Hebrews 2

Christians in the first century who were facing persecution from both Jews and Gentiles had to battle against the temptation of giving up on public worship. Public worship has always been a testimony to the world. To attend, to pray together and sing songs to God, to listen submissively to His Word, and particularly to eat at the table of the Lord is to proclaim a serious message: “Christ died for sinners, and I am in that number.” It has always been an extreme action. Together the church says that there is a heaven, and that heaven's King has come, and that He is not content with things as they are. Public worship of the God of Israel through Jesus Christ says that I am in the number that believes in and follows a new Lord of salvation.

If that becomes dangerous, it is always tempting to think that we can hold to these kinds of beliefs privately without having to actually go to a place of assembly where my testimony will be public. Particularly for those first century Jews and God-fearing Gentiles who had left their synagogues in order to associate with those who believed that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, and had faced persecution for that decision, it must have been tempting to think that they could neglect the message of Christ, at least publicly, and yet be a part of the people of salvation in their hearts, without facing the danger of a bolder testimony of worship in a Christian assembly.

The author of Hebrews wanted those who faced that kind of temptation to know that the New Covenant Word of Christ and the kingdom of heaven was not less serious than the Old Testament Law. If we need to compare, it was more serious to walk away from the assembly of Jesus. To ignore the church is to walk away from the Son of God, the final Word from heaven.

How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? That Word was first delivered from the Son of God Himself during His earthly ministry. It was then completed by the Son's declaration from heaven through the first century apostles and prophets. Even today, Jesus speaks through His preachers the same final Word that He spoke back in the days when the New Testament letters were being composed and read in the churches of that day when that Word was accompanied by miraculous signs that testified to this new period of revelation from heaven.

It may help us to comprehend the seriousness of the Word of Christ if we can see Him as the key to a new world. There are two worlds of which we can speak. The first is Adam's world, and we live in it, but we are not of it. We give the testimony of public worship and sanctified living in Adam's world, and there we may face persecution from those who may reject Christ and His message. There is also a world to come, where Jesus already is, together with his holy angels and redeemed humans who have finished their race here below. It is this second world of which the author of this letter writes, calling it “the world to come, of which we are speaking.”

Quoting Psalm 8, he says this psalm can be read in terms of Adam's world, which is perishing, or it can be read in terms of the world of Jesus, which is a world of life. Jesus was made a little lower than the angels, coming into the present world in order to establish the next world in His worshiping church. God put everything in Adam's world under Adam in the beginning, There Adam sinned for us, and all fell in Him. But now God has put everything in the world to come, Jesus' world, under Jesus' feet, though we do not yet see everything in subjection to Him.

But what do we see? We see Jesus, His suffering for us for a little while, and His exaltation to the highest heaven. Why did He come to Adam's world? It was necessary that He taste death for everyone in the new world that is coming into being, that world of which the author says he is speaking. Jesus came to die for us. The pathway back to heavenly glory for the King of the kingdom was through suffering. According to Psalm 22, that psalm that Jesus quoted from the cross, we are the brothers of the One who is the Founder of our salvation. We are the sons of God who have put our trust in Jesus, the only-begotten Son of the Father.

He shared in our flesh and blood in order to rescue us out of Adam's world with His death. We were under the power of the evil one, but Jesus has destroyed that power and kingdom through His victory on the cross. Now we are free from the bondage of the fear of death, a death that would once have only led to the Lord's righteous judgment against us. God has helped us in Christ, and now death has already lost something of its sting.

Through faith in Christ, Jews and Gentiles have together become the chosen seed of God, the offspring of Abraham. He who is our great Prophet as the final Word, and our matchless King over God's new kingdom world, is also our great High Priest, who offered Himself up to God as a propitiation for the people, a sacrifice that has turned away the wrath of God for us. He knows what it is to suffer on the pathway to glory. He is our perfect Helper now, encouraging us in the faithful testimony of worship as the assembly of those who place our trust in Him. He is powerful brother who preserves us in the Name of God when we are tempted to turn away from Him and His people in a day of persecution.