FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS, volume 6, number 33, August 16, 2007

I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living, Psalm 27:13.

The Purpose Of Suffering

John Calvin’s biographer, Emanuel Stickelberger, gives a litany of ailments the great Reformer suffered during his life, “. . .He was afflicted with a headache concentrated on one side which hardly ever left him during his life. . .during many a night he was ‘inhumanly’ tormented by them. Subjected to maladies of the trachea, he had with pains in his side to spit blood when he had used his voice too much in the pulpit. Several attacks of pleurisy prepared the way for consumption (tuberculosis of the lungs) whose helpless victim he became at the age of fifty-one. Constantly he suffered from the hemorrhoidal vein, the pains of which were unbearably increased by an internal abscess that would not heal. Several times intermittent fever laid him low, sapping his strength and constantly reducing it. He was plagued by gallstones and kidney stones in addition to stomach cramps and wicked intestinal influenzas. To all this there was finally added arthritis.” Calvin’s suffering did not end with himself, however. His wife died after only nine years of marriage and he suffered the early deaths of all three of his children.

We saw in our last devotional that God allows, brings, and even foreordains our suffering. The question is why? Why did John Calvin suffer so much? Was God paying him back for some secret sin? If God loved John Calvin, then why would He allow, bring, even foreordain this unimaginable suffering? Why does God allow, bring, and foreordain the suffering through which you have walked in your life?

There are three reasons for the suffering of all the saints in Christ Jesus. We suffer for the manifestation of God’s glory, the sanctification of His church, and the salvation of His elect. Let’s take these one at a time. First is the manifestation of God’s glory. Psalm 115:3 makes clear that God is in His heaven and He does as He pleases. In Isaiah 46:10ff God speaks and says, “My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure. . .Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, surely I will do it.” Isaiah gives thanks to God for all His wondrous works, plans formed long ago with perfect faithfulness, Isaiah 25:1. Psalm 67 says, “God be gracious to us, and cause His face to shine upon us- that Thy way may be known on the earth, Thy salvation among all nations.” Because He is God, the eternal, transcendent, holy, sovereign, and righteous God, He alone is worthy of praise; and because He is Creator He can do with His creation what He desires for His own glory and praise. Everything which happens in the world, even the evil which God allows, ultimately is to bring glory to His name.

And when God brings suffering to His people it always is to wean us from the world. Just as a nursing mother, at some point, weans her infant from breast milk, causing the child to become increasingly less dependent upon her; so God uses suffering to wean us from our delight and trust in the things of this world. That’s why the Psalmist, who had suffered terribly as he saw the prosperity of the wicked, eventually was able to say, “Whom have I in heaven, but Thee. And besides Thee, I desire nothing on earth,” Psalm 73:25. Do you see God in your suffering? Are you able to trust Him, knowing that this is for His glory, that it is to wean you from your dependence on creation to bring comfort and satisfaction?

And second, God allows, brings, and foreordains suffering for the sanctification of His church. Paul makes a profound statement in Colossians 1:24 about his own suffering, “Now I rejoice in my suffering for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body (which is the church) in filling up that which is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.” Paul cannot mean that his suffering or any believer’s suffering, for that matter, adds to the merits of Christ’s suffering to bring us eternal salvation. Only Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection make possible our right standing before God. What does Paul mean then? He means that the suffering through which he has gone in the work of the gospel adds to, helps complete the body of Christ, His church. Christ is the head of His church and His suffering was redemptive, salvific. But we are members of His body, perhaps no more than a toe or a hair, but all of us in His body suffer in some way, and this enables us to identify with other believers, giving us a tangible expression of unity with believers all over the world throughout history. Paul has the same idea in mind in I Corinthians 12:26, “And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it, if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.” And God uses these sufferings to drive us to Jesus, the only place of refuge. In Psalm 2:12, David says, “Do homage to the Son, lest He become angry, and you perish in the way, for His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!” God uses the suffering through which you have gone to drive you to Christ, to show you there is no other fountain from which you can drink for comfort, solace, grace.

And third, God allows, brings, and foreordains suffering for the salvation of His elect. In II Thessalonians 1:4ff Paul is complementing the Thessalonians on their perseverance and faith in the midst of persecutions and afflictions, saying that their suffering is indication of God’s righteous judgment so that they may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God for which they had been suffering. He goes on to say that God will deal out retribution to all who disobey the gospel, promising that the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire when He comes to be glorified in His saints. The only way to explain the genocide, the persecution, the untold suffering of God’s people throughout the ages is to know that God’s ultimate purpose for everything is the salvation of His people to the praise of His own glory. Nothing else makes sense. And when God’s people are in the midst of suffering it drives them to long for heaven, to say with heartfelt earnestness, “I would have despaired if I had not believed I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”

Calvin knew this and this is what sustained him all his days. Will you see God? Will you trust God? Will you wait on God? He has you right where He wants you. Your suffering is not an accident. It is not bad luck. It is not fate. It is not “payback time.” It is for the manifestation of God’s glory, the sanctification of His church, and the salvation of His people.

FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS is a weekly devotional by Reverend Al Baker, pastor of Christ Community Presbyterian Church in West Hartford, Connecticut.

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