Theology Thursday: Perfect Through Suffering
Well, I asked for somebody to lob me a topic for Theology Thursday, and it happened! JonV, former little kid and now full-fledged adult, working as a Clean Water Engineer with the Mennonite Central Committee in Tete, Mozambique, filled out the Suggest a Topic! form, and now I’ll attempt to do his question justice.
The big news here, though, is that Jon referred to me in the email as “Seth” and not “Mr. Heasley.” Keep in mind I’ve known him since he was shorter than I am, back when The Fair Elaine and I were working with the youth in our old church. Back in the previous century, you know.
Jon’s question is from Hebrews 5:8 and following, which says:
Hebrews 5:8-10 (ESV)
8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. 9 And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, 10 being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.
This passage seems to imply that Jesus had some growing to do before he could be our High Priest. More than that, it seems to imply there was some perfection that Jesus lacked. This seems offensive to our “He’s the perfect man, he’s the Lord’s own son” sensibilities. And yes, that’s a classic Petra reference (The Coloring Song).
So there’s the question: What does it mean that Jesus learned obedience or became perfect?
Right off the top, I’d point out that there’s really only one question here. The two parts of the question, I believe, are a bit of parallelism. So “Christ learned obedience through suffering” = “He was made perfect.” I don’t think there’s a way to separate the two thoughts.
Of course, it’s tough to address a question from the Epistles without having the greater context of the letter in mind. So, being a reader, I read the book of Hebrews over the weekend. There are a couple of verses that stick out to most readers, but they’re on the Eternal Security question, and I think the emphasis on them distracts from the greater arc of the letter. I’ve read Hebrews probably ten times now, but the beauty of the letter really hit me this time.
For those unfamiliar with it, the writer of Hebrews (Luke? Apollos? Titus?) makes a sustained argument about Christ’s role as the High Priest of the New Covenant, and addresses how his new role affects humans. An outline looks something like this: (and you can find something similar in most study Bibles)
- Chapter 1 – Christ superior to angels
- Chapter 2 – Christ made like us
- Chapter 3, 4 – Christ greater than Moses
- Chapter 5 – Christ as priest despite his non-Levitical lineage
- Chapter 6 – Warnings against apostasy
- Chapter 7 – Christ superior to the Levitical Priests
- Chapter 8 – Christ as the priest of a New Covenant
- Chapter 9 – The Earthly Temple was never anything but a copy of the Heavenly Temple
- Chapter 10 – Christ’s sacrifice superior to animal sacrifice
- Chapter 11 – How we access Christ’s work: Through Faith
- Chapter 12 – Our response: Faith and endurance through suffering
- Chapter 13 – The sacrifices God honors: Praise and Serving Others
I wanted to include this outline first to inspire someone to go and read Hebrews. As I wrote, it’s very easy to get freaked by the warnings against apostasy and to miss the greater points about how Christ accomplished our salvation.
It’s really impossible to answer Jon’s question without tracing it through the whole book, or at least a couple of the chapters. Because Chapter 5 isn’t the only place where Christ’s being perfected shows up. In fact, there’s a much earlier reference:
Hebrews 2:10 (ESV)
10 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.
Keep in mind that Chapter 2 discusses how Christ was made like us. Further down, we have this verse:
Hebrews 2:17 (ESV)
17 Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
In this sense, we’re looking at how Christ was made perfect for his role. He had to be like us, and to suffer as we suffer, in order for him to truly represent us.
(BTW, I want to make it clear that this idea didn’t originate with me. I did some Googling and whatnot and this is the position I think is correct, or at least makes sense.)
So anyway, I’d sum up the writer’s argument this way: Christ was the mediator of a better covenant, was qualified to be its High Priest by being appointed to it by God, was made fitting for it by what he suffered, and further qualified by enduring suffering in obedience. Which brings me to Hebrews 7:
Hebrews 7:26 (ESV)
26 For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.
One more thing I’m going to throw in here. The Internet is a great tool for researching Bible Blogs. I looked up the word “to make perfect” ("teleioo", for the record) from 2:10 and 5:9, and in the range of definitions is “to be found perfect.” Going with that definition, we wouldn’t have to do any wordful wrangling. It would just be relating that Christ endured his sufferings perfectly, not that the sufferings somehow made him perfect.
Well, Jon, I hope that helps. I even managed to keep it under a thousand words! Feel free to weigh in in the comments.
Theology Thursday: Redeemed
Back on New Year’s Eve, I engaged in a short debate-ish thing with my Esteemed Partner in Pavement Pounding about Jephthah, and specifically about whether he sacrificed his daughter in Judges 11. (Whoa, I just totally pulled that chapter reference out of my head! Sweet!) I took the negative proposition, that Jephthah did not sacrifice his daughter, though the wording of the passage seems to indicate he did. (You can go read it if you want. I’ll wait.)
Mostly my position is based in logic. And it goes like this:
- God does not approve of human sacrifice
- God approved of Jephthah (Hebrews 11)
- Therefore, Jephthah did not engage in human sacrifice
But then, a couple of weeks ago, I came across an additional bit of support for my position. (By the way, you’d probably like to know what I think Jephthah did sacrifice, right? The short answer is something acceptable.)
My new evidence came from Exodus 13, when the Lord commanded the consecration of the firstborn. Here’s the passage:
Exodus 13:12-13 (ESV):
12 you shall set apart to the LORD all that first opens the womb. All the firstborn of your animals that are males shall be the LORD’s. 13 Every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. Every firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem.
The “shall be the LORD’s” part seems to indicate that they would be sacrificed. But not all species would be sacrificed. Only clean animals. Others would be redeemed with a lamb. And firstborn sons, in particular, were consecrated to the service of the Lord (see Numbers 3), though later the tribe of Levi was taken for that service (but all firstborn sons of other tribes still had to be redeemed).
But my main point here is that an Israelite couldn’t offer just anything to God. Even when bringing a clean animal to sacrifice, it had to be spotless. God seemed to be very particular about what could be offered.
In this passage, the example of a donkey is given. Checking Leviticus 11 (a lot of 11th chapters in this post), we note that the donkey doesn’t have cloven hooves, so it’s unclean. It has to be redeemed (or throttled, apparently).
So, back to Jephthah’s case. He promised to offer what came out of his tent to the Lord. But he was an Israelite, and knew that he could only offer something clean. Anything unclean, he would have to redeem. But it would still belong to the Lord.
So, Jephthah’s daughter would have been redeemed, but would have been consecrated to the Lord. If this is so, and she was dedicated to service, she may not have been able to marry. This makes a good deal more sense when one considers that she lamented not her impending death, but rather her virginity. Jephthah’s grief would be explained by his knowledge that his line would end with her, since she was his only daughter.
This also seems to match the chronology of Judges 11, as one of the concluding verses says this:
Judges 11:39 (NKJV, just because it’s more word-for-word)
39 And it was so at the end of two months that she returned to her father, and he carried out his vow with her which he had vowed. She knew no man.
It might be stretching things a bit, it seems the “she knew no man” happened after Jephthah had fulfilled the vow.
BTW, I’m comfortably out of the mainstream with my interpretation here. Most commentators think that in the time of the Judges, the Law wasn’t observed particularly well, and so resorting to human sacrifice wasn’t be all that surprising, and Jephthah was honored for keeping a painful vow. But the writer of Hebrews doesn’t mention the sacrifice at all, so I think my explanation fits.
Now that we’re done with that, I’m shocked that my feeble little brain is just now really connecting the redemption of the firstborn with the fact that mankind was redeemed by the Lamb of God. The unclean redeemed by the clean. The broader idea of redemption by a lamb/bull is pretty well documented, but this specific idea is just now settling in for me. Guess I need to keep reading.
Theology Thursday Lite: In All Points
I have to say that I’m enjoying my less rigorous read-through this year. I’m finding I’m enjoying the reading more, going at a slower pace. I’ve even got a few Theology Thursday topics rolling around between my ears.
So, it’s my first New Testament post of the year!
Matthew 4 details Christ’s temptation in the wilderness. The three temptations are:
- To change stones to bread, to fill his hunger
- To jump off the Temple, counting on God’s protection
- To worship Satan, in exchange for the kingdoms of the world
You can find any number of creative interpretations of the three temptations and what they represent. But the thing I’ve been pondering is this:
Could Jesus have sinned?
Grand Theological Term Alert! The doctrine of The Impeccability of Christ says that Jesus was incapable of sin. I do not hold to this doctrine, and the reason is simple: I don’t think it’s Biblical.
Hebrews 4:15 (ESV, my emphasis):
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Okay, yes, I’ve strayed a bit from Matthew, but in my defense, I did once do a read-through where I read Matthew and then went straight to Hebrews (whoa, and my first Bible-Blog post was about it.)
I think the verse pretty much says it all, but I’ll admit that my thoughts on this are more logical than anything. And in that respect, I’m willing to have my logic adjusted.
I guess my objection is also a bit emotional, because if Jesus couldn’t sin, I’m not sure what was admirable or meritorious about His resisting temptation. How is it even remarkable in any way? And why would the writer of Hebrews think to mention it?
After all, how could Christ sympathize with us if the temptation He experienced was anything but just like ours?
For instance, I can’t really sympathize with an alcoholic, because I have no particular temptation to drink. (In fact, I’m putting it somewhat mildly. I think beer and wine taste alarmingly like vomit. And that’s when trying what others call “the good stuff.”)
Maybe I’m way off base here, but I think I’m making sense. Comments?
Theology Thursday: Contentment Management
Folks, I actually got a Suggest a Topic, and I'm following through on it. The topic is contentment, and the suggestion came from my wife's mother's brother's daughter. Otherwise known as Cousin H (not her real name, but part of it). I've been sitting on this topic for a couple of weeks, because I knew there was a good verse in Hebrews, so I wouldn't even have to divert from my Bible Read-Through schedule. Nice.
I must really know the Bible if I knew about one little verse on contentment in Hebrews...or could it be that Ethan had that particular memory verse in Awana last year? So really, it's just that I have a decent memory. My mom always told me to apply it to Scripture...
And what is the verse of which I speak?
This verse is on the topic of contentment, but only really insofar as contentment means happiness with those things we possess. Of course, contentment is a much larger subject (and there's no way I'm covering it all right now).
I did a quick NETBible search on content and came up mostly with verses about contention. Interesting, given that lack of contentment can easily lead to contention. The other verses (the ones I was actually looking for) broadened the topic somewhat. My favorite is from Paul:
I'm not sure what Paul's definition of abundance is, but I'm betting it's somewhere to the south of the typical American lifestyle. And yet we're not content with it. Why is that? Why can't we be content (or even happy) with our circumstances?
Dennis Prager, in his fine book Happiness is a Serious Problem, points out that in searching for happiness (which is highly compatible with contentment), we battle our nature:
We are completely satisfied with nothing.
The reason is human nature. It is insatiable-and that is why no single obstacle to happiness is greater than human nature. Whatever our nature desires-love, sex, money, attention, pleasure, food, security-cannot be supplied in sufficient quantities to satisfy it completely.
Pay attention to the order of words first spoken by a child, and you will probably notice what I did with my youngest. His first word was Mama. Then came Dada. And his third word was more. These words of a baby accurately represent our deepest urges-first for love and security and then for more-of everything.
Solomon would seem to agree:
I actually thought that a particular Veggie Tales was very insightful, when Bob the Tomato asked Larry the Cucumber how much stuff he needed to be happy. Larry responded, "I dunno. How much stuff can I have?"
Larry's answer brings up a good point Steve Gregg makes in his lecture titled "The Grace of Contentment" (available free-of-charge from digitalministries.us). He pointed out that in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had access to the entire garden and all of its trees and plants, with the exception of one tree. When the serpent came to deceive Eve, his approach was interesting. He didn't say, "Did God really say you could eat fruit from any of these trees except that one?", which focused on the generosity of God in providing so much. Instead, he focused his attack toward pointing out the negative. "Did God really say you couldn't eat of any of these trees?"
The serpent knew that to get Eve to fall, he first needed to reduce her contentment. He focused her on thinking on what God had forbidden rather than what He had provided (which is a really common mistake non-religious folks make when assessing Christian beliefs, focusing on the "don'ts").
The story of Job has a tie-in here, too. After Job's great wealth was destroyed, after his possessions were obliterated and all his children killed, his wife despaired and told him to do the same. And this even after Job's earlier statement of faith.
Does this mean we should just throw up our hands and decide to be okay with whatever situation we're in? I don't think so. Job was content, but not complacent. He sought answers as to why he should suffer. But he recognized that ultimately, both blessing and cursing come from God, and all that matters is our response to it.
Maybe you're content right now in your finances, your home, your relationships, even your work. But I think it's important for all of us to examine ourselves to find out if we're content because of our circumstances or in spite of them. Are we prepared to be content with less? With a downturn in a relationship or the economy?
I'm a fairly naturally content person. I don't get impatient with many things except other drivers. But it's really easy for me to slip from contentment into complacency. There are deficiencies in my life that need work, and it's wrong for me to, in the name of contentment, not work on them. In fact, I think many of the deficiencies arose due to complacency. I can't say, "Well, I got myself into this situation, so I guess I'll just have to settle in and hope it improves." No, I need to determine if there's something I can do to improve the situation, all the while not allowing the current state of things to rob me of joy/happiness/contentment.
Well, I've managed to ramble a thousand words or so about this. Any thoughts? Are you content? Complacent? Any other verses or wisdom you'd like to share? Don't let me monopolize my own blog here...
Theology Thursday Lite: A Change of Law
Just a quick one this week. I've blogged before (about a year ago, while reading Hebrews, go figure) about folks who want Christians to follow the Law of Moses. If you don't want to look at the old post, but you're still curious about what Biblical arguments there are against Law-keeping, then this is for you:
Interestingly, this doesn't tell us that there's no Law. It just says there's a new Law. The Law of Christ. Maybe another time I'll go in to what it looks like to keep this new law (for now, though, check out what you get if you search "the law of christ" on NETBible).
How's that for Theology Thursday Lite?
The Vanishing of the Old Covenant
Have you ever talked to another Christian who thinks we should still be following the Old Testament law? There's always some inconsistency in such beliefs, because I've never met one of them who thinks we should make pilgrimages to Jerusalem or offer Whole Burnt Offerings, or see a priest if we have a skin lesion.
Still, is there anything to the argument that we should, among other things, abstain from pork and shellfish, not wear garments of two fibers, and cease from work on the Sabbath?
The Book of Hebrews has the answer for us. Check this out:
The Blood of Bulls and Goats
So, this year's Bible Read-Through has me in Leviticus. I know most Christians seem to have this book type-cast as the poster-child for all that's difficult about the Old Testament, but I don't really mind it. If anything, the last fifteen chapters of Exodus, or the first ten of 1 Chronicles, or most of Isaiah should get that honor.
But I find Leviticus actually kind of interesting. Every time through, I try to find some meaning in the first seven chapters, where the various offerings are discussed. This morning I read chapters 1-5, after praying that God would help me understand *something* about it that would make it worthwhile. Of course, I'm convinced that, if nothing else, just reading *anything* from the Bible is worthwhile.