Sharing in the Suffering of Christ

The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. (Romans 8:16-17)

What does the Apostle mean when he says, "... if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him."?

The word translated “if indeed” in verse 17 is used only 6 times in the New Testament. (See also Romans 8:9, I Corinthians 15:15 and 1 Peter 2:3 where this word is used.) It is not the common word translated “if” in the majority of the New Testament places where the English word “if” is used. It carries the sense “if, as is the fact”. It is a way of saying since “X” is true, “Y” is also true. Since we are the children of God, we will suffer with Him (Christ), and since we will suffer with Him, we will also be glorified with Him. This verse is not at all pointing to our suffering as a way of “earning” our glorification. To be a child of God, is, in this life, to suffer with Him, and to “suffer with Him” in this life is a sure sign that we will also be glorified with Him.

"Mention must here be made of the mechanics of translation. In the Authorized Version we read: ‘If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together’. The whole exegesis, the whole interpretation depends upon a right understanding of this ‘if so be’.

We have a key to his meaning in verse 9: ‘But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.’ We have there the same expression ‘If so be’. And we have seen that it can carry only one meaning. It means ‘since’ there and it means ‘since’ here. What the Apostle is saying therefore is this: ‘If children, then heirs; heirs of God , and joint-heirs with Christ; since we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together’. So the translation should not be ‘If’ but ‘since’, or ‘If, as is the fact’; or ‘Seeing that’, ‘In view of the fact that’. There is nothing conditional about the expression. The Apostle is saying, ‘As we are suffering with him now, we shall also experience the glory with him’." (Martin Lloyd-Jones)

How are we to unnderstand what it means for the Christian as the child of God to “suffer with Him”; to share in His sufferings? At his point we need to examine some of the other passages of Scripture that talk about the Christians experience of suffering and tribulation.

These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

So they (the Apostles) went on their way from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name. (Acts 5:41)

After they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” (Acts 14:21-22)

And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. (1 Corinthians 12:26)

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer; and our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers of our sufferings, so also you are sharers of our comfort. (2 Corinthians 1:3-7)

For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me, and now hear to be in me. (Philippians 1:29-30)

......we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s fellow worker in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you as to your faith, so that no one would be disturbed by these afflictions; for you yourselves know that we have been destined for this. For indeed when we were with you, we kept telling you in advance that we were going to suffer affliction; and so it came to pass, as you know. (1 Thessalonians 3:2-4)

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation. (1 Peter 4:12-13)

After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you. (1 Peter 5:10)

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4)

Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:11-12)

What is it that we are to understand from all of these passages of Scripture?

" Suffering is a very common theme in the New Testament, particularly in the writings of the apostle Paul. As Christians we are baptized into the death of Christ, and we are called, in a certain sense, to participate in the sufferings of Christ, in the tribulations of the Kingdom of God. The purpose of these sufferings is not to accrue any merit but rather to solidify our identification with Jesus and to work out the redemptive purposes of God. Tribulation is to be expected in the Christian life. Paul, however, says that if we share in Jesus’ sufferings we will also be glorified with Him. Just as Jesus has been exalted and been given the promise of the fullness of the kingdom of God, so we will participate in the glory that the Father gives to the Son." (R. C. Sproul)

Several considerations as to why the fact that Christians will suffer should not surprise us.

1. Though redeemed and no longer under condemnation, we still live in a physical body on a physical earth, both of which are not yet full redeemed. This point will be made in the verses that follow that speak of the whole creation “groaning”. We see this in the deterioration of physical health, and in the fact that if the Lord should tarry, we also will experience physical death.

2. Though redeemed, but not yet glorified, we still have the battle with the remnants of sin that comes from our flesh.(See verses 12-13.)

3. We live in a world order that is hostile towards God, and does not, nor is willing, to subject itself to God. “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master. It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, and the slave like his master. If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign the members of his household!” (Mathew 10:24-25)

4. Over all of these other things, there is our Sovereign God and Father’s loving redemptive purposes and work in our lives to conform us to the image of Christ; at times in ways of providence that are way beyond our understanding even as it was when He dealt with Job; the ultimate end being our eternal good and the exaltation of His glory.

How should the Christian view and respond to sufferings in this life?

1. What is your only comfort in life and death?

Answer:

That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ; who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.

~ Heidelberg Catechism

(These notes are taken from a Bible study I prepared and presented to a Men's Bible Study group at our church.)

The Seventh Word

Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. ~ Luke 23:46

These words,"Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit," have been repeated by countless Christians on their way to death. We Anglicans pray, at the Commendation in the Liturgy for Burial, "Into they hands, O merciful Savior, we commend thy servant." Christians repeat these word in imitation of Jesus and because we assume these are words of comfort as we face the unknown that death names. These words can and should comfort, but that these words comfort us should not hide from us that these last words of Jesus before his death name his willingness to embrace the ice-cold silence of hell. accordingly these words, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit," are every bit as frightening as Jesus's prior cry of abandonment. Jesus is not comforting himself; he is gesturing to the Father that he is ready to face the final work that only Jesus can do.

Stanley Hauerwas, "Cross-Shattered Christ"

Propaganda and the Death of Truth

In an age of 143 character quips and 10 second sound bites, the one yelling loudest and longest supposedly "wins". But what do they win? Has anyone ever really changed their opinion on an issue on the basis of tweets and sound bites? Look at who the social media blurbs are addressed to. "Liberals are really going to be mad when they see this!" "Conservatives just don't understand x, y, and z." Ninety nine percent of such social media sound bites are preaching to the choir. Liberals will not be mad, because they will not see the blurb, and if they did, they will not care. Conservatives will not be reading your brilliantly contrived propaganda sophistry, and if they did they will pick it apart in other blurbs you will probably not see, let alone read. Watching all of this going on in social media is like watching a comedy, but sadly, as with much comedy, the roots of that comedy are found in tragedy.. Welcome to the post-modern world. Behold the fruit of your post-modernity...

So this week, once again as they have done so many times before, the propaganda machines from all sides of the political fence are generating "drama" out of some issue or other; said drama calculated to advance the specific agendas, goals, and world views of the groups behind those propaganda machines. Emotions are appealed to on both sides and critical scrutiny and careful dispassionate rational thought and discussion is the casualty of the sophistry and "new speak" used to bend popular political and cultural will and thought into channels that feed the never ending lust for power and control of said groups. ...and all under the rubric of "news"... Of course "propaganda" is a word little used or understood. We can't talk about the nature of propaganda lest we expose the house of lies and deceit the propaganda machines have created. May God Almighty have mercy on us and deliver us from this scourge...

The Second Word

"Truly I tell you, today you will walk with me in Paradise..."

Accordingly it is almost impossible for us not to identify with the thief's request. Please, dear Jesus, remember us. Insure that our lives will have significance so that we will be more than bubbles on the foam of life. Jesus's crucified companion, however, does not ask to be remembered so that his life will have significance. Rather he asks, as the Psalms have taught Israel to ask, to be remembered when Jesus comes into his kingdom. Such a request makes sense only if Jesus - a man undergoing the same crucifixion the thief suffers - can fulfill such a request. We desperately ask to be remembered, fearing we are nothing. In contrast this thief confidently asks to be remembered because he recognizes the One who can remember...

Here in this crucified Messiah, we see the love that moves the sun and the stars. To be "with Jesus" means we are not "lost in the cosmos," but rather we can confidently live in the recognition, with faith, that God is not other than the one found in Jesus of Nazareth. How could we ever think we need more than this thief? Like the thief we can live with the hope and confidence that the only remembering that matters is to be remembered by Jesus.

Excerpt from: "Cross-Shattered Christ", Stanley Hauerwas; (Brazos Press,2004)

Salvation is of the Lord

...It is all of God. Man cannot save himself, and the Law of God cannot save him, because it is weak through the flesh, our flesh. And even if the salvation planned and prepared by God Himself had to depend upon our flesh - my faith, my holding on, my abiding, or anything else - it would fail. But, thank God, it does not depend upon us at any point; it is altogether from God: it is God's action upon us at any point; it is altogether from God: it is God's action from beginning to end. The God who saves us is the God who keeps. He keeps us, we are in His hands, it is God's action.

This is vital to the whole argument of the Apostle. You can not have assurance of salvation, you can not have certainty of your final glorification unless you realize that salvation is altogether of God..."

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, "Romans: Exposition of Chapter 7:1 - 8:4: The Law: Its Functions and Limits", (Comments on Romans 8:3-4)

Pannenberg's Legacy

The Strange Legacy of Theologian Wolfhart Pannenburg

Obituary published in Christianity Today.

This is the end...

...of the year of our Lord two thousand and fourteen.

As I write, the New Year has already swept over Asia and Europe, and very shortly will be reaching the North America continent. Time is a peculiar thing. We know time is not absolute but is relative. Or as the fictional Doctor would put it time is, “Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey-stuff”. The Apostle Peter tells us that with God, one year is as a thousand, and a thousand years are as one. But for us in our finiteness, time goes forward without any going back; though we know it is not absolute in the scale of the universe, it is absolute to us in our experience of it. The end of the year means we are another year closer to the end; the end of our finite lives; the end of the world and universe as it will someday soon or later come to its cataclysmic end. Thus we are told to number our days, knowing that our life under the sun is brief and transitory. But we do not count them with the angst of stoic resignation. We count them in the hope of ultimate redemption and restoration; the New heavens and new earth where in dwells righteousness. So it is in that ultimate hope we enter into this new year of our Lord, two thousand and fifteen.

Peace be unto you...

.

A Union Soldier's Year End Reflections

"Another year has rolled past and joined the many gone before in the vistas of the past. Its glorious deeds of valor and achievements, its scenes of anguish and bloodshed, of wrong and oppression, are subjects for the future historian. Its ever varying scenes and emotions are indelibly impressed upon my mind, which death alone can efface. The snow has clothed the earth in a lovely mantle of white as though to hide the sad past, and offer a clear page for me in the coming year. Let me then look forward with hope and determination to keep in the path of virtue and right, striving to improve the blessings and privileges offered me, so that when 1865 closes I need not look back with regret at the year spent."

~ Jenkin Lloyd Jones, 6th Battery, Wisconsin Artillery, December 31, 1864, writing from Nashville, TN.

(Copied from DOTCW.)

Blessed...

"...Blessed is he who is alone in the strength of the fellowship and blessed is he who keeps the fellowship in the strength of aloneness. But the strength of aloneness and the strength of fellowship is solely the strength of the Word of God, which is addressed to the individual in the fellowship."

~ Life Together, "The Day Alone", Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Understanding “Immanuel” in Isaiah 7

“Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, “Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.” But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test.” And he said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted. The LORD will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father's house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah—the king of Assyria.” (Isaiah 7:10-17)

Observations:

Ahaz was asked to request a sign, but in his unbelief refuses to do so. Isaiah in his rebuke of Ahaz announces the Lord will “give you (in context referring to Ahaz) a sign.” A time frame is given which is a critical part of the sign to Ahaz. A child will be born, and by the time the child attains a certain age of discernment Syria and Israel will be no more. Commentators debate what that age is, but none will say it is more than the age of 12. Both the child and the child’s age are critical components of the sign to Ahaz. The name Immanuel (God with us) was a sign to Ahaz that God had not abandoned His people. God’s purposes for His people would be accomplished in spite of Ahaz’s unbelief.

As Leupold observes, “The major difficulty happens to be that a contemporary person is almost demanded by the very situation involved… At the same time a contemporary child seems to be inexorably demanded by the passage.” (Exposition of Isaiah, H.C. Leupold)

Then we come to the Gospel of Matthew where this prophecy of Immanuel is cited:

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.” (Matthew 1:18-25)

Leupold holds the view that the fulfillment of the Isaiah 7 prophecy was delayed until the time Matthew speaks of. I find that explanation unsatisfactory and problematic. For the matter prophesied to be a sign to Ahaz, there had to be some kind of fulfillment in Ahaz’s lifetime. The birth of Isaiah's child, Maher-shalal-baz, in the immediate succeeding context of Isaiah 8:1-3 seems the best understanding of the immediate fulfillment of the sign prophecy to Ahaz in chapter 7.

How then are we to understand Matthew’s use of the Isaiah 7 prophecy of Immanuel?

The best understanding of Matthew’s reference is that the woman who at the time of the prophecy was an unmarried virgin and then became Isaiah’s wife and bore him the son spoken of in chapter 8, is a type or foreshadowing of the Virgin Mary. Likewise the child of Isaiah 8:1-3 was a type of or foreshadowing of the Messiah Jesus. This is in essence, the view of the following commentators:

"Language is selected such as, while partially applicable to the immediate event, receives its fullest, most appropriate, and exhaustive accomplishment in Messianic events. The New Testament application of such prophecies is not a strained “accommodation”; rather the temporary fulfilment of an adaptation of the far-reaching prophecy to the present passing event, which foreshadows typically the great central end of prophecy, Jesus Christ (Rev 19:10). Evidently the wording is such as to apply more fully to Jesus Christ than to the prophet’s son; “virgin” applies, in its simplest sense, to the Virgin Mary, rather than to the prophetess who ceased to be a virgin when she “conceived”; “Immanuel,” God with us (Jn 1:14; Rev 21:3), cannot in a strict sense apply to Isaiah’s son, but only to Him who is presently called expressly (Is 9:6), “the Child, the Son, Wonderful (compare Is 8:18), the mighty God.” Local and temporary features (as in Is 7:15, 16) are added in every type; otherwise it would be no type, but the thing itself. There are resemblances to the great Antitype sufficient to be recognized by those who seek them; dissimilarities enough to confound those who do not desire to discover them." (Jamieson, Fausset, & Brown, “Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible”)

“A virgin shall conceive. The word for virgin here is carefully chosen. Etymologically ‘almậ does not necessarily signify a virgo intacta (an untouched maiden). In actual usage in the Hebrew Scriptures, however, it refers only to a maiden chaste and unmarried (so far as the context shows). This well fits the prospective mother alluded to in this situation. Judging from 8:1-4, the typical mother was the prophetess who became Isaiah’s wife within a short time after this prophecy was spoken. Therefore she was a virgin at the time this promise was given. She serves as a type of the Virgin Mary, who remained a virgin even after her miraculous conception by the Holy Spirit. The son of this prophetess, correspondingly, is a type of the Messianic Immanuel as shortly will be explained.” (Wycliffe Bible Commentary, Isaiah contribution by Gleason L. Archer Jr.)

This view of type and fulfillment best satisfies the demand for an immediate fulfillment in the time of Isaiah and Ahaz, and allowing for an understanding of Jesus Christ being the fullness of what is meant by the name Immanuel per Matthew’s citation. This is what is pointed to by the more direct prophecy in Isaiah 9:6-7:

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.”