Hebrews 5:8-9 English Standard Version

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,

There will be some who do not have a proper understanding of the Word and in their view these verses will be used to make others insecure about their salvation.

Jesus did not learn to be obedient because He suffered. As with all of us, and Jesus is a man, what we believe has to be experienced to know in truth. He experienced obedience after He suffered and found in Himself the ability to obey as He believed. It was not His suffering that made Him obey, it only gave Him the opportunity to experience it.

As to “made perfect”, there is a way to read this line of verse that implies Christ was not born perfect and that something happened to Him in life that created perfection. Jesus was born fully man and fully God, perfectly man and perfectly God. The man in Him could not resist the God in Him which made His actions reflect His identity.

For those who insist that salvation only comes through obedience, we must submit to the oracles of God for truth in salvation.

Ephesians 2:8-9 English Standard Version

⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Hebrews 5:11-12 English Standard Version

Warning Against Apostasy

¹¹ About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. ¹² For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food,

Avoid becoming dull of hearing.

Isaiah 40:1-5 English Standard Version

Comfort for God’s People

¹ Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
² Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare^[hardship] is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

³ A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
⁴ Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.
⁵ And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

I have borrowed the title today from a book by A.W. Pink. That work has many words that should bring comfort to God’s people. If this is the passage that inspired that work, then we can simplify all those words by understanding what God has said here.

“Comfort my people” is a call to us from God. He even tells us how to do that.

“Speak tenderly” is our first instruction. Do not be harsh with one another.

Recognize what troubles others, hardships, and encourage them that in Christ they have found a pardon from their sins and that God is a God of blessings.

Verse 3 points to John the Baptist and yet we are to can talk straight with people and do not try to make things overly difficult. Straight paths get us out of the dry places faster.

Verse 4 says not to make things difficult for others. Keep the truth of God’s word simple and do not complicate the truth.

Do all this by speaking the truth in love and the glory of the Lord will be revealed and that will comfort believers more than anything else we can do for them.