In Christ, Our Suffering Is Not in Vain

Jesus suffered for us. Yet we are called to participate in His suffering. Though He was uniquely the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, there is still an application of this vocation for us. We are given both the duty and the privilege to participate in the suffering of Christ.

A mysterious reference to this idea is found in the writings of the apostle Paul: “I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church” (Col. 1:24). Here Paul declared that he rejoiced in his suffering. Surely he did not mean that he enjoyed pain and affliction. Rather, the cause of his joy was found in the meaning of his suffering. He said that he filled up “what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ.”

On the surface, Paul’s explanation is astonishing. What could possibly have been lacking in the afflictions of Christ? Did Christ only half-finish His redemptive work, leaving it to Paul to complete it? Was Jesus overstating the case when He cried from the cross, “It is finished”? What exactly was lacking in the suffering of Christ?

In terms of the value of Jesus’ suffering, it is blasphemous to suggest anything was lacking. The merit of His atoning sacrifice is infinite. Nothing could possibly be added to His perfect obedience to make it even more perfect. Nothing can be more perfect than perfect. What is absolutely perfect cannot be augmented.

The merit of Jesus’ suffering is sufficient to atone for every sin that has ever been or ever will be committed. His once-for-all atoning death needs no repetition (Heb. 10:10). Old Testament sacrifices were repeated precisely because they were imperfect shadows of the reality that was to come (Heb. 10:1).

It was not by accident that the Roman Catholic Church appealed to Paul’s words in Colossians 1:24 to support its concept of the treasury of merits, by which the merits of the saints are supposedly added to the merit of Christ to cover the deficiencies of sinners. This doctrine was at the eye of the Protestant Reformation tornado. It was this eclipse of the sufficiency and perfection of Christ’s suffering that was at the heart of Martin Luther’s protest.

Jesus suffered for us. Yet we are called to participate in His suffering

Though we vigorously deny Rome’s interpretation of this passage, we are still left with our question. If Paul’s suffering did not add merit to what was lacking in Christ’s sufferings, what did it add?

The answer to this difficult question lies in the broader teaching of the New Testament in regard to the believer’s call to participate in the humiliation of Christ. Our baptism signifies that we are buried with Christ. Paul repeatedly pointed out that unless we are willing to participate in the humiliation of Jesus, we will not participate in His exaltation (see 2 Timothy 2:11–12).

Paul rejoiced that his suffering was a benefit to the church. The church is called to imitate Christ. It is called to walk the Via Dolorosa. Paul’s favorite metaphor for the church was the image of the human body. The church is called the body of Christ. In one sense, it is proper to call the church the “continuing incarnation.” The church is really the mystical body of Christ on earth.

Christ so linked His church to Himself that when He first called Paul on the Damascus Road He said, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?” (Acts 9:4, emphasis added). Saul was not literally persecuting Jesus. Jesus had already ascended to heaven. He was already out of reach of Saul’s hostility. Saul was busy persecuting Christians. But Jesus felt such solidarity with His church that He regarded an attack upon His body, the church, as a personal attack on Himself.

The church is not Christ. Christ is perfect; the church is imperfect. Christ is the Redeemer; the church is the company of the redeemed. However, the church belongs to Christ. The church is redeemed by Christ. The church is the bride of Christ. The church is indwelt by Christ.

In light of this solidarity, the church participates in Christ’s suffering. But this participation adds nothing to Christ’s merit. The sufferings of Christians may benefit other people, but they always fall short of atonement. I cannot atone for anyone’s sins, not even for my own. Yet my suffering may be of great benefit to other people. It may also serve as a witness to the One whose sufferings were an atonement.

The word for “witness” in the New Testament, martus, is the source of the English word martyr. Those who suffered and died for the cause of Christ were called martyrs because by their suffering they bore witness to Christ.

What is lacking in the afflictions of Jesus is the ongoing suffering that God calls His people to endure. God calls people of every generation to suffer. Again, this suffering is not to fulfill any deficiency in the merit of Christ, but to fulfill our destinies as witnesses to the perfect Suffering Servant of God.

Because of Christ, our suffering is not useless

What does this mean in practical terms? My father suffered a series of cerebral hemorrhages that caused him great suffering and eventually ended his life. I’m sure that while he was suffering he must have asked God, “Why?” On the surface, his suffering seemed useless. It seemed as though his pain was for no good reason.

I must be very careful. I do not think that my father’s suffering was in any way an atonement for my sins. Neither do I think I can read God’s mind with respect to the ultimate reason for my father’s suffering. But I know this: my father’s suffering made a profound impact on my life. It was through my father’s death that I was brought to Christ. I am not saying that the ultimate reason my father was called to suffer and die was so that I could become a Christian. I don’t know the sovereign purpose of God in it. But I do know that God used that suffering in a redemptive way for me. My dad’s suffering drove me into the arms of the Suffering Savior.

We are followers of Christ. We follow Him to the Garden of Gethsemane. We follow Him into the hall of judgment. We follow Him along the Via Dolorosa. We follow Him unto death. But the gospel declares that we also follow Him through the gates of heaven. Because we suffer with Him, we also shall be raised with Him. If we are humiliated with Him, we also shall be exalted with Him.

Because of Christ, our suffering is not useless. It is part of the total plan of God, who has chosen to redeem the world through the pathway of suffering.

Is There a Point to the Last Minutes of Suffering Before Death?

I’m still thinking about Ronnie Smith’s death in Libya, followed by Christians and the mainstream media alike.

Two days before he died, my mind turned, at it so often does, to the reasons for suffering. This time the thoughts were triggered by the difference between suffering that refines in this life and suffering that leads to death.

Often, when counseling people who are walking through suffering, I lean on Bible passages that describe the effects of suffering in this life — passages like, James 1:2–4.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

The point here is that our suffering will be like the pain of weightlifting: It will make us stronger to bear things that might otherwise destroy us.

Or Romans 5:3–5:

We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces tested character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Here the effect of suffering is that it produces a “tested character” (Greek dokimen). In other words, the branch was bent so close to breaking that the next time it will be even more unbreakable and will give greater hope for endurance.

But what do we say about suffering that results in death? None of these texts work in that situation. There will be no life on earth that will be stronger because of suffering. There is suffering, and then there is death.

God has not left us without specific help in this suffering. For example, James 1:12:

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.

Or Revelation 2:10:

Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.

In other words, faithfulness, or steadfastness under trial, may lead to death. And if it does, that suffering is rewarded with the crown of eternal life. This is unspeakably comforting and emboldening.

But there is even more comfort — even more courage-increasing truth. Those two verses do not say that our final suffering actually makes the crown of life greater. It seems to be the same crown that every Christian gets after death. So someone might ask — I ask — does the suffering itself that ends in death make a difference? Is there a point to it?

The answer is yes. One of the most precious promises for final suffering is 2 Corinthians 4:17:

This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

This says more. It says more than affliction is followed by glory. It says affliction prepares glory. Literally, suffering produces — effects, brings about, works — a peculiar glory for those who suffer.

What this means is that no suffering is meaningless. None of it is wasted. The last cry of pain, leading to death, is not merely followed with glory, but rewarded with peculiar glory — a special glory prepared for the sufferer and by the suffering.

Therefore, nothing that Ronnie Smith endured in his last moments was wasted. No sacrifice — whether painful and joyful — went unrewarded. Not even the last ones. There are no wasted Christian sufferings in the path of love. None.

And so it will be with you, the living. Which is why I say again: Join him. Join him in his vision for the nations and for the King. Join him in life for the sake of the nations. And then, at the appointed time, join him in the Reward.

Five Truths About Christian Suffering

All Christians suffer. Either you have, you are, or you will — “through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).

This reality is a stark reminder that we have not reached the new heavens and new earth. The new Jerusalem of no tears and no pain, of no mourning and no death, hasn’t arrived yet (Revelation 21:1, 4).

But just because we experience suffering as we await the redemption of our bodies, it doesn’t mean that our suffering is random or without purpose. And neither does it mean that Scripture doesn’t tell us how to think about our suffering now.

Here are five important biblical truths about suffering every Christian should have ready:

Suffering has many faces. The Bible doesn’t whitewash our experience of suffering by saying that it’s all of one stripe. Rather, it recognizes the multifaceted ways that suffering can come upon us. The apostle Paul wrote, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8–9).

In these two verses, Paul lists several types of suffering — mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual. Each of these are different ways that we can suffer, and when suffering comes, often several of these types of suffering are involved.

The church is not meant to be a loosely bound association of functional Lone Rangers. Paul confronts that type of thinking when he writes, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2).

The church is meant to be a refuge for those suffering. When a member is hurting, the church applies the bandages; when a member is down, the church encourages; when a member is in need, the church comes alongside to help.

Firsthand experience in suffering is essential in equipping us for ministry. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1:4 that God “comforts us in all afflictions, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

But how? And what is the link between experiencing suffering and equipping for ministry? David Powlison answers this way:

When you’ve passed through your own fiery trials, and found God to be true to what he says, you have real help to offer. You have firsthand experience of both his sustaining grace and his purposeful design. He has kept you through pain; he has reshaped you more into his image. . . . What you are experiencing from God, you can give away in increasing measure to others. You are learning both the tenderness and the clarity necessary to help sanctify another person’s deepest distress. (Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, 166)

Wherever there is suffering, there is a battle — a battle for your soul. The book of Job shows us there can be two ways to respond to suffering, one that curses God because of suffering and one that praises God, even in the midst of suffering (Job 2:9–10).

One of the counter-intuitive truths about suffering is that it prepares Christians for more glory. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:17–18, “This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

These verses are like sandpaper on our modern sentiments about suffering. We naturally try to avoid suffering at all costs but God brings suffering in our lives for the sake of our eternal joy — yes, even glory.

Hope for Chronic Suffering

If I were asked to put my finger on Scripture’s most poignant passage about chronic suffering, near the very top of my list would be Psalm 88.

The psalms have been called “the prayer book of the Bible.” And, indeed, the better we know them, the more we see how they help us talk with God in every circumstance and mood. Psalm 88 is a plea for God to stop hiding his face from the suffering psalmist. It opens with the psalmist crying out continuously to the God of his salvation (verses 1–2) and it ends the same way (verses 13–14).

As with most of what are now known as the psalms of lament, the psalmist doesn’t say exactly what his trouble is, although he does say that he has been afflicted and close to death from his youth and that his affliction has been so deep that he is helpless, having lost all his strength (verses 4, 15).

We who have suffered some crippling disability can easily place ourselves alongside the psalmist and utter the same cries. And those who care for the deeply disabled should have no difficulty turning this psalm into a prayer to be prayed for them.

Psalm 88 is the only psalm that ends without any expression of hope. It expresses only unrelieved suffering. This may make it seem to be a psalm that we would want to steer clear of, especially as its startling claims begin to sink home. Why would we want to be reminded that sometimes God seems to be distant over someone’s entire lifetime? Why would we want to hear that someone can become so sick that everyone shuns him because he has become a horror to them? Does it seem right for the psalmist to claim that God’s wrath lies heavy upon him and that he is suffering God’s terrors?

Yet, as I shall urge in my talk at November’s Desiring God conference on disability, we ought not to steer clear of any part of Scripture, for every part of it ultimately comes from the mouth of God for our instruction and for our good. In fact, Scripture insists that God always ultimately brings good to his people through their suffering, no matter how difficult that suffering may be.

Psalm 88 (and the other psalms of lament) teach us at least two lessons that help us to breathe when we are feeling suffocated by suffering.

First, they teach us that when we have a complaint with God, we are to take it directly to him. The psalmists never complain about God; they always complain to him.

And, secondly, they teach us to be honest. All of the psalmists, exactly like the unknown psalmist who penned Psalm 88, model transparency, expressing their complaints to God as frankly as they can.

Both of these lessons are, so to speak, part of the psalmists’ exhaling, of their crying out, pleading, and complaining to God by breathing out to him what it would be harmful for them to try to withhold from him.

What we learn, when we go on to study all of the other psalms of lament, is that the psalmists always went on to inhale, to deliberately breathe in truths about God’s character, about his promises, about his previous wondrous acts for Israel, and about his record of individualized care for them. Breathing in these truths gave them hope, which is often what we most need when we are dealing with disability.