Christ’s suffering is a beautiful act of submission and obedience to the will of the Father. So Christ cried from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). And yet the Bible says that the suffering of Christ was a fragrance to God. “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God”(Ephesians 5:2).

As one who has taken upon Himself a complete human nature, it is natural for Jesus to shrink from the horror of the cross, a horror magnified by His knowledge that in dying He will be forsaken by God and experience the weight of divine anger on sin, though He is Himself utterly innocent and righteous. Nevertheless, Jesus is determined to follow the will of His Father for the redemption of His people (John 6:38, 39; Heb. 10:5–10).

The very book in the Bible that says Christ “learned obedience” through suffering, and that he was “made perfect” through suffering, also says that he was “without sin.” “In every respect [Christ] has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

This is the consistent teaching of the Bible. Christ was sinless. Although he was the divine Son of God, he was really human, with all our temptations and appetites and physical weaknesses. There was hunger (Matthew 21:18) and anger and grief (Mark 3:5) and pain (Matthew 17:12). But his heart was perfectly in love with God, and he acted consistently with that love: “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth” (1 Peter 2:22).

Therefore, when the Bible says that Jesus “learned obedience through what he suffered,” it doesn’t mean that he learned to stop disobeying. It means that with each new trial he learned in practice—and in pain—what it means to obey. When it says that he was “made perfect through suffering,” it doesn’t mean that he was gradually getting rid of defects. It means that he was gradually fulfilling the perfect righteousness that he had to have in order to save us.

That’s what he said at his baptism. He didn’t need to be baptized because he was a sinner. Rather, he explained to John the Baptist, “Thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15).

The point is this: If the Son of God had gone from incarnation to the cross without a life of temptation and pain to test his righteousness and his love, he would not be a suitable Savior for fallen man. His suffering not only absorbed the wrath of God. It also fulfilled his true humanity and made him able to call us brothers and sisters (Hebrews 2:17).

Though entirely free from sin (4:15), Jesus’ struggle against temptation was real (2:18). As One who came into the world to do the Father’s will (10:7), Christ successfully met each increasingly difficult challenge to His integrity, climaxing in the shameful and painful death on the cross (Phil. 2:8). This life of learned obedience offsets the disobedience of Adam (Rom. 5:19) and qualifies Christ to serve as the eternal High Priest (2:17, 18; 4:15).

Adam, the first man, was the divinely appointed head of the whole of humanity (Christ excepted), and his sin forfeited righteousness for all those he represented (“all men,” vv. 12, 18; the “many,” vv. 15, 19). In the same way, God made Christ the representative head of a new humanity so that His obedience unto death might gain their justification

The death of Christ did not merely precede his resurrection—it was the price that obtained it. That’s why Hebrews 13:20 says that God brought him from the dead “by the blood of the eternal covenant.”

Now what is the relationship between this shedding of Jesus’ blood and the resurrection? The Bible says he was raised not just after the blood-shedding, but by it. This means that what the death of Christ accomplished was so full and so perfect that the resurrection was the reward and vindication of Christ’s achievement in death.