Hebrews Chapter Two, The Children God Has Given Him

The next three verses in Psalm 22 are a petition to the Father that He be not far from the suffering Servant in His moment of pain and shame, with verse 21 being a simple and comforting: “You have answered Me.” Verse 22, an introduction to the latter half of the Psalm, says, “I will declare Your name to My brethren; in the midst of the assembly I will praise you.” After our Lord’s suffering we are told God answered Him, and He responds by saying how He will declare the Father’s name amidst His brethren. In Psalm 68:18 we read, “When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive and gave gifts to men,” see also Ephesians 4:8. 

Christ’s suffering culminated in real, physical death. His soul was separated from His body and descended into the lower parts of the earth, or Abraham’s Bosom, where the faithful saints prior to the cross waited for the accomplishment of their salvation, Ephesians 4:9. “God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us,” Hebrews 11:40. The saints of old died in anticipation of the cross; they looked toward its realization and patiently waited. This was how it could be described of our Lord’s triumphant death that He led captivity (waiting in the recesses of the earth in Abraham’s Bosom) captive.

 

The remainder of Psalm 22 details the triumph of Christ’s resurrection, and why the writer of Hebrews could describe this gruesome demise as, “the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor.” The final celebratory verses give some detail as to the hope this ignominious death ushered into Israel and the world. “All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before You…all the prosperous of the earth shall eat and worship; all those who go down to the dust shall bow before Him…a posterity shall serve Him…they will come and declare His righteousness to a people who will be born, that He has done this,” Psalm 22:27, 29, 30, 31. The application or efficacy of the Servant’s death is universal in scope. It reaches far beyond the border of Israel, even into the recesses of the earth as our Savior first redeems those who had already died in patient expectation of His arrival. God and His righteousness will compass the globe and Jew and Gentile alike will worship, and will raise up preachers to declare His righteousness to future, unborn generations unbroken even today. The historicity of the crucifixion is revealed in the unbroken line of preachers that share the witness of Jesus Christ raised from the dead to those who have not yet heard His name. But it was Jesus who first revealed the Father to us. It is in His labor and by His Spirit that Christians join Him to bring, “many sons to glory.”

 

Isaiah chapter 8 opens with the prophet writing on a scroll, witnessed by men of God’s appointment concerning Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, or literally, “hasten the booty, hasten the spoil.” This person is the child of Isaiah and the “prophetess,” a cypher for his wife, who apparently was also gifted with prophecy, Isaiah 8:3. Verse 4 is a prophecy God gives Isaiah concerning Damascus, or Syria, and Samaria or northern Israel. Before the babe born by the prophetess can address his parents as mother or father, Rezin of Syria and Pekah king of Samaria would be cut off by Assyria, a growing national power. Isaiah related a similar prophecy to Ahaz king of Judah along with his son Shear-Jashub (a remnant shall return). “It shall not stand (the conspiracy of Rezin and Pekah) nor shall it come to pass…within sixty-five years Ephraim will be broken, so that it will not be a people,” Isaiah 7:7, 8. In 2 Kings the chronicler tells us that it was Ahaz who reached out to Tigleth-Pileser king of Assyria for aid against the confederacy arrayed against him, 2 Kings 16:7. Indeed, Assyria attacked and defeated Damascus (16:9) and deported its people before doing likewise with Pekah’s son, Hoshea, 2 Kings 17:4, 6. God ordained this prophecy to demonstrate to godless Ahaz, king of Judah, that He raised up or dethroned kings but Ahaz learned nothing from this. Instead, impressed by an Assyrian altar of worship, Ahaz commissioned Urijah the priest to build a replica to sacrifice upon, 2 Kings 16:10, 15.

 

Returning to Isaiah, God, speaking of northern Israel and Pekah, laments that Israel did not accept the waters of Shiloah. Shiloah, or Siloam, was a channel that conducted water southeast of Jerusalem from the springs of Gihon to the lower pool of Siloam, mentioned in John 9:7. The idea back of this may simply be that northern Israel rejected the covenant of God and His mercies, representative in the “waters…that flow softly.” Samaria struck hands with Rezin and Syria, pagans and idolaters and enemies of Israel. Therefore instead of the gentle waters of Shiloah outside of Jerusalem the waters of the Euphrates (symbolic of Assyria) would come crashing down on them, Isaiah 8:7. Unfortunately for godless Ahaz, Assyria will not leave Immanuel’s land untouched, but will likewise come into Judah during his son Hezekiah’s reign. Israel is warned that cunning and strength will avail nothing, for such schemes will not stand when God is with His people, Isaiah 8:10. The faithful are cautioned to trust solely in Him for their deliverance, and He will be their sanctuary from impending destruction, Isaiah 8:14.

 

To the faithless, who trust fallible men and their equally fallible superstitions and gods, they are warned that the same God who is a refuge is also a destroyer, verse 15. The law and testimony, mentioned in verses 16 and 20, are a reference to the OT in its (then) current state. Those who are truly disciples taught by Isaiah (see Isaiah 28:9, 10) will seal up the testimony. Like a wax impression and as a stamp is pressed into it, the disciples are sealed by sound doctrine which makes fertile the hearing of faith. Those who are God’s will not trust in Rezin, Pekah, Tigleth-Pileser, or even Ahaz. They will trust in Yahweh, the unchanging covenant God of Israel. Isaiah’s hope is to wait on God, who currently hid Himself from Jacob because their sins had separated them from His sight. Isaiah will wait on Him and hope in Him, verse 17. The disciples, whom Isaiah considers his children that he is to instruct and raise in the fear of God (see Isaiah 8:13), were a sign from the Lord of hosts, verse 18.

 

Returning full circle to those who delight in the ways of the nations outside of Judah (Syria, Assyria, and Samaria), God warns not to seek the dead on behalf of the living, Isaiah 8:19. Wizards and their spells, or mediums and their familiar spirits utilize supernatural power for the purpose of deception. They are slaves to its power, and doomed to become what they reverence: dead. The law and testimony, the Bible, will find them out, Isaiah 8:20. Those Israel leaned on for support, in turn lean on evil powers condemned by Israel’s God; there is no light in such people. Therefore it is the height of absurdity to trust in them for deliverance. Such people are in need of deliverance! Those who liken their lifestyle and worldview to such men, as Ahaz did, will suffer the dire consequences described in verses 21 and 22. The fate of all who choose rebellion over obedience is this: “They will be driven into darkness.”

 

The comparison here is a simple one. Isaiah sanctified or set apart the disciples of his day with the law and the testimony, or the word of God. He trusted in God’s word because he trusted in the God who spoke the word. The children the Father gave to our Lord are legion. Today it is Christ’s church, and every member added is a soul given to Christ by the grace of God, and our Savior “shall see the labor of His soul and be satisfied,” Isaiah 53:11. Like the disciples who were sealed in Isaiah, Jesus says, “Here am I and the children whom God has given Me.” Where He is, there will His children be found. “For where there are two or three gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them,” Matthew 18:20. “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you,” John 14:18. Those who are sanctified by Christ in verse 11 are those who are given to Him by the Father in verse 13. We have reason to genuinely doubt the sonship of a professing Christian should they be more interested in the world than the Lord. Jesus declares the Father’s name (ours and His, John 20:17) to His brethren and sing praises to Him in our midst. Worship songs are the reflection of the love the Father and Son have for one another; the same love that we as the redeemed have been invited to partake in. Christ trusts in the Father because faith in God can never fail. And now here is our Lord, the invisible, risen Head of the Christian faith, and all of the children the Father has given Him from east to west. We are all of one God; therefore Jesus has no shame in naming us brethren. What an honor, what a joy to know, and be known, at the throne of Heaven as a brother of Christ and a son of God by faith!