How Did Jesus ‘Learn Obedience’ and ‘Become Perfect’?
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:05.000 | Chris from South Carolina writes in with a really good question. "Pastor John,
00:00:08.600 | hello. If Jesus grew spiritually," and then he cites Luke 2 52, an amazing
00:00:15.520 | reference that Jesus did grow spiritually, "spiritual growth in its
00:00:19.320 | essence must be marked by something other than sinning less. So what is the
00:00:24.160 | essence or perhaps the goal of spiritual growth that sinless Jesus was moving
00:00:29.120 | toward?" What would you say to Chris? Excellent question. So let me put a
00:00:36.480 | couple more passages of Scripture alongside Luke 2 52 so we can see how
00:00:42.960 | crucial the question really is. Luke 2 52 says, "And Jesus increased in wisdom
00:00:50.280 | and in stature and in favor with God and man." So this is where Chris sees
00:00:58.360 | growth in Jesus' spiritual life. He increased, he increased in wisdom and he
00:01:05.040 | increased in favor with God and so on. So there was some kind of movement, some
00:01:10.880 | kind of growth, as Chris says. Now let's add to Luke 2 52, Hebrews 2 10. "It was
00:01:17.800 | fitting that he, God, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons
00:01:24.280 | to glory, that he should make the founder of their salvation perfect through
00:01:31.040 | suffering." So here we have God making Jesus perfect through suffering. So Jesus
00:01:40.280 | is in some sense moving toward perfection. And here's the one other
00:01:46.280 | verse, Hebrews 5 8 and 9. "Although he was a son," although Jesus was a son of
00:01:53.920 | God, "he learned obedience," catch that phrase, "he learned obedience through what
00:02:00.960 | he suffered, and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation
00:02:07.040 | to all who obey him." So if you put all those together, you have Jesus increasing
00:02:13.280 | in wisdom, increasing in favor with God and man, being made perfect through
00:02:19.040 | suffering, learning obedience through what he suffered. And so Chris's question
00:02:24.080 | is basically, what does all that mean if Jesus never sinned and therefore could
00:02:31.880 | not progress from a state of some sinning to no sinning? Or to be more
00:02:39.000 | specific, what does it mean to learn obedience or to be made perfect? And why,
00:02:46.560 | Chris asks, did Jesus pass through this? What's the goal? What is he
00:02:52.400 | moving toward if he's not ever sinning? So let's make sure that neither Chris, I
00:02:59.600 | presume, nor I, neither of us is just arbitrarily assuming that Jesus never
00:03:05.480 | sinned. Like, we've got a theology that he's sinless, and we're just gonna assume
00:03:09.440 | that he never sinned, and we're not gonna let these texts change our mind no
00:03:12.680 | matter what they say. No, no, no, no, no. We're not assuming this. We are reading it in
00:03:18.440 | the book of Hebrews. That's what makes it so significant. Hebrews, probably more
00:03:24.280 | than any other book in the New Testament, insists upon the sinlessness of Jesus.
00:03:29.120 | For example, Hebrews 4:15, "We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize
00:03:34.520 | with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect was tempted as we are, yet
00:03:38.440 | without sin." Same thing in 726, same thing in 914. So we're not assuming Jesus was
00:03:44.880 | sinless. The writer who said he learned obedience said he never sinned. So he has
00:03:50.960 | created the problem, not us, and we're just trying to get inside the Bible
00:03:54.720 | writer's head. What does it mean to be perfected or to learn obedience? And
00:04:00.720 | here's my suggestion. He learned obedience means that Jesus moved from
00:04:09.240 | untested obedience into suffering, and then through suffering into tested and
00:04:17.040 | proven obedience. If you think about it, if you're good enough, you can learn a
00:04:24.720 | new task without failing. And the new task that Jesus had to learn every hour,
00:04:32.240 | especially at the end of his life, was, "Can I endure this suffering that I have
00:04:40.520 | never experienced before, this new obedience that I have never performed
00:04:46.640 | before in the history of the universe, can I learn and do this perfectly without
00:04:53.200 | failing, without falling into unbelief and murmuring?" And the answer of Hebrews
00:05:00.320 | is, "Yes!" He could, and he did. He learned obedience in what he suffered, and he
00:05:07.720 | never, never, never failed once in the process of perfect learning, proven, tested
00:05:17.440 | obedience. In other words, in all of Jesus' suffering, he was being tested. Would he
00:05:24.160 | add obedience to obedience until he had grown into the complete, perfect, tested
00:05:33.480 | man—that is, the man who had been fully and completely proven and who had
00:05:40.920 | responded with perfect obedience so that he could be described as fully perfected?
00:05:49.320 | Not meaning that he passed from sinfulness to sinlessness, but that he
00:05:57.560 | passed from untested obedience to fully tested obedience. And I think the
00:06:05.000 | answer to Chris's question about what Jesus was moving toward is not merely
00:06:10.480 | that he was moving toward a completely tested perfection, but that he was moving
00:06:14.720 | toward fulfilling a perfect salvation for us sinners. Remember, Hebrews 2:10 goes
00:06:20.600 | like this, "It was fitting that he for whom and by whom all things exist in
00:06:26.880 | bringing many sons to glory should make the founder of their salvation perfect
00:06:33.400 | through suffering." In other words, Jesus was fulfilling everything that the Father
00:06:39.320 | saw as fitting in becoming a Savior for sinners. Where we failed in our test,
00:06:47.040 | someone must completely succeed and then offer himself as the founder of our
00:06:52.920 | salvation so that if we trust him and we're united to him, his success in
00:06:59.160 | becoming a perfectly obedient person is counted as our obedience and our success.
00:07:07.200 | And there's one more clue in Hebrews 2:10 in answer to Chris's question about
00:07:13.560 | what's the ultimate goal? What's Jesus up to? What's God up to in putting Jesus
00:07:18.880 | through this learning of obedience through suffering? And the answer is,
00:07:23.600 | it is ultimately for the glory of God. Listen again. "For it was
00:07:30.160 | fitting for God, for whom all things exist, for whom are all things, it was
00:07:41.120 | fitting for that particular God to bring many sons to glory by perfecting Christ
00:07:47.880 | through sufferings." In other words, there was something about God's doing it this
00:07:53.480 | way that was peculiarly fitting for God to get the maximum glory for whom all
00:08:02.560 | things exist. So this is the way of saving sinners that would show that all
00:08:09.560 | things, including the death of Christ, are done for the sake of the glory of God.
00:08:15.360 | And that's exactly the connection Jesus makes between his obedience and the
00:08:23.060 | Father's glory in John 17.4. He says, "I glorified you, Father, on earth, having
00:08:30.040 | accomplished the work you gave me to do." So my ultimate answer to Chris's
00:08:36.600 | question as to why Christ grew and why he learned obedience and why he was
00:08:42.720 | perfected through suffering is that beyond becoming a perfect Savior for us,
00:08:48.860 | which he did, he also glorified God more fully than any other way of salvation
00:08:56.840 | would have done. Amen, that is glorious truth in some really amazing and
00:09:01.320 | profound New Testament texts. Thank you, Pastor John. Well, July is fast
00:09:05.640 | approaching, and that means for those of us in the States, Independence Day is
00:09:09.240 | fast approaching as well, and tomorrow we're gonna step back from this really
00:09:13.520 | crazy political season to look at the topic of patriotism in the Christian
00:09:17.160 | life. I am your host Tony Ranke, thanks for listening to the podcast and for
00:09:21.700 | making it a part of your daily routine. Pastor John and I will see you tomorrow.
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