In this message we will continue to consider the experience and enjoyment of Christ as the Son of Man who is better than the angels.
According to Hebrews 2:10, God made Christ “the Author of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” The Greek word translated “Author” means “Captain, Originator, Inaugurator, Leader, and Pioneer.” The salvation mentioned in this verse and referred to in verse 3 and 1:14 saves us from our fallen state into glory. Jesus, as the Pioneer, the Forerunner (6:20), took the lead to enter into glory, and we, His followers, are taking the same way to be brought into the same glory, which was ordained by God for us (1 Cor. 2:7; 1 Thes. 2:12). He cut the way, and we are now taking the way. Hence, He is not only the Savior who saved us from our fallen state but also the Author who, as the Pioneer, entered into glory that we may be brought into the same estate.
Christ is the Captain of salvation. This expression indicates that all the saved believers are an army with Christ the Forerunner as their Captain. He was also made perfect through sufferings. This refers to His humanity. He was not only perfect in His humanity; He was also perfected through many sufferings as a man.
In order to be saved merely from hell, we do not need a captain, but if we are to enter into glory, into the good land of rest, we need the Captain. God’s salvation is not merely to rescue us from hell and to put us into heaven. His salvation is to save us from every negative thing and to bring us into glory, into a glorious rest. This kind of salvation is not an overnight matter; it is a lifelong process. We need to follow our Captain throughout our entire life.
The children of Israel came out of Egypt in one night. That was truly an overnight matter. However, in order for them to enter the good land of rest, they needed to follow their captain. At the beginning they followed Moses, and later they followed Joshua. They had a captain for their salvation. After they crossed the Red Sea, they surely were saved, but they were saved to a very small degree. They had gone only a small part of the way and needed to follow their captain the entire rest of the way. They had such a captain of salvation.
In order to accomplish His purpose of bringing many sons into glory, God had to have an example, a model. Such a one could be the qualified captain taking the lead to bring the many sons into glory. Jesus is this Captain. Before Jesus became the Captain, however, He had to be perfected through sufferings (Heb. 2:10). To make Jesus perfect was to make Him perfect in terms of qualification. It does not imply that there was any imperfection of virtue or attribute in Jesus but only that the completing of His experience of human sufferings was needed to make Him fit to become the Author, the Leader, of His followers’ salvation.
As the self-existing and ever-existing God, the Lord Jesus is complete from eternity to eternity. But He needed to be perfected through the processes of incarnation, the partaking of human nature, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension so that He might be qualified to be God’s Christ and our Savior.
Without passing through sufferings, the Lord Jesus as a man could not be in the glory, and if He were not in the glory, He would not be perfected or qualified. But by passing through the sufferings, He entered into glory. He is now fully qualified, fully perfected, to fulfill His office of Captain.
The writer of Hebrews mentions suffering because at the time this Epistle was written the Hebrew Christians were suffering (10:32-35). They were being persecuted. In a sense, their suffering was not good, for they were very troubled by it. In another sense, however, that suffering was the process which was helping them to enter into glory. The Lord Jesus, as the Captain of salvation, passed through all the sufferings and entered into glory. He is our Pioneer, our Forerunner. He has gone before us to cut the way into glory. The way has been paved, and all we need to do is follow Him. We should not be troubled by our sufferings. We should be comforted. All the sufferings are helping us along the highways to Zion (Psa. 84:5).
The more we follow Christ in His way, the more we must be prepared to experience sufferings. Sufferings are good; they are a great help. We need to thank the Lord for our sufferings because all the sufferings are our helpers. The more we Christians pray and love the Lord, the more problems we may have. According to our experiences, we can realize that many problems are precisely measured out. They are neither too long nor too short, and they all seem to come at just the right time. As we look back upon our experiences, we see how good it was that certain things happened when they did. We should not be bothered by our problems. Whatever happens to us, we should praise the Lord, declaring that this is the process of entering into glory. He is leading us into the glory, which has been sown into our inner being. The glory that has been sown into us as a seed will be developed into the glory which we will enter.
The glory into which we will enter is the glory of the divine element that has been sown into us, the blossoming of the divine element within us. We are not entering into this glory on our own but with the Captain who pioneered the way, who entered into glory, and who is now leading us into glory.
When Paul was suffering because of a thorn in the flesh, he asked the Lord three times to remove it (2 Cor. 12:7-8). But the Lord answered Paul, saying, “My grace is sufficient for you” (v. 9). Instead of taking away the thorn, the Lord afforded Paul His sufficient grace, ministering Himself to the apostle as the supply, the grace, to sustain and support him as he passed through all the sufferings. Hence, these sufferings produced glory in him.