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Transcript 340E — Suffering for Christ
CALLER: I have a question about the believers suffering. When Paul says that it was given unto us not only to share in Christ's blessings, but also in His sufferings, are those sufferings only the things that come from unbelievers that are shot at us, or are they all sufferings, like diseases and so on?
HC: Actually, when Jesus suffered for our sins, and the question is really, ultimately, what does the Bible mean when we suffer? We find, for example, in Colossians 1:24, "whereof I Paul am made a minister, 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."
Now what does God mean when He talks about us suffering? When we look at Christ, there were two aspects of His suffering. The most serious aspect of course was the suffering of the cross, the atonement, when He paid for our sins. Now in that aspect of His suffering, we as born again believers do not contribute one iota, because that was uniquely Christ's. That was altogether His payment for our sins.
But Jesus also was called and mandated by God to be a preacher of the Gospel. He was to proclaim the Gospel. We read this in the last couple of verses of Luke 4. Christ, however, only preached for three and a half years. Of course when He did preach, He suffered. He was maligned, He was vilified, He was slandered, He was abused. Remember in His own home town, Nazareth, they wanted to throw Him off the cliff. They were after Him all the time, and they were always saying nasty things about Him. He must have ensured great suffering, because He was the perfect preacher. He was Eternal God Himself. There was no sin in Him. There wasn't the slightest reason why anybody should want to reproach Him. And yet this happened all the time. And finally He was beaten, and He was spit upon, and so on.
Well now, Christ went to Heaven. But we are His body, and we are now given the command to be witnesses, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel." We, the body of Christ, complete what Christ began to do, that is, to preach the Gospel.
Now even as Christ suffered as He brought the Gospel, we His body complete His sufferings. That is, we continue to suffer as we bring the Gospel. Now we suffer sometimes by overt persecution. Believers have been thrown to the lions. They've been burned at the stake. They've been beheaded, and so on. Sometimes the suffering is much more subtle. Maybe it's just that we're slandered, and people make false accusations against us. They call us names. They call us false prophets, or they talk amongst themselves, Oh, what a heretic he is. All kinds of suffering can come.
The apostle Paul is a good illustration of a man who suffered as he brought the Gospel. He was beaten a number of times. He was stoned and left for dead. He suffered very grievously as he brought the Gospel. And this is what we can expect when we bring the Gospel.
In Luke 6 God says in verse 26: "Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you. For so did their fathers to the false prophets." If we're truly bringing the Gospel, the whole counsel of God, you can depend upon it that there will be plenty of people who will hate you with a fervor, because they don't want to hear the whole counsel of God. As long as you compromise, as long as you try to be all things to all men, and try to make the Gospel sound very gracious and wonderful and kind, and all of this, yes, yes, you're going to be a friend of everyone. But the minute you begin to talk about hell and damnation, to talk about the wrath of God, to talk about the sins that are everywhere, and of course also presenting the offer of salvation, the fact that in Christ is the only answer, if you bring the whole counsel of God, you're going to find great antagonism. You're bound to suffer.
Thank you so much for calling and sharing. Good night.