Hebrews 5:8
21 December 2025
Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. (Hebrews 5:8)
Please turn in your Bibles to the book of Hebrews to chapter 5. As we continue our series studying the Book of Hebrews. Our focusing this evening in verse 8 of chapter 5, but we'll begin reading at verse 5 down to verse 10. If you're using one of our church Bibles, that can be found on page 1003. So we're reading Hebrews chapter 5 and beginning at verse 5. This is the Word of God.
"So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him, You are my son, today I have begotten you. As he says also in another place, You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek". Amen.
Let's pray together. Father God, we draw near to you in prayer and we worship and praise your holy name, giving thanks to you for your word, for the preached word, for the blessing, the upbuilding, the strengthening of the church of Jesus Christ that this produces by your spirit. So work now, we pray that you would be glorified, that your kingdom would advance. And we ask this in Jesus' precious and mighty name. Amen.
So it is quite interesting in the Lord's providence that as we are working our way through the Book of Hebrews systematically chapter by chapter, verse by verse - we come to this section in a time in the year when we are thinking about Christmas and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to this earth because in the Book of Hebrews as a whole it is one of the most comprehensive, one of the most significant of all of the books in Scripture to teach us about that very subject, the subject of the incarnation, namely God becoming man. And more specifically to what we're dealing with in chapter 5, it's with regards to how the God-man fulfils the office of the priesthood. This is an ongoing and building argument that we see here in chapter 5 and will continue in the subsequent chapters. And very much at the heart of this section, what we dealt with last week in verse 7 and what we're dealing with here today in verse 8. It takes us to the very heart of the humanity of Jesus Christ, of what it would mean for Him to be this priest by becoming a man and fulfilling this office.
Last week in verse 7 we dealt with the subject of the loud cries, the tears, the pain and the agony of what it would mean for Christ to be on this earth and to be bearing our sin and to face the divine wrath of his father. And now here this week we come to the subject of what Jesus learns. Verse 8 again, although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. That's what we're dealing with in the time that we have.
Now as we prepare to work our way through this crucial verse in Scripture, one thing we have to have in view is the chasm. The chasm between man on this earth and the Most High, Great, Glorious, Almighty God. There is an infinite, eternal chasm separating us here on this earth from this Great and Mighty God who created us and yet we are separated from Him. This is of our own fleshly volition, of our own earthly will, an irreconcilable chasm. It is something that we cannot restore or mend. And even further still, it's not something in our flesh, in our hearts, that we want to restore or to mend. In the very heart of man in this earth, we have rejected God. We have placed ourselves in the place of God. And so, when it comes to subjects like the existence of God or the notion of an afterlife and going to heaven, well we might like the sound of some of these things. We might think that there could be some sort of wisdom or benefit in finding religion. But these things do nothing to change or to address this chasm, this separation that we have with God.
And the reason why is because of who we now are as sinful people, as lawbreakers, as those cut off because of the very fact that we are fallen in sin and this is the great and mighty God whom we are dealing with. And this brothers and sisters is why the priesthood is essential. Sin is the reason why the priesthood is needed. And so, when we come to in the Old Testament the subjects of sacrifices and blood and all these priests and temples, it's very significant. But maybe some would read this and think - Well look, if this is God's plan, if this is God's plan of grace, His unmerited favour to people on this earth, then wouldn't it be much simpler to forget all this priest stuff and blood and sacrifices and all that mess and God just to let people into heaven? If He's gracious, just let them in. And yet we know that Almighty God cannot, will not, must not do this. Because when we look at the attributes of God, who God is, He is perfectly just. He is the Holy God. He is righteous. We are anything but these things. We fall short of these things. We are cut off because of the fact that we have gone against the very reality and truth of who God is.
Our very nature is corrupt. And so, God would not be God if he just said, come on in anyway. That might, from a fleshly perspective, be deemed, well that would be God being gracious. No, it would not, and it certainly would therefore be at the expense of who he is. God cannot forgo his justice. He cannot just obliterate his righteous perfect standard in order to let you in. And this is what makes the priestly office so staggeringly glorious to behold. Because the priestly office is where grace can reign in righteousness, but not at the expense of justice. Grace can reign in righteousness, but not at the expense of justice.
Now think about what we've been seeing even in the beginning of chapter 5, which is very much summarizing key themes of the priestly office in the Old Testament. What is the calling of the priest? A priest is called to represent a people before God and especially there is a designated high priest who once a year would enter into the most holy place with a perfect unblemished sacrifice which would act as a covering for the sin of God's chosen people in the Old Testament, making atonement which is that chasm being dealt with by the sacrifice which is pleasing in the sight of God. These things, these themes are crucially important to grasp.
And yet what we've also noted in Hebrews chapter 5 and throughout the Word of God is that the system of the priesthood in the Old Testament cannot be, it is not salvific in itself. So, if we were to look at these priests like Aaron in Exodus and as we go into Leviticus, Numbers and think, oh well, we need to do this priestly thing, so we need to get a priest, we need to get some animal sacrifices, that can save nobody.
And so, you might then hear and think, well, It's not that relevant then. If it can't save me, what's the point of learning about it? And yet actually, it's the opposite. We need to learn and understand the significance of the priesthood in the Old Testament and see why these things, why these animal sacrifices were so important because they foreshadow, they point forward to what the Lord Jesus Christ would secure, what He would fulfil. And that's what Hebrews is now beginning to unravel as this argument is being built. Jesus would come to fulfil this office. He would come to be this very thing which would be salvific. And so, we need to have in our minds, why is being a priest so important? Because we're dealing with someone who would represent a people, a chosen people before God. Jesus would come to do that for His people. And how would He come to do that for His people? Well, that's exactly what we're dealing with in these verses. How did He do it?
In the Old Testament we see there were earthly priests, were sinful men and they would take actual slain animals and the blood would be brought on the altar in the most holy place and that blood would be the atonement for Israel's sin for that period covering their sin and it would satisfy God's righteous anger, and it would be done again and again and again. Not just for the people but even for this priest himself because they're all sinners.
Now we come to one who is fulfilling this office, Jesus Christ. And this is a key component as to why the Christmas story is so essential. I wonder how many times you've thought, well, the Christmas season, the story of Jesus coming is so crucial because of the subject of the priesthood. Well, it is. Because this Christmas story is the story of God becoming a man because he had to become a man in order to relate to man. That's what the priest is to do. He must relate to the man, the man he is coming to represent before God in order to then redeem these men, these people by Himself representing them, these chosen people, and ultimately suffering, bleeding and dying for them. In order that today, He as our great High Priest would be representing and interceding for us in heaven. All of this is wrapped up in the subject of the priesthood.
So, to summarize, sin is the reason why there is need of the priesthood. Grace is the reason why there can be a priesthood. Mediation is the function of the priesthood. The God-man is the one who is qualified for the priesthood. Atonement for sin is the work of the priesthood. And redemption is the outcome of the priesthood.
Now as we continue to work our way through the subsequent chapters, we will be drawing out, we will be fleshing that out more and more. So, this, as we work through the months, should become more and more clear in our minds as we understand more the depths and the riches of what is before us. But a crucial thing to have in view with today's text is this subject of Jesus representing and relating to His people. That's why this baby being born in Bethlehem is so significant, because he has come to represent, he has come to relate to this people who, as we considered last week, he would ultimately die for on a cross. So, you and I, us sitting here, a couple of thousands of years later, Jesus came to represent and to relate to you. That's how intimate, that's how personal, and that is how majestic this is.
Now the immediate challenge that we have when we come to a verse like verse 8 is dealing with what it meant for Jesus to do this. Just look at the words that we have in this verse. It says, “Although he was a son, He learned obedience through what he suffered”.
Now just think for a moment how significant these words are. He learns obedience. How can we even begin to reconcile such language? In fact, these two verses, Hebrews 5:7 and 8, with regards to being associated with God, they're utterly repugnant to consider, that Jesus would have loud cries and tears because He's facing sin. Not His own sin, our sin. That He would be learning obedience. This is the God of all creation, the One who is all-knowing, all-powerful, sovereign, Lord over all things. This is the language that's being spoken, not about someone who's got some distant connection with God. This is the language that we read about God and it's language that is essential because Jesus has come to be this great high priest, to relate to this people here in a church like Aberdeen.
And so, as we come to tackle the verse itself, the difficulty that we have is that on one level, we dare not be irreverent about the holiness and the regal majesty of who God is when we speak about Jesus' learning obedience. And yet, at the same time, we dare not gloss over the realities and the limitations of God living as a man on this earth. And so, we're holding these two truths in tension and seeking to understand them in the person and life and work of Jesus Christ. And it is one of the greatest theological difficulties we have in all of scripture. But in true fashion in the Book of Hebrews, we don't just get to say, ah, well, we'll skip over that. That's a bit too difficult. No, we're taking time, painstaking time to go through verses like this in great detail to seek to make sense of it. And make sense of it, we pray, we would increasingly, by the Spirit of God, giving us an enlightening understanding of His Word.
Because that's what we need. Do not think that any of you and even me coming to preach God's Word can have the answers any other way when it comes to a subject like God living as a man. We've heard this time and time again, but every time we need to stop and reconcile what we are declaring here, the living God becoming a man. It raises so many questions like, well what was his upbringing like? How did he relate to people? What did it mean for him to grow up? What did it mean for him to be in this sinful world? And verses like this are enabling us to consider and try to tackle some of these themes. That's what we're dealing with here in this verse.
So, let's get to the verse itself and we begin with this opening declaration, “although he was a son”. “Although he was a son”. Now this word “although” is worth noting just for a moment because it's highlighting two things. It highlights the importance of who he is but also the necessity of what he becomes. So, the word “although”, it highlights the importance of who he is, namely the son. But it's also pointing us to the necessity of what He is to become. And who is it that He is? Well, He's the Son. Think about this ongoing theme regarding the description of Jesus Christ in the Book of Hebrews itself. Think of chapter 3 once more, where there's a contrast between uh One of the great figures of the Old Testament, Moses, who was faithful in all of God's house as a servant, but that's contrasted to one who is infinitely greater, namely Jesus Christ, because he is a son. He is the son. Who we see earlier in chapter 5 is the son begotten of the father. The Son who back in Hebrews chapter 1 verse 8 it says, the Son your throne, O God, is forever and ever. So, there's no doubt, there's no sense of confusion with regards to what is being communicated and declared regarding who the Son is. He is God. He is Almighty God. The Creator of this earth and everything that is in it. This is Jesus Christ, the second person of the triune God. And so, when we deal with the subject of Jesus being the priest and living on this earth as a man, He is God. Period. There's no ceasing to be God. There's no 50-50, bit of God, bit of man, you know, he is eternally God. That doesn't make tackling this verse any easier. In fact, to try to then understand the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ is so much harder when we understand that he is God. Full stop.
But that truth must be cast iron set in the hearts and minds of every one of us. This man that we are speaking of, this baby who would be born in this cave-like place in a manger - is God. The one true living God. And so, the first thing that we need to address when it comes to the subject of this God becoming man is how he doesn't learn. Because it's saying here in this verse that although He was a son, He learned obedience. So first of all, we need to clarify in what way Jesus does not learn things. And the reason is because Jesus is divine. He knows the whole law in his heart. He knows exactly who he is, what he has come to do, because he is the all-knowing, all-powerful, all-sufficient God who created all things. He knows all things. He reigns and rules over all things. This is who this is. It's not an assistant to this God. It is this very God. So, the God of the universe doesn't learn new things. As if to say, oh well, these people in Aberdeen did this tonight, so me as God, I've learned something new tonight. No, this is God, He knows everything. So, when it comes to the divine nature and being of Jesus Christ, there is no learning as though the divine being of God is learning new things. And that needs to be stressed. Even when it comes to the subject of His coming.
There is no confusion. There's no coming to a realization when Jesus turns maybe 30 odd. Oh, so I'm meant to die for sinners then. I didn't know that growing up. Jesus is God. And in this regard, there is no learning. And yet, Hebrews 5:8 says, although He was a son, although He was this son, which is God, the divine being, although He is this, not He stopped being this, although He is this son, it says, He learned obedience through what He suffered. Think back to Hebrews 4:15, important verse. says, “for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin”. We have one who comes to relate to, to sympathize with us in, as it says, every respect. And so, this means that though He is God, He needs to become a man like us, being born as a baby like us, growing up like us, in order to relate to us, to sympathize with us in every respect. This needs to happen in order for Him to be a priest who can relate to the people he will represent. If he doesn't do this, if Jesus doesn't become this man growing up in the way that he does, he cannot relate to us in the way that he must in order to fulfil the office of priest. So, we're dealing with necessity with regards to the eternal counsel of the will of God that Jesus would save sinners. He needs to do this. And in order to do this, He needs to live like us and therefore by becoming like us as a man, he will learn through what he experiences. This is how Jesus learns, through what he will experience in becoming a man, in how he will relate to us, in how he will live like us, in how he will live among us.
Now when it comes to this word learning, which we'll dwell on in more detail soon, it says it in the verse, that he learns obedience, note, through what he suffered. Now this is where we begin to really see how staggering this is. And it just, as we build this argument, it should become just more and more mind-boggling to think about and to dwell on. As a father or a mother with your child, what do you not want your children to go through? Suffering. You don't like, you don't want to see your children suffering and you'll do things to stop them from suffering if you have the opportunity. What do we have of God the Father with God the Son? Well Isaiah 53:10 says that it was the Father's will to crush the Son. It is the eternal counsel of the will of God, the triune God, that the Father, the first person of the triune God, would send the Son, would commission, call the Son, the second person of the triune God, to become a man on this earth in order to crush Him. And this is where we understand that everything about what Jesus would experience, what he would learn, would be through suffering. But here's the crucial thing, brothers and sisters. The Father will crush His own Son. His own Son will suffer in order to rescue those who will be adopted as sons and daughters. It's a breath-taking reality. God's own Son, Jesus Christ, will suffer that you will become God's children. That's love. That is the very definition and picture of love. That is the breath-taking and glorious Christmas story here. That the Son would come to this earth and He would suffer in order that you and I, wretched filthy sinners like us could become sons and daughters of the Most High God. And this is the very heart of the Gospel in what Jesus Christ would secure by what he would learn.
Now on a practical level, the learning obedience is very much the fact that he becomes a human being on this earth, the fact that he becomes a man in order to relate to us. But also the learning applies to the fact that he is a baby, he's a boy, he's a teenager, he's a man like us. Can we even begin to get our heads around, when we look at babies in our congregation and we see how they function and how they're beginning to kind of pick things up as they grow up and they're starting to learn things that they learn to grab and crawl and all of these sorts of things, can we even begin to imagine Jesus was one of these babies? When we talk about this Christmas story, a baby being born in a manger, uh growing up to be a child visited by the Magi, then growing up even more, learning to speak, to walk, to eat. How can we get our heads around this? And even just to then speculate even more in terms of all these other children that are around Jesus as he's growing up as a boy and then as a teenager, they're sinners. They think and they act in a sinful way. The way they talk is according to the flesh. This young boy here is nothing like that. He's a boy like all these other boys and yet he's nothing like that.
This really helps me to reflect on conversations I had with my own mum about this very subject. Many times, this would be one of her favourite topics to speak to me about, would be, I wonder what Jesus was like as a teenager. Do think he was quiet? And I'd always be Mr. Biblical and say, well I think we shouldn't be speculating too much on that. And yet Hebrews 5:8, there is scope to speculate and wonder, well what would he have been like? What would it have meant for Jesus to learn obedience in these ways, even in relating to his own earthly father and mother, with Joseph and Mary raising him? All of these questions come to mind. Now we're not just left with speculation here. In fact, there's one particular passage that's quite key. Let's turn there just briefly to Luke's Gospel, chapter 2.
We have this absolutely fascinating account at the end of the chapter with Jesus as a boy. We get almost nothing recorded in the scriptures after Jesus as a baby, as a toddler, to then when he's a man. But this passage is when Jesus is around the age of 12 during the time of the Passover and he goes missing. And Mary, Joseph, they're very worried. Where is he? Where is he? They look for days until they find him in the temple speaking with the religious leaders. And we see in the final two verses of this chapter, first of all verse 51, and he went down with them, Jesus, and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. So, Jesus is submitting. This is God. Remember this is God in human flesh and he is submitting to these earthly parents, as he is learning, and his mother treasured up all these things in her heart, the encounter that just happened. And then we see another fascinating and crucial verse, verse 52. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favour with God and man. What a powerful verse that is. He increased. God does not increase, He is God. And yet, in the limitation of His humanity, though He is God, and that has not in any way changed, there is still in the human flesh an increasing in wisdom in the way by which He is learning through what He is experiencing as He is growing.
Now brothers and sisters, at this point we need to be reminded of something crucial. Jesus has put himself in this position of his own volition. This is very much this secret counsel of God's will. And this is the depths of the shame that the Son of God would go through to also be surrounded by such corruption and such wickedness in order to relate to and to represent and ultimately redeem His people. He's going through all of this for us. And so, whatever we may struggle to still grasp of Jesus learning as He grew from baby to toddler to boy to man, what we can certainly grasp is the limitation with regards to the nature of why he would be learning. And it's the most striking of pictures that Jesus Christ has gone from being the absolute authority, the creator of Earth, to now coming in the form of a servant by becoming a man like us. It's why he is subject to his Father who is in heaven. It's why John's Gospel is filled with such declarations and emphasis. It's why Romans 15:3 also states, for Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. Now these truths don't deny the divine nature of the Son, but it establishes His divine calling as a priest by assuming the fleshly condition in which He learns obedience. And this is the divine humiliation of the Son of God in taking the form of a servant. As we saw earlier, Philippians 2:7, Jesus emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. Now it's very clear that simply by becoming a man on this earth, Jesus learned through experiences, by being a man. He learned through suffering by being a man. But the suffering of being a man is more pointed than simply he was a man. Because what we have is a verse which takes us from cradle in a cave in Bethlehem to a cross outside Jerusalem. From beginning to end, from birth to death, this is the humiliation of the Son of God. He learned obedience by taking the form of a servant in human flesh. He learned obedience by living in this sin-stained world. And crucially, he learned obedience by bearing our sin on that cruel cross. And we already dealt with so much of this last week in Hebrews 5:7, but let's read it again at this point. “In the days of his flesh, where he's learning obedience, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to Him who was able to save him from death and he was heard because of his reverence”. This is the gospel which is the hope of the world, the salvation of the elect, Christ's own bride, hanging entirely on this. This is what it meant for Jesus to become your sin bearer. by being the priest who would represent you before God and by becoming the sacrifice for you on the cross. And so, these loud cries and tears of Gethsemane, they're not preemptive where Jesus is wondering, what might it be like at Calvary? No, He is literally facing the reality of our sin. That's how much He suffered and He is learning obedience at this point because He, at this point at Gethsemane and then carrying the cross to Calvary, is being obedient to death on a cross. What would it mean for Jesus, who is God, to learn what it means and looks like to bear our sin, to face the divine wrath and anger and judgment that we deserve on Calvary? This is what Jesus would suffer on that cross. And so by the life that He lives, which is perfect, and by the death that He dies, which is sacrificial, we have the Savior for sinners. It needed all of it, from the beginning to the end, where we have Jesus' life, which is a perfect life fulfilling the law, and Jesus' death, which is a perfect sacrifice, which is sufficient to pay the penalty for your sin.
What does the priesthood demand? Well, God's justice demands a sacrifice that can deal with sin, and Christ is that. Christ is that sacrifice. You can have no other hope, here this evening. There's no other hope, no other way, no other means by which that chasm which separates you from God can be dealt with except this priest. Not the earthly priest of the Old Testament, the great high priest Jesus Christ. It would take God becoming like us. So, he is born as a baby as we were born as babies. Only morally, spiritually, he is not like us. He was born by the miraculous conception, he had no sin. He knew no sin. He lived like us. Just an ordinary boy like any other boy. Except he is not like any other boy. Because where there is the idolatry, the lust, the wickedness of these other boys, in Him, He knew no sin. And so, when it comes to one who could represent us, He is perfect. He is perfect. Because His obedience in what He learns by fulfilling the law, doing what the Father wills, it's without flaw. There's no blemish. This is the trajectory of the life he lives, learning obedience through suffering. And therefore, he is the perfect model and example for us. He can relate to us and he can die for us. And that's the victory that we have in Jesus Christ. When you look at your life, when I look at my life, the rebellion, the hypocrisy, the part-time nature in which we do Christianity. What can we do? We can look to the sinless Saviour. His life was a cost of absolute humiliation for you. His life was the cost of everything being given up, even his own life. For such is God's love for us, for the church that he came to die for. But God in his sovereign will and decree did not exempt his own son from suffering. Take that in. He did not exempt his own son from suffering, from dying the most brutal and horrifying of deaths. It wasn't the humiliation of being a man, but that the life was one, not of luxury of being served by others, but of suffering and serving others and laying down that life as a ransom for many. That's the suffering that he endured. This is the obedience that Jesus learned. By becoming a man, by growing up as a man, by living in this fallen world as a man, and then dying as a man. The sacrifice for sinners on the cross. And in doing this, all of this, this is how he is your great high priest. Because He is the sacrifice that was slain on Calvary. But he is the risen and victorious Lord over all. He has conquered sin and death. The grave has been defeated. Jesus is alive. And today he is seated at the right hand of the majesty on high. And what is he doing? He is interceding for you as your great high priest.
That's who he is for you, Christian. Do you deserve this? Absolutely not. Did Jesus deserve to die? Absolutely not. And yet this is the glorious exchange, the very picture of the gospel. The undeserving sinner of grace is set free by the one who did not deserve to die, by the life that He lived, by the obedience that He learned through suffering. This is your great High Priest, your Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. That's the Christmas story. That's the beauty, the majesty, the wonder of the incarnation. And as we may wonder and speculate about aspects of what it would have meant and looked like for Jesus to be a man, we know he lived as a man. Perfect and without fault, sin, blemish. In order to be the unblemished sacrifice for your sin. And that is the Gospel.
Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, as we dwell upon the words of such a verse that is difficult to take in and fully grasp this side of eternity. How we thank you that we can still seek to wrestle with, grapple with the truths that are contained in it. And help us to take in the significance and the magnitude of why the priesthood is essential and how Christ fulfilled it by becoming like us, by growing up being raised as we all have been living in the midst of such sinfulness, wickedness all around us. He was like us and yet he was not like us. In order to represent us as he related to us, he would die for us. Jesus Christ our Lord, now risen victorious overall. Thank you for the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Help us, Father, as we continue to study this weighty and mighty topic in these months to come. To understand all the more the richness and the beauty of Jesus, our great High Priest, and what it meant for Him to secure the salvation of our souls by the shedding of His blood. The priest who would become the sacrifice for sinners, thank you Father, that this is the very heart of the Gospel, the Gospel by which we are saved and we come now as this redeemed people who Christ came to represent and to die for, to worship you tonight. May you be worshiped and praised in our hearts and our lives, for we ask these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.