Heb. 5:9 ... "Having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation."
The life of Jesus was the unique experience among all human lives in many ways. His birth was the miraculous result of a woman conceiving a child, not by carnal union with a man, but by the power of the Holy Spirit, (Luke 1:34-35). He was physically a human, (Php. 2:7-8), but spiritually God, (John 16:28). Indeed, he was God incarnate, i.e., "God-in-the-flesh," (John 1:14). He spoke and acted as no man ever has, (John 8:46 and 3:2). Although there were many men in Biblical times who were visited by the Spirit, who empowered them to perform supernatural deeds, Jesus possessed the Spirit in His infinite fulness rather than "by measure," (John 3:34).
Nevertheless, Jesus' earthly life was developmental, a necessity He accepted willingly as a result of descending from His pre-incarnation Godness wherein He "emptied Himself," (Php. 2:6-7), and took on Himself the humble status of a human being. He entered the world by the normal means of childbirth as an infant, unable to speak or care for Himself, and was totally dependent upon His mother Mary to feed, clothe, and comfort Him. He grew to manhood and maturity by natural processes summarized in this important note: "And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man," (Luke 2:52). To phrase this in present terms, it says that He grew mentally, physically, spiritually, and socially, thus covering every dimension of the human constitution. From whatever low level He accepted when He descended into human existence, (but "yet without sin," (Heb. 4:15), Jesus moved upward to full maturity, indicated by the phrase in the lead text above, "having been made perfect." He thus obtained the full satisfaction and approval of His Father, (Mat. 3:17 and 17:5; Heb. 1:4-5, 9).
This process of development into full maturity as a human involved a great ordeal of struggle and pain for Jesus, (Heb. 5:7-8). We must come to realize and appreciate this, for it emphasizes how our Lord experienced our human condition in the fullest way and enables Him even now to sympathize with all the varied trials of life here. It is of the greatest significance and comfort to us that we read, "We do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin," (Heb. 4:15). He therefore serves as the entirely valid and effective Model for mankind, because throughout His struggle with all the harsh challenges of life here, He never once faltered and committed sin. He accomplished the perfect, untarnished life because of His total submission to His Father's will, both in deed and in spirit. Here is where the lesson of Heb. 5:9 begins to emerge and reveal its application for us. Through the victory Jesus won by submission in spirit and obedience in deed, "He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation." As He reached perfection by obedience to His Father, He will conduct us unto perfection as we obey Him promptly, willingly, and gladly. This is not to say that anyone attains perfection by his own power, for nothing is further from the context here. Our perfection comes only through the instrumentality of Jesus' attained perfection, i.e., Christians are made perfect through faith in Christ and obedience to His will. Having attained perfection in Him, we shall be granted by Him the incomparable gift of salvation.
Some people attribute human salvation to grace without consideration for personal deeds, while others attribute it to one's faith in and of itself. But this statement of Heb. 5:9 specifically connects our salvation to obedience to the teachings of Jesus. Of course, this does not dismiss the superiority and priority of divine grace, (Eph. 2:8); nor does it remove the essential necessity of faith, (Heb. 11:6). What it does do is establish irrefutably human obedience to the divine will as the necessary response to God's grace.
