Perhaps like me you have tried to make sense of this vast subject of suffering
Perhaps like me you have tried and failed, until you have discovered the key to understand suffering.
Suffering in the life of the believer can only be understood in the light of the sufferings of Christ!
It is that key that Peter gives us: Christ.
1.In Christ we have the Pattern of Suffering (2:21)
2.In Christ we have the Purpose of Suffering (2:21; 1:7; 4:1-2)
3.In Christ we have the Prospect of Suffering (4:13)
4.In Christ we have the Power of Suffering (3:18)
It is the sufferings of Christ which allow us to understand the sufferings of the believer for they are after the pattern of Christ’s suffering.
Recall we have seen that in the past when we considered Daniel – a pattern of the suffering Saviour and a pattern of the suffering Saint, we shall see it again here.
Not only that but it is the suffering of Christ that allows us to understand the suffering of the ungodly!
It was mans rejection of Christ, his actions at Calvary that sealed forever his fate: judgement, condemnation and suffering.
In the eyes of God this world is marked above all else by one great, immeasurable outrage and obscenity against heaven, beyond the horrors of 2 World Wars, the cruelty of the holocaust, the terrors of ethnic cleansing and hatred in Serbia and all other chilling evidences of the depths of mans depravity, above all else this world is the place where Christ suffered, was crucified and was rejected, it is the place where Christ bore the curse of the Cross, do we believe it? Most Christians don’t!
This world has soil stained with the blood of Christ, we cannot come to imagine how deeply offensive that is to God.
We have pictures and pointers to it:
i.In Abel “And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.” (Gen4:10). That blood of Abel is linked as a type of the blood of Christ: “And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.” (Heb12:24). Christs blood brings salvation, Abels brought only judgement. If the blood of an ordinary man cries to God from the ground how much more the blood of Christs?
ii.In Job: “O earth, cover not thou my blood, and let my cry have no place.” (Job16:18).
iii.In Revelation – recall that all of the final sufferings and tribulation poured out upon this world is under the sovereign hand of God. It is contained within 7 seals: “Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals?” (Rev5:2) – a Lamb, a Lamb freshly slain! The whole of the tribulation of the book of Revelation is the under sovereign hand the Lamb freshly slain. “Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.” (Rev5:9). Earths final suffering comes because of the rejection of Christ! Had there have been no Lamb freshly slain there would have been no seals unloosed. Amongst all of the truths of that great book I learn this that rejection of Christ can only bring into my life Gods judgement and suffering.
What tremendous truth it is that it is the suffering of Christ which is the key to understanding:
i.Suffering in this world
ii.Suffering in the life of the believer
In other words there are 2 primary causes or reasons for suffering:
i.Rejection of Christ / Rejection of God – hence the suffering of the world and of the sinner.
ii.Receiving Christ – hence the suffering of the believer
I must appreciate this truth, if I fail to I’ll run into some very serious error, that there are 2 separate reasons or sources of suffering, actually there is also a third, come to that later.
There are 2 sources of suffering:
i.Suffering that originated in Eden, seen most fully at Calvary.
ii.Suffering caused by Sin
iii.Suffering that comes from rejecting God / rejecting Christ
iv.Suffering that comes from mans relationship with Satan
v.Suffering linked to the first Adam
vi.This is the suffering that flows from the introduction of sin into Gods creation.
vii.This is the suffering that Jobs comforters understood a little about.
viii.This suffering brings death and dieing to the natural man and victory to Satan – retributive sufferings.
ix.These are the sufferings of the book of Revelation
There is however a second source of suffering:
i.Suffering that originates not in the tree in Eden but in the tree at Calvary
ii.Suffering caused by righteousness not sin
iii.Suffering that comes from mans relationship with Christ not Satan
iv.Suffering linked to the second Adam not the first
v.This is the suffering that flows from the introduction of Gods new creation into the sinner.
vi.This suffering if properly understood will result in the death and in the dieing of the flesh and resounds to the glory of Christ.
vii.Righteous sufferings
We will find these 2 different sources of suffering in 1Peter2:19-20; 4:14-15.
It is important that we recognise this or else we will like Jobs comforters of old become hopelessly confused in our understanding of this subject
Jobs comforters knew only of the first, of retributive sufferings but not of the second: Righteous sufferings – sufferings brought about by a righteous God, in the life of the redeemed for their good and for His Glory!
We will end up drawing such conclusions as:
1.Eliphaz (Job4:7-8) – ‘You’re suffering for your sin,’ – that you only ever suffer for sin and never for righteousness: “Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?” (Job4:7). Manifestly of course millions have perished being innocent but one supreme example from Isaiah will suffice: “for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.” (Isa57:8)
2.Bildad (Job8:3) – ‘Your suffering is your punishment’ – that suffering is Gods means of administering His judgment and justice: “Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice?” God is indeed just yet we are undoubtedly wrong in regarding suffering as the means by which God administers justice and judgment. Suffering in time is not Gods ordained way of dealing with the sinner, although God is righteous or just when He permits suffering. One example will suffice: “who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? 3Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.” (John9:2-3).
3.Zophar (Job11:14-18) – ‘Repent and your suffering will stop’ – that repentance from sin guarantees protection from suffering; “4If iniquity be in thine hand, put it far away, and let not wickedness dwell in thy tabernacles. 15For then shalt thou lift up thy face without spot; yea, thou shalt be stedfast, and shalt not fear.” (Job11:14-15). Again one good example that would debunk that myth would be the example of the apostle Paul, having dramatically repented of his sin on the Damascus road Paul was met with this revelation: “For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.” (Acts9:16). Repentance was no means of avoiding suffering for Paul. Pauls repentance from sin was his introduction to suffering!
No wonder could an exasperated Job say of that bunch: “no doubt but ye are the people and wisdom shall die with you.” (Job12:2).
We must appreciate this then, that suffering flows from 2 sources and not 1.
Jobs 3 comforters erred greatly in their ministry because they failed to appreciate this truth!
What Jobs comforters didn’t understand, and I suppose they couldn’t, was that Jobs suffering had very little to do with the first source of suffering and rather had everything to do with the second. God was perfecting His work in a righteous man, which would resound to the Glory of Christ.
There is a 3rd type of suffering intimately linked to the principle of righteous suffering which has occurred only once in the history of the world those are: redemptive sufferings. When Christ suffered as the righteous Son of God His sufferings brought about expiation, substitution, reconciliation and regeneration – those are the great truths of 1 Peter 3:18.
So it is in the book of Job amongst the many interesting things we learn we learn much about the sufferings of Christ and amongst the many things which God does in this book of Job, He turns this man into a type of the suffering Son of God who would come.
You will find in Job chps 16 & 19, which deal with the sufferings of Job, over 30 verses in just 2 chapters which parallel the thoughts, ideas and words of those passages of scriptures elsewhere which deal with the suffering Messiah: Psalm 22, 69, Isa53, Lam Chp1&3.
In just 52 verses in Job chps 16 & 19, you will find at least 10 verses which parallel Ps69, 9 verses which parallel Lamentations chps1-3, 8 verses which parallel Ps22.
Suffering in the life of the redeemed flows out of Calvary!
Suffering in the life of the believer can only be understood in the light of the sufferings of Christ!
It is that key that Peter gives us: Christ.
1.In Christ we have the Pattern of Suffering (2:21)
2.In Christ we have the Purpose of Suffering (2:21; 1:7; 4:1-2)
3.In Christ we have the Prospect of Suffering (4:13)
4.In Christ we have the Power of Suffering (3:18)
In Christ we have the Pattern of Suffering (2:21)
Suffering comes by the expression of the Divine nature in a fallen world.
To live out the nature of Christ must bring suffering (2:21-23) such were the events leading up to: “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter.”
“And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” (John1:5).
“If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.” (John15:18)
Suffering must come as the Divine nature is expressed in a fallen world because evil must hate good, evil is incapable of love for “love is of God.”
So long as God permits a fallen humanity to survive there must always be suffering when the nature of god is expressed in this fallen world.
In Christ we have the Purpose of Suffering (2:21; 1:7; 4:1-2)
Suffering is not only inevitable however it also has a purpose
Suffering is our calling: “For even hereunto were ye called” (2:21). A strange statement since we have already seen that the purpose of the Christian life is 2 fold:
1.Relationship with Christ: “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself.” (Eph1:5)
2.Resemblance to Christ: “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.” (Rom8:29).
It is by a path of suffering that this purpose is brought out practically, suffering brings about changes in my character, changes that bring me into conformity with the character of Christ.
Consider for example 4:1, there are 4 reasons I might cease from sin:
1.Condemnation of the Law – ‘the soul that sinneth it shall die.’ (Ezek18:20).
2.Removal of Opportunity – incarceration
3.Conviction of Conscience – work of the Holy Spirit
4.Suffering of consequences – patient with lung cancer, now decided to stop smoking!
In 4:1, Peter takes reason 4 as an established principle and he leads us from what we know to what we don’t know. If we suffer the consequence of sin we cease from it, we learn about the horrors of sin and so we stop sinning. Look at Christ, how He suffered the terrible consequences of your sin – will you not stop it now! The sin and the self life, all of that life caught up with the world and the flesh!
In Christ we have the Prospect of Suffering (4:13)
Glory!
If we have fellowship with Christ in His sufferings we have fellowship with Christ in His Glory!
“And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.” (Rom8:17).
Consider Job, Chps 16 and 19, did he not enter into the sufferings of Christ as no other has ever done? Does he not share in the prospect, the hope and glory of Christ in 19:25-27?
In Christ we have the Power of Suffering (3:18)
The unique redemptive sufferings of Christ: expiatory, substitutionary, reconciliatory and victorious.
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