The Seen Present as a Ground of Confidence in the Unseen Future
Hebrews 2:8, 9
You have put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him…


The confidence of one who believes in Messianic prophecy is that all things are as good as subjected to the Christ because God has declared this as his design. What we see is greatly short of subjection, and the subjected part we fail to see; we cannot rest our eyes upon it properly, because their attention is distracted by the sight of so much defiance, rebellion, and attempt at self-government in the far greater part of what ought to be subject to Christ. All the more need to find in what we may see the assurance and promise of the unseen. We do see - for that is what the words amount to - a humanized, a dying, and a risen Christ. "Crowned with glory and honor" is but a periphrasis for the resurrection, an indication of one of the things God did in raising his Son Jesus.

I. WHAT WE SEE SHOWS US THE POWER WHICH CAN PRODUCE THE DESIRED UNSEEN. God, in saying that all things shall be subjected to Christ, asserts authority. But by the course of his Son Jesus on earth he also manifested power. He took as it were a small section of time and space, and there gave us gracious illustration of what he is ever doing, some of it in the realm of the seen, but much more in that of the unseen. What power there is in the Incarnation! For obvious reasons the Incarnation is mostly connected with thoughts of God's condescension, and the lowly-heartedness of Jesus himself. But these considerations must not blind us to the Incarnation as an illustration of God's power. There is a mysterious power in making Jesus lower than the angels, and if it be true that there is a causal connection between sin and death as a painful experience, then some peculiar power must be involved in bringing the sinless Jesus in contact with the pain of death. Then, of course, there is the instance of power, most impressive and most cheering to us, in the raising of Jesus from the dead. If only we can really believe that God has power over the grave, we shall believe in his final conquest of all that can hurt his people.

II. WHAT WE SEE SHOWS US THE PURPOSE EVER WORKING TOWARDS THE DESIRED UNSEEN. The grace of God is manifest as well as the power of God. Jesus not only died; he tasted of death for every one - for every one who could benefit by the tasting of it. He tasted of it that by his resurrection he might show it was not the remediless poison men reckoned it to be. In his love he tasted death, as much as to say to men, "Fear not." We have the Divine purposes in words, but those words are only the more perfect expressions of what we might infer from the works. It is true that "through the ages one increasing purpose runs" - a purpose much higher than that any individual man might form, or the combination of any men.

III. WHAT WE SEE SHOWS US PATIENCE WAITING FOP, THE DESIRED UNSEEN. Great is the patience of God - a contrast to our impatience, our haste, our discontent, if we cannot get immediate results. The fullness of time has to be waited for before the Christ can enter the world; the fullness of manhood has to be waited for till he can begin to teach. Jesus himself must have his own time of sufficient seed-sowing before he can go to Jerusalem for the final scene, belay, procrastination, postponement, is what God cannot tolerate where there ought to be decision, but for great steps to be taken in his own mighty plans he can wait the proper time. If we do not yet see all things subjected to Jesus, if indeed the struggle seems often quite the other way, then there is all the more need for us to look at the career of Jesus from Bethlehem to Calvary as an illustration of how God can wait. In making up the cup which Jesus drank, many ingredients had to be waited for. - Y.



Parallel Verses
KJV: Thou hast 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 see not yet all things put under him.

WEB: You have put all things in subjection under his feet." For in that he subjected all things to him, he left nothing that is not subject to him. But now we don't see all things subjected to him, yet.




The Rulership of Man
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