Hebrews 5:8-9
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,
In addressing this couplet of verses, in relation to conditional security, we need to address the New Testament understanding of what it means to believe in Jesus the Messiah. You see, the verse speaks of obeying Him, and some may consider this obedience the initial act of faith, and there is truth in that statement. The initial act of faith was an obedient act of the will of the sinner to a call of grace, to a call from the Crucified One.
Yet if we look at the tense of the verb, we find the following. If you notice on the right, BlueLetterBible.org provides a bubble which includes the parsing of the verb. (The link will take you directly to the page being referred to.)
On the left is a listing defining what these letters in the bubble refer to.
For example, the first letter, “V” teaches us that the word “obey” is a verb. The second letter speaks of the tense of the verb. In English, we think of past present and future tense. The Greek word translated as obey is in the present tense.
For the most part, as the clip on the right teaches, this is directly equivalent to our present tense, and is translated as such in this verse.
So in review, let’s consider what we have learned.
The verse does not say
…he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obeyed him. (As in referring to the initial obedience of faith)
Nor does it say
…he became the source of eternal salvation to all who believe him. (Though if we understand to believe is to obey, we could without conflict understand it as such.)
The issue is current obedience.
Where are you at in hearing the voice of God in your life. Is He speaking about something specific, that needs to obeyed? Is He allowing a period of quiet in you life, simply to provide you time to put into practice the teachings you know to be true and faithful.
The Christian life is a life of obedience, discipleship and death to self on a daily basis. Obedience is synonymous with faith, and is simply the path to life.
Do you believe?
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