position.

So in Christ we have the same Father, same righteousness and Jesus calls us brothers.... and he does it without shame and in 11:10 God is not ashamed to be their God,” speaking of us. Why? Because of Christ.

Flip that around (Paul Rom. 1:16) God isn’t ashamed to call us brothers, how often are we ashamed to call him our own? Who has a right to be ashamed of whom?

Now in v. 12 the Holy Spirit uses the OT to prove our brotherhood. Christ speaking in OT (Ps. 22) deals here with the crucifixion and resurrection, then says “Christ was once dead now alive I will declare your name amid the church to my brothers. Christ calling us brothers is an OT truth; to them a convincing argument.

BUT get this: Never before Jesus death did he call his followers brothers. He called them disciples, friends, but immediately after his resurrection he told Mary “Go and tell my brothers.” It is the first time he said this because now it is true. Now they were one in righteousness. IN verse 23 Christ admits that he lives by faith like us. So Christ is brother in faith and also in righteousness. This faith is toward God. And in this world Jesus learned the obedience of faith and through this became our perfect savior.

When we are called to trust God we can follow Christ who only did what God told him to in his incarnation.

So brotherhood with Christ means we share his faith and his holiness.

Now in verse 14 we see that not only is Christ . The Stand in for our condemnation, The Captain of our salvation The Means of our Sanctification but he also is The Conqueror of our Adversary.

In order for us to be free from Satan's weapon -death- someone had to shatter it, to conquer death, and through death and his resurrection Jesus Christ shattered the power of death. Death has no more fear for us. Jesus removed hell’s power and zapped Satan's power.

Jesus came to give life! and he can do this because he kicked down death’s door, and he did this to destroy (as v 15 says) the thing that panics us most - death! We were in bondage to fear of death but when Jesus came out of that grave it destroyed death’s terror and oppression. That’s the captain of our salvation, The Conqueror of our adversary.

But lastly in this section we see Jesus as The bearer of our Woes.

vv 16-18 Jesus didn’t come to redeem angels, but men, so Jesus became a man to redeem men. and in v 17 we see that since he was a man it was needful for him to be made like us.

SO, why did Christ become lower than angels? So he could be like us and so he could walk that proverbial mile in our shoes and be a merciful and faithful high priest. Why? To reconcile men to God, but not just reconcile us, but to be a high priest to take us to God and to help those who are tempted. He came not only as The Captain of our salvation But also The bearer of our woes, anguish, affliction, Misery.

Wherever we go, Christ has been there and we can say “Jesus, remember what you went through? I’m going through it and I am afraid“. And he can say “I understand, I have been there and I too was afraid.” (1 Cor. 10:13)

I prefer to go to someone who I know understands the pain, sorrow, struggle because they have been there. I can Be supportive, but not fully empathize when you go through some things. But If your child dies I want you to call me. When your Dad dies, Call me. And when I face a life threatening illness I will know who to call too.

And we all, if we have accepted Jesus, all have someone we can call.

Jesus is our rock to lean on because he didn’t just come into this world and die, he was hungry, he was cold, he was thirsty, he was tired, he was taught and astonished and glad and indignant. He was grieved and he was troubled.

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