Hebrews 5:8

Though he were a Son. This has reference to the divinity of Christ. Though He took humanity, Christ was nevertheless divine. The two natures were mysteriously blended in Him (see on John 1:14). The resurrection especially declared Him to be the Son of God (see on Rom. 1:4), but prior to that event He was already Son (see on Luke 1:35). The thought of the passage is that though He was divine, He learned “obedience by the things which he suffered.”

Learned. Gr. manthand, “to learn,” “to come to know,” “to come to understand.” Christ came to understand what obedience meant. For Him it entailed suffering and death; He “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:8). He came to this earth to do the will of God (Heb. 10:9), and from this course He could not be swerved. Doing His Father’s will involved Jesus in constant conflict, but not once did He yield to temptation. Knowing by personal experience the involvements of human obedience to the divine will, He is able “to succour” those who are tempted to swerve from the path of obedience (eh. 2:18).

Sometimes the question is raised how it could be said that Christ, who is perfect and at every moment has been perfect, needed to learn obedience. Two observations may help to answer this query: (1) As far as His earthly life is concerned Christ developed like other human beings. He “increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man” (see on Luke 2:52). He learned by observation and experience as do others. (2) Though as God prior to the incarnation Christ was omniscient, yet He did not know by experience the problems confronting men as they seek to render obedience to God. By becoming man and by facing the temptations of life as a man, Christ gained this knowledge. He thus met one of the essential qualifications for the high priesthood, namely that the appointee belong to the human family (see on Heb. 5:1-3).