Hebrews 2:5-9 Birthright Restored
Good morning! Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 2, verses 5-9, page 1001 in the Bibles you’ll find tucked under the chairs in front of you.
We joked at the beginning of this series on the letter to the Hebrews that you might as well read all of the Old Testament to as you prepared for it. This morning we are going to work through this short passage as it relates specifically to a few Old Testament passages that are wrapped around what Ray Stedman called “the lost destiny of mankind.”
Let’s read our text from Hebrews and then we’ll pray.
Hebrews 2:5–9
5For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. 6It has been testified somewhere, “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? 7You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, 8putting 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. 9But 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.
Let’s pray.
What we are dealing with in this short passage is God’s design for humanity, our destiny if you will.
The author of Hebrews quotes from Psalm 8 which, if we look closely has some layers to it.
The first layer has to do with humanity, and the second layer has to do with Jesus.
Let’s start with the humanity layer.
7You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, 8putting everything in subjection under his feet.” Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control.
Now I know that verse nine clearly says that these verses from Psalm eight refer to Jesus, and they do, but they also refer to mankind in general and God’s design for mankind.
Listen to Genesis 1:26-31.
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Here we have a snapshot of the Lord’s beautiful design for humanity, male and female, made in His image, blessed by God, having dominion over the fish and birds and livestock and creeping things, to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it.
And it was so. And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good.
Now I know that Psalm eight was written by King David, but I can just imagine Adam singing this song there in the garden in the midst of all that God had made and blessed and called good.
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
What a beautiful picture, what a beautiful birthright!
But as beautiful as it sounds, and as heartwarming a picture it is, it didn’t last.
Genesis 2:15–17
15The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Genesis 3:1–24
1Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
2And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ”
4But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. 8And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”
10And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”
11He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”
12The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.”
13Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
14The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 15I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
16To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”
17And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
20The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. 21And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. 22Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” 23therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
Adam forsook all the blessings of Psalm 8 by his willful disobedience to the Lord God, He gave up his, and our, birthright. From that moment on that beautiful design and destiny of mankind was lost.
But, as Ray Stedman said, “Jesus became a man to recapture our lost destiny.”
1 Corinthians 15:45-49 says,
45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
The rights that were surrendered by Adam, the first Adam, were restored by the Last Adam, Jesus Christ.
And now you can appreciate the layers back in Hebrews 2, 7You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, 8putting 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.
9But 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 don’t yet see everything in subjection to Him, as it says there in verse eight because sin is still in the world. But we can see that the divine purpose of the incarnation of Christ, Jesus taking on flesh and walking among us, is that the Son of God should, by the grace of God, taste death for every man.
Romans 5:15 says, But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.
In fact, all of Romans chapter five is given to this idea. I highly recommend you read it!
JP Lange wrote, “The distinguishing feature of the Christian faith is the certainty of the realization, for eternal ages and for all believers, a realization accomplished in a single historical subject, in Jesus of Nazareth…”
Philippians 2:6-11 says,
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
We stand in need of more grace, and goodness, and love, and mercy than we can see the bottom of or even understand but by the grace of God Jesus tasted death for everyone so that by faith in Christ alone our sins can be forgiven and our birthright can be restored in His coming kingdom.
Amen.
