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Articles 2018-2020
In referencing the holy angels, the writer to the Hebrews makes a startling observation.
Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will (Greek, MELLO – are about to) inherit salvation?
Wait. I thought the readers had already inherited salvation. Absolutely. Indeed, their sins had been cleansed and they would be with the Lord forever.
But the salvation our God has purchased for His people involves more than our simply going to heaven when we die. And He continues to bring it into clarity as we follow Him. Because our walk with Him is living and vital, we stand every moment on the edge of new insight and fresh experiences of our God, our salvation. When we gather with the Lord’s people, we look for Him to come into greater focus in our hearts through the Holy Spirit’s ministry among us. And as we go out to face the world, we go expecting God to reveal His Son both in the creation as well as through relational circumstances. Indeed, genuine Christianity is always lived on the edge of inheriting Heaven’s salvation. And God is continuously sending the holy angels to serve us in this unfolding drama.
For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it.
Drifting takes no effort. A napping fisherman in a boat may suddenly discover when he wakes that he has no idea where he is. Jesus did not say that we are to only pray, but that we are to watch and pray – to pay attention. The writer goes on to say that we simply must not neglect our great salvation. His concern was not only that we not reject it but that we not neglect it – that we give it its proper priority in our hearts (Hebrews 2:2 - 3).
One reason we must pay attention is because of our relationship to the world.
For He did not subject to angels the world (Greek, OIKOUMENE – the earth or a region as it is inhabited) to come (Greek, MELLO – about to come, impending), concerning which we are speaking. But one has testified somewhere, saying, “WHAT IS MAN, THAT YOU REMEMBER HIM? OR THE SON OF MAN, THAT YOU ARE CONCERNED ABOUT HIM?
The earth, our nation, and even the local region of our residence that is impending as we face each day has not been subjected to the angels but to us. And we must face it filled with the grace and the presence of our God.
Our best example of course, is Jesus. He ruled when He walked the earth. He was not governed by fear, greed, lust, etc. He was not even ruled by the Roman Empire. They did not determine His fate at Calvary; the Father did (Matthew 26:42). And even there, when unforgiveness could have been His choice, He forgave those who sought His death. In submitting to His Father, He revealed Heaven’s authority and overcame even in the midst of injustice. Because He had come to make God’s kingdom known, the authority He exercised was not political but revelatory. The throne at the center of the universe was coming into clarity before the eyes of the whole earth. And this process is continuing even in our day.
The writer then gives us more insight concerning the Lord’s intent when He created man.
”YOU HAVE MADE HIM FOR A LITTLE WHILE LOWER THAN THE ANGELS; YOU HAVE CROWNED HIM WITH GLORY AND HONOR, AND HAVE APPOINTED HIM OVER THE WORKS OF YOUR HANDS; YOU HAVE PUT ALL THINGS 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.
Adam was crowned with glory and honor. And he was to rule over the works of God’s hands. But when he sinned, the image of God in him was marred and the glory lost. Yet man today inherently knows that he is to rule and so he attempts to do so apart from relationship with the One who created him. The results have not been good. In the last century alone, we have reaped Nazism, Communism, Secular Humanism, and Sharia Law. And tyranny is always the end result. So, rather than ruling as God intended, man is instead ruled by fear, lust, greed, the desire for power, etc.
While we obviously do not see all things subject to those descended from Adam, Heaven has given us the solution – the One that scripture refers to as the last Adam (1Corinthians 15:45). Christ – the firstborn of many.
But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.
The glory lost in Adam’s fall has now been revealed in Christ through His embrace of death for us all. And the Good News does not stop there. God is even bringing those who believe in Him onward in a journey into that very glory revealed in His Son.
For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.
The foundation for the recovery of what was lost in Adam has now been revealed in Christ. While Adam’s loss of the glory of God brought about the forfeiture of his right to rule, Christ’s embrace of the cross revealed the glory of God and established Him as the One worthy to govern creation. And His agenda is to restore us to Heaven’s original intent. As the writer said above, our God did not subject to angels the impending inhabited earth – what we go out to face every day. But He has said, “What is man?”
Exactly.
All of humanity, and specifically psychologists, psychiatrists, educators, scientists, and theologians have wrestled with that question. The answer lies partly in Jesus’ statement in John 15:5 – Apart from Me you can do nothing. Apart from Him, we will never understand our identity, our purpose, or our destiny to rule. But Jesus sees exactly who we are. He sees our shortcomings as well as our obedient responses to Him. And along with this, He sees His disciples as no longer descended from Adam, but born of God; He sees us as His brethren. So, He is not ashamed of us.
For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, “I WILL PROCLAIM YOUR NAME TO MY BRETHREN, IN THE MIDST OF THE CONGREGATION I WILL SING YOUR PRAISE.”
It was as Jesus hung upon the cross that He thought these very words, that He anticipated the resurrection, and looked forward to proclaiming God’s name in the congregation of the righteous (Psalm 22:11 - 22). The joy before Him was not only that He would ascend back to the Father, but that from heaven He would arise on earth in the midst of His brethren proclaiming the glories of God.
Christ’s strategy is to proclaim God’s name to His people (Jesus means Yahweh is salvation) and then to arise in our midst with the voice of Heaven sung through our hearts and lips pronouncing our God’s attributes, His flawless character, His amazing power, His abundant mercy, and His perfect judgments. Here is a key expression of His rule in the creation, in the midst of His enemies. And He has involved us in its execution.
Often, we have seen our gatherings as times where from the front of the meeting we will sing His praise. And as good a practice as that is, He is indicating something a bit different in these verses. From the midst of the congregation, He will sing and lead us in articulating Heaven’s view of God and His works among men. Have we not all experienced those times when we moved from simply singing unto the Lord to where He arose in our midst and the river of life carried us on in the wonderful proclamations of the wonders of God?
And when we found ourselves singing spontaneously the eternal perspectives of Heaven, we realized that we were touching the realm of the prophetic. Christ was making known in His people both the strategy of Heaven and the holy attributes of God upon which those strategies are based. And as we proclaimed His heart over our region, our nation, and even the whole earth, He was imparting through His creative words the power for many on earth to be changed.
Musicians in God’s house must not settle for functioning as a kind of musical clergy where the only ones who can discern and then sing out with the mind of the Lord are those leading in song and those playing musical instruments. The power to change the earth will not be expressed solely through leadership but through a corporate priesthood. It is in the midst of His brethren that Heaven’s authority is released to change the nations.
Again, as He was on the cross, our Lord trusted in His Father to raise Him from death and then bring Him into a wholly new relationship with His people.
And again, “I WILL PUT MY TRUST IN HIM.” And again, “BEHOLD, I AND THE CHILDREN WHOM GOD HAS GIVEN ME.”
The key to uprooting the enemy from his influence on the nations is not only in Christ’s death and resurrection but also in His identification with His children at Calvary.
Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.
Freedom has come and continues to come to multitudes. And that number will only increase as God’s people keep discovering Christ’s resident authority in His corporate priesthood. O Lord arise in the midst of Your people anointing us and singing forth the glories of Heaven. May our worship become increasingly prophetic and accompanied by intercessory insight. Indeed, let Your kingdom come. Let Your will be done here like it is in heaven. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
Donald Rumble – February 2020
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