Hebrews 2:9 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Hebrews 2:9

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But what man as a race has failed to achieve, one man, the Lord Jesus Christ, the man from heaven, has achieved by going to Calvary, by living a perfect life, a life without sin, with no flaw at all. He was made ‘a little lower than the angels.’ Not much lower, because he could not cease to be God, as well as man, but lower only in the sense that in his manhood he was limited by human limitations. And it was for a limited time, ‘for the suffering of death.’ Once that was accomplished, he would no longer be limited even by his manhood. After his resurrection he entered the room on the first appearance to the disciples where the disciples were gathered, though the doors were closed and locked. We may now go back and look at the preceding verses again, and understand that ultimately they apply to Christ. ‘Thou crownest him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands.’ Even in humiliation he exercised power and glory and demonstrated his authority and supremacy. Think of the assault upon him by the enemy of souls. He triumphed over them all, and he did this as the God man, so that human nature also triumphed over the devil. He was truly man, a limited man: limited strength, limited endurance, limited as we are because he took our place, represented us. He had to be made like us in order to suffer and die our death truly and accurately. Think of the hurt and pain that Christ must have felt in his unique God man personality, being surrounded all the time by evil, knowing every evil thought of the people about him, knowing every act of treachery and meanness and hostility and horror and contempt. And then you can think of his power over demons. He cast them out. It was a sign of what he had come to do at length on Calvary's cross: to defeat Satan and to bring about his ultimate destruction and the release of all the redeemed. Even though he would be dressed as a poor man with just ordinary followers and no fine retinue, and no regalia – no power and glory that this world respects and know – yet he had power that no one else had. You think of his power over physical elements, the miracles that dealt with the sea and the storms and the winds, and the cursing of the fig tree. And then his power in the hearts of people. The disciples were humble men and fishermen, but he turned round. Previously, they were ignorant of the true meaning of Scripture, ignorant of the meaning of the Old Testament law and sacrifices, right up to the crucifixion of Christ, unaware of what he was teaching them about the atonement, about his death and resurrection. But he laid the foundation in their minds and taught them in such a manner that, when it happened, they were instantly illuminated, and they were turned from doubting followers to people who would die as martyrs for the truths that they had been taught. The scribes and the Pharisees and the doctors of the law tried to trip him up, and ask him questions that they thought would be unanswerable, and yet every time he responded to them and they were silenced. Power over physical illness, the raising of sick people, the raising of the dead. His power over death was supremely illustrated when he rose himself by his own power from the dead. And he broke the bands, not only of death, but of mortality, leaving earth and rising up into the skies, to be hidden by a cloud as he entered the celestial sphere. Of course he retained his Godhead and he never ceased to be the eternal Son of God equal with the Father, but he subordinated himself voluntarily for the period of his life to the Father as if he were inferior, because he became our representative. As the Puritans used to say, he who was above the angels was made a little lower than the angels to accomplish what the angels could never have done. He entered into a weak human body, accepted human limitations. He became truly a man in order to be our representative. It was his voluntary humiliation to take our place so that he could truly bear our punishment as a man. By accomplishing the atonement, and being our perfect representative, he secured the victory that was due, that we should have secured but failed to do. By saving a multitude of sinners throughout the history of the world he has saved the human race. There will after all be members of the human race who enter into a glorified eternal hereafter. ‘Should taste death’ – what a curious term; it almost diminishes the death of Christ. Did he not wholly experience the rigours and the terrors of death? The idea of the term ‘taste’ is not to suggest that he only partially experienced death, but to emphasise rather that he felt all the intensity of death. He did not die suddenly; he did not merely undergo death; he fully experienced it and endured the feeling of it – the very death that we should suffer and die eternally, the eternal punishment of the lost. It is intended to intensify our realisation of precisely what it was that Christ suffered. ‘My God, my God’ he says on Calvary, ‘why hast thou forsaken me?’ He tasted the experience of complete alienation and severance from the hand of God from the sunshine of God's face and to a degree equal to that which we should suffer eternally. He tasted the wrath of God concentrated into the space of six hours. He tasted the malice of hell – filled with lost souls, all good withdrawn, all exercising malice one to another – and the hopelessness of hell.

Application

We don't see him literally with our physical eyes, but we see him with the eye of faith. We've seen our need of salvation. The Spirit has enabled us to do so. Each believer has seen Calvary in his mind's eye, Christ the Saviour of the world dying for a creature like him and bearing away his sin. We've seen invisible things, because we have tasted them, things like Christ's mercy, and his kindness and his renewing power, changing us with the eye of faith. We see Christ the Saviour, the one who we shall dwell with and under his rule through all eternity. That is Christian conversion to know him so well that it is as if you see him with the eye of faith. You've seen how Christ came suffered died and rose again gathers in his people, hears your cries and answers your prayers.

Here is another aspect of the work of Christ. He has not only saved a vast number of people; he has also restored the purpose of God for the human race. Man was created to have dominion over creation, but when he fell that became an impossibility. It looked as if something which God intended to do had failed. Mankind could never achieve the glory and honour which he was created for, and yet, here is Psalm 8 still speaking of the same exaltation of man, even after the fall, and the wonderful truth is that Christ has restored mankind to the high position which he was originally given in the plan of God. In the persons of the elect, his redeemed people, man has reattained the high position which he lost in the fall. Christ has exalted man in his own person by taking our nature and in that nature triumphing over Satan, sin, death and hell. He has exalted man in his person to the highest place and is now seated at the right hand of the Father. So what is the present state of affairs? We see Jesus Christ raised from the dead, glorified, gone before us into heaven, ‘crowned’, as Psalm 8 says, ‘with glory and honour’. We see these things given to Christ the representative man who has overcome on behalf of all his people. This is God’s deliberate order, for the one to whom these things now apply is the prototype man, the last Adam, who is the head of all his chosen people. But what has been given to our divine representative will also be given to us, because we are united with him by faith. For now we live under the curse, but our Saviour has attained what everyone of his people will attain. God’s purposes are achieved in the elect, but not in the reprobate; they will be cursed forever. Once this world’s history is complete, he will come and he will judge the world and he will reconstitute and rejuvenate and remake it and it will be the heavenly eternal glorious dwelling place of all the redeemed for ever. His work of redemption will then be complete and all his enemies will be put under his feet.

Questions

Did Christ die for every man literally, even for those that perish? No, the death of Christ is always viewed in Scripture as efficacious. Those for whom he died will with certainty be saved. The words ‘every man’ are obviously qualified – every man who is saved. They apply to his elect people, every man for whom he died. The contrast is between the one man, Jesus Christ, and every man who is covered by his redemption. The writer explains his meaning later in this chapter. He took on him ‘the seed of Abraham’ (verse 16), that is, the spiritual seed, those who are of faith.

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Hebrews 2:9 Commentary and Bible Study