Post 17 of Study: Hebrews 2
The notes in my version of the Word say that 2:5-18 "is an important sectional theologically in that several reasons for the incarnation as a necessity are listed." So we will look through that lens
However, as this is Sunday, I will only refer the reader to Psalm 8, which is quoted in 6-8. The wording is slightly different because the writer of Hebrews uses the Septuagint. It would do well for any person studying the New Testament to read a little about the Septuagint, often referred to as LXX (70). This is a good source: https://biblearchaeology.org/research/new-testament-era/4022-a-brief-history-of-the-septuagint
O Lord, our Lord,
How excellent is Your name in all the earth,
Who have set Your glory above the heavens!
2 Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants
You have [b]ordained strength,
Because of Your enemies,
That You may silence the enemy and the avenger.
3 When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,
4 What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit[c] him?
5 For You have made him a little lower than [d]the angels,
And You have crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,
7 All sheep and oxen—
Even the beasts of the field,
8 The birds of the air,
And the fish of the sea
That pass through the paths of the seas.
9 O Lord, our Lord,
How excellent is Your name in all the earth!
I have bolded the part quoted, a tad loosely, in Hebrews 2.
I had never actually realized until now that this psalm was a prophecy, with double meaning of mankind given dominion originally and in the kingdom, and referring to Christ.
One thing we will need to wrestle with is whether there is a difference between Jesus, Christ, Lord, and Messiah. Not that I can help much. I think, generally, Jesus refers to the man walking on the earth whom the readers of Hebrews may have even seen or at least heard of from witnesses. Christ is NOT a different person or consciousness or some spirit that came upon the man Jesus, but an emphasis on a title in Jewish thinking (anointed, Messiah). Lord is a title after His exaltation. I could forgive someone from thinking Jesus was a stage in this holy person's life, or a human who got inhabited by God, or some other version of that--however, those are not the case.
My point is that Hebrews stretches our brains. We have to come to it with a willingness to discard some teachings, or at least a desire to expand our understanding of God's kingdom and will.
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