The Christification of Suffering

In many ways I am unqualified to write such a post as this for the amount of suffering I have endured is virtually nonexistent in comparison to so many others. Yet, I write this post aware of this, and also aware that my intentions are not to write from experience--for again I haven't the qualifications to do so--but rather from the perspective of the what the Scriptures have to say--a perspective which I am a bit more qualified to write from.

I have found myself coming back to this theme again and again as I consider what our relationship as Christians is to be to the unbelieving world around us and I must admit that I am convinced that the vast majority--notice not just the majority but the vast majority--of professing Christians have an unbiblical idea of, and hence allergy to, suffering.

To put it simply, most likely due to the painfulness of suffering, in whatever form we consider it, many Christians conclude that suffering is just not what God "wants for them." Maybe this stems from the all-to-popular catchphrase "God/Jesus loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life." - a phrase which is presumptuous and ultimately amounts to false prophecy as I have recently argued in part of a sermon found here.

Where have we gleaned this idea that God doesn't want us to suffer? I can tell you most certianly it hasn't been from the Scriptures. Allow me to just kind of utilize the "shotgun approach" here and blast us with an array of pellets concerning the Bible's view on Christian suffering:

Philippians 1:29 (ESV)
For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake.

Observe with me here the Apostle Paul notes two things we have been "granted" or "given" (KJV).

One is to believe...

it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should...believe

...the second is to suffer.

it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should...suffer for his sake.

God, through the Apostle Paul, informs us that not only is our faith in Christ a gift from God... but so also is our suffering!

Now if this were the only instance of this kind of language we might be prone to think that we need to dig a little deeper for surely that isn't what he is saying. Surely God isn't saying that he gifts Christians with suffering. But the fact is, this is far from the only instance of such language.

2 Timothy 3:12 (ESV)
Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

John 15:20 (ESV)
20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.

To be persecuted is "to be subject[ed] to prolonged hostility and ill-treatment." (Oxford)

Sounds like suffering to me.

The apostles seemed to get this, for in Acts we find them, after having been beaten for preaching the gospel...

Acts 5:41b (ESV)
...rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.

Rejoicing they they were counted worthy to suffer... worthy to suffer!

And on and on we could go, literally. You don't believe me? Check out these Scriptures just to name a few: Romans 5:3; 8:17; 2 Corinthians 1:5; Philippians 3:10; Colossians 1:24; 1 Thessalonians 3:4... and on and on it goes.

So what? What's my point.

Well, hopefully my point is Jesus' point when He says, "A servant is not greater than his master." If Jesus suffered--and who will deny that he did on so many levels--then we will suffer. It's inevitable. It's ordained. It's granted to us.

And my friends let me suggest to you that when we suffer, when we suffer rightly, when we endure suffering patiently, and understand that it is God's will for us, then--especially then-- we begin to look like Christ, the One whose image we are being conformed into.

This is the Christification of suffering. We look at suffering as something which Christ endured more of than any man ever has; we look at suffering as something which God, in Christ, used to bring redemption to His people; we look at suffering as something which God has ordained for us, that we might, through our patient endurance of it, put on display Christ to the world around us. And thus, we get over our allergy to it and rather embrace it as what it is: namely, God's work of conforming us into the image of His Son (Romans 8:28).

May he be pleased to grant us such grace, for only by his grace will we ever have such a mind as this... the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:5).

Solus Christus,
Matt

Christifying the Ten Commandments

Well, I've re-read my 4 previous blog entries (that's right... all four of them) and have again realized how true my statement in the introduction to my blog was where I said it would "no doubt be updated very sporadically."

Sporadically is a bit of an understatement I think when my last post was in January of this year!

So I won't make any promises of blogging again soon for the likelihood of me being able to keep such a promise is extremely slim.

So... on to the title of this post.

I have been preaching on the Ten Commandments for 4 weeks now (we will consider #5 this coming Lord's Day) and one of my main purposes - if fact the main purpose - is to show how they point us to Christ (as indeed all the Scriptures do - John 5:39; Luke 24:27, 44-45; etc.).

For many in our day, quite unfortunately, this may sound a bit strange. A friend of mine attends a church were the pastor recently preached a series on the Ten Commandments and so, knowing I was going to be preaching on them myself soon, I asked him, "So... is he showing how each of them are utterly impossible for us to keep and thus how they point us to Christ?" And his initial response - a puzzled look - was illustrative of the epidemic plaguing especially the church in the United States; what one author has called "Christless Christianity".

Here's the point, or, to keep with the theme of this blog, here's why the Ten Commandments must be - and were intended to be- Christified:

You can't keep one of them!

I can't keep one of them!

It's amazing how many Christians develop, to use the words of my friend Jason, a "rich-young-ruler attitude" (see Matthew 19:16-22) toward the Ten Commandments. We foolishly decieve ourselves into thinking we have honored our father and mother (#5) or not committed adultery (#7) or been free from the sin of murder (#6) when all the while we are exceedingly abundantly guilty of all those and more, for at least two reasons:

For one, James tells us if we have broken one we have broken them all:

10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. James 2:10-11 (ESV)

Secondly, as Jesus makes clear in His "Sermon on the Mount" (Matthew 5), sin is found not first in the outward action but, firstly, chiefly, in the inward motions of the heart.

²¹ “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ ²² But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.
Matthew 5:21-22 (ESV)

Or again...

²⁷ “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ ²⁸ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Matthew 5:27-28 (ESV)

Who of us has not gazed upon a member of the opposite sex, to whom we were not married, and had impure thoughts? Who of us has not been unrighteousnly angry with another member of the human race?

The point is - again - that the Ten Commandments, rightly understood, are impossible to keep and are therefore intended to, in the word of the Apostle Paul in Galatians, "lead us to Christ" (Galatians 3:24 NIV).

There is only One who ever kept the Law of God. There is only One who ever honored His Heavenly Father (and earthly mother) as He ought, who never hated his fellow man, who never gazed upon a woman lustfully, who never disobeyed one iota of the Law. In fact, as He clearly stated:

¹⁷ “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. ¹⁸ For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
Matthew 5:17-18 (ESV)

So then, the Ten Commandments ought to further aid us in our Christification for they not only show us our absolute insufficiency to keep the Law, but they furthermore point us to to the only One who did keep it. The One who kept it in the place of His people, so that His righteous keeping of the Law might be credited to them; and, the One who suffered on the cross for our transgression of it, bore the penalty we deserved for breaking it, so that the wrath of God against sin might be assuaged for all of those who place there only hope in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This my friends is gloriously good news. This, in large part, is the Gospel.

In summation, the Ten Commandments are not a guide to how we can gain acceptance before God, they are rather a guide to the only One who has gained for us acceptance before God: the King of kings and Lord of lords, the Great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

May He receive the honor due His name...

Matt