For a Little While

For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking.

Not to angels did God subject the future inhabited millennial world, but to His Son, the Perfect Man! This destiny of the God-Man was decreed in eternity past, when He was still Spirit, and not yet Man. In order to receive His inheritance—the world to come—He must become a man. Not an angel. He is infinitely superior to angels. He commands the angels, yet the Plan decreed that He become man, a lower creation than angels, subject to death. God the Son participated in this plan and executed the details.

 It has been testified somewhere,

“What is man, that you are mindful of him, Why does almighty God care about the human race?
or the son of man, that you care for him? Why does God want to bless mankind?
You made him for a little while lower than the angels; Temporarily humiliated as true humanity
you have crowned him with glory and honor, Jesus’ Status quo of perfection
putting everything in subjection under his feet.” Hebrews 2:5-8

The first Adam failed, receiving in his body the corruption of the Old Sin Nature, which he passed on to the whole human race. Christ, the last Adam, born without sin, succeeded by paying the penalty for sin in His own perfect body, thereby neutralizing the curse of death brought on humanity by Satan’s deception. The ultimate outcome of all this has also been decreed:

Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. I Corinthians 15:24-25

He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him. Colossians 2:15

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 2:8-9

“everything”: all of creation. There is nothing in existence that God the Son did not create, and everything He created belongs to Him. In the current state of earthly corruption, we do not see His total control. We do see Him, however, and we know that His finished work on the cross purchased our own eternal life, as well as the complete restoration of His creation.

Romans 8:21-22 the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.  For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

Jesus purchased our salvation and the earth’s restoration by His suffering as a true human, in the ordinary inconveniences of human existence as well as His own unique sufferings. He experienced common sufferings and temptations as all of us humans do, and He endured these without sin. He suffered the deeply agonizing pain of being rejected by His own people, the Jews, whom he expressly came to save. We ordinary humans also endure such pain of rejection from people we love, because of Who and What we believe in, just as Jesus warned us would happen (John 15:20-21).

His greatest suffering, though, came in the form of His own spiritual separation (death) from God the Father and God the Holy Spirit as He hung on the cross, absorbing all the sins of the whole human race in His own sinless body. That suffering and spiritual death completed His work on our behalf, providing eternal life to all who will believe in that finished work. Nothing we ever can do will add anything to that work He did for us. Nothing we can ever do will take away from that work. He tasted death for everyone! That is what is meant by “He died for you.” That is what is meant by unlimited atonement. All sins are paid for. There is nothing else we can do about our sins. It is the Work of Christ! We can only receive what was done for us, or we can reject it and face Christ our Judge with our own works, which are declared in scripture to be NO GOOD!

The resurrected Jesus said to the astonished disciples at the empty tomb: "Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” Luke 24:26

To purchase our salvation, our creator had to suffer and die for us. He could not do this as eternal God, because God is spirit and cannot die. He could not do this as an angel, for angels are a whole different species and they also do not die. Whatever relationship Jesus has with the elect angels, it does not involve suffering and death. He had to suffer for us humans and He had to die for us, and to do that He had to become human! That was His humiliation, and for that He has received for Himself and for us eternal GLORY!

For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers Hebrews 2:10-11

Everything exists for Him because everything was created by Him. He is the eternal Son, but He is now bringing many sons to glory with Him, by virtue of His own unique human suffering. He sanctified us with His own blood. We, the sanctified, are of the same Father through His atonement. He suffered humiliation for us.

 

He is not ashamed to call us His brothers!