What is fitting for God to do?

Hebrews 2:10 asserts that "it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering." There is something in the wording here that causes me to stop and think.

Once I was walking through Peachtree Mall in my old hometown. I was passing by one of the large department stores, you know the kind where the cosmetic and perfume counters line the entrance like a gauntlet, when suddenly I found myself in the middle of the mall staring at the most amazingly beautiful woman I thought at the time I had ever seen. Generally, I don't stare. I don't stare at anybody or anything. Mom diligently taught us not to stare and we learned our lessons well. But there I was standing outside that store looking inside, utterly and unashamedly captivated by this person in a white lab coat standing beside a counter and inviting passersby to be drenched in some scent they could probably never afford.

Now, what caused my sudden loss of manners was not so much that this woman was very pleasant to gaze upon, but that there was something unnervingly familiar about her. I knew her, but I could not come up with a single reason why I should. Whoever she was, she was different, or out of place, something. Then, she called me by name.

I read the words, "it was fitting for God" and I feel much the same the way I did standing in the middle of the mall staring at my very best high school friend who had looked utterly different and utterly out of place, but utterly familiar at the same time. After all, what isn't fitting for God?

Moses reminds us, recounting under inspiration the dialogue between Abraham and God before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, that the Judge of all the earth shall do right. Every thing God does conforms to his perfect, holy character. So, of course, if God does it, it's "fitting."

This idea of "fitting," though, should be considered in light of what this inspired author describes as fitting, namely, the perfecting of the Savior through suffering. We now have to account for two things that it is fitting for God to do as he brings many sons to glory. It is fitting for God to perfect his Son, Jesus, and it is fitting for God to do so through Jesus' personal suffering.

How does one, even God, perfect that which is perfect? Do we not understand from all of Scripture, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God, shares all of God's attributes, including perfection? Yes he is and yes he does. The perfection that is is fitting for God to work is the perfection of the man Jesus in the role as Savior. Jesus must, in order for his role as Savior to be complete (thus the word "perfect"), share completely in the human experience, which is best characterized by suffering.

Jesus suffers because all human beings suffer. Jesus suffers because it is the nature of existence in a fallen and corrupt world, marred and imperfect, that those who live here will suffer. Therefore, it is fitting for God to "perfect" or complete Jesus' human experience with suffering. It is fitting for God to certainly and without any doubt prepare his Son to be an adequate Savior and it is fitting for God to perfect his Son through suffering, because in that suffering he joins the rest of us in our experience and condition.

Jesus does not require moral perfection and it would not be fitting for God to do this, since there is no blemish on Christ's conscience, no stain from sin. But it is fitting that God should do all that must be done to ransom his beloved people from death and destruction by perfecting the founder of their salvation through suffering.

And if it is fitting for God to perfect his only Son through suffering, would it not also be fitting for God to work within those "many sons" he brings to glory to perfect them in their faith experience through suffering? Should we not expect God to use suffering in our lives to complete the work he began as in faith we take our identity in his Son?

Dont' short change suffering. It is fitting that God should pave the road to glory with it.