Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

Hebrews V. 5, 6. 421
cidllj to v7TaK09]v. Although a so?* he must learn to oSe?/- Of course,
however, v-rraKo?] cannot be used here in its general sense, as denoting
obedience to the coinmands of God in general, but finds its natural
limitation in the words ad)' wv l-nade beside which is the verb 'ifiade.
What is spoken of is obedience to the special decree of the Father
who laid ujion the son the necessity of suffering ; or otherwise expressed,
a special manifestation of general obedience to the Father
consisting in this—that Christ swerved not from that general obedience
even when it entailed upon him inevitable suffering. And
thus the linade explains itself By this cannot of course be meant
a gradual transition from disobedience to obedience, but only a
development of the virtue of obedience itself, the progress of which
runs parallel to the difficulty of the situation in which Jesus was
placed ; consequently, the transition from easy obedience to more
difficult, and thereby, more perfect obedience. In proportion as the
choice for Jesus either to become unfaithful to the will of his Father,
or firmly to encounter unavoidable suffering, became more definite
and critical, did he decide with ever increasing firmness and clearness
of consciousness on the side of suffering, and against that of
disobedience. Thus was every successive step rendered more easy
by that which preceded it. When at his entrance on his public
labour, there was objectively set before him in the temptation
(Matth. iv.) the possibility of his yielding to the carnal expectations
of the Jews with reference to the Messiah, the choice which he then
made was, outwardly indeed, (as no definite suffering threatened
him as yet) easier, but, inwardly, more difficult than that which he
made at the temptation in Gethsemane, when indeed his impending
suffering appeared to him in its most definite and threatening form,
but when he had already made such progress in the way of obedience
that he must have cast aside and negatived his whole past history
had he now chosen the path of disobedience. With every step
which he took in the way of obedience this became more and more
a part of his nature, the law of his being.
This is what the author
will express by the words, he learned obedience.
The next question now is, on what word the determination of
time tv ral^ rjiiepaiq rrjg aapKog avrov depends, whether on TrpoaevEyKag
or on eiiade, whether therefore we are to place a comma after 6g or
after aapKog avrov. If tV qnspatg, etc., is referred to tjuaSe, then (:v
rjij-epaLg
as the chronological determination of the first principal verb
tirade corresponds to TeXeic^dsLg as the chronological determination of
the second principal verb syevero. We should then have to adopt
the construction above denoted by A, [og 1) iv ralg ruiepaig, etc.
ISTicene creed to denote the Logos qua pre-existent, which, however, as we have seen in
chap. iv. 1, is not the case. Ting in the Epistle to the Hebrews always denotes the soa
of God qua incarnate.