Merry Christmas to you all, and depending on where you listen, perhaps Sunday night on

Christmas Eve, you're listening, or on Christmas Day, either way, from all of us at

DesiringGod.org, I want to wish you a very Merry Christmas.

Thank you for listening to the podcast and making it a part of your day.

We really appreciate it.

This, of course, is the season to reckon with the fact that all mighty God became little boy.

And not only that, Jesus grew up, and he matured, which leads to this question from a listener

named Tina. Hello, Pastor John, I need your help. Can you explain to me Hebrews 5 verses 8 and 9,

particularly this Christmas season I want to better understand the early years after the

incarnation, specifically how Jesus learned obedience and had to be made perfect as a child.

These verses make it sound like Jesus wasn't fully God and fully human, but that he had to work

his way to perfection and obedience. So what does human maturity look like in Jesus, the little boy?

Okay, I did a whole ask Pastor John on these two verses. He brews 5, 8, 9, June 2016.

So let me just give the conclusion of that effort and then tackle, I think what he's most

curious about, namely Jesus as a boy. Here's the verse, although he was a son, this is Hebrews 5, 8,

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. Now, this same book of Hebrews

says Christ was tempted in every way, yet without sin. So learning obedience from what he suffered

and being made perfect don't mean that he moved from being in a state of sin to being in a

state of sinless perfection. That's what they don't mean because this author makes clear

he never sinned. Well, what do they mean? Well, what does it imply that he learned obedience?

What they mean is this. He learned obedience not in the sense that he moved from disobedience to

...