Letter to the Hebrews 5:1–14 Catholic Bible study lesson 5

The Letter to the Hebrews:
An Explanation of the Mechanism
of Our Salvation

Lesson 5 He Learned Obedience Through What He Suffered
the Letter to the Hebrews 5:1–14

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)*
New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE)*
Catechism of the Catholic Church
ex libris (in our library)
Tami Palladino’s visual-meditation journal
cross references in the Letter to the Hebrews
next lesson: A Steadfast Anchor of the Soul

This material coordinates with Lesson 5 on pages 20–22 in The Letter to the Hebrews: An Explanation of the Mechanism of Our Salvation.

“In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard for his godly fear. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.”—the Letter to the Hebrews 5:7–10

welcome to our in-depth study of the Letter to the Hebrews
We invite you to check out the sample first lesson and video from this 18-lesson Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study. Our online study pages link to free lesson videos and cross references in the biblical text, and include illustrations and prayers based on Scripture in each lesson. The Letter to the Hebrews: An Explanation of the Mechanism of Our Salvation has been granted an imprimatur. This study currently is being expanded; the content will be available in a new printed study at a later date. Please contact us if you’re interested in purchasing a digital copy of the existing study.

open with prayer
It’s always wise to begin any Bible study with prayer, whether reading the Scriptures alone or meeting with others in a discussion study group. You can pray using your own words or use one of the opening prayers on our website. We especially like the following:

Lord Jesus, you promised to send your Holy Spirit
to teach us all things.
As we read and study your word today,
allow it to touch our hearts and change our lives. Amen.

Jesus’ priesthood is essential to our understanding of salvation
In this section of the Letter to the Hebrews, the author addresses how high priests are chosen. One reason so little attention is paid in the Gospels to the priesthood of Jesus could be the prevalent understanding at the time that priests must be born into the hereditary line of Aaron. Because Jesus wasn’t, and in fact wasn’t even born into the tribe of Levi, his role as a priest must not have been apparent to those who encountered him. Don’t miss Turning to God’s Word co-founder Tami Palladino’s illustrated reflections on the Scripture passages that form the basis of The Letter to the Hebrews: An Explanation of the Mechanism of Our Salvation. Click on the illustration (left) to enlarge it, and check out Tami’s visual-meditation journal to see all of her drawings. Her reflections for this lesson, “He Learned Obedience Through What He Suffered,” are on pages 18 through 21 of her journal.

every lesson has a free video (06:53)
Don’t forget—each lesson of The Letter to the Hebrews: An Explanation of the Mechanism of Our Salvation has a related video. In these short presentations, Turning to God’s Word author Matthew Phelps reads the biblical text for the lesson and comments about it. You can watch the videos as part of your preparation for group discussion or to catch up if you have to miss a discussion. Some groups watch the videos together prior to their discussions. Because the videos are on YouTube, you can access them wherever and whenever it’s convenient—and they’re free. This study and its videos are undergoing revision to incorporate additional material. The original content will be included in a different printed study. The original 18 lessons pertaining to the Letter to the Hebrews currently are available digitally.

who is Jesus?
The author of the Letter to the Hebrews considers Jesus’ priesthood as one of the most significant aspects of who Jesus is, and it’s essential to understanding the mechanism of our salvation. Before we can do that, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews first must explain how Jesus can be a high priest if he’s not in the hereditary line of Aaron. The answer is so simple that we tend to miss it: Jesus is appointed high priest by his Father. Jesus’ Father is God, and it’s God the Father who has ultimate authority over who receives an appointment as high priest. It’s essentially nepotism. God has chosen his own Son for a particular job. It should be obvious that God can choose anyone he wants.

Passion—you could look it up in our archives
Jesus’ obedient suffering, referred to as his Passion, is something to which few people can relate. To learn more about the language used to describe Jesus’ suffering, read Lost in Translation, an online column in which Turning to God’s Word author Matthew Phelps helps readers connect with ideas expressed in the original languages of the Scriptures. New Lost in Translation entries are posted on Mondays, and past entries are archived on our website. Contact us if you’d like toreceive Lost in Translation by email every week. During the Lenten season, you also can check out Jesus’ Passion: The Story of Redemptive Suffering, which is not available at other times of the year.

how Jesus inherits his priesthood
So although Jesus isn’t eligible to become an Aaronic priest, he nevertheless inherits his priesthood. It’s difficult not to think about the opening verses in the Letter to the Hebrews 1:1–2: “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the ages.” As God’s Son, Jesus has been appointed the heir of all things—and this apparently also includes the high priesthood. Not only that—God now is using his Son to speak to humanity in a different way than the prophets spoke to humanity. And this is the same Son through whom God created “the ages.” God and his Son are in control of all things. They’re in control of communication, and because they created the ages they have authority over time. As a result of controlling “all things,” they control the high priesthood. They control what constitutes worship. The mechanism of our salvation appears to be connected to worship practices of the high priesthood. When God puts Jesus in charge of the high priesthood, this should be recognized as a major step in the right direction.

but hold on for just a minute
Jesus’ high priesthood doesn’t appear much like the historical high priesthood. The description in the Letter to the Hebrews 5:7–10 paints a very different picture of the priesthood than the practitioners of Judaism were used to thinking about. Jesus’ prayers and supplications seem fine, and perhaps Jesus’ loud cries and tears, but then we learn that Jesus is offering these things to be saved from death—and that he was heard because of his godly fear. His priesthood is a priesthood of suffering.

WHAT DO YOU THINK was imperfect about Jesus?
Jesus’ priesthood of suffering is something new, and it somehow leads to him being made perfect. This is a mysterious concept.

? Consider how “being made perfect” can be understood as “being made complete” might change the point of Jesus’ suffering?
? What about Jesus needs to be made perfect?
? What difference does it make to consider Jesus’ humanity being “perfected” rather than his divinity?
? After being perfected, Jesus becomes the source of eternal salvation. For whom is this salvation intended?
? The rest of the sentence in the Letter to the Hebrews 5:8–10 specifies that Jesus can be a source of salvation only for those who obey him. How would you explain the connection between salvation and obedience to someone interested in learning more about the Catholic faith?
? What can you point to in your life as evidence that you’re serious about being obedient in regard to your faith?

Q&A—a reader comments about Jesus being made perfect
A reader in one of our study groups has several questions related to the Letter to the Hebrews 5:8–9, which reads: “Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.”

Q: We found this passage problematic because Jesus wasn’t made, he was begotten, and we know that Jesus is divine and therefore perfect from the beginning. Does this passage then speak to the consequence of humanity’s imperfection, which is death? Is the author making the point that Jesus, as man, suffered death, and because of his priestly authority of offering the “perfect sacrifice” he conquered the consequence of humanity’s sinful nature? In response to the question of “What about Jesus needed to be made perfect?” we understand that the divine person of Jesus is perfect from the beginning. Is the author of the Letter to the Hebrews writing that Jesus came to save humanity, to make whole again the condition in which God intended his Creation to be—so Jesus, as man, willingly offered to suffer the consequence of sin (death) to perfect the human condition to have eternal life?

A: Congratulations, your group is exactly on target. These two verses encompass all we really need to know about being Christian, and as such, it’s well worth spending some time meditating about what they mean. The key to following what the author of the Letter to the Hebrews is writing about in this passage lies in understanding that Jesus has both a divine and a human nature. In his divinity, Jesus is of course perfect and has been from the beginning. The first verses of the prologue to the Gospel According to John make that abundantly clear. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews isn’t attempting to make a case that Jesus was made and not begotten (the exact reverse of what we say in the Creed: “begotten not made”). Rather, he’s writing that as a result of suffering Jesus learned obedience, and this was in some way a process leading to perfection (understood as a process of completion for humanity). Learn more about the prologue to the Fourth Gospel in Lesson 1 In the Beginning Was the Word in the Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth.

Let’s start to break this down with verse 8, since that’s where the author begins. Because God is all-knowing (and Jesus is divine), there’s no way that Jesus as God needed to learn to be obedient. Since the Letter to the Hebrews is in the canon of sacred Scripture, we know that it contains important truth, so when it appears to contradict Church teaching, that’s a big clue that we’re on the wrong track and that we need to think and pray about how we’re interpreting the biblical text. The only possible explanation that makes sense—mysterious as that explanation seems—is that Jesus has two natures. In his divine nature, Jesus is all-knowing, perfect, complete. He always has been, and he always will be. Jesus’ human nature, however, is a different story.

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews isn’t the only New Testament writer to point out that there was something imperfect about Jesus. The second chapter of the Gospel According to Luke recounts the story of Jesus’ parents finding him in the Temple when he was a boy, and the Evangelist Luke writes that Jesus returns with his parents to Nazareth: “and was obedient to them. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature ….” In his Letter to the Colossians 1:24, Paul also writes about the imperfection of humanity when he writes that in his flesh he is filling up what’s lacking in Christ’s afflictions.

As long as we focus on the divine nature of Jesus, these passages don’t make any sense. Jesus’ dual natures are one of the two key mysteries of Christianity. (The other is the Trinity, that God somehow is three persons in one.) We have a heck of a time relating to the dual nature of Jesus because this is outside of our own experience. We don’t know of anyone but Jesus who’s both human and divine, and we tend to want to latch onto the idea of one nature and ignore the other. When we do this, we risk falling into some of the same heresies that were prevalent in the early Church. When we think only of Jesus in strictly human terms, as a kind of spiritual buddy, we risk losing the ability to see the same Jesus as the awesome God who created all things. When we think of Jesus in strictly divine terms, we risk losing sight of his humanity.

read the Catechism—Jesus isn’t part God & part man
Paragraph 464 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church addresses problems related to thinking about the Incarnation in which God becomes human as well as divine:

464 The unique and altogether singular event of the Incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor does it imply that he is the result of a confused mixture of the divine and the human. He became truly man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man. During the first centuries, the Church had to defend and clarify this truth of faith against the heresies that falsified it.

It’s as a human that Jesus learns obedience through suffering. All humans learn obedience that same way, although not through suffering that’s identical to the suffering undergone by Jesus. Once we’ve established that the author of the Letter to the Hebrews is referring to Jesus’ human nature, we can go on to look at what’s happening with Jesus being “made perfect.” The phrase doesn’t refer to Jesus’ being created in a perfect state, rather it refers to a process that his human nature undergoes as a result of his obedience. Jesus willingly submits his human nature to this process, which requires that he suffer.

humanity is what needs perfecting
This brings us to the next question: What about Jesus’ human nature needed to be perfected? Your group quite correctly landed on the answer. It’s the sinful nature of humanity that needed perfecting. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews then explains why Jesus would do this: “to become the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.”

Two additional things are worth noting before we leave this passage. One is what it means to be perfect, which you can learn more about in our Lost in Translation archives. The other, and this is where the author to the Letter to the Hebrews issues a call to action, is that we only can count on Jesus as the source of our eternal salvation if we obey him. Salvation is conditional, a fact that shows up repeatedly in the Scriptures, but one that seems to be in our flawed human nature to overlook. Our goal is to become perfect ourselves (as Jesus teaches in the Gospel According to Matthew 5:48). The author of the Letter to the Hebrews 5:8–9 explains what that requires.

the popes inspire us—ways in which Jesus fulfills Psalm 110
“United in Christ” on page 21 in The Letter to the Hebrews: An Explanation of the Mechanism of Our Salvation is taken from a general audience given by Pope Benedict XVI. You can read his insights regarding ways that Jesus Christ fulfills Psalm 110:4. This passage about Melchizedek, which appears so frequently in the Letter to the Hebrews, suggests a divine aspect to the two ancient lines of expectation of the Messiah as a priest and a king. There’s a third role that the Messiah fulfills as well. Do you know what it is? Prayed at Sunday Second Vespers (Weeks I and II), Psalm 110 is included as part of Lesson 3 You Are a Priest Forever and Lesson 17 The LORD Has Sworn an Oath, both in Sing a New Psalm: Communicating with God Through the Prayers of the Church—Volume I: Lauds & Vespers.

the best Catholic commentary about Scripture
To find out more about how Church teaching is supported by Scripture passages in The Letter to the Hebrews: An Explanation of the Mechanism of Our Salvation, check out the Index of Citations in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Links to the primary Scripture passages in the lesson (Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition [RSVCE*]) and relevant paragraphs in the Catechism are provided here. Not every passage in the biblical text for this study is referenced in a Catechism paragraph, however.

to learn more, read more Scripture
If you’re having difficulty with a particular passage of Scripture, it can be helpful to read the relevant cross references—but looking these up can take time. To make that easier, we’ve compiled the cross references from the Revised Standard Version Second Catholic Edition (RSV2CE)—the translation that we reprint in our study books. That list can be found at the top of every online study page, and it includes links to cross references in the primary biblical text for The Letter to the Hebrews: An Explanation of the Mechanism of Our Salvation.

don’t forget about our indexes & extra online material
If you’re trying to locate information about a passage in Scripture, you can look it up in the index in the online sample lesson. If you want to revisit a particular commentary, you can look that up by title in the topics index. If you want to learn more about another book of the Bible for which there’s a Turning to God’s Word study, you can read the online commentaries and watch any accompanying videos by going to the online study directories. Finally, if you have a question or would like to make a comment about any of our studies, you can use one of the “ask us your question” or “what do you think” buttons to email our authors.

ex libris—Church documents & books about religious topics
You can find links to magisterial documents referred to in Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible studies at ex libris—magisterial documents. This page includes a listing of significant recent encyclicals as well as a number of historical Church documents. Recommended books related to Scripture study can be found at ex libris—main bookshelf.

wondering how to pronounce some of these words?
The following link is to a reading from the New International Version (NIV) Bible. To listen, click on the audio icon above the printed text. Although not taken from the translations used in our study materials, the NIV reading provides an audio guide to pronunciation of words in this lesson’s primary biblical text. A close online version of the translation of the Bible used in Catholic liturgy in the United States as well as an audio guide for daily Mass readings for the current month can be found on the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

the Letter to the Hebrews 5:1–14 (NIV)

close with Bible-based prayer related to this lesson
Many of our Catholic study groups like to conclude their discussions with a prayer based on the scriptural focus of their lesson, and some participants include Scripture-specific prayer in their individual study. If you’re uncomfortable composing your own Bible-based prayers you can follow our four easy steps, or you can use the following prayer based on this lesson’s text from the Letter to the Hebrews.

God our Father,
you appointed your Son to serve as our great High Priest.
Help us to train our faculties by the practice of obedience
in order that we may distinguish good from evil
and grow into more mature and faithful Christians.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ,
whom you made a priest for ever, according to the order of Melchizedek. Amen.

Lesson 6 A Steadfast Anchor of the Soul, the Letter to the Hebrews 6:1–20
Lesson 4 Rest for the People of God, the Letter to the Hebrews 4:1–16

you also may like our free Lenten study of Jesus’ Passion (digital only)
Jesus’ Passion: The Story of Redemptive Suffering is a five-lesson Catholic Bible study offering an in-depth look at the biblical foundations of the movie The Passion of the Christ. This revised study, which has been granted an imprimatur, contains all of the original material of the 2004 edition as well as many new features in an improved, reader-friendly format. Click on the book’s cover to view the introduction. Free digital lessons of Jesus’ Passion: The Story of Redemptive Suffering are available on the website during Lent.

start a Turning to God’s Word Bible study
Thank you for your interest in The Letter to the Hebrews: An Explanation of the Mechanism of Our Salvation. Information about beginning a Turning to God’s Word Bible study can be found at start a Bible study. Tami, Matthew, and I are available to answer your questions and to offer support. Contact us if you’re interested in purchasing a digital version of this study, in starting another Turning to God study, or in having your study schedule listed with other TtGW study groups on our website. —Jennifer

*There are seven deuterocanonical books in the Old Testament—the Books of Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and First and Second Maccabees, as well as some passages in the Books of Esther and Daniel. Protestants usually refer to these works as “apocryphal,” a word that means “outside the (Protestant) canon” because they’re excluded from most Protestant Bibles. The word “deuterocanonical” means “second canon”; Catholics use that word to refer to any section of the Catholic Old Testament for which there are no extant, or existing, Hebrew manuscripts. All of the deuterocanonical books appear in the Septuagint, the earliest remaining versions of which date to the 1st century B.C. This Greek translation of the Old Testament was in common use by Jews at the time of Jesus. Learn more by reading How Do Catholic & Protestant Bibles Differ?

Turning to God’s Word printed Bible studies use the 2006 Revised Standard Version Second Catholic Edition (RSV2CE) translation for all Scripture references except those to the Psalms, which are taken from The Abbey Psalms and Canticles, prepared by the Benedictine monks of Conception Abbey and published in 2020 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). All Scripture links for the online pages of The Letter to the Hebrews: An Explanation of the Mechanism of Our Salvation are to the 1966 Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE) translation. The New International Version (NIV) audio recordings follow the same chapter and verse numbering as the RSV Catholic translations, but the NIV translation doesn’t include the deuterocanonical books and passages.

The 1966 RSVCE uses archaic pronouns and verb forms such as “thee,” “thou,” “didst” in the Psalms and in direct quotations attributed to God. The 2006 RSV2CE replaces these with more accessible English. The few significant translation changes in the RSV2CE include rendering almah as “virgin” in the Book of Isaiah 7:14 and restoring the term “begotten” in the Gospel According to John 3:16.

Numbering varies for some passages in this Bible study. Turning to God’s Word studies (print and digital) follow the numbering in the Revised Standard Version Catholic translations (RSV2CE and RSVCE). Discrepancies in the New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE) are noted in the Index of Scripture Citations in the study book and the online sample.

You can learn more about the Psalms by viewing a sample lesson from the Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study Sing a New Psalm: Communicating with God Through the Prayers of the Church—Volume I: Lauds & Vespers. The second part of that study, Sing a New Psalm: Communicating with God Through the Prayers of the Church—Volume II: Vigils, Day Prayer & Compline, is scheduled for publication in 2025. Some verse numbers may vary in different translations of the Psalms.