Sermon Text: Hebrews 2:5–9
Preacher: Pastor Brian Sauvé
Adam, Odysseus, Christ, & Us
Please turn with me to Hebrews 2, where we will be picking up in verse 5. While you’re turning there, I’d like to ask you why it is that we (and by “we,” I mean humans) tell stories about lost kingdoms, overrun with enemies, reclaimed by worthy heirs failed forefathers?
And I know you think I’m about to talk about Aragorn, son of Arathorn, rightful king of Gondor, Dúnedain, man of the West heir of Isildur—his forefather whose failure to destroy the One Ring of Power led not only to the decline of the West, but also the near-destruction of the free peoples of Middle Earth.
But I’m not, because you would all make fun of me later.
Our text this morning, Hebrews 2:5–9, is going to answer that question—that question of why we are so delighted by these stories and why we have been telling them around campfires and hearths and on movie screens and printed pages and the songs of bards—of why we have been retelling this story with a different cast of characters on every continent, across centuries and cultures and languages and oceans.
But since I talk about The Lord of the Rings too much, I’ll use a different, older, more influential story to illustrate this—an ancient story of a lost domain reclaimed.
The Odyssey was probably composed by Homer around 700 B.C., which is the time of the prophet Isaiah. The story is mainly about the journey of a man named Odysseus, who is attempting to return to his home in Ithaca after taking part in the Trojan war, events which are told in the prequel to the story known as The Iliad.
And I’m going to give you a bucket of spoilers, here, but you’ve had 2,700 years to read it, so if you haven’t yet, I’m going to assume you aren’t going to. Odysseus’s journey home should take just a few weeks, but it ends up taking about 10 years. And he goes through all sorts of trials and issues and tests, involving a cyclopses, sirens, Poseidon, and other shenanigans.
But finally, after a decade of struggle, Odysseus finally comes home, and finds that his domain, his household and kingdom, are in disarray. Thinking him dead, scores of worthless men have essentially laid siege to his wife and son in their home, attempting to marry her so that they can take his throne and his home and rule his domain.
And they’ve been eating all his food, mistreating his wife, and generally misbehaving. And so Odysseus returns, and rather than openly declare himself immediately, he disguises himself as a beggar. The suitors all abuse him and insult him and even assault him, but he opens not his mouth and bides his time.
Penelope, his wife, sets up a test, promising to marry any man who can string the bow of her husband Odysseus and then shoot an arrow through a dozen axes lined up with a hole drilled in the axehead, as Odysseus used to do.
Long story short, all the suitors fail, Odysseus succeeds and is revealed as the true Husband of Penelope, and together with his son Telemachus and a few of his faithful servants who have long awaited his return, they slaughter all the suitors, win back the Kingdom, and reclaims his throne.
The Odyssey is a story about a lost kingdom under the claim of evil men, won back by a worthy Lord, who saves his people and puts his enemies under his feet, such that he wins a bride and sees his offspring. He does this by succeeding where all others have failed, meeting the test that none other could meet.
That is what Hebrews 2:5–9 is about. It is a passage that explains why this kind of story has delighted and captivated and moved us so much and in so many cultures and times and places. Remember, that story was told 700 years before Christ. It is a story embedded in the fabric of our longings.
We will find in the text this morning and the Psalm it references that these stories captivate us because they are our story. Look with me at Hebrews 2:5,
“For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere,
“What is man, that you are mindful of him,
or the son of man, that you care for him?
You made him for a little while lower than the angels;
you have crowned him with glory and honor,
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. 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.”
-Hebrews 2:5–9
Pray with me.
Here’s how we will approach the text this morning. First, we will take a brisk sort of walk through the text to try and get the big picture and understand how the message of this section hangs together. And as we do that, we’ll find that the text invites us to step back and see how Jesus fulfills that big story that so captivates us.
A Brisk Walk Through The Text
So look with me at verse 5 again, and we will take that brisk walk through the text:
“For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking.”
-Hebrews 2:5
So we see that this section continues to make the case that the author began to make in the first chapter, that Jesus is better than angels. Why is Jesus better than angels according to verse 5? Because the Father has subjected all things to the Son, not to angels.
In context, we will find that the phrase “the world to come” isn’t a reference to heaven or to a future eternal state, but to the world on the other side of the Jewish age passing away—that after his death, burial, resurrection, and ascension to his right hand, the Father has given the Son the renewed, reborn, regenerate nations, the whole world, as his Kingdom.
Then in verses 6–8, through his quotation of the eight Psalm and his commentary on it, the author of Hebrews shows us that this ruling of the world is the rule of Christ, not just as God, but as the perfect and triumphant Man. Verse 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?
You made him for a little while lower than the angels;
you have crowned him with glory and honor,
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.”
-Hebrews 2:6–8
Psalm 8 is all about how astonishing it is that God has given mankind dominion over creation in light of how small and insignificant we are.
And by applying this Psalm to Jesus, the author of Hebrews shows us that this glorious dominion of mankind over creation only ever comes about through the rule of the God-Man. Adam and all of Adam’s sons failed in their dominion because of sin, but the God-Man Jesus reclaims what was lost, reclaims dominion—and he does so as the God-Man, thus restoring the rule of humanity as God’s image-bearers over creation. Then in verses 8–9, we find out just how it is that Jesus doesn’t just reclaim dominion, but he also reclaims the humanity who failed in theirs. Verse 8,
“At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. 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.”
-Hebrews 2:8b–9
Jesus did all of this great work, won this great battle with the Curse and with death and reclaimed the world by being made lower than the angels—that is, by becoming a man! And not only that, but he freed humanity from death by tasting death himself on the cross as a man.
Beckoned Into The Broader Story
That is our brisk walk through the text. And I hope you see it and feel the tug already of this text into the broader story of the Bible, that story that so captivates us, that story of dominion lost and reclaimed. It’s a story that we could tell in five movements, each of them alluded to in our text this morning. It begins with God’s creation of mankind to rule in his image, that #1…
1. Mankind was given dominion over all things.
This we see from that eighth Psalm the author quotes in our text. It will be helpful for us to read the whole thing, since the original audience would have known it well.
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!”-Psalm 8
There are two basic points to Psalm 8. Number one, that when you consider the massive, cosmic, unimaginable glory of God, human beings shrink down to insignificant dust particles by comparison. Who is man, that you are mindful of him? But the second point of the Psalm is that, shockingly, God has given to mankind dominion over his creation—that he has put all things under his feet.
David is not inventing this idea of mankind’s dominion over creation from whole cloth here in Psalm 8; this is something we should know if we know our Bible. 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.”
-Genesis 1:26–31
Do you know why people build cities, and raccoons don’t? Why people bore mines in the ground and dig up quartz and make silicon from it and turn that silicon in to microchips that power iPhones and put satellites in space so we can send signals from the iPhone to space and back again in order to more conveniently argue with people we don’t know on the internet? Why we do that, but squirrels, dolphins, and orangutans don’t?
It’s because we were created with a fundamentally different place in God’s creation. Higher than the animals, lower than the angels—man was made to rule creation in God’s name and for his glory as his image-bearers.
But, number two,
2. The old humanity failed in his dominion.
Rather than subduing the wilderness and making it a garden in God’s name, we turned it into a howling, desert waste through sin. Adam fell, and we with him, heirs of his sinful nature.
Our sin sold creation into bondage to the Curse of death, as Romans 8:20 teaches us, “…creation was subjected to futility.”
And so from Adam on forward, there are two stories unfolding at the same time, yet diverging infinitely in opposite directions: One is the story that we are engaged right now in remembering, that of Christ reclaiming what was lost by means of his blood.
The other is mankind trying to reclaim dominion—not as image bearers and servants—but as self-worshiping, autonomous, self-made gods. What sin does is not to take away the creational urge to rule and cultivate and subdue, but twist it inward.
And so we go and find out that God made a glorious world full of hidden magic and secrets, a world where you can turn quartz into microchips—but we use those microchips not for God’s glory and our neighbor’s good, but rather to make child pornography available instantaneously on screens in our pockets.
So we go and build cities, as God intended, but we fill them with prostitution and gang violence and Gay Pride Parades and abortion clinics and unrestrained greed.
Two stories unfolding everywhere all the time, one a story of Christ reclaiming dominion and remaking a new humanity in his image, the other a story of man fleeing God into the darkness of death and depravity in autonomous, idolatrous self-rule.
These two stories are not just unfolding in some kind of vague and universal sense—your life is always attempting to tell one of those stories. Either your life will tell the story of death, burial, resurrection, and glorious reign by giving yourself away in service of God and your neighbor, or your life will tell the story of man clenching and grasping and groaning for power and pleasure apart from God.
And what we always find is that, apart from grace, we cannot make the story come out right. Apart from grace, we can’t bring things into their right order. Our gardens have weeds, and so do our lives, our homes, our work.
But glory! What does Hebrews 2 teach us, Refuge? That where mankind-in-Adam fails, our Lord does not. That though Adam’s curse left the world—not under the dominion of God through his image bearers—but under the dominion of sin through the sin of his image bearers, our Lord conquers. Number three…
3. Where Adam fell, the Second Adam stands, the very embodiment of perfect humanity.
See, what humanity has been desperate for since Adam’s folly in Genesis 3 is a better Adam. Adam’s name means “man,” and that is what he is: Mankind. He is our head, Romans teaches us.
And when he fell, mankind fell, our nature fell, and so we are born in sin, desiring to sin, in bondage to sin. Every son of Adam gets Adam’s nature. What we need is a new Head, a new Man, a new, better, perfect Adam. There’s this fascinating passage in Revelation 5, that reads like this,
“Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it.” -Revelation 5:1–4
What is this scroll, and why is John weeping at the fact that nobody is found worthy to open it? The scroll, which you find out in the very next section of Revelation when it is opened, is the restoration of the lost dominion of God through his image bearers.
We find this out when the scroll is opened in the very next section, and everyone breaks out in singing,
“Worthy are you to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood
you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on the earth.”-Revelation 5:9–10
The scroll is the covenant of salvation that, when opened, results in a people being redeemed from every tribe of mankind, and that people is declared a kingdom of priests, and they are given reign on earth! In other words, One is found to stand where Adam fell, and by standing, he reclaims dominion for a new humanity.
If you think back to the story of Odysseus, you see again that this story is buried deep in our hearts. Remember, The Odyssey was written more than 700 years before Jesus came. But when Odysseus returns to win his house back, it is fascinating to see how it happens:
He disguises himself as a beggar, and he does what no other man could do. He strings the bow none can string, and he makes the shot that none could shoot.
Isn’t that amazing! Do you see the reverse echo of this story that is carved on the human heart? How does Jesus reclaim his household for mankind in God’s name? He comes as a beggar—though he is God, he condescends to take on human flesh, and he opens the scroll none can open. He is made low that he might be exalted high.
And how he opens that scroll, the test that Jesus passes that no others can, brings us to the heart of the story, number four,
4. Jesus freed the old creation and the old humanity from bondage to sin and death by tasting death himself.
Hebrews 2:9,
“…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.”
-Hebrews 2:9
And again, the song of Revelation 5,
“Worthy are you to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood
you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation…”-Revelation 5:9
Jesus didn’t just do what Adam couldn’t—he actually redeemed and restored Adam’s race, and he did so through death. Adam’s sin and our sin demanded death. Not only did we not rule creation rightly in God’s name, we brought the world into bondage to death.
But Jesus broke the Curse, how? By becoming a curse. By becoming, in his very flesh, the embodiment of sinful, condemned humanity and dying in our place.
This is manifold grace, Hebrews 2:9 tells us. That means that you and I deserved to die, and instead, God put on flesh and died and gave us eternal life. He who made the heavens stooped down and was made lower even than the angels—became a mortal man—in order to ransom mortal men from the grave.
Now listen and this is just so important: One of the reasons I’m convinced many people balk at biblical teaching of election and predestination—what I’d call 100-Proof Calvinism served neat—is that some Calvinists can make it sound like there are going to be about 17 Christians in heaven, the true and pure elect.
I hate that! That’s nonsense! Jesus didn’t taste death for like 14 people, some tiny little band of people. No, God intends to reconstitute a new humanity in Christ; to save and disciple the nations.
Do you see it in the language of the passage at hand in Hebrews? And in Revelation 5? Jesus tasted death “for everyone.” He was slain, and by his blood, he “…ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”
I’m not, and the author of Hebrews is not, talking about some kind of misguided Universalism, that Hell is going to empty or any of that kind of David Bentley Hart, Rob Bell-ian nonsense. That’s patently unbiblical.
But it is equally patently unbiblical to believe—in light of the promises of God and the language employed in Scripture to talk about the elect, the saved of all time and space—that the elect is going to be some tiny percentage of mankind, like maybe a percent or two.
There is a potent scene in the book of Revelation that makes me deliriously excited to consider. John hears this kind of roll call, where 12,000 are sealed from 12 tribes of Israel. We see in the text a moment later, however, that this numbering is not really about ethnic Israel or a literal group of 144,000 people, but rather a symbolic picture of the whole of the Church.
We see that because, though he hears the 144,000 named, he then turns and sees:
“…behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’”
-Revelation 7:9–10
That is the promise to Abraham, fulfilled! “Your offspring are going to be be greater than the number of the stars! Greater than the number of the grains of sand on the beaches of the world!” And we know from Galatians and from John’s gospel and beyond that the true sons of Abraham are those of faith.
Jesus is not saving a paltry hundredth or twentieth or even tithe of mankind. No, he is saving an innumerable multitude! You’re going to stand there with that multitude, Refuge, and you’re going to be able to call what you see things like “Mankind” and “the world.” And so, number 5…
5. The whole world—what this passage refers to as “the world to come,” is now formally under the rule and control of the God-Man, and will be actually subdued and subjected to him through a new humanity, remade in his image.
In verse 5, the author says that God subjected “the world to come” to Christ. This is not a reference to eternity, but to the age after the Jewish Aeon, the Christian Aeon, of which we are a part.
We know this because the world isn’t subjected to Jesus at the end of human history, but in the middle of it, right? That’s just Psalm 110:1, 1 Corinthians 15, Hebrews chapter 1, right? He’s reigning now. He’s putting enemies underfoot now.
That’s how radical the cross is—it makes a new world on the other side of it. And so, verse 8,
“You made him for a little while lower than the angels;
you have crowned him with glory and honor,
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.”
-Hebrews 2:7–8
Though at the moment the ink was drying on the page, the author of Hebrews couldn’t see all things put in subjection to Christ, he could see the world to come under his rule through the eyes of faith as he beheld the ironclad promises of God.
Though we look out from our seats here in Ogden, Utah, and see 2 out of 100 standing in the faith—we look with the eyes of faith at the great promises of God and we say, “I don’t see it yet, but Jesus is putting all things under his feet.”
Futility, Overthrown
So there are so many implications of this text for our lives that we could talk about, but one just leaps out at me that I’d like to leave you with today: Because Hebrews 2:5–9 is true, your life is no longer a thing of futility.
Think about it: You were made for dominion on this earth. I don’t mean to sit on a little throne with scepter in your hand and chuckle at all the peasants out there as you rule from your lofty seat.
I mean that you were made to go out and cultivate and build and enjoy subdue and tame and bear fruit and bring wildernesses and chaos into order in God’s name. You were created in God’s image to be his vicegerent, his proxy, in creation.
Men, you were made to toll up your sleeves get your hands dirty in satisfying, God-glorifying labor. Women, you were made to fruitfully help in this great task—which is why my wife can take yarn and make clothes and take my money and make a table with food on it and take a pretty average husband and make real, living, breathing human beings.
And unlike with humanity in Adam, in bondage to futility, all of this matters. No longer are we living under bondage to death, rearranging things on their way to destruction. Every attempt of man-in-Adam to be fruitful and multiply and subdue and build is met with frustration and failure and futility. But listen: Jesus Christ is reconstituting humanity in his image.
He is resurrecting dead mankind to life and rule in his name. Your work, your homes, your plodding obedience to Christ, building and shaping and working and subduing in his name is not in vain. It is not futile.
Why not? Because though we don’t yet see all things in subjection to him, the reality is that they are—all things are in subjection to him; nothing is left outside of the domain of his control. So here is the great big application for us:
Trust in the Lord Jesus, and then in his name go and work, build, subdue, tame, and cultivate! Have babies and raise them up to do the same.
Make disciples and teach them to obey Christ. The futility of our fathers is no more; we have a new Father, and he has freed us by the blood of his Son to new life and to renewed life, to his glory and our joy, world without end, amen. Let’s pray.