Post 15 of Study: Hebrews 2

 One must admit that the argument of Hebrews, while logical, is dense and tight and needs a lot of untangling. Women know how necklace chains get tangled and have to be carefully undone; studying Hebrews is a bit like that linguistically. I correct myself also; I wrote earlier that there are four warning detours, but there are five. 2:1-4 is one of them. The writer seems to say at a high point (as in 1:13-14): Pay attention! Don't forget this! Don't stop assembling with others! Don't go back to dependence on sacrifices!

I for one see the need for this. We call it nudging, and it's annoying and necessary. The human mind, especially today, is so distracted, that we really do have to be reminded of things many, many times. We have to hear something a dozen, two dozen times before it really lodges in. I could give lots of examples, but COVID is one. We are constantly reminded of the mask/handwashing/distancing/etc. because we won't get it just one time. I remind my students of upcoming assignments in every class. My phone, even though I don't like it, beeps at me about soon-to-come appointments. 

In 2:1-4 he states: Pay attention. Keep this in focus. "Give the more earnest heed." And then he gives the reason: If angels' messages were steadfast and came true, and angels are inferior to Jesus, how are you going to be "off the hook" if you forget, ignore, displace the message of the gospel, which in recent memory, not that long ago, was revealed by Christ, confirmed by his hearers, and validated by all kinds of miracles and then the giving of the Holy Spirit?

Verse 5 seems, then, to join back to 1:14. Angels aren't in charge. At Creation the physical world was put under the dominion of humans, not angels, according to Psalm 8 and Genesis. Angels, for all their glory, just don't get a piece of this pie. However, this promise is only partially fulfilled in the present time. Yes, mankind has learned amazing things about the physical world and developed ways to control it: antibiotics and vaccines being two (although I'm not going to rush to take a COVID one!) "But now we do not yet see all things put under him. But we (do) see Jesus....."

This is profound. One, in the final kingdom, the physical, nonhuman world will be under mankind's dominion fully, as it was to be at Creation. That will be restored.  Two, that it hasn't fully happened yet; three, what we do experience (see being a full, operative concept here) is (looping back to the beginning of the book) the appearance of Jesus Christ, "who was made a little lower (or for a little while) than the angels" so He could suffer and die, and ascend. He, by the grace of God, tasted death for everyone.  

As I've said before, Hebrews bothers people because it goes against their systematic theologies or pre-set doctrines. I prefer to live in the somewhat ambiguity/complexity/tension of Hebrews and therefore "see Jesus."