His life, suffering, death, through death to resurrection and ascension to glory. Well, this is the theme, this great theme that the book of Hebrews picks up. It's really the central theme of the book of Hebrews. And God in His grace gives us a taste of this tonight in these verses that we've read. It's really a theme that is essential to understanding the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which we focus on with the church around the world today. We're going to focus on what God reveals to us in the last part of Hebrews chapter 2. We've read some of the verses prior to that. Let me walk through that just briefly again. Hebrews 1. Back there in verses 1 and 2, there's this great declaration God has in times past spoken by the prophets, but now in these last days, He's spoken by His Son. His Son, who is greater than the angels. Then into chapter 2, that theme is picked up, that argument, and it says, therefore, because God has spoken to us through His glorious Son, His resurrected Son, Now we must pay much closer attention, because how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? Then the author by the Spirit goes on to tell us in chapter 2, verses 5 through 9, that this Son, Jesus Christ, who is so much greater than the angels, who is sovereign King of Kings and Lord of Lords, with everything under his control, and was so from all eternity, the Eternal Son. The writer of Hebrews tells us he willingly, for a time, became lower than the angels in order to suffer and die as a man, to die as one of us, Well, the Jewish critics of the day, this letter is written to the Jewish believers, but the Jewish critics of the day, many of them saw angels as the most glorious beings. They viewed angels sort of as mediators. And many of them would have raised questions at this point. How does this fit? If Jesus, if this Son of God is greater than the angels, how could he lower himself beneath that? Why? Why would he become a man? And this glorious answer is what is unfolded in verses 10 and following. And the answer there, for it was fitting that he for whom and by whom all things exist should do this. It was fitting. It was right. It was necessary. It was an amazing display of His grace that His Son, the Eternal Son, became human in order to save sinners like you and I, to be Emmanuel, God with us, as Isaiah had prophesied so long before. You see, the Eternal Son, He had to live and suffer and die in our nature. And until he did these things, he wasn't yet fully qualified to be our Savior. And the Scriptures show us that he was willing to do this. He was unashamed to do this. And so as we come to our text verses, where we'll focus on verses 14 through 18, we see there that God is unfolding to us here a beautiful mystery. a beautiful mystery, his glorious activity in the incarnation of his son right through suffering and death to the resurrection, how and why Jesus so willingly became even less than an angel, identifying with us in a sin-filled and fallen world and doing so right to and through death itself. Well, let's first look at how Jesus identified with us. Verse 14 proclaims this to us. It says, Do you realize Jesus' identification with us is to the extent that right now in heavenly glory, in His ascended glory, He is just as much human as you or I. He shares in our flesh and blood. This means He has a body like ours. He has bones, muscles, veins, skin like ours. He has a mind like we do. He has a face, expressions, a personality. He is fully man in resurrected glory and ascended and enthroned in heaven, having gone through and experienced this earthly life. A life which included experiencing sorrows, experiencing undeserved, infinitely deep sufferings, complete abandonment by God under His wrath to death itself. See, in His humanity, Jesus is like you and I in every way, with two exceptions. One, He perfectly fulfilled all righteousness. never sinning. And second, he willingly substituted himself, identifying himself with our sin, suffering undeservedly for our sin and taking an infinite weight of penalty of wrath that we cannot comprehend, that we could never fulfill. It would take us eternity under the wrath of God. Martin Luther said this, in his body, not in the sense that he has committed them, but in the sense that he took these sins committed by us, upon his own body, in order to make satisfaction for them with his own blood, Christ became on the cross, as it were, David the adulterer, Peter the sinner. the denier, Paul the persecutor. And you, as a believer, whatever your sins are, he was the substitute in our flesh, in your flesh. Well, doesn't this raise the question, secondly, why? Why would Jesus identify with us? Why would He identify with you and with me? Why would He, the eternal Son of God, who was in perfect harmony, glory, beauty, unity with the Father and the Spirit from all eternity in perfect fellowship, why would He, the One by whom all things were created, Christ, the Creator, of all things, the One who is the brightness of God's glory, why would He do this? Why would He take on our nature, our creaturehood, our flesh and blood? Why would He do this for all eternity? No, the Lord Jesus Christ didn't do this simply for the sake of a shared experience. He knows all things. His incarnation was and is the active and willing pursuit of a glorious multifaceted goal. This is what our passage shows us. Our passage tonight gives us at least nine reasons why the Son of God pursued taking on our nature through suffering and death itself to resurrection and glory. Let's back up just a little bit to verse 12. And there we see a first reason why Jesus identified with us It says there in verse 12, just prior to that, he's not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, I will tell of your name to my brothers. In the midst of the corrugation, I will sing your praise. Why did the eternal Son of God take on flesh? He did it to proclaim God to his adopted brothers. Jesus came to display God to us in tangible, human terms. The Son of God stooped down from eternal glory, taking our nature upon Himself to teach us, to show us, to display God Himself to us. To us who by nature are rebels, strangers, alienated from God. Well, verse 13 gives us another reason. It says there, and again, I will put my trust in Him. And again, behold, I and the children God has given me. Jesus took upon Himself our nature to show us true faith in God. Do you realize that? That the Lord Jesus Christ, the Eternal Son, as He took upon Himself our nature as He was born, a helpless little baby, and grew up in this world, that He also had to live by faith? It's a mystery, isn't it? Yes, He's both fully God and fully man at the same time, yet Scripture very clearly shows us that the Lord Jesus Christ, through His earthly life and ministry, through His sufferings and death, had to live by faith. He was trusting. actively putting his trust in the Father. And so he became one of us and pioneered the way of faith for us. He knows what faith is. He knows what it is to trust. Another reason. Verse 13 and 14 explain this one to us. As it says there, Behold I and the children God has given me. Then it goes on to say, Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things. He did it for the salvation of the children God has given him. Why did the Eternal Son do this? Why did He take on our flesh and blood? He did it. because he had a particular intent to save. Jesus knew, the Eternal Son knew each one of his children. His goal was to bring many sons to glory. He says this in John 6.37, All that the Father gives to me will come to me. and the one that comes to Me, I will certainly not cast out." And so Jesus came with this particular intent. And what a glorious thing that is for you as a believer to know that the Lord Jesus Christ came for your salvation. Thinking of you particularly, knowing your particular sin, and bearing the particular penalty for that on the cross, to death itself, and then the victory of that being sealed in His resurrection. Listen to verses 13 and 14 again. As it says there at the end of verse 13, 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. That might strike you as a bit unusual, that phrase. How does this last phrase really tie in? What does it mean? Does the devil have the power of death? We know from the Word of God that ultimately God alone has a prerogative the power of death. The wages of sin are death. And scripture is clear that God has the appointed the time and the place for each one to die to the day of his son's return. Yet, in every human death, in every death that we come across in our lives, there is a certain victory there of the devil over Adam and his descendants in humanity? Why? Well, by choosing Satan's deceit over God's truth, Adam chose sin. And he followed Satan's lead. And he and humanity, and we ourselves as well, have come under the power of sin and its ultimate end, death. There's a certain power of the devil there, a certain victory that Satan gained in the garden. But what's the glorious truth in this passage? Jesus is the second Adam, as 1 Corinthians 15 tells us. And in taking our flesh and blood, in taking our humanity, in living that perfect holiness, fulfilling all righteousness, in your flesh and blood, in bearing the full weight of God's just wrath, in satisfying it with His innocent blood in your place as a child of God to death itself, He, John Owen says, has won the victory. over Satan, over sin, and over death. John Owen says this, commensator, the first and principal end of the Lord Christ's assuming human nature was not to reign in it, but to suffer and die in it. And so through this, Jesus won the victory over Satan, sin, and death, and his resurrection gloriously declares this. He made Satan ultimately powerless and ineffective against the accomplishing and applying of redemption to God's children. Jesus has won a glorious victory over the devil. He's rescued every one of his children from Satan's sway and from sin and death. Verse 15 goes on to give us another reason for Jesus taking on our flesh and blood. It says, not only to deliver us from the devil, but also to deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. I don't know, I'm sure some of you probably remember living through World War II. She was young then. Others of us, it's simply what we've read about or heard our grandparents or parents talk about. But in the latter part of World War II, the American General Eisenhower was charged with leading the final push up into Germany. This great military push. And one of the things that he was charged with was delivering the inmates of the concentration camps, the death camps. Those were on his map. Those were under his charge. He was to deliver those. And you can imagine, as those camps were liberated, that those people who were still alive, who had lived under the terror of death, as they saw those American troops and heard those final skirmishes and battles, and saw the Americans destroy the German SS and Nazi units that held them in the fear of death. They were liberated, at least temporarily, from that fear. There was joy, there was relief. They were set free from a cruel and harsh and evil rule over them. Well, Jesus has gained a far greater victory. His victory is over all earthly powers. over Satan himself and over death itself. You see, Jesus' intent in taking on our nature and going through death, ahead of us, for us, was not only to free you and me from death, but our verse tells us here, also, he desires that you would be free from the fear of death. The Heidelberg Catechism states this. Through Jesus' victory, through His deliverance of us, our death now as Christians, it's not a payment for sin, but an entrance into life. An entrance into glory and beauty. Oh, make this world faded and dim by comparison. Brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus came and He went through death and He is risen that you might have deliverance, not only from death, but also from fearing death. you might have peace even as you face your own grave, knowing His victory. You know, if it were not for His death and resurrection, the promises of God sealed in His own Son, I think it would be hard for us to be sure it was possible to live beyond the grave, to be raised from the dead, in our actual bodies. But our Lord has gone through this. He is risen. There is one person in this world who has died. And there is one empty grave, there is one body missing from all who have died on this earth. And that is Jesus Christ. the firstfruits of the resurrection in our flesh in glory and promising that He will likewise resurrect the body of every one of His children to glory. And the saints in heaven right now, as they are there in their souls, cogent and aware, praising the Lamb around the throne, they long and look forward to that glorious day of resurrection When all things will be complete, they will also gain their resurrected bodies. So how comforting it is to remember that our Savior, our Lord, He is a human being. He is a person of flesh and blood, and as a human being, He died. His body was laid in the grave. just as dead as our bodies will be laid in the grave unless he returns first. His body was buried and he rose from the dead. And so our fully God, fully man, Savior, leads and brings us through death to glory. And so the Apostle Paul could declare, he could proclaim, oh death, Where is your sting, O grave? Where is your victory? Why else did Jesus identify with us? Verse 16 says, For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. This verse tells us Jesus did this to help to rescue fallen men. and not fallen angels. It's almost as if the apostle, the writer here stops and pauses for a moment, inspired by the Spirit to reflect on this, this mystery of the love and grace of God. You see, I don't and you don't deserve the grace of God. We don't deserve salvation any more than other fellow human beings who do not receive it. We don't deserve it any more than the fallen angels who will never receive it, who in God's perfect justice have no Redeemer, have no Savior. The fallen angels will receive the justice of God's eternal hell in a perfectly holy justice. There's no salvation for them. None. And God is perfectly just in that. And so again, we could raise the question, oh, why? What is man that God is mindful of him? It is sheer Love, sheer sovereign grace. It is a mystery. The Bible commentator John Owen says this, As to the angels, he spared them not. He spared not them. And spared not his own son for us. Verse 17 goes on to say, 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 of God. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son, did this, went through the grave bearing the wrath of God and his suffering to death to become our merciful and faithful high priest, to become the perfect go-between, the perfect uniting person between the perfectly holy triune God and a sinful, fallen man come to Him for salvation. This is why Jesus is called Immanuel, God with us. He brings God to us, and He brings us to God. The Old Testament taught over and over that we need a high priest. We need someone to mediate to God on our behalf. The Old Testament, Isaiah, gives that picture. We can't approach the God who is holy, holy, holy. the God of infinite blazing perfection and glory and splendor before whom the angels shield themselves. The whole Old Testament priesthood showed the need for sacrifice, the need for atonement, and all of it is just a massive illustration pointing to the Eternal Son who took on Himself. your and my nature. We need a go-between. Every one of us. If we are to stand before God and live, we need a go-between. Someone to intervene for you before God. Jesus became a man so that he could. And so he is the merciful and faithful high priest. And what did this merciful and faithful high priest do? Well, the last part of the verse says, he did this in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of his people. He did it to make the payment, the bloody atonement required for our sin. Matthew Henry says this, there's a great quarrel between God and man by reason of sin. But Christ, by becoming a man and dying, has taken up the quarrel and made reconciliation through himself so that God is ready to receive into favor and friendship those who come to him in Christ. There is hope. for the worst of sinners in and through Christ. He has paid the price sufficient for all and suitable for all, because it was paid in our nature. You see, where we had broken the law, Christ, the perfect man, kept it. Where our law-breaking demands a penalty, Jesus, very real, His blood, His very real life and breath was sacrificed to satisfy divine justice. Well, the Apostle just loads on these beautiful descriptions for us. God just reveals more and more here, doesn't He? Look with me to verse 18. There it says, for because he himself has suffered when tempted, he's able to help those who are being tempted. And here the Apostle Paul sums up, he concludes this section, telling us that the Lord Jesus Christ took on your nature to understand us perfectly as a man. to sympathize with us. You see, the Lord Jesus Himself has suffered. He has suffered when tempted. He knows what it's like to be tempted. He knew that through His life and ministry, through His sufferings on the cross, right to death itself. He knows what it is to experience the battle for holiness through temptation. And the Lord Jesus Christ won that battle victoriously without any sin. He faced the full weight of being tempted in every way that we are. Scripture teaches us that. That Christ was tempted as we are. He knows intimately and fully. And undoubtedly, as the Son of God, those temptations were all the more fierce and hard and full. Scripture tells us that God doesn't allow us to be tempted knowing our frailty beyond what we're able. Jesus bore the full weight of temptation. in our nature, in our body, with a mind, personality, a being as ours. And He did it to help those who are being tempted. You see, He is our risen Savior. That's what the Apostle in Hebrews 2 is pointing towards. Jesus Christ is a risen Savior. He is the perfect High Priest who made the once-for-all sacrifice. And in your and my flesh, He sits on the throne as the perfect Savior that you and I need. And He knows what temptation to sin is all about. He never did give in, thanks be to God. He fulfilled all righteousness, and He did that knowingly for our sakes, because He knows that you and I, we fail, we sin, and have done at times even willingly, rebelliously against God, and yet in His sovereign grace and mercy, He is the one who is a strong Savior. And he's able to help those who are being tempted. He's able to help those who are sinners, failures, before a holy God, rebels. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, which you might have read in high school at some point, there's a character named Atticus Finch who says this, you never really understand a person until you climb into their skin. and walk around in it. The eternal Son of God, Jesus Christ, who is seated in incredible glory on the throne of heaven, He has fully identified with us. And as God incarnate, as the risen Savior, He understands us fully. He knows you better than you know yourself. And He is the perfect, complete Savior. What should be our response to all of this? As we consider that Jesus has actively pursued this great work of salvation and this great wonder of the Incarnation to save and to reconcile sinners like us to Himself, what is your response? As you sit here, known by God in His presence, on His creation, as His creatures, what's your heart's response to all of these things? What's your heart's response to the God, the Triune God over all things, who sent His only begotten Son? to pursue this costly, hard, bitter work to the dregs of death itself. Are you marked, as Hebrews 2, 1 says, with an earnest attention to God's speaking to you? This is God speaking to you. This is His Word. Are you eager to hear Him? To hear His Son? Is your life identified with this Savior? With this Jesus? Does your heart cry out, Oh, yes! Thank You, O Lord Jesus! Thank You, O Triune God! That You've been mindful of me while I was yet a sinner apart from You. Oh, thank You, Lord Jesus, for going through those sufferings and through that death and into that tomb, dead as the eternal Son of Glory, for my sake. Thank You for Your glorious and victorious resurrection, that You are the firstfruits, that You, Lord Jesus, are seated on the throne of heaven in my flesh, so that I have the sure hope of life eternal. By your grace I can grow to fear death less. Is that why you cry out when days of suffering come to you? Because they certainly will to most of us. The day when you are diagnosed with something, When your death comes close, will you rest? Do you rest with faith in Jesus? Do it. Look to the one who has pioneered the path for you, who has plunged and led through these things as the captain of your salvation. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, people of God, worship your risen Savior. Fellowship with Him. Thank Him. That's why He's called us here together tonight. That's why He calls us every Lord's Day. That's why He gives you His Word and gives you opportunities to do this. He desires your communion and fellowship, your love. Talk to Him. Praise Him for what He has done for your salvation. And if any of you here tonight aren't in Christ, if you're not a Christian, maybe you've gone to church all your life, you've been baptized, you've been part of the church, but if you're honest, it's just hollow. You're not in the Word. You're not in prayer. It's just an outward thing. Well, if you aren't living by faith in Jesus Christ, hear His voice as Hebrews 1 and 2 comes to you and tells you, hear what He is saying to you in His Word. Don't neglect this great salvation, this precious and beautiful thing, this new life in communion with God Himself. Don't neglect, don't ignore or reject God's incredible grace offered to you in His Son. If you're not a Christian, I want to encourage you, join us in reality, in heart and life. Join us, join God's people living, looking to Jesus. the author and finisher of our faith, through Jesus, who has so graciously revealed himself to you again tonight by his word. Amen. Let's pray. O Lord, our God, we bow before you. And Lord, we confess with the psalmist, what is man? What are we? that you are mindful of us. And even more than being mindful of us, that you have sent your own eternal Son, and that you, Lord Jesus, willingly took upon yourself our creatureliness, our physical body. You took our humanity on yourself, and that in that humanity You lived your earthly ministry and pursued all perfect holiness and yet despite all of that perfect holiness and with it you suffered the shameful and painful death of the cross. You bore the filthiness, the ugliness of our sin so that all of its penalty and guilt could be taken away and so that we could have your free righteousness given to us. We thank you and praise you for this great salvation. We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you are seated on the throne of heaven right now, today, this evening, in glory, in our flesh. That the day is coming when all flesh shall see you as you are. The day is coming when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that you are Lord and the Lord of glory. O Lord, we pray, help us so that our faith would become more and more like sight. Help us, Lord, through this earthly pilgrimage. Help us, Lord, through our temptations, through our suffering. Help us, Lord, through our deaths, to look to you right to the finish, to the moment that our eyes open in heavenly glory. Lord, we pray that you would bless each one here, that you would cause us to go home rejoicing that you are our risen Savior. In your name we pray, amen.