Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5: 1-5)
There is a thread running through Scripture particularly in the New Testament which says that suffering is a positive experience to be celebrated. In James 1: 2 we find this: ‘Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trails of many kinds . . .‘ You will find similar thinking in the writings of Paul and Peter. This is not to say that suffering is to be courted, that we should deliberately put ourselves in the way of pain or adverse circumstance. But when it falls to us in the Providence of God to go through a dark and difficult experience we are called to remember that God is not apart from the experience and that this is His time to work in us the qualities of Christ-likeness.
There was a documentary shown recently on BBC 4 on the artist Peter Howson and his work on a massive painting called ‘Prophecy’. From staring at a blank canvas to the eventual completion of his vision we saw the artist’s commitment, how he followed the creative urge, how much he gave mentally, physically and spiritually to satisfy that creative urge.
God is the source of all creativity and it is His urge to create in all His people a reflection of His son Jesus. Joni Eareckson wrote a song some years ago which had the prayer: ‘Make me a portrait of Jesus . . . That is Joni seeking to step into God’s will for her confident that that will is good and loving. It is His creative urge to make us more like Jesus and a strong thread of thought in Scripture says that for many of us this will involve suffering. It is one of the most powerful aspect’s of Joni’s ministry that she has accepted this despite her life-long struggle with quadriplegia and more recently cancer.
Paul was someone who knew about a wide range of suffering. You can read about some of it in 2 Corinthians 11: 23 - 29. The passage from Romans at the top of this blog speaks about the Christian’s response to the darkness that falls on our experience. He writes that suffering is an opportunity to show ‘perseverance’. The word translated ‘suffering’ from the original Greek means to press something down and was used for the crushing of olives to produce oil and the crushing of grapes to produce wine. The word translated ‘perseverance’ means ‘living under.‘ Put the two words together and what we see is Paul sharing a vision of the Christian living under a pressing or a crushing. If you like, hanging on in the faith that this experience is not apart from God and will be productive. Oil and wine is the end-product of a crushing.
Paul takes this further when he writes that this perseverance will produce ‘character’. Let’s get back to the Greek again. ‘Character’ is a translation of Greek word which means ‘something that has been tested or approved’. Paul is looking to the end of a period of pressure/crushing and what we have become. Hanging on in faith will see us more fit to be representatives of the Kingdom of God, not just fitter for heaven but fitter to show the qualities of the Kingdom now.
This is why Paul can speak of the pressed and crushed character producing ‘hope’. Turning towards God in the midst of our suffering brings the assurance that He is present and He is holding us in His heart. Romans 8: 28 - 39 assures us that nothing will ever separate us from His love. Christians have experienced this love as we have grasped that God did not spare His only son to reveal His love for us. Paul sees this as part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit: ‘God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.‘ It is the Spirit’s work to remind us of God’s love, to enable us to experience God’s love, even in the midst of our worst of times.
The darkest day in human history was when the Son of God was stretched out on a cross and tortured to death. And yet we are encouraged by the apostle John to believe that it was the love of God for humankind that motivated this event: ‘God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son . . . (John 3: 16). The darkest day showed the height and the depth of God’s love for us. If that is the extent of His love for me then it continues through what pressing and crushing may fall to me:
‘There is nothing in all creation that will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ (Romans 8: 39).
