“perfect through suffering.” He2.10 ESV
In what sense should we understand that the Son of God was made perfect through suffering? From all accounts Jesus certainly lacked nothing in and of Himself. From all eternity His divine nature has shared the glory and the fellowship of the Father. Yet He did not regard this equality as something to be grasped. He mysteriously emptied Himself and took to Himself a human nature. The scriptures tell us that His human nature learned obedience to God through the things that he suffered, just as He learned how to read or tie up his sandals or work in the carpenters shop with Joseph. Learning was one way He underwent our trials as humans.
But it is the first part of the verse that clarifies the other sense in which Christ was made complete in suffering. “For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.” We were lacking in the fellowship of Christ. For though He had made us and had every right to us, we all had gone astray. And so, to bring us back and make that fellowship complete, He had to suffer for us. It was in this sense that He was made complete in suffering. Just as time and space may separate one lover from another, making their lives incomplete, our sins had separated us from Him. This was something He would not allow and so He bridged the barriers between us at great cost to Himself. He did so, that He might be with the one He loves--to be with you and me. 3/15/2008 ts
Just me trying to be honest with God.
