Highlights in Hebrews
(with Roger Kirby)
Part 5 - Hebrews 2:9
Jesus as representative man
“we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”
Our writer quotes the psalmist (Psalm 8:4–6) in Hebrews 2:6-8:
“What is mankind that you are mindful of them,
a son of man that you care for him?
You made them a little[ lower than the angels;
you crowned them with glory and honour
and put everything under their feet.”
It is a tricky passage as is obvious from the lengthy footnotes in most English versions. The second line seems to be singular while all the other lines refer to mankind in the plural. It is the nearly unanimous opinion of modern translations that this is correct. The quotation refers back to Genesis 1:26 where God says, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” In an astonishing act God put the care of this world of ours in the hands of mankind. We haven’t done very well with it. As I write the main problem seems to be plastic in the seas. For centuries mankind has assumed that the oceans are so big we can dump anything we like into them and they will absorb it. It is now clear that there is so much plastic in the seas, which will break down into ever smaller particles without dissolving, that all the fish and other creatures in the seas will be poisoned by them. We have scarcely done any better with the land. We continue to fight over it with each other and generally mess it up.
But our writer can see good in even these problems. He goes on to say in Hebrews 2:9, “we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”
Jesus has rescued all mankind from the consequences of their failures if they will only recognize that he has done so. Ultimately we, his people, will all end up in his New Heaven and New Earth. What exactly that means; what it will look like; how it will relate to our present experience; we do not know, but we can have confidence in our Lord and Saviour.
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