Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered. Hebrews 5:8
When I was a little boy, I liked to play with the two little boys who lived in the apartment at the other end of our house. Not being Christians, the parents of those boys were not as careful in their speech as mine were. And those two little boys used words that were never heard in our home. Because I heard those words, I repeated them. But I made the mistake of repeating one of them at home within my mother’s hearing. She warned me sternly not to repeat that word again. But her stern warning did not work for long. The word slipped out again a day or two later when my mother was close enough to hear. It was then that I learned obedience by the things that I suffered. My suffering came because I had disobeyed. But the Lord Jesus never did, and never could, disobey His Father. So why did He suffer? And how could He, the omniscient God of all knowledge, learn anything?
The answer to the first question – why He suffered – is precious to every believer. He suffered for you and me. That is what 1 Peter 3:18 tells us: ‘For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit’. The same precious thought is expressed in Isaiah 53:5: But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed. We ought to have suffered, but because of the things which He suffered, we are set free.
The answer to the second question – how He Who knows all could learn something – is a little more complicated. It is true that there never was a time when the Lord Jesus did not possess all knowledge. He always knew everything. But there was a time when He had not experienced humanity. And so there came a time when He learned by experience what it was to become flesh and dwell among us. There came a time when he learned by experience what hunger, weariness, pain, and grief were all about. And, as our text indicates, there came a time when He learned by experience what it was to suffer for disobedience. Although it was our disobedience and not His own that He suffered for, He suffered. Although His suffering was the result of our disobedience, it was also a result of His obedience. The Son Who never disappointed His Father, the Lord Jesus obeyed His Father in all things. The Father’s love for us caused Him to send His Son for us. And the Son’s love for His Father and for us led Him in obedience to Calvary.
Because the Son obeyed, He suffered for sin. Because the Son obeyed, we will never suffer for sin. – Jim MacIntosh