The Humiliation of the Eternal Son.
The chief mystery of our holy faith is the humiliation of the Son of God to temptation and suffering, as described in this passage of Scripture.
I. The text says, "Though He were a Son." Now, in these words, "the Son of God," much more is implied than at first sight may appear. We have, perhaps, a vague general notion that they mean something extraordinary and supernatural; but we know that we ourselves are called, in one sense, sons of God in Scripture. Moreover, we have heard, perhaps, that the angels are sons of God. In consequence, we collect just this much from the title as applied to our Lord, that He came from God, that He was the well-beloved of God, and that He is much more than a mere man. But when the early Christians used the title, "the Son of God," they meant, after the manner of the apostles when they used it in Scripture, all we mean in the creed, when, by way of explaining ourselves, we confess Him to be God from God, Light from Light, Very God, or True God, from True God.
II. The text goes on to say, "Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered." Obedience belongs to a servant, but accordance, concurrence, cooperation, are the characteristics of a Son. Christ took on Him a lower nature, and wrought in it towards a will higher and more perfect than it. His suffering, temptation, and obedience must be understood not as if He ceased to be what He had ever been, but having clothed Himself with a created essence, He made it the instrument of His humiliation: He acted in it, He obeyed and suffered through it. Before He came on earth He had but the perfections of a God; but afterwards He had also the virtues of a creature, such as faith, meekness, self-denial. Before He came on earth He could not be tempted of evil; but afterwards He had a man's heart, a man's tears, and a man's wants and infirmities. He possessed at once a double assemblage of attributes, Divine and human. Till we contemplate our Lord and Saviour God and man as a really existing being, external to our minds, as complete and entire in His personality as we appear to be to each other, as one and the same in all His various and contrary attributes, "the same yesterday, today, and for ever," we are using words which profit not.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons,vol. iii., p. 156.
References: Hebrews 5:7-9. R. S. Candlish, The Fatherhood of God,p. 353.Hebrews 5:7-10. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxxii., No. 1927.