----- Original Message ----- 
From: "H Dorrington" <hjdinfl@...>
> Steve: The question is what is the relationship of "obedience" to "made
perfect."  In addition, even if Christ is made >perfect through obedience to
the Mosaic Law (which I wholeheartedly affirm that He did perfectly obey),
the question is >does the text say that His legal perfection is imputed to
us?

It doesn't matter if the text maintains this precise point or not.  Romans 5
surely does... and this passage provides more background to that and other
passages in the canon.

>He first says that "his suffering was his obedience to the law."  This is
likely a misstatement.

How so?  This is merely paraphrasing "learning obedience to the law through
suffering".  While the priesthood is being developed, it is developed within
the Kadesh Barnea context.  And it's not merely the priesthood at issue.
The sacrifice is equally at issue... as the sacrifice, Christ learned
obedience through suffering.  It's reductionism (in keeping with the
anti-Catholic, anti-Covenantal agenda driving a lot of the exegesis, not
necessarily your friend's but the way "suffering" is typically interpreted
in our Christology.  Christ's entire life was "suffering".) to suggest that
"suffering" is primarily the cross.  The author of Hebrews does not use
suffering in such a reductionist way.  The point being made about temptation
and obedience in chapters 2, 4, 5, 7 is about Christ's life leading to his
death, not merely his death only.  And it is his obedience in life that is
the example for the church in Hebrews 10 to follow, even unto the point of
death.

>But what does it mean that He was made perfect in those verses?

He was made perfect in whatever "perfection" is attained by obedience
through suffering, offering
prayers and supplications during "the days of his flesh".

>What is the relationship of obedience to that perfection?  The first speaks
about Christ's perfection in relation to his >priesthood in 5:8-9.

True.  But that priesthood still has an organic connection to the law
(10:28 -- the word of the oath is the eschatological fulfillment of the
law).  The endpoint of Christ's being made perfect through obedience in
suffering is that he is holy (a legal term), and innocent, (a legal term).
That obedience leading to death (10:27) is salvific.

And isn't it interesting that our salvation is posited in the
inverted/parallel of the very thing that saves us... we "obey" (5:9) because
He obeyed (5:8).

>Then 7:18-19 tell us that the law could make nothing perfect.

Only in relation to fallen man.  If man had the ability to keep the law, the
law would make man perfect (which is the gist of "be ye holy", "be ye
perfect").

>7:28 tells us that Christ who was appointed on oath was "made perfect
forever" as the
>great Melchizedekian priest.  Then again he makes His people "perfect"
>through His one priestly sacrifice  (10:14).  The issue is priesthood that
>runs through all of this language of perfection.

This is only partly true.  What I'm seeing in this exegesis is an emphasis
of the priesthood to the near exclusion of the sacrifice (and its in the
sacrifice where active obedience is fundamentally tied to justification).
The point being made by the writer isn't just that Christ was the perfect
high priest... but that he was also the perfect sacrifice.  One cannot
emphasize the high priest of (7:26) without equally emphasizing the
sacrifice (7:27).  Christ is both priest and sacrifice (9:26)... and it is
both which make the church's entry into the holy of holies possible (10:19,
10:21).

>I think 10:14 is so important in this debate because perfection is
>actually granted to Christ's people only it is solely in the context of
>Christ's sacrifice.

True.  But 10:14 is only one part of the indicative.  It does not say "only"
by the single offering.  It conveys the message that the single offering was
necessary to make the church perfect.  It does not preclude other passages
in the canon that point to Christ's life obedience as necessary for
salvation.  It is one piece of the whole.

>He became perfect through obedience among other things,
>but we become perfect through blood.

This is true, but it's also not an end-all, be-all statement.  We also
become perfect because Christ obeyed through suffering (5:9).  And the only
way you can make the above to be an end-all, be-all, is through the
reductionism of forcing the suffering of the earlier chapters in Hebrews to
apply only to Christ's death.  And I've already suggested that Kadesh Barnea
context doesn't allow for that kind of reductionism.

I think our exegesis is close.  I think he's underemphasizing the sacrifice
and the covenantal law.  He thinks I'm overemphasizing the Law and
obedience.

Oh well.  :-)

Chad