The humanity of Jesus – Hebrews E2

Why does it matter that Jesus became human like us and why was it necessary for him to die in the way he did?

In today's episode, we’re joined by a special guest, Sarah Hindley, as we dive into Hebrews chapter 2. Our conversation focuses on the significance of Jesus being fully human as well as fully God. We discuss the Old Testament references used by the author and what they meant by describing Jesus' death as ‘fitting’. The episode concludes with a conversation about Jesus suffering temptation and what this means for us today.

Timestamps

• (00:00) - Intro
• (01:00) - Welcoming Sarah
• (02:40) - Send us your questions
• (03:42) - Hebrews 2: The humanity of Jesus
• (05:00) - Why is it important that Jesus became a human?
• (09:50) - Theological implications of Jesus' incarnation
• (13:20) - Holding Jesus' divinity and humanity together
• (16:17) - The author quoting the Old Testament
• (23:22) - Did Jesus need to die?
• (26:47) - Sacrifice is the story of the Bible
• (28:27) - Jesus' suffering and temptation

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Creators & Guests

Host

Mark Woods

Mark is a Baptist minister and sometime journalist, who now heads up Bible Society's comms team.

Host

Noël Amos

Noël is the editor of Rooted, Bible Society's devotional journal.

SH

Guest

Sarah Hindley

Sarah is the Trusts Manager at Bible Society, working in the fundraising team.

What is The Rooted Podcast?

Listen to The Rooted Podcast for in-depth conversations about the Bible and how we can apply it to our lives. Join the team behind Rooted, Bible Society's devotional journal, as we dig deeper into a theme or book of the Bible in each series and explore its message for us today.

(00:02.851)
Why is this important that Jesus, while being the Son of God, became a human? Jesus can empathize with our suffering and that's really important. Did Jesus need to die this crucifixion, this death, in order for our salvation, in order for this to happen? Did it have to be this way? And the author is saying here, well, it was fitting. There was something essential about that in terms of how he actually accomplished our salvation. Yeah, Jesus is superior to the angels, but this...

brings it back down to a level we can understand. Temptation in some ways is an opportunity, isn't it? It's such a privilege to have a God that humbles Himself in this way. You're listening to the Rooted Podcast from Bible Society. In each series, we take a closer look at a theme or book of the Bible and explore its relevance in our lives today. This is our series on Hebrews.

Hey everyone, welcome back to The Rooted Podcast. I'm Noelle and I'm joined today by Mark as usual, but we're also joined by Sarah Hindley for the second episode in the Hebrews series of The Rooted Podcast. So this series, we're looking all at the book of Hebrews because The Rooted Journal on Hebrews has just been released. So all of the subscribers to Rooted are reading about Hebrews.

And today we've brought in Sarah. Sarah works on the fundraising team and she's absolutely brilliant. She wrote for the Hebrews edition of Rooted. So Sarah, thank you so much for coming on. Would you tell us just a bit about yourself before we start? Yeah, thanks, Noel. It's a real honor and privilege to be part of this actually. It's so exciting and I thank you for having me.

I am the Trusts Manager at Bible Society, so I manage our relationships with charitable trusts and foundations. We're really grateful to all of our funders who help to fund our work so that we can help more people to discover God's Word across the globe and to engage with the Bible and be transformed by it. So that's all possible thanks to firm raising and thanks to our funders.

(02:14.593)
So that's a little bit about what I do at Bible Society, other things about me if that's of interest to anyone. So I live in Worcestershire, I have two cats, I volunteer for a number of different organizations outside of work as well, both Christian and others in the mental health sphere too. So yeah, that's a bit about me. Thanks Sarah, we're very glad that you're here.

Today, we're going to have a bit of a conversation just following on from our last episode. We looked all at Hebrews 1. Before we start, we just wanted to say that we got some comments back on our last episode and we're very grateful for those. We always love to hear what you think about the things that we've said. No matter if they're disagreement or agreement, we'd love to hear it. So if you ever are listening on YouTube or on Spotify, you can always leave us comments and we'd love that.

Yeah, somebody commented on YouTube, just disagreeing with something I said, because I said that we know at least that the author of Hebrews was a man because of the construction of one particular Greek word, which is gendered, and it's in the masculine, so it must have been written by a man. But this is a very interesting comment. It was from somebody who disagreed with that. So go and look at what this person says, see who you agree with. But, you know, it's great to hear from people anyway.

So yeah, if you'd like to leave comments, we'd to hear them. This week we're going to look at Hebrews 2. And I think the main thing that we want to sort of explore is that in Hebrews 1, we sort of talked in the last episode about how it focuses a lot on Jesus being exalted and sort of His superiority and His preeminence. And you can kind of notice a shift into chapter 2 where

the author sort of begins to talk about Jesus and his humanity and how while he is the Son of God and he is exalted, the writer really touches on the importance of the fact that he became like us. Chapter two begins with a warning, and there are many warnings throughout this book where the author is sort of telling his audience not to fall away from their faith and things like that. We're going to focus on that sort of theme that runs throughout the book of Hebrews in our next episode.

(04:33.116)
So we're sort of going to go past that now. But starting in verse 5, if you're reading along with us in Hebrews, in chapter 2, the author starts to do a few things. Firstly, he's quoting from the Old Testament scriptures, as the author does throughout the book. But he also starts to speak about how Jesus was humbled and he was made for a while, the author says, lower than the angels, meaning that he became a human just like us.

What is the significance of this? Why is the author sort of pointing this out? Why is this important that Jesus, while being the Son of God, became a human? And specifically in the way that the author of Hebrews points it out, why do think that he's drawing this to the reader's attention? This is a really interesting emphasis, isn't it? Because there is, as you've been saying, is this enormous contrast between

between Jesus as God, as the agent of creation, the second person of the Trinity, all that sort of thing, and Jesus who is the man of Nazareth. So, this emphasis on the humanity of Jesus is obviously really, really important. to me, I'm just wondering if it has something to say about how he identifies himself with us.

draws alongside us. You're always more likely to trust somebody, I think, or to warm to somebody if you feel that they're like you in some way. I've been thinking about that just recently in terms of politicians and politics and things like that because they always have to establish the fact that they're just like you. The standard journalist ambush trick is to

ask a politician if they know the price of a pint of milk and of course none of them do. And then that makes them look distant, doesn't it? I don't if that's a very good example, but maybe there's something like that going on here. The writer is trying to say, look, Jesus is like you, he really was. And so there's that sort of human relationship with you. Yeah, I think for me as well, the key thing sorted throughout chapter two,

(06:55.738)
It mentions suffering quite a lot. We really feel that Jesus can empathize with our suffering and that's really important because as Mark said, you want people to be close to you. You can empathize with you who aren't just a distant figure. We've got in chapter one that Jesus is superior to the angels, but this

brings it back down to a level we can understand. think sometimes you think of angels, know, it's a bit hard to get your head around that concept, particularly sort of in the modern world, perhaps more specifically, as I think you said in the last episode, it's something perhaps in the ancient world was more of a well-known concept than it is to us today. And so we can really

identify Jesus as sort of one of us, even though He's fully God, He's also fully one of us. I think that's really powerful. It's the only way that Jesus can break the power of death, as it says, is because He truly understands what it is to be human and what that's like.

It's still difficult for me to get my head around that concept to be fair. The Trinity is, think, really interesting in and of itself, but I just feel it's such a privilege to have a God that humbles himself in this way to come down to earth. As a small child, we're obviously coming up to Christmas and it's...

Yeah, to me it's just really wonderful in the sense of it just, yeah, it's full of wonder, full of awe. Yeah, I think that too. There is this sort of privilege that you feel. And I was thinking about this as I was reading because I do a lot of work with youth in my church. And a lot of them are in high school and a lot of them are quite ashamed or don't necessarily want people to know that they are Christians.

(09:16.596)
And I was thinking about that as I was reading this. I was thinking about how a lot of Christians go through that. But actually, it's more amazing that Jesus, that He would associate with us than that we would associate with Him. Does that make sense? It's not remarkable that I'm not ashamed to be associated with Him, but that He's not ashamed to be associated with me. So I was thinking about that and thinking, Hebrews really sort of wakes that up in you, that He's not afraid to call us

brothers and sisters, and that is amazing. Yeah, I think that's a really good point. yeah. Just thinking bit more about this, it struck me that there are two, you know, maybe two different ways of looking at this. One is to look at the sort of emotional connection that that makes between us and Jesus. He has become like us, he has become our brother, and that means that we kind of relate to him in a different way.

But there's just a bit later in the chapter, verse 14 onwards, kind of a structural thing as well. There's some fairly deep theology going on here, it seems to me, because God's children are human beings made of flesh and blood. The sun also became flesh and blood. Only as a human being could he die. Only by dying could he break the power of the devil who had the power of death. Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying.

The incarnation, and incarnation literally means enfleshment, he becomes human in that very earthly, fleshly way. There was something essential about that in terms of how he actually accomplished our salvation. Only by dying could he break the power of the devil and he can only die if he is human. Because he went willingly to the cross, so he wasn't

in that sense afraid of it and because he was raised, he broke the power of the devil. The only way that he could do that was by becoming human. I was reading that because I think I was wondering as I was reading why the author is sort of pushing this so much. Why is this a big point that he wants to make? And I was reading that apparently in that time,

(11:38.268)
One thing that people believed was that they didn't deny that Jesus was God, but they denied that He was really human. They thought that He only seemed human or He only acted human, but really He was God. so I think, and they're basically saying that part of the reason that the author is sort of stressing this was for that reason, that there was this belief that was starting to spread. So I think there was, it is...

Like you're saying, there is an emotional level to it that's important for us to know, but also at the time there seemed to be a real need for this point to be made as well. Just thinking as well, because of the audience that the author was writing to, I think it's really important to stress that this is such a unique concept for people who've come from a Jewish belief system, that the Messiah is

is actually fully God. It's not necessarily just a human king or ruler or someone that's coming to deliver them in a physical way. It's this eternal breaking of death as well that's really interesting. I think that's important, but referring back to

and not drifting away from faith, it's important to stress this point because it just shows the difference between the background those believers have come from and the awesomeness of Jesus and his humanity and the fact that he's God and that as a wholly new, different concept. It's really hard, isn't it, I think, for us sometimes to hold those two things together and to think

more or less accurately about them. just think that probably at different times we're likely to fall on the wrong side of either of those identities of Jesus, to put it like that. That's not a good way of putting it, but you know what I mean. Sometimes we think of him as so godly, so godlike that he's not really human. Sometimes we think of him as so human that he's not really godlike. We kind of

(13:55.174)
sway backwards and forwards, I suspect, across that division. Listening to people talk about Jesus sometimes, it's as though they think he's a sort of combination of Superman and Einstein. That he knows absolutely everything and that he was impervious to pain and tiredness and all that sort of thing.

The humanity of Jesus means that he was a first century Jew. I don't think we should be afraid of saying that there were things that as a first century Jew, he didn't know. There were things that he couldn't do. We can say that he was perfect. We can say that he was sinless. All that's true. Absolutely believe that. You'll think this is terribly heretical of me, but he may well have believed that the earth was flat if he ever thought about it at all.

know, why would he have needed to believe anything different? He was the first century Jew. know? It's really interesting. think, yeah, that sort of bothers us, doesn't it? Like we don't want it to be that way. We don't have people writing in saying, no, this man is a heretic. I don't think I am. You know? I think that's what it is to be fully human though, isn't it? That's exactly what it is. To be limited. To be limited and...

to be in your time, in the time period that you're physically here. Yeah. No, I agree. And I think, yeah, it doesn't make sense when the Bible says he's fully God and he's fully human. But it does make a bit more sense when you see the way he acts, because he goes against being fully God. well, not goes against it, but he does things that don't seem fully God, like dying. And then he does things that don't seem fully human, like people fall over when he says, am.

or He heals people or He does miracles. it's really interesting, isn't it? And it is interesting, and again, just to my own defense here, that the Bible never really spells out what the implication of that divinity and humanity in the same person. It never actually spells out how that works out on the ground. Just those stories, really. It's really interesting.

(16:17.655)
Another thing I thought we could touch on that would be interesting is in verse 5, so when the author sort of starts to talk about Jesus' humanity, he starts to quote from the Old Testament. The first one is in verse 6, and this is a quote from Psalm 8, and then later he quotes from Isaiah. And this is interesting because obviously he knows who he's writing to, right? And he seems to assume that his audience...

would know these scriptures or would have some sort of context for them. And I imagine that's why he's pulling on them and why he continues to throughout the book. But I wonder what you guys thought about these verses, specifically these ones he pulls, and just sort of the Old Testament references in general. Yeah, I think for me, the really interesting thing actually comes after the reference to Psalm 8 where it says in verse 8,

As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them. It's almost not contradicting the psalm, but it's questioning the psalm. It's saying, well, David said that humans subjected all things and all things were subjecting to their feet. But actually, the author of Hebrews is saying that's not quite true.

but because now we have Jesus and everything is actually fully subject to Him. So, for me, it's the continuity with the Old Testament, but also bringing in the new concept of Jesus and sharing the difference between the Old Testament and the new covenant we have with Jesus.

That's what I found probably most interesting about the psalm being referenced in that way. It's a really interesting way of using scripture actually, i.e. Old Testament scripture, to apply it to Jesus in that way, which as you were saying, I mean, he does, doesn't he? The interesting thing is that if you were just to read the psalm in the Old Testament, what about Jesus at all? there's that line, well, in some translations it's what is man?

(18:40.409)
that you are mindful of him or the son of man that you should care for him, something like that. man in the first part of the verse and the son of man in the second part of the verse, they're just different ways of saying the same thing. know, Hebrew verse works like that. It sort of works in parallel. So you say something one way, you say the same thing the next line in a slightly different way, and that's just how their poetry worked. But the writer of Hebrews picks up on this phrase, the son of man.

which is a title that Jesus takes to himself and he applies it straight to Jesus. So Psalm 8 in his mind turns out to have been talking about Jesus. And that's just really interesting because that's not how we today, that's not how we do biblical exegesis. And if a preacher were doing that in a sermon, people would be very, you know, really that's not what it means at all.

Now, this is inspired scripture and so we take that, but it's just an example of how the Old Testament is being used in different ways, I think, in the New Testament by the New Testament writers. I don't know if you had any thoughts about this, but a bit later in the chapter, he does quote Isaiah, I will put my trust in him that is I am the children God has given me. That's a quote from Isaiah, but if you look at it in context,

It has nothing to do with anything as far as I can see. It's completely detached from its context. It's just the words that he's zeroed in on. There's this idea of Jesus and us as being part of the same family. think that's what it's driving at. But in the context, it's got nothing to do with Jesus at all. Then the other verse that he uses

I'll proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters. That's from Psalm 22. And that is relevant because that comes after a long section. The rest of the psalm is all about suffering. It's all about death. It's about what Jesus was himself to go through. But it ends on this note of triumph. I'll proclaim your name.

(21:03.71)
to my brothers and sisters, I will praise you among your assembled people." So, after all the suffering, after all the death, there is this triumph and that is directly applicable to Jesus. So, it's a whole string of different ways of using the Old Testament, seems to me. Yeah, I was just going to say it's interesting to quote from two different types of literature as well. So, the Psalms and then from one of the prophets, it's interesting that

The author here is using two different styles of writing, both of which obviously the people he was writing to would have known. But I found that really interesting and as Mark said, that it's taking it out of context, but it's applying it in such a way that really makes the point. It does make me think sometimes that whether we are a bit too...

A bit too high bound, a bit precise maybe in how we handle the Bible sometimes. And maybe sometimes we just need to let the words speak to us, you know. And if they speak to us, they speak to us, you know. Yeah, there seems to be, maybe in response to some taking any verse out of context, there seems to be that the pendulum is swung to not taking anything out of its place. So maybe there needs to be a balance, really.

Absolutely. Because you can really take verses out of context, can't you? And that can lead you into all sorts of trouble, I think. Yeah, something that is interesting to me is verse 10. I wonder what you guys think of this. For it was fitting for him, for whom are all things and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.

I was thinking about that phrase, for it was fitting for him, because he's talking about Jesus' death, isn't he? And it made me think about how, you know, there's this whole, and we don't need to get into the depths of this, but there's this whole thing of, well, did Jesus need to die? Could God have done salvation a different way? And I feel like the writer of Hebrews here is really stressing about the importance of Jesus became a human and then he died because he need, and he became like us in this whole thing. In this phrase, it was fitting for him.

(23:29.81)
to die in that way basically is what the author is saying. I found that really interesting thinking, because I guess that's something I've thought about. Did Jesus need to die this crucifixion, this death in order for our salvation, in order for this to happen? Did it have to be this way basically? And the author is saying here, well, it was fitting that Jesus would die in that way. Yeah. I wonder if it comes back to what Mark was saying earlier that Jesus was in an of

his time. In a way, was almost fitting that crucifixion was the death because that was the way that any other person would have been treated at that time. To me, that's what struck out when you were saying it is fitting because it's very hard to think of, for me, what is a fitting death for God?

That just is, I can't get my head around it. like in this, that to me is using that fitting to say, actually it fit with the time and in that place and because it was the right thing to bring about salvation. know exactly what you mean. And it just makes me think of, I think it was in Tom Holland's book, The Minion, where he talks about

crucifixion just as the most humiliating death imaginable. Jesus was really identifying himself with the slaves, with the rejects, with the lowest of the low, which was completely counter-cultural in that Romanized society where it was all about power and privilege.

You really wanted to stand out from the crowd. You wanted to excel and be the best. It was all about how much honor you could get for yourself. Jesus was saying, no, no, no, that's not important. When Jesus was crucified, he was identifying himself with people who didn't matter and saying, yeah, you do matter actually.

(25:51.56)
when he was raised, was sort of giving hope to that whole stratum of society that nobody else cared about. So I think that's one thing, that it was fitting, it was suitable in that way. The other thing that I was thinking about here was just that really that is the story.

This idea of sacrifice and a sacrificial death is sort of baked into the whole history of God's people. Right back to Leviticus, talks all about it, how you sacrifice animals, why you sacrifice animals. And through the prophets, through Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 53, for instance, he was led like a lamb to the slaughter.

absolutely sure that when Jesus was carrying his cross to Golgotha, I say I'm sure, I have no evidence at all. Those are the words of scripture that would have been in his head. He was quite deliberately going to his death with those words in his mind, with that idea in his mind.

that he would be sacrificed for the sins of the world. So, when you say it's fitting, I think that's how it's fitting. That's the arc of the story. Maybe God could have chosen a different way of saving us, but he did not. That was the way that he chose. Yeah, that makes sense. What you're saying is it sort of falls in line with the whole rest of the story.

I wonder if we should take a few minutes just to talk about the last two verses in this chapter. It sort of points to the reason, more of the reason of why Jesus calls us brethren. Verse 17 says,

(28:15.838)
He's able to come to the aid of those who are tempted. There's another verse like this in Hebrews that talks about his temptation and how he was tempted in all things, yet without sin. So this is something that the author touches on again.

I guess there is sort of the emotional side of this for us when we read it, we think, like we've said, we can associate with this because we are tempted as well. And so there's this, there's one element in which we can relate and he can relate to us. And there's that. The other part of it that I thought was really interesting was how it says that he suffered in his temptation. And I guess I was thinking about how when you're tempted,

You don't necessarily suffer. You can be tempted and then you can just give in to your temptation and then it's not really suffering, is it? But I guess the whole point is that I think what the author is saying is that he suffered in his temptation because he was tempted and yet he didn't give in to it. And there's the sort of suffering that one feels in that. I don't know, it struck something different with me this time as I read it. It's not just that he was tempted and I'm tempted so we can relate, but that we can both relate to the

the suffering that comes into temptation as well. So I don't know, what did you guys think about this verse or any things that came to you? It's true, isn't it? That we suffer when we are tempted, if we don't yield to it. If you want something really badly and you tell yourself, this is wrong, I'm not going to do it, but you still want to do it.

There is a mighty battle going on in your mind and your soul, isn't there really? And if you walk away from the temptation, it's probably with a backward glance over your shoulder and a sense of regret at what you're denying yourself, you know, unless you are absolutely a sort of superhuman person. But isn't that interesting because it seems to say that that was what

(30:33.73)
Jesus did, know, that temptations were real temptations. How about that? You know? Yeah, it just emphasizes his humanity even more. again, this is relatable to us. I wonder, it's interesting because the translation I have here says, because he himself was tested by what he suffered. So it switched those two things.

around, it's more the focus on he was, yeah, the temptation bit has sort of dropped out a bit there, which is interesting. But I really like what you've said, Noah. I think that's more in keeping with sort of the rest of Hebrews. as Mark said, it's really hard as a human to walk away from temptation.

And there are plenty of passages in the Bible that deal with temptation and it obviously links back to the first part of the chapter as well, to pay attention to not drift away, to not give in to that temptation. And for me, because Jesus is depicted as a brother, for me that means, well, Jesus was able to do this, so he's a role model.

He's like an older brother that you can look up to and go, okay, he walked away from this. And yes, it caused suffering, but it is possible. Yeah, I like the idea of Jesus as the sort of pioneer. The older brother idea is great, really. You know, I've done this so you can. Yeah, I like it too. I was thinking about how temptation is like, we would rather just not be all of us, right? We would rather just never be tempted.

I don't know, in a way, it just made me think that if Jesus himself was tempted and that was something that he went through, later in this book it says he learned obedience from the things that he suffered. It just made me think, well, temptation in some ways is an opportunity, isn't it? When I am tempted, it's an opportunity for me to turn down temptation. And if I wasn't ever tempted, first of all,

(33:00.322)
In a way, I'm not going through something that Christ went through, but he went through it. And so now I'm going through it and I can do what he did, like we're saying, and use it as an opportunity not to give into it instead of, I guess, sort of resenting the fact that I'm tempted in the first place. Yeah, it's definitely an opportunity to grow more in your faith, I think. You know, if we weren't ever tempted and we were just all...

almost like robots and then, you know, that would be a very different relationship we'd have with God. So yeah, I agree with that. That's good. Great. And I think that's all that we've got time for. So we're going to end it there. But thank you, Sarah, again, for coming to talk with us about this. And we're really happy to have you here. Well, thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure. Of course.

So that's it for this week. We will be back next week for another episode. We're going to look sort of at the theme of these warnings that we see come up throughout the book of Hebrews. In the meantime, if you love the podcast, feel free to give us a review or rating. If you would like to send us in any comments, we're always really happy to receive those as well. You can send those in to biblesociety.org.uk forward slash rooted questions, and we would love to read those.

And that's it for this week, so we will see you next week for another episode.