The Humanity of Christ
Intro:
This is an awkward passage to translate from Greek to English, so it might help to look at few variant English translations to get a better grasp of the ideas the author is communicating:
NASB 2020:
5 For He did not subject to angels the world to come, about which we are speaking.
6 But someone has testified somewhere, saying,
“What is man, that You think of him?
Or a son of man, that You are concerned about him?
7 You have made him for a little while lower than angels;
You have crowned him with glory and honor;
8 You have put everything in subjection under his feet.”
For in subjecting all things to him, He left nothing that is not subject to him. But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him.
ESV:
5 For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking.
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?
7 You made him for a little while lower than the angels;
you have crowned him with glory and honor,
8 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.
CEB (Common English Bible)
5 God didn’t put the world that is coming (the world we are talking about) under the angels’ control.
6 Instead, someone declared somewhere,
What is humanity that you think about them?
Or what are the human beings that you care about them?
7 For a while you made them lower than angels.
You crowned the human beings with glory and honor.
8 You put everything under their control
When he puts everything under their control, he doesn’t leave anything out of control. But right now, we don’t see everything under their control yet.
Main Point Number 1: (V5)
Jesus (NOT the Angels) is going to be in control of this next age. This Kingdom coming is CHRIST’S domain to rule sovereignly over. His is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. No Angel can claim anything like that.
Main Point Number 2: (V. 6-8a)
The issue of WHO Christ represented (and HOW He did it) simply cannot be overlooked.
The superiority of Christ as FULLY HUMAN is crucial:
The quote here is from Psalm 8:4-66
What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:
David Guzik:
In chapter one, the writer to the Hebrews brilliantly demonstrated from the Scriptures the deity of Jesus and His superiority over all angels. Now he demonstrates the humanity of Jesus from the Scriptures and applies the implications of Jesus’ humanity.
It is Biblically wrong to think of Jesus as merely God or merely man. It is wrong to think of Him as half God and half man (or any other percentage split). It is wrong to think of Him as “man on the outside” and “God on the inside.” The Bible teaches Jesus is fully God and fully man, that a human nature was added to His divine nature, and both natures existed in one Person, Jesus Christ.
Significantly, the first false teaching about Jesus in the days of the early church did not deny that He was God, but it denied that He was really human and said He only seemed to be human. The heresy was called Docetism, coming from the ancient Greek word “to seem,” and was taught by Cerinthus, who opposed the apostle John in the city of Ephesus and whose teaching is probably the focus of 1 John 4:2 and 1 John 5:6.
PB’s Secret Point:
If Jesus is an Angel, who only “seems” human, then God’s laid out plan from Psalm 8 is a lie.
The Angels did not inherit control of this world, humans did, and Jesus is the pinnacle human to redeem the world from sin.
Another way to say it: If Jesus was an Angel, he did not die for OUR sins, because he was not a representative/substitute for us as HUMANS.
Main Point 3: (v8b) We Have No Idea
There is an idea, perhaps a warning even, imbedded in the last half of verse 8 that we must consider as we close. The logic looks something like this:
- The reward for Christ suffering as a true representative of humanity is dominion over this world and the world to come.
- This dominion is TOTAL.
- WE don’t understand the vastness of that dominion.
Objections to Consider: (guided Q/A)
- How can the Bible claim Jesus is Fully Man if he had supernatural abilities; doesn’t that make him different than us, and therefore not a representative of mankind?
- If Jesus’s dominion is total, what do we do with the existence and thriving of sin?
- If we don’t understand the fullness of that dominion, why is that kept from us? Why does God keep part of his plans held back from us? Why not just tell us everything and let us decide what we do with that information?
- Others?