Saved For Death

By pastorbillwalden

Hebrews 5:7, 8 (Jesus)…who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, 8though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.

Jesus hated the thought of the cross. His humanity recoiled from the suffering and death that He knew He was called to physically endure. He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane that there might be another way whereby humanity might be saved. There would be no other way.

Moreover, the thought of being made a sin offering compounded the horror of the physical suffering with the addition of broken fellowship with the Father. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Yet, it has been suggested that Jesus faced something worse than death, and that was the challenge of disobedience. The cross would be the greatest challenge of Jesus obeying His Father. The writer of Hebrews tells us that Jesus was heard by the One who could save Him from death, yet He was still called to the cross.

What then, was the Father’s answer to the Son? In what way did the Father answer the Son?

The Father sent an angel to strengthen Jesus in the Garden.  The victory of the cross was won in the Garden, as the Father strengthened the Son, Who resolved to NOT disobey the Father regarding the cross. The Father’s answer to the Son’s prayer was that he helped the Son to obey.  The Son struggled to obey the Father’s will, but in the end, He did.

Jesus wasn’t saved from death, He was saved for death.

John Piper has the following thoughts…

“And when verse 7b says that he was praying and crying “to the One able to save Him from death,” does that mean that he was mainly praying for deliverance from physical death? Was that the main aim of his praying in the days of his flesh? I don’t think so, because verse 7 says “he was heard.” I think that means God gave him what he asked for, and verse 8 describes the effect of that answered prayer: he learned obedience. Jesus was praying for obedience—for persevering purity.

In other words, Jesus knew that there was a death worse than death. Much worse. Physical death is bad enough and he desired that there be another way to do the Father’s will than to die on the cross. But far more horrible than dying on the cross was the impurity of unbelief and disobedience. That was the great and horrible threat. So he prayed all his life against that, and he was heard by his Father and, instead of caving in to sin, he learned obedience from what he suffered.”

Jesus, Our Great Savior…