Man’s Lost Destiny
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2024 · 14 July 2024
The Book of Hebrews is dedicated to the majesty and the superiority of Jesus Christ over anybody and anything else. Hebrews is for the very purpose of exalting Jesus Christ, particularly above everything related to Judaism prior to the coming of Christ, whether it’s the angels or Moses or Aaron or Melchizedek. Jesus Christ is superior to everything connected with the Old Testament.
Hebrews tells us that Jesus will come again and He will one day put all enemies under His feet, and he will reign supreme. Hebrews says that the whole universe exists by and for Jesus Christ. And the entire history of the universe is hastening to the coronation of Jesus Christ. The world for which He shed His blood, for which He paid the purchase price shall belong to Him.
The message from beginning to end of Hebrews is the superiority of Jesus Christ. And this is so important because when Christ came as the Messiah of Israel, the one who fulfilled all the Old Testament promises, the Jews rejected Him. Consequently, they had made the mistake of accepting all of the types, symbols, and rituals of the Old Testament, and then rejected the reality when He came.
They must understand that Jesus Christ was the redeemer that God promised. He was the redeemer that all true saints hoped for. He was the only redeemer that men would ever know. And how were you saved in the Old Testament? You were saved by believing the promise of God that gave. How are you saved in the New Testament? You’re saved by believing the promise of God you received.
And so all through Hebrews you have the word better, better this, and better that, all revolving around Christ. The better things finally have come in Jesus Christ. And so that Christ fulfills all the significance of the Old Testament. Now we could take the prophecy in Isaiah 53 about the death of Jesus Christ, and we could show how Jesus in His death fulfilled it to the absolute letter.
And that’s why Jesus made the statement in Matthew that, “I am not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill the law.” But let me just take one little area of the Old Testament that finds itself resolved in Christ, and that’s the area of types. Types are merely Old Testament pictures of Christ. It could be a man, an event, an animal, a situation, whatever it may be, that pictures Christ.
In the Old Testament you have sacrifices. And a sacrifice was taken, and the blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled on the arc of the covenant, which symbolized the presence of God. And by that, men were acknowledging that God would be appeased in His dealing with sin by the sprinkling of blood. They were only picturing a more noble blood, which should be shed only once for all.
And the picture of sacrifice, and the sprinkling of blood was nothing but a type of what Jesus would do, and He was the fulfillment. Another is the dwelling in Tabernacles. And this is prophesied by the appearance of God in human flesh, but just as a temporary humble dwelling below His dignity, and Jesus himself made the statement that He had come to Tabernacle among men.
And this is historically since the time of Christ, the unbelievable dilemma of the Jew who is totally unable to resolve all of the conflicts left by an unfulfilled old covenant. And so you know what you have? You have born out of that problem liberal Judaism and “conservative” Judaism, and a moving away from orthodoxy, because Orthodox Judaism makes no sense. It’s totally unfulfilled.
Now in Hebrews 2:5, where we start tonight, He returns to superiority of Christ over angels. He’s still in this same argument, and here is a tremendous point in verse 5. And “For He has not subjected to angels the world to come that we are talking about.” Now there is a tremendous point there. He is saying, God did not give subjection of the world to come to angels.
Verse 5 says, “For He has not subjected to angels the world to come that we are talking about.” This passage accomplishes three things. Number one, it shows another proof that Jesus is better than angels. Number two, it answers an objection. If He was a man and He died, how could He possibly be superior to angels? Thirdly, these verses reveal the only hope for a man’s recovery of his lost destiny.
Mankind today is lost. Mankind today has lost the meaning of his existence. And this passage is going to teach us how it is that man can recover his destiny and, in fact, what his destiny is. We’ll look at it just in three points. Man’s destiny revealed by God, man’s destiny restricted by sin, and man’s destiny recovered by Christ. Now first of all we see man’s destiny revealed by God.
The world to come is the greatest that’s ever been. The world to come is the great and glorious world. And whoever reigns in that world must be glorious beyond glory, and it isn’t angels. It indicates, first, that angels’ superiority over men is only temporary. Because you’re going to find in the next two verses who is going to rule in the age to come. You know who it is? Mankind.
Now you’ll notice in verse 5 the term world. It is the word oikoumenēn. Oikos means house. It means inhabitance. The word means the inhabited earth. Now that can’t be this earth, because this inhabited earth isn’t to come, it’s to go. There’s got to be another inhabited earth to come. I’ll tell you what it is. It’s the great millennial kingdom. It’s the new inhabited earth for a thousand years.
And all the creatures that go into that new inhabited earth are going to be totally different. The animals will be different, and even the people will all be redeemed people that go in at the beginning of that new inhabited earth. The world to come will not be put in subjection to angels. Now the world to go, which is this world right now, is in subjection to fallen angels.
Who is number one fallen angel? Satan. Who is prince of this world? Satan. Who is the sovereign of this world? Satan. Not only does Satan and his fallen angels rule in a sense in this world. Daniel 10:20 says, “Do you know why I’ve come to you? I must return at once to fight against the prince of Persia, and when I leave, the prince of Greece will come.” The rule of this earth is now by angels.
Now from Ephesians 6, we know that this world is ruled by demons. That they are sovereigns in the world. They’re called principalities powers and rules of the darkness of this world. Spiritual wickedness in high offices. And this the ranks of demons. They are the ones that are ruling the world. So the inhabited earth now is under the sovereignty of angels, holy and unholy, battling it out.
The earth to come will be under the control of mankind. And these verses reveal God’s planned destiny for men. Verse 6 says, “But someone somewhere testified” and He means David in Psalm 8. This is on purpose. All throughout Hebrews the Holy Spirit never names any Old Testament author. He just eliminates the human instrument and makes it all the voice of God.
And so the Holy Spirit says, “What is man, that You remember him?” This is David talking to God, “or the son of man, that You care for him?” I mean the point is simply this, God, what is man that you would give him so much bounty and so much blessing? Then it says in verse 7, “You made him lower than the angels for a short time; you crowned him with glory and honor.”
Verse 8, and subjected everything under his feet. For in subjecting everything to him, he left nothing that is not subject to him. As it is, we do not yet see everything subjected to him.” Did you hear that? Did you know that God’s original design, destiny for man was that man is to be the king of the earth? And that everything in existence was to be in subjection to man?
God made a race of kings. And so is the writer of Hebrews, secondarily, from Genesis 1:26 we read, and God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness: and let them have dominion.” Did you get that? Man was made a king. “Dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock over all the earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.”
Notice in verse 6, He also says, “The son of man.” Some have interpreted it to be a reference to Christ. No. Son of man is simply a Hebrew term referring to mankind. Of what importance is frail humanity? Notice in verse 7, “You made him lower than the angels for a short time; You crowned him with glory and honor. When God created man, He made them in a sense lower than angels.
It was not that they were lower than angels spiritually. God loved man with the infinite capacity that He has with which He loves angels and men equally. It was only that man was lower than angels in the sense that he was physical and angels were spiritual. God in the very beginning knew that the ultimate destiny of man would not be something lower than angels. This is a temporary chain of command.
God was looking past into the future that redeemed man would come in Christ and would rise in redemption to God’s presence and be different than angels. Angels were not confined to the supernatural. They could move down to the earth any time God wanted; so they had options that mankind didn’t have. Angels had access to the throne of God whenever they desired.
Angels were, after Satan’s rebellion, secured in holiness forever. Man was not. He was only innocent, but he had the choice to sin. And so angels were perfect and man was only innocent; in that sense, he was lower. Angels have supernatural power and strength even sinless men didn’t have. But the key is this, with angels there was no possibility to die. With men, there was.
Daniel 7:18 says, “But the holy ones of the Most High will receive the kingdom and possess it forever, yes, forever and ever.” It’s a forever kingdom. Who will take the kingdom? The holy ones of the most High. Who is going to rule in the kingdom, not angels, but redeemed mankind. And thus, He says in Hebrews that mankind was made for a little time lower than the angels.
In Ephesians 1:20 it says, “Christ will reign in the kingdom,” it says, “He will reign over principalities and powers.” Who are they? Angels. If Christ reigns over angels in the kingdom and we sit on His thrown with Him, who reigns in the kingdom? We do, over angels. And in God’s ultimate design, we man, are lower than angels for a little while, but we are kings over the undefiled new earth.
What happened to Adam immediately after he had sinned? First there was murder among his own family. Then there was polygamy. In the next few chapters, there was death. And by the time you come to Genesis 6, God destroys the whole world because it’s gotten so debouched. Indeed, man lost his crown. And the earth now is ruled in the conflict between the holy and the unholy angels.
The whole earth groans is waiting for the day that we are manifested in God’s glorious kingdom, because once the kingdom starts, the earth gets liberated from the curse. God subjected the earth to this curse in order that man might have trouble all his days and know that he had to pay for his sin by fighting against his own earth, which was designed to be his subject.
Verse 9 says, “But we do see Jesus—made lower than the angels for a short time so that by God’s grace he might taste death for everyone—crowned with glory and honor because He suffered death.” He became a man. Why? For the suffering of death. And He also is crowned with glory and honor. Jesus, that He, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man.
Now go back to Hebrews 2:9 and you’ll see the meaning here. We see Jesus, He had to be a man to gain man’s dominion, who was also for a little time made lower than the angels for the suffering of death. Why? Because He had to taste death for every man. And so Jesus came and died. And the reason He could die for us is because He could not only die, but He could conquer death. Right?
Revelation 20:4 says, “Then I saw thrones, and people seated on them who were given authority to judge. I also saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and who had not accepted the mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.”
Mankind will be changed in the kingdom. Not only are men going to be changed, but animals are going to be changed. Isaiah 11:6-7, “The wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the goat. The calf, the young lion, and the fattened calf will be together, and a child will lead them. 7 The cow and the bear will graze, their young ones will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like cattle.”
And not only that, the plants are going to be different. That’s in Isaiah 35:1 which says, “The wilderness and the dry land will be glad; the desert will rejoice and blossom like a wildflower.” And there’s no reason for you to be a slave, and there’s no reason for you to be a pauper. There’s only reason for you to be a king. God says, “Man is the king of the earth, only for a little time, even made lower than angels.” Let us pray.