Being a Son

“Being a Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). It is one thing to know something; it is more to know it from experience. In an experiential sense, Christ learned what it meant to obey the Father despite the extremely painful temptation to do otherwise. That seems to be the ultimate reason for allowing evil to express itself—albeit as limited by duration and degree.

A greater degree of goodness becomes possible by the presence of evil. It is a goodness maintained despite temptation and suffering. That greater goodness our Lord learned especially during the temptation in the Garden of Gethsemane and the suffering on Golgotha. And wrapped up in that culminating obedience lies the foundation he laid for redeeming evil into good.

So it is not just that evil tends to self-destruct because it is contrary to nature by and large. Our sin can be transformed into good by the redemption established in the Son’s perfect goodness. We share these representations of the foundation Christ laid, and acknowledge the love God commends to us in such a great demonstration of grace.