Question: Though I am afraid you will consider my question more curious than important, I trust you will bear with it as being among the follies of youth.
The main difficulty to my mind is whether ὑστερήματα connects itself with the sufferings of Christ or with the sufferings of Paul. If the latter, by what grammatical or syntactical rule? If the former, the idea conveyed seems to be somewhat incongruous; for surely Christ did not leave His sufferings unfinished. If so, in what sense? Even if θλήψ. τοῦ Χριστοῖ be taken as a generic term. (as in 2 Cor. 1:55For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. (2 Corinthians 1:5) et al.) in opposition to ascetic mortification or any other spurious suffering, a difficulty still remains: for would not this imply that Paul’s previous sufferings were not for Christ’s sake?
Bloomfield (also quoting Elsner and Newcome), supports the idea of Paul suffering for Christ’s sake in a general sense. The French version (S.P.C.K.) also reads, “j’ accomplis ce qu’il me reste souffrir dans ma chair pour la cause de Christ.” And so I suppose J. N. D.; though I confess I am hardly sure whether I rightly understand his note in the New Trans. (1st. ed.); nor have I the means of consulting Meyer and others to whom he refers.
On the other hand, Ostervald appears to be equally bold in the opposite direction. He escapes the seeming ambiguity of the A.V. and the R.V. by translating thus: “l’acheve do souffrir en ma chair le reste des afflictions de Christ,” &c.
I am quite ignorant of the value of these versions; but I quote them simply because I have occasionally found thereby help on the meaning of a word. In this case they differ considerably.
Answer: The meaning seems to my mind clear. Christ suffered in love and holiness from the evil around, as well as in atonement; in the latter He alone, in the former not exclusively so. Paul was filling up part of those afflictions, as he says, in his flesh for His body which is the church. It is not that Christ did not suffer as well as walk perfectly as none ever did; but yet He left us to follow in the same path of suffering love here below, and specially for His body’s sake. The afflictions of Christ were not so filled up as to exclude Paul’s (or in our measure our) sharing them thus. To suffer with Christ is indeed the common privilege of those who look to be glorified with Him.