The Glories of Christ

The major differences between true Christianity and false Christianity, or between legitimate faith and a heretical cult, always have to do with who Jesus is and what He has accomplished. Who is Jesus, and what has He done? If you get either of those questions wrong, you get Christianity wrong.

But more than simply being a test for orthodoxy, those questions are also guardrails for our personal faith. When you and I forget those realities, we stray from Christ. We drift away from what God the Father, and Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit intended for the Christian life.

This is the heart behind the passage we’re looking at today. The author of Hebrews wants to remind his hearers who Jesus is and what He has done.

Last week, we saw that Jesus is the ultimate man, the ultimate human. God created mankind to rule over the earth, but we have failed. Christ, however, restores His people so that they will one day rule over the earth with Him. He restores humanity. Jesus was exalted; He was crowned with glory and honor, and His people will be exalted as well one day.

One application of that is to always remember that Jesus is the perfect expression of what it means to be human. To be a true or complete man, or a true or complete woman, is to be like Jesus. Apart from Jesus, you and I are subhuman, if you will. Christ is your life. Your true life is hidden with Christ who, by the grace of God, died in your place.

This was a major problem for the Christians in the first century. We worship someone who is truly and fully God and also truly and fully man. And He died on a cross the way evil criminals were put to death.

In 1 Corinthians, Paul said that the death of Jesus was, to the Jews, a stumbling block and, to the Gentiles, foolishness. “What a stupid message and a stupid idea!” the people thought. “If He was all powerful God, why would He die such a humiliating and agonizing death? It doesn’t make sense!”

This is what led people to abandon the faith, or at least to be tempted to leave. What kind of a God would have to suffer like that?

Well, in answering that question, I want to frame our time today around a few headings, which we’ll look at one at a time, as the writer unpacks the significance of what Jesus has done.

Thinking about salvation, we’ll first see the glory of God. Then we’ll see the glory of man. And finally, the glory of Christ. It’s a real simple outline—the glory of God, the glory of man, and the glory of Christ. The first two will be relatively short, and we’ll spend most of our time on the final part.

Let’s start with the glory of God.

The Glory of God

In verse 10, rather than name God the Father explicitly, we get a reminder about Him. Who is He? He is the One for whom and by whom all things exist. That’s the glory of God.

God created everything that exists. That’s what it means that all things are by Him. Also, all things are intended to bring Him glory. He created everything for Himself, and He governs it all.

It’s a simple and fundamental reality, but we forget it so easily. We see injustice in the world. We see wars. We see pain and death, and we also see our own personal struggles and pains and challenges. An in those moments, we think, “What happened? Where is God?” And the answer is: He is where He has always been—on His sovereign throne.

Proverbs 16:4 says—The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.

Paul says in Romans 11:36—For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

All of human history, from the major world events, to the smallest details of your life have been written in God’s eternal plan. Human history is God’s story. He is the author, the writer, the director, the cinematographer, you name it. It’s all His. That’s the glory of God. Nothing is a coincidence. Nothing is plan B. He’s laid it all out exactly how it’s going to go.

And what is God’s eternal plan? It is the eternal redemption of mankind and of all creation. This takes us to our second heading, the glory of man.

In God’s design, He created mankind to rule over the earth. In God’s design, and yet without Him being the direct agent of sin or temptation, mankind fell away from his original design. He could no longer live up to his intended purpose and was headed for eternal judgment.

But in God’s design, there will one day be a redeemed and glorified human race upon the earth. This is the glory of man. It’s ultimately for the glory of god as Savior, but it includes the glory of man.

The Glory of Man

Look again at verse 10. What is God doing? He is bringing many sons to glory. This is God’s eternal plan. Generations of rebellious sinners—children of wrath—are becoming sons of God and they will be glorified one day because God is a merciful Redeemer.

You need to live with that hope and that expectation. If you trust in Jesus Christ, you are an adopted son of God, and there is a life to come that will infinitely outweigh all the pains and griefs of this life. This is not your true home. It’s only for a little bit.

You need to tell yourself that when your kids and your spouse disappoint you. You need to tell yourself that when you disappoint yourself because of sin and foolishness. You need to tell yourself that when you’re tired. There’s an end to this race. God is bringing you to glory, and all things are being worked out to that end for the glory of God.

So, we have the glory of God and the glory of man, but the focus in this passage is how God has chosen to accomplish these. How will God and man be glorified?

The short answer to that is Jesus Christ. But what specifically about Christ is the writer drawing our attention to? What kind of glory do we see?

Let me give you a list. First, we see the glory of supremacy.

The Glory of Christ in Supremacy

In verse 10, just like with God the Father, there is no explicit mention of Jesus the Son. Instead, He is referred to as “the founder of [our] salvation.” This is a tricky word to translate. ESV says “founder,” while other translations say “author,” “pioneer,” “captain,” or “leader.”

The word means “someone who goes first,” and it can be used in the sense of rank, but also in the sense of the person who goes first, like the person who makes a trail or invents something new.

Humanity is heading to glory, but in this cosmic war, it’s only because Christ has gone first, breaking the enemy lines and guaranteeing our victory. Jesus is our Captain, our Leader. This is Christ’ supremacy over every single one of us. Without Him, there is no glory for any of us.

But the glory of Christ in supremacy is met with something His people didn’t expect. Number two, we see now, the glory of suffering.

The Glory of Christ in Suffering

Christ willingly suffered as part of God’s plan. It had to be that way. Let’s read all of verse 10 now. It says—For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.

The champion of all humanity needed to suffer. Jesus understood this, and He said it to the disciples more than once—the Son of Man must suffer many things. He had to. Why?

Verse 10 says it was God’s plan because the suffering made Him perfect. Jesus was made perfect through suffering.

What does that mean? It can’t mean that the suffering had a morally purifying effect, because Jesus was already morally perfect. He was sinless and holy.

This is not talking about Jesus’ intrinsic perfection. This is talking about the perfection of His office, or His duty. The word “perfect” has the idea of completeness. Christ wasn’t just willing to suffer the penalty of sin; He did it so that He could perfectly fulfill His role in the eternal plan of God. What role is that? It is His role, not just as the Savior, the Lamb of God, but as our High Priest.

We’re going to continue talking about this next week, but jump down to verse 17 one more time. We read it at the beginning. Hebrews 2:17 says—Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

What is the role of a priest? It is to mediate the relationship between God and man. That’s what a priest does. The Jews understood that. When they felt distant from God, or when they knew they had sinned against Him, they needed a priest to oversee the sacrifice that would bring forgiveness and reconciliation.

Jesus didn’t just unlock a door to God’s office so that we could walk in and talk to Him. No, Jesus entered into that room with us and represented us perfectly.  e’s our leader, and He’s also like our lawyer, speaking and acting on our behalf. Jesus is our reconciliation with God. He’s the One who intercedes for us even now. He goes to God for us.

And the most supreme way Jesus has represented us is in His death on the cross. Jesus went on our behalf before the wrath of God. That’s why He suffered. That’s why Jesus died. The penalty of sin is death. Sin demands death. The law of God requires death and judgment for sin. But Jesus took that on Himself for all His people. That’s the glory of His suffering. The cross was the perfect fulfilment of His priestly function.

Now, in understanding Jesus’ priestly role, we get a third element of His glory. We see the glory of His supremacy, the glory of His suffering, and, now, the glory of His sympathy.

The Glory of Christ in Sympathy

If you adopt a dog or a cat, you rescue him from death. Some of that might be connected to a type of sympathy you feel. But there is a greater kind of sympathy when you extend help and mercy toward someone who is going through something you have gone through yourself. Isn’t that right?

Someone in our church gets diagnosed with cancer, and we feel it. We want to help. We want to minister.

But those of you who have personally gone through the diagnosis, and the treatment, and the radiation, and the chemotherapy, you get it all the more, don’t you. You know what they’re going through. And that’s a unique connection.

If you have cancer, a doctor can give all the information and advice you need, but if you talk to someone who has had the same kind of cancer and the same kind of treatments, you know they know what you’re going through.

This is what the suffering of Jesus accomplished. At the end of verse 9 it says that Jesus died to taste death for everyone. He experienced that universal human experience of pain and fear and death.

And it wasn’t just Jesus’ death that brought Him pain. Isiaah referred to Him as a man of sorrows. His was a life of pain and humiliation. He gave His life to serve others and to live in perfect obedience to God. That meant that He experienced temptation to the fullest because He never gave in.

Listen to how Hebrews 4:15 expresses it—We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Whether you are facing the physical pains associated with a fallen world or the spiritual pains of temptation and the effects of sin, know that Jesus knows exactly what you’re going through. He went through it Himself. He faced it. He sympathizes with you. He knows what you’re going through. He feels it. He identifies with it. He knows how to overcome it, and He’ll make sure it ends in victory.

As we wrap up our time, there’s one final element of Christ’s glory that this passage shows us, and it runs along the idea of Jesus identifying with His people. The final aspect of Christ’s glory is His solidarity. There was the glory of His supremacy, the glory of His suffering, the glory of His sympathy, and now, the glory of His solidarity.

The Glory of Christ in Solidarity

Look at verse 11—For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers.

The emphasis here is on Jesus’ unity with His people. He is the one that sanctifies, and we are the ones being sanctified. Jesus is making us holy. But in that relationship, Jesus is not totally distinct or distant from us. We are in the same family.

The ESV says we all have one source. The Greek literally says we are “of one.” We’re united by God, and we’re united in our humanity. We’re part of the same family.

Now, for those of you who have younger siblings, weren’t there times growing up when your little brother or your little sister embarrassed you? You wish they would just disappear, or that you could.

And those of you who are little brothers or little sisters, maybe you remember times like that when your older sibling expressed their embarrassment over you. It makes you feel dumb. You feel cast out. I might be mistaken, but I have a faint memory of a friend in college saying to his little sister, “You see, that’s why nobody likes you!” What a cruel thing to say.

Well, in continuing the family analogy, this passage views Jesus as our older brother. He’s the firstborn. He’s the only begotten Son. He’s the perfect Son. He’s the one who perfectly endured suffering under God’s plan.

And what does Jesus say about us? What would He say if you were standing in the same room as Him with all your defects and failures? What would He say about you?

The second half of verse 11 says—Look at verse 11—He is not ashamed to call [us] brothers.

He’s not ashamed. He stands with us. He defends us. He calls us His own.

And to back this up, we get some Old Testament passages which are given as if Christ Himself was speaking. The first is from Psalm 22, and we see it in verse 12. Christ says—I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise. Then, in verse 13, we get a couple passages from Isaiah 8—And again, “I will put my trust in him.” And again, “Behold, I and the children God has given me.”

If you belong to Christ, Jesus sees you and me as a gift to Him from God. He loves us. He stands with us in solidarity. While suffering, Jesus perfectly put his trust in God the Father, and in our weakness and suffering, Jesus is leading us to do the same.

This is the image of Christ you have to have. He’s our older brother teaching us and helping up. We sin, we worry, we do stupid things, but He is never ashamed to call us His own. He continues to teach us. He continues to help us come back to our heavenly Father.

In your worship of God, you might imagine God on His throne and Jesus on His throne as well. And they are exalted above us all. That’s true. There’s a place for that.

But there’s also a place to imagine our Savior Jesus Christ standing among our congregation as we worship. That’s the image of verse 12. He is in the midst of the congregation. Yes, He’s our leader and our lawyer, but He’s also our loyal friend. And He will not abandon us. He is not ashamed to call us His brothers.

Isn’t that an amazing thought? Isn’t that such a freeing thought? Jesus sees your thoughts. He knows your sin. He knows your human weakness. And in His infinite glory, He doesn’t look away. He says, “That’s my family.”

And when Satan or our own sin would say to us, “You don’t belong in heaven,” Jesus might say, “That’s right. You don’t belong in heaven, but you belong to Me. You belong to Me.”

I know today is Father’s Day, and I think there are some pretty clear and even helpful principles here as to how we men lead and shepherd our families. And those are good discussions to have.

But I don’t want to get sidetracked from the main goal of this passage which is to have us look, not to ourselves, but to our great Savior Jesus Christ.

In all our pains, in all our weaknesses and failures and sins and problems, we might think, “I’ve got it wrong. This can’t be right. Why am I suffering so much?” Or maybe we think, “I’ve blown it this time. God is done with me for sure.” In those moments, these are the truths we need to come back to. And these are the truths we need to remind one another about.

The Bible doesn’t just say that we might suffer, or that we should be ready to suffer, or even that we will suffer. The message of the Bible is that we must suffer. It has to happen. This is God’s plan for our eternal glory. It was the plan for Jesus Christ, and it will be the plan for our lives as well.

But as we suffer, we know that we have a perfectly faithful High Priest who knows what we’re facing, who helps us, and who is with us, even to the end of the age.