What does it mean that Jesus had godly fear (Hebrews 5:7)?

He was heard because of His fear. It was proper that He who took death on Himself, as answering for others, should feel its whole weight upon His soul. He would neither escape the consequences of that which He had undertaken (compare Heb. 2), nor fail in the just sense of what it was thus to be under the hand of God in judgment. His fear was His piety, the right estimation of the position in which sinful man was found, and what must come from God because of it. For Him however to suffer the consequences of this position was obedience. And this obedience was to be perfect, and to be tried to the utmost.

14 "And was heard." Jesus was heard, in the first place, by an internal deliverance, inasmuch as He was enabled to take the cup from His Father's hand, and not from the hand of Satan. In His struggle in Gethsemane He overcame the direct power of the adversary. The latter, conquered in the conflict he had entered into against the soul of Christ, was powerless when he came in his instruments. The hour of the power of darkness was not entirely spent; but Jesus, delivered from the terrors the enemy had pressed on His soul, and free to escape death if He chose, gave Himself up. He advances towards the wicked and delivers Himself into their hands. Evidently His soul was no longer under the pressure of the enemy. But He was more entirely heard in His resurrection. "He asked life of thee, and thou gavest it him, even length of days, for ever and ever," Psalm 21:4.

"And was heard in that he feared." It may be quite as well rendered "on account of his piety" or "of his respect." It is the same word as in chapter 12:28, "with reverence and godly fear." "By the things which he suffered." Instead of fulfilling righteousness in an even path, He met with constantly growing difficulties. He suffered in order to learn obedience.

The qualifications of Aaron are outlined in verses 1 to 3; the qualifications of Christ are seen in verses 7 to 9. There are most remarkable qualifications in verse 7. "In the days of His flesh', with a view to representing this company, He offered up "prayers" , a word meaning "requests"; and "supplications", a word meaning "seeking a divine favour". It was with "strong crying and tears" — this refers to the garden of Gethsemane — "unto Him that was able to save Him from death", or more correctly "out of death"; and He was heard because of His piety, as the word really means.

(Vv. 7, 8). In the verses that follow, we learn the experiences that Christ passed through in order that He might exercise His priestly service. How necessary that He should be the glorious Person that He is — the Son — to exercise the High Priesthood in heaven. But more was needed. If He is to succour His people through their wilderness journey, He Himself must enter into the sorrows and difficulties of the way. At once, then, the Apostle recalls “the days of His flesh” when He took part in our infirmities, trod the path that we are treading, faced the same temptations that we have to meet, and was encompassed with like infirmities. The writer especially refers to the closing sufferings of the Lord, when the enemy, who, as one has said, “at the outset had sought to seduce Jesus by offering Him the things that are agreeable to man (Luke 4), was presenting himself against Him with terrible things” (J.N.D.). In Gethsemane the enemy sought to turn the Lord from the path of obedience by pressing upon Him the terror of death. In the presence of this assault the Lord acts as the perfect Man. He did not exercise His divine power and drive the devil away or save Himself from death; but as the perfectly dependent Man He found His resource in prayer, and thus met the trial and overcame the devil. Nevertheless, His very perfection as Man led Him to feel the terror of all that was before Him and to express His feelings in strong crying and tears. He met the trial in perfect dependence upon God who was able to save Him out of death.

In all this sore trial He was heard because of His piety, which brought God into every circumstance by dependence and confidence in Him. He was heard inasmuch as He was strengthened in physical weakness, and enabled in spirit to submit to taking the cup from the Father's hand. Thus He overcame the power of Satan, and though He were Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered. We have to learn obedience because we have a wicked will: He because He was God over all, who from eternity had ever commanded. We oftentimes learn obedience by the suffering we bring upon ourselves through disobedience: He learned obedience by the suffering entailed through His obedience to the will of God. He learned by experience what it cost to obey. No suffering, however intense, could move Him from the path of perfect obedience. Another has said, “He submitted to everything, obeyed in everything, and depended upon God for everything” (J.N.D.).

But the question may arise how can one so exalted as the Son of God enter into all the details of His people's weakness and need down here. The answer is given us in Hebrews 5. He has been here, and in circumstances of pressure and sorrow such as never fell to the lot of man beside. Not that He is in them now. For it is a common mistake that I must be in the same circumstances as another to be able to sympathise. It is not true. If in them myself I am not so free to enter into those of another. But if I have been in them, and am now out of them, I can fully sympathise with those of another. How infinite the love and grace that brought the Son of God into the path of testing, "who in the days of his flesh when he had offered up strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him out of death, and was heard for his piety" (that is, His meek submission to God). "Though he were a Son yet learned he obedience by the things that he suffered." It is Gethsemane that comes before us, with all its unfathomable sorrow, the last and most crucial of all the scenes of testing and trial He had to go through, and that fitted Him perfectly for our hearts to be all we need in our High Priest. Out of His own deep experience of human sorrow and trial, we have the consciousness that there is nothing that we have to pass through that He cannot enter into, to sustain us as we seek to walk in the same path of His obedience.

In verses 7, 8 and 9 we find some very weighty truths connected with ourselves. "Who in the days of his flesh" (let us mark that with holy reverence), "when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death." The scene of that conflict was eminently marked in Gethsemane. What was the transaction there? He properly shrank from undergoing the judgment of God against sin. "And was heard for his piety." He was heard because death, the wages of sin, had no claim on Him. His claim to deliverance was allowed. Instead of the judgment of God being sent to wither His flesh, an angel was sent to strengthen Him.

In the 7th, 8th, and 9th verses, we find some very weighty truths, connected with ourselves. "Who, in the days of His flesh" (let us mark that with holy reverence), "when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save him from death." The scene of that conflict was eminently marked in Gethsemane. What was the transaction there? He properly shrank from undergoing the judgment of God against sin. "And was heard for His piety." He was heard, because death, the wages of sin, had no claim on Him. His claim to deliverance was allowed. Instead of the judgment of God being sent to wither His flesh, an angel was sent to strengthen Him.

His suffering and death are therefore next mentioned in these verses: "Who in the days of His flesh having offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears to Him who was able to save Him out of death and having been heard for His godly fear, though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered." These words refer chiefly to the portal of the cross, Gethsemane . There He prayed with strong crying and tears, alone with His Father in deepest agony, fallen on His face, and His sweat became as great drops of blood falling down on the ground. He went into all the anguish of death, deprecating the cup He had to drink, yet in meek and perfect submission. What a terrible weight was there upon His holy soul! And He was heard for His godly fear. He was saved, not from dying, for that would have left man in his sins and unredeemed; He was saved out of death. His prayer was answered by His resurrection. it was in that agony that He learned obedience. Though Son of God, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. Having come to obey and to suffer (which as Son of God was unknown to Him), He obeyed in everything and submitted to everything. He did not save Himself, but drank the cup and died the sinner's death.

But obedience is the special point before us in the blessed unfolding of the Lord's place as man, that the epistle gives us. See then how, if in contrast to Israel's priests, who being taken from among themselves could exercise forbearance towards the ignorant and the wanderers, we have a great High Priest that is passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God; and if His very exaltation and glory as such seems to take Him out of the range and reach of human need to be able to sympathise, the Spirit of God can recall to us (ver. 7) "the days of his flesh," in which "when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him out of death," He was "heard for his godly fear." (eulabeia; compare Heb. 12:28, where the same word occurs, His reverent submission to the will of God.)

It is touching to read that one reason given why the supplications of our Lord Jesus Christ were heard was because of His piety, or because He feared (Heb. 5:7). Who could claim to be in the path of God’s will more than He? Who walked in the truth and was so zealous for it as He? Who loved the good and hated the evil as He did? Yet He was in the fear of God all the day long. “Preserve Me, O God,” He prayed, “for in Thee do I put My trust”; and again, “Thy law is within My heart,” and “Thy word have I hid in Mine heart.” If we put the acrostic Psalms 111 and 112 side by side, we see how those who belong to Christ take character from Him. The former speaks of Christ and the latter of the one who trusts in Him. The former ends by telling us that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”: the latter begins by telling us of the blessedness or happiness of “the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in His commandments.” In the third verse of the one Christ’s “righteousness endureth for ever”: in verse 3 of the other the same thing is said of the believer’s righteousness, and that must be so because Christ is his righteousness. God has made Him his righteousness as well as his wisdom.