Daily Thoughts from Hebrews: High Tide (2:5-9)

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, ESV)

The author of Hebrews says he is speaking about God subjecting the world to the Son.  We haven’t seen anything specifically mentioning that, but from the perspective of the Jews it is obvious.  The coming of Messiah is the signaling of the coming kingdom of God to earth.  It is God’s taking full rein of earth’s affairs, which says that at present His rule is more subdued than it will be then.  It is like a king who has been forced to flee from his realm but is still influencing things from afar, awaiting the day when he will return and be openly declared king again over a submissive realm.  It is Jesus, not angels, that has this responsibility.

Psalm 8 testifies that human beings were made lower than angels but were the ones given responsibility over the earth to fill the earth and subdue it (Genesis 1:28).  The Messiah, Jesus (the first mention of his name in Hebrews is in this passage), is the ultimate human, just as he is the ultimate king.  So though Psalm 8 was understood by the author and original readers to be referring to the human race in general, they also understood and expected the Messiah to fulfill this passage in a deeper way.  These prophecies are like the waves hitting the shore at low tide, spectacular to be sure, but nothing like high tide.  Jesus is the high tide fulfillment of these low tide prophecies.

For now, however, we can’t see the subjection of all things to ourselves or to Jesus.  It still seems that things are out of control.  We are still responsible for ruling our world for good but we have in major ways failed to do that.  But Jesus, our supreme representative of humanity, has already been crowned with glory and honor in heaven with his ascension as a reward for suffering death on our behalf.  His exaltation will be ours one day.  He is bringing us along toward the destiny that was ours and forfeited in the beginning.  How can we go back to that old way of life!!