10 In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was
fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the
pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. 11 Both the one
who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So
Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.[g] 12 He says,
“I will declare
your name to my brothers and sisters;
in the assembly
I will sing your praises.”[h]
13 And again,
“I will put my
trust in him.”[i]
And again he
says,
“Here am I, and
the children God has given me.”[j]
14 Since the
children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his
death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the
devil— 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear
of death. 16 For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants.
17 For this reason he had to be made like them,[k] fully human in every way, in
order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to
God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. 18 Because he
himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being
tempted.
Dig Deeper
On a precious few occasions in my life I’ve had the
opportunity to trek through some beautiful but treacherous natural terrain for
a hike. At times it seemed more like a
combination of hiking with rock and cliff climbing as I’ve had a few, at least
for me, harrowing moments. At times I
was stunned at how difficult and dangerous it can be to climb through an area
that seems like at any moment someone could slip and fall several hundred feet
to their death. Yet, what always strikes
me is the fact that the only thing that keeps these challenges from being
absolutely insane and truly death-defying is that there has been some sort of
rope or railing at certain key moments to help you get on and keep your secure
footing. What really causes me to think
in those situations is the fact that at some point someone had to blaze these
trails. They had to go up with no help
and no safety ropes or stakes of any kind and put those safety features in. In those situations it is easy to feel like
you are being adventurous and taking a huge risk but the reality is it’s a
fairly safe adventure precisely because of the previous work of that
trailblazer. Someone had to take a risk
and cut that path so that everyone else could safely follow and complete the
journey laid out for them by that first brave soul.
As the author of Hebrews continued to exhort his
listeners with the value and importance of remaining faithful and continuing to
follow the Messiah, he was well aware of the fact that the way had grown
rough. Surely they knew from the
beginning that discipleship was not going to be easy, but the road had become
far more arduous than they could have imagined.
As a result many of them had already grown tired and fallen over the
side or simply given up. Many of them
were still contemplating doing that very thing.
Part of the problem was that they had failed to keep their eyes on the
pure majesty of Jesus their king. They
had let the throne of Christ grow strangely dim and allowed the things of the
present age to outshine the gospel in their lives. Things were beginning to just seem too
difficult, too treacherous, and too deadly.
One of the things that they were forgetting, though, was that they too
had a trailblazer on their path. Like a
mountain climber that had gone ahead and put anchors into the rock for ropes
for those that would come after him so that their climb would be much safer and
easier, so had Jesus gone down the road ahead of the and prepared the way.
The opening point in this section is that Jesus, as Messiah,
is the pioneer of God’s family. The word
translated “pioneer” in it’s most basic meaning has to do with someone who
begins something so that others may follow him.
It had many possible uses. One
could “pioneer” a family so that others may be born into it. One could “pioneer” a city in order that one
day others might live in it. One could
“pioneer” a school so that others might become students in it and follow him in
the truth that he had found. One could
“pioneer” a path through the forest by cutting a road that others could
follow. In its essence it is someone who
goes somewhere that no one has previously gone or does something that no one
has previously been able to do so that others can follow.
It has always been God’s plan to have a family of all
nations. He promised Abraham that the
whole world would be blessed through the family of his descendants but that
promise had been hanging out there unfulfilled for hundreds, and even thousands
of years. The problem was that no one
was worthy to fulfill the role as God’s image bearer and take the true title of
the Son of God. No angel had ever done
that, although collectively the angels were sometimes referred to in the Old
Testament as the sons of God, none of them could ever fulfill the role of being
God’s unique Son, the One who would deserve the inheritance as his Son and rule
God’s kingdom. So how was God going to
have a family? How were the sons and
daughters in that family going to be brought into the glory of ruling in God’s
kingdom as his heirs? There needed to be
a “pioneer,” and that’s exactly what the Messiah was. He was the way, the truth, and the life, and
the only way into the family of the Father (John 14:1-6).
But the surprising part was how he pioneered that
path. The Messiah wasn’t a powerful
conquering hero who led a massive army to defeat the pagan nations and exalt
God’s kingdom. No, God’s kingdom would
not and could never be brought about with blades and bullets. That’s the way of the world. The Messiah came into his throne and
established the kingdom of God in a new way precisely by suffering, by drawing
all of the evil of the world into one place.
He drew evil onto himself and suffered so that others might be able to
have the life of God’s family, the eternal life. Our pioneer was not ashamed to call us
brothers and sisters. In fact he
suffered and died so that we might follow his path.
Hebrews gives us another string of Old Testament
quotations in verses 12 and 13 to make his point. The first quotation comes from Psalm 22. In that Psalm the righteous and obedient
servant of the Lord discovers that he must suffer precisely for that obedience
to the Lord, but in verse 22, the tone changes as he begins to see the purpose
of the suffering and proclaims that somehow his suffering will enable the
Lord’s name to be declared to his brothers and sisters. God’s family, in other words, would be
brought about by the suffering of his servant.
Through that apparent defeat, the kingdom would be established and the
praises of God would be sung by the entire family. That is why Isaiah, writing in chapter 8,
declared that the righteous one would trust Yahweh despite his suffering and
through this, God would bring about his people.
In verse 14, an indispensable piece of this pioneering
work is declared. The children in God’s
family have flesh and blood. Humanity
was enslaved and fallen because they chose to exercise their own will over and
against God’s. Thus, the one who would
pioneer the way of doing God’s will must also be human in every way. They must share in the humanity of us all so
that they truly could be a pioneer.
Human beings, for example, have been trying to break the two hour
barrier for marathons for many years and we continue to get closer and closer,
and one day someone probably will break that mark and become the pioneer. But it would be pointless and not very
impressive or helpful if a horse or a dog were to break that barrier; it must
be a human. In the same way, the pioneer
of God’s family, the one that would blaze the trail of obedience for human
beings and open the door into God’s family and kingdom must be a flesh and
bones human.
If the pioneer had to be fully human, then that’s
exactly what Jesus was. Through his
death, he broke the power that the devil had over humanity. Death was the most powerful weapon that Satan
had because it separated humans in rebellion against God from God forever. Yet, through the death of the Messiah that
championed the path to the Father’s family, death was rendered irrelevant for
those who were numbered among God’s people.
Death will still come to humans but for those who entered into the
Messiah, death was no longer a slavery to be feared. It ‘s simply a doorway now rather than a
black hole.
An angel couldn’t do all of this and it wasn’t for the
benefit of angels. It was for humans
that God sent his Son. Thus, the Old
Covenant, represented by the angels, who were believed by the Jews at the time
to be its mediators, was incomplete. It
pointed to work of the Son but could never bring it about. The practical point, then, was that returning
to the promise when the fulfillment had already come was simply crazy. Just as the slaves in Egypt had been set free
by God’s Passover Lamb, so those enslaved to sin had been set free and to walk
away from that and to return to the slavery of the sin from which the Son had
set them free was far more dangerous and insane than if Israel had turned
around in the wilderness and actually sauntered back into Egypt.
But the Son had set them free. He had become like humanity in every
way. Jesus was not unaware of the human
existence. This allows us as humans to
realize that God truly does know us, care for us, and understand us. This was a remarkable difference from the
Greek gods who were constantly lauded for the fact that they were distant and
separate from mere humanity. The one
true God, however, is not distant. Jesus
was the embodiment of God in every way and he had become human in every way to
serve as our true “pioneer.”
There is a final important point here that should not be
missed. Hebrews says that the Messiah
suffered when tempted so as to help those who are tempted. That sounds very encouraging and it is, but
we don’t want to reduce the point to say that when we are tempted to sin that
we should just remember that Jesus suffered and died so that we can be forgiven
of our sin and escape our temptation.
That is all true and important, but we cannot forget that he is our “pioneer” He has set the path for us so that we can
follow and that path is steeped in suffering for the benefit of others. That’s why one of the basic calls of
discipleship is to pick up our cross and carry it. Jesus entered into the kingdom and blazed the
trail by suffering despite the temptations to avoid that suffering. Through that suffering he became “complete”
in his task as the kingdom bringer. For
us to follow in that path, then, means that for us to bring the kingdom into
the lives of those around us, we will also have to suffer and sacrifice for the
benefit of others. The recipients of
Hebrews were learning that the hard and some had buckled under the
pressure. That’s why it was so important
to keep their eye on the “pioneer.” It
was easy for them, just as it is for us, to take their eye off of the
trailblazer and lose sight of the path that he actually cut; to start following
a different and much easier path. The
way to avoid doing just that is where Hebrews will pick up in the next section.
Devotional Thought
Do you embrace the path of discipleship to sacrifice and
lay our lives down for others or do you try to avoid that at all costs and be
comfortable? Sometimes that sacrifice
comes in big ways, but often it is the far more grinding process of living
below “our means,” giving generously of our time or energy, or being considered
a fool by others because of our beliefs.
Trials and sacrifice are not just a season for the follower of the
Pioneer. They are the very way of life
to which he has called us.
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