MADE PERFECT THROUGH SUFFERING
Terry W Lock
Hebrews 5: 7-9; 2: 10
After our reading and preaching on Lord’s day I have been thinking a little, beloved brethren, as to the sufferings of our Lord Jesus. Quite often we think of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus in relation to the cross, and quite rightly so, and we think of them in relation to Gethsemane. It is right to contemplate the Lord in Gethsemane, and when He was oppressed in spirit, when He could say those words in relation to His sufferings, “Now is my soul troubled”, John 12: 27. How real were the sufferings of Christ when, as we were reminded in the preaching, He could say, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”, Ps 22: 1. How great the intensity of the sufferings of Christ was as He hung there completely alone at that point; completely alone! He was bearing the wrath and judgment of God, separated from men, for none was able to stand with Him there; those were very real sufferings.
But, beloved brethren, His sufferings were not just at the end of His life. Scripture speaks in relation to Christ that He was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief”, Isa 53: 3. We were reminded as well on Lord’s day in relation to the Lord that it could say of Him that “He came to his own, and his own received him not”, John 1: 11. What suffering was in that! What suffering there was in relation to His feelings when His mother and father reprimanded Him for not being with them, and He could say, “did ye not know that I ought to be occupied in my Father’s business”, Luke 2: 49. He was a young boy at that time and yet the suffering was there, for there was no one to understand. All of those suffering circumstances involved belong to the learning of obedience; that is the reality of the manhood of Jesus: and what He suffered qualified Him to fill the offices He holds. The reality of the manhood of Jesus is that He learned obedience by the things that He suffered.
Going back to what we spoke of in relation to the reprimand that He received from His parents, He was in subjection to them; Scripture says that. It was a most remarkable thing that Christ was learning obedience, even in relation to His subjection in normal family relationships. When He came into this scene and His own rejected Him, it did not change Him, but rather He moved forward in subject obedience. When the temptations were upon Him, what was He learning there? Obedience. How did He answer it? By the scripture, “It is written” (Matt 4: 4); that is how the Lord answers the enemy. All of those things were Christ learning obedience. What a Man He is, beloved brethren!
So where we have read in Hebrews 5 it says, “Who in the days of his flesh, having offered up both supplications and entreaties to him who was able to save him out of death”, not ‘from death’ but “out of death”. He knew that that was His pathway, knew the sufferings would peak or culminate at the point where He would enter into death; that in His path of suffering, as Philippians puts it, He would become “obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross”, chap 2: 8. It does not just say that He became obedient to die, but it says, “becoming obedient even unto death”. That is the force or the power of Christ moving into a position so abhorrent to Himself, and it was obedience that took Him there. What a thing that was! So in all of this it says in Hebrews “he learned obedience from the things which he suffered; and having been perfected, became to all them that obey him, author of eternal salvation”. Christ learned this obedience so that He could take up priesthood on our behalf. What a glorious Man He is, that He would learn the experience of obedience so that as we go through this scene, tried and tested as we have heard, failing sometimes, we have One who has suffered in this scene and learned obedience through the suffering; so that He could be “to all them that obey him, author of eternal salvation”. What a Man He is on our behalf!
But then you go to chapter 2 and it is what is from God’s side: “For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory”. When I look at the sufferings of Christ, there is one scripture that has often affected me, and I cannot say I understand it, but as contemplating it you get the feelings behind it when it says, “Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him”, Isa 53: 10. Think of what that was! That is the reality of the manhood of Jesus. But it says here: “for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make perfect the leader of their salvation through sufferings”. God had in mind that Christ would go this way, that He would suffer so that He could be a perfect Leader of God’s inheritance. That takes our thoughts outside of the things that men did to Him, but it is the things that God set before Him; it is a whole other matter. This goes into the counsels of God, that in the counsels of God He would counsel that our Leader would be made perfect through sufferings, sufferings more intense than we will ever fathom, sufferings deeper than we can even express. We have a perfect Leader because of those sufferings; that is absolutely true. The Man I know, the Man that we spoke of on Lord’s day who has suffered to such an extent, is the Man who is Author of eternal salvation and the perfect Leader, as it says, “to make perfect the leader of their salvation through sufferings”.
Beloved brethren, it should make us love Christ more! In what He has done, but also in the offices He fills! It should make us love Him more for those offices which He fills having learned obedience by what was placed upon Him to make Him perfectly suitable, both morally and practically, to fill those offices; and every aspect leading up to it has been marked by suffering. May we be encouraged by this as we think of that Man!
For His Name’s sake.
Word in a Ministry Meeting, Edinburgh
16th April 2021