Perfecting Jesus?

This passage was touched on as a part of the message yesterday. I’d like to stir the slurry a little and maybe help it firm up a bit in my mind and in others’. It is the idea that somehow Jesus “learned” or was “perfected” or became more complete while here on our dirt.

Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him; Called of God an high priest after the order of Melchisedec. Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing.

And I’d like to lay this passage down beside it and take them on as one idea.

But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. 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. For both he that sanctifies and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren;

On their own, these do not sound like they align well with the whole rest of the Bible, right? God learns as He goes along? It’s actually not a foreign concept in some corners of Christendom. You can hear it if you listen for it in our speech at times. It is certainly not foreign to some schools of Judaism. Alan Dershowitz, a member of the famous Simpson defense team, wrote an entire book devoted to this theme. That the Torah is the plumbline and God was trying some different things before He tried giving us the Torah. Then He finally got it right on Mount Sinai. Be patient with God, He’s learning. Hogwash.

So if that’s not it, what is this learning and perfection we see in Hebrews?

I’d like to pursue this from a couple of different angles. First, look at the beautiful picture God painted when He spoke forth the process by which a lost inheritance could be redeemed, the kinsman redeemer. The redeemer must be near kin. Not some distant fourth cousin thrice-removed’s brother –in-law, not a stranger. He had to be family, he had to be like the one who was to be redeemed. And it is here we get the first clue as to what could be going on here.

God had never been man before. This was a new thing. This was a once for all thing. So, in this sense, there are learnings going on every day as our Lord walks our roads, eats our foods, hears our noises, feels the sun and wind and rain. And suffers.

Now, there is certainly suffering in Heaven when God is grieved, to be sure. Just do a serious study on the words “repent” and “grieve” as they are used of God in Genesis when Moses speaks “And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.” I think you will see that God knows what it means to suffer. But not as a man suffers. Not in a man’s body, with a man’s mind, a man’s heart, LIKE A MAN. He was to be our near Kinsman, and He was to know the depths and the heights of manhood in the short time He spent here. So He must learn these things by living as a man, so that when He was made our redeemer, the acceptable sacrifice for redeeming man, He would know all He must know to fulfill that role.

Now I’d like to look at this from the perspective of the life of the redeemed, you and me. There is a sense that we are made perfect when we first begin this conversion process. Christ’s work on the cross was perfect, finished, everything done on our behalf, performed super-abundantly and flawlessly. And we receive the full benefit of that work when we act in faith to commit our lives to Him. But there is also a fulfillment of the promise that we only realize when we live out that commitment. We will come into situations which require us to exercise that trust when every one of our five senses and all our worldly wisdom is saying run the other way. There is a perfecting that can only happen in the time of trial, testing, proving of the metal (and mettle) to see for ourselves if God’s Word is “really” true. Our lax little minds can get used to the idea that there is the Bible and then there is “real life.” But God won’t let us remain in that condition if we are His. He will repeatedly and lovingly bring situations across our path that require us to either choose to trust Him, or to cover ourselves with fig leaves, human reason, false religion.

We are called to be hearers of faith and there is only one way to live out that calling: suffering, struggle, darkness. And this is a good picture of the difference between Christ’s perfection as Son of God and His perfecting as the Son of man.

Christ Jesus was our Savior when He was born. But, in time and space, He had done nothing to earn that title. This was a promise that the Father was to fulfill, a sure hope, that would soon be seen in reality. His perseverance in light of the fact that He could have called ten thousand angels is what will crush you. Knowing He could have had it some other way, even a shortcut as Satan offered, but CHOSE to suffer, CHOSE to be like me, CHOSE to weep and grieve.

Did Jesus hesitate because of torture and crucifixion that was ahead? Nonsense. It was the looming act of God placing His hands on His Son’s head and transferring all our sins to Him that made Him sweat blood. All of the holy wrath of God coming to bear on one man at one time for all the sins of you and me and every other son of Adam? And He had to bear it AS A MAN, one like me. This was something God had never done. This was a new thing. A once for all thing. Jesus did not know sin. And now He was to bear ALL sin? Could He do it? As a MAN? Could He drink from this cup? This was what brought forth those halting words in the garden, the terror, the darkness, the suffering that only He could bear while His closest friends slept.

Gethsemane was the final test, the last learning time, the perfecting of perfection. I think Leonard Ravenhill said, “Gethsemane was where He died as a man. Calvary was just the seen completion of it.”

Adam was perfect in his first estate, nothing lacking. Yet he was perfected day by day walking with Christ in that garden. Can you imagine those conversations? Perfection being perfected. Let us go on to completion, you and me. Shall we?