December 3

What is it for your difficulties or duty to be increased, if there be an increase of the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ?

DECEMBER 3.—“Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.”—Hebrews 5:8.

THE title here given to the Lord Jesus is applied to him peculiarly, and in a way of dignity. This is obvious from the very reasoning of the Apostle: for there is nothing wonderful in the supposition that a son should learn obedience by suffering—for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But the marvellousness is that such a Son should learn obedience by the things which he suffered.

Here let us keep close to the Scripture, and not pry into things which we have not seen. All mankind are the offspring of God, as he is the real author of their being, the framer of their bodies, and the former of their spirits within them. Adam is called “the son of God,” as he was immediately produced by his power, and made after his image, not only in dominion, but knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, in distinction from all the inferior orders of his creatures. This likeness was soon lost by the Fall, and hence the term soon became in the Scriptures a religious appellation, serving to discriminate the godly from the wicked. When all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth, the descendants of Seth are called “the sons of God,” because they worshipped, served and resembled him. Christians therefore obtain this honour in the New Testament: “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.” They are so by adoption and regeneration. The angels, those pure intelligences unincumbered with our flesh and blood, are also thus characterized: “The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” But “unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son? And again, when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him. And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire. But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.” We leave the conclusion to yourselves—It must lead you to consider him “above all principalities and powers, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.”

And what does the Apostle affirm concerning him? He suffered; he obeyed; he learned. “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.”

He suffered. He was “a man of sorrows,” as if he derived his very character from them, “and acquainted with grief.” Grief is always our neighbour, and sometimes our visitor; but it was his companion, and never separated from him till he gave up the ghost. Who can describe or imagine the greatness and the number of “the things he suffered”—in his outward estate? in his reputation? in his connexions? in his body? in his soul? Behold, and see if ever there was sorrow like unto his sorrow!

He obeyed. His obedience was very superior to ours. It was

complete and universal. He did no sin. He omitted no duty. He always did the things that pleased the Father; and therefore at the close of the whole he could confidently make the appeal, "I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished the work that thou gavest me to do." His obedience also appeared in his submission. We are required to obey God as our governor, as well as our lawgiver, and to acquiesce in his appointments as well as fulfil his orders. And here, alas! how often do we fail. It is no easy thing to bear sickness, to resign a pleasant situation, to part with a beloved child—to obey a correcting God! How often we rebel or repine! But without a murmuring word or feeling, he submitted to all the pleasure of his heavenly Father, saying, Not my will, but thine be done. Even his death and all that led to it was an act of obedience—He "was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." He said, "Lo! I come to do thy will, O God;" and that will required the sacrifice of himself as an offering for sins. Hence, as he was going forth to agonize in the garden, and suffer on the cross, he said, "But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do; arise, let us go hence."

He learned—"He learned obedience by the things which he suffered." Many do not. Experience, says Franklin, is a dear school, but fools will learn in no other. The truth is, they will not learn even in this. Only wise men, says Burke, ever derive wisdom from experience. Experience itself is thrown away upon others, like seed sown upon a rock or the sand of the sea. Under what an expensive course of tuition have some passed? Yet what have they learned? May we not say of them, in the language of Jeremiah, "O Lord, are not thine eyes upon the truth? thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved; thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return." When this is the case, the incorrigibleness is punished in one of these two ways; God either abandons the culprit, saying, He is joined to idols, let him alone; or, if he does not remove the rod, he turns it into a scorpion. He increases the severity and the grievousness of the strokes till the threatening is awfully accomplished; "He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy." At the most distant danger of which, the Israelite indeed falls upon his knees and cries, "O Lord, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing." And says David, "Blessed is the man whom thou chasteneth and teachest out of thy law." This is the design of affliction, and the effect of it when sanctified. Some of our lessons have cost us much, but they have not cost us too much if we have learned obedience by the things we have suffered.

But this does not apply to the Son of God precisely in the same way it does to us. The distinction is this. He learned obedience by the things he suffered, but he did not learn to obey. David's afflictions humbled his pride, banished his sloth, roused his attention, and excited him to study the will of God; and therefore he said, "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept thy word." "It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes"—Thus he learned by his sufferings to obey. But