Jesus Learned Obedience

Hebrews 5:8

“Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.”

Jesus Learned Obedience?

 This is the definition for obedience – Compliance with an order, request, or law or submission to another’s authority. Example, “children were taught to show their parents obedience.” As parents it is our duty to teach our kids to obey our authority. This carries over into life when they start living on their own. If a child does not learn how to honor, respect and obey authority as a child then life will be very difficult for them as they grow into adults. The opposite of obedience in the Christian world is sin.

Hebrews 5:8 says, “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.” Hebrews 4:15, “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.” The Son refers to Jesus and this term describes the nature of the person of Christ. His relation to the Father is that He is the exact display of God’s nature. The Son is the visible representation of the Fathers attitudes, actions, will, and desires. So how did the perfect Son of God learn obedience if He is the perfect image of the Father?

All the Son knew from eternity was sinless bliss. All He knew was a perfect fellowship with the Father. He never knew what it was like to be tempted to love and trust anything else other than His Father. When He took on the form of Jesus Christ He became submersed into this sinful world with all of its sinful temptations as we saw Him being tempted with in the wilderness – Matthew 4:1-11.

Do you think Jesus learning obedience from the things which He suffered was for Him or for us? He didn’t need to come here. He didn’t need to stoop as low as He did. He did it all freely and for our good and His glory. The creator became part of the creation according to the riches of His grace – Ephesians 1:7.

There is a tremendous amount of grace and mercy in this even now. As our great High Priest He looks on us with sympathy because He knows what we are going through. He was pressed to the limits as He experienced great pressure on His way to the cross and during. His cry of, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me”, comes from a Man who had been totally forsaken by all those He loves including His Father – Matthew 27:46. The cry is one who never stopped loving and never forsook those He loves including His Father. It is hard for someone to relate to another person if they have never experienced what the other person is going through. Jesus did and overcame the world in extreme fashion – John 16:33.

Another thing in doing so is that Jesus fulfilled all righteousness – Matthew 3:15. It was our righteousness that He performed. He loved the Father and others perfectly in every step of His life, death, and resurrection. We have failed and sinned against God but Jesus didn’t on our behalf to provide the eternal life we need– John 3:16.

We have an awesome High Priest in the Son of God, Jesus Christ. He loves us and looks down on His believers with sympathy. Be encouraged as He suffered through and has overcome this world on our behalf. He trusted, loved, enjoyed, obeyed and worshipped our Father perfectly through immense pain and torture because we couldn’t. We can trust Him with the knowledge that He lived through what we are experiencing as one who conquered this world!