Three passages in Scripture may serve as introduction for our meditation -
Rom. 8:17: " And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him [εἴπερ συμπάσχομεν], that we may also be glorified together."
2 Tim. 1:8: "Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions [συγκακοπάθησον] of the Gospel according to the power of God."
2 Tim. 2:12: " If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him' [εἰ ὑπομένομεν καὶ συμβασιλεύσομεν].
The last of these passages (2 Tim. 2:1212If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us: (2 Timothy 2:12)) connects and contrasts endurance, or patience, or the abiding under trial NOW, with the FUTURE sharing of Christ's dominion. Now, PATIENCE; then, DOMINION together with Christ. It is more specific in its statement than either of the other two: "Endurance, NOW; Dominion, THEN."
The second (2 Tim. 1:88Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God; (2 Timothy 1:8)) connects the suffering of afflictions (or the suffering of evil trials) with the work of the testimony of Paul, and invites others to share the trials. It naturally recalls to mind a well-known text in the. Epistle to the Hebrews, which presents us with another witness, who lived in other days (chap. 11:24-26): " By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with [συγκακουχεῖσθαι] the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward." In Egypt, honorable place; to be called son of Pharaoh's daughter; and treasures enough there to minister unto such the pleasures of sin for a season. But the faith which revealed God unto Moses, made Moses choose rather the afflictions of the people of God and the reproach of Christ. What had God and Egypt, or God and the house of Pharaoh, and the wealth of that house, in common? Nothing; and Moses knew this, and acted accordingly. The world of to-day is, according to God's word, to us Christians what Egypt was to Moses. Are our moral estimate of it, and our conduct towards it, similar to Moses's towards Egypt? [Reader, is your choice and is your taste practically the same as it was with Moses?] Whatever patience, what- ever afflictions attend now those who preach the Gospel, in all such, faith will claim its share.
But it is not, merely, that we must be patient while we wait for the kingdom which is ours, or that there are certain afflictions which naturally attend the labor which is given to the Lord's servant to do: the position he is set in, the people he is connected with, the work of testimony, will all bring sorrow now, 'tis true. But the teaching is wider in its scope still in our first text:-
For if we suffer together with Christ, brings before us the Son of man.
It was a free grace gift to the Philippians that Paul spoke of (chap. 1:29): " Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ., not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake; having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me." But then he goes on (in chap. 2), to show them that there was yet more which was open to them to take up, even the acting as those who had the mind of Christ. For he was one who could say of himself, through grace, " Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body's sake, which is the Church " (Col. 1:2424Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church: (Colossians 1:24)).
The cross—that Christ had borne all alone: there He had taken to Himself alone all the wrath due to the sinner. But the cross was not all of the afflictions of Christ; there was that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ for us also; and when we consider that " the sufferings of Christ" were testified of to prophets, by the Spirit, at a time when the revelation of what man was, was more the object of God's dealings than now, that, man having proved himself irremediably bad by his rejection of the Son of God's love, God is showing His own love towards man as a sinner;—when we consider this, I say, we must not be surprised to find those sufferings of Christ, which were experienced at man's hand, and as fruits of man's condition, largely unfolded in. the Old Testament. In many of these, the Apostle had his part, and bore, through grace, his share. Jealous against those who wished to avoid sharing these sufferings of Christ, he was fierce and altogether intolerant of those who pretended to set aside the wrath of God against sin in any other way than by the Cross of Christ, endured by Him alone on Calvary. No Apostle ever madly dreamed of himself sharing the wrath of God due to sin, which had been borne already by Christ the Just One, in place of the many unjust.
In the first eight Psalms I find no reference to the sufferings of atonement; but I cannot read those Psalms without those sufferings of Christ, in which the servant of God could share, being brought before me.
SA 1{The perfection of the Blessed One, spoken of in Psa. 1, is thus laid down -" His delight is in the law of the Lord; and in His law doth He meditate day and night." But what the effect of that upon Himself, when the scene around presented nothing but the counsel of the ungodly, the way of sinners, the seat of the scornful? Isolateness to one that loves communion; rejection to a heart whose affections are diffusive; sympathy with and dependance upon the Lord in such a scene- in a place loved of the Lord, but among a people who had no heart for the Lord—are all causes of suffering. But to be possessed by the word of God; to find its indwelling to be the very mark of one's course, and to know the sorrowful bearing of it upon those who shut it out, because of its contrast to their own plans, ways, and established purposes is deep sorrow to one who knows who and what God is, and sees who and what man is, to oppose himself to God. Now in all this, that which was fully developed in the Christ may be shared by all that ever had the spirit and faith of the Lord's elect.
SA 2{In Psa. 2 we see that not only is man individually wicked, but that there is a power, governing the world as a whole, which leads to the thorough rejection from the earth both of Christ and those that are His.
The Lord Jesus tasted this fully and all alone; but Peter, James, and John tasted it together, when, as in Acts 4, they quote, as applying to both Christ's rejection and their own position, the close of Psa. 2. The world knows us not, because it knew Him not.
SA 3{In Psa. 3 we find one with nothing but multitudes of difficulties before and around him, and no answer to any one of them save in the Lord. Who tasted this fully, save the Christ? Who ever really walked with God, and has not, according to the measure of his faith, tasted it and its affliction?
SA 4{It is a blessed thing, not without sweetness, though bitter be mingled with the sweet, when, amid the thousands and tens of thousands of trials, the soul's energy is roused, as in Psa. 4, by the sense of the contrast between its own integrity God-ward and the thorough corruption in wickedness of all around it; and this character of suffering has its own character of comfort-a character as peculiar to it as hope is the characteristic comfort of the state described in Psa. 1; waiting, of that of Psa. 2; strengthening of oneself in God, of that of Psa. 3
SA 5-7{Appeal to God against the wicked characterizes Psa. 5, as patience under discipline and correction does Psa. 6, and appeal for judgment upon the enemy, Psa. 7.
The mind of Christ can be little known, if His sorrow as to the wickedness of the wicked round about Him is not known. His heart can have been but little revealed to us, if His sorrow as to the state of the nation Israel, brought low by discipline and correction, on account of its careless walk with God, has never been seen by us. How could He be indeed the Son, the Servant of God -the One on whom all the duties of the kingly, prophetic, and priestly offices of that nation devolved-and not feel sorrow at the discipline under which the nation was? And His hard words against the harder hearts of that generation of vipers-His weeping over Jerusalem, that stoned the prophets, etc., it was all a service of suffering to Him—a service in which, at however great a distance from Himself as to measure, yet a service of suffering, which Paul shared with his Master. " If so be we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together," is applicable to all this.
SA 8{Psa. 8 is a psalm of glory; but as chap. ii. of Paul's Epistle to the Philippians teaches us, the glory due to the Son of man had a pathway of suffering and sorrow into it. He who was, according to Divine counsel, to be the center of a new system as Son of man, had to stoop to a path of suffering service, and to be obedient unto death—the death of the cross, ere He was to be highly exalted, and a name above every name given to Him, and be placed as Son of man at the Father's right hand. The cross is not looked at in Phil. 2 as the expression either of God's love to man in providing a Lamb, or of Christ's love to man in giving Himself, the Just One, in place of the many unjust; but as the expression of the perfection of His obedience-obedient unto death, the death of the cross. Blessed be God, we know that there, and there alone, that one thing without which God could not be just while justifying the sinner-without the knowledge of which no soul can ever have peacefully to do with God was found; but the object of the passage is not to show this, but another truth. And we neither honor God's word, nor show a sound mind, when we, however unintentionally, force passages to other than their simple meaning. Now the meaning of Phil. 2, as well as the object of the Apostle in his writing it, is to press practical conformity on the mind and conduct of the disciple, and not to show the enquirer where peace is to be found. And surely they who have known themselves so blessed with Christ, through grace, and have tried to exhibit the mind and walk of their Master, have known that it is a path of suffering, subjection, and of self-sacrifice.
The Old Testament believer must have found in the Psalms (not all that we find, but) a plain testimony that, independent of all blessings of God for a people on the earth, the household of faith, who always, somehow or the other, got tried, had to do with God in heaven. The pathway of their faith was always one of suffering.
These few remarks may suffice as to the fact of there being sufferings, quite separate from those of sin-bearing, or even of testimony, to the blessed Lord. If we stand upon the work He wrought in suffering upon the cross, we may share in His sufferings, in testimony, etc., and so only.
The life of the blessed Lord upon earth divides itself into three parts.
There is, 1St, His private life, from the birth to His public showing unto Israel; there is, 2ndly. His public life as a witness for God unto Israel; and there is, 3rdly, That part, alone, and in some sense, apart from the rest, in which He was bearing our sins in His own body on the tree.
A soul, taught of God, will have learned the difference for itself of the three, though it may never have marked off for itself the lines of distinction. The question of how God can receive a sinner, of how a sinner can go to God, cannot be seen save by the Cross, where all God's wrath went over Him who was the substitute. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us—that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. I have no idea of myself enduring the wrath of God, or any part of it, as of God against a creature: it would be to me eternal. misery and ruin. God saw no way of introducing, and of making effective, his mercy to a creature, found on the ground of rebellion, save the Cross of Christ. And faith knows no other settlement of the question of man's guilt than this, that the whole penalty of it was borne by Christ—the just one in place of the many unjust.
That Christ suffered, in his life, for righteousness' sake; suffered as a righteous one, and as a righteous witness for all God's claims, and for pressing upon man his responsibility to God, cannot be denied. And so will those that are one with Him have to suffer. It would be impossible to hold the word of righteousness, and to urge God's righteous claims as Creator, God of providence, and God of government, and to urge man's responsibility to meet these claims in such a world as this, and not to suffer for it. But while Christ suffered for righteousness' sake perfectly—as some have done, and others now do, imperfectly—he introduced, so to speak, a new kind of suffering—for in Him first was presented openly God dealing in grace—" God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself." It was not that responsibility in man ceased, but a new element was introduced which had in itself an entirely new character. Man had owed God for this and for that which God had vested in men. Creation, providence, government, all of them not only gave streams of blessing to man, but by those very streams made man responsible. But when Christ came, though he might and did recall all that blessing and responsibility to man's mind, He came into a ruined system as a Savior in grace, and this was quite another thing. If Israel would not own Jehovah dwelling between the cherubims, and so be kept from famine, hunger, sickness, and oppression, would they own Jehovah coming, as Son of Man, into the ruin which their sins had caused—a feeder of the hungry, a restorer of the sick, a Savior for the poor and the meek.
Such was the new position taken by God in Christ; everything due by man to God was pressed by Christ, but Himself was there the answer in grace to all the need. When he acts in righteousness, and sustains that righteousness with power, judgment will be revealed. But He acted in righteousness owned every claim of God—owned every debt of man—but stood in meekness and lowliness, offering Himself to meet all the claims, all the debts, and to do so at His own cost. He was thus thrust from the wall continually, and He bore it all in gentle meekness and patience.
The Apostles, and Paul especially, never for a moment thought of denying the righteous claims of God, or the responsibility of man as to creation, providence, and government—and they all suffered for it; but the great characteristic of their suffering, together with Christ, was that they were witnesses of mercy and grace from God to man, through Christ, and by the power of the Holy Ghost, in resurrection. The very place that resurrection held as connected with their testimony -"Jesus and the Resurrection"- told how they had to hold themselves as sheep for the slaughter.
It is impossible to be possessed by the word of the Lord and not to suffer; and the word of Christ is inseparable from sufferings for grace's sake. I find many overlook the difference of suffering for righteousness' sake and suffering for the sake of grace.
But further, in the passage before us (Rom. 8:1717And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. (Romans 8:17)) the suffering is clearly defined by the context. The question here is not about suffering for righteousness' sake, in any sense: neither in the sense that Abel did, who was slain because his own works were good, and he was hated by his murderer, whose works were evil; nor in the sense in which Jeremiah, and other of the prophets, suffered for a righteous testimony for God against an unrighteous people; neither, indeed, is the suffering in this passage limited to the sufferings which attend service and testimony, as connected with grace, as contrasted with righteousness. But the context defines a certain position, now the position of the possessors of faith; which position has privileges, power, hopes, and sufferings, connected with it. And most highly blessed as the position, the privileges, the possession of the power, and the enjoyment of the hopes so spoken of -they cannot be separated from a present suffering. Christ tasted death fully, and realized resurrection fully too to open that position. And though he has left no wrath for our souls to taste, and is Himself the resurrection and the life to us: yet does He give us to know practically the principles of death and resurrection; and that not only as perfectly set before us in principle, as realized by and in Himself, but because thus made true to us in the spirit, He adds to each member that has partaken in the blessing an experimental tasting of death and resurrection in themselves, and in their course through their circumstances.
Inseparable association with Himself, as the first-born among many brethren, is a preliminary to the suffering together with Him. He is in heaven now as Son of Man; but has there a heart to be touched with all that touches God and his people down here in the wilderness. If we want to have His standard of a walk in the wilderness, we have it perfectly given in His life when here below. But life, and the power to walk with Him, and (according to the measure of our faith) as He walked, begins to us only in our knowledge of Him gone on High, and remaining there for a season for our sake. And the power of continuance in this life is in communion with Him in heaven. In our introduction to Him there, and in our communion with Him there, we found, in the one, the beginning of power; and, in the other, the brook by the way to renew our power of being here below in affection, feeling, and thought, the present expressors of the mind of Christ, who is in heaven. Oh how fallen is all now-a-days Where are they who are practically showing out grace reigning through righteousness, as the witness of their present enjoyed association with the Son of Man in heaven. " If so be we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together."
In a world, the foundations of which are out of course, where the power of evil is dominant, and ourselves in bodies of sin and death; suffering is sure to be man's portion. The " sorrows of humanity" are not, however, the sufferings with Christ. The worldling shares them with us. And the only way in which we can have them connected with Christ is, if recognizing that all things are to us of Him, who hath reconciled us unto Himself, we bear them in Christ's strength, and for His sake. In bearing them as a Christian, in the strength of Christ, there is a Christian's reward. Another kind of suffering there is, also, in which, though its sorrow come to us from our being true to God's claims, and true in recognizing our own responsibilities as creatures, we cannot be said to " suffer as a Christian," as Peter says (1Peter 4:1616Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf. (1 Peter 4:16)).
A broken limb, a fever, penury, may be common to me and to my unconverted neighbor—He may repine and I may find in each such sorrow, an occasion of patience, courage, and endurance, as becomes a Christian. Again, in many a question of governments, of commerce, etc., the fear of God, and respect to the just claims of man, will distinguish the consistent Christian from the worldling. But in neither of these two cases does the trial spring from the position in which the faith of Christ has set us; in neither case would a spirit-led heavenly-minded Christian act differently than would a righteous Jew, whose hopes and thoughts went not beyond the earth.
But there are sufferings which grow up out of faith in an earth-rejected and heaven-honored Christ, who, from heaven, has revealed Himself, through faith. Christ has His sympathies and His feelings about things down here, and has a path of sorrow, of death, and resurrection, for His chosen flock to pass through. The sufferings of that path, grow up out of fellowship in life with Christ, and are the expression of intelligence in His mind, and of sympathy with His heart. Such are the sufferings, together with Christ, which we are considering.
Pilgrimage and strangership here below; the exercise of heart and mind as seeking His honor among His people; the sorrows of the failure of the testimony, and of the weak state of the flock, with all the suffering that comes out of the holding the position of being one, practically one, one in heart and mind, one in interests and in feelings (alas! how little do we attain to it) with a heaven-honored Christ, who is ever seen to us by faith, while we are in the place where and whence He was rejected, and which, as a place, knows us not, because it knew Him not; these are the sort of sorrows which are meant by suffering as a Christian. His anointing is upon us, and we are one with Him; and we must needs suffer, as ourselves dying daily, if the life of Christ is to be made manifest in us.
All God's counsels turn around the Anointed One, so to speak. Because the Son of Man is on high, creatorial, providential, and dispensational, purposes all stand fast, and can be acted upon or towards by God: I cannot doubt but that, because Messiah is on high, Israel is remembered on high; because the Messiah, who is the head of government and worship upon earth, is on high, therefore, also, the nations, as they are, and the nations as they shall be, are thought of and acted towards. But then the spiritual heavenly believer, while his faith sees all this, and finds joy as to Christ, and rest as to himself in it, knows that the range of life, and of the positive action of the Spirit in life, and as the Comforter or Paraclete is circumscribed. The Lord Jesus has a. present testimony connected with His present place, and the Paraclete, has a present work connected with the present faith. God made us what we are, and God found us where we were, and God sees us where we are; but that which is of us while it may be, and is, the occasion for God and Christ to be recognized and honored by us, is a very different thing from that which flows out of the anointing; which is connected with the Person of the Anointed One who is in heaven, and which we have to live out, and act out, and own here, according to the mind of. Christ, and by the Spirit. This, in every part of it, is connected with divine and heavenly grace; but to us, if living in it, with suffering. Not only did the Son of God learn obedience as Son of man, by the things which He suffered, but, further, it was impossible for the life of God to be perfectly displayed in such a world as this, save amid sufferings. Mercy needs circumstances of need and want in which to show itself. And mercy cannot see such circumstances without a correct, and to itself, a sad, estimate of them in themselves, and of the sin which has produced them.
Man may see affliction, and may try to alleviate it, without our hearts really tasting the bitterness, not of those in the circumstances only, but of what caused the circumstances. It was never so with Christ; is never so with the spirit-led man, so far as he is really taught of God. And who can see what the fallen state of the church is, what the triumph of evil, what the supremely good opinion man has of himself is now, and see it with eyes enlightened by the glory of Christ, and with affection quickened towards Christ by the Spirit, and not find a world of woe for him, as a Christian, as one who cares for God and His Christ, as one who enters into and sympathizes with Christ in His thoughts, and feelings, and desires, for the glory of God, and the blessing of the people of God down here on earth. Such is the fellowship of his sufferings. To enter into His sympathies—to sympathize with Him, and to live out that sympathy, is " suffering together with Christ."