Hebrews 2 says it pleased the Father to make Jesus perfect through suffering, but this raises an immediate question: if Jesus is the eternal second person of the Trinity, holy and righteous in his very essence, why does this verse state that until his death on the cross he was somehow imperfect? The key to understanding this text is drawing a distinction between moral perfection and vocational perfection. Jesus has always been morally perfect, completely righteous and holy, and yet that holiness and righteousness are not able to accomplish his vocation of redeeming his creation back to himself until he performs the act–in time and space–of dying on the cross. In this sense, Jesus’ suffering is his perfection, the thing his glory and exaltation depend on. This is why the Bible insists that the suffering of Christians has deep, intrinsic value: God binds the suffering of his people to his own suffering on the cross, and uses this “fellowship of suffering” to embody his redemption in his world.

Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert

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