Hebrews 5:7Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

It must unquestionably be referred to the humanity of the one Christ. On the one hand, it shows the truth of the nature He assumed. On the other hand, it also shows His care for us and reveals the abundance of His love. For He prayed about this for our sake, having assumed our nature, so as to suppress in Himself our nature's fear before death. Then observe that nowhere in the Gospels is it written that He prayed for the Resurrection. On the contrary, He plainly spoke with authority: "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up" (Jn 2:19). And again: "I have authority to take My soul again" (Jn 10:18). "And He was heard because of His reverence." This too is said because of the flesh and the weakness of the hearers. They did not yet have a proper understanding of Him. The thought is this: such was His reverence that His being heard was more a matter of His reverence than of God's grace. For this God honored Him and heeded His prayer.

His obedience was also clearly revealed through those who crucified Him. Therefore, if the crucifiers themselves prove to be witnesses that He was heard, then it follows that He desired to die. He asked that His Father's will be accomplished. Likewise, He offered supplications with loud prayer to Him Who could save Him from death. He Who came in order to die did not pray for deliverance from death. Nor did He ask for resurrection after death, if this had already been promised Him. Rather, He prayed for those who crucified Him, so that they might not be subjected to death for it. And He was heard in His prayers, because access was opened so that those who crucified Him could receive life. The One Who did this, Who humbled Himself to such abasement and suffering for the sake of His murderers, is the Son of God. From this it was revealed that He was heard, namely, from the fact that He suffered. Through this some of His murderers were converted and, by their repentance, became preachers of His Resurrection.

The excess of humiliation expressed by these words forces even blasphemers against the Godhead not to apply anything of the kind to the Godhead. The Godhead permitted the humanity to suffer this in order to teach us that God the Word truly became man and assumed human nature. It teaches that the mystery of the divine economy was accomplished neither in imagination nor as an apparition. Even with all this, Simon, Menander, Cerdon, Marcion, Valentinus, Basilides, Bardaisan, and Manes taught their followers that Christ had no human nature at all. Clearly, many more people would have fallen into this error if He had not suffered human infirmities, except for sin. By "the days of flesh," the apostle meant the time of mortality, that is, the time when Christ had a mortal body. He speaks of the prayer which Christ prayed before His Passion, saying: "Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me" (Mt 26:39). The apostle spoke in a heightened way when he said: "He learned obedience from the things which He suffered." For Christ showed obedience not after suffering, but before suffering. By perfection he meant the Resurrection and immortality, for this is the goal of the divine economy. He presented all the sufferings in a heightened way not only to prove the truth of the Incarnation. He did so also to confirm what he had already said: "We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin." By this also he persuades those to whom he wrote to remain in the faith. He urges them to trust boldly in the compassion and love for mankind of this High Priest. We find that He often prays and bends His knees. That this belongs to human nature, and not to the Godhead which needs nothing, the apostle clearly teaches. He speaks thus in the Epistle to the Hebrews: "Who, in the days of His flesh, offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to Him Who was able to save Him from death. He was heard because of His reverence. Though He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the cause of eternal salvation to all who obey Him" (Heb 5:7-9). It was not God the Word, perfect before the ages, Who was perfected. It was the form of a servant, made passionless, incorruptible, and immortal. Therefore the apostle said that the Lord did this "in the days of His flesh," when He had a mortal body. All this belongs to the humanity, not to the Godhead. The Godhead permitted the humanity to suffer this in order to teach us that God the Word truly became man and assumed human nature. It teaches that the mystery of the divine economy was accomplished neither in imagination nor as an apparition.

Yet they too express it by pointing to His intense struggle and His strained entreaty. For entreaty is an intensified form of asking. "And He was heard because of His reverence," that is, because of the virtue which He had as man. All that has been said above refers to Him according to His humanity. But in what way was He heard? By deliverance from death. And how was He delivered? By rising from the dead and no longer dying. For the apostle says, "Death no longer has dominion over Him" (Rom 6:9).

For in the same prayer He says: "Nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done" (Lk 22:42). John shows this more clearly when he says that the Son prayed: "Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You" (Jn 17:1). By glory he plainly means the Cross and death. Of this the divine Paul beautifully said: He was heard. Second, the words "because of His reverence" are more easily understood from what has already been said about the two requests. They were for deliverance from death and for consent to it. The latter proceeds from reverence before the Father and His will. Therefore Paul says, "and having been perfected," that is, having been recognized as perfect, ineffably good, and loving toward mankind because of His sufferings, Cross, and death. The apostle hints at this above when he speaks of prayers and supplications, that is, two requests. Third, concerning the phrase "though He was a Son," it should be understood thus: since Christ was on earth "in the days of His flesh," He offered prayers and supplications. As Son and as God, the same as the Father, Christ already knew this obedience and its greatness before He was obedient to the Father, in Paul's words, even unto death (Phil 2:8). But being heard, He learned it in sufferings and trials. With this interpretation, the words "though He was a Son" present no difficulty. Cf. Mt 26:39.

Here are the apostle's words: He, that is, Christ, "in the days of His flesh, offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to Him Who was able to save Him from death" (Heb 5:7). Clearly, St. Paul points here to those tearful cries for help which the Lord Jesus Christ poured out before His Father in the garden of Gethsemane. He asked that, if possible, the cup of sufferings might pass from Him. These cries testified that Christ the High Priest shared in human infirmities.

The Old Testament high priest felt himself guilty before God and therefore offered a propitiatory sacrifice. Christ felt Himself only weak, subject to temptations and fearful before evil.

Therefore He was content to offer to God, as sacrifice, tearful prayers. These prayers blotted out before the face of God this weakness, namely, fear before evil.

The Apostle, however, does not use the expression "God" in the latter case. He replaces this word with the descriptive expression, "the One able to save His soul from death."

He probably does this in order to indicate the danger from which Jesus prayed to be delivered. But what moment from the life of Jesus Christ does the Apostle mean when he speaks of loud cries and tears with which He prayed to God?

Most probably he means the sufferings of Jesus Christ in Gethsemane. Although the Gospels say nothing about Christ's cries during the prayer in Gethsemane, such cries could very easily have taken place.

For Christ was in a state of special inward tension, αγωνία (Lk 22:41-43). But Christ prayed in Gethsemane for deliverance from death. How, then, does the Apostle say that He was heard by God?

No. If Christ had prayed only for this, His prayer not only would have remained unheard, but would have contradicted all His previous proofs of the necessity of this death.

This is all the more so since Christ knew well that He would rise on the third day. What was truly grievous for Christ was to drink the cup of sufferings appointed for Him.

These sufferings did not consist only in His being handed over to torment in the hands of sinners. That would not have been so terrible, since Christ certainly was not weaker than many martyrs who joyfully accepted torments for the faith.

No. Christ had to take upon Himself responsibility for the sins of all mankind and to give His soul as redemption for the sins of the whole world.

This compelled Him to enter into battle with the devil, the prince of this world. This struggle terrified His human nature and compelled Him to turn to God the Father with anxious cries.

He prayed that the Father would help Him in this struggle and would not leave His soul in the power of death and the devil. And such a prayer was heard by God.

After the inward struggle in Gethsemane, Christ calmly went to death. If once more the weakness of the flesh declared itself on the Cross in the cry, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" He nevertheless soon could commit His soul into the hands of God with a joyful cry.

Then the Apostle says that Christ was heard because of His reverent fear, άπα τής εύλαβείας. This means that the previously mentioned prayers of Christ were called forth by His reverence and were an outward proof of it.