MADE PERFECT THROUGH SUFFERING

In the first chapter of the book of Hebrews, the Spirit of God paints a vivid and majestic picture of the pre-incarnate Christ. He portrays him in all the glories of his eternal and coequal existence with the Father., ‘God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God.’ He depicts him in his mighty work of creation and redemption, finally ascribing to him the seat of power at the right hand of the Father.

Then the picture changes. Before long we see Christ as the suffering servant of the Old Testament prophets. In startling language the Scriptures reveal the design by which God made him to become the captain of our salvation: ‘In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering’ (Hebrews 2:10).

A little later we learn of Christ’s ordination to the heavenly priesthood, where as our merciful and faithful high priest he appears in God’s presence for us today: ‘Though he were a Son, yet he learned obedience by the things which he suffered; and being made perfect he became the author of eternal salvation unto all who obey him; called of God an high priest after the order of Melchisedec’ (Hebrews 5:8-10).

Can these two pictures portray one and the same person? Can it really be that the coequal Son of the Father was made perfect through suffering, that the sharer of the eternal throne had to learn obedience by the things which he suffered?

This is what the Scriptures teach us, not only in these passages, but in countless others. Through the prophets, God foretold the suffering servant of the Lord who should come to redeem his people. Alongside this picture he placed another, brighter one – that of the conquering King, great David’s greater Son, who should come to free his captive people and establish his everlasting kingdom of justice and peace.

But Israel did not understand that her Messiah must ascend his throne by the pathway of suffering, and so rejected him. And although we Christians have the clear teaching of the New Testament to guide us, many of us have not grasped this truth today. We may concede that suffering was a necessary part of the Redeemer’s life, but we are less able – or willing – to see it as an integral part of our own. We would be stronger and more fruitful Christians if we did. We do not realize that because of our fall, God has made suffering a part of his plan for his children, just as he did for his Son. Not that God wills suffering or wants it, but since we brought suffering on ourselves by our sin, God uses it to fulfill his redemptive purposes and to conform his people to the image of their Lord.

Was the Lord Jesus lacking in perfection that he had to learn obedience and be made perfect through suffering? Not at all. He was perfect as God is perfect, obedient from all eternity. As Son of God he needed no perfecting; but as Son of Man he had to be perfected for the work he had come to do, that he might become the perfect substitute, the perfect sacrifice, the perfect high priest for sinful humanity. In order to become our Savior, his obedience had to be worked out in our sinful world. As a man, the Savior had to learn the practice of obedience in the crucible of human suffering.

Suffering was no part of God’s original creation; it was Satan’s intrusion into human life through our rebellion. Jesus, though fully God, was also fully man. In order to redeem humanity, he had to live our life to the utmost degree, and to bear in his body the full weight of our sin. This meant that he had to experience the full weight of human suffering. In his life and sacrificial death, the Man of Sorrows learned perfect obedience in the fires of suffering, and became our Savior and our great high priest.

The sovereign God took the suffering that our sin brought into the world and used it to perfect his sinless Son to accomplish our redemption. He made Satan’s intrusion the avenue by which the Savior attained his glory and ascended his throne. Should we, then, think it strange that he uses suffering to perfect his human children, to prepare them for the glorious destiny won for them by their suffering Lord.

(Margaret Clarkson, Destined for Glory, p.60f.)