Hebrews 2:10-18
Jesus’ suffering with and for humanity qualifies him as our sympathetic savior & faithful high priest.
I. The Solidarity of Jesus’ Suffering (2:10-13)
Isaiah 53:3-4, 7:
3 He was despised and rejected by men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And as one from whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we esteemed him not 4 Surely he has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted… 7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted;
“There are many points in which Christ could not save us without suffering. He could not be a perfect Substitute unless he bore our sin and shame. He could not be a perfect Sympathizer unless he bore our suffering. This, perhaps, is the main point in which Christ is perfected; he becomes capable of entering into all the griefs that disturb the many sons whom he is to lead to glory. In our Elder Brother, the heir of all things, there is an epitome of all the sorrows of all the rest of the family.” ~ Charles Spurgeon
1 Peter 4:13: But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.
II. The Success of Jesus’ Suffering (2:14-15)
Jesus’ success in suffering:
He destroys the power of death itself
He frees us from our slavery to the fear of death
“All religions talk about death and the afterlife, but in general they proclaim that you must lead a good life in order to be ready for eternity. Yet as death approaches, we all know we have not even come close to doing our best; we have not lived as we ought. So we stay, with warrant, enslaved by the fear of death until the end. But Christianity is different. It doesn’t leave you to face death on your own, by holding up your life record & hoping it will suffice. Instead, it gives you a champion who has defeated death, who pardons you and covers you with his life. You face death “in him” and with his perfect record. To the degree we believe, know, and embrace that, we are released from the power of death.” ~ Tim Keller
III. The Sympathy of Jesus’ Suffering (2:16-18)
“Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means.” ~ C.S. Lewis
