Introduction

Open up once again to the book of Hebrews, we are in verses 5-9 this morning of Chapter 2. We know that Christ is in control of all things, Amen? He laid the foundation of the Earth, he upholds all things by the word of his power, and all authority in Heaven and on Earth has been given to him.  These truths are undeniably true.  Why, though, does what we see and experience in this world, which is in subjection to him, not align with that reality? 

Why does it appear like sin is still winning? Why are evils, corruption, and death still a thing?  These questions are one of the biggest deterrents to Christianity.  A while back, I heard a very famous atheist say that the reality that evil and death are present in a world either means that God, if he is there, is not all powerful, as is taught, or is he not all good.  So the seeming disconnect between what we teach and what we see in the world is a stumbling block for many that we need to move out of the way or help people step over. This is not going to be an introduction into apologetics, there are plenty of resources on that and I will include some in the notes but given that our text this morning addresses this we need to have a gospel centered answer to these questions.  

Let me further say that I will hardly settle these matters this morning.  It would be unreasonable to suggest that I could even begin to address such a weighty matter in 30 minutes when other men devote a lifetime to this subject.  I do pray however that in this short time I can point you again to Christ and to his work that really has done everything that we claim it has done. That’s all the introduction you are going to get this morning so stand with me as we read Hebrews 2: 5-9

5 For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. 6 It has been testified somewhere, “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? 7  You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, 8  putting everything in subjection under his feet.” Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. 9 But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

Our Present Age

I am sure most of you saw this but on Wednesday, the day after the election was made official the Dow Jones jumped up by some 1500 points and if you looked across the whole of the individual stock market almost everything was green, that is positive.  As Stephen rightly pointed out on Wednesday, this occurred without anything really changing in the economy.  So why the move? Despite the present realities there is clearly a financial optimism that the future is going to look better than the present.  In this case people are putting the money where their future hope is.  

When reflecting on the spiritual state of our world then, it can be very disheartening to not see beyond the immediate present.  In much the same way financial optimism works, our spiritual optimism is rooted not so much in the present state of things but rather in who’s in control and where the one in control is taking us.  So before we go any further we have to be assured that despite the present situation, there is an age or a world to come.  Our present optimism must be drawn from and fueled by the reality that there is a world to come where the visible and the invisible meet.  Where the promise of subjection to Christ will become reality and all will truly be in subjection to Him, visibly.  

This hope comes from trusting in his promises, trusting in who we know is in control, and reflecting on the majesty of God that is revealed to us.  This is what the author of Hebrews does by referencing another Psalm, this time it’s Psalm 8.  I do want you to turn back to Psalm 8 because we are going to read a little more than is quoting in Hebrews. Starting in verse 1

1  O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. 2  Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. 3  When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4  what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

The first step to answering some of those opening questions is to come to terms with the insignificance of man by beholding the majesty of our God.  God’s creation is full of lessons for us if we have eyes to see them and the heavens declare the majesty and glory of God.  David in Psalm 8 is looking up into the night sky and in awe, is beholding the glory and grandeur of God in creation.  David didn’t even know the full extent of the grandeur that modern discovery affords us.  By all estimations the sun is one of trillions upon trillions of stars in the universe each with an untold number of planets orbiting.  So just from a purely creational standpoint, we are smaller than a grain of sand in the ocean.  

Man could live billions of years and in that time we could not traverse even a fraction of one percent of what God spoke into existence in an instant.  His creation is utterly unfathomable and yet it is this one spec of dust in the ocean that the God of all looks upon with his tender mercy and care.  “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” We need this perspective to guide us in answering the questions before us today.  We need to reflect on the true God.  

24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us. Acts 17: 24-27

God doesn’t owe us anything nor does he need anything.  God could blot out the entirety of the universe in an instant and he would be no less God and no less complete.  Humanity is certainly deserving of such an end.  I heard someone else say that they don’t fear AI becoming smarter than humans and more capable because they don’t think AI will screw things up as bad as humans have.  Maybe that was a joke but it demonstrates the hypocrisy of man who on one hand laments how badly mankind messes up everything it touches and on the other complains that a perfect and holy God is not more merciful.  

Further, Paul uses this same passage from Psalm 8 in his first letter to Corinth to fix our gaze upon the hope of the resurrection.  If in Christ, your hope does not extend beyond the breath of this life then you are most to be pitied.  We have missed it if we don’t consider Christ as the first born of a new creation.  Get out your binoculars if your eyes are too bad to see that far off into the distance, I know mine are, but the present hope is grounded well out into the future.  

Let me also say that it was Adam’s sin and consequently our sin that is the reason things are the way they are.  The fall has corrupted our nature and all creation.  God is not to blame for that and we must not assume that he was at fault then or at fault now.  It was our sin that corrupted and our sin that is continually corrupting our present age.   

The Age to Come

So with those truths and understanding guiding us, we have to consider what the problem really is.  Verse 8 from our text, “Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control.” If everything is in subjection to Christ, but we do not presently see everything in subjection to Christ, how do we reconcile this problem?  Aside from the fact that we misconstrue what it looks like for everything to be in subjection to Christ we come up with all manner of ways to apply solutions to what we perceive to be the problems.    

Perhaps we assume that the real problem facing us today is inequity so all we need to do to fix all our issues is level the playing field for everyone.  If everyone were just equal then all would be well, right? It’s been recently said that the evil patriarchy is the problem and all our issues really stem from men having too much power in our society.  Maybe the problem is all the wealthy people and all their hoards of money so if we just redistributed all the money things would get better.  Or maybe the biggest issue is systemic racism and compassion towards minority groups is the thing that will fix everything.   

To be fair some of those are genuine issues and I am not necessarily minimizing them but if we think solving those issues, real or not, is going to bring everyone in visible subjection to the righteous God of the universe we are delusional at best.  The problem with humanity is the same problem that has always been facing humanity.  We are cursed with a sin nature and as a result are a sinful people who don’t know and don’t follow Christ.  We don’t see everything in subjection to Christ, as we might expect, because there is still sin and sinful people who aren’t subjecting themselves to him.  

In the age to come we will see all things subjected to him because there will be no more sin but until then, where sin remains, death and corruption remain.  What the writer of Hebrews has been laboring to this point is to demonstrate that Christ is superior to everything else and as a result Christ is the answer to all the problems that we face.  So often, when it comes to these spiritual matters, we ask the wrong questions.  The world asks, “If God is in control, why do we still see death, pain, and sin.”  The better question is, “Why do we deny that Christ is the only solution to death, pain and sin.”  

Things are not visibly in subjection to Christ because they are denying that subjection to Christ is the solution.  We all want the fix: world peace / earthly paradise / perfect harmony among men, but deny the only solution.  It is for this reason that the Gospel carries with it the power of God because it is only through a gospel renewed heart that we turn from sin and to God.  It is only through a rebirth into Christ that is offered to us in the gospel that we have any hope to solve our problems.  We don’t see everything in subjection to him but there is something that we do clearly see.  We see him, we see Christ.  

Death to Glory

At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. 9 But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. 

We see our Lord who was for a little while made lower than the angels, who is crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of Death. The death that he suffered, he suffered so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.  We all know there is a problem, anyone with eyes can see it.  This is why it is so tragic that so many don’t see Christ as the solution.  Christ wasn’t just another man who had another philosophy or another policy to fix things. He wasn’t a politician or an activist.  He was a giant slayer, a curse breaker and death defeater.  

He took upon himself the fullness of the curse.  Took and drank the full cup of God’s wrath.  Suffered and died for what? To not fix everything? How dare we look at such a savior who suffered for us, and reply could you speed this whole thing up a bit.  This one who took upon himself the wrath of God so that he could extend to us his grace and his forgiveness that we have already established our insignificance didn’t merit.  How could we ever behold such pure mercy and suggest it’s not good enough or that he has done something wrong.  “Who are you, Oh man, to answer back to God?” 

The heart of the matter is this. Our biggest issue with the fact that we don’t presently see everything in subjection to him is that we assume that this 80ish years we are all somewhere in the middle of was or is the point.  Don’t hear me degrading our present life, I am not doing that at all, the opposite actually.  I want to elevate this life not as a separate section of time but rather place it where it really is, the beginning of eternity.  Remember John 11.

 “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

Do you believe this? Do you believe that because of the suffering of Christ and his death you will never die? Do you know that though you will be temporarily separated from your body at some point there will be no loss of consciousness or loss of self.  You are presently living, by the grace of God in the first tiny part of an eternal existence, where but for a moment by comparison, you will experience joy and perfection unending.  

What a pity it would be if Christ entered this world only to give us some hope for the next 80ish years.  No, this can’t be.  He entered not only for the first 80 but for the next 10,000.  With that perspective we can still have full assurance and full comfort even though we don’t see the full and final picture just yet. 

Conclusion

This text and these truths do a number of things for us.  The first of those is pretty obvious because I just said it.  This truth compels us to trust in Christ and in future glory despite what we see now.  Another little bit of science for you.  One of Einstein’s many crowning achievements was his theory of special relativity.  I promise I won’t get too far down the interstellar rabbit hole but what Einstein discovered is that the passage of and perception of time is relative to the speed at which you are moving.  Supposing you could travel through space fast enough, say at the speed of light, time would no longer pass for you.  Your watch, if you were wearing one, would stop ticking.  

The point is that science has discovered that within the laws God created in his universe, he has revealed to us, however abstract, the concept of timelessness. From our perspective we say God why are you taking so long to set things right, why are things not working out, why is everything not in subjection to you.  But if we were observing these same realities traveling at the speed of the universe, the whole of human history would pass before us in an instant and all that would remain would be eternity in the Glory of Christ.  

Again, I say that not to minimize our time here or to get you to trust in some mind melting theory of relativity but to demonstrate that from God’s perspective he is not acting slowly nor is he delayed.  He has a plan and everything is fully under control.  I’d like to think Peter had at least some similar thoughts about the timelessness of God relative to us when he wrote,

9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

Whatever slowness means to us we should see as the patience of God and his compassion that none of his will perish.  So no matter what we see now, this word assures us that nothing is outside of his control and all who trust in Christ will by that same free gift of faith be with him in future glory. 

The second thing this text calls us to do is to be involved in this business of defeating death.  People are dying every day apart from faith in Christ and even more are looking to beat death in all the wrong places.  We have the answers because we know the one who defeated death.  Take the mission seriously that we have been entrusted with which is to steward eternal souls.  Preaching the gospel, sharing the gospel, protecting the gospel, stewarding the gospel and discipling by the gospel is much easier and frankly more exciting when you consider it as your mission to engage in the warfare against death.  

The church is built by the gospel and the gates of hell, the very dominion of death, will not hold up against our onslaught.  With the power of the gospel, and with Christ as our forerunner, we are coming after death and it will not win, it has not won.  

Finally, this text shifts our focus away from the things not presently in visible subjection to him and onto the thing that is.  If we measure God’s success by emphasizing and obsessing over all these things that are seemingly not in subjection to him we totally lose sight of what is.  No, we must measure God’s success on what is in subjection to him and on the most important thing that is, really the only thing that matters. 

54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” 55  “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 

58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

Amen

Bibliography

Phillips, Richard D. 2006. Hebrews. Edited by Richard D. Phillips, Philip Graham Ryken, and Daniel M. Doriani. Reformed Expository Commentary. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016)