In Hebrews 5:8, it says, “Even though Jesus was God’s Son, He learned obedience from the things He suffered.” What does this mean? God is all-powerful. He's omnipotent. Being God, how is it possible that He would need to “learn” anything, least of all obedience?

Can you imagine what always existing, what being eternal in both directions might be like? It defies human logic. Jesus Christ always existed and always will exist as part of the Godhead. To quote Him directly, He said simply, “I AM” (John 8:58). And being God, He always had perfect character. God the Father and Jesus Christ, in their pre-creation existences, always existed and were always perfect. Now, at some point way back in eternity, Jesus Christ respectfully submitted to God the Father, and in accordance with Their plan (John 14:28, 6:38, 1 Corinthians 11:3), it's been a long time that Jesus has perfectly obeyed the Father. And if you're eternal and have always had perfect character, submitting and obeying is something that just comes… naturally (for lack of a better term).

It was when He came to earth as a human—having created the angelic realm, having created the universe (John 1:3), having created human life, having collaborated with God the Father to establish the plan of eternal salvation—that He got to experience what being physical is like. Blood pumping through His veins, sweating under the sun, crying tears of joy or pain, human emotion, physical pain, hunger, friendship. Yet these were things He had never experienced. He was always only a spirit being before. The physical realm didn’t even exist for most of eternity. He had no experience of what being physical is like. When He did become human, He committed all the way, giving up His privileges (Philippians 2:7-8).

On the night before He was to be tortured and executed in some of the most painful ways mankind had dreamt up, He knew what awaited Him. He knew what fleshly pain was going to feel like. He knew what a crucifixion looked like up close as a human. He knew the agony that those who are crucified experience.

But even worse, He was also in agony that night because of His impending separation from His Father. It was the most important relationship in His life then and in the eternity before. But as part of Their plan, He knew that taking on the sin of all mankind, past, present, and future, meant that He would be temporarily forsaken by God, with no Helper or Father to help Him through it. That meant that He would be completely alone for the first time, with Satan and the fallen angels torturing Him with their evil presence, delighting in His agony.

On that night in the garden, as He was realizing that He was about to be tortured and experience a loneliness deeper than anyone else has ever felt, the gravity of the physical pain and spiritual emptiness hit Him so hard that He sweat blood. Obedience took on a new meaning for Christ in those moments. He prayed to God that if it could be any other way, please let it be! (Luke 22:42-44).

Yet despite it all, He still obeyed, with the stakes of obedience being visceral in a way He had never experienced before. He suffered torture, complete separation from God and death. In doing so, He became the Captain of our salvation—not one who doesn't sympathize with us, but One who experienced it all, and still remained sinless (Hebrews 2:10, 4:15).

Nobody could ever accuse God of not understanding—of being too far removed or of being aloof, blissfully ignorant of what the physical sufferings we humans endure feel like. No, Jesus Christ experienced everything. He overcame the world so that we can have hope for overcoming it ourselves (John 16:33), and that we may have eternal life (Matthew 24:13, Revelation 2:10). As we take part in the New Testament Passover in remembrance of Christ, let’s understand what He suffered—and what He learned.

*Edit, 4/2/2013—Changed the final sentence of paragraph 3 for clarification.