Creator, Sustainer, Perfecter and Savior

By Cal Cook

Divinity came to earth and took humanity back to heaven. That’s how Dr. J. Vernon McGee put it…for some reason I kind of like that. Hebrews 1:1-4 gives us these various attributes of the Divinity of Christ:

Hebrews 1:2b-3 through the Son he created the universe. The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command.

Christ, the Son of God…the Word made flesh is our creator. The Word that came from the Father spoke us into existence and continues to sustain us and all creation by His command. The very idea that Jesus is that powerful, is that ancient, is that Divine…is rejected by many. Certainly the Jews who shouted crucify didn’t believe Him, certainly those Jewish believers today who are still waiting for the Messiah to come don’t believe Him. The Muslims who say that Jesus was a Prophet, yet Mohamed was greater don’t believe Him. The (so called) Christians who refuse to believe in His miracles, who place limits on what Jesus has done, or what He said, or even His titles don’t believe Him. The world around us that lives everyday completely oblivious to the beauty and majesty all around them, the ones who believe it all just somehow all fell together, randomly…don’t believe Him. Sometimes I wonder who has believed.

John 12:38

This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet: “Lord, who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”

Even many who were eyewitnesses of the miracles still refused to believe…I guess Jesus didn’t fit into the box they had made for God. Is it any wonder that those who have not seen would doubt? Yet our foolishness and inability to see the mystery of the wonders before us do not negate the work of Christ who not only created all things and sustains all things, but who is still in the process of perfecting and saving all things.

Hebrews 2:9b-10

Yes, by God’s grace, Jesus tasted death for everyone. God, for whom and through whom everything was made, chose to bring many children into glory. And it was only right that he should make Jesus, through his suffering, a perfect leader, fit to bring them into their salvation.

Through Jesus though we die, we still live…through Jesus we see the perfect example of what it means to be human. Through Jesus we see the vision of what God desires for us, tempted yet without sin, struggling, wanting, lacking…yet Holy.

I’ve long struggled with the Psalm quoted by the writer of Hebrews…the NLT translation renders it plural:

Hebrews 2:6-8

What are mere mortals that you should think about them, or a son of man that you should care for him? Yet you made them only a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You gave them authority over all things.”

The Psalm when read alone can seem to be speaking of us mortal men even as rendered here (a son of man) yet the passage in context here in Hebrews clearly is speaking of Jesus:

Hebrews 2:9a

What we do see is Jesus, who was given a position “a little lower than the angels”; and because he suffered death for us, he is now “crowned with glory and honor.”

In our vernacular a little lower seems to speak of less than, inferior…but again in context that is just the opposite of what is being said, Jesus is superior to the Angels as the writer has been arguing all along. For years I have thought of it in literal sense, Heaven is above earth is below so Jesus came to the earth, literally below the Heavenly realms where the Angels reside…

Yet when we look at the Psalm in Hebrew the word used for lower is ‘chacer’

which is translated as wanting. This may simply be a way of referring to Jesus’ humanity and is consistent with Orthodox understanding of Jesus being fully man and fully God…yet it speaks of something more to me. Although I’m no expert on Angels scripture tells us they exist in the Heavenly Realms and do visit humans now and again in our realm to proclaim and announce things to us. They come in and out of the presence of the Lord and appear to lack for nothing…they do not desire things in the same way that we do…do they know of hunger or thirst, pain or sorrow? If they want for anything it is not made evident to us in scripture…in fact that would be contrary to our understanding of Heaven with, no more sorrow, no more pain.

Could it be that when Christ put on flesh in the person of Jesus He was made to want, to desire things, to experience the lack of things just as we do? That is what it means to be fully man, to be tempted, to long for things. He now is our mediator as scripture says:

Hebrews 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.

Have the Angels ever known of suffering, of pain, of the longings of want? Without the depths of sorrow, the emptiness of pain can you experience the height of joy, the fulfillment of bliss? Is the light less bright when not contrasted to utter darkness? Jesus like us was made a little lower than the Angels to experience everything we experience so that He might be the perfect mediator between us and God…fully man, yet fully God.