Jesus, Having Been Made Perfect

November 13th, 2025
by Lance Waldie

Hebrews 5:7-10 In the days of His flesh, [Jesus] offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety. 8 Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. 9 And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation, 10 being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

As a sympathetic high priest (4:14-15), Jesus understands our hurts and pains. Hebrews 5:7 says that while Jesus was a man on the earth, He “offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears.” This is clearly a reference to Jesus sweating drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane just prior to his death (Luke 22:44), offering up prayers and supplications to His Father. The content of His prayers in that context reveal Jesus’ humanity, greatly fearing the wrath of God He would take upon Himself for the atonement of mankind’s sins. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Mark’s Gospel reveals that Jesus was “very distressed and troubled” (14:33). As a result, Jesus told His disciples, “My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death” (v. 34).

Although in His humanity Jesus prayed earnestly for this “cup” to pass from Him (Mark 14:35-36)—the cup of God’s wrath as payment for man’s sins, in His divinity He prayed for the Father’s will to be done, not His own. Yet in praying that this “hour” and this “cup” pass from Him, was Jesus somehow desiring that which was contrary to God’s will? And if Jesus is God, how can that be? The answer lies in the fact that Jesus was truly divine and truly human. In His humanity, Jesus voluntarily limited His divine knowledge. His “loud crying and tears” therefore reveal His humanity, His real fear of facing the wrath of God on behalf of mankind. He never desired anything other than God’s will, a fact proven when Jesus prayed, “Yet not what I will, but what You will” (Mark 14:36). As a man, Christ pleaded for escape, as any man would who was facing God’s wrath. Yet also as a man, Jesus desired His Father’s will more than His own.

It is in that context that Hebrews 5:7 reveals Jesus’ pain and emotions to make his point regarding Christ’s priesthood. Jesus knew pain, suffering, and eventually death at the hands of His own people, the Jews. He is therefore qualified as a high priest since He can sympathize with human weaknesses. Notably, Jesus “was heard because of His piety.” God the Father listens to His children when we cry out to Him in righteousness. Christ proves this, not in the sense that Jesus was saved out of the crucifixion but that He was saved out of death. His Father’s will was thus accomplished—just as Jesus prayed it would be!

Verse 8 says that Jesus “learned obedience from the things which He suffered.” In His divinity, the Son of God had never suffered. But in His humanity, Jesus learned obedience by enduring the sufferings put before Him—all in order to sympathize with His people (4:14-15). Jesus certainly did not progress from a life of disobedience to one of obedience; He merely proved His obedience to His Father’s will by submitting to God the Father.

In v. 9 it is then stated that Jesus, “having been made perfect...” The author’s point is not that Jesus was imperfect but that through His earthly ordeals, He became complete in His humanity experience. No one becomes literally “perfect” through trials. But we do become complete through our trials when we endure them with patience, as Jesus did. Jesus therefore completed His humanity through suffering. He did so with patience, dignity, and without sin.

Now as a result of having successfully completed His human experience, Jesus is “the source of eternal salvation,” not to all but “to those who obey Him” (v. 9). Jesus’ oneness with humanity gives Him the ability to represent us before God as our Priest (v. 10). His death atones for our sins and His eternal priesthood guarantees our mediation before God—for eternity.

Food For Thought
Kent Hughes writes, “The glorious vestments of the Aaronic high priest have always been understood as being emblematic of the ministry of the ultimate high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. Can you see Him resplendent in the glorious white light of a thousand suns in eternity? He bears our names on His shoulders and thus shows His infinite compassion for us. He has borne all our sins in His own priestly body on the tree. In His solidarity with us He bears our present burdens as well. We are always on His heart. Perhaps as He prays for us, He places a nail-pierced hand over the precious stones and presses them close. Though seated at the right hand of the Father, the golden bells constantly ring as He ministers on our behalf. And His crown, ‘HOLINESS TO THE LORD,’ will be our crown because that will be the eternal outcome of His work.”