Hebrews 2:11
3 November 2024
For He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source.
That is why He is not ashamed to call them brothers
So today in the Lord's providence, the timing of what we looked at in the morning and what we looked at in the afternoon, there is quite a significant overlap on one level, but we're going to be focusing from very different angles at the same time. Because this morning's sermon was very much focused on the gospel and a verse that articulated that with regards to our spiritual poverty and being made rich because of the one who was rich becoming poor, that is Christ.
This afternoon as we focus our attention on Hebrews 2 verse 11, again we are looking at the gospel. But this time we have language of the sanctifier and the sanctified. And so again this is going to be considering who and what Christ is and what He has done, but now thinking of the significance of what it means for us to be holy and set apart people and having a oneness with Christ. Now when we come to this text, specifically Hebrews 2 verse 11, which is what we're dealing with, we see that in this section, this brothers and sisters, is where it all changes. Where it all changes for humanity. Where it says, "for He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source." This is a focus throughout this section and specifically in this verse on the significance and the weight of who Christ is. Of what we have with Christ. Of the significance and the magnitude of Christ becoming a man and living here on this earth.
Now think brothers and sisters, when we contrast this with the reality of who we are. Of what we are. Of what we have faced. Of what we are facing because of our sin and rebellion. The words contained in this verse are truly spectacular to behold.
Because as human beings on this earth, we sit here today with no other hope. There is literally no hope that we have. We are cut off from God and we are destined for damnation. And to read that for us, such people who are cut off, separated from God, to have a oneness with Jesus Christ, a oneness with the Son, is something truly wonderful to behold. And yet this is exactly what we are dealing with in this passage. Now if we just think what we've seen up until now with regards to the teaching in the book of Hebrews, everything has been about the Son. Think of chapter 1 when we were introduced to, "in these last days, God has spoken through the Son." Who is the Son? Well He is God Himself. Think back to Hebrews 1.8 where it says, "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever." He is the one who is greater than the angels. He is the one who we need to know and know is the captain of our salvation. Think back to Hebrews 2 verse 10. And what He has secured for an undeserving people. And we are that undeserving people.
What kind of state and condition are we in? Well let's just turn briefly to Ezekiel chapter 16. We go back to the Old Testament. Ezekiel chapter 16, in our church Bibles that can be found on page 702. Ezekiel chapter 16 verse 5. "Know I pitied you to do any of these things to you out of compassion for you. But you were cast out on the open field, for you were abhorred on the day that you were born. And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, live. I said to you in your blood, live." Amen.
Now, this is where we really start to establish the foundation of understanding why Hebrews 2:11 is so significant and so pointed. When we have language of sanctifier and sanctified, we need to understand that there is a being sanctified that is needed. And in order to do this, we need to just have in view the picture of what we are. And we can always rely on books like the book of Ezekiel to give a very stark and sharp picture. And that is very much what we have here in this passage. Notice the reaction of those looking at what is in Ezekiel 16, Israel, God's chosen people. Know I pitied you to do these things out of compassion for you. But you were not cast out on the open field. Cast out on the open field for all to see. And what do people see? What is the reaction of people seeing you, Israel, on the open field? Well it says that you were abhorred. And even it goes further to be clear and specific as to when, on the day that you were born. On the day that you were born.
Now surely, we think, oh well, that's as shocking as it gets. But when we come to verse six, we then see of the picture of even when you were born, you were abhorred. It says when I passed by you and saw you in what condition? What condition are we lying in? Wallowing in our own blood. Now this is the word of God. This is not me trying to get the shock factor going at the beginning of this sermon. This is what the word of God says about what we are.
Now think, this is about the people of God. This is Israel. And what have they done in the context of the Old Testament? They have literally whored themselves out to idolatry. They are God's covenant people and they've rejected that and they have moved in the way of idolatry. And here is the condition of their hearts exposed. This passage is not hyperbole. This is what they are. In their hearts. In their being. A people idolatrous to the core, cut off from God and they are wallowing in their blood. Now this isn't simply something we relegate to Old Testament language here tonight. This is the stark picture of humanity. This is our condition, brothers and sisters. When we come to the subject of being sanctified, being a people set apart, that's what this means.
When we think about what passages like Ezekiel say about who and what we are, abhorred out in the open field, wallowing in our blood, to then read in Hebrews 2.11, a verse that is teaching about us being at one with the Lord Jesus Christ, the God who we worship. This is surely too glorious to behold and yet it is a glory that we behold. Because even in this passage in Ezekiel, we see the hope in verse 6. In our wallowing, pitiable condition. What do we see of our God passing by in this condition? Well as those who have been idolatrous and turned our back on God, we would clearly note that what we're deserving of is that God would finally cast us out to the outer darkness, to eternal damnation. This is what we're deserving of.
And yet note the language of verse 6. As we are wallowing in our blood, what does God say? Live. I said to you in your blood, live. This is our hope. This is our hope tonight. That in the most pitiable of conditions, in this wretched fallen state, and we can't look and blame our circumstances and say, well if I had a better lot in life, it might have been different. No, this is who we are, the very core of our being. We are a cut-off people, an alienated people from the living God. And God, as a gracious God, says live, live.
Now, as we see in Hebrews 2.11, moving back there, the verse begins by saying, for He who sanctifies, He who sanctifies. Now the significance of this is that it creates in our minds a picture of cleansing, a picture of cleansing. And if what we've already seen from Ezekiel, if what we see in the word of God, if what you know in your hearts, you would understand the importance of the need to be cleansed.
Cleansed of what? First John 1.7, and the blood of Jesus, His son, cleanses us from all sin. It is our sin which corrupts us. Our sin which means that the very posture, the very disposition of our hearts and lives is one that is in rebellion against God. In our hearts, we reject our creator. That's who we are in the very core of our being. And what we are reading of here in Hebrews 2.11 is very much the gospel, that Jesus Christ is the sanctifier. He is the one who cleanses us, and this is our hope. This is our only hope.
We thought of our spiritual poverty this morning, and this is very much also our spiritual poverty with regards to an emphasis here on the filth and the grime of our condition. Picture something that is filthy beyond cleaning, and that doesn't even begin to fully illustrate our hearts, desperately wicked, deceitful above all things. That's what we are, as fallen sinners. And what are we contemplating working through here in Hebrews chapter 2, a text, a passage that emphasizes the humanity of Jesus Christ, and it's something we'll unpack in even more depth as we go through the remaining verses of this chapter. But this is focusing on God, the living God, coming to the sinfulness, the filth, the wickedness of this earth.
Surely, we would imagine, we would picture that the condition of this earth and the condition of humanity, the fallen state of us cast out into the open field. This is no place for a king, and yet what does the Lord, Master, and King Jesus Christ do? Well, we've already emphasized this very point, not only this morning, but in recent studies in the book of Hebrews. He comes down to this earth, He condescends, clothing himself in human flesh. He is the captain of our salvation, the one who is going to lead the way by making the way, because He is the way, the truth, and the life.
The very sinfulness, the very blood that we wallow in, which is deserving only of eternal hell fire, all of it, this entire mess that is you, is what Christ is willing of His own volition to take upon the cross. And this is the gospel, this is the cleansing work that Jesus Christ will do at Calvary for pitiable, wretched, foolish people like us, who would so easily, day after day, reject our God, spit on the truth of His word, elevate our own ego, our own idols, our own sinful passions, and what would Christ do? He would come and lay down His life for such as us. This is how, brothers and sisters, He is the sanctifier, the one who does the cleansing work.
Let's turn to Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 14, which emphasizes this point in Hebrews 2-11. Hebrews 10 verse 14, for by a single offering, He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. This first point here, by a single offering, and we'll get much more into that as we work through Hebrews. Jesus Christ is not entering into some special holy place time and time again. We don't need Jesus to be coming here to make some sort of sacrifice for this specific group of people. No, He is that single offering. What He did at Calvary was the once for all sacrifice for sinners. That includes us here tonight, and it says, note, by a single offering, He has done what? He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
Notice the language that we're beginning to have painted in our minds here this afternoon. We go from being in this pitiable position of wallowing in our own blood to now having a picture of perfection. We've got cleansing, we've now got language of perfection. Who's perfect? This is us. This is language about us, and the reason why is because we are not simply being set apart in order to set us apart from something, we are being set apart for something. That is our God.
We need to clarify what it is that Christ has secured at Calvary as the sanctifier to enable us to understand how we can be the sanctified. Second Corinthians 5.21, for our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. We might become the righteousness of God. Now here again, similarly to what we considered this morning, we have this glorious exchange. We have the sinfulness, the filth of our sin, which is nailed to Christ on the cross. He bears it at Calvary as the sin offering, and what do we then receive in its place? The righteousness of God. Christ's righteousness is imputed, it is credited to our account. This is His grace to us, that we as fallen sinners, cut off in rebellion in our fallen nature, be cleansed and be perfected. That we be perfected, brothers and sisters.
Jesus Christ did not simply die on the cross to rescue you and then have some sort of, well, kind of okay type of standard thereafter. No, this was that you be a perfect set apart people. That is the language that we have here in Hebrews 2.11. When it says that we are sanctified, that is what we are.
But how? How can we be? How can we be considered a perfect people? Well 1 Peter 2.9, which we'll be looking at in a few weeks’ time, it says, "but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession. That you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light." It is because of the gospel, because of the completed work of Christ, because He died on a cross, because He rose victorious from the grave, that we can be a people who are now set apart.
And it is possible, it is the reality of what we are in our condition because we now have new hearts. We are a changed people. Christian, if you're sitting here tonight, this is not simply about something that you said. It's about a transformation that has taken place. Where before in your sin, you loved the world and you loved the ways of the world. That is what was nailed to the cross at Calvary. That is what you died to. This is what it means therefore to be a people who are born again, a new creation in Christ Jesus. We are transformed in our hearts, in our lives and so therefore we can be declared, Hebrews 2.11, that we are the sanctified. Which means we are set apart.
Now think what we saw in the Old Testament, in the tabernacle. There were many items in God's dwelling place that were set apart for holy use. We've seen the Ark of the Covenant, we've seen the table, we've seen the lampstand, we've seen the altar all overlaid in gold, the best of materials. Why? Because they're set apart for holy use.
That picture of these items in the Old Testament is the very picture we should have in mind in what we now become in the New Covenant. Because we now are these holy people set apart for this holy purpose and our holy God. That's what it means to be sanctified brothers and sisters, that you are set apart for God. Now this then impacts everything that we do and the way that we live our lives as Christians.
Often sadly and increasingly so, we see that the bar of Christianity and Christian living is being dropped lower and lower. Standards for even qualifications of elder, standards for church membership or just do away with membership, standards of biblical doctrine, it all drops lower and lower.
But we're seeing here in the Word of God that we are sanctified, we're set apart. We are God's temple, 1 Corinthians 3 and 6. We are the temple of the living God, the Holy Spirit dwells in us. It is the reason why we are called saints, because it is now by the grace of God and His grace only, our nature and our identity are defined by Christ and the fact the Spirit of God is at work and alive in us. This is what it means to be sanctified.
And so when we hear this, we shouldn't be getting into a panic and despair because we know we're still struggling in sin, no instead we come to our Lord in desperation. Because it is only through our mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, that poor defiled sinners like us can be sons of God. That we can be sanctified. Everything that we do as we gather in this place, our prayers, our praise, our service, they are acceptable in the sight of God now because they are no longer filthy rags in the sight of God. We are no longer a people wallowing in our own blood, we are a people who are made perfect by the precious blood of Christ which has been shed for you.
That is the cleansing power of the gospel and it is why we can know with full assurance how we stand before God as a people set apart that we may worship His most holy name. And brothers and sisters, this means that we are serious about the way we live our lives and we are serious in the face of our sin.
Think about how abhorrent sin is. That is why we are cast out into the open field, wallowing in our own blood. Do we still want to be having a party in that environment? Do we still want to be entertaining the guttural language in our workplaces? Do we still want to be watching those things on the internet that we know, we know are going to get us very rapidly into that downward spiral of sinful thought and action? Do we want to be discarding the things of God, the people of God, the worship of God, the reading of His word, of prayer because we like the frivolous nonsense of this world? Do we want to continue to live this way when we know that we are a people who are set apart for God? That's the challenge here.
Christ is the sanctified, He's cleansed you by His blood, His perfect blood that you no longer be wallowing in your defiled, corrupted blood, but rather you stand as one who is victorious, triumphant. You are a son and a daughter of the living God. You are adopted into His family. Dead dogs like us, we are welcomed at the seat of heaven, the banquet feast of the marriage supper of the Lamb. This is ours now, and we are moving in this direction. This is the direction, brothers and sisters, and it's not an optional thing for Christianity.
Just turn over to 1 Peter chapter 1, just to remind us of this text that we looked at recently, of what the Bible says that we are. First Peter 1 from verse 14, "As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance", there's the exhortation, "but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy." The reason we're set apart is because we are set apart by the one who is perfect, and that is where this language of Jesus, the perfect one, as the sanctifier, He has done it.
He has set you apart, and this is why we go on to read in Hebrews 2:11, that "we all have one source", or just more simply, directly, we are all one. Who is one? Christ the sanctifier, we the sanctified. We're one with Christ. This is the new covenant, sealed in Christ's blood, which brings us into a oneness with Christ. We started in that text in Ezekiel, and here we come now to language of this level of covenant intimacy. Think, for example, a covenant marriage, a man and a woman coming together as one flesh, there's a oneness, this is a lifelong commitment. Here we have an eternal coming together with Jesus Christ. Because we're His bride, and He has set us apart for holy purposes. Now it would be most unsightly and inconceivable for Christ to have unholy members. That's spiritually incoherent. We are His people, and this is why Ephesians 5 says that we are being washed with the water of His word, that we may stand before Him spotless and without blemish. It's why the life of sanctification is what being a Christian is.
Because we are one with Christ now, and it's a sacred blessing to know that we are now at enmity with the world. We are not moving in the direction of this world. We are seeking to wage war with the things of this world, and living in submission to and for the glory of Jesus Christ. This is now who we are, and this is how we live. Because just as with the tabernacle, it would not have been acceptable to just have any old table. Well that altar will do; it doesn't matter if we don't have the gold. Such thoughts would have been absolutely outrageous in the same way brothers and sisters that any strange fires or creative ideas that people may have regarding how God is to be worshipped is an utter abomination, because we do not define it, God does.
God defines who you are, and He has made it possible, He has made it the reality, because He is the captain of our salvation. He has come to claim His bride, and that is us, the church. And yes, He came to claim an unworthy, undeserving bride, wallowing in our own blood. It would be inconceivable to think that the perfect, mighty, glorious God would say to such people, live. But in His grace, this is what He has done, and this is what He has secured by Christ Himself passing through death to life. That you may have life here this evening, and that you in having life, life as the bride of Christ, now our Lord is making us beautiful for the bridegroom, Jesus Christ. That is what we are set apart for, that is who we are set apart for, the sanctifier, the one that we are one with, Jesus Christ.
This last part of verse 11, we are just going to briefly mention it, because we will unpack it next week in verses 12 and 13. But notice that in this oneness that we have, our Lord is not ashamed to call us brothers. Our Lord is not ashamed, He is not ashamed of you. Have you ever been in a position where maybe you've got a status or reputation to think about and you're with someone or you're in a situation that's, well this is pretty embarrassing isn't it? Well I better not be seen with Him or with them, that will really lose me some street crowd here. This is Jesus Christ, the second person of the triune God, perfect in every way, the absolute expression of perfection, and He's looking at you. Everything you've thought, everything you've said, everything you've done, defiled, corrupted sin, and He's not ashamed of you. Tonight, the Lord Jesus Christ is not ashamed of you.
And with this we come to a closing exhortation: Mark 8:38, "For whoever is ashamed of me and my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation, of Him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels." Think about that challenge. In this fallen, sinful, corrupted world, the you that is in this world is the you that is one with Jesus Christ. And that's a beautiful truth to behold. And so, when you go into any setting, any setting that you go into, no matter who the person is, no matter who the people are, even if it means for some, being in prison for their faith, even if it means being afflicted in the country in which they live, even if it means the family members who despise the faith that you have, we know the world doesn't get it. The world is looking at you and they think you are odd. They think you are bizarre.
This sort of language, passages like Ezekiel, makes no sense. Why? Because they do not know the truth. They do not know the gospel. They are not one with Jesus Christ. And we do not look on this world and think, well, I'm so much better than them. No, we realise that we are just like them, but for the grace of God, and that we are ready to be considered the refuse, the scum of this earth, that we may point them to Jesus Christ, the sanctifier. It's why we pray that our speech would be seasoned with salt. It's why we pray that our actions or attitudes would be driven and governed by a yearning for the glory of God and not the glory of self or the things of this world.
Are you ready to do this, not ashamed of your Lord, because He is not ashamed to call you His brother? This very night, this very week, yes, I worship Jesus Christ. I live for Christ. My life is driven by Christ because I'm one with Him. I'm set apart for Him. Everything is driven by Him. Everything is driven for Him because I love Christ. Christ is my all and Christ is my everything. This is the posture of a life that is set apart, set apart for the holy purpose, set apart for the holy God, set apart for our bridegroom, set apart for Jesus Christ, our Lord. We were rescued by Him and we are being sanctified for Him. That is your life. That is your life, Christian.
So if we are being deemed to be being too serious about the Bible, may it be that in five years' time we are all the more serious about the Bible. If we're deemed to be uncompromising regarding how we worship or how we go about our Christian business, may it be that that would be a reputation that is all the more prominent in the years to come because Christ is who matters and we're set apart for Him and we desire and yearn to grow with Him, to be like Him, all the more individually and as the local church. For He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are one, one with Christ and this is the glory of the gospel and the impact of the gospel in the lives that we live as His people.