Believers in Jesus suffer because God loves them not because He does not love them. This is the amazing message of Romans 8:35-39.
This passage teaches us:
1. Our relationship to Christ gives meaning to our suffering.
Often suffering raises this knotty question, “What does this mean?”
· Job’s friends – they thought his suffering surely meant that there was some hidden sin in his life
· The man born blind in John 9 – the disciples thought that the only two possibilities were that his suffering meant that either his parents had sinned or he had sinned
· Jesus on the cross and the comments of the religious leaders – they thought His death on the cross was clear evidence that God was not pleased with Him, indeed, that He was cursed by God!
Understanding the meaning of our suffering is no small matter as Holocaust survivors will attest to.
There is nothing in the world that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions, as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one’s life. … He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how. – Victor Frankly, Jewish psychiatrist and Holocaust (Auschwitz) survivor, in Man’s Search for Meaning
Various answers are given to the question of the meaning of our suffering:
1. Nothing (because we came from nothing and are going to nothing)
Nihilism (from the Latin nihil, nothing) is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value.[1] Moral nihilists assert that morality does not inherently exist, and that any established moral values are abstractly contrived. (Wikipedia)
2. You are good or you are bad (what you experience defines who and what you are)
A good summary of this theistic view of karma is expressed by the following: "God does not make one suffer for no reason nor does He make one happy for no reason. God is very fair and gives you exactly what you deserve."
Many western cultures have notions similar to karma, as demonstrated in the phrase what goes around comes around. The concepts of reaping what you sow from Galatians 6:7, violence begets violence and live by the sword, die by the sword are Christian expressions similar to karma. Some observers have compared the action of karma to Western notions of sin and judgment by God or gods, while others understand karma as an inherent principle of the universe without the intervention of any supernatural being. In Hinduism, God does play a role and is seen as a dispenser of karma. (See Karma in Hinduism for more details.) The non-interventionist view is that of Buddhism and Jainism. (Wikipedia)
3. It means whatever I want it to mean.
Søren Kierkegaard coined the term "leap of faith", arguing that life is full of absurdity, and one must make his and her own values in an indifferent world. One can live meaningfully (free of despair and anxiety) in an unconditional commitment to something finite, and devotes that meaningful life to the commitment, despite the vulnerability inherent to doing so. (Existentialism, Wikipedia)
4. It all depends on your relationship to the Point of it all, Jesus Christ.
My suffering has a different meaning depending on whether I am in union with Christ by faith or not. (Romans 8:35-39)
Again, believers in Jesus suffer because God loves them not because He does not love them.
Paul argues that God’s love for believers in Jesus is unconquerable and suffering is no exception to the rule.
2. No one can prevent God from loving us. (Romans 8:35)
The use of “who” makes these circumstances somehow “personal” so that either Paul is personifying these circumstances or highlighting the involvement of people in these kinds of difficult circumstances.
The love of Christ here does not refer to our love for Christ but to Christ’s love for us as the context indicates.
Tribulation is pressure or crushing and is used for suffering in general. Distress is a narrow place and may refer to the inner turmoil produced by suffering. Persecution is affliction intentionally caused by others. Famine is a lack of food and nakedness is a lack of clothing/shelter (the necessities of life). Peril is danger of any kind and sword refers to execution.
Why would Paul pose the question of being separated from the love of Christ through suffering, often involving other people?
Suffering often raises the question of whether God loves us and whether we are presently being loved by God in what we are experiencing.
- Israelites in the wilderness (Exodus 17:3; Deuteronomy 1:26-27)
Suffering often involves the hatred of man for man and therefore does not feel like we are being loved by anyone, including God.
- The identification of Jesus and His disciple in hatred and love (John 17:14; John 17:23)
Yet we need not doubt the operation of God’s love even in the most difficult of circumstances or in the most hostile of people.
3. No thing can prevent God from loving us. (Romans 8:38-39)
This is Paul’s own testimony in light of truth and experience.
Death refers to physical death and life refers to all that we might experience whether good or bad. Angels refers to good angels and principalities refers to evil angels. Things present refers to this age (or what is now) and things to come refers to the age to come (or what is going to be). Powers refers to supernatural events or beings. Height refers to things in heavenly places and depth refers to things in the earthly realm (or even in hell). Any other created thing is comprehensive and refers to everything in the created universe (leaving only God the Creator unmentioned).
The love of God is the love of Christ and is always united to Jesus and to those who are in union with Jesus by faith alone.
Why would Paul say that nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ?
Because there are powers that desire to do that very thing.
- Job’s temptation by Satan (Job 1:11)
Yet we need not fear the powers that be.
4. God loves and gives a faith in Jesus that overcomes trials. (Romans 8:37)
The word for overwhelmingly conquer means ‘we are hyper-victorious’ and refers to the fact that we are ‘totally victorious’ and the benefit far exceeds the suffering endured in the battle.
The conquering is not due to our faith but it is the result of the victory of Christ on the cross so that our victory is the application of and outworking of His victory on the cross in our place.
The conquering is about our faith and is through faith because it is our faith in Christ that enables us to transcend every circumstance and glorify God.
What does this tell me about a God who loves me perfectly and persistently and ordains that I suffer much in this life?
He values tribulation-transcending faith. (1 John 5:4-5; 1 Peter 1:6-7)
He and his wife arrived on the island of Tanna November 5, 1858, and Mary was pregnant. The baby was born February 12, 1859. "Our island-exile thrilled with joy! But the greatest of sorrows was treading hard upon the heels of that great joy!" (p. 79). Mary had reaped attacks of ague and fever and pneumonia and diarrhea with delirium for two weeks.
“Then in a moment, altogether unexpectedly, she died on March third. To crown my sorrows, and complete my loneliness, the dear baby-boy, whom we had named after her father, Peter Robert Robson, was taken from me after one week's sickness, on the 20th of March. Let those who have ever passed through any similar darkness as of midnight feel for me; as for all others, it would be more than vain to try to paint my sorrows! (p. 79)”
He dug the two graves with his own hands and buried them by the house he had built.
“Stunned by that dreadful loss, in entering upon this field of labor to which the Lord had Himself so evidently led me, my reason seemed for a time almost to give way. The ever-merciful Lord sustained me . . . and that spot became my sacred and much- frequented shrine, during all the following months and years when I labored on for the salvation of the savage Islanders amidst difficulties, dangers, and deaths. . . . But for Jesus, and the fellowship he vouchsafed to me there, I must have gone mad and died beside the lonely grave! (p. 80)”
The courage to risk the loss was one thing. But the courage to experience the loss and press on alone was supernatural.
"I felt her loss beyond all conception or description, in that dark land. It was very difficult to be resigned, left alone, and in sorrowful circumstances; but feeling immovably assured that my God and father was too wise and loving to err in anything that he does or permits, I looked up to the Lord for help, and struggled on in His work" (p. 85).
Here we get a glimpse of the theology that we will see underneath this man's massive courage and toil.
"I do not pretend to see through the mystery of such visitations – wherein God calls away the young, the promising, and those sorely needed for his service here; but this I do know and feel, that, in the light of such dispensations, it becomes us all to love and serve our blessed Lord Jesus so that we may be ready at his call for death and eternity" (p. 85). (short biography of John Paton, missionary to the cannibals in the New Hebrides islands, by John Piper)
5. Expect to be loved by God and to suffer in this life.
We often find ourselves in difficult situations like those of John Bunyan.
The parting with my Wife and poor children hath often been to me in this place as the pulling of the Flesh from my bones; and that not only because I am somewhat too fond of these great Mercies, but also because I should have often brought to my mind the many hardships, miseries and wants that my poor Family was like to meet with should I be taken from them, especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer my heart than all I had besides; O the thoughts of the hardship I thought my Blind one might go under, would break my heart to pieces. … (John Bunyan on his 12 year imprisonment for preaching)
Last week we began looking at this passage in light of the fact that often suffering raises this knotty question, “What does this mean?”
Various answers are given to the question of the meaning of our suffering:
1. Nothing (because we came from nothing and are going to nothing)
2. You are good or you are bad (what you experience defines who and what you are)
3. It means whatever I want it to mean.
4. It all depends on your relationship to Jesus Christ.
If we are in Christ then no person or power can prevent God from loving us nor is any negative circumstance evidence that He is not loving us but the exposure of how He is loving us!
The cross is the demonstration of His love for us right now and our circumstances are the disguise of His love whether it is a smiling or frowning providence.
6. Expect to be loved and to suffer in this life for God’s glory. (Romans 8:35-36)
This quote is from Psalm 44:22 which is a Psalm about the suffering of those who have not forsaken God or His covenant or turned to worship other gods and yet still suffer in great ways. (Psalm 44:17-22)
The reason for the suffering is stated to be, not sin, but “for God’s sake” – for His glory and purposes.
- Think about Paul’s call. (Acts 9:15-16)
- Think about Paul’s list of suffering. (John 9:1-3)
George Matheson was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1842. As a child he had only partial vision and his sight became progressively worse until it resulted in blindness by the time he was eighteen. Despite his handicap, he was a brilliant student and graduated from the University of Glasgow and later from seminary. He became pastor of several churches in Scotland including a large church in Edinburgh where he was greatly respected and loved. After he had been engaged to a young woman for a short while, she broke the engagement, having decided she could not be content married to a blind man. Some believe that this painful disappointment in romantic love led Matheson to write [this] beautiful hymn. (MacArthur’s commentary on Romans)
1. O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.
2. O light that foll’west all my way,
I yield my flick’ring torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.
3. O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.
4. O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.
Godliness is being willing to endure hardship in this life so that God is seen and exalted and people are saved.
7. Expect to be loved and to suffer in this life for God’s glory through Christ’s power. (Romans 8:37)
To overwhelmingly conquer is to not have your faith in Christ destroyed by your negative circumstances.
- Think about Paul’s reasoning for his conversion. (1 Timothy 1:15-16)
- Think about Paul’s thorn in the flesh. (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)
- The obvious point: If Jesus is sufficient for Paul’s suffering, then He will be sufficient for ours.
John Paton’s loss and strength:
“Then in a moment, altogether unexpectedly, she died on March third. To crown my sorrows, and complete my loneliness, the dear baby-boy, whom we had named after her father, Peter Robert Robson, was taken from me after one week's sickness, on the 20th of March. Let those who have ever passed through any similar darkness as of midnight feel for me; as for all others, it would be more than vain to try to paint my sorrows! (p. 79)”
“Stunned by that dreadful loss, in entering upon this field of labor to which the Lord had Himself so evidently led me, my reason seemed for a time almost to give way. The ever-merciful Lord sustained me . . . and that spot became my sacred and much- frequented shrine, during all the following months and years when I labored on for the salvation of the savage Islanders amidst difficulties, dangers, and deaths. . . . But for Jesus, and the fellowship he vouchsafed to me there, I must have gone mad and died beside the lonely grave! (p. 80)” (from a short biography by John Piper)
8. Expect to be loved and to suffer in this life for God’s glory through Christ’s power without any regrets. (Romans 8:37)
To overwhelmingly conquer is to gain infinite riches through temporary loss and “light affliction.”
(Romans 8:28; 2 Corinthians 4:16-18; Hebrews 11:32-12:3; Philippians 3:8-11)
Being entirely at the mercy of such doubtful and vacillating friends, I, though perplexed, felt it best to obey. I climbed into the tree and was left there alone in the bush. The hours I spent there live all before me as if it were but of yesterday. I heard the frequent discharging of muskets, and the yells of the Savages. Yet I sat there among the branches, as safe as in the arms of Jesus. Never, in all my sorrows, did my Lord draw nearer to me, and speak more soothingly in my soul, than when the moonlight flickered among those chestnut leaves, and the night air played on my throbbing brow, as I told all my heart to Jesus. Alone, yet not alone! If it be to glorify my God, I will not grudge to spend many nights alone in such a tree, to feel again my Savior's spiritual presence, to enjoy His consoling fellowship. If thus thrown back upon your own soul, alone, all alone, in the midnight, in the bush, in the very embrace of death itself, have you a Friend that will not fail you then? (p. 200) (John Paton biography by John Piper)
Rest, Pray, Purpose and Practice
9. We need to believe that God does not punish those who are trusting in the righteousness of His Son, Jesus, no matter what their circumstances. (Romans 5:8-9; Romans 8:1)
One day as I was passing into the field . . . this sentence fell upon my soul. Thy righteousness is in heaven. And methought, withal, I saw with the eyes of my soul Jesus Christ at God's right hand; there, I say, was my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say of me, he wants [=lacks] my righteousness, for that was just before him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse, for my righteousness was Jesus Christ himself, "The same yesterday, today, and forever." Heb. 13:8. Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed. I was loosed from my afflictions and irons; my temptations also fled away; so that from that time those dreadful scriptures of God [about the unforgivable sin] left off to trouble me; now went I also home rejoicing for the grace and love of God." (John Bunyan)
10. We need to embrace suffering, die to our will and purpose to suffer to the glory of God. (1 Peter 4:1-2; 1 Peter 4:12-13; 1 Peter 4:18-19; 2 Corinthians 1:8-9)
By this scripture I was made to see that if ever I would suffer rightly, I must first pass a sentence of death upon every thing that can be properly called a thing of this life, even to reckon myself, my wife, my children, my health, my enjoyment, and all, as dead to me, and myself as dead to them. The second was, to live upon God that is invisible, as Paul said in another place; the way not to faint, is to "look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." (John Bunyan)
11. We need to pray for grace sufficient for our suffering, praise and thank God for our sufferings, forgive those who cause our suffering and love others in the midst of our suffering in obedience to God’s Word. (James 5:13; Hebrews 4:14-16; 1 Thessalonians 5:15-21)
Are You Convinced?
Paul is making a clear connection between the promise of suffering in this life and the promise of God’s love.
Christmas is coming up soon. What do you expect those you love to do? To give you presents. What do you expect those presents to be? Something good or something evil? What do you expect those good things to be wrapped in? something attractive or something repulsive? If your parents gave you a gift wrapped in slime from the sewer and told you it was a good gift that came from their heart of love for you, what would the test be? Whether you believed their word in the face of the outward circumstances!
We expect good things to come in good packages but that is our way not God’s way, many times.
So what should we expect in the Christian life?
God gives us a “heads up” so to speak in the life of Jesus Himself.
Should we expect to be treated any different than Jesus? He tells us not to.
Expect to be treated like Jesus – to be loved by God and to suffer in this world.
Just like you expect the sunrise every day!
12. The bottom line is that believers in Jesus suffer because God loves them not because He does not love them.
This is implied in Romans 8:35-39 and is also expressed in other passages more or less directly. (Hebrews 12:5-6)
Paul says that he is convinced of the love of God for him in any and all situations (v. 38). Can you say that you are convinced of this as well? What more must God do to convince you? What more must God say?
What can you do as a believer in Jesus?
- Ponder … think long and hard and often about what God says is true
- Pray … ask God to open your eyes to see the truth and to free you from lies and to give you grace to believe and to convince you
- Practice … begin to do what the Bible says to do in the midst of suffering – pray, praise, forgive and serve others.
What should you do as an unbeliever?
- Look … to God for help and happiness.
- Rest … in Jesus and His death on the cross for acceptance.
- Follow … Jesus as your Lord in obedience to His Word.
- Pray … confess your sin, ask God for mercy and for grace to look and rest and follow Jesus today.
Those who are righteous by faith in Jesus can rejoice in the truth of this song in all their suffering:
We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things
'Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise
We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe
'Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
And what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise
When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know that pain reminds this heart
That this is not, this is not our home
It's not our home
'Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise (Blessings by Laura Story)
For all those who are righteous by faith in Jesus, every experience of suffering is the experience of God’s love as His “mercy in disguise.”
Just as you expect the sunrise every morning, expect God to love you and expect to suffer in one way or another and to one degree or another (and be more surprised when you don’t than when you do) and purpose to follow Christ and worship, forgive and love/obey. (1 Peter 4:1-2)
