We are not quite finished with our Romans 5 passage:

“…we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces 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.” (Romans 5:3-5).

We concluded last time that God may well have purpose in our sufferings.

Sometimes we have a tendency to apologise for God. To maximise His actions that we interpret as loving and minimise those actions that might be interpreted as unloving. We might not understand the actions of God sometimes; but we can never conclude that His actions are because He doesn’t love us.

Several additional things we need to say:

  1. This encouragement to, “rejoice in suffering” is the unanimous testimony of every writer of the New Testament. None of them are dispassionate spectators, but all experience great tribulation.
  2. We do not seek suffering. Having a desire to suffer does not make us more righteous or holy. That makes suffering an idol or a badge of honour.
  3. “Illness, pain, and death are the detestable fruits of the fall, and they daily break us in two. But in Christ, we have hope. While tragedies devastate us now, our tears will not flow forever. He has conquered the evil that spawns our pain, and when he returns, the fruits of sin will vanish from the face of the new earth forever.”[1]
  4. We do not make light of suffering. With suffering comes pain. We need to identify with, and act with compassion to those who are hurting and experiencing trials. Having a view that the sovereign God is purposeful does not stop grief and tears. We will grieve with those who grieve and share sadness and tears together.
  5. We may never see the purpose in our suffering. The greatest tragedy ever was the suffering of Jesus who never committed any sin, who did not deserve punishment. But willingly took punishment upon Himself and suffered for us. We see the positive purpose and outcomes of that suffering at the Cross. That is as far as we can go. Because we know that a loving God had a positive purpose in the suffering of His Son – we can know that God has a purpose in our suffering – but in this life we may never know what that purpose is. We may not be able to explain individual human suffering, but we can KNOW God has loving purpose.

That’s faith. That is Hope with Belief.

Blessings
Brian

 

 

 


 

 

[1] Kathryn Butler, “How Romans 5 Brought Me to Christ When Suffering Had Killed My Faith”, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/romans-5-suffering-faith/ accessed 14 February 2022.