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Hebrews 2: “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.”
You may be seated. In the name of Jesus, amen.
Dear saints, I want to admit to you that this text from Hebrews 2 is one of my absolute favorite texts in all of the Bible. I found it years ago when studying Revelation 20. Revelation 20 has the account of the 1,000 years where the Lord is ruling and where the devil is bound, and we have to ask when we come to that text, when or how is the devil bound? A lot of people say it hasn’t happened yet, but the Bible gives us this testimony that the death of Jesus is the binding of the devil. The death of Jesus is the destruction of the devil, and this text is perhaps the clearest in all of the Bible making that point.
I want to walk through it so we can understand it and make a couple of applications on the way, and I want to do so under the title prepared – or under the theme, I suppose – Prepared to Die.
Now the broader context of the text is the book of Hebrews, which is arguing in one chapter after another that Jesus is greater. Jesus is greater than Moses. Jesus is greater than Aaron and the priesthood. Jesus is greater than the temple and the tabernacle and the sacrifices that are offered there. Jesus is greater, and this at the very beginning is part of the argument that the epistle is making that Jesus is greater than the angels.
Now why is that argument necessary? It’s kind of a complicated background, but at least a small part of it is Psalm 8, which has to be wrestled with and has to be considered. Psalm 8 says this, “You have made Him a little lower than the angels. You crowned Him with glory and honor. You gave Him dominion over the works of your hands, and you have put all things under His feet.” If Jesus is greater than the angels, how is it that He is made lower than the angels, and why was He made lower than the angels?
Now that’s, those are the two questions that the text is answering.
So first, how is Jesus made lower than the angels? The answer to that question is His incarnation. That’s how the text begins. It says, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same things.” That’s the text saying that because you and I are flesh and blood, because we are mortal human beings, Jesus partook of the same flesh and the same blood, the same humanity. Jesus is incarnate in our flesh, our brother. He was, like Adam said when he looked at Eve, bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. So is our Lord Jesus, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, blood of our blood.
But not only does the text tell us how He was made lower than the angels, it tells us why He was made lower than the angels. The purpose is this, to engage in a death that both destroys and delivers. To engage in a death that destroys and delivers.
Now that first point is stunning enough. Jesus takes upon Himself flesh and blood so that He can die. Now we remember that Jesus is the eternal Son of God, He is begotten of the Father in all eternity, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, that He dwells in inapproachable light, that He has, just to put it to the point here, that Jesus in eternity has no blood to shed. He has no body to nail to the cross or to put into the tomb. So Christmas is necessary. So, the incarnation is necessary so that the Son of God can die.
For this reason, He was manifest. This is why He came. He partook of the same things that through death, we make this point at Christmas, it’s good to reinforce it now because it is simply stunning that the reason why Jesus had to have a body was so that He would have something to be pinned to the cross. The reason why He had to be born is so that He could die.
There’s this beautiful parallel in the gospel of Luke when you read it through beginning to end that Jesus is born and what happens, the Virgin Mary takes Him and wraps Him in swaddling clothes and lies Him in a manger, and there’s a parallel text right to the end of Luke that says, “And they took Him and wrapped Him in grave clothes and laid Him in the tomb.” These two things are bound together. Jesus takes on flesh and blood to die, but, but, not just to die, but to die a destructive death. His death destroys something that through death He might destroy, that’s what the text says.
And we need to remember this, I think that sometimes we forget that the first object of Jesus’ death is not us, it’s not sinners, it’s not you and me, but rather it’s the devil. The first act of Jesus’ redemption is against the devil. Remember in the Garden of Eden when the first gospel was spoken, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed.” Who was the promise spoken to? It’s an amazing thing that the first preaching of the gospel was preached to the devil.
Jesus explains this in the parable to the strong man. It’s in all three, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the synoptic gospels. But here’s the parable that Jesus tells in Mark chapter 3. He says, “No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man. Then he may plunder his house.” Now that’s a picture that Jesus is painting of our redemption, and who is the strong man in the text? It’s the devil. And what is this house? It is this world. And who are his goods? It’s you and I who are born in slavery to the devil himself, and Jesus tells this one little verse parable, which is kind of a funny story, about a stronger man coming and beating up the strong man and tying him up so that he can steal his stuff. That’s what Jesus does for us.
His death destroys the devil. His death is binding the strong man. His death is taking away the authority that the devil has over us. This is how it says it in the text, “That through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil.”
Now how is his death a destruction? You want to notice carefully how the text describes the devil. In the verses that we have, it says the devil is the one who has the power of death. There are three dangers that every person faces. There’s three dangers that you face in this life, sin, death, and the devil. And these three are bound up together to one another. You can’t have one without the other. They are like a knotted mess of Christmas lights that can’t be untangled. Sin, death, and the devil, you cannot have one without the other. Death, remember, is the wages of sin, and because we are sinners there is judgment that stands on the other side of death, and this is why in one way or another every person has some fear of death.
We might not know why, but the Bible tells us it’s because on the other side of death there’s a judgment that waits for us, and so we tremble at death. But Jesus takes away this power of death. Now how does He do this? The key word in this entire text is in verse 17, and it’s this word, propitiation.
Therefore, He, Jesus, had to be made like His brothers in every respect so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. Propitiation means to turn away wrath, and specifically to turn away the wrath of God. Now, the basic idea is this, that because we are sinners, because we have broken God’s law, because we are unholy and unclean, God is mad at us, and His anger is like a fire. His wrath is like a burning fire that needs to be quenched, and it can only be put out. But the fire of God’s wrath can only be put out with the blood of His Son.
In fact, if you want to think of it this way, all the blood of all of the sacrifices in all of the Old Testament was like keeping the fire under control, but it never could be quenched until the blood of Jesus was spilt, and it does. It quenches the wrath of God. It puts it to rest. It’s over.
Remember that’s what propitiation means, that all of the anger of God for all of our sins has been extinguished. And this brings us to the third point, that Jesus dies a death that both destroys and also delivers. He Himself likewise partook in the same things that through death He might destroy the one who had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.
Now dear saints, I want you to notice how you and I are described in the text. There’s something very, very important here. It says that you and I are subject to lifelong slavery. To who? To none other than the devil. And how? Through the fear of death. We, through our natural fear of death, are held under the devil’s captivity, are made slaves to him.
Now, how does this happen? I think it’s most clearly seen in the case of the martyrs. Remember how it was with the martyrs? The martyrs were brought before the Roman procouncil, and they were given a choice. They said, “Either you deny Christ and offer this incense to the Caesar and say, ‘Lord Caesar,’ or you die. One or the other.” And because the people were afraid to die, they would often go and offer the incense and deny their Lord Jesus Christ, that the devil would use the fear of death against their faith so that they would deny Christ.
But this happens, dear saints, and we need to be aware of it and have our eyes open to it. This is the same argument that the devil uses against us every day. Now here’s where I want to apply this. I want you to consider yourself and your own life, and this, your own fear of death, how it comes upon you, and how it makes you think, and how it makes you feel, and how it makes you act.
It occurred to me yesterday when I was trying to catch up on the news, and I heard that the coronavirus has now been upgraded to an international health threat. And you hear the news of how it’s spreading, and you hear the disastrous predictions that could come forth from it. I noticed this last week as I was traveling, more people than ever traveling with masks as they went to the airport, and I heard of the fear and panic that’s happening now, and I myself felt it.
I don’t know if you did too. Wow, how bad would it be if we had something like a plague coming on the earth again? Now how do we think about this kind of stuff? I mean first we should remember, and I do not know why we forget this, but we should remember that all of us are going to die if Jesus doesn’t come back first. And if that’s true then we should think if we have to die how can we be ready for it? Or even this, how can we be good at it, be good at dying?
I think the way to do this, and this is why we’re Christians, in fact it’s one of the reasons why we come to church, is that we want to remember that Jesus, the propitiation for our sins, is waiting for us on the other side of death. Here’s the picture, at least this picture helps me. If you can imagine that we’re all standing in line, you’re there in a line, a long line, everybody’s in it, and you don’t know where it goes, you’re just standing in line, one step at a time, like a line at a very busy Disneyland ride or something like this. It’s moving agonizingly slow.
But as you go forward a little bit more, you see where the line goes, and it goes to this curtain. And as you get a little bit closer, you see that the person in the front of the line takes their turn and they step through the curtain and then the next person steps through and the next person steps through. And as you get closer you start to see a little dim outline of what’s happening on the other side of the curtain. The people step through and they turn to the side and there’s this big massive beast of a thing with a sledgehammer that hits them on the head and then they’re dragged off. And as you get a little bit closer you can start to hear the sounds of it, and all of a sudden you’re not so happy that you’re in the line, you know anyone who wants to cut a front can, but still you get closer and closer, this is a frightful thing, this is the fear of death.
But suddenly, can you imagine, suddenly someone actually goes and cuts in front, who’s that guy, is he crazy, can he not see what’s happening? He cuts in front and he waits his turn and he steps through the curtain and just like everyone else the hammer comes down on his head and he crumples over and the little minions come to grab his feet to drag him off, but suddenly you see something amazing happen. Instead of being dragged off, this one actually stands back up, stretches a little bit, turns to this beast of a thing with his hammer and grabs it out of his hand and bam, knocks him on the head and the monster collapses and he’s dragged off and the hammer is thrown aside.
And now you see a silhouette through the curtain with this man’s arms outstretched waiting for you. And now, and now the line can’t go fast enough. Jesus, through His death, destroyed him who has the power of death, and He sets us free from the fear of death. Jesus waits on the other side, and He’s not waiting in judgment, He’s waiting to welcome you.
Dear saints, for you to live is Christ, to die is gain, and that is nothing to be afraid of. So hear the text one more time, Hebrews 2 verse 14: “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who, through fear of death, were subject to lifelong slavery.”
May God grant us this freedom, amen. The peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.