Hebrews 2:10-18 Episode 4 - Jesus Is Exalted Through Suffering

Jesus has an unbreakable bond with us, as he took on human form, with the purpose of defeating temptation and offering his own blood to free us from the fear of death.

- PODCAST TRANSCRIPT -

Joel

Hi, welcome to the Two Journeys podcast. This is episode 4 in the book of Hebrews: “Jesus is Exalted Through Suffering,” Hebrews 2:10-18. I'm Joel Hartford, and I'm here with Pastor Andy Davis. Andy, can you give us a brief overview of this section?

Andy

I think the author to Hebrews is really helping to see the greatness of our mediator, the greatness of his character, and his solidarity with us as human beings. That because of Adam's sin, we have... All of us have been born into a world filled with suffering, a cursed world. So even innocent infants still suffer pain, some of them die, infant mortality. All of us grow up in a world in which we experience much pain and much suffering. Some of it not, in any way, caused by sins that we have committed just because it's a sin cursed world, but some of it's directly because of sins that we've committed. So Jesus, to be our savior, has to enter into that suffering. Certainly, most importantly, on the cross, he is our propitiation. He stood under the wrath of God and removed it. The only way he could do that was by suffering what we deserved to suffer.

But also, the text here makes it plain that Jesus, by going through suffering, can say in some incredibly deep way, "I know how you feel. I walk through that myself. I can be a merciful and faithful high priest to you as you go through this agony." And to know that we're not alone, to know that God hears us in ways that are so deep, meaningful, and powerful, the incarnation has given him credibility to say he knows how we feel and he can help us.

"Jesus, by going through suffering, can say in some incredibly deep way, 'I know how you feel. I walk through that myself. I can be a merciful and faithful high priest to you as you go through this agony.'"

Joel

Now for the sake of our audience, I'm going to read Hebrews 2:10-18,

"For it was indeed fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he's not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, 'I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation, I will sing your praise.' And again, 'I will put my trust in him.' And again, 'Behold, I and the children God has given me.' Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not the angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service to God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted."

So Andy, I want to go back to Hebrews 2:10 where it says, "For it was indeed fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering." Why does the author of Hebrew use that word fitting? Why was it fitting that Jesus should be made perfect through suffering?

Andy

I want to answer that. First, I just want to give a sense of overview of the book and what the author's trying to do, and then fit this section into that. The author is writing to Jewish people who had made a profession of faith in Christ but who were under pressure from their Jewish neighbors and family members who did not believe in Jesus as the Messiah. They were under pressure from them to give up their profession of faith in Christ and to return to old-covenant Judaism, to turn their backs on Jesus. So the author is going to show that Jesus is a superior mediator, bringing a superior covenant, the new covenant, resulting in a superior life. That's an outline of the whole book. Now, one of the questions that's frequently asked was asked even of Jesus during his trials, "How can you, a mere man, claim to be God?"(Paraphrase of John 10:33) And so the incarnation is troubling to the unbelieving Jewish mind.

They don't understand how the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who said, "Let there be light," how could he enter the world as a human being? It just seemed to be utter blasphemy. "How can you, a mere man, claim to be God? That's why we're stoning you." They said in John 10. So the idea here is that the author has to show why it was fitting, it was appropriate for him, actually, to become flesh and blood. So that's how it settles in. Why was it? I think, as I said in the introductory comments as we just began, first and foremost, we're under a curse. As human beings, we suffer. We deserve to suffer because we're sinners. We have sinned like Adam did. We violated commands. We've broken God's law. So there is an active wrath of God against us. Jesus, as we're later told in this very same section, is the propitiation for our sins. In order to be that, he had to be made like us, yet without sin, he had to be flesh and blood. He had to be human to be our savior. But also, as the author's going to say later in this same section, in order for him to really understand us, to be our merciful and faithful high priest, he had to be made like us in every way. So it was fitting for him to be made human. It should not be, to this Jewish mindset, a stumbling block. I think the author of Hebrews is actually going back to the original creation, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness."(Genesis 1:26) There is a strong connection between God and human beings. And so it was fitting for Jesus to step into the world as a flesh-and-blood human.

Joel

Now this phrase, “In bringing many sons to glory,”(Hebrews 2:10) my first question is: how does Jesus bring us to glory? And then the second is: what is the glory that he's bringing?

Andy

It's amazing. Paul says the same thing in 1 Corinthians 2, that God crafted a message, the gospel, a message that was designed for our glory before the world began. So he intended that his elect, his people, should be glorious, radiantly glorious, in the new heaven, the new earth. "That we would shine like the sun in the kingdom of our Father."(Paraphrase of Matthew 13:43) Jesus said. So it was necessary for us to be brought out of the muck of our sins, like the prodigal son who is feeding pigs. You can imagine him covered with all kinds of filth. That's us in our sins. That's not glorious. So he has to bring many sons to glory. So that's what he's saying, “In bringing many sons to glory,”(Hebrews 2:10) it means out of darkness into the radiant light. That light is the glory of God in Christ, in us, that we would shine with the glory of God. That's what this author is saying.

Joel

Now, verse 10 also says that, the founder of our salvation makes Jesus perfect through suffering. Now, this verse might disturb some people because we know that Jesus was already perfect. He already had infinite glory with the Father before the incarnation. So what does it mean that Jesus was made perfect through suffering?

Andy

That's a great question. We're not going to say that Jesus was, in any way, imperfect, or immoral, or flawed. Not at all. Jesus was always flawless and perfect. But we would say this, that if Jesus had never died on the cross, he could not have saved us. So before he died on the cross, he was not a savior. He could not have been our propitiation. He would not have been able to pay the penalty for our sins, which the author to Hebrews later will make plain is a payment in blood, “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”(Hebrews 9:22) So he had to be, let's say, qualified to be our savior by becoming incarnate. He had to be human. He had to be qualified by being sinless. And in many other deeper ways too, the fact that he actually knew what it was like to be tempted in every way yet without sin. He knew what it was like to be hungry, to be thirsty, to be tired, to be hated by other people. He knew all of these physical attacks, and he also knew temptation itself, that the devil tempted him. So in this way, he was qualified to be our savior through his suffering. He entered into our suffering. He entered into what it was like to be under the judgment of God, the curse of God, and under the wrath of God.

Joel

Now, Hebrews 2:11 says, "For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he's not ashamed to call them brothers." So who are those who are sanctified, who is the sanctifier, and what is the source? And then it says, "That is why." So what is the logical connection between that and why he's not ashamed to call them brothers?

Andy

They all come from his Father. They all come from God. So Paul says in the great doxology, at the end of Romans 11:36, "For from him and through him and to him are all things." So everything in the universe comes from the Father, all things. But especially human beings, as created in the image of God, like it said in Genesis 1:26, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness." So the idea of man in the image and likeness of God, there's a special connection between God and human beings that is not there between God and a beaver or an eagle or a rock or a stick; all things are created by God, but God is, in a special way, united to human beings, or we really in a special way to him. So both he who sanctifies, that's Jesus, the one who sanctifies us by his priestly ministry, and those who are sanctified, namely us who are saved by him, we come from the same source. We come from the same God. So that's the solidarity that we have.

Now, the idea of sanctification here is of being made holy. That's what the Latin word really means, that we are made holy. So both the one who makes us holy, Jesus, as our great high priest, and we who are made holy by him. Both of us come from the same God, God the Father. That's why he's not ashamed to call us brothers.

Joel

What is this shame, and why is it such a big deal that he's not ashamed to call us brothers?

Andy

Yeah, it's really quite remarkable. He has every reason to be ashamed of us, and yet he's not. It's so ironic that so often we are ashamed of Jesus, and Jesus chided us for that. He said, "If anyone's ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, I will be ashamed of him when I come in my glory."(Paraphrase of Mark 8:38) That's Mark 8. But here he says, in general, he's not ashamed of his elect.

Joel

Now the author quotes three Old Testament passages to talk about Jesus not being ashamed of the brothers. One of them is in Psalm 22, which, as we know, is probably the most messianic psalm in the scripture, but also another psalm, and then Isaiah 8. Can you talk about these scripture references and what the author is doing with them?

Andy

As you said, he quotes these Old Testament passages here, and I think the idea is the family aspect here, "I will tell of your name to my brothers."(Hebrews 2:12) And the congregation is made up of his brothers, and then this passage from Isaiah 8 that you mentioned. The idea here in Isaiah is that Isaiah himself had a family. He had a wife, and he had children whom he was told by God to give special prophetic names. So he speaks, as the prophet does, "Behold I and the children God has given me."(Hebrews 2:12) Now, the author to Hebrews lifts up that concept and says that these children, the believers in Christ that Jesus came to save; he is speaking for them. They are the fruit of his prophetic ministry or the fruit of his priestly ministry, and he speaks on behalf of them. "Behold, here am I and the children God has given me." And so the idea is, we're of the same family. There's a strong solidarity here in Christ as human beings.

Joel

You mentioned the family solidarity language, and that's a perfect segue into Hebrews 2:14 where he says, "Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise, particularly the same things." I know this brings us back to the incarnation, but can you explain one more time why it was so necessary that Jesus take on flesh and blood and become like us in order to accomplish our redemption?

Andy

Yeah, there's just a lot of things that we could say about this. Again, let's go back to the attack that the unbelieving Jewish community would make on Jewish professors of faith in Christ, being pretty much the same attack that they made on Jesus, "Here you are a flesh and blood human being, and you're claiming to be the eternal God. How could that be?" And so the fact that he had flesh and blood was the ground of their accusation that he was committing blasphemy by claiming to be God. So the author goes right at it and says, "We who are created in the image of God, Adam, before he sinned in his innocent state, had flesh and blood and was in the image of God." So just because you have flesh and blood doesn't mean that you couldn't be in the image of God. So this is really the consummation of what God intended when he created Adam and Eve, male and female, in the image of God, but they had flesh and blood.

This is going at some of the philosophical attacks that are made, sometimes Greek philosophy and others, that there's something intrinsically evil about material. That's not a Hebrew way of thinking. God declared all things good, and Adam, included in that declaration, had flesh and blood. So it was good for him to have flesh and blood. So God's not ashamed of flesh and blood. So the second person in the Trinity, Jesus, took on flesh and blood. That's what incarnation means. He took on flesh, like we think about a carnivore is someone who eats flesh. A carnival is where people back in the Middle Ages could go and get meat that would've been cooked where they wouldn't have had enough room for a full bull or cow or something like that, and they had no refrigeration. So you go to a carnival to eat the flesh. That's what incarnation means. He took on flesh-and-blood. So there's nothing intrinsically evil about being a flesh and blood human. Beyond that, however, and this is exactly where the author's going to go, without a body, he couldn't die. Without blood, he couldn't atone. So it isn't just that he had a body. It's that that body was nailed to the cross. It isn't just that he had blood. It's that the blood was poured out at the cross, and without that, he could not atone for our sins.

"He took on flesh and blood. …It's that that body was nailed to the cross. It isn't just that he had blood. It's that the blood was poured out at the cross, and without that, he could not atone for our sins."

Joel

What did we learn in verse 14 about the devil and what kind of power he has or had?

Andy

To some degree, the devil's the author of death. He's the assassin of the human race. By tempting Adam and Eve in the garden, he led them to death, and so he was a murderer from the beginning, Jesus calls him. He links it to his lying, so that by his lying, he murdered us, but also, to some degree, he took over the world at that point. He is the god of this age. We handed the keys of the kingdom over to him by joining his rebellion. He became our king. He became our father. Jesus said, "You are of your father, the devil."(John 8:44) So we gave him all this power, and the kingdoms were given to him, and Satan even tempted Jesus with those exact words, “He took him up on a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor, and he said, ‘All this has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to.’”(Paraphrase of Luke 4:5-6) It wasn't God that gave it to him. It was Adam that gave it to him, and God, to some degree, honored that and called him the god of this age. But we know, in the Great Commission, Jesus said, "All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me by a higher authority."(Paraphrase of Matthew 28:18) Anyway, the devil then had the power of life and death over us. You remember in the great story of Job how the devil came and was accusing Job. In the first phase of the assault, all of Job's family, his children, and his possessions were taken from him, but the devil wasn't allowed to lay a finger on the man himself. But in the second, he was allowed to make him sick but not allowed to kill him. So effectively, God acknowledged that Satan has the power to kill people, and he was restrained in Job's case from doing that. So Satan has the power to kill us physically, but even worse than that, Satan, by alluring us into sin, has the power to turn the law of God against us, to kill us eternally in hell. That's the real danger here, that the devil held the power of eternal death through temptation and sin.

Joel

I love this phrase in Hebrews 2:14 that says, "Through death, he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil.” So how did Jesus destroy the one who has the power of death?

Andy

That is awesome. That's just one of the great, great things about the gospel. Here is the devil, the most powerful created being. I think we would have to acknowledge, there's no created being with greater influence or power. Jesus is not a created being, but the devil's far more powerful than any of us. So here he is, very, very powerful, and he is slaughtering the souls of people all over the world, every nation he's running the world. But in comes Jesus, born of a virgin, wrapped up in little swaddling clothes like a baby, grows up in the normal way. Then through his perfection, through his perfect life, and by his atoning death, he destroyed Satan. What's so cool about that is, he didn't destroy him all at once, but gradually, methodically, has been destroying Satan's kingdom in every generation by saving the elect. It's just an awesome thing. What's even more cool is that he turns Satan's weapon against him. Satan's weapon is death. So Jesus, by dying, turns the weapon around and kills Satan, because he rose from the dead on the third day. So by his death in our place under the wrath of God, and then by his subsequent resurrection, which is our vindication, Satan's kingdom is destroyed.

Joel

That's beautiful. Now it says he, “delivers those who through fear of death are subject to lifelong slavery.”(Paraphrase of Hebrews 2:15) Can you talk about how Jesus delivers us from this slavery to death? Death casts a shadow over the earth. People live in fear of death. People are always wanting to live forever. I'm always reading articles about scientists think they have the cure to live beyond 100 or 150, and people want to live, we're afraid to die. Can you talk about how Jesus sets us free from the slavery of the fear of death?

Andy

Yeah, everyone is afraid of death. They may deny it. They may say that they're not scared, and they may act foolishly and do crazy things like some people do, risking their lives for extreme sports or other things like that. Some people actually die in those kinds of foolish endeavors as they risk their lives. But other people just are honest about it. Say, "I'm afraid. I'm afraid of death. I think about it. I think about it a lot." Other people, it's in their background, but they know how vulnerable we are. You've got kids. You can't protect them from leukemia or from getting hit by a car. It's just, we are all fragile. Then anybody who's got all this bravado and saying they're not afraid of death, they show their true colors if their car hits some black ice, and they start heading at 60 miles an hour toward an embankment or a tree, and they scream. Even as atheists, they might even say, "Oh God, oh God." And they're crying out because they're afraid.

So there is this slavery to fear of death, and I think it's at the root of a lot of pagan religions too. There's a lot of fear of death wrapped up in those and appeasement of the spirits, and there's just this terror of death. I actually think non-Christians aren't as afraid of death as they should be. They don't understand the peril that they're in, that if they die in an unconverted state, they're going to be cast into hell, which the Bible calls the second death. Jesus actually said, "Do not fear those who kill the body, and after that can do nothing more to you. But I'll tell you whom to fear: fear the one who, after the destruction of the body, has the power to destroy both soul and body in hell. I tell you, fear him."(Paraphrase of Luke 12:4-5) And Jesus was talking about God, who has the power to destroy us in hell.

So honestly, all human beings, to some degree, fear death. There's a slavery in that. There's no escape. We can't defeat every disease. There is no cure for every kind of cancer. Some people still die of cancer despite all the intelligence of the medical community, and they do amazing things, but they can't conquer death. So you might not die of that cancer, but you might die of another cancer, or you might go out with a clean bill of health and get hit by a car. There's no way that we can escape it, and we know it. So it stands over us. Some call it the grim reaper. So people live in slavery of the fear of death, but here in this verse, they're set free. They're delivered by the death of Jesus, and by his resurrection, we Christians ought to be freed from fear of death. We should not grieve like those who have no hope. We should not live like those who have no hope. We should be triumphant like Paul is in 1 Corinthians 15:55 saying, "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" So we are able to know that we're going to be ultimately triumphant over death in the grave and the lake of fire. We're not going to be hit by these things at all, though we might still physically have to die. So Jesus delivers us from that slavery, that bondage to fear of death.

Joel

Now, what does Hebrews 2:16 add to the argument where it says, "Surely it is not the angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham"?

Andy

He goes back, again, to angels. We've been talking about angels. The angels, as you know, were the mediators of the old covenant. So the author has been at pains to show that he is superior to angels, and the covenant he mediates is superior to the one they mediated, but, also, he's not an angel himself, and neither are we. So he doesn't come to help angels. Now, here's the thing we need to understand: demons are fallen angels. Satan was a fallen angel. Angels are just spirit beings that were created to serve in heaven. It seems like from Revelation, there's indication that a third of them fell into rebellion, joining Satan in this rebellion, and they're called demons. I think it's important for us who do have a gospel to realize that they don't have a gospel.

It's not angels that Jesus came to save. He didn't die on the cross for angels. Angels don't have flesh and blood anyway. Jesus took on flesh and blood to help human beings. There is no salvation plan for demons. There's no salvation plan for Satan. What that shows us is that it's a privilege to have a gospel. We don't deserve it, and it's a privilege to be under the hearing of the gospel. We don't deserve it. It's an even greater privilege to believe the gospel. We don't deserve any of it. So he doesn't help angels. He doesn't help demons. He helps us. He calls us here, “The offspring of Abraham.” Now to the Jews, and I think this is written to Jewish professors of faith in Christ. They would understand right away what that means. For me and you, Joel, as non-Jews, we are, I guess, honorary sons of Abraham, but that's who he comes to help the sons of Abraham.

"It's a privilege to have a gospel. We don't deserve it, and it's a privilege to be under the hearing of the gospel. We don't deserve it. It's an even greater privilege to believe the gospel. We don't deserve any of it. "

Joel

Okay, so in Hebrews 2:17, we're going to hit the incarnation one more time. It says, "Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people." Now, you mentioned this propitiation in your opening comments. Can you talk again and elaborate on why it was so necessary for the propitiatory offering for Jesus to become like us in every respect?

Andy

Yeah. Propitiation is a weighty theological word. Some translations get rid of it on the assumption that we don't know what it is. None of us knows what it is. We don't really understand it. They might go with a sacrifice of atonement, something like that. But propitiation comes from the concept that a deity, in a pagan religion, let's say, a deity can become very angry at a human or a group of humans and do them some serious damage. But if you offer a sacrifice to that deity, that deity, that god or goddess, would turn away from anger and start being kind to them. So the pagan religions are all based on these kinds of sacrifices. Like you hear the story during the Odyssey or whatever, where the Greeks are going to make a voyage and they're afraid of Poseidon, the god of the sea, and he might churn up a storm against them and all of them be lost to the bottom of the sea, so they offer up actually a human sacrifice in that pagan story. J.I. Packer talks about this in his book, Knowing God, but that's the essence of propitiation.

Now, many have thought that's an unseemly idea for the God of the Bible, like he's some capricious deity who gets angry and you have to buy him off with a sacrifice. That's a very scurrilous way of talking about it. But the idea of propitiation is woven throughout the old covenant, and the Jews would've understood it. Their animal sacrificial system was based on the idea that all sin deserved the death penalty but that the death penalty could be paid by a substitute. A substitute, however, cannot be an animal. We'll get into all that later in the book of Hebrews. The blood of bulls and goats never took away sins. But we do believe that God is able to take away the wrath, his wrath, by the giving of a sacrifice. That's what propitiation is, the removal of the wrath of God by the sacrifice of Jesus.

So Jesus, by being made flesh and blood like us, was able to take our place as our sinless substitute and, by his death, take away the wrath of God. He's a lightning rod, and the lightning bolt struck him, and everyone in the house survived. The house wasn't ignited with the power of the lightning strike and burst into flames, and they all die. That's what a lightning rod does. It protects the inhabitants of the house from the lightning strike. So Jesus is our lightning rod. He absorbed the wrath of God, but he had to be human in order to do that. So he had to be made flesh and blood in order to be our propitiation. It also says, one other thought there, because he was human, he's able to be a merciful and faithful high priest, and I think that leads even to the last verse in the chapter.

Joel

Yeah, “Because he suffered when tempted, so he's able to help those who are being tempted.”(Paraphrase of Hebrews 2:18)

Andy

Yeah.

Joel

Now, I want to stick on this theme of suffering. What does it mean to suffer under temptation? And how did Jesus suffer when he was tempted? How do we suffer under temptation? And how do we suffer well under temptation?

Andy

I really believe this is a very important concept, and I'm very glad that you veered in on it. Temptation brings suffering. There is a pull on us in the flesh toward evil, toward sin, toward rebellion, against the laws of God. To resist is painful. It's difficult. Now, Jesus suffered clearly in Gethsemane when he was being tempted to not go to the cross. He also suffered when he was out in the desert. It says, "After fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he became hungry."(Matthew 4:2) So there's a pain to the hunger. We call them hunger pains. He felt that. So he suffered that temptation, and he didn't yield to it.

So what we have to do, and the author to Hebrews later are going to talk more about how we are called on to lay aside every sin that so easily entangles and run the race of holiness, is that we're called on to fight a fight, or run a race of holiness, to be holy, to make every effort to be holy. Hebrews 12:14, "Without holiness, no one will see the Lord." We need to expect to suffer in that journey. We cannot resist temptation, especially if we become addicted to certain sin patterns. You think about people that are addicted to alcohol, addicted to tobacco, or addicted to internet pornography. If they're going to resist the temptation, they're going to suffer. They have to say no to their flesh. But Jesus went ahead of us as the captain of our salvation and showed us how to suffer for holiness. He's able, when we're being tempted, to help us and say, "I know how you feel. I know how you feel."

"He has been tempted in every way as we are…"the author will say in chapter 4, “…Yet without sin.”(Paraphrase of Hebrews 4:15) So he's able to identify with us in our suffering, and in that way, he's a merciful and faithful high priest.

Joel

Do you have any final thoughts on verses 10-18?

Andy

Yeah, that's a fantastic section. It shows how Jesus had to be made like us in every respect, how he had to become human. So this should not have caused a stumbling block to the Jews to believe in Jesus. There was a logic behind it. There's a reason why Almighty God became a human being. But for us, just the comfort of knowing that Jesus is a merciful and faithful high priest and that his death has made a propitiation so there's no condemnation for us as we struggle with sin, and he can help us not to sin. Also, he knows what it's like to suffer, period. So there are people that go through suffering that's not tied to their sins, their own disease, or the disease of a loved one, of a child, and Jesus knows what it's like to suffer, and he's with us in solidarity as we go through these things, it’s very comforting.

Joel

That was episode 4 in Hebrews of Bible study questions: Jesus Is Exalted Through Suffering, covering chapter 2 verses 10-18. Please join us next time, and we'll talk about how Jesus is greater than Moses from Hebrews 3:1-6. Thank you for listening, and God bless you all.