Learning Obedience: The End-Product of Experiential Sanctification

From Lesson 59 of the Biblical Framework Series

Charles Clough

We live in an abnormal world, we always have to say wait a minute, I live in an abnormal world, let me think of what it would have been like in a normal world. In a normal world, in the Garden of Eden, did Adam and Eve have a test? Yes they did.

This aim was required to be developed by historic obedience, regardless of whether there was sin or not. You may doubt that, but let’s look at the Lord Jesus Christ as a test case. Did the Lord Jesus Christ ever sin? No, He was the perfect man, without spot or blemish. If He was, what do we make of Heb. 5:8, this is a very provocative verse, because it reveals something about Jesus Christ. “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.” That’s interesting. What are some implications of that verse? If this is Jesus Christ on a time line, when He was born, and he grows to an adult, thirty plus years, God is saying in Hebrews that during this time He learned, in short, He was being experientially sanctified, but without sin… without sin. But He had to learn.

What is true of your dog that is not true of you? What’s true of animals as far as learning to take care of themselves, etc. vs. how we are? What is the big difference between the human, Homo sapiens and any other kind? They all are born with instinct, we aren’t. It’s peculiar that Homo sapiens have to go through a learning process. Do you know any animal that the young stays with the parents as long as us, proportionally? Why do we have to stay so long in the nurture of a home? Why does our kind do that? Cats don’t, dogs don’t, birds don’t, but we do. It makes us different. It’s because we’re made in God’s image and there’s something going on, and the something is that we don’t have it all instinctively. Yes, we breathe automatically and there’s a certain instinctive behavior about it, but generally speaking, it’s all learned and that’s not so in any of the animals. Animals can learn, yes, but proportionally speaking, they learn a lot less than we learn. We have to learn an awful lot of stuff.

What this is saying is that Jesus learned, and it’s a very important verse because it proves that a sinless man had to learn—to be sanctified—which proves that sanctification had to happen regardless of the fall, regardless of evil. This shows that Adam and Eve were supposed to have started learning what it means to obey God. What that tells us, this aim of sanctification tells us that the whole process that we’re going through is hindered by sin, it’s tougher because we now live this side of the fall, it’s hard, we have death, suffering, the things which Jesus suffered, a lot of what He suffered was due to our sin, not His. So it’s our own sin, it’s other’s sins, all of that that adds to the pressure of sanctification. But that’s not ultimately involved in sanctification.

Stop and think about it. We talk about the President of the United States or somebody with a lot of pressure on them. You have responsibility and it hangs in there day after day after day. Think of the responsibility of Jesus Christ. Now perhaps we can understand what He was going through in the Garden of Gethsemane, because if He screwed up, history would have unfolded, there was a lot of pressure on Him. So that’s how He learned obedience, all during this time, up to the cross, He was learning what it meant to obey God under pressure, and He did it and it’s that historic righteousness credited to our account.

What’s so neat about this and why Hebrews brings it out, Heb. 5:8, “He was a Son, He learned obedience by the things which He suffered,” that’s in the context of the fact if you go back to Heb. 4:14, “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For 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. [16] Let us therefore draw near with confidence,” that is a wonderful passage if you understand this.

What that means—unlike the Moslem who goes to his Allah—is Allah never walked around the face of the earth, Allah never got dirt under his fingernails, Allah never learned obedience, Allah never died for all the Muslims, Allah doesn’t know if he exists, doesn’t know what it means to be, to walk around and face the crud that we face as human beings. But our God does. Why? Because He walked around the face of the earth. That’s the incarnation of Christ.