John Brown, Hebrews Quote 4

John Brown quote from Hebrews  p. 107-109

To secure that the “many sons” shall be brought “to glory” under this “Captain of their salvation,” God saw meet to “make Him perfect through suffering.”  Interpreters are by no means agreed as to the significance of the word rendered by our translators, make perfect.  It is plain that, in the sense which the English term most naturally suggests, it is not applicable to Jesus Christ.  The character of Jesus Christ was perfect; He did not stand in need, as good men do, of a course of discipline to cure them of their faults, and to improve their virtues.  It is indeed said, that “He learned obedience by the things which He suffered;” but the meaning of that expression is not that He learned to obey, but that He learned by experience what obedience is.  To avoid this difficulty, some have represented the word as signifying ‘to consecrate, to set apart to.’  There can be little doubt that the word is employed in this way, as the consecration of a priest was an intimation that he was fully possessed of the qualifications the law required in those who filled that office, and in that sense perfected, accomplished for the discharge of its functions.  Others consider it as signifying ‘to glorify, to bring glory, to crown with glory and honour, to render perfectly happy and glorious.’  I am rather disposed to understand the word as equivalent to ‘to accomplish—completely to fit or qualify for the discharge of His office as the Captain of salvation.’  This is a common use of the term: Heb. vii. 19, ix. 9, x. 1, 14.

To perform the office of a Saviour of lost men, three things were necessary—merit, power, and sympathy.  It pleased the Father that the incarnate Son should, as the Saviour of men, obtain all these by suffering.  The Saviour of men must deserve so well of the Moral Governor of the world, as that He, in consistency with the perfections of His character and the principles of His government, may on the Saviour’s account reverse the sentence of condemnation passed on those in whose behalf He has interposed, and bestow on them blessings to which on their own account they have no claim.  The Saviour of men must be possessed of “all power in heaven and earth”—He must have the command of those divine influences which are necessary to make ignorant, foolish, depraved, miserable men, wise, good and happy; He must, too, have the control of all events which, directly or indirectly, bear upon their interest.  And, still further, the Saviour of men must, to fit Him for the discharge of His office, be able to enter into the feelings of those whom He is to deliver.

All these accomplishments are necessary to His being a perfect Saviour; and all these accomplishments were obtained by our Lord Jesus “through suffering.”  It was the patient, cheerful endurance of those penal evils which the law of God had denounced against sinners by the incarnate only begotten of God, that “magnified the divine law and made it honourable,” and made it not merely consistent with, but gloriously illustrative of, the righteousness as well as the mercy of God, to pardon and save the guiltiest of the guilty believing in Jesus.  The power and authority bestowed on Jesus Christ as Mediator are uniformly represented as the meritorious reward of His voluntary obedience unto the death.  “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief; when Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.  He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied:  by His knowledge shall My righteous servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities.  Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong; because He hath poured out His soul unto death:  and He was numbered with the transgressors; and He bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”—“And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.  Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name.”  The power and disposition to sympathize with His people were obtained, and indeed could be obtained, in no other way but suffering.  If our High Priest can be “touched with the feeling of our infirmities,” it is because “He was in all things tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”  Without suffering, sin could not have been expiated; without the expiation of sin, the Saviour could not have obtained all power to give eternal life to men; and, from the very nature of the case, without suffering He would have been very imperfectly capable of sympathizing with the sufferers.  But by suffering He expiated sin; by suffering He obtained for Himself the control both of that inward influence and that physical power which are necessary to the salvation of His people, and He also acquired that experimental acquaintance with trial which peculiarly fits Him to succour them who are tried.