A selection of verses showing that Jesus had to suffer and as a result was made perfect.
Jesus told his followers that he was to suffer a cruel death:
31 He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
The apostle Peter told his hearers that the Old Testament prophets foretold Christ's sufferings:
10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets sought and searched diligently. They prophesied of the grace that would come to you, 11 searching for who or what kind of time the Spirit of Christ, which was in them, pointed to, when he predicted the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that would follow them.
The prophet Isaiah gave a graphic description of these sufferings:
4 Surely he has borne our sickness
and carried our suffering;
yet we considered him plagued,
struck by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions.
He was crushed for our iniquities.
The punishment that brought our peace was on him;
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray.
Everyone has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed,
yet when he was afflicted he didn’t open his mouth.
As a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and as a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he didn’t open his mouth.
8 He was taken away by oppression and judgement.
As for his generation,
who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living
and stricken for the disobedience of my people?
The letter to the Hebrews tells us that Jesus learned the real meaning of obedience by submitting to severe suffering in order to do God's will:
9 But we see him who has been made a little lower than the angels, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honour, that by the grace of God he should taste of death for everyone. 10 For it became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many children to glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
7 He, in the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and petitions with strong crying and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and having been heard for his godly fear, 8 though he was a Son, yet learnt obedience by the things which he suffered. 9 Having been made perfect, he became to all of those who obey him the author of eternal salvation,
These chapters have links to this theme:
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