Thanks for that clarification Charles. I did not answer since someone else explained my understanding of that scripture. But as you pointed out, there is much more to this scripture upon closer examination, especially in light of what the bible relates to it by other scriptures. From my E-sword study resources, here are the comparative translations to that verse:
Hebrews 5:8
(ABP+) thoughG2539 beingG1510.6 a son,G5207 he learnedG3129 [2fromG575 3whatG3739 4he sufferedG3958 G3588 1obedience].G5218
(ASV) though he was a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which he suffered;
(BBE) And though he was a Son, through the pain which he underwent, the knowledge came to him of what it was to be under God's orders;
(CEV) Jesus is God's own Son, but still he had to suffer before he could learn what it really means to obey God.
(Darby) though he were Son, he learned obedience from the things which he suffered;
(DRB) And whereas indeed he was the Son of God, he learned obedience by the things which he suffered.
(EMTV) though He was a Son, He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.
(ERV) Jesus was the Son of God, but he still suffered, and through his sufferings he learned to obey whatever God says.
(ESV) Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.
(GNB) But even though he was God's Son, he learned through his sufferings to be obedient.
(GW) Although Jesus was the Son of God, he learned to be obedient through his sufferings.
(ISV) Son though he was, he learned obedience through his sufferings
(KJV) Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
(KJV+) ThoughG2539 he wereG5607 a Son,G5207 yet learnedG3129 he obedienceG5218 byG575 the things whichG3739 he suffered;G3958
(LEB) Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered,
(LITV) though being a Son, He learned obedience from what He suffered
(MKJV) though being a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.
(Murdock) And though he was a son, yet, from the fear and the sufferings he endured, he learned obedience.
(NKJV) though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.
(RV) though he was a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which he suffered;
(Webster) Though he was a Son, yet he learned obedience by the things which he suffered;
(WNT) Although He was God's Son, yet He learned obedience from the sufferings which He endured;
(YLT) through being a Son, did learn by the things which he suffered--the obedience,
I then went on to see what other respected commentators had to say on the scripture:
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2. Being a Son, the text goes on to tell us that He had to learn obedience. How near this brings our Lord to us, that He should be a Son and should have to learn! We go to school to Christ and with Christ, and so we feel His fitness to be our compassionate High Priest.
3. Jesus must needs learn by suffering. As swimming is only to be learned in the water, so is obedience only learned by actually doing and suffering the Divine will.
4. The Lord Jesus Christ learned this obedience to perfection.
5. Our Lord learned by suffering mixed with prayer and supplication. His was no unsanctified sorrow, His griefs were baptised in prayer. It cost Him cries and tears to learn the lesson of His sufferings. He never suffered without prayer, nor prayed without suffering.
III. Behold the Lord Jesus as A SAVIOUR.
1. As a Saviour He is perfect. Nothing is lacking in Him in any one point. However difficult your case may seem, He is equal to it. Made perfect by suffering, He is able to meet the intricacies of your trials, and to deliver you in the most complicated emergency.
2. Henceforth He is the author of salvation. Author! How expressive! He is the cause i,f salvation; the originator, the worker, the producer of salvation. Salvation begins with Christ; salvation is carried on by Christ; salvation is completed by Christ. He has finished it, and you cannot sad to it; it only remains for you to receive it.
3. Observe that it is eternal salvation: “ the author of eternal salvation.” Jesus does not save us to-day and leave us to perish to-morrow; He knows what is in man, and so He has prepared nothing less than eternal salvation for man.
4. Furthermore, inasmuch as He has learned obedience and become a perfect High Priest, His salvation is wide in its range, for it is unto “all them that obey Him.”
5. Note, that He is all this for ever, for He is “a priest for ever.” If you could have seen Him when He came from Gethsemane, yon think you could have trusted Him. Oh! trust Him to-day, for He is “ called of God to be an High Priest after the order of Melchizedec,” and that order of Melchizedec is an everlasting and perpetual priesthood. He is able today to plead for you, able to-day to put away your sins. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
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Poor Man's Commentary (Hawker)
One word more on this interesting passage. The Son of God it is said, learned obedience by the things which he suffered. By which I presume is meant, that he learned, not as Son of God, but in his human nature, by personal feeling, in human sufferings, and human exercises. He acquired in that school, the full apprehension of suffering obedience, in suffering distresses; and, in a personal sense, of what we feel, he knew, what our exercises are. Sweet thought! In that he himself, hath suffered, being tempted; he knoweth how to succour them that are tempted!
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Matthew Henry
(1.) By these his sufferings he learned obedience, though he was a Son, Heb_5:8. Here observe, [1.] The privilege of Christ: He was a Son; the only-begotten of the Father. One would have thought this might have exempted him from suffering, but it did not. Let none then who are the children of God by adoption expect an absolute freedom from suffering. What Son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? [2.] Christ made improvement by his sufferings. By his passive obedience, he learned active obedience; that is, he practiced that great lesson, and made it appear that he was well and perfectly learned in it; though he never was disobedient, yet he never performed such an act of obedience as when he became obedient to death, even to the death of the cross. Here he has left us an example, that we should learn by all our afflictions a humble obedience to the will of God. We need affliction, to teach us submission.
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Believer's Bible Commentary
5:8 Now once again we come face to face with that profound mystery of the incarnation—how God could become Man in order to die for men.
Though He was a Son, or better, Son though He was—He was not a Son, that is, one of many, but He was the only begotten Son of God. In spite of this tremendous fact, He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. His entrance into this world as a Man involved Him in experiences which He would never have known had He remained in heaven. Each morning His ear was open to receive instructions from His Father for that day (Isa_50:4). He learned obedience experimentally as the Son who was always subject to His Father's will.
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John Wesley Explanatory Notes
Though he were a Son - This is interposed. lest any should be offended at all these instances of human weakness. In the garden, how frequently did he call God his Father! Mat_26:39, &c. And hence it most evidently appears that his being the Son of God did not arise merely from his resurrection. Yet learned he - The word learned, premised to the word suffered, elegantly shows how willingly he learned. He learned obedience, when be began to suffer; when he applied himself to drink that cup: obedience in suffering and dying.
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Vincent's Word Studies
Though he were a Son (??????? ???? ??????)
For were rend. was. His training for the priesthood involved suffering, even though he was a son. Connect with ???????? learned, not with the preceding clause, which would mean that his position as a son did not exempt him from the obligation to godly fear, which is true as a fact (see Heb_5:7), but is not the point of emphasis here.
Learned he obedience (???????? ???? ?????????)
Omit he, since the subject of ???????? learned is ???? who, Heb_5:7. Jesus did not have to learn to obey, see Joh_8:29; but he required the special discipline of a severe human experience as a training for his office as a high priest who could be touched with the feeling of human infirmities. He did not need to be disciplined out of any inclination to disobedience; but, as Alford puts it, “the special course of submission by which he became perfected as our high priest was gone through in time, and was a matter of acquirement and practice.” This is no more strange than his growth in wisdom, Luk_2:52. Growth in experience was an essential part of his humanity.
By the things which he suffered (???' ???? ????????)
Or from the things, etc. Note the word-play, ???????? ????????. So Croesus, addressing Cyrus, says, ??? ??? ??? ?????????, ??????? ??????????, ????????? ????????, “my sufferings, though painful, have proved to be lessons” (Hdt. i. 207): so Soph. Trach. 142, ????' ?????????? ???????? “mayst thou not learn by suffering.”
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I know this is rather long, but for me this deserves a deeper look, after all, this is the Deeper Life Forum. These are but a few examples that illustrate the more common thinking among noted scholars through the ages. I think the last example by Vincent fits closely to what you are saying.
To sum it up for me, Jesus set aside his Godhood in that he, being made fully man, set aside certain rights and privileges as God to lower himself as a servant to the Father, with the same temptations and afflictions which are common to a fallen humanity. This was so we could know that He understands our temptations and afflictions with compassion. He "suffered" to learn obedience to the Father as an example of a man with human frailties that depends solely upon the upon God alone. His remarkable example includes the death on the cross!
Since He suffered on all points as a human, His sacrifice in perfect obedience to the Father qualified Him exclusively to the promises of God in such that death could not hold him since he was sinless, but as a reward for obedience, God exalted him to absolute power of all creation, including the full satisfaction of perfect Justice dovetailed with perfect Mercy. He acted as the only acceptable substitute for our death due to sin, and with the authority to give "whosever believes" the right to inherit eternal life.
This has provoked a good amount of study by all on this thread, which I do not think we could have explored if you had not shared and I thank you for causing me to dig deeper into the Word!
Shalom,
chris
