Our purpose at the Omega Institute is to help the believer understand and appreciate the doctrines of Scripture in a way he or she can truly digest and apply. This series of devotionals cover the spectrum of Evangelical biblical doctrine in such a way that the Christian can meditate each week on a different truth from Scripture so as to master the essentials and better know and serve his or her Lord.
Key Verses:
“Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.”
—Hebrews 5:8
After the first three centuries of sporadic but considerable persecution, the Christian Church finally enjoyed the opportunity to deliberate over the Scriptures without fear of reprisal. The 318 overseers who attended the first Ecumenical (Church-wide) Council at the Emperor Constantine’s winter palace in Nicaea in modern Turkey) deliberated over the Scripture’s teachings on the nature of God (among other things) as it pertained to the relationship between the Father and the Son mentioned in the New Testament: were they one in mere purpose (but singular in person) or in essence (what it means to be God)? In declaring that the Father and the Son are of the same essence (against the Arian party who postulated that the Son was created by the Father and lesser in glory and essence), the deity of the Son was confirmed as He was affirmed as co-equal and co-eternal. The Holy Spirit is mentioned as an object of belief in a manner inferring equality but later formulations of the creed would clarify this fact further.
Those who believed that the Son was of the same essence as the Father (hence, co-equal and co-eternal) defended their position on the basis of passages like John 10:30 where Jesus states that He and the Father are one. The Arians defended their position (that Jesus was less than God and of a different essence) by appealing to the Scriptures as well, in claiming passages such as John 14:28 where Jesus declares that the Father is greater than He.
Were these men splitting theological hairs or is there something more important at stake? Since Jesus clearly said that the Father was greater than He was, we need to understand this statement in light of Scripture’s intent – in other words, we need to discern Jesus’ meaning as consistent with the rest of what Scripture reveals about He and God and the relationship between them. In what sense is He and the Father one?
Let’s first appreciate the fact that what is at stake here is the identity of Jesus Christ. Since Christianity is all about Jesus, the issue the bishops at Nicaea had to tackle was how to reconcile the fact that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, presented in the pages of the New Testament as the Father is clearly a distinct Person from the Son, who knows, loves, is sent by and relates to this first Person (the Father). They both appear to be divine but they are clearly distinct from each other. How do we understand this relationship and how it reflects on the identity of each?
There is a passage in the book of Hebrews that, at first glance, may seem to add to the complexity of this important issue, but upon understanding it, sheds significant light on who Jesus is and why it matters.
“Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.”
Hebrews 5:8
We tend to think of folks learning something by way of discovering how to do something – but there is a second option here – one that harmonizes with both the context of the passage as well as with what the Scriptures say about the nature of Christ. The fifth chapter of Hebrews is all about the credentials of Jesus Christ in being our Perfect High Priest: how He is exceptionally qualified to function as our go-between for men with the Almighty. These impeccable credentials include His ability to sympathize with the weaknesses of the folks He intercedes for; not for the same reasons the mere human high priests did (they were sinful themselves: vv. 2, 3); but because of a greater reason: He is a High Priest of a different order: an indestructible one (see: 7:1-17); He was heard by God because of His “piety” (His sinlessness – v. 7; compare with 4:15) and by means of His physical sufferings, His experience to become our Perfect High Priest was completed (the word “perfect” here means, “made complete). Thus, He is able to perfect all of us who rely on Him by faith.
Jesus learned obedience, not by learning how to obey but by experience, learning what obedience would involve for those who He interceded for. Jesus would experience what it would take for us to obey and follow God. Even though He did not need to do this (as the Son of God, He is in a position to receive worship and service, not give it), He did so as to become a High Priest who can literally feel along with us as we encounter the obstacles to serving God: human weaknesses such as temptation, hunger, need, tiredness, etc. Because Jesus condescended during His thirty-three years to live as a human being, veiling the full glory of His deity and choosing to lay aside many of the prerogatives that belong to being God (see: Philippians 2:5-8), He could say to His disciples that the Father was “greater” than He; but this was spoken in the context of speaking of the promised Holy Spirit and their cause for rejoicing since, from the perspective of Jesus’ humbled state (John 14:25), the Father who He returns to is “greater” than what they have witnessed in Jesus thus far; not because they are unequal, but because the Son’s glory was veiled and the Father’s was not. Jesus’ very prayer to the Father to restore the glory He had with Him before the world began (prior to His humbled state) in John 17:5 confirms this truth.
So, how does this shed light on the true identity of Jesus and why it matters? First, it demonstrates that passages which appear to teach that the Son is inferior to the Father are only relating elements of Jesus’ voluntary humiliation (kenosis: emptying) as reflected in passages such as Hebrews 10:5-10. There is no substantive (pun intended) inequality here; if we postulate that the second Person of the Triune Godhead incarnated and suffered and died for our sins in a state of humility, then there must be references both on Jesus’ part as well as references to Him by the Biblical authors to this humility and the differing expressions of glory between the condescended Son and the exalted Father. How interesting that this very passage which extols the condescension of the Son (Philippians 2) affirms that God the Father will Himself exalt the Son and grant Him the title, Lord: above every other Lord of King (Revelation 19:16) – that of God Himself (Hebrews 1:6).
Second, it reveals the character of God’s redeeming love through the role of the Son in our redemption. That Jesus experienced as God all we endure for the sake of righteousness, His commitment to the relationship He has with us as a faithful High Priest, as a true refuge in our war against sin, as our loving harbor amidst the seas of temptation and finitude, is dramatically shown. He really knows our pain: not merely in theory, but experientially: He has been there. That the Father sent Him and that He gladly went and that the Spirit reveals to us intimately this kind of love only deepens the extent to which our God would go for us to both understand and enjoy the love He demonstrated to us in saving us.
Why does Jesus’ equality with the Father matter? It tells us that the One who died to save us was no one less than God Himself. It tells us that the One who entered our world of sin and pain was no one less than God Himself. It tells us that the One who understands us better than any human friend can is no one less than God Himself; the One who transforms Himself from Judge to Refuge as we turn to Him for salvation.
—Larry Carrino
