<p>5:8 <i>Though he was a Son, yet he learned obedience by the things which he suffered</i>- A difficult verse for Trinitarians. This learning of obedience doesn't suggest there was ever any disobedience, but rather that the Lord progressed spiritually to the point when He was made fully mature, or &quot;perfect&quot; (:9). That point of final completeness was the same point at which He authored eternal salvation, and that point was at His death. The Lord's Divine Sonship cannot be used as any reason to think that the Lord somehow had spirituality easy; He still had to learn obedience in a progressive manner. And &quot;<i>a </i>Son&quot; rather than <i>the</i> Son suggests that for the purposes of spiritual growth, His Sonship functioned in a similar way that our sonship to the Father does.</p><p>But the learning of obedience through suffering may not necessarily refer to a progressive lifetime of obedience. Rom. 5:19 uses the word in speaking of how through the Lord's one act of obedience, in contrast to Adam's one act of disobedience, many are made righteous. That specific moment of obedience was in the death of the cross; Phil. 2:8 makes this explicit, in calling for us to have the mind of the crucified Christ and to follow Him in His obedience to death, even the death of the cross. This all leads on to the same word being used in :9 in calling for our obedience to Him- to He who was in turn obedient, asking us to follow His pattern. The things which He suffered would then refer to His final crucifixion sufferings rather than to the sufferings of His life. And Hebrews uses the word for &quot;suffering&quot; specifically in the context of the Lord's suffering at the time of His death (Heb. 9:26; 13:12).</p>