The High Priest, Perfected Through Obedience
V. — 8. Though he was a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which he suffered;
9. And having been made perfect, he became unto all them that obey hi™, the cause of eternal salvation.
OUR Lord Jesus learned obedience by the things which He suffered. Through this obedience He was made perfect, and became the cause of eternal salvation to all that obey Him. So he entered heaven as our High Priest, a Son, perfected for evermore.
The word perfect is one of the keywords of the Epistle. It occurs thirteen times. Four times in regard to the Old Testament, which could make nothing perfect. The law made nothing perfect (vii. 19). Sacrifices that cannot, as touching the conscience, make the worshipper perfect (ix. 9). The law can never make perfect them that draw nigh (x. i). That apart from us they should not be made perfect (xi. 40). As great as is the difference between a promise and its fulfilment, or hope and the thing hoped for, between the shadow and substance, is the difference between the Old and New Testament. The law made nothing perfect: it was only meant to point to something better, to the perfection Jesus Christ was to bring. With the New Testament perfection would come. Thrice the word is used of our Lord Jesus, who
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in Himself prepared and wrought out the perfection He came to impart. It became God to make the Leader of our salvation perfect through suffering (ii. n). He learned obedience, and being made perfect, became the cause of salvation (v. 9). Appointed High Priest; a Son perfected for evermore (vii. 28). The perfection brought by Christ was that which was revealed in His own personal life. He came to restore to us the life of God we had lost — a life in the will and love of God. This alone is salvation. God perfected Him through suffering — wrought out in Him a perfect human character, in which the divine life was fully united with the human will. He learned obedience through suffering, and manifested perfectly the humility and submission and surrender to God, which is man’s duty and blessedness. So, when He had been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him, because He now had that perfected human nature which He could communicate to them. And so He was appointed High Priest — a Son, perfected for evermore. As Son of God, He was to take us up into the very life of God; as High Priest, He was to lift us, in actual spiritual reality, into God’s fellowship and will and presence; the way in which He was perfected through obedience was the living way in which He was to lead us; — as the Son, perfected through obedience, who had found and opened and walked the path of obedience as the path to God, and would animate us with His own Spirit to do it too, He, the perfected One, can alone be our salvation. Then twice we have the word of what Christ has done for us. By one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified (x. 14); the Leader and Perfecter of our faith (xii. 2). Christ’s perfecting us for ever is nothing but His redeeming us by His one sacrifice into the perfect possession of Himself,
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the perfected One, as our life. His death is our death to sin, His resurrection as the perfected One is our life, His righteousness is ours, His life ours; we are put in possession of all the perfection which the Father wrought out in Him through suffering and obedience. And once of the spiritual sanctuary opened by Christ: The greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands (ix. 11). And three times it is used in regard to Christian character: Solid food is for the perfect (v. 14); Let us press on to perfection (vi. i); The God of peace perfect you in every good thing (xiii. 21). The perfect for whom the solid food is, are those who are not content with the mere beginnings of the Christian life, but have given themselves wholly to accept and follow the perfected Master. These are they who press on to perfection — nothing else than the perfection which Christ revealed, as God’s claim on men, and as what He has won and made possible for them.
He learned obedience, and being perfected, became the cause of eternal salvation. The perfection of God is His will. There is no perfection for man but in union with that will. And there is no way for attaining and proving the union with that will but by obedience. Obedience to the good and perfect will of God transforms the whole nature, and makes it capable of union with Him in glory. Obedience to God’s will on earth is the way to the glory of God’s will in heaven. The everlasting perfection of heaven is nothing but the obedience of earth transfigured and glorified. Obedience is the seed, the power, the life of Christ’s perfection and ours.
We are approaching the threshold of the Holiest of All, as this Epistle is to open it up to us as the sphere of the heavenly
1 In the Greek here the word used is not the same as in the other passages.
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priesthood of Him who was made after the order of Melchizedek. Ere we proceed thither let us learn this lesson well: The distinguishing mark of the earthly life of our High Priest; the source of His heavenly glory and His eternal salvation; the power of His atonement of our disobedience; the opening of the living way in which we are to follow Him our Leader; the inner disposition and spirit of the life He bestows; — of all this, the secret is obedience. Through obedience He was perfected, His sacrifice was perfect, He perfected us for ever, He carries us on to perfection.
7. When the perfect heavenly life of the Lord Jesus comes down from heauen into our hearts, it can assume no form but that which it had in Him — obedience.
2. God must be obeyed: In that one word you have the hey to the life and death of Jesus, His sitting at God’s right hand, His priesthood, His dwelling in our hearts, as well as to the whole of the gospel message, — God must be obeyed.
3. Christ, the obedient One, who inaugurated for us the new way of obedience unto death as the way to God. Is this the Christ thou louest and trusteth? Is this thy delight in Him, that He now has deliuered thee from thy disobedience, and makes thee strong to Hue only to obey God and Him? Is Christ precious to thee because the salvation He gives is a restoration to obedience?
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