GRACE FOR TODAY Radio Message #454-455

“WE SEE JESUS” Hebrews 2:9-10

Pastor Don Fortner

Grace Baptist Church of Danville

2734 Old Stanford Road

Danville, Kentucky 40422-9438

1. “We see Jesus” - We see him with the eye of faith. We see him because he has been revealed to us by the Spirit of God. We see that he is Jesus, our Savior, the Christ of God. We see in him all the fulness of the Godhead (Col. 2:9), all the fulness of grace (John 1:14; Col. 1:19), and all the fulness of redemption (Eph. 1:7). We see him as Christ, our Redeemer, the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Lord our Righteousness. We see him as our all (1 Cor. 1:31).

2. “Who was made a little lower than the angels” - He who made the angels was made a little lower than the angels. He was made of the seed of woman, made to be a man, “made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law” (Gal. 4:4-5). Now, here is the reason for the incarnation. This is why Christ was made a little lower than the angels…

3. “For the suffering of death” - The Son of God came into this world for the purpose of suffering death! He did not come to be an earthly monarch in Jerusalem. He did not come to establish a new religion. He did not come to be a reformer, or an example of morality and virtue. The Son of God, became a man so that he might die in the place of men and redeem them. He came here to die because there was no other way for his people to be saved. We see this too, since he suffered and died in the place of his people, the Lord Jesus Christ is now…

4. “Crowned with glory and honor!” (Phil. 2:8-11). Christ is exalted! That Man who died for us at Calvary is now crowned with glory, given all honor, as the Lord of all. The God-man, the Man-God, who died for us now rules the world to save those people for whom he died (John 17:2). Now, look at the next line. Christ “was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death…

5. “That he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.” This statement, like all others, must be interpreted within its context and in the light of the entire Word of God. Is this a declaration that Christ died even for those for whom he refused to pray (John 17:9), for those who are not his sheep (John 10:11), for those who are vessels of wrath fitted to destruction (Rom. 9:22), for those from whom he has hidden both his works and his grace (Matt. 11:20-25)? Of course not! Does this statement mean that Christ died for those who suffer the wrath of God in hell? No! That would be a declaration that there are some for whom Christ shed his blood in vain and would be a denial of the efficacy of his atonement.

What, then, is the meaning of this statement? “That he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.” The word “men” was added by our translators with no apparent reason, except to make the sentence read more easily. In the Greek text there is no word in this verse that should be translated “man.” The sentence literally should be translated, “That he by the grace of God should taste death for every,” or “for all,” or “for every one.”

· For every one of the sons he would bring to glory (v. 10).

· For every one of the brethren he is not ashamed to own (v. 11).

· For every member of the church, in the midst of which he will sing praise (v. 12).

· For every one of the children God the Father had given him to save, for whose sake he assumed flesh and blood (v. 13).

· For every one of Abraham’s seed, God’s elect, whom he took hold of to save (v. 16).

Why was the Son of God made so humble as to suffer and die for his people? What necessity was there for his humiliation and death? Read on…

6. “For it became him” - It was necessary, if God would save sinners and bring them to glory, that the Son of God must suffer in their room and stead all that the law and justice of God could demand. The Scriptures plainly declare that there was a necessity for the death of Christ (Matt. 16:21; 26:29; John 3:14). It was necessitated by the decree of God (Acts 2:23), by our Surety’s covenant engagements (John 10:17-18), by the prophecies of the Old Testament (Matt. 26:54), and by the election of grace (Eph. 1:4-6). God did not have to save anyone; but since he has chosen to save some, the only way he could save them was by the satisfaction of justice through the sacrifice of his own dear Son.

7. When Paul says, “it became him,” that it was necessary for God to slay his Son to save his people, lest we begin to think that this implies some weakness in God, he immediately describes our God with these words - “for whom are all things and by whom are all things.” Here the Lord God is described as that One who is both the ultimate end and first cause of all things (Rom.11:36). All things are for him. He made all things for himself, for the glorifying of all the perfections of his nature (Prov.16:4; 2 Cor.5:18). All things are by him. All things in nature, all things in providence, all things in redemption, and all things in grace are the work of God. All things are of him, too. Everything that is, has been, or shall hereafter be originate in that great eternal decree and purpose of God’s grace toward his elect called “predestination”.

8. “In bringing many sons unto glory” - This is an intimation of God’s gracious designs toward his elect. Those whom Christ came to save are many; and they were already the sons of God by eternal adoption and divine predestination long before Christ came to redeem them (Gal. 4:4-6). In the covenant of grace, our God declared, “I will be their Father, and they shall be my sons and daughters.” We were chosen to be the children of God from eternity. We were given power and authority to become the sons of God and given the nature of God’s sons in the new birth (John 1:12-13). We were openly and manifestly declared to be the sons of God when we were given faith in Christ.

Note: Faith does not make us God’s sons. Adoption did that. Faith receives the adoption of sons and looks upon God through Christ as our Father (Gal. 4:6; Rom. 8:15-16). The sons of God are many, a great multitude which no man can number, ten thousand times ten thousand!

· The many chosen of God.

· The many for whom Christ gave his life a ransom.

· The many for whom his blood was shed for the remission of sins.

· The many made righteous by his obedience.

· The many for whom many mansions are prepared in the Father’s house.

“God has chosen them ‘through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth’, to the obtaining of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ! Christ died for them, and by means of his death, they receive the promise of eternal inheritance, and the inheritance itself. God calls them by his grace to eternal glory, and makes them ‘meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light’” (John Gill).

9. The Person by whom God’s elect are brought to glory is Christ, “the Captain of their salvation”. He is called “the Captain” of our salvation because he is the One in charge of it, the One responsible for it, and the One whose arm alone has accomplished it.

10. As the Captain of our salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ was “made perfect through sufferings”. That is to say, the way, the means by which our great Savior saved us and perfected, or completed his work as the Captain of our salvation, was by his perfect sufferings and death as our Substitute. Apart from his sufferings for the satisfaction of justice there could have been no salvation. “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered: And being made perfect, he became the Author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him” (Heb. 5:8-9). AMEN.