Coromandel Baptist Church

Sunday 24 February 2008 Psalm 8; Hebrews 2:5-13

Dominion and the World to Come

If one were to analyse the exhortations, rebukes and encouragements in Hebrews the issues addressed would fall into three main categories: faith, hope and love. These three form a triad in much NT writing (e.g. 1 Cor. 13:13), but not from a theoretical or academic approach to theology. They were the substance of the life of the NT communities. It goes without saying that these three are very closely integrated and the letter to the Hebrews takes their importance and interconnection as two ‘givens’ from which the Church should not be moved. Though the writer does not give a systematic exposition of the themes or their relationship, the whole letter is suffused with them and the writer’s purpose is to encourage and inflame the living reality of faith, hope and love among his readers/hearers.

In Hebrews 2:5 we are given an important insight. The writer has ‘the world to come’ in view. Throughout Hebrews, the hope to which he urges his readers is not of this world. Those great men and women of faith in Hebrews 11, for example, typify the walk of faith, which looks for the inheritance promised by God beyond the world seen by sight. The writer quotes Psalm 8, which in many ways is the OT exposition of Genesis 1:26ff. While absolute dominion belongs to God alone, as the Creator of all things (1 Chron. 29:11 cf. Rev. 5:11), it is clear from the creation accounts that a constituent part of the image of God in humanity is the capacity for dominion. We are his vice-regents on the earth, created to do his will and to rule over his creation in his name. The fall has changed none of that essentially, but it has changed all of it practically. Essentially, humanity still exercises dominion over the creation. Even the decision to leave a rainforest as a wilderness heritage site, is a dominion decision. However, since the entrance of human sin, the dominion we exercise has become distorted, twisted by human self interest and idolatry, and marked by our own (conflicting) understandings of good and evil. On the earthly scene we do not yet see all things actively subject to the dominion of humanity. For example, human beings die and their life passes in a breath. They are under the dominion of angelic powers, and in particular they are enslaved to Satan, in their fear of death. Certainly, when we contemplate the world to come we do not see any of the eternal dominion for which we were created to be in operation.

However, the writer is not concerned first and foremost with this world, or the dominion exercised by fallen humanity. As he goes on to show, we do see a man, Jesus, raised to God’s right hand, upholding all things by the word of his power, and interceding for us forever by the power of his indestructible life. He is the True Man of whom Psalm 8 speaks, and this one has not been ashamed to call us his brothers. He has been raised from the dead to lead us in praise and worship of God the Father, testifying to us that we can put our faith in Him.

Jesus exercises such dominion from the utter humility of his love, by which he tastes death for every man. He, who created all angelic hosts, took human nature to himself, to live with fallen humanity under the very angelic beings he had created. He even allowed himself to be subjected to the direct attacks of Satan, who came against him in the Cross, but who could not defeat him because of the utter purity and holiness of his humanity. Thus, it is none other than Jesus, the slain Lamb, who has all power and authority vested in himself by the will of the Father (Matt. 28:11 cf. Rev. 5:12).

In this office, Jesus does not live for himself. He is indeed the leader, trailblazer, pioneer, captain or author of our faith (depending on the translation) who has gone before us so that we may follow on! He does not live for himself but for us, his people, whom he represents in the very presence of God.

In all this, Jesus has been perfected for his task. The word ‘perfect’ is important in Hebrews. It appears frequently (the verb or its derivatives occurring fourteen times) and in contexts that are quite important for the development of the writer’s themes. While in English we most naturally think of perfection in terms of moral or ethical qualities, we still retain a number of other important uses of the word. For example, we use ‘perfect’ in the sense of mature and fully formed (this is a perfectly ripe apple; he has now become the perfect player of spin bowling); we also use it to speak of something that is fitted for the task (this stone is a perfect fit for the wall I am building; the piece of mosaic fits perfectly); and we also use it in the sense of fulfilling or completing (this event is the perfect culmination of all that has gone before). It is this range of meanings that is more closely connected with the concept of perfection. In the Greek of the NT the word is essentially related to maturity, and, by association fulfilment.