We’ve been talking a lot about angels over the past few weeks, but Hebrews 2:5-9 moves us a little closer to the author’s core message: the relationship between God and humanity (and how Jesus’s birth, life, death, and resurrection affect it). Hebrews 2 points us back to Psalm 8, a psalm of praise to God. The psalmist sings how remarkable it is that God, infinite in power and majesty, would focus on humanity and care about each of us. The author of Hebrews takes this idea and goes a step further: not only does God watch and protect humanity; God has even entrusted humanity with… um…

This is where things get a little confusing.
Last night, several of us had different translations, and all of them said something slightly different:
God has placed all things under human authority. (NLT)
God has subjected all things to man, leaving nothing outside his control. (ESV, NRSV)
God puts everything under their control and leaves nothing out of control. (CEB)
In putting everything under them, God left nothing not subject to them. (NIV)

Subject, authority, control— they’re being used somewhat interchangeably by these translations, but do they mean the same thing? As I’ve said before on this blog, I never use the phrase “God is in control.” Not only does this exact phrase never appear in the Bible, but it invites an ambiguity: what does “in control” mean?
Does every bad thing happen according to God’s will?
Does God cause our pain?
Does God override our decisions?
Do we really have free will?
“In control” means different things to different listeners, and the New Testament prefers a different term to describe God’s relationship with the universe: sovereignty.

Admittedly, this term doesn’t totally clear things up. Some Christians believe sovereignty means God can never be resisted, and thus “free will” is something of a myth. Other Christians believe sovereignty means God is an authority who can be resisted just as you can rebel against a “sovereign nation.” Brian provided some insight here, suggesting that “sovereign power” and “sovereign love” might be two different things. So often, our conversations about sovereignty revolve around power and control and authority, but what if the truly irresistible governing force behind the universe is love? How does that change our reading of the concept?

Ultimately, everyone around the table last night had a subtly different answer for the question of God’s relationship with humanity. We all interpreted different levels of control, had slightly different takes on sovereignty, and believed in different conflicting factors that might cause things to happen the way they do. It’s okay to have different theories though. The Bible doesn’t even present one unified theory. In fact, the book of Job (the Bible’s most famous exploration of bad-things-happening-to-good-people) ends with God basically telling Job, “Yeah, none of the answers you and your friends put forth are right, and the real answer is kind of complicated, but I’m here for you, and that’s what really matters.”

This portion of Hebrews wraps up in a similar fashion:
At present, we don’t see everything. We don’t know everything. We are all operating with working theories, and that’s okay. But we do see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for a time and is now crowned in glory. We see the love of Jesus, who suffered death on our behalf. And this is how we know the grace of God.