There remains for us to interpret the passage about His receiving commandment, and having kept His Commandments, and done always those things that please Him; and further concerning His being made perfect, and His exaltation, and His learning obedience by the things which He suffered; and also His High Priesthood, and His Oblation, and His Betrayal, and His prayer to Him That was able to save Him from death, and His Agony and Bloody Sweat and Prayer, and such like things; if it were not evident to every one that such words are concerned, not with That Nature Which is unchangeable and above all capacity of suffering, but with the passible Humanity.

For every one of these points, taken separately, may very easily, if we go through them one by one, be explained to you in the most reverent sense, and the stumbling-block of the letter be cleaned away — that is, if your stumbling at it be honest, and not wilfully malicious. To give you the explanation in one sentence. What is lofty you are to apply to the Godhead, and to that Nature in Him which is superior to sufferings and incorporeal; but all that is lowly to the composite condition of Him who for your sakes made Himself of no reputation and was Incarnate — yes, for it is no worse thing to say, was made Man, and afterwards was also exalted. The result will be that you will abandon these carnal and grovelling doctrines, and learn to be more sublime, and to ascend with His Godhead, and you will not remain permanently among the things of sight, but will rise up with Him into the world of thought, and come to know which passages refer to His Nature, and which to His assumption of Human Nature.

The same consideration applies to another passage, 'He learned obedience by the things which He suffered,' and to His 'strong crying and tears,' and His 'Entreaties,' and His 'being heard,' and His 'Reverence,' all of which He wonderfully carried out, like a drama whose plot was devised on our behalf. For in His character of the Word He was neither obedient nor disobedient. For such expressions belong to servants, and inferiors, and the one applies to the better sort of them, while the other belongs to those who deserve punishment. But, in the character of the Form of a Servant, He condescends to His fellow servants, even to His servants, and takes upon Him a strange form, bearing all me and mine in Himself, that in Himself He may exhaust the bad, as fire does wax, or as the sun does the mists of earth; and that I may partake of His nature by the blending. Thus He honors obedience by His action, and proves it experimentally by His Passion. For to possess the disposition is not enough, just as it would not be enough for us, unless we also proved it by our acts; for action is the proof of disposition.

It has been noted that Muslim critics point to this verse as some sort of "proof" that Jesus did not die on the cross, apparently reasoning that because Jesus prayed to the one who "was able to save him from death," the "was able" may be equated with "therefore, he did indeed save him from death." This conclusion is philosophically flawed and reads an assumption into the text; furthermore, we may add that this would make no sense in light of Hebrews 12:2, which says Jesus "endured the cross," as well as the allusion to Jesus' death in Hebrews 2:9, 9:15, and 13:12.

Problem: Speaking of the “days of His Jesus’] flesh” as past seems to imply that Jesus did not rise in the flesh and ascend into heaven in the same physical body in which He died. Yet Jesus Himself said that His resurrection body was one of “flesh and bones” ([Luke 24:31) and the Apostles’ Creed confesses the “resurrection of the flesh.”

Solution: The phrase “days of His flesh” simply refers to Jesus’ earthly sojourn. It affirms nothing about the nature of the resurrection body. It is clear from many passages that Jesus rose in literal, physical, human flesh

Expanded from [Luke 24:39](Hebrews_2.17-Genesis_4.26.php:
Problem: According to this verse, people did not begin “to call on the name of the Lord” until the days of Enosh, the third son of Adam and Eve. Yet their first son, Abel, brought an acceptable sacrifice to the Lord before this time (Gen. 4:3–4).

Solution: The meaning of “call upon the name of the Lord” (in Gen. 4:26) is not clear. And what is not clear cannot be taken to contradict what is clear, namely, that Abel worshiped God before Enosh did. It is possible that calling on the Lord implied a regular, more solemn, and/or public worship of the Lord, or prayer (cf. Rom. 10:13) that was not practiced earlier. At any rate, there is no contradiction here, since it does not say that Abel or anyone else “called on the Lord” before this time—whatever it may mean.

; 1 John 4:2–3).

“In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety,” (Heb. 5:7).

The Jehovah’s Witnesses use this verse in their attempt to demonstrate that Jesus Christ, after His resurrection, is not in his physical form. In other words, they deny that Jesus Christ was raised physically from the dead and is still a man.

Their argument is that the verse says that in the days of Jesus when he was a man, he offered up his prayers to the Father. They say that the verse is speaking in the past tense. In other words, they are saying that because the verse uses the past tense regarding Jesus in his flesh and in his prayers, it means that Jesus is no longer in physical form. Their interpretation is in error.

First of all, Jesus prophesied his physical resurrection: “Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20The Jews therefore said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” 21But He was speaking of the temple of His body,” (John 2:19-21).

Second, Jesus proclaimed his physical resurrection: “See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have,” (Luke 24:39).

“Then He *said to Thomas, “Reach here your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand, and put it into My side; and be not unbelieving, but believing.” (John 20:27).

Jesus retained the wounds of His crucifixion as evidenced by the holes in His hands and side (John 20:27), yet He was able to appear in a room with the disciples without entering through the door (John 20:19-20).  He was raised in the same body He died in, though it had been glorified.

Also, please consider the following:

- “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” (1 Tim. 2:5).  We see here that Jesus is called a man.

- “And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as a dead man. And He laid His right hand upon me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, 18and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades,” (Rev. 1:17-18).

In Rev. 1:17-18, Jesus is in heaven, and John the Apostle falls at Jesus’ feet, and Jesus laid His right hand on him.  Clearly, from these verses, we can see that Jesus is in bodily form as a man.

Finally, Heb. 5:7 is speaking of Christ’s earthly ministry before his crucifixion.  It is not speaking about the time after his resurrection which the above verses (John 2:19-21; Luke 24:39; and John 20:27) clearly show to us that Jesus was raised physically from the dead.