Hebrews 2:1-18

The work of Christ on our behalf has resulted in rich and immeasurable blessings for which we should be eternally grateful and to which we must pay very close attention.  Christ has provided for our spiritual needs in every conceivable manner.  We truly stand before Him without excuse because of the richness of His grace and the generosity of His sacrifice on our behalf.

WE ARE RESPONSIBLE BECAUSE OF CHRIST’S REVELATION: Christ not only revealed the Father to us through His incarnation, He has graciously recorded this revelation for in the form of the Scriptures.  We are responsible to pay very close attention to what God has revealed to us through Christ.  One day we will be held accountable for how we responded to that revelation.  Revelation is a tremendous blessing but it also results in tremendous responsibility.  We must be faithful to respond to what we have been taught from the Word of God.  We must be diligent to study God’s Word that we might know Him more.  We are responsible to obey what we know and to strive to learn from all that God has made available to us in His Word.  Laziness in the study of God’s Word will not be an adequate excuse for failure to comply with the revelation of God’s will in His Word.  We are responsible to do all that we know and to exercise all diligence in learning from God’s Word all that we do not know.

WE ARE SANCTIFIED THROUGH CHRIST’S SUFFERING: Through the incarnation of Christ, He was submitted to suffering that supersedes anything that any human has ever faced before or after Christ.  His death was totally undeserved in that He was sinless in every way.  He had created all that existed and yet was taken by those whom He had created and was beaten, scorned and nailed to a cross.  However, what evil men meant for bad, God used for His glory and the sanctification of all who believe.  The death of Christ paved the way for the eternal life of all who believe.  All who identify with Christ in His death and resurrection can expect to face similar suffering to the experience of Christ.  The major difference being that our suffering is fully deserved while His was not.  However, we can also expect to experience a similar glory to that which He is experiencing now in the presence of the Father.  Once again, this glory is fully deserved by Christ, while totally undeserved by us.  God’s grace and mercy reveled to us in Christ are boundless and amazing and should cause us to bow in worship before His throne.

WE ARE TRANSFORMED BY CHRIST’S TEMPTATION: The death of Christ has set us free from our bondage to sin.  He has liberated us from the sin to which we were enslaved.  We, who believe on Christ, have no reason to fear death and, by no means, should feel that we stand helpless before the raging sin of the societies in which we live.  We have eternal life and we are free from the power of sin.  Christ faced every temptation that we will ever face and He resisted that temptation fully and perfectly.  The amazing blessing is that He has promised to help us in the temptations that we face.  He is merciful and understanding of our realities, He has released us from all condemnation before God the Father and He stands ready, willing and perfectly able to help us in all our temptations.  We can be victorious over sin and live lives that are transformed because of the successful manner in which Christ faced temptation and His promise to help us and make us holy for the glory of God.