Once again, as we come to look in the Word of the Lord, there is that principle of Bible study that we must not take for granted, that we cannot do without: total reliance upon God’s Holy Spirit.
He has promised that He would unveil Himself as we come to His precious Word and trust the indwelling Holy Spirit. He has given us His Spirit to show us our Lord Jesus. And so, we want to pause again, give special recognition to the Lord, and express our need of Him. Ask Him to create a new dependence in our hearts. He has come to the depths of our needs, as we have just celebrated, and He wants to meet us again.
Let me share that verse we talked of yesterday, and then we will look in the Word:
In these last days He has spoken unto us in Son.
He has spoken unto us in Son. If we had made it a language, you would know what it meant. He has spoken unto us in German, in Chinese, in French. He has spoken unto us in Jesus. That is His language, and He wants to communicate that to us.
Our Father, once again we pause and acknowledge Your presence. We thank You that You have not left us on our own as we come to understand Your truth in this Book. You have put Your Holy Spirit in our hearts, and You are constantly turning the eyes of our hearts to our Lord Jesus.
Open our eyes again, we pray. Take the veil away. Enable us, as we come to the end of our time together, to see, in a way that summarizes everything, the Lord Jesus Christ.
We give this time to You now, and we thank You in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well, brothers, you know we are looking at Hebrews 1 and 2, and I have a few more thoughts that I would like to set before your hearts from this marvelous passage in Hebrews 2.
Let me get before you again an overview of where we have been. We have been looking at our Lord Jesus in His present ministry at the Father’s right hand. Let me read for you again the chief point, Hebrews 8:1-2:
Now the main point in what has been said is this:
We have such a High Priest,
Who has taken His seat at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens,
A minister in the sanctuary, and in the true tabernacle,
Which the Lord pitched, and not man.
In our introductory lesson, we focused on the fact that He is a High Priest representing us. As pictured in the garments of the high priest, He carries us on His shoulders. He carries us over His heart. He presents us as holy before the Lord. He offers us His perfect light. He invites us to listen to His ministry—the bells on the bottom of His garment. His arms are outstretched in priestly benediction toward us. He is a High Priest.
And then, in our second message, we focused on the main point: we have Him.
The main point in what has been said is this:
We have such a High Priest.
I know there is not a brother in this room who understands the Lord as he ought to understand the Lord. But you have Him. You have Him.
You may not be obeying Him as you ought to obey Him. You may not be following Him as you ought to follow the Lord. You might not be trusting Him as you ought to trust Him. You might not be serving Him as you ought to serve Him. You might not be worshiping Him with the worship that He deserves. But that does not change this fact: you have Him.
When we left off last time, I had begun to introduce Hebrews 1, and this morning, the Lord assisting, I would like to share a few thoughts from Hebrews 2.
In Hebrews 1, God tells us that Jesus is one hundred percent God. In Hebrews 2, we learn that He is one hundred percent man. God is praying to God for me—such a High Priest, and we have Him. Merciful man is praying to God for me—and we have Him.
He knows all about you by divine omniscience because He is God. He knows all about you by human experience because He is man. The God-man is praying for us.
When we looked at Hebrews 1, I tried to focus on the great revelation of our Lord Jesus in light of the background of the Hebrews to whom he was writing. They were going through terrible persecution, and they did not have what it takes. But their High Priest was God. He created everything, so He could create what it takes.
Everything was falling apart, and they were losing control. But their High Priest was God, and He was holding all things together. He is the One who holds all things together.
They were vacillating every day. They did not know one change from another. Every day was different for them, but He was the High Priest who never changed. He is God, and He is the same—a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. They had that Priest praying for them.
They said, “But this is such a heavenly fight. We are all alone.” And He said, “I am God. I am the Lord of hosts, and all the angels of heaven are your ministering spirits. They are ministering unto you, and I am praying for you.”
You know Vernon McGee? Are you familiar with Vernon McGee? Anyway, he had a theme song on his program, “How Firm a Foundation.” You are familiar with that?
How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?
Exactly right. What more can He say? He has said it all. In these last days He has spoken unto us in Son, in Jesus. That is His final Word. He can say no more. Once He says Christ, He has said everything.
Here is my testimony, brothers: I have forever ceased being a seeker after truth. I am no longer a seeker after truth. I have embraced His final Word. Truth is a person. His name is Jesus. I have embraced Christ. I have found the truth.
I am no longer a seeker after truth. I hope I am still a seeker in the truth. That is not the same thing. It is a different direction altogether.
The fact that Jesus is God’s final Word, as it had appeal in that day to those who lacked finality, has appeal to everyone who is lacking stability and finality.
Now, this morning, we come to Hebrews 2. Just as truly as He is almighty God, He is the merciful man.
Before we look at Hebrews 2, I am going to ask you to glance at the first four verses, because we are not going to discuss them. We are sort of going to jump over them, but I want to show you what they are.
The first four verses of Hebrews 2 are the first of five warnings in the Book of Hebrews. As you go forward in a heart knowledge of your High Priest and His present ministry, you are going to need warning. The more you see the Lord, the more warnings you are going to need. The more I enter into the reality of the Lord, the more I need to be warned.
Throughout the Book of Hebrews, God has scattered five warnings. This is the first of them. He has laid them out in the same way: in each warning, He gives you the subject of the warning, then an Old Testament illustration, and then an exhortation. He states it, illustrates it, and applies it. That is a wonderful method: state, illustrate, and apply.
Those are five wonderful sections in Hebrews—actually a theme in itself—but a little beyond the scope of what we are looking at this weekend.
Having said that, we will come now to Hebrews 2. You remember, when we looked at Hebrews 1, we saw that Jesus was better—infinitely better—than the angels. Listen to Hebrews 1:4:
Having become as much better than the angels
As He hath inherited a more excellent name than they.
Read verse 3 with that, and you will see that He is infinitely better than the angels. But now, in Hebrews 2:9, we read that He was made a little lower than the angels:
But we see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely Jesus,
Because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor,
That by the grace of God He might taste death for every man.
Now He is lower than the angels. There are two things that were never true of angels: they were never God, and they were never man. Our Lord Jesus is God, and He is also man.
It would not mean much at all to me that Christ was better than the angels if it were not for the revelation in Hebrews 2 that He became lower than the angels.
It would have been a step of infinite condescension if Christ had become an angel. Think about that. If He had become like Michael the archangel, or Gabriel, or even a seraph or cherub, that would have been great condescension. There is an infinite gulf between God and His highest creation.
But we read in Hebrews 2:16:
Assuredly, He doth not give help to angels,
But He giveth help to the seed of Abraham.
The margin literally says, “He does not lay hold of angels. He lays hold of the seed of Abraham.” In other words, He did not become an angel. He became a man.
The emphasis here, and throughout the balance of Scripture, is that our High Priest is a man—not merely that He was a man.
I believe all Christians believe that God was incarnate and that the Lord Jesus became a man. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. All Christians believe that. But I am actually shocked at the number of Christians who believe that He was a man when He was on earth for thirty-three and a half years, but are not sure whether He is still a man at the Father’s right hand.
Brothers, indeed He is.
When our Lord Jesus made that decision to become man, it was not a decision that was going to last thirty-three and a half years and then He would simply return to the Godhead. Not like that at all. When He decided to become man, it was a decision that He would be man forever and forever, as ages roll upon ages.
Our Lord Jesus is the God-man. He is eternally a man. He is everlastingly a man. Jesus is a man in heaven today as much as He was a man when He walked upon the earth.
I have a number of Plymouth Brethren writers—not all Plymouth, but many of the Brethren writers—and I enjoy some of the thoughts that they have. There is an expression that many of them use, and I have really come to love it. They speak about the man in the glory.
The man in the glory. He was a perfect man on earth, and now He is a perfect man in heaven.
One of the most amazing resurrection passages to me is Matthew 28:10. This is when our Lord Jesus met the women:
Jesus said unto them, Fear not:
Go, tell My brethren that they depart into Galilee,
And there shall they see Me.
Go tell My brethren. The reason I like that is because it is after the resurrection, and He still calls them brethren.
Some Christians call the Lord Jesus “my elder Brother.” Have you ever heard that? Other Christians think that might be a little irreverent, perhaps a little too familiar, to call Him elder Brother. Well, that is a question all its own—whether we should call Jesus elder Brother.
But listen to Hebrews 2:11:
For both He that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one:
For which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren.
Whether I should call Him elder Brother, that is up for grabs. But that He is not ashamed to call me brother, that He is not ashamed to call you brother, is not open to question.
The way the word is used, I think it is the same way as in Romans 1:16, when Paul said:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel.
He was not saying, “I am almost ashamed, but I am not quite ashamed.” He was saying, “I am proud of the gospel of Christ.”
Brothers, Jesus is proud to call you brother. He is proud to call me brother. He is not ashamed to call us brethren.
Has your faith ever heard the voice of the Lord say to you, “My child, My child”? Has your faith ever heard the voice of the Lord say to you, “My brother, My brother”? It is a glorious truth. He is not only God, but He is also man.
In order to drive this home, I want to share a wonderful title of the Lord that illustrated for me, in a fresh way, the reality that He is man at the right hand of God. It is that wonderful title, Jesus of Nazareth, or Jesus the Nazarene.
I am sure you are familiar with that prophecy in Matthew 2:23:
He came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth:
That it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophets,
He shall be called a Nazarene.
Some have gone to that verse and scratched their heads, saying, “I have been through the Old Testament. I do not find that prophecy. Where does it say, ‘He shall be called a Nazarene’? I do not see it in Isaiah. I do not see it in Jeremiah. Who said it?”
I think one key is understanding that in Matthew 1 and 2, four times there is a prophecy, but it is always singular: “that which was spoken by the prophet.” His name shall be called Emmanuel. He will be born in Bethlehem. Micah said that. “Out of Egypt did I call My Son.” Rachel weeping for her children.
But here it says prophets, not prophet. “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophets.”
Nazareth was the most despised village in despised Gentile Galilee. “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” I think it is simply a picture that He would be a rejected person. He would be a Nazarene—a rejected person. All the prophets taught that. Isaiah taught that He would be rejected. Jeremiah taught that, and so on.
When Jesus was in His humility, He was the Nazarene. He was a rejected person. All the prophets predicted that.
When our Lord Jesus died, according to John 19:19-20, there was an inscription written over His head. It was written in three languages so that the whole world would know:
Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.
When did the Lord Jesus cease being Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews? Was it when He died? Was it when He rose again on Easter morning? Was it when He went back to heaven?
I was quite amazed to read Acts 22:8. I missed this for many, many years.
There are three accounts of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus: Acts 9, then twenty-five years later in Acts 22, and again in Acts 26. Twenty-five years after Paul was saved, he recalls it in Acts 22 in the Hebrew dialect:
I fell unto the ground, and heard a voice saying unto me,
Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?
And I answered, Who art Thou, Lord?
And He said unto me, I am Jesus the Nazarene, whom thou persecutest.
When he said, “Who art Thou, Lord?” He did not say, “I am Jesus. I was the Nazarene when I walked on earth.” He said, “I am Jesus the Nazarene.” He is still Jesus of Nazareth. He is still the man in the glory.
When you read of Peter’s ministry after Pentecost, remember the crippled man at the gate called Beautiful. Peter and John were walking up there, and Peter said in Acts 3:6:
Silver and gold have I none;
But what I have, that give I thee.
In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.
Seizing him by the right hand, he raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles received strength.
Later, in his prayer, Peter explains how that happened, in Acts 4:29-30:
And now, Lord, look upon their threatenings:
And grant unto Thy servants to speak Thy word with all boldness,
While Thou stretchest forth Thy hand to heal.
Well, I thought it was Peter’s hand. I thought Peter reached down and grabbed him by the hand. No. Jesus of Nazareth, from heaven, reached through Peter and through Peter’s hand and raised up that man.
Brothers, He is still the man in heaven.
Hebrews 1 says that He is the mighty God. Hebrews 2 says that He is the merciful man. If all you had was the revelation that He is mighty God, it would leave your head spinning. It would leave my head spinning.
Just knowing Him as God sets Him at such a distance from us because of our sin. Hebrews 2 speaks of His humanity in terms of the finished work and our Redeemer. He took our flesh upon Himself. It is not God standing in some distant balcony, looking over and seeing us from a distance. We are made nigh by the blood of our Lord Jesus.
Some Christians get so intense trying to prove Jesus is God. Do you realize that your faith would be just as much demolished if someone could prove He was not really man as if they were trying to prove He was not really God?
I think we can lose the wonder of His humanity by fighting for His divinity. A bridge has to be connected at both ends. Jesus is the bridge. If He is not true God, He is disconnected at the heavenly end. If He is not true man, He is disconnected at the earthly end. Our umpire must be able to put His hands upon us both.
Joseph Hart was a poet in the middle 1700s, and he wrote this little poem:
A Man there is, a real Man,
With wounds still gaping wide,
From which rich streams of blood once flowed
In hands, and feet, and side.’Tis no wild fancy of our brains,
No metaphor we speak;
The same dear Man in heaven now reigns
That suffered for our sake.That human heart He still retains,
Though throned in highest bliss;
He feels each tempted member’s pains,
For our afflictions His.
Oh, exactly so.
With that, I will ask you, brothers, to turn to Hebrews 2, beginning at verse 5.
The way I would like to outline this wonderful chapter is that I think it answers the question: Why did Jesus become man? I think that is the question raised and answered in this chapter. There is an all-inclusive answer, and then he breaks it down.
If these thoughts are of the Lord, receive them. If they are not, scrap them. We need to see the Lord together.
Hebrews 2:9-10 gives the all-inclusive reason He became man:
But we see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely Jesus,
Because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor,
That by the grace of God He might taste death for every man.For it became Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things,
In bringing many sons unto glory,
To make the Author of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
Let me put it in simple words, as simple as I know: He became man because we needed a substitute. He became man to represent us. He became man because we needed somebody to taste death for us—physical death, spiritual death, and eternal death.
What does it mean, “to make the Author of their salvation perfect through sufferings”? It does not mean that the Author of our salvation was made morally perfect through suffering. He was already morally perfect. He was already immaculate. He was already pure.
I think it means that through suffering He was made a perfect Savior. He was qualified to be a perfect Savior. That is easy to prove from Hebrews 9:22:
Apart from shedding of blood there is no remission.
Could Jesus have saved you if He had not shed His blood? He could not. Could He have saved me if He had not shed His blood? No possibility. It was through suffering that He became the perfect Savior.
Let me state again that all-inclusive reason. He became man to represent us, to stand in our place, to do what we could not do. That is why He is the second man. That is why He is the last Adam. Somebody had to live for me, and somebody had to die for me, because I messed up, because I could not do it.
Hebrews 2:7 speaks about Him being crowned with glory. Verse 9 says, “crowned with glory and honor.” Then we read that He is going to bring many sons to glory.
He became man because we needed a substitute.
Why did He not stop being a man after He finished the work on the cross? Why is He still a man now? Why did He ascend as a man with nail prints in His hands? He became a man on earth because I needed a substitute. He ascended as a man because I still need a substitute. That has not changed.
He represents me up there as much as He did when He lived His perfect life and when He died in my place. He rose as a man because I still need a substitute.
To understand His humanity in heaven, God brings together His finished work and His unfinished work, because we need a substitute now as much as when He lived on the earth.
Here is the simple outline:
He came to restore. He came to deliver. He came to succor.
Hebrews 2:5-10 says:
For not unto angels did He subject the world to come, whereof we speak.
But one hath somewhere testified, saying,
What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?
Or the son of man, that Thou visitest him?
Thou madest him a little lower than the angels;
Thou crownedst him with glory and honor,
And didst set him over the works of Thy hands:
Thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet.For in that He subjected all things unto him, He left nothing that is not subject to him.
But now we see not yet all things subjected to him.
But we behold Him who hath been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus,
Because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor,
That by the grace of God He should taste death for every man.
I used to read this passage, the quotation from Psalm 8, and I thought that when I read, “What is man, that Thou takest notice of him?” it was speaking about the insignificance of man. Look at the stars, look at the galaxies, look at creation, look at the angels. What is man that You would think about him? We are a zero. We are less than nothing. How could God give me attention for five seconds?
That is how I used to look at it. But if you look carefully, it is not talking about man’s littleness. It is not talking about man’s smallness. The exact opposite is true. It is talking about the royalty of man, the dignity of man, his native sovereignty, his imperial humanity.
God made us to be lord of all creation. He made us to rule. He made us to have dominion. That is what the psalmist says: “What is man, that You would give that to him, that he would have such a high place, such a high calling?”
Verse 8 says, “He left nothing that is not subject to him.” Man was created to have dominion over all the works of His hands. As far as I know, that includes the heavens. The reason we have only jumped off our back porch and gotten to the moon is because of sin. What did we lose when we sinned? I think if we had not sinned, we would have been all over the galaxies, all over creation. He made us to have dominion over the works of His hands.
But then we come to that verse: “We see not yet all things subjected to him.” What do we see? We see Jesus. We see representative man. We see the One who came in as a substitute.
Jesus has taken back the dominion. He has become Lord of all. All authority has been given unto Him in heaven and on earth. All that God created us to be, Jesus is.
He is the illustration of humanity as God created man to be. He is the pledge of what redeemed humanity will be.
There is a tremendous difference between how God made you and how sin made you. When you look at me, you are not seeing me as God made me. You are seeing me as sin made me, and as God is remaking me. As I look at you, I am not looking at you merely as God made you. I am looking at you as sin has made you and as God is remaking you.
One day, brothers, you are going to look at me as God has remade me. One day, I am going to look at you as God has remade you. When He finally lifts us up to glory, He is going to bring many sons to glory.
Look at Hebrews 2:14-15:
Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood,
He also Himself in like manner partook of the same;
That through death He might bring to nought him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
And might deliver all them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
Young says that the Greek word translated “bring to nought,” or “render powerless,” literally means “to make thoroughly useless.”
Did Jesus make thoroughly useless the seed of the serpent when He died upon the cross? Oh, indeed He did. He came to deliver, and He crushed the serpent’s head.
We look at the finished work. He came to restore; He is Lord of all. He did it. He came to deliver; He has wiped out the enemy. He has delivered us.
Then one more: Hebrews 2:17-18:
Wherefore it behooved Him in all things to be made like unto His brethren,
That He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God,
To make propitiation for the sins of the people.
For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted,
He is able to succor them that are tempted.
I like to relate Hebrews 2:18 to Hebrews 4:15:
For we have not a High Priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities;
But One that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
When we try to understand that, we usually go to the temptation in the wilderness—our Lord Jesus tempted in different areas and so on. But in addition to that, some would ask these questions. Do not be afraid to ask questions.
Some would say, “He is a merciful High Priest, and the Bible seems to teach that He has experienced everything I have experienced. I do not understand that. Did He ever have a disabled child? Did He ever experience old age and all the problems that come with old age? Did He ever have an incurable disease? Did He ever get married? Did He ever have a life partner? Did He ever face divorce? Did He ever lose a life partner?
“Did He ever have an amputation? Did He know what it meant to be a paraplegic, to be laid up? Did He ever break a bone? Did He ever go through a bankruptcy? Was He ever tempted to addiction—to drink, to drugs, to act violently, to embezzle? Did He ever incline to any kind of perversion, idolatry? Did He know what it meant to be a wife-beater or a child molester?”
These questions are asked: “How can He sympathize? How can He know what I have been through, what I am going through?”
Brothers, He is not a stranger to any of those things. He not only became man—a great step of condescension—He became sin for us. He became sin for us. It is incredible.
He experienced it all. He not only paid the debt of the drunkard, the debt of the harlot, the debt of the idolater. He became the drunkard. He became the idolater. He became the pervert. He felt all the guilt and all the shame of every sin that is on the planet.
He knows what it is to be a wife-beater, a child abuser, a thief, a murderer, and an idolater. He became the old man. He knows what it is to be grumpy. He died for that—to be anxious, to be frustrated, to be depressed—because He became sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Not only does He forgive my sin, so that it is just as if I never sinned, but it is just as if I have always been Jesus—so holy He makes me.
Why did He become man? He became man in order to restore what we lost when we sinned. He became man in order to give me victory over the devil, over sin, and over every evil. He became man in order that He could succor me, sympathize with me, and enter into every one of my experiences.
Now let me try to tie it all together, brothers. We need to go back to the very first act as He ascended to become our High Priest.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates;
And be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors:
And the King of glory will come in.
Who is this King of glory?
The Lord strong and mighty,
The Lord mighty in battle.
He has done a great work on the cross. He has ascended as High Priest and sat down. It is finished.
What was His first act as High Priest? Think about it.
Did He say to the disciples, “It is expedient that I go away. If I do not go away, I cannot pray for you as God”? Is that what He said? “It is expedient that I go away. If I do not go away, I cannot pray for you as man. I am the God-man. I want to pray for you.”
That is not what He said.
It is expedient for you that I go away;
For if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you;
But if I go, I will send Him unto you.
What is that all about? Do not just read that, “La, la, la.”
When He lived on earth for thirty-three and a half years, He lived here as your substitute because you could not do it. Now He has ascended to heaven, and He says, “They still need a substitute. They still cannot do it.”
So He sends His life. He sends His Holy Spirit. He comes to indwell us so that He can do it again. He comes to live again.
This time, not to live in the body that God gave Him through the Virgin Mary. He has a new body now. It is the same Lord. It is the same Jesus. But He has a new body now. We are His body.
He has come to live again as a substitute in our lives. John 16:7 says it was expedient that He go away.
Let me go back over those three points. He came to restore. He came to deliver. He came to succor. How did He do it? I look at His past work—the finished work.
Has all authority been given unto Him? Is He Lord of all? Oh, He is indeed. You say, “Yes, but we see not yet all things put under us.”
What is He doing now? Is He gradually making us lord? Is that how He does it? He is Lord of all, and He says, “I have to raise them up to My glory.” How is He doing that? He is restoring us—but how is He restoring us? Am I gradually becoming lord?
You hear so much today about taking authority. As Christians, we ought to see what we have in Christ, and we ought to take authority. May I suggest to you: you do not have authority.
You are not invited to the throne of grace to get authority. You are invited there to find mercy, grace, and help in time of need. He has authority, and you have Him. He is your High Priest.
He is not about to try to give you authority. He has the authority, and you have Him. He is still your substitute. Do not try to have it yourself.
That is what He is saying: there is a man up there, and He has come down to live in you because He is going to do it again. “I am Lord.”
He is raising sons to glory. To what glory? To the glory of His lordship. As He raises you up increasingly, you are going to say, “Thank You, Substitute. You are the Lord of all. You own it all. You control it all. You are in charge.”
As you bow to His lordship and do not try to find your own, you are being raised to glory.
Just so, He came to deliver. You say, “What is His present work? Gradually He is going to deliver me, and gradually I am going to have victory over the devil.”
If you believe that, you do not understand God’s present ministry.
It is interesting that Hebrews is such a wonderful summary book. So many doctrines are in that book. Hebrews 2:14 is the only reference in the whole Book of Hebrews to the devil. Only one time is the devil mentioned in the whole book, and it is to tell us that Christ has completely defeated him.
The first two chapters tell us how to study angels and how to study the devil: we study them in a Christ-centered way. Everything the Bible says about everything, it says in a way to turn our eyes to Christ.
Any study of angels that does not turn your eyes to Christ is off-center. Any study of the devil that does not turn your eyes to Christ is off-center.
There is a very unhealthy movement today concerning spiritual warfare. There is all this thing about, “We are Christians, and we are in this big warfare.” I hope I am not the first to tell you: the war is over. It is done. It is finished.
He did not do it first to teach you how to do it second. He did it once so that you do not have to do it. He did it once so that I do not have to do it.
When He was in the wilderness, having victory over Satan, He was not there as your example. He was there as your substitute. It is a substitute life.
What does it mean that He raises many sons to glory? He raises me to His lordship, and He raises me to His victory. It is His victory. I enter into His victory. He always leads me in His triumph. It is His.
If we start looking for a victory of our own, we are going to struggle. Of course, that is all part of the process as He raises us to glory. He brings us into His lordship. He brings us into His victory.
Because He became man, He has experienced every condition, every emotion, every feeling. We can come to Him because He knows all about us. He has experienced everything.
Sometime or other in your life, I have no doubt you are going to come to the place where you want to throw in the towel. You are going to want to quit. We can play spiritual games, but no matter how spiritual you are, or think you are, there are going to be times when you just say, “I just want to quit.”
That is why we need the present ministry of Christ. He ever lives to raise me up, in order that I might have His lordship, in order that I might have His victory. He became sin so that I could become the righteousness of God.
How does He raise sons to glory? He grounds me in His lordship. He grounds me in His victory. He grounds me in His righteousness, that I might be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own.
When we started, I told you that I thought, from Hebrews 12, that He is the Author and Perfecter of faith. In the finished work, when you came to the cross, He authored your faith. Through His present ministry, He is going to finish your faith.
Remember dear Peter. He was trying to have his own authority, trying to have his own victory. His spirit was willing, and his flesh was weak. He was trying to be brave and trying to be loyal.
Our Lord Jesus anticipated His priesthood. In Luke 22:31-32, He said:
Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have you,
That he might sift you as wheat:
But I made supplication for thee,
That thy faith fail not.
Is that not awesome? He is going to be the Finisher of faith.
Are you familiar with Dr. A. T. Pierson, one of the great missionary writers? I enjoy his writing so much. He was describing Peter as he was going to deny the Lord. He pictured him backing up with every work of the flesh—drawing the sword and cutting off the ear. He was backing toward this great precipice. He was going to fall off this cliff.
He kept going back and back, and finally he fell. He went down and down and down until, in A. T. Pierson’s words, he “hit the prayers of Jesus, which acted as a great net beyond which he could fall no more.”
Brothers, we have such a High Priest. He is God. He is man. He is praying for you.
He is in the process of lifting you up so that you know His lordship more than you have ever known it. He is bringing you to His glory—not giving you a glory of your own, but sharing His. He is lifting you to His lordship. He is lifting you to His victory. He is lifting you to His righteousness, that you might be found in Him.
But along the way, we are going to blow it. We are going to blow it. He has established a throne of grace. He knows all about you. He knows everything you are going through. You will never face anything and say, “He does not understand.” He surely does. He surely does.
You can come to Him at any moment. You say, “Well, this time I have gone too far.” No.
The eternal God is thy dwelling place,
And underneath are the everlasting arms.
The prayers of Christ are going to catch you. You are going to have your faith finished. He is the Author and Perfecter of faith. He never leaves an unfinished symphony. That which He has begun in you, He is going to perfect. He is going to bring it to pass.
Praise God for such a High Priest. And you have Him.
Father, we thank You so much—not for what we think these things mean, but we ask You once again that everything You have inspired these things to mean, work that in our lives, we pray.
We thank You that You always over-answer prayer, and we can count on You to do that—not because we deserve it, but because our High Priest deserves it. We come asking it in His matchless name. Amen.