Man’s Destiny Recovered by Christ
But we do see Him who has been 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 everyone. (Heb. 2:9)
That brings us to the third point. Man’s revealed destiny, restricted by sin, has been recovered by Christ.
The ultimate curse of man’s lost destiny is death. Warning Adam about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God said, “For in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:17). The cross conquered the curse. The kingdom will be restored and man will be given the crown again.
But how can it happen? If we are all sinners, how can we become sinless? The only payment for sin is death. “For the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). The only way man can ever be a king again is to have the curse removed. The only way the curse can be removed is for the penalty to be paid. If man is to be restored to reign as a king, he must die—and be resurrected a new man with sovereign qualities.
But we still ask, “How?” We know, even without God’s revelation, that we could not do this ourselves. Paul explains. Speaking of Christ, he writes:
For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin, once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Rom. 6:5–11)
I died years ago. I am perfectly healthy now, but I died a long time ago. I died the death that Paul describes in Galatians: “I have been crucified with Christ” (2:20). The moment that I put my faith in Jesus Christ, at that moment I was identified with Christ. I died with Him on the cross. For John MacArthur the curse is removed. I am now a king. I have not inherited my dominion yet, but the crown has been restored. And for every one of you who knows and loves Jesus Christ, the moment you received Him, you were identified with Him. You were crucified with Him and were buried with Him, and He has raised you up to a new life. It is life with the curse removed.
In Christ we are kings. We do not have our kingdom yet, but it is certain to be ours. To the saints of the Most High belongs the kingdom. Our old bodies are going to fall off someday, but we are not going to die. Our bodies will die, but even they will one day be resurrected in a new and eternal form. We will be immediately liberated to go into the presence of Jesus. Or, if He comes again before that happens to us, He will take us with Him into the kingdom.
To accomplish this great work on our behalf, Jesus had to become a man. He Himself had to be made for a little while lower than the angels. To regain man’s dominion He had to taste death for man. If a man dies for his own sin, he is doomed forever to hell. But Christ came to die for us, because in His dying He could conquer death.
And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy art Thou to take the book, and to break its seals; for Thou wast slain, and didst purchase for God with Thy blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. And Thou has made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth.” (Rev. 5:9–10)
As you and I identify ourselves with Jesus Christ in His death, as we receive Him as Savior, the curse is removed, and we become joint heirs with Him in the eternal kingdom.
Obviously, if we are going to reign on earth as kings, there will have to be a kingdom.
And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given to them. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of the testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. (Rev. 20:4)
Who will be on those thrones? We who are the kings. We will be kings with our great King, the King of kings. The Redeemer King will rule with His redeemed saints over the redeemed earth.
Man will be changed:
Now it will come about that in the last days, the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills; and all the nations will stream to it. And many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that He may teach us concerning His ways, and that we may walk in His paths.” For the law will go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He will judge between the nations, and will render decisions for many peoples; and they will hammer their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they learn war. (Isa. 2:2–4)
The animals will be changed:
And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little boy will lead them.… And the nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den. They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. (Isa. 2:2–4; 11:6, 8–9)
Even the plants will be changed:
The wilderness and the desert will be glad, and the Arabah will rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it will blossom profusely and rejoice with rejoicing and shout of joy. (Isa. 35:1–2)
Christ tasted death for you and for me. He did it to recover our lost destiny. If you have been groping around, trying to figure out why you exist, I hope you know the reason now. There is no reason for us to be slaves. There is no reason for us to be paupers. There is only reason for us to be kings.
Men today still ask, “What is man?” The idolator and the animist says, “Man is inferior to birds and animals, even to creeping things, stones, and sticks.” And he bows down and worships the snake. The materialist says, “Man is obviously higher than any of the other animals, but he is still only the product of chance, the result of evolutionary natural selection.” Most people believe such ideas or ones equally as foolish. But God says, “Man was created to be king of the earth. Only for a little time he has been made lower than the angels.” Someday he will sit on the throne of Jesus Christ and reign with Him in His kingdom.
I trust that you will be there reigning with Christ.[1]
9 The NIV has changed the order of the clauses by putting “because he suffered death” (lit., “through the suffering of death”) after “crowned with glory and honor,” thus separating the “crowning” from the following purpose clause and avoiding the apparent implication that the crowning was prior to his death. Lane, 42–43, avoids this implication by transferring the final clause to before both “through the suffering of death” and “crowned with glory and honor” in his translation (so also the GNB). The final purpose clause probably relates not specifically to the immediately preceding clause about crowning but rather to the whole complex of events just mentioned, namely, incarnation, death, and subsequent glory.
There is strong patristic evidence for an early alternative reading χωρίς Θεοῦ, chōris theou, “apart from God,” in place of χάριτι Θεοῦ, chariti theou, “by the grace of God,” even though the latter is found in most surviving MSS. The reading with χωρίς, chōris (GK 6006), possibly an allusion to Jesus’ abandonment by God on the cross (Mk 15:34), appears so starkly and without explanation here that it might have been changed into χάριτι Θεοῦ, chariti theou (GK 5921) to avoid embarrassment. But it is also possible it was a marginal comment on v. 8 (“nothing not subject to him—except God”; the exception is made explicit in 1 Co 15:27) that then found its way into the text by mistake.
The biblical idiom “taste death” means a full experience of death, not, as our idiom might suggest, a tentative “taste” without going through with it; see Mk 9:1 par.; Jn 8:52 (and cf. Ps 34:8; 1 Pe 2:3). Cf. the parallel phrase, “the suffering of death,” earlier in the verse. For “taste” see further on 6:4–5. Chrysostom’s argument that the author uses “taste” because the resurrection cut short Jesus’ experience of death is too subtle and does not fit the wider usage of the verb.[2]
9 For there at God’s right hand he sits enthroned, and “crowned with glory and honor.” Jesus, who became man; Jesus, who was made “a little lower than the angels”; Jesus, who endured death—this Jesus has been raised to the place of highest exaltation, and reigns there until all opposition to his sovereignty comes to an end. Then indeed in the fullest degree will be seen “all things subjected to him.”
Moreover, it is precisely because of his humiliation, suffering, and death that he has been invested with heavenly glory. This interpretation of our author’s argument at this point brings it into line with Paul’s “Therefore God has highly exalted him” in Phil. 2:9. But very many commentators on Hebrews have found themselves obliged by the construction here to think of the crowning with glory and honor as something preceding the suffering of death, as a solemn preparation for it. The transfiguration of Christ has been thought of as the occasion referred to; it was then that “he received glory and honor from God the Father” (2 Pet. 1:17), and it was immediately thereafter that he set out upon the last journey to Jerusalem. “The crowning,” says Alexander Nairne, “marks the victim, or the hero going gallantly to his contest, not the victorious king.”40 Yet it is difficult to fit this interpretation into the context of the general argument of this epistle, in which the glory is consistently presented as the sequel to the passion. The phrase “because of the suffering of death” more naturally suggests that the crowning followed the suffering as its divinely appointed end than that the crowning took place with a view to the suffering of death. As for the clause “that … he should taste death for all,” it does indeed express purpose—not, however, the purpose of the crowning by itself, but rather the purpose of the whole sequence of preceding events, the humiliation, passion, and glory combined.43 Because the Son of Man suffered, because his suffering has been crowned by his exaltation, therefore his death avails for all. Chrysostom’s comment on Christ’s tasting death for everyone has been frequently quoted: “As a physician, though not needing to taste the food prepared for the sick man, yet in his care for him tastes first himself, that he may persuade the sick man with confidence to venture on the food; so, since all men were afraid of death, in persuading them to take courage against death, he tasted it also himself though he had no need so to do.” But the point of our author’s argument is that Christ did have need so to do, if the purpose of his incarnation was to be accomplished; Chrysostom has been over-influenced by the verb “taste.”46 Calvin’s comment is more penetrating than Chrysostom’s: “By saying ‘for every one,’ he means not only that Christ might be an example to others, as Chrysostom says, when he adduces the example of a physician taking the first taste of a bitter draught, that the patient may consent to drink it; he means rather that Christ died for us, and that by taking on Himself what was due to us, He redeemed us from the curse of death.”
Whatever may be said of the textual warrant for the phrase “by God’s grace,” it is entirely appropriate in the context and makes for a smooth transition to the words which follow.[3]
9 In v. 9 the pastor paraphrases the two remaining clauses from Psalm 8, represented by the italicized words in the translation below: “But the one who has been made a little lower than angels (cf. Ps 8:5a) we do see, Jesus, on account of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor (cf. Ps 8:5b).” By inserting the words “we do see, Jesus, on account of the suffering of death” between these two paraphrases the pastor interprets the first as a description of the incarnate Son and the second as a reference to his exaltation. By tracking the Greek word order, this somewhat awkward translation demonstrates the bold identification of the one “we see” as the incarnate one, the one “made a little lower than angels.” “Jesus” is the pastor’s favorite designation when speaking of the Son’s humanity and suffering. Thus the pastor has reserved his first mention of this name for this climactic position after his dramatic affirmation of the incarnation. This first use of the name “Jesus” opens the way for the first mention of Jesus’ death: it is the incarnate “Jesus” who has been “crowned” “on account of the suffering of death” with divine “glory and honor” (cf. 12:1–3). Only now can the pastor affirm the terrible and costly way in which the Son took his seat at God’s right hand.
The pastor has used two perfect passive participles in his paraphrases of the two clauses from Ps 8:5: literally, “the one having been made lower than the angels” and “having been crowned with glory and honor.” The first participle phrase is substantive, describing the one whom “we see”—the incarnate Jesus. The second is adverbial, describing the circumstances under which “we see” him—exalted, sitting at God’s right hand, “crowned with glory and honor.” Both participles are perfect, denoting a past act with continuing effect. The son was made, and continues to be, “a little lower than the angels.” He was crowned, and continues to be “crowned with glory and honor.” The passive voice of the participles preserves the emphasis on God’s initiative in the work of salvation.40
Thus there is no reason to deviate from the original intent of the psalm, both in Hebrew and Greek, by translating “a little lower” as “for a little while lower.” It may sound paradoxical to say that the exalted Son to whom the angels pay homage (1:6) is still “a little lower than the angels,” but this paradox is nothing other than the paradox inherent in the incarnation. The pastor is affirming the continued humanity of the exalted and eternal Son as the representative of the people of God.43 His full superiority over the angels as the Savior of God’s people is the result of his eternity, his assumption of humanity, and his exaltation. He may not have been “taken from among human beings” (5:1), but he could only become the effective High Priest and Savior of the people of God by assuming their humanity (2:14–18). The Son’s superiority to the angels as the one in charge of the coming world of salvation is the grand finale of the writer’s Son/angels contrast (1:5–14).
These two perfect participles are integral to the pastor’s argument because they describe the present sufficiency of the Savior resulting from his past assumption of humanity and obedient suffering. Nothing is more important than the fact that “we” do now “see” with the eyes of faith the incarnate Son of God in the state of ultimate exaltation because of his obedient suffering and death. The pastor will explain Christ’s high priesthood in order to demonstrate the full sufficiency of this Savior (4:14–10:18). He holds this Savior up as the example par excellence of endurance (12:1–3). Thus his whole purpose is to keep the eyes of his hearers fixed on none but this one whom “we” do now “see” (8:1–2; 12:1–3; cf. 4:14–16; 10:19–25; 12:22–24; 13:8). This High Priest alone is able to bring God’s people into his presence and to enable them to endure until the end (4:14–16; 10:19–25). Whenever the pastor directs his hearers’ gaze to the exalted Son, he is speaking of the eternal Son who assumed humanity and suffered to deliver the people of God.
One cannot overemphasize the importance of Jesus’ death. Heb 1:3, “by making purification for sins he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,” anticipated this first mention of Christ’s death as the cause of his subsequent glorification. In fact, everything has been moving toward this crucial introduction of his suffering. The pastor’s biblical quotations have provided the context necessary for this assertion of its significance by affirming not only Christ’s deity, exaltation/session, and second coming, but also his incarnation (made explicit by Psalm 8). It is crucial to note that the pastor speaks not merely of “death” but of identification with humanity in the “suffering” of death. In fact, Hebrews normally speaks of Christ’s death under the broader category of suffering (2:10, 18; 5:8; 9:26–27; 13:12). The Son’s sufficient sacrifice was not a sanitary death but a perfect, continual obedience in the face of severe opposition and suffering that culminated in his death (2:10, 18; 5:8; 9:14; 10:5–10). At the heart of the pastor’s message is the firm conviction that by this obedient suffering the Son has both provided for the salvation of his people (10:5–10) and left a most powerful example of endurance for the beleaguered people of God (12:1–3).
In his concluding clause the pastor asserts the purpose of all that he has been saying thus far. The incarnation, suffering, and exaltation of the eternal Son of God were all necessary “so that by the grace of God on behalf of all he might taste death” (Heb 2:9c). Three aspects of this clause require comment. First, in accord with the clear statements of Ps 8:5–6, and with the passive participles earlier in v. 9, Jesus acted in accord with God’s initiative and purposes. His saving death was accomplished by and was the outworking of “the grace of God.” Second, the benefits of his death in accord with God’s initiative are available for every human being.48 The pastor puts no limitation on the sacrifice of Christ, save the obedient faithfulness to which he urges his hearers. It is important when reading Hebrews, however, to remember that the pastor has not addressed this sermon to humanity in general but to the faltering people of God. He is concerned that God’s people persevere in faithful obedience through the provision made available by the Son’s assuming their humanity and suffering death. Third, the expression “taste death” is fitting for one whom death could not hold.50 Nevertheless, it is a Semitic expression that puts emphasis on Jesus’ full experience of death with its bitterness and suffering. The purpose of his incarnation, death, and exaltation was that he might fully experience death for every human being.
As in the above English translation, the Greek sentence ends emphatically and appropriately with the word “death.” Verses 10–18 will show how Jesus’ death was an expression of God’s grace in harmony with both the character and saving purposes of God and the needs of God’s people.[4]
[1] MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1983). Hebrews (pp. 58–60). Moody Press.
[2] France, R. T. (2006). Hebrews. In T. Longman III & D. E. Garland (Eds.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Hebrews–Revelation (Revised Edition) (Vol. 13, pp. 52–53). Zondervan.
[3] Bruce, F. F. (1990). The Epistle to the Hebrews (Rev. ed., pp. 75–77). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
[4] Cockerill, G. L. (2012). The Epistle to the Hebrews (pp. 131–135). William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
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