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Answer
Hebrews 5:8–10 states, “Son though he was, [Jesus] learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.” Understanding these verses requires considering the context.
The entire epistle clarifies the Hebrews’ Scriptures. The author guides them from their familiar Old Testament, particularly the Law of Moses, to the revelation of how Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament and ushered them into a New Covenant with God (Hebrews 8:1-13;9:15). Chapters 4 through 10 explain how the Levitical priesthood and temple are now in heaven, and Jesus serves as our perfect, final, and eternal high priest.
The immediate context spans from Hebrews 4:14 to 5:10 and discusses Jesus’ qualifications as the sole High Priest in heaven for all people, for all time. Here (and elsewhere in Hebrews) we discover that Jesus was fully divine yet fully human, sinless yet tempted and weak. Due to Jesus’ unique nature and experiences, He can empathize with our struggles while fulfilling the priestly duties mandated by the Law for our sins to be forgiven.
Examining Hebrews 5:8—part of a continuous sentence across three verses—we find a concise account of Jesus’ earthly life. He, the infinite Son of God, experienced the constraints of time, space, and human existence. God could have instantly created a mature adult body for Jesus, as He did for Adam, and hastened Him to the cross, but He chose not to. Instead, Jesus willingly left heaven, entered time (Philippians 2:5-8), experienced ordinary human life from birth to adulthood to death. Learning, suffering, and death are integral parts of the human experience, and God ensured that His Son would go through them as well. Although Jesus, being God, did not need to learn anything, especially obedience, He chose to limit Himself to the human experience during His incarnation. He willingly took on the humble position of having to learn and grow, as stated in (Luke 2:52).
Jesus “learned obedience” not because He was inclined to disobedience and needed to control rebelliousness, but because He fully immersed Himself in the human experience. During His childhood, He obeyed His parents, as mentioned in (Luke 2:51); and as an adult, He obeyed the Law, fulfilling it, as stated in (Matthew 5:17), and fulfilling all righteousness, as seen in (Matthew 3:15). Throughout His life, Jesus completely carried out the Father’s will, as indicated in (John 8:29;John 15:10;Hebrews 10:9). While Jesus knew what obedience entailed before His incarnation, He “learned” obedience on earth by experiencing it. In every circumstance, no matter how challenging, the Son obediently followed the Father’s will: “The SovereignLord has opened my ears; I have not been rebellious, I have not turned away. I offered my back to those who beat me” (Isaiah 50:5-6).
Jesus learned obedience “from what He suffered.” As the divine Son of God, Jesus did not have to suffer, but as the Son of Man, suffering was required to learn obedience. The Greek word used in Hebrews 5:8 for “suffered” usually refers to enduring unpleasant experiences like disease «and had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse, », (Mark 5:26) or persecution «And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judæa and Samaria, except the apostles. », (Acts 8:1). However, it often also implies enduring a challenging process that transforms the sufferer (Romans 5:3;2 Corinthians 1:3-9). That is the sense in which the word is used in Hebrews 5:8 see also Hebrews 2:10. Jesus chose to endure an unpleasant, challenging process because it was the will of His Father for His brief time on earth. After that process, Jesus had been “made perfect.” It is crucial to note that perfect here means “complete,” as in finishing a full course of training or education—or, in Jesus’ case, He finished an altogether righteous human life and had a complete understanding of human frailty and suffering. It was Christ’s total human obedience, coming through extreme suffering, that qualifies Him to be our eternal High Priest, “now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death” «But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than tHe endured the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone. », (Hebrews 2:9).
Having been “perfected,” not morally but in terms of His ministry as our Savior, Jesus is qualified to be “the source [or author] of eternal salvation for all who obey him” «and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him; », (Hebrews 5:9). Jesus’ high priesthood is not a temporary Levitical priesthood but is eternal, “in the order of Melchizedek” (verse 10).
The incredible eternal outcomes of the ordeal Jesus endured are explained throughout the Bible but beautifully summarized in this passage:
“Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore, he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. For the law appoints as high priests men in all their weakness; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever” (Hebrews 7:23-28).
