Jesus vs Death
One of the main earmarks of a cult is its opinion of Jesus. Most cults take the position that Jesus was not really divine. If He wasn’t divine then what was He? Was He an angelic being with a special mission? Was He a man who actually got it right and never sinned so He won the prize of being the Savior?
The writer of Hebrews argues against these alternatives. He goes to great lengths to point out that the Son is clearly superior to the angels and therefore could not be a mere angel. Angels are servants; winds and flames of fire. The Son created all things and sustains all things by His powerful word. Nor was the Son a mere man. He was temporarily made “lower than the angels” becoming a man for the specific purpose of tasting death for everyone.
No, the Son is not a mere angel nor a mere man. He is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being.
Furthermore, He has defeated death. His years never end. Because He did this His brothers also need not fear death. Imagine...really stop and imagine what it is like for death to not be a part of the experience of life. By His death He has destroyed him who holds the power of death and has set free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.
When cults demean Jesus by trying strip away His divinity they also hold their followers in slavery to the fear of death. I’ll take the biblical full bodied Son of God in all of His divine splendor and the accompanying destruction of death. That’s not a hard choice and that is what the Bible teaches.
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