Exploring My Strange Bible - Book of Hebrews Part 2 - What does it mean to be Human?

Episode Date: December 11, 2017

This teaching comes from Hebrews chapter 2 and it is exploring the portrait of Jesus as God becomes human that the anonymous pastor goes into. What is it that human story of Jesus reveals about the glory and power of God? We explore this on today’s episode.

Tim Mackey, Jr. utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have. On this podcast, I'm putting together the last 10 years worth of lectures and sermons where I've been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith. And I hope this can be helpful for you too. I also help start this thing called The Bible Project. We make animated videos and podcasts about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology. You can find those resources at thebibleproject.com. With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week. All right. Well, this is part two of a series we're doing. These were a number of teachings on the letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament that I did quite a few years ago.

This teaching comes from Hebrews chapter 2, and it's exploring the portrait that the author or the pastor, as I like to call him or her, the anonymous pastor of the letter to the Hebrews. But this person goes into quite a bit of depth exploring the portrait of Jesus as God become human. But what kind of human? What is it that the human story of Jesus reveals to us about the glory and power of God? And he begins with this incredible meditation from Psalm 8 from the Old Testament and then melds it together with images about the suffering messianic king from the rest of the Old Testament. And he hits upon this amazing truth that still this chapter was formative for me in my understanding of Jesus many years ago, that it's God's power and glory and might that are most perfectly revealed in Jesus giving up his power and status

to die as an act of love on behalf of others. And it's a total inversion of our normal concepts of power and status. And that's the divine nature that's revealed to us through Jesus. This is a very powerful theological theme in understanding Jesus, but also opens up a whole new universe for us to think about and to critique our own value systems that we've grown up with or inherit from our culture. So, powerful stuff, man. Hebrews chapter 2. Let's dive in and explore together. Book of Hebrews, chapter 2. The author, we've been tracing how the author is saying that Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, the Creator God, become human. He is the final word of the Creator God to his world and to his people. And he is superior to all previous forms of God's speaking.

And so the first way that he is superior is to the angels. That's what we've been tracing in chapters one and two. Now, I know for a fact that most of us woke up today wondering just how Jesus is superior to angels. You know, I'm sure that's very common. And as a joke, you're supposed to laugh. Anyway, the five o'clock, I thought that was quite funny. So, you know, of course, no, no, no, none of us actually think about this. And so again, this is, the author just assumes that you care

and know about the kind of stuff that he knows and cares about. And so in this last section, verses five through 18, that we're working through today, he has this final movement of this theme. And he opens up, here we go, chapter two, verse five. He says, now, it was not to angels that God subjected the world to succumb, of which we are speaking. And 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 a little lower, for a little while, lower than the angels. You have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet. And we're all tracking. Yep. This is all crystal clear. No, no, no. Guaranteed none of us woke up today wondering,

who is the world to come subjected to? You know, like, it just, we're not thinking about these things. But that's just what he lays on the table right after. You do know that the world to come subjected to? You know, we're not thinking about these things. But that's just what he lays on the table right after. You do know that the world to come is not subject to angels. What? It seems so weird and obscure that he would open like this. But there's actually something very, very important and very profound that he's getting at here about how Jesus is different than all previous forms of God speaking. The world to come.

The whole storyline of the Bible, from cover to cover, it's a narrative. It's one flowing narrative. And it's about the story of what God is doing, his mission, to rescue and redeem his good world that we have screwed up. That's kind of my way of summarizing the Bible in a sentence. That's precisely what it is.

It's God's mission. He's rescuing and restoring. And he's doing it through Jesus. And the culmination of the storyline of the Bible is not about, like, angels and humans and some ethereal, non-physical, spiritual world, harps and clouds, or something like that. I think many of us have that in our mind, like, that's the end of the game. And I don't know, that sounds kind of boring to me, but floating on a cloud somewhere. So, and he says, no, no, that's not the point. That's not the storyline of the Bible.

The storyline of the Bible is about God redeeming and rescuing his physical good world. He's taking our world somewhere. He's going to bring his justice to set things right and then heal it by his grace. And so the Bible has different ways of referring to this world where God is taking things. It's called the new creation. It's in Paul's letters, it's called the new heavens and the new earth and John the seer's apocalypse. It's called the age to come. And right here in verse five, the author calls it what? The world to come. He calls it the world to come. God's taking our world somewhere.

And he says, listen, the plan all along was never to have God bring justice and heal our world, redeem and rescue the world, and then hand it over to spiritual beings or something like that. No, no. The whole point from beginning to end was that God's will would be worked out here in his world through human beings. And then he quotes Psalm 8 to support his point. And we're like, oh yeah, Psalm 8, perfect, you know, I get it. You know, no, we don't get it. We don't get it. So here's what he does. He quotes Psalm 8 to support this point. God's plan was always to redeem and rescue his world and work out his will through you and I, through human beings. And he quotes Psalm 8. Now, what he's done with Psalm 8 here, this is an ancient Hebrew poem. It's

in the book of Psalms. And he's actually abbreviated it. He's left some lines out and he's just quoting it just to jog your memory. Because you all have it memorized, of course, as good people who are steeped in the scriptures, right? So, he just assumes that. You're just supposed to know the whole of Psalm 8 and what the psalm's about. What is the psalm about? How does it show his point about where God is taking our world? So I'm going to throw it up here on the screen here, and we're just going to read the relevant section here. This is what you're supposed to have in your head when he says this here. So the poet, the poet begins. He says, when I look at your heavens, he's talking to God. The poet says, when I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him? Or the son of man that you care for him? So just think, the poet, it's whatever, dark night maybe, you know, the moon's very small and the stars are just all illuminated. He's just gazing into the vastness out there in the universe. And he's amazed by how small and puny and insignificant he seems in a moment like that. And many of us have had experiences like that. That's what the poet is trying to tap into there. And he says, when I look at the expanse

of God's huge complex world, what are human beings? We're so powerless. We're so tiny. But yet God has seen fit to make us, at least the species on the planet, that seems to have the most power and the ability to really do something to God's world, which is what he says next. He says, even though, you know, we seem insignificant, verse 5, he says, under his feet, all sheep and oxen and also the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the sea. So he's marveling on this amazing capacity and vocation of human beings. We seem really insignificant, but the fact is, we can really do amazing things. We've been commissioned to do very profound, amazing things

in God's world. And he says right here that human beings, far from being insignificant little puny specks in the world, they're actually, we actually have something of the transcendent among us. We're made just a little lower than the heavenly beings themselves and given dominion over all things. Now, this poet has been reading what chapter of the Bible? This one should be easy for some of you. Wait, the first chapter of the Bible. Genesis chapter 1. He's been reflecting on the question.

Now, you may not wonder, like, who is the world subjected to, the world to come, or whatever. But you probably have asked the question at least once or twice before. Like, what on earth am I doing here? Why am I here? Why was I born? And what am I supposed to be doing with my life? That's a question probably many of us have asked before, and that's what this poet's getting at. You don't know what you're here for. This is what you're here for. You're here for dominion

and rule over God's good world. He's reflecting on Genesis chapter 1, and again, we're just supposed to have this in our heads. We'll throw it up here. So God created mankind in his own image. In the image of God, he created them, male and female. He created them. And God blessed them. And he said to them, have a blast. Go for it. Go for it. Be fruitful. Increase in number. Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky. And over every living creature that moves on the ground. So this really, this is kind of like biblical world, Christian worldview 101 right here. There's purpose in our world.

And the human beings, according to Psalm 8 and Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 and so on, we are integrally tied into the warp and the woof of the physical material creation. We come from the dirt and we obviously go back to the dirt after we die. It's clear that we come from it and so on. So we're very much woven into the physical, the ecosystem of God's world, but yet there's something transcendent. There's something of the image of the creator God himself reflected in and through human beings and what we're doing here in the world. And here it's connected to the vocation of human. What are we

here to do? And what does Psalm 8 and Genesis 1 say? What are we here to do? Multiply ourselves. Okay, there you go. What's the second thing we're here to do? To rule. Have dominion. That's what Psalm 8 said. So rule. Rule over God's world. Now this is the biblical, it's kind of a royal image. It's the idea that you and I, we're not insignificant. Each and every one of us has some purpose, vocation, role in God's good world. It's an honorable, noble task. There's something of God's image reflected in how you relate and work in God's world. Every single one of us.

We're called to rule. Now, I don't know how many, probably none of us on any given day feel like we're ruling or whatever. Maybe in the 80s people ruled a lot more. I don't know. But we don't even say that anymore. That rule, I kind of still say that.

But we don't feel like we're ruling. When I'm, like, making coffee in the morning, sometimes, like, it doesn't work, right? You know, and I'm like, I'm ruling. You know, I can't even get my coffee maker to work. What does this mean that we're ruling? So, again, this is getting to a big picture of what's going on here. What are you here for? You're here to take the gifts, the talents,

what God has given you to reflect uniquely, his image into the world and through work and relationships and family, to flourish, have a blast, go for it. To rule. To rule. That's the Bible's image here. We're here to rule. That rules.

We're here to rule, right? Okay, that's the image. Okay, that's the idea. Now, let's just stop real quick, and I want to ask you a question. When you hear the words rule, dominion, dominate, power, do you have like flowery positive associations in your mind?

No, we kind of twitch at those words a little bit. It makes us nervous. Are you saying human beings rule and subdue the world? Some people think that this text right here is like the manifesto of environmental exploitation or something. That's ridiculous. It was written by farmers, like ancient Near Eastern farmers, to ancient Near Eastern farmers. You know what I'm saying? Like, they had no concept of like where technology was going and so on. So, we're here to work and flourish in God's good world, harnessing the potential, the energy of whatever it is. Here, it's like agrarian and farming, but you know, pass it on to other contexts. Take what's latent and potential in God's world and make something new and beautiful that makes humans and communities flourish. That's what we're here to do. We're here to rule. We're here to rule. But something's gone

terribly wrong, of course, in the story. Keep reading what he says here. He says, now, in putting everything in subjection to him, this is continuing in verse 8, that is to humanity, God left nothing outside of his control. Our rule as honorable image of God creatures was meant to be complete over God's world. But yet he says, but at present, we don't see everything in subjection to humanity, do we? The answer is no. So the answer is no. What's he getting at here?

And this may seem obscure to you, but this is actually profound. He's retelling the story of the whole Bible here. Something's gone terribly wrong. We were given this commission and responsibility to steward and rule in God's good world, and something has gone horribly, horribly wrong. So horribly wrong that, say, in our culture, we actually have negative associations with the very idea of power and authority in ruling. Why? Because it's been abused, right? Because the broken, selfish human heart takes power or authority or the opportunity to rule, and we use it to our own selfish advantage. We use it to abuse others and to whatever for the advantage of me and my tribe at the expense of you and yours and so on. The abuse of power and

ruling. But that doesn't mean power and ruling itself is bad. It just means that we've abused it. Because the fact is, is that ironically, this is part of what it means to be human. To rule. To rule. Exhibit A, at least in popular culture. There was a movie released a month ago, and in just the opening weekend of this movie,

it grossed more ticket sales in one weekend than now any movie in the history of North American cinema. Anybody? Anybody? Yeah, The Avengers. Okay, like two people knew this at the five. I was like, what? Okay. So, all right, there you go. So, The Avengers, 19 days in, a billion dollars in ticket sales. Just unbelievable. So, there you go. So the Avengers, it's, so you may or may not be into this. It's like one of these Marvel comic book movies, but it's kind of like the most epic one so far. And I took the liberties, I don't know, to show you the poster or whatever. Okay. Here's what's not interesting about this movie. The plot. Okay.

So the plot is like every other action movie you've heard, especially one involving superheroes or whatever. So there's alien bad guys, they want to invade the Earth and enslave all of humanity, whatever, yada, yada, yada. So that's not what's interesting. What's interesting is that almost all of the heroes, they've been developed in other movies, and what these heroes do is they represent like the cream of the crop,

the most powerful of all humanity, except one of the heroes there. Which one? Yeah, the guy wearing the cape and the hammer on the right here. So he's actually, he's a demigod from Norse mythology, so he doesn't really count. But all the other guys are humans here. And so what happens in the story? What happens in the story is that humanity's being threatened, the world's going to be taken over, all humanity enslaved to these aliens or whatever. And so this ragtag bunch of humans with their various powers and abilities, they team up together. They can't eventually, first they disagree, but then finally begin to work together and they just what? They just waste aliens. They just destroy them, you know, totally. And there you go. So it's every action movie you've ever

seen, but the character is really enjoyable and so on. But what's happening in this film is that here it's a vision of humanity. What are human beings and what are the best of the best of human beings here to do? To kill people. To kill people who threaten us. It's the vision of humanity.

It's power, isn't it? It's power and dominion. And the moment anyone crosses into our human realm of power and authority, we will kill you and then beat you up. You know what I'm saying? That's the vision of humanity here. That's the vision. It's violence.

It's subjugation. It's power. Right? And it's funny because we kind of get nervous at that, but then we pay a billion dollars to go watch movies about it

you know what I'm saying and so this irony we know that there's something transcendent and real and important about what we're here

to do but yet this brokenness of the human heart has taken this this human commission given to all humanity and it's just turned it into

this twisted power grabbing thing and we's just turned it into this twisted power grabbing thing. And we write movies about it and we pay to go watch stories about how screwed up the human heart is and about how our best heroes, what's the best they can do to protect the human race, just kill all the enemies or whatever. There you go. It's typical. It's typical. In most action movies, that's the vision of humanity. And there was a German philosopher of the last century. His name was Friedrich Nietzsche. And I'm not a Nietzsche expert by any means.

But in one of his most well-known works, it's called Thus Spoke, anybody? Or Thus Spake. Spake Zarathustra. And he summed up a number of themes from his other writings, but essentially, it's a vision of the new morality for human beings. And essentially, he said, in a world of people who no longer buy into the archaic belief that God exists, you know how silly, right? For people who have finally been liberated from that ancient arcane idea, there is only one option left on the table for the morality, defining what is good and not good for the new humanity.

He really believed that atheism would be the manifesto of the new liberated humanity. And so, how do you define right and wrong, or good or not good, for this new humanity that no longer needs a god to be accountable to for right and wrong or good or not good for this new humanity that no longer needs a God to be accountable to for right and wrong or whatever. He said it's essentially the will to power defines power and defines what's right. If our wills cross, if your will crosses my will, I have a spot for you under my shoe. And there you go. There you go. That's it. And he's exactly right. He's put his thumb on precisely what the biblical story is trying to get at. And what the author of Hebrews is saying here. God gave us such power and honor as these creatures to steward and manage his world

and to create families and communities. And what have we done with it? We made ourselves God and we created a world of power grabs, of conflict, of violence and of death. And so this is the best vision of humanity we can muster. I'll beat you up and then I'll kill you. Or I'll kill you and then I'll beat you up. And we pay money to go see it.

It's a great movie, but I'm just saying, just pay attention to the vision of humanity that's given here. And so we live in a world of abused human privilege. Where do we discover what it really means to be? See, we think this is normal. Well, this is what it means to be human. Don't cross me or else you'll regret it.

That's what it means to be human. Look out for me and mine. That's what we think. We think that's normal. But the biblical narrative comes along and says that's not normal. That's abnormal. We've strayed.

Where will we discover what it means to truly be human? Look at verse 8. This is brilliant, what he does here. He says, at present, we don't see everything in subjection to him, to humanity. We see a broken world of violence and death and power grabs. men it to. You see a broken world of violence and death and power grabs. But we do see one who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus. This is kind of, this is where trumpets blast, enter the new hero, something like that. Humans were given the vocation to rule in God's world. We royally messed it up. Enter the new human, the capital H human, the one who will

redefine and reclaim our lost destiny or commission, as it were. He says, we see one who was made for a little while lower than the angels. Where did he get that language from? From Psalm 8. Yeah, this is great. So he sees Psalm 8 as like the charter of God's charter for humanity. And he is firmly convinced that because of Jesus' resurrection that he is the son of God. And therefore, Psalm 8 is ultimately about the capital H human revealed to us in Jesus. And so he rereads Psalm 8 in light of the story of Jesus. It's very brilliant. So being a little lower than the angels now refers to the entrance of the hero onto the scene. Jesus' incarnation.

He becomes human. He enters into this broken, screwed up world that's totally like flipping off the creator. And he's like, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to come love on these people. That's what he's... He's a little while lower than the angels, namely Jesus. And he is crowned with glory and honor. Jesus is now the human who is fulfilled the vocation that God gave human beings to be glorious and honorable. And how did Jesus achieve power and glory and honor? What does it say right here? It's brilliant. How did he achieve honor?

By the suffering of death. So that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone. This is what makes the gospel story like the most, and I think, I think the most beautiful counterintuitive story you could imagine because it's precisely by the hero entering a world in rebellion against the creator God, he enters into the brokenness and pain of his own creation, and how does he conquer his foes? How does he win and achieve honor and glory? By giving up his life. By dying on behalf of his enemies. Grace. It's called grace when you get something you don't deserve.

So that by God's grace, he might taste death on behalf of everyone. We create a world of death because of our selfishness and ego and power grabbing. And what does he come and do? He absorbs all of that death and the consequences of our selfishness and ego and power grabbing. And what does he come and do?

He absorbs all of that death and the consequences of our selfishness into himself on the cross. He lets us do it worse to him and he takes it to the grave. And by his resurrection, he conquers its power. It's by dying for his enemies that he defeats the enemy. I mean, it's brilliant. It's so dying for his enemies that he defeats the enemy.

I mean, it's brilliant. It's so counterintuitive. And that's the beauty of the story of the gospel. And this is what it means to be human. To be truly human doesn't mean if you cross me, I'll kill you, then I'll beat you up. See, we think that's normal. Jesus comes and he redefines what it means to be human. Actually, it means to forgive your enemies and to lay down your life

for them if necessary, to seek their well-being above your own. This is what it means to be human. This is very powerful. It's so powerful what he says here in verse 9. He spends the next eight verses, 10 to 18, unpacking it. And how are you guys doing? You're doing okay? Okay. This gets even more dense, so I'm sorry. But you know, I met the point. I'm already only in chapter two, and I'm like, whatever. If I ever meet this guy in the new creation or whatever, I'm going to just have a cup of coffee. Why couldn't you speak more clearly? Like, it's so hard to understand what you're saying some of the times. Okay. Verse 10. Let's keep going. We got to plow through. He says, let's unpack this a little bit. What does it mean that

Jesus became human to taste death for everyone? Verse 10. He says, for it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist. For whom and by whom do all things exist? This good Sunday school answer here. Say God. Yeah, God. Okay. All right. So it was fitting that God, the creator of all things, was fitting that the creator God, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. Again, this is very dense, but it's very profound.

What is God up to in the world right now? What's God up to? What time is it? What's he doing? God's in the business right now of bringing many sons to glory. And we might hear that, depending on whatever, if you grew up around Christian subculture or something, we think, oh, like bringing people to heaven or something, into glory. But that's not what he means here. Where did he get the word glory from? From Psalm 8, right there. Do you see it there in verse 7 that he means here. Where did he get the word glory from? From Psalm 8, right there. Do you see that there in verse 7 that he quoted here? And what does it mean for humans to have glory? It means for you and I to be healed and restored from the broken, messed up stuff inside of us,

back into, like, to be a healthy, whole human being who's living and working in God's good world, ruling in this world and in the age to come, to be a glorious, honorable, whole human being who's not compromised by my own sin and selfishness. That's what God is in the business of doing, bringing many sons to discover their true humanity, and daughters here. It's holistic. Sons and daughters. Making them into new humans. That's what God's in the business of doing. Making new humans. How? By? By making the founder of their salvation perfect through

suffering. And who's the founder of their salvation? Right, so obviously it's Jesus. I'm just feeding him a silver platter here, you guys, right? God, Jesus. Right? So, what's he saying here? It was fitting that if God was going to rescue

his broken creatures, it was actually how fitting that he should enter into the broken creation himself and that the founder of their salvation, the hero, is made perfect

for his commission by entering into the suffering that we all experience. We're the ones who made the mess, and God rescues us by actually entering into the mess himself. That's what he's getting at here. And I love the word. This will be important, again, in a couple verses. The word he calls Jesus right here. Founder. Some of your translations might have something different. But the word behind this in the language he's writing in is Greek. The word he uses is the word, you'll see it on the screen here, archegos. Archegos.

Why don't you say it with me? Archegos. That was like two of you. Why don't you say it with me? Archegos. There you go. Archegos. So it means hero.

This is like a comic book word. It means hero. A leader. Somebody who comes in and the right thing is not happening, so they originate or they begin something new. They start a new thing that is right in contrast to whatever is wrong and so on. He's the pioneer. He's the trailblazer of what? Of a new humanity. A new, renewed human race. People who are being restored to glory. Becoming healed and whole by God's grace.

And it was so fitting that the rescuer should rescue suffering screwed up people by us by absorbing that broken suffering into himself. That's what he's saying here. He goes on. Maybe he thought he was being clear. I don't know. Verse 11. So, for he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all of one, or all have one source, or all are of the same family, some translations say. There's,. I think what he's essentially getting at, he's saying the one who sanctifies, i.e. Jesus, who makes mess up people holy by his

death and resurrection, and those of us who are being sanctified by Jesus, made holy by Jesus' death and resurrection, we all have one origin of a common humanity. He enters into our broken humanity. It was just perfect that he had to be joined into our humanity that is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers that's such a great line, Jesus is not ashamed to call you brother

that's cool, or sister, I suppose too brother or sister how do you know he's not ashamed to be associated with screwed up people like us we'll look at what he says in Psalm 22. I will tell of your name to my brothers. In the midst of the congregation, I will sing your praise. And again, he just assumes you know Psalm 22.

This is the very Psalm that Jesus quoted the first line of when he was hanging on the cross. He said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And after the suffering and travail of his death, and the Psalm, very mysterious, the psalmist is delivered from death to life on the other side. And he says, I'm going to sing your name to all of my brothers.

And he sees the story of Jesus in this. He's not ashamed to include us in the new life of the resurrection. Or again, I will put my trust in him. Or again, behold, I and the children, God has given me. You know Isaiah 8, yeah? So, right? So, no, we don't know Isaiah 8. Come to the Isaiah class that I'm teaching, and I'll teach you about Isaiah chapter 8. So, we don't have time to go into this here, but essentially, Isaiah is a prophet. He brought God's word to the people. They rejected him.

He had a number of kids who he gave very bizarre, strange names to, symbolic names, like Maher Shalal Hashbaz and Sha'ar Yishuv, right? So they're just going to top the baby name list, I'm sure, here at Doravot. There's a lot of babies being born around here at Doravot. Maher Shalal Hashbaz, I'm telling you. So he, right, he gives his kids these symbolic names. And what these names are is they're signs, the meaning of these names is about how God is going to work out his redemption in the life of the people. And so the author of Hebrews, he sees a parallel between Isaiah and Jesus, speak God's word to his people, but they're rejected. And he sees the parallel between Isaiah's kids and Jesus's kids, namely his followers. Because what God is doing in our lives and in giving us new

identities and new names speaks and points to his redemptive work in the world. I think that's what he's getting at. I think that's what he means by this. I don't know. I'll have to ask him one day. So he wraps it all up here. This is my favorite part here. Verses 14 and 15. We're going to camp out here as we finish. He says, since therefore the children, that's you and me, that's humans, the children share in flesh and blood. Those of us who are being rescued and having our humanity renewed, we're mortal. We're flesh and bone and blood. Jesus himself likewise partook of the same things. He himself became flesh and bone and blood. Jesus himself to rescue us

became an embryo implanted in the womb of a pregnant unmarried teenager. How about that? He entered into the messiness of our condition. He shared in the flesh and the blood and the mess of human existence. Why? So that through death, he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all of

those who through fear of death, they were subject to lifelong slavery. Okay, there's a world of things going on here in verses 14, 14 and 15. He's reflecting on the story of the Bible here. And the story of these humans given this glorious commission in God's good world, and we ruin it. And behind that ruin, behind that selfishness, and that prioritizing of our ego, he sees dark powers, dark spiritual powers at work that have deceived us. They've duped us into thinking that, you know, that the normal way to be a human being is don't cross me. Or you'll get it. You'll get what's coming to you. Look out for me and mine, me and my tribe at the expense of you and yours, if necessary. We think that's normal. And he says, no, that's a deception. We think that's normal.

And he says, no, that's a deception. That's actually subhuman behavior. That's not what God meant, how meant for us to be and to live. And so how are we going to be rescued by this dark enemy who's deceived us into a world of death and conflict and violence? How will he do it? And it's brilliant. He says he shares in our

condition. He becomes human. And how does he destroy the power of the enemy? How does he vanquish and annihilate the enemy? How does he do it? Look at verse 14. It's awesome. What does he say? by his own death, by dying, by giving up his life. How does the new human revealed to us in Jesus seize power and conquer his enemies? By laying down his life so that they can be forgiven. Jesus was constantly trying to get this kind of thing into the heads of his disciples.

If you want to be at the top of the heap, if you want to be at the front of the line, where do you go? Jesus said, you go to the end of the line. If you want to be the most influential person around, you become the servant of everyone around. It's Jesus' upside, to us, upside down. In God's perspective, his right side up set of values, human values. And so he lays down his life to defeat his enemies. None of us would go see that movie. You know what I'm saying? That movie would never make $1 billion, whatever. It wouldn't happen. We like the idea of power, ego, killing. At least we might say we don't, but then we buy money and go see the

stories. You know what I'm saying? It's this weird irony. Now, what's happening here in verses 14 and 15, remember he called Jesus, what was the Greek word up in verse 10 that he called him? What did he call Jesus? The archegos, the archegos. All of the language he's using in verse 14 and 15, he says, Jesus, he comes to destroy the power of the enemy to deliver those who are in slavery. Okay. And we just read that and we think, okay, that's kind of interesting or whatever. In this first century house church of these kind of Jewish listeners or whatever in this church, their categories are getting blown as they hear the words of verses 14 and 15. Jesus is the archegos. What? Because there is another hero, another archegos, well, well known from Greek and Roman mythology. And most of the language

that the author is using to describe Jesus here is tabbing into and borrowing and hinting at this story that all of us hearers would have known. There's another famous archegos, an ancient Greek and Roman story telling. And here's a picture of his ancient statue. So have you heard of this guy before? Hercules. Hercules. There you go.

The Disney movie is pitiful. I mean, this guy was horrifying. He's just, he's, he's, he's this, this, he embodies all of human aspiration to vanquish the enemy. How does Hercules kill his enemies? With a huge club. You see it over there? He clubs them to death.

And so the, ah, this is brilliant. This is like, this is like the author retelling the story of the Avengers, but through the gospel. And right when it comes to when the hero is supposed to kill and vanquish the enemy, how does he do it? By annihilating them? No, by laying down his life. By showing them grace so that they too can be forgiven and shown mercy. It's this twist here at the end. Through death, he defeats the power of death. It's the good news. For a world of people like us, this is really good news. This is really good news. Jesus does not want to annihilate you. He's here to rescue us, to restore our humanity,

to invite us. He's taken the hit for us, and he invites us into a new and different way of being human. That's his summons to discipleship. It's what it means to live according to his teachings. Different kind of humanity. It seems upside down to us. We're just going to finish out the last three verses here, and there's a world of stuff going on here that we can't touch, but it's okay because he's going to come back to all this later in the letter. He says, for surely it's not angels that Jesus came to help. He became a human to rescue humans. Therefore, he helps the offspring of Abraham.

He's going to talk about Abraham in chapter six. Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that he might become a merciful, faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. That's a mouthful. What we need as broken, screwed up human beings is somebody to stand in for us. To mediate between us and the God whose world we have totally ruined. And Jesus is that stand in. He's the priest. I'll talk about that in chapters 8 and 9.

For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. The hero entered into the condition and the suffering of his enemies to defeat the enemy by dying for them. There you go. That's the story he tells. It's the subversive, counterintuitive, beautiful story of God's grace in the gospel. Amen? Now, this sounds grandiose, and the author is meaning to be grandiose as he tells this story here, but this has feet to it. This has real feet to it. You may not have woken up, like, wondering, like, to whom will the world to come be subjected or whatever? That's okay. All right. But all of us have some idea,

and it's rooted in our core beliefs about who we are, about what it means to be a human being. And so this might kind of seem creepy to you or whatever, I wouldn't ever actually do this, but if I were to follow you around with a video camera, whatever, 24-7 or something, right? So I would never do this, but I'm just saying. Imagine it was just floating around, following you or something.

And let's just say, what kind of human are you? And how would I learn from you in your life, in your life choices, what it means to be a human being, right? And let's just say we watched every part of your life, you know, for like a week or something like that. What would we learn? We all are actually, this isn't theory, we're all living out some idea of what it means to be human in our relationships, in our workplaces, in our families, with our roommates, in school, or whatever. We're all living out some idea of what it means to be human. What kind of human are you? What story is your humanity telling? Is it the Hercules story? And you may not actually club people to death, I hope you don't, but you know we have a million different ways of crossing each other, snubbing

people, getting back at people. Don't cross me. I'll make you sad that you did. And we may be even passive aggressive about it, whatever. But we all have, it's our broken humanity. It's that will to power that Nietzsche put his thumb on. And we're just born with it. It's just in us. You cross the will to power of a three-year-old and you will hear about it. You know what I'm saying? No one had to teach them how to have this selfish will to power. They just have it. And if you get in their way, you'll throw a tantrum, right? It's in us. We're broken. Who's going to rescue us? And the message of the gospel is that the hero comes to confront us who have become his enemies, not by annihilating us, but by laying down his life for us. That's

what it means to be human. So what kind of human are you going to be? If you are forgiven by the grace of Jesus, if I say I'm his follower, what kind of human am I going to be? Am I going to be? If you are forgiven by the grace of Jesus, if I say I'm his follower, what kind of human am I going to be? Am I going to continue walking and being that old broken, whatever, Hercules kind of human? We all know where that goes. Like, look at the world that we've made, you know? Or am I going to hear this call, this counterintuitive, Or am I going to hear this call, this counterintuitive, accept the love and the grace of Jesus and allow it to begin to transform me, to become a different kind of human

so that in those relationships, in that workplace, in that difficult relational conflict, ever had one of those before, right? A relational conflict, you think through it differently. What would a Jesus kind of human be like in this circumstance? And so that's, in my mind, that's where this text just punches us in the gut. What kind of human are we? What kind of human are you becoming? And by God's grace and the power of the gospel, he can actually change, change us to become new kinds of humans.

People who live according to that upside down worldview system. So I don't know where you're at. I don't know how this lands with you. But each of us is some kind of human. And we're living out some vision of what it means to be human. And the good news gets in our face.

It just turns everything upside down. It challenges us at the same time as it shows us grace. So we're going to enter into a time of worship and a time of taking the bread and the cup. I mean, these symbols of the bread and the cup, they invite us into the very experience of Jesus laying down his life for us, defining that new humanity for us. And so we have just some time to pray, to sing, to take the bread and the cup. And the time is yours. And I would just encourage you,

maybe sit with verse 10, chapter 2, verse 10 in front of you and just meditate on the grace of Jesus that he would taste death for you, invite you into a new humanity. And think about what God's challenging you to do and to be in your day-to-day human life. Guys, thank you for listening to Exploring My Strange Bible podcast.

We're going to continue on with the letter to the Hebrews. But for now, let's go into our days with a new vision of what it means to be human. Thanks for listening, you guys. We'll see you next time.