Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Hebrews 2:5-18
## Reformation Covenant Church | Pastor Dennis Tuuri

Ultimately, this is the section dealing with the name of Christ that’s better than the angels. It began with the Son of God as his title, and this is the Son of Man. But beyond that, it tells us various things about Jesus that are important for our understanding of who he is and, as a result, who we are. So I’ve laid it out that way, in a structure that helps you to kind of focus on the flow of these verses. All right, please stand for the reading of God’s word. Hebrews, chapter 2, beginning at verse 5.

For he did not put the world to come, of which we speak, in subjection to angels. But one testified in a certain place, saying, “What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you take care of him? You have made him a little lower than the angels. You have crowned him with glory and honor, and set him over the works of your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him.

But now we do not yet see all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he by the grace of God might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting for him for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering. For both he who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one.

For which reason he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, “I will declare your name to my brethren. In the midst of the assembly, I will sing praises to you.” And again, “I will put my trust in him.” And again, “Here am I and the children whom God has given me.” Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared in the same, that through death he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

For indeed he does not give aid to angels, but he does give aid to the seed of Abraham. Therefore, in all things he had to be made like his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself has suffered, being tempted, he is able to aid those who are tempted.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your word, and we pray that the end result of the preaching of Christ’s word to us today would be that we are able, Lord God, this week when we’re tempted, to call upon him who likewise was tempted and overcame. Thank you for the work of Jesus, our trailblazer, our captain, bringing many sons to glory. Thank you for reiterating in such a wonderful summary form here the essence of the Christian gospel and the calling of Jesus Christ upon our lives—that high and holy calling. Help us, Lord God, to hear him today. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

We have in these opening verses of the book of Hebrews, and particularly in the verses we just read, what we have here is a brief summary of our Christian faith: the incarnation of the Son of God, the atoning death on the cross, the effects of that redemption on our hearts and lives, and our continuing relationship with the Lord Jesus as our Savior, our brother, and then finally in the text, as our priest. It behooves us from time to time to step back from taking a look at detail and sort of look at our faith and the gospel as a whole.

And this text before us is a great one to do that with. It’s kind of the big picture here. Now, what’s going to happen—you can think of this again as a zipped file, an archive zipped file—and God will unzip this through the course of this somewhat long New Testament book. It’ll be unpacked, but the summation is given to us here. And this is a wonderful place to catechize, to teach our children, to teach people that are new to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It’s a great summation, and for ourselves, it’s good to sort of step back from the details and then look at this big picture sort of stuff.

As we said last week, we’re sort of given here the whole purpose of our lives—being more than just to save us from hell, but to actually create, to give us, to lead us into being sons of glory here on the earth. To restore man (the Psalm 8 picture) to the wonderful role of dominion, made a little lower than the angels, now crowned. Jesus—same thing with men. Old Testament, we’re tutored by angels. New Testament, we are going to rule over angels. And so there’s this great transition by the trailblazer, the pathmaker, our Lord Jesus Christ, who does this work for us as the Son of Man.

There are seven major sections in the book of Hebrews. There is a connection between these sections and the creation days, the days of creation. On the second day of creation, God made the firmament. You know, we can think of the second day from a couple of perspectives. There’s a division made between the waters above and the waters below. And sometimes that’s the emphasis in a second section of a series of seven in the Bible. But then the other emphasis is there’s this firmament, and the firmament’s a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, ultimately the mediator of heaven and earth. And so the firmament between heaven and earth was made on the second day.

And in this second part of Hebrews, Jesus is called the Son of God, but also the Son of Man. And only as both Son of God and Son of Man can he be the mediator for mankind, can he bring about on earth things that are going on in heaven. So Jesus is the Son of God, the Son of Man—mediator between heaven and earth. And so we began this section last week, and today we want to kind of move ahead and finish this up in preparation for beginning next week with the third section. And as I said, Psalm 95 is an important part of that.

Now, so far again in your outlines, in this second section—the last half of the second section—remember we’ve got Son of God, Son of Man. But in the middle there’s warning stuff, matching that in the sixth section of Hebrews. There’s a call to holiness and then a scary section, right? “Our God is a consuming fire,” and then a call to live at peace with other men. So heavenly living on earth is the matching sixth section to this second section.

And so Jesus is the mediator to bring about holiness and righteous living—holy lives vertically in relationship to God and living at peace with men horizontally. Jesus is Son of God and Son of Man. And what we’ve seen in the section on Son of Man is that Jesus is the dominion Son of Man. You know, Psalm 8—as I just said—he comes to bring us back not just to make it so when we die we get to go to heaven, but to create heaven on earth.

He dies. You know, it’s interesting—in the scriptures there’s not a lot of emphasis upon the afterlife, the intermediate state in heaven, or then the new world created after that where we live. There’s not a lot of discussion of that. The scriptures are a far more practical book than what we like to make them out to be. Of course, the end result of that is that they’re not only practical and speaking primarily about the results of salvation in this life, but when we see that as the kind of main teaching of the Bible, then it’s not just practical, but it’s also rather demanding upon us.

It’s easier to have a Bible that just focuses on us going to heaven because then the way we live our lives is somewhat irrelevant. You know, not ultimately, but we can sort of start to think that way. But the Bible, by placing its stress upon the real life here-and-now implications of the work of Jesus Christ, brings demands to us that can be somewhat uncomfortable. But that’s what Hebrews is all about, right? He’s making demands upon a population of Christians here—small, large, whatever it was, probably urban—who are being tempted, you know, to not live lives explicitly of holiness and right brother-to-brother relationships.

They’re tempted to have their witness of Christ muted and even tempted to stop going to church and to go back maybe and worship with the Jews at the synagogue. So the whole purpose of Hebrews is not about their eternal state. They’re warned not to take that for granted, but the whole purpose of Hebrews is about the here and now. What are we to do with our lives? And the wonderful picture given to us of Jesus as the dominion Son of Man in verses 5 to 9 is that’s who we are.

Not only is Jesus the Son of Man, he brings many sons to glory because he’s also, in verses 9b and 10, the captain of our salvation. And so he’s the trailblazer, he’s the one who leads. And this is who we are then to be. We’re talking about Jesus’ humanity, the identification with Christ—not his transcendence, but his imminence now—as our high priest. In the next section, Jesus is our brother.

And very pertinently in that section of Jesus as our brother, you’ll notice on the handout that I gave you (and I didn’t stress this last week, but I should), the handout I gave you in this section, verses 11-13: verse 12. “I will declare your name to the brethren. In the midst of the assembly, I will sing praises to you.” That’s Psalm 22, right? By now, I hope that if you’ve been part of this congregation very long, you’ll know what Psalm 22 is about.

It’s about crucifixion and resurrection. And that’s where Hebrews picks this up. Hebrews is really loaded with references to the Psalter and to Isaiah. Psalm 2 and 110—we’ve talked about their significance in the introduction and then in this second section as well. They were cited in that list of seven psalm citations of Jesus as the Son of God: Psalm 2 and 110. We’ll see that come back later in Hebrews.

But here we have, you know, to talk about the implications of Jesus for us—that he’s our brother. The first citation is from Psalm 22. I got it verse two on your handout. That’s wrong. It’s Psalm 22, verse 22, of course. But it’s the great transition stage, you know, where Jesus then is described in his resurrection: “I will declare your name to my brethren in the midst of the assembly. I will sing praise to you.”

Now remember, this is explicitly Psalm 22 about Jesus, and it’s important to see here that Jesus is portrayed as singing praise to the Father in the midst of the assembly. So Jesus is our brother, and when we come into the convocative worship service of the church, you see here he is—he’s leading us. We come together, and we are with our brothers and we sing praises to God.

The next two citations from Isaiah 8 are very important also, and I’ll talk about those. We’ll return to that just briefly in a few minutes.

So now we’re in the fourth section—Jesus as the destroyer. I said last week, and this week I’m adding: “slashliberator.” Jesus the destroyer and liberator. And then we’ll talk about Jesus our high priest.

So if you’re looking at the text handout, we’re looking now at the fourth section, and Jesus the destroyer—verses 14-16. And we commented upon this just a little bit. Again, there is this structure: “In as much that as the children partaken of flesh and blood he himself likewise shared in the same,” and then at the end, in verse 16: “He indeed does not give aid to angels, but he gives aid to the seed of Abraham.”

This word “giving aid” means to take the hand and lead one out, take a hold of. He doesn’t take a hold of angels to deliver them, but he takes a hold of you to bring you out of bondage. The same terminology is used in the scriptures to speak of the Exodus. God is said to have taken the hand of his people in Egypt to deliver them from bondage.

So the unity of Jesus Christ, the partaking of flesh and blood, then results in what’s going to happen in the middle of this section with Jesus giving aid to us and not to angels. See, we’re still talking about the contrast with angels.

And as I said, after this section, that all goes away pretty much throughout the rest of the book. Angels are sort of left behind. It’s the topic of this second section—the supremacy of Jesus to angels. But now, by the end, he’s really told us now about the supremacy of you to angels. And he’s saying he’s not contrasting Jesus with angels; he’s contrasting you with angels.

God didn’t deliver, take by the hand and lead angels into deliverance and thus dominion over the world, but he did that to you. You see? So he contrasts Jesus to the angels, but now by the end, this last reference to angels, he’s contrasting you with the angels because you’re one with Jesus. You see?

So it’s a beautiful—as I’ve said many times—Hebrews is a beautifully written book, very layered and structured. But once you begin to sort of peel it apart and look at what it’s saying, it has wonderful structure and beauty to it.

All right. So he shared in the same that through death, and now we have a statement of three things about death. “Through death he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”

So if we want to look at that, there’s a series of three references to death. And the middle reference is to Jesus destroying the one who had the power of death—that is the devil. So Jesus destroys. He’s a destroyer.

Now, “destroy” here doesn’t mean to annihilate, but it means to make ineffective, to destroy his power, to chain him. He takes away his ability to do anything. So that means to destroy. So Jesus on the cross definitively plundered the strong man, right? He destroys Satan or the devil. How does he do it? Well, he does it by dying. That’s what the text tells us: “Through death he might destroy the one who had the power of death, that is the devil.”

So Jesus comes to destroy—not just to build up. He’s destroying evil and a very important personal enemy. You know, it’s interesting—I heard a Joni Mitchell fan, and she had this song “Woodstock,” and she had this lyric about how we’re “caught in the devil’s bargain” in the original version. And then I saw a performance that she did 15, 20 years later, and the lyric had changed to “caught up in some evil bargain.”

You know, after last week, I’m a little afraid to mention these cultural references because I blew so much the deeds reference—Mr. Deeds Goes to Washington or whatever. No, not Mr. Deeds. Whatever it is, I blew that whole thing. Sorry about that for misleading you. But this is what she did. She changed it. Why? Well, because the people want to deny the personal God and personal Jesus. Know that by implication, when they speak about a personal devil, you see, they’re bringing into being (or at least into thought) this personal Savior from the devil. So now it’s not a devil’s bargain; now it’s “some evil bargain.” You see, it becomes abstract. But the Bible says this stuff is intensely personal, and so the one who had the power of death is the devil. And the end result of Jesus’ coming is to release us, to liberate us, from the power of death and from Satan.

Now, I mentioned last week that Jesus is our champion. Better way to put it: the captain. He’s our champion. And I made references to Hercules. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the same word “champion” is used at a couple of places in Isaiah. And I’m going to read these. The first reference is in Isaiah 49:24-26:

“Can plunder be taken from a champion? A champion.” The Hebrew word here is *giore*—the strong man, the mighty man. “Can plunder be taken from a mighty man?” But when the Greek translates it, it’s the same word referring to Jesus and referring, in Greek terminology at the time, to Hercules—the champion who struggles with death and then liberates people.

Well, Jesus is the champion. “Can plunder be taken from a champion, or captives rescued from a tyrant? This is what the Lord says: Yes, captives will be taken from the champion and plunder retrieved from the tyrants. I will contend with those who contend with you, and your children will I rescue. Then all humankind will know that I, the Lord, am your Savior and Redeemer, the Champion of Jacob.”

So you know, again, it’s like two champions come out, representing two sides. Now the American boxer, the Russian boxer, and so everybody’s got a stake in it, right? And so here Jesus is the champion. And of course, it’s not a struggle—it’s not that he’s less powerful than the devil—but he is described this way. He plunders the champion, he destroys him, and he takes the captives away from him. And so we have to recognize that without the work of Jesus, we’re captive to Satan, and we’re captive to death.

And so the fear of death, which means bondage to sin. “I will contend with those who contend with you.” Satan. That particular word means the accuser. He’s identified as the accuser of the brethren. Actually, “devil” means *diabolos*—to speak against, to slander. You see?

So we have a contender against us. And Jesus plunders the champion.

Again, in Isaiah 42:13: “Yahweh advances as a champion, mighty warrior. As a man accustomed to battle, he will stir up his zeal with a shout. He will raise the cry of battle and will triumph over his enemies.” He’s a champion, you see. And this is Jesus Christ.

And what does our Savior tell us? He tells us in Luke 11: “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger—a better champion—attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted and divides up the spoils.”

You and I are the spoils. Jesus plunders the strong man, Satan, that deceiver of old. And so this picture that was begun to be developed with Jesus as the champion of our salvation now finds its full expression in this section. He destroys the other champion, and he removes us from the grip of Satan and brings us into his order. So it’s like—ultimately, this is the ultimate exodus that’s being described.

And so Jesus grabs a hold of us, plunders the strong man, and redeems us—removes, rather—the fear of death. And as a result of that, removes also the bondage to sin that resulted from it. So death: Jesus has delivered us from the fear of death. And I’m going to talk about that in the notes when we get done with the text here in a minute or two.

Well, in a couple of minutes, we’ll talk about the actual idea of fear of death.

Now, this—remember the context. He’s writing to people who are fearful of persecution and maybe even fearful of martyrdom. So it’s quite important for them and in their sanctification to be reminded by the author of Hebrews that Jesus has removed, ultimately, through his death, through his atonement, the fear of death. See, they’ve slipped back into the fear of death. And that fear of personal harm, death in its various forms, this is what’s leading them to sin.

You see, they’re being held in bondage to sin because they’re not appropriating the liberating death of Jesus Christ that removed the fear of death from us. So what he’s saying is it’s very important to recognize that he’s not saying you may not get killed. He’ll do that later. He’ll say, “Well, you haven’t resisted to the point of shedding blood.” But even if you do—you see, even if you’re going to be martyred—you know, the point is Jesus has removed the fear of death.

So we have an implication here from the author of Hebrews that doing what he wants you to do—keeping the Lord’s day, keeping a full witness at work and in the bedroom and all this stuff to Jesus, King Jesus, to Yahweh—doing all this will exact a price. He’s not telling you it’s not going to be hard on you. It may well be. Now, to us, not so much. But to those Hebrews, some might die. And so, you know, to the persecuted church in China or different Muslim countries, very important epistle.

And this is a very important truth because their fear, they can be fearful of death. And when they’re fearful of death, they’re going to sin. And the answer to that sin isn’t just telling them don’t sin. The answer is getting at the root cause of the matter. It’s their fear of death.

As I said, death takes lots of different forms: death of reputation, death of livelihood, a death of, you know, rejoicing, ending of joy, and then death—physical—trials, and ultimately physical death itself. And so the text very importantly hits it at the heart of Christian sanctification for these Hebrews and tells them that to be delivered from temptation, perpetually in bondage to sin, they must appropriate the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ, believe it, choose to believe it—which we’ll talk about in a couple of minutes.

Then the last section: Jesus our high priest, verses 17 and 18. Therefore: “In all things he had to be made like his brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God.”

There’s the introduction to the next section. We’ve talked about how these sections are linked together, and there it is. And for the next few chapters, he’s going to talk about Jesus as first a faithful high priest and then secondly a merciful high priest. And in this first—just like we had Son of God, “Hear him,” or warning, rather, “Hear him,” and then Son of Man—so we’re going to have Jesus as faithful priest. Then we’re going to have a long section warning them that they better be faithful in observing the Lord’s day, Sabbath, and by implication, other things. But he’s going to give them Psalm 95 as that warning. And then he’s going to talk about compassion, the merciful high priest, Jesus Christ.

So in the same way, he’s faithful as the Son of God, and then there’s a warning, and he’s merciful as the Son of Man. You see, so it’s very much the same basic structure. And this is being indicated here at the end of the first second section.

Pertaining to God, and what is this merciful and faithful life? He preaches to “make propitiation for the sins of the people.” For in that he himself has suffered, being tempted, he is able to aid those who are tempted.

So the center of this—the heart of this little section—is that Jesus Christ as this high priest makes propitiation for the sins of the people. And so there it is. That’s the center of his priestly work. And that’ll become—this priestly aspect of Christ—will become the great bulk of the book in the middle section, in the fourth section of the book, a description not just of his faithfulness and mercy but then of his specific actions relating it back to the Old Testament temple system and also to Melchizedek.

So there we have this important aspect: that Jesus has made propitiation for the sins of the world.

Now what I want to do is to talk now about some basic ideas—notes, not some ideas, some notes—on the subject of fear.

So we move now to the notes section of the outline.

Now, remember again that they’re being tempted to either become cloistered as a community or to abandon the community altogether, to not have a full witness of Christ in their business dealings, in their personal dealings, and in the public worship of the church. And what he’s urging them to do is to have courage. And the basis for that courage is the propitiation for sins and Jesus’ destruction of death. And as a result, we’re liberated from bondage to sin.

You know, we sang that great song last week that had these lyrics: “Would to God that I might, even as the martyred saints of old, with the helping hand of heaven, step steadfast, stand in battle bold. Oh my God, I pray thee in the combat stain me. Grant that I may ever be loyal, staunch, and true to thee.” Oh, that’s what we want to be, right? That’s what we want of our kids: strong to make a stand of holiness for the Lord Jesus Christ.

May our children, as they move into college age and then their vocations in the world, be staunch and brave and loyal in maintaining a full testimony of Jesus Christ in personal holiness and then in their relationships to people. Astonishes me how personal holiness at points can kind of get thrown out the window when young men or young women go off to college, particularly young men. Instances that were brought to my attention this last week or two—just incredible to me how much the world begins to form our covenant children and the covenant children of reformed churches. They start acting like that world, lose a sense of personal holiness.

Why? Well, in part because of what we’re going to talk about here: fearfulness. They want to fit in. They don’t want to be seen as goofy. They go up to Clackamas. They don’t want to be known as Christers or, you know, Bible heads or those horrible Christians. And increasingly in our culture, you know, men have made this observation that you better not talk against Islam or Judaism or Buddhism or atheism, whatever it is. But the culture—it’s open, open season on Christianity in the media, in the press. It’s open season on Christianity.

So there’s increasing pressure—I mean, not persecution in the sense of physical persecution, but there’s increasing pressure not to stand out as a Christian, a committed Christian, when you go to college or into the workplace. And so there’s a fearfulness of young people testifying to Jesus Christ and bearing a full testimony. They want to look like everybody else. And so if the other kids are doing horrible practices, then some of our kids start doing those same things.

And the sort of greetings that are described, or that exchange back and forth in college these days, are horrific. I mean, they’re gross. They’re coarse. And our children are tempted to enter into that same sort of speech. I tell you what—I’ve never heard it happen—but I’ve never heard certain swear words directly from our young people. But I have heard words that sound like those words, and it’s sort of like this is okay. It’s not okay. It’s not okay for adults like myself or children to forget personal holiness when it comes to the expressions we use in our speech.

Why do we do it? Well, we start to be transformed by the world. Sometimes it’s just loss of control, but sometimes it’s this fear—of death, of reputation. So I want to continue now talking a little bit about fear.

I am convinced that this is going to be a topic that’s going to be a topic of meditation and study for me for probably a good long period of time. This verse we’ve just read—indicating that we’re subject to sin because of the fear of death—is quite important. We probably wouldn’t want to say that’s the only reason people sin. Some of you sin just because you’re being a turkey and don’t care about God. But this text, point number one in the notes:

The text definitely draws a correlation between fear of death—and I think we could say death in various forms: ultimately physical death, but death of reputation, death of good health, whatever it is—fear of death and enslavement to sin. And you know, we can think of verses that talk about this fear of death sort of stuff.

Fear of death is manifested in fear of man. Yet in the gospel accounts, I got some references to John there. We know that the parents, for instance, of the blind man who was healed didn’t answer the Pharisees directly because of their fear of the Jews. They said, “We’ll go talk to our son.” And then we know that some of the Pharisees were believers in Jesus, but they didn’t say so openly because of fear of the Jews.

So we know that this fear of men (men who could bring persecution and ultimately death—which they would do to Jesus)—you know, we know that Proverbs tells us that the fear of man produces a snare, or brings a snare. And we can see that worked out in the context of the gospel accounts where the fear of the Pharisees and the persecution of them and just being put out of the synagogue was a real fear for them.

Interestingly, in Isaiah 57:11, Jesus—or God, rather—is addressing apostate Israel, rebellious Israel who are doing mean, nasty things, not just sinning or cowering. Not at all those who are overtly sinning. And it’s interesting that in Isaiah 57:11 we read:

“And of whom have you been afraid or feared that you have lied and not remembered me nor taken it to your heart? Is it not because I have held my peace from of old that you do not fear me?”

So God is saying that to rebellious, you know, prideful people that don’t give a rip anymore and just are ripping each other off and doing nasty things, horrible things. Even there, God says that they are not fearing him. But he seems to imply that they’re lying because they are afraid of somebody. Whom is it you have been afraid or fearful of?

And so I don’t know, but I think that the scriptures reveal deeper consequences to the fear of death and its various forms than we think of. And sometimes it may not seem that it’s fear of death that’s motivating a person to sin, but maybe it’s a little broader than we think it to be. I’m not saying it’s the only cause for sin, but I am saying that the text before us puts a real heavy focus on it—particularly for Christians. He’s writing to the Hebrews, and they’re the ones who have been delivered. And it’s fear of death that held them in bondage, and by implication, it’s fear of death that’s causing them to stumble as he writes to them.

So it’s important for us.

As I said, Proverbs tells us the fear of man brings a snare, but “Whoever trusts in the Lord shall be saved.” Even Peter, right? His threefold denial of Jesus Christ was a result of fear of man. He’s sitting around the fire. He’s afraid they’re going to kill his Savior. He’s going to be looked upon as one of those Christians, one of those Christers. He’s a Clackamas. You know, “Well, you’re not a Christian, are you?” “No, no, I don’t know him.” He says, “Well, see—it’s fear of man, fear of death, of reputation, or death of body—that holds Peter subject in bondage to sin and is part of why he sins.”

And it’s not just the men on top that we’re fearful of. When Saul is rebuked by Samuel in 1 Samuel 15, Saul says this: “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.”

See, so now we’ve got a ruler, and now he could be lying, but I think he’s telling the truth. He’s a fearful guy, Saul, and Saul is fearful of the people not liking him, not looking up to him. And so he does things that are sinful. So the scriptures, you know, confirm this: that people are fearful, and as a result of that fear, sin.

Proverbs 28:1: “The wicked flee when no man pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion.” So personal sin leads to a sense of conviction and a fear of death that sin brings, and as a result of that, it produces a paranoia. It produces fear when there’s nothing to be feared. So they’re being held in bondage to sin by their fear of death.

Okay, so that’s number one.

Number two: “To fear or not to fear—that is not the question.”

And I am ready to do something here. I’m ready to say something. We have, in Christian circles, nuanced this idea of fear. And what you regularly hear people say is—well, I mentioned this last week—but what you hear Christians say is “well, you know, it talks about the fear of God, but that is reverence, not really fear.” And so we sort of redefine what those words mean.

The problem with that is that both in Hebrew and in Greek, there are perfectly good other words that could be used by God in the scriptures to denote reverence or glory or honor, whatever it is. We’ve talked about a few of them. So there are other words that could have been used, but in both the Hebrew and the Greek, the same word—*phobos* in the New Testament—the same word that’s used for a fear of, you know, sin or fear of death, rather—is the same word that’s used about the fear of God.

And I am, you know—I think that what we have to say is going on here is that the problem is not, you know, fear or having no fear. The problem is: what is the object of our fear? Now there are differences in quality. We don’t fear God the way we would cringe and grovel before something that was really an unhealthy or unrighteous fear. There is (I’m not trying to take away a nuance of difference here, but I’m trying to say that) there is primary equivalence in the phrase as opposed to being two different things going on. And I think the scriptures support that.

Now there is this verse in 1 John 4:18 that says, “There is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out fear because fear involves torment.” So we say, “Well, you know, if we really believed in Jesus, we wouldn’t have any fear.” Well, that’s not true. And I’ve given you lots of scriptures here to tell you that God says over and over again, he commands us to fear him. Well, what’s going on in 1 John 4?

Well, what’s going on in 1 John 4 is that same problem we have of *plaosis*, right? We have these verses we take out of context to say, “Well, all fear is bad.” And we take it out of its context. Because verse 17 of 1 John 4 says this: “Love has been perfected among us in this, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment.” In the day of judgment is what the context is. “Because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out fear.”

Like he’s talking about in the escaton, there’s no fear in this sense of the word—fear in the escaton. But that’s not what he’s saying. He’s not making a general statement here in terms of our Christian walk. We’re told to live out our sojourning here in fear. The scriptures tell us.

I got a lot of verses here. 2 Timothy 1:7: “God has not given us a spirit of fear or timidity, but of power and of love and a sound mind.” And again, there, you know, we can sort of take that as a verse, but we have to balance that verse out against the rest of the scriptures.

The immediate application in 2 Timothy is: “Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony of the Lord nor of his prisoner. Share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God.”

So the sort of sphere he’s talking about there is explicitly fear of men that would mute testimony. But the scriptures are replete with telling us that we are to fear. Here’s what Jesus says in Matthew 10:28: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

Our Savior doesn’t say “to fear or not to fear—that’s the question.” No, he says you’re supposed to be fearful, but be fearful of the one who can’t cast you into hell eternally. Now, that’s very bold, blunt language. And that’s the same sort of stuff the author of Hebrews is saying in a little more of a nuanced way.

Psalm 119, verse 120: “My flesh trembles, shakes, for fear of you, and I am afraid of your judgments.”

Ecclesiastes 5:7: “In the multitude of dreams and many words there is also vanity, but fear God.” An explicit command to fear God.

Same thing in Ecclesiastes 8:12: “Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and his days are prolonged, yet I surely know that it will be well with those who fear God, who fear before him.” And it’s the same word that’s used of the fear of death and that kind of stuff in Hebrews, and it’s the word used in Psalm 119 where it said that we’re to tremble because of the judgments of God and fear him. We’re to shake.

Ecclesiastes 8:13: “It will not be well with the wicked, nor will he prolong his days, which are as a shadow, because he does not fear before God.” The reason why the wicked are judged is because they do not have fear of God. They do not fear before God.

And even men, you see, Romans 13, verses 3 and 4: the civil magistrate is God’s minister to you for good. If you do evil, be afraid. Be afraid of what? Be afraid of the governor. Be afraid of the civil magistrate.

Remember when I was in the counterculture days, breaking laws all the time. Every time I saw a police car, I shook. Fear of judgment. You see, we are supposed to fear God. We’re commanded to fear God. And it’s the dividing point, in some ways, as to whether we’re going to be blessed or cursed—is whether we fear (or are fearful of) God.

There’s a proper fear of God, and that fear of God the text tells us should move on to fear his representatives in our world.

Okay, so the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs says, and then immediately says, “My son, hear the instruction of your father and obey the law of your mother.” The implication is clear. Children are to have a fear (frightened of) their parents. You experience this sometimes, and you think in a Christian world that everybody wants to be nicer than Jesus. You shouldn’t be afraid of your parents. That’s wrong. There’s an unreasonable, horrible fear that is a different quality. But your parents are representatives of God to you. And you, children, ought to be properly fearful of their just judgment. You should be fearful that the rod will be laid upon your behind. And beyond that, as you grow up, you ought to be fearful that your dad’s face or your mom’s face is going to be fallen—their countenance fallen—because of your actions. You’re supposed to be fearful of them, you see, and wanting to reverence them.

It’s proper to fear the shepherds of the church, you know. Again, there, you know, pastors are shepherds, and shepherds are nice guys, you know, they just help everybody. No, the shepherd in the Old Testament is the word that’s used for kings, primarily. That’s what the shepherd is in the Old Testament. These same civil rulers that you’re supposed to have proper fear of when you do things wrong.

You know, if you say, “I’m frightened of you, Elder Tuuri.” Well, there may be a good reason you’re frightened. There may be sin going on in your life that makes you frightened. And you should think about that instead of blaming the elders. For you being frightened sometimes, maybe it is the elders’ fault, but what you ought to start by saying is, “What am I doing wrong that would cause me to fear the police or my boss at work or Elder Tuuri?”

It’s proper to have a fear of those representatives of God in the context of the world. Now, we’re not to be afraid of the world—those who are apart from God. Isaiah 8:12: “Do not say a conspiracy concerning all this people call a conspiracy, nor be afraid of their frights, nor be troubled.”

So we’re not to fear, you know, what these men can do to us. But in Isaiah, it goes on to say: “The Lord of Hosts, him you shall hallow. Let him be your fear. Let him be your dread.”

I could go on and on. Jeremiah 5:22: “Should you not fear me, declares the Lord. Should you not tremble in my presence?”

You see, on and on. Other words could have been used. They weren’t.

2 Corinthians 5:11: “Since then we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. Our fear is such that we don’t want men to suffer that judgment either. Our evangelism is motivated by a proper understanding and fear of God.”

Psalm 34:11: “Come, my children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord.”

Psalm 89:7: “In the council of the holy ones, God is greatly feared. Is he greatly feared here? You know, in the book of Acts the people were fearful. They saw the Christian[s] and the churches, and they saw Ananias and Sapphira coming out dead for lying to the Holy Spirit. They were fearful. Well, are people fearful of church? You see, there’s a proper sense in which a culture is properly fearful of the manifestation of God’s burning presence in holy convocative worship. Judgment begins at the house of God and moves out to the culture. There’s a proper fear that should be going on in the context of the convocative worship of the host—not all sweetness and light. God is no buttercup. As Otto Scott said, he is a consuming fire.”

Psalm 76: “You, O God, are resplendent with light. You alone are to be feared.”

So if we fear anything other than God, or the representatives of God in family, church, state, and the workplace—this is what the problem is. And Satan—see, he wants us fearful of him. You go to the horror story, you know, horror movies, right? And, you know, a biblical horror movie—it’s a good genre. You know, it would be a guy sinning, and then he can’t stand to be around the pastor, and pretty soon the pastor finds out and he excommunicates the guy and everybody shuns him, and then he comes to repentance. See, what should strike horror in us is making God displeased with us. And instead, what we have in the horror genre in a secular culture is they want to bring back supernaturalism and make us afraid of the devil, right? Ah, there’s some Christian relief at the end, but the whole thing is to reinforce in children a fear of them being hacked up or sliced or something, you know, from the devil. And so what the culture wants us to do is have this bogus fear of the bogeyman, and Jesus says he’s defanged—he’s a lion without teeth. You don’t need to fear him. What you need to do is fear Jesus.

Verse Isaiah 8: “Do not fear what they fear. Do not dread it. The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy. He is the one you are to fear. He is the one you are to dread.”

As I said, Jesus: Don’t fear those guys.

So wisdom—wisdom begins with the fear of God. To fear the Lord, Proverbs 8:13, is to hate evil.

Verses multiply and multiply and multiply about the proper fear of God that should go on in the life of the Christian church.

So the question is not “to fear or not to fear. That is not the question.” What the question is: “To believe or not to believe. That is the question.”

So what do I mean by that? Well, if we have an unreasonable fear—that is, you know, anxiety—about certain things, not fear of God—but if we have the improper fear, what do we do about it? It’s we better do something about it. Because the text tells us that sort of unreasonable fear, improperly oriented fear, is what produces sin in us. It’s fear of death that leaves us in bondage, or subject to sin.

If we don’t resolve fear correctly, not only is it sin itself because we’re fearing the wrong thing, but it will lead to more fear. Adam and Eve, right? They feared God, and they hid from him. Then they go away from God. They try to hide. See, it creates more fear.

So what do we have to do? And what we have to do is to believe that the Lord God is on our side. To believe that God is the one who is on our side. To believe what Hebrews tells us—that Jesus is the liberator. That takes an exercise of faith: to believe in God’s sovereignty and his love for us.

So we have to take an exercise. We have to choose. Nobody can do this for you. I can’t choose to make you not fear what you shouldn’t fear—death—and then be in bondage to sin. But you can.

“Well, I’m fearful of my boss. Well, I’m fearful of how my kids will turn out. Well, I’m fearful of my wife not being faithful. Well, I’m fearful of this. I’m fearful of that.”

In your life, there are probably improper fears you have that do not have God as the object. What do you do about it?

“I’m anxious for the future. Kind of economy we got now. You don’t keep a job all your life. Probably lose it at some point in time. What are you going to do?”

And as you get older, those fears can multiply, right? “Who’s going to hire an old guy like me? How am I going to take care of my family? How am I going to survive?” So all these fears can start to multiply. And to some extent, they’re good. Fear is a good thing. It motivates us to action. God wants us—you know, we don’t want, you know, a hothead sort of, you know, or Alfred E. Newman lack of fear. “What me worry? What do I care?” That’s not the Christian answer to fear.

The Christian answer to fear is that there are certain things that fear is driven by. Fear. You: God uses fear to drive us toward proper action. You should be anxious. If you’re standing on a railroad track and the train is bearing down on you, you should be fearful of that. It’s God giving you an emotion and adrenaline rush to get you off the tracks.

Okay, so fear is a tool—one of the tools that God has given us. It’s a gift of God, and it’s a gift that should be used properly. Okay?

And we’re prone to use it improperly. What do you do if you’re fearful of the train and you’re not on the tracks, and in all likelihood you’re not going to get hit? Well, you have to choose not to be fearful.

The delightful thing is that Jesus not only made this possible for us—Jesus did this. He did it himself.

If you look back on the text outline, look to the section on Jesus as our brother, verses 11 to 13. I said we’d come back to this. The three citations: the first one from Psalm 22, the last one from Isaiah 8:18, “Here am I and the children whom God has given to me.” But the link between Jesus praising God and then Jesus with the children God has given to him is that middle citation that’s separated out from the other Isaiah citation by the word “and.” So it’s separate verse 13: “And again, I will put my trust in him.”

This is the answer to fear. You make a decision: “I will put my trust in him.”

But that verse isn’t talking about you, is it? It’s talking about Jesus.

It reminds us that the Lord Jesus Christ, as man, as the Son of Man (that’s the section it’s in), exercised faith, made the choices, decided to commit himself. Not, you know, as if it’s unimportant, but “I will put my trust in the Father.” You know, we think about Jesus as some kind of superhuman being when he walked the earth, and he sort of knew everything and everything was under control. And we fail to recognize that when Jesus, in his humanity (it’s Hebrews is going to develop this later on), he was tempted like we’re tempted. That means they were real temptations. He was tempted to be unreasonably fearful just like you and me. And he resisted that temptation for us.

He’s the forerunner in this very point of choosing to put his trust in God. You see, it wasn’t natural. It wasn’t the only thing he could do. We tend to think that. Think about Jesus. Probably got sick, had health difficulties, you know. We certainly know that he was lashed, went through health problems at least in terms of the crucifixion. He had temptations not to obey his mother and father like you and me, temptations to sin sexually just like you and me.

Who? I mean, Jesus lived a life as a full human. And as the Son of Man, Jesus chose to put his trust in God the Father. And because of that, he calls us to see him as the Son of Man and to walk in his steps, right?

So Jesus Christ is the forerunner of our salvation—not just because he blazed the trail as Son of God and fixed it all and all that stuff, but he lived a life very much like the life that you live. That’s one of the big emphases in the book of Hebrews. He was made like you in all things, you see, except without sin. In other words, without unbelief. He was tempted to be fearful of death as well. He sweat drops of blood in the garden—sweat like blood in the garden. And in spite of those temptations, Jesus Christ, as the Son of Man, resists the temptation to become sinfully fearful. He does this by his choice of putting his trust in God.

Jesus Christ is fully man. And as fully man, he leads us in this decision we’re to make: to choose not to let unreasonable fear take hold of us.

Four: The proper use of fear is the result of believing in the normal kind providences of God and the abnormal but real hard providences that bring spiritual benefits to us.

And I quite by accident (or certainly I wasn’t looking for it), I came across an article by a man named Jack Crabtree called “Faith and Victory.” He’s the director of the McKenzie Study Center in central Oregon—excellent article. He’s been the director for a long time, and he makes this point that, you know, most of the time things turn out good. Most of the time the train’s not going to hit you. Most—you know, it’s like the drought situation. We’re worried about drought this year. Well, most of the time there’s going to be no drought. So why put a lot of anxiety into that? Maybe good preparation, but most of the things we’re fearful of will never come to pass.

Remember that quote by Mark Twain? “I’ve seen a lot of bad things in my time, and most of them never came to pass.” Our problem is we imagine these things and become fearful.

So the normal kind of providences—all things are providential of God, but we’re to choose to believe, based on experience, right, in the normal kind providences of God. It’s important to preach that to ourselves—that God normally does things that are not hard for us to go through, that they’re not painful, that they’re nothing to be fearful of except what’s in our imagination.

Now, there are some kind hard providences. You know, as Crabtree wrote, “Well, the God who takes care of the birds also providentially makes cats to eat them. And the same God who dresses the wheat in the field sometimes brings blight, mildew, and destroys the wheat in the field.”

So normally, you know, the wheat’s okay, but sometimes hard providences come to pass. And in your life, there are occasional hard providences. But even there, we should believe, as Crabtree says, that ultimately God is sovereign. And we say that, and it’s abstract, but listen to the way he puts it. I think it’s so good. He says:

“What we need to know is this: that he’s God. Nothing else in all of reality shapes the outcome of events independently of the will, purpose and direction of God. So nothing else in reality shapes the outcome of events independently of the will, purpose and direction of God. None of the evil forces, terrorists, bad motorists, horrible weather, the government—none of these can determine the outcome of events in any way that God does not will.”

You see? Even the hard providences come from the willing of God’s will. All that happens to us is ultimately planned, purposed and executed by him. And this means we can have confidence that God will care for us—normally through kind providences, but even in the hard providences, we can trust that God is caring for us by taking us through difficult times for our well-being spiritually. We are normally protected temporally, and we are always protected by God spiritually.

And when he removes the kind providences of temporal reality to bring something that may cause us inordinate and sinful fear, we remember and we trust in God that he is affecting our spiritual well-being through that difficult or hard providence. And we do this by exercising the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Spirit of God doesn’t give us a spirit of timidity, but of power and strength.

The Spirit ministers to us the Lord Jesus Christ, in his humanity, who chose to place his trust in God the Father. Ungodly fear is overcome, the text would have us focus on, and an application of the atoning work and the faithfulness of Jesus Christ, putting his trust in the Father. When you get fearful, you preach this verse to yourself. You say: “Jesus died so that I don’t have to be fearful of death. And as a result, I don’t have to sin. The gospel—preaching the atonement of Jesus Christ to ourselves—unlocks that shackle of bondage to sin by applying and meditating upon the gift of Jesus Christ given through the atonement.”

Jeremiah 32, verses 39 and 40, says this. And remember, this is, you know, Jeremiah 32—those of you guys that know your Bibles—this is the new covenant being promised. Here’s what it says:

“I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear me forever for the good of them and their children after them. Verse 40, I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from doing them good, but I will put my fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from me.”

The fear of God is a gift of God. And from one perspective, it is the essence of the new covenant. It’s the essence of what Christ has accomplished for us: to put a proper fear of God in the context of who we are.

And notice that verse 40 says that this fear in our hearts—a fear of God—is linked to this other truth: “I will not turn away from doing them good.”

We drive out sinful fear, which produces sin, by recognizing that God has promised us, in the very covenant that we, you know, meditate on and God renews with us today (the new covenant made through Christ’s blood), we meditate upon the fact that God will not do us harm. He will do us good all the days of our lives. And linked to that, then we can use fear in its proper way. We can have, as the proper object of our fear, the God who says it is the essence of the new covenant that he puts a fear of him in our hearts so that we won’t depart from him.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you, Lord God, for the new covenant, for the work of grace that our Lord Jesus Christ affected. We thank you that he destroyed the devil and he released us from bondage to sin, through putting death to death as it were, that we may not fear death. We still will participate in it, Lord God, but we need not fear it. Thank you that the essence of our relationship with you can be summed up in knowledge and confidence that you’ll do us good in all and everything in our lives, but also of having a proper fear of you.

Help us, Lord God, then not to get rid of fear in our life, but rather help us to transform the evil fears, sinful fears that we have, lacking a trust that our Savior placed in you, and replace it with a godly fear of you that’ll keep us from sin.

In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.