Hebrews 1:10 Making Jesus Perfect?

[ShilohRose]

Every time I think I am understanding this, it slips away from me:

For it became him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. Heb. 1:10

I've looked at another translation, but it still sounds like Jesus wasn't perfect until He died and was resurrected. I know it doesn't mean that, but what does it mean?

The ladies' Bible study at church uses this passage in passing in a study of II Corinthians, and we have a meeting tomorrow morning. I suspect someone else will wonder about this.

 

[anath]

SR, I think you meant Hebrews 2:10
I need to get out of here...calling Matfivefour

 

[Everlasting Life]

Yes, it's 2:10. Here's a commentary from my bible, Life Application Tyndale, that might be helpful to you: How was Jesus made perfect through suffering? Jesus' suffering made him a perfect leader, or pioneer, of our salvation (see the notes on 5:8 and 5:9). Jesus did not need to suffer for his own salvation, because he was God in human form. His perfect obedience (which led him down the road of suffering) demonstrates that he was the complete sacrifice for us. Through suffering, Jesus completed the work necessary for our own salvation. Our suffering can make us more sensitive servants of God. [E.L. here, yes this is very, very true.] People who have known pain are able to reach out with compassion to others who hurt. If you have suffered, ask God how your experience can be used to help others.

Ok, here's the notes for 5:8-9: Jesus' human life was not a script that he passively followed. It was a life that he chose freely (John 10:17, 18). It was a continuous process of making the will of God the Father his own. Jesus chose to obey, even though obedience led to suffering and and death. Because Jesus obeyed perfectly, even under great trial, he can help us obey, no matter how difficult obedience seems to be.

Christ was always morally perfect. By obeying, he demonstrated his perfection to us, not to God or to himself. In the Bible, perfect usually means completeness or maturity. By sharing our experience of suffering, Christ shared our human experience to those who obey him. See Philippians 2:5-11 for Christ's attitude as he took on human form.

 

[ShilohRose]

SR, I think you meant Hebrews 2:10
I need to get out of here...calling Matfivefour

You're right; I meant Hebrews 2:10.

 

[mattfivefour]

Sis, your problem is in the English word "perfect" that your translation uses. The Greek word comes from the verb telioo. It does not mean perfect in the sense of without flaw. Christ was born without flaw and therefore had no need to reach that place. The word teleioo actually means to perfect in the sense of reaching the end or final phase. I like to use the phrase "to come to the place for which someone (or something) was prepared." Does this help?

 

[Carol Berubee]

Every time I think I am understanding this, it slips away from me:

For it became him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. Heb. 1:10

I've looked at another translation, but it still sounds like Jesus wasn't perfect until He died and was resurrected. I know it doesn't mean that, but what does it mean?

The ladies' Bible study at church uses this passage in passing in a study of II Corinthians, and we have a meeting tomorrow morning. I suspect someone else will wonder about this.

Here are some of Newell's comments:

For it became Him for Whom all things, and through Whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both He that sanctifieth (Christ) and they that are sanctified (the saints) are all of one:


This verse tells both how God's grace has extended to us; and what it became this God to do, in bringing many sons unto glory, into His very presence Who dwelleth in light unapproachable!

Here we go back to what we might call the first causes: what became the counsels of God, both in sending Christ, and in His dealings with Christ upon earth. What it was "becoming," fitting, for the infinitely holy God to do--ah, what a subject for our poor human grasp! It is God Who is before us, for Whom all things exist. Whatever the works or the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, we must refer their cause to that which was "becoming to God." It is not the arbitrary will of God that is here in view, but that which was "becoming" to God Himself - to His being.

Would it have become God, the holy One, even to admit to His presence sinners of the human race who had been merely "influenced" (as some would teach) by the "perfect example" of the "beautiful life" of Jesus? Would it have been becoming to the government of God to admit to His presence enemies who had infracted all the righteous edicts of His throne, and with no penalty imposed for that disobedience? Would it have been becoming to the throne of infinite Majesty and glory to have about that throne--all unatoned for--those who had been in closest sympathy with God's arch-enemy, Satan?

This important tenth verse in Heb 2 is the second great general word concerning God in Hebrews. The first is, "God has spoken to us in (the Person of His) Son" (1:2). And this second word is that the Son, having partaken of blood and flesh, become man, yea God's Lamb, it became God ... to make Him perfect through sufferings. "It behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the dead" (Acts 17:1-3). We insist that the very foundation of the Gospel appears in this word, it became God! It became Him to judge sin; it became Him to give His own Son to bear sin; it became Him to lay before that Son a path of obedience involving suffering--even unto death.

While we now "behold ... Jesus ... crowned with glory and honor," let us not only see His present place as God's reward to Him for His path of obedience; but also regard His path of sufferings thereto, as the only path which could become a holy God!

It is as if God were saying, "Hebrew believers, do not stumble, as most of your nation are doing, at a suffering Messiah. Your lot is now far above that of mere Hebrews. You partake of a heavenly calling! You are journeying to Heaven, home to God, Who is bringing you as sons unto glory. Do you not see from all Scripture that the Blessed One Who should become the Captain of sons going forth from earth to Heaven, must have suffered, yea, have been made perfect through sufferings? It becomes Me that the Captain of their salvation has so yielded to all My will as to have suffered all things."

They were to be "sons," and were to be brought "unto glory." Who was to bring them, and how? One must go where they were, have their guilt charged to Him, bear the wrath due to them. Our Lord's course from Bethlehem to Calvary is looked at in the words: made perfect through sufferings. Yes, such a journey from the glory that He had with the Father, down to earth and back to that glory, would involve on the part of that great Captain of their salvation "emptying Himself," taking the "form of a servant," becoming in the "likeness of men," humbling Himself "unto death, yea, the death of the Cross"!

But think Who He was! "Is not this the carpenter?" the people of Nazareth asked. Yes, but He was the Creator also. And He was in a path that would shortly make Him "an alien to His mother's children," "despised and rejected of men, a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," in all these sufferings, learning obedience (Heb 5:8).

* Note this word learn. Being God, He had not to obey, but participated in the counsels of the Trinity from all eternity. Even when He came to earth, "He emptied Himself"--it was not compulsion. But, He having become man, the Father was now His God: and He "learned obedience." Our Lord was morally and spiritually perfect at all times and in all ways; He was God! But through sufferings he "learned obedience." And, since the sufferings were infinite, the perfection is glorious and eternal!

 

[anath]

He did not expect to escape from sufferings because He was the Son of God, instead it was expected of him to experience our guilt & pain; "emptying Himself," taking the "form of a servant," becoming in the "likeness of men," humbling Himself "unto death, the death of the Cross". "Our grief and suffering" teach us obedience in Him as well.
Thank You Jesus.

 

[mattfivefour]

Exactly, sis! The import of the Greek of Hebrews 5:8 is not that Jesus learned to become obedient, but that he learned to experience obedience. He was always in perfect harmony with the Father and the Spirit, even in the flesh. But now being in the flesh he was aware of the pull of the flesh towards self-need such as avoiding hunger, fatigue and pain. I believe He thus experienced the need to consciously follow the Father's will ... even though there was no question that He would always act according only to the Father's will. While (not having a sin nature) He chose never to avoid anything the Father put into His path, He nonetheless experienced what we do and thus is able to identify with us and our weaknesses.

 

[anath]

Yes we have to learn obedience, He did not. What a Savior we serve!

 

[clouds]

I agree with the great posts about a very important subject regarding our Perfect Savior. The Lord Jesus Christ came to reveal the infinite fullness (complete perfection) of God's grace and truth to any who would come to the Light (Jesus). Those who belong to the darkness of the world under Satan could never even begin to understand just how Holy and Perfect our God is. The "wisest" of creatures, Satan himself, proved that he could not fully comprehend (understand and overcome) what the true mission of Jesus was as our Savior; otherwise, Satan would not have allowed Jesus to be crucified. Satan's misunderstanding left Satan defeated and doomed. Satan, in his insane darkness, must still not yet fully believe or understand his position of absolute defeat.
J N Darby has a way with words, so I would like to quote some of what he said on this subject:
".... "The true light now shineth." The veil is rent. God is fully manifested in truth and love. If He had been only just, we should have perished. If He had been only love, there would have been no justice; but there was justice and holiness with love, and God has been glorified about our sins in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. The light now is shining. Christ, the source of that light, to be manifested in us, which thing is true in Him and in you..." .............................................." May we so see the excellency of Christ, and so know, in the ways of the lowly man, the full expression, unfolding, and manifestation of the character of God, that our hearts may be knit to Him: and soon we shall see Him face to face, "and know, even as we are known." "

Our Lord revealed His absolute perfection through His true and honest humility and obedience, which the world can never understand, since the world operates in exactly the opposite manner due to its natural proclivity towards darkness.

 

[Brother Albert R.]

He was made perfect (complete) through suffering. In the same sense as when He said while suffering on the cross "IT IS FINISHED"...done...complete. Because He suffered as God in human likeness, He can now be both our High Priest and our Advocate, now knowing first hand what it feels like to suffer as a human just like us. God was never Human before He was born into this world through Mary, so now He knows what it is like to be fully human all the while remaining Divine.

Hebrews 1:14-18
14 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. 16 For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. 17 For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. 18 Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
I hope this helps.
God bless,
Brother Albert

 

[anath]

And this qualified Jesus as the only possible, totally perfect One to be the Perfect Sacrifice for us. Oh my...our God is so Awesome!