Monday, February 15, 2016
Hebrews 2:14-15 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death -- that is, the devil -- and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
SHARED IN OUR HUMANITY
It was not so long ago that we were singing songs of Jesus' birth-- God's dear Son now is one, With our blood forever!
And now we journey to Jerusalem once more, a journey which leads to the shedding of His blood. True, we might have expected it, since all humans are born, it is said, with "one foot in the grave." We might have expected it, except that since we celebrated His birth, we have also seen His glory, the glory of the only Son of the ever-living God, the very Light of Life.
Yet now, as we consider again the accounts of our Savior's suffering and dying, we are reminded very forcefully of what we might have forgotten in the glorious splendor of a Christmas night and the shepherds' joyous exclamations: this Jesus Christ truly partook of flesh and blood, was made like his brothers in every way, though without sin. He was true man. We cannot forget it now, as we see Him suffer so.
But even more important, the apostle here shows us that it was not just to see if He could outdo Adam, and get His name in the record books. He did not become human simply to see how much He could accomplish in a human lifetime, but to live and die as the substitute for the entire human race, "that he might make atonement for the sins of the people" (v. 17).
