Tag Archives: Footnoted path

FYI: No chapter 2 in Philemon
√ Re·new·al: the replacing or repair of something that is worn out, run-down, or broken

Hebrews 2:5 It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. 6 But there is a place where someone has testified: What is mankind that you are mindful of them, a son of man that you care for him? 7 You made them [for a little while] a little lower than the angels; you crowned them with glory and honor 8 and put everything under their [Or his] feet.” In putting everything under them,[Or him] God left nothing that is not subject to them.[Or him] Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them.[Or him] 9 But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. 

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The first thing that caught my attention in Hebrews 2 was the [footnoted] path that challenged me look at “them” with the alternate [him.]  That was intriguing because I believe the Old Testament is a foreshadow comparing the glory and dominion God intended for man, then, to our example for life now, Jesus.  This was more than that for me.  God began our world with a plan to establish an identity of “glory and honor” between the divine beginnings of man and His own.

• Genesis 1:26 26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[Or the earth] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
• Later David wrote about man in relationship to God: “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, a son of man that you care for him?  You made them [for a little while] a little lower than the angels; you crowned them with glory and honor and put everything under their [Or his] feet.”
• Then Paul writes “In putting everything under them,[Or him] God left nothing that is not subject to them.[Or him].  Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them [Or him].  But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”

Did you catch that identity between “man” and “Jesus?”  Both were made “[for a little while] a little lower than the angels…both crowned with glory and honor and everything under their [Or his] feet” or “subject to them.[Or him].”  Clearly a strong identity but not quite a “likeness.”  G.K. Chesterton wrote “one thing is certain – man is not what he was meant to be.” 

• Jesus came into our world with the unmistakable identity of “man.”  He was born a baby!  The Son of God lived his identity with man, lost his identity because of man but was resurrected to reveal another unmistakable identity to man – the image of God!  That’s the revelation that turns our identity with Him into “likeness” and changes “for a little while” into an eternity of shared “glory and honor” with “them” [him].