Living Without Death

 DEVOTION

TO HEBREWS

LIVING WITHOUT DEATH

Heb 2:5-9

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 man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? 7 You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor 8 and put everything under his feet."

In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him. 9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

NIV

The author of this letter to the Hebrews has more to say about the authority and the deity of Jesus to those Jews who had become followers of Jesus but are looking back, thinking the law might be a better way to reach righteousness. However, we need to pause here to consider these angels who are subject to the world to come. There is a new world to come where Jesus will be the light of that world, so there will be no more sun or moon, for it will be a city of light because of Jesus. Yet for now the author of this letter tells us that Jesus was made a little lower than the angels, which was when he was in the form of man even though, he still was God, but in the flesh and thus subject to the limitations of the flesh which would be little lower then the angels. We now are also a little lower than the angels, but the day is coming when they will be subject to this world to come where we will walk and talk with God, as his divine perfect children being brothers and sisters to Jesus. However, it is Jesus who will be crowned with glory and honor, and everything will be put under His feet. Because God, who would be the Father, left nothing that is not subject to Jesus. That being the case, even though we will be in glory and co-heirs with Jesus, He will still be over all things. He is the one who will have all authority and appoint those who will live with him in glory because of their faith in him and they follow his authority over their lives in this current world, and He has all authority to case those who rejected him into the lake of burning sulfur, the second death. Jesus is the one who tasted death for us so we who believe in him should not taste that death. It is true, that this body of ours will eventually wear out and breathe its last breath, but that is not death in the sense of being dead in our sins, and never living for all eternity, for we will rise again, as Jesus did. Our lives are by the grace of God, and our new lives in the world to come will be by that same grace of God that Jesus suffered death so that he tasted it for all of us. Once again, to be clear in our minds, souls, and spirits, because Jesus tasted death, we will not. Thank you, Lord, for all you have done for us and are doing within us, and are doing through us. Because of Jesus, we live without death.