A Day in the Life
“Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.”
Hebrews 5:8–9
When I sit with Hebrews 5:8–9, I am always struck by how unsettling—and yet how steadying—these words are. They tell us something about Jesus that we might prefer to overlook: obedience was not merely assumed by virtue of His divine Sonship; it was learned through suffering. The text does not suggest that Jesus was ever disobedient, but it does insist that obedience was forged, embodied, and brought to fullness through lived experience. The Greek word translated “perfected” (teleiōtheis) does not mean morally improved, as though Jesus lacked something ethically. Rather, it speaks of completion, maturity, and readiness for purpose. Through suffering, Jesus was fully fitted to become the Savior who could stand in our place.
This truth reframes how I understand hardship in my own life. If obedience was something Jesus learned under pressure, why would I assume that my formation would come through comfort alone? There are dimensions of trust, surrender, and dependence that cannot be taught in ease. Scripture consistently bears witness to this pattern. “It was the will of the LORD to crush Him; He has put Him to grief” (Isaiah 53:10, italics mine). That line is not cruel; it is redemptive. God was not punishing His Son but preparing Him to carry the weight of the world’s salvation. As commentator William Lane observes, “Suffering was not incidental to Jesus’ vocation; it was the means by which His obedience was made complete.” That same logic, though on a creaturely scale, shapes our discipleship.
The study rightly points out that bitterness is one of the great dangers of suffering. When hardship hardens us, it seals off parts of the soul from God’s transforming work. I have seen this often—in others and, if I am honest, in myself. Pain that is resisted rather than entrusted becomes a closed door. Yet some rooms of the heart can only be entered through suffering. The Spirit of God does not merely comfort us in trials; He instructs us there. “We rejoice in our sufferings,” Paul writes, “knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Romans 5:3–4, italics mine). That progression cannot be bypassed without loss.
The contrast between Saul and David makes this painfully clear. Saul was elevated quickly, without the long apprenticeship of hardship. He possessed authority but lacked the interior maturity to steward it. David, by contrast, was shaped in obscurity, betrayal, and prolonged injustice. Years of being hunted, misunderstood, and restrained taught him something Saul never learned: obedience rooted in trust rather than entitlement. When David finally ascended the throne, his heart had been trained. As Eugene Peterson once wrote, “God develops the life of faith not by letting us have our own way, but by leading us through what we would never choose for ourselves.” That insight rings true here.
Hebrews presses us further with an uncomfortable question embedded in the text: are we willing to become like Christ at the cost required? Jesus’ suffering did not merely precede salvation; it authored it. The passage says He became “the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.” Obedience and salvation are not rivals; they are inseparable. This is not salvation by works, but salvation that produces a life willing to follow even when it hurts. Dietrich Bonhoeffer captured this tension well when he wrote, “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.” That dying is rarely dramatic; more often it is slow, faithful endurance under God’s shaping hand.
In a day in the life of Jesus, obedience looked like accepting limits, bearing misunderstanding, and trusting the Father when the path led through suffering rather than around it. In a day in my life—and perhaps yours—the same lesson quietly unfolds. If I spend all my energy avoiding hardship, I may also be avoiding the very work God intends to do in me. The gospel does not promise exemption from suffering; it promises meaning within it. And that meaning is nothing less than being made ready—made complete—for the purposes of God.
For a thoughtful exploration of how suffering shapes Christian maturity, see this article from The Gospel Coalition:
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/why-god-uses-suffering/
FEEL FREE TO COMMENT, SUBSCRIBE, AND REPOST, SO OTHERS MAY KNOW