“In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation,” (Hebrews 5:7-9).
Recently, the above verses became so alive to me that I got what I like to call “glory bumps.” Glory bumps come in the form of a goose pimple or chill bump, and they come as the result of something Christ has shown me through Scripture. Sometimes I slap the table and praise the Lord a little. Sometimes I dance. Sometimes I shout. But, I always get these glory bumps. I have them right now as I anticipate sharing with you what the Lord showed me through these verses about the “Easter story.”
Jesus’ Prayer in the Garden
Let’s go back to the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus prayed a prayer in the garden with which we’re all familiar. He asked the Father to “let this cup pass from me.” It’s recorded in Luke 22:39-46 and Matthew 26:26-41. Anyone who’s heard the Easter story knows that following that prayer, Jesus said, “yet, not My will, but Yours be done” to the Father (Luke 22:42). In the account in Matthew, Jesus also tells the disciples that “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” after He comes down from His prayer time at the Mount of Olives (Matthew 26:41). When Jesus prayed “let this cup pass,” He was weak in His flesh, but His Spirit was willing as the verse goes on to demonstrate by saying, “yet not as I will, but as You will” (Matthew 26:39).
The Father’s Answer
I used to assume Jesus’ prayer for the cup to pass wasn’t answered. But Hebrews says, “He was heard because of His piety.” Hebrews 5:7 teaches us that Jesus’ prayer wasn’t ignored; it was answered. More than that, it was answered favorably because His true heart was to do the Father’s will. It was the Father’s will that Jesus suffer for our sins because His sacrifice was the only one that could ever offer us eternal salvation, as we see in Hebrews 5:9. Because He was made perfect, a complete sacrifice, He became to all those who obey Him the source (not simply “a” source, but the source) of eternal salvation.
The Result
You see, Jesus’ sacrifice was better than the sacrifice of bulls and goats as offered in the Old Testament (Hebrews 9:12). And, because it was better than the blood of bulls and goats, it obtained eternal redemption for us who obey Him. Under the Old Testament Law, the blood of bulls and goats could only cleanse flesh. But Jesus’ voluntarily obedient sacrifice cleanses more than just our flesh. Jesus’ blood cleanses our conscience (Hebrews 9:14). We’ll come back around to this concept of our consciences being cleansed…
Are you starting to get glory bumps yet?
(To be continued)
