For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere,
“What is man, that you are mindful of him,
or the son of man, that you care for him?
You made him for a little while lower than the angels;
you have crowned him with glory and honour,
putting everything in subjection under his feet.”
Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honour because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. 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. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source.
Comment: You may remember that in a devotional around Easter we talked about Jesus walking with Cleopas and another unnamed person about all that the Old Testament had said about Him. A number of the Psalms are called Messianic Psalms because they were understood both by many Jews before Jesus was born and Christians since His coming to refer to Jesus as the Messiah’.
In this short passage the author quotes from Psalm 8 and refers also to other OT books in claiming: –
- Angels will not be the rulers of men even though they may be more important in the whole eternal and time worlds.
- Although all men are less than angels. Here One called the ‘Son of Man’ who was above the angels as part of the Triune God, takes a place below them by becoming a man.
- He came to die as all humans do, He is now raised and crowned with Glory and Honour. His death has highlighted His Glory and His death was for everyone.
- The perfect Son of God had to learn the lesson of suffering. He became a man who went through all that we do in life and more than most of us. We wait anxiously for the story to unfold!
Prayer: Give me patience and persistence as the story unfolds, please.
As I read it! 