Hebrews 5:8

"Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience, by the things which he suffered." - Heb. v. 8.

My soul! behold what a precious verse of scripture is here! How blessedly doth it set forth thy Redeemer! See here what an example Jesus shews to all his people, and how sweetly accommodating is that example to every case and circumstance, into which any of them can be brought! Surely, if any might have done without going into such a school of suffering, for the purpose of learning, it must have been Jesus; but yet even Jesus would not. And wouldest thou, my soul, after such an illustrious pattern, desire to be excused? Hath not Jesus dignified it, and made it blessed? Oh! the honour of following his steps. There is another beauty in this scripture. The apostle, in a verse or two preceding, took notice of Jesus in his human nature, that he sought not, as such, the high priest's office uncalled. "Christ (saith he) glorified not himself, to be made an high priest, but was called of God, as was Aaron." And by reading this verse in connection with that, it is as if the apostle had said, ‘Yea, such was the wonderful condescension of the Son of God, in his divine nature, that, though of the same nature and essence with the Father, yet would he have his human nature trained up in all the exercises of suffering; that, by a fellow feeling, his people might know how he understood their exercises by his own.' Oh! thou gracious, condescending Lord! Surely nothing can soften sorrow like the consciousness that thou hast known it in our nature for thy people; and nothing can more effectually reconcile all thine afflicted members, humbly and patiently to learn obedience in the school of suffering, as that Jesus, though a Son, and the Son of God, in the eternity of his nature, was pleased, in his human nature, "to learn obedience by the things which he suffered."