Why Do We Suffer?

I want to speak to you on a topic about which every single person reading this is intimately familiar.  This topic transcends age limitations, cultural barriers, educational boundaries, and mental abilities.  It is at once both familiar and despised by every human being from the cooing infant to the slobbering drunkard to the bedfast senior.  The topic on my mind is pain.  Suffering, we might say.  Anguish, torment, and discomfort.  These concepts and the experiences that present them to us are the meat and the drink of our lives.  Suffering is inescapable and it comes to us all.  We instinctively avoid it with every fiber of our beings.  Torment is unilaterally shunned by all people regardless of station in life.  It is only those who have particular mental debilitations that delight in pain.  For the vast majority of humanity, suffering is vigorously bemoaned when it comes and is eagerly escaped from as soon as possible.

It was not always this way.  Although the Bible is not explicitly clear on this, I believe that in the original creation, prior to man’s descent into depravity, rebellion, and sin, there was no pain.  Genesis 1:31 provides us with the concluding summary statement of the work of creation that God had done: And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good.  I think that in the phrase “very good” we find the implication that the troubles, problems, and failures that we live with every day were nonexistent.  Furthermore, even if that point is arguable, another is not.  That is, that in the new creation that God will bring about, after the destruction of this present corrupted universe, pain, death, and everything that goes along with them will be completely eradicated once and for all.  

Revelation 21:3-4 makes this abundantly clear: And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.  He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God.  He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

So, those who are in Christ have a wonderfully exciting, pain free, joy filled future to look forward to.  But that future is not yet.  For the time being we remain on this cursed earth with all of its troubles and turmoils.  And in that context, we must ask a critically important question.  Namely, does God provide any instructions about how we are to confront the tribulation that comes to us in life?  Are there guidelines, rules, and best practices we can take with us as we rush headlong into the lion’s jaws of this painful mortal coil?  More importantly, for the follower of Christ, is there a reason for our suffering?  Is the pain of this life just random chance, heaped in greater measure on the heads of some or lesser measure upon the heads of others, purely by the whim of fate?

The Bible provides a comprehensive answer to these questions.  It can be found, among other places, in the book of 2^nd Corinthians.  This book is a letter that was written by the Apostle Paul to a small house church of 1^st century Christians living in the city of Corinth, Greece.  It is one of at least four letters that Paul wrote to this church, only two of which have been preserved in Scripture.  This letter is particularly adept at handling the questions we want to throw at it relating to suffering.  The reason is that the first eight chapters are dominated by the issue we are raising today, with additional commentary scattered throughout the remaining five chapters.  That is, how should Christians relate to, respond to, and view trials and pressures that face them in life?

Although much of the book deals with this topic, for the sake of time we will focus primarily on just a very small portion of it.  Specifically, in chapter 1, verses 3 and 4 Paul opens with a summary statement that clarifies the message he wants to present and that he will expand upon throughout the rest of the book.  The text reads as follows: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.  Let us examine this text in detail and draw our conclusions from it as well as from supporting passages found throughout the letter.

The very first phrase is critically important and we dare not skip over it.  Paul writes “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Blessed is the Greek “eulogetos”.  It is the word we get our modern English word eulogy from.  Perhaps it strikes you as odd that Paul would confer a word upon the Lord that you may have only ever heard associated with funerals.  It is true that eulogies are often delivered to commemorate the life of a person who has recently died.  However, in the best sense of the word it is not necessarily restricted to the realm of death.  It merely means to praise someone.  To eulogize a person is to extoll their virtues and rejoice in their accomplishments.  It is to heap wishes for success and praise upon their heads.  Aside from the funereal connotations of a eulogy, a person might be eulogized while living.  Perhaps they are graduating from school or retiring from a career.  In such cases a good friend, relative, or co-worker might give a eulogy for them.

In a Biblical context, eulogetos means to bless someone else.  It means they are adorable to you.  You consider them to be elegant and have fine speech.  This person is to be reverenced.  They might even be consecrated; meaning set apart for a special task.  The person speaking such a blessing upon another is, in effect, invoking a benediction upon them.  A wonderful example of this is Aaron’s benediction that he was commanded to speak to the people of Israel in Numbers 6:24-27: The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

Why does Paul begin this way, by confering a blessing upon the Lord?  Is this just the apostle’s customary salutation that he always uses?  In a modern context we might ask, is Paul doing a quick copy/paste from one of his other letters?  It is true that he, as well as the other biblical writers, often begin in a very similar manner to what we find in 2^nd Corinthians.  However, in this case I think there is a deeper level of reasoning and meaning behind Paul’s choice of words.

To put it succinctly, I think he is modeling the correct perspective for the Corinthians.  He knows the material he is about to cover.  It is difficult subject matter.  Suffering, confrontations and divisions within the church, false apostles, and strained relations between himself and the believers are just a few of the weighty and sobering topics Paul is about to get into.  I think he knows very well that human tendency when confronted with such things is to view them with negativity, derision, and frustration.  So, he wants to establish the baseline of a proper world view right off the bat.  Namely, that God is blessed and all that that entails, as mentioned above.  Paul knows that in order to properly assess the difficulties in their lives, these Corinthian Christians must have a proper and correct view of who God is.  And so Paul provides answers to questions that have not even been verbalized yet.

First, who is this God that Paul desires to eulogize?  He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  This is a critically important concept to understand.  Paul was a Jew.  Although he was writing to a Gentile church, undoubtedly there were some Christian Jews in the mix.  Furthermore, regardless of audience, Paul was as thoroughly Jewish as it was possible to be.  His Hebrew culture and heritage were steeped in the traditions and customs of his ancestors.  Here is the point.  Israelite society was intensely patriarchal.  This means that family units were large and insular.  Multiple generations existed either together or in very close proximity to each other.  They were closely knit together through the medium of living life together.  The family was of paramount importance to a Jew.  And the eldest living father, or the patriarch, was the literal ruler of this little clan.  The father called all the shots and the family literally either rose or fell on his shoulders.  If the father was successful, the family was successful.  If the father bungled things, particularly in regard to wickedness, then the whole family would often go down with him.

This is drastically different from American culture.  We live in a society where men have often been emotionally emasculated.  In an effort to distort God’s design for marriage relationships in which the husband and wife are equally valuable yet have distinct and defined roles and responsibilities, a liberal culture that refuses to accept the sovereign will of the Lord has worked overtime to dispute and disrupt any possibility of a patriarchal society.  To be sure, often throughout human history patriarchalism has been mismanaged and poorly implemented.  But that is due to the sinful heart of man, not problems with God’s design.

So, we need to recognize the cultural distance between ourselves and the apostle Paul.  And we need to recognize that when Paul identifies God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, he is elevating God to a tremendous degree.  Because if Christ is the absolute Master and Overlord of the church, then God the Father, in His trinitarian role as Father, is of equally exalted status.

That brings me to the other aspect of the title that Paul uses for God here.  In a patriarchal society such as Israel, the son, particularly the firstborn son, was exceedingly important.  He was the very image of his father.  He portrayed his father’s character and reputation in public.  If the son was to behave poorly or dishonestly, it reflected back on his father in a very real and potentially disastrous manner.  It was much more visceral than in our society.  In our culture, if a child is misbehaved, sure, the parents suffer some level of reproach.  But not like this.  In Hebrew culture, the actions of the son were literally seen as equal to the actions of the father.

This means that Paul is also ascribing incredible value to the Son, Jesus.  He is making the claim that Jesus of Nazareth, in his person as the Son of God, carries the literal reputation of God the Father on His shoulders.  There is an intrinsically communal, harmonious, and circular quality to the relationship between Father and Son.  The One is the image of the Other.  The Other is the reputation of the One.  They are both the exact imprint of an identical nature.

Oh, how much richness and depth are inherent in every line of Scripture!  And Paul is not even finished yet in introducing the Lord in this letter.  Next, he identifies God as the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.  This is the only place in the New Testament where these particular titles are given to God.  Why does Paul include two different descriptors here?  By examining the nuances between them I think we can ascertain the apostle’s intent.

Here are our clues.  Mercies is plural while comfort is singular.  Also, comfort has the modifier “all” attached to it.  Furthermore, Paul associates mercies with fatherhood while relating comfort to godhood.  What is he trying to tell us?  I think Paul’s meaning is at once both simple and profound.

The plurality of mercies conveys the idea of a multiplicity of actions.  In other words, Paul is not talking about a general sense or idea of mercy in an abstract manner.  He has in mind specific acts of mercy that are carried out by God.  We are to see the Lord as personal and interactive.  I think Paul uses the word father because he wants us to have in mind an earthly human father who is involved in the lives of his children.  This man’s family can instantly call to mind any number of concrete examples of the interpersonal quality of their relationship with their father.  Just so with God, in Paul’s mind, as He walks with us and cares for us through His inexhaustible compassion.

On the other hand, the singularity of comfort seems to point to a more general and less well defined yet an ultimately more comprehensive covering of comfort.  Paul’s use of the modifying adjective “all” reinforces this idea.  It is not merely that the Lord is a source of comfort, perhaps one of many such sources.  Rather, Paul seems to be saying that all comfort that occurs flows from God.  In fact, I think Paul’s point is that no true comfort exists apart from God.  The fact that he associates “God” with “all comfort” adds to the image that is developing in our minds.  A father is seen as intimate and personal, yet ultimately limited in scope and capacity.  Conversely, a god is considered to be aloof yet all powerful and in control.

I think what Paul is getting at is that the Lord God of Israel synthesizes these two disparate aspects of compassion in His own person.  He is a tender Father who cares for our every individual need for mercy.  But He is also an all-powerful God who is in complete sovereign control of His creation.  This God orders and directs the wide-angle lens of all comfort in the entire world at all times while simultaneously interacting with His children in a tender and loving, individual and specific manner.

Why does Paul take such pains and go to such lengths to be sure our understanding of God in His capacity as a comforter is clear and accurate?  Because he wants us to truly believe in our bones that God has our backs.  He knows that we must have an image of God as the completely sufficient and totally unique foundation of any mercy, compassion, and comfort that we will ever receive.  If we fail to grasp this truth of God’s character then the rest of Paul’s message about suffering is going to fall on deaf ears.

The reason is that his answer about why we suffer and what comfort God provides in the midst of that suffering may not be what our self focused flesh wants to hear.  Paul needs us to be completely focused upon the Lord so that the impact of his message can penetrate deeply into our minds and radically alter our perspective on both our own lives and the rest of the world around us.

We begin to see the answers to our questions emerge in verse 4.  We need to pause for a while on the very first phrase: who comforts us in all our affliction.  The word affliction is “thlipsis” in Greek.  It is variously translated as oppression, tribulation, or distress in our English Bibles.  But, the best sense of the word is that of a pressing, a pressing together, or pressure.  Imagine a heavy object such as an anvil being placed upon a wooden table.  The weight is considerable, yet the table holds.  Then another anvil is added, doubling the pressure that gravity is bringing to bear upon the wood beneath.  Then another anvil and another.  Eventually, the wooden legs of the table exceed their structural tolerance due to the extreme pressure, and the whole thing collapses.

This is the image that Paul himself puts forth just a few verses later when he uses the same word, “thlipsis”, in verse 8: For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia.  For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.  Paul never reveals exactly what the nature of this affliction was.  But he makes it painfully obvious that the pressure he felt, the weight of tribulation, was pressing in upon his soul with a crushing force, even unto the point of despair.  This is the image in Paul’s mind as he writes that God will comfort us in our affliction.

Notice also that, again, the apostle inserts the adjective “all” before the word affliction.  Be very clear in your mind, as Paul is, that there is no pressure, no turmoil, no struggle, and no burden sufficient to exceed the all-consuming mercy and compassion of God.  That being said, an important question presents itself immediately to our minds.  Namely, how does God provide this comfort?  In what manner does He comfort us?  To find the answer to that question we need look no further than Paul’s own example again, conveniently chronicled in this same letter.

In chapter 12, verses 1 to 6, the apostle describes an experience he had at some point during his ministry.  He was caught up to heaven, whether in vision form or in the flesh he was not sure.  While enjoying this heavenly experience Paul saw and heard things of incredible power and glory.  He does not say what he witnessed.  In fact, he states that it cannot be told.  Then, in verse 7 Paul describes the Lord’s act of forced humility upon his life: So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harrass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.

Just as with the vision, Paul never says what this “thorn in the flesh” was.  But he does chronicle his response to it, in verse 8: Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.  Make no mistake.  Whatever this thorn was in Paul’s life, he did not like it.  He desired to have it gone as soon as possible.  The apostle was not some kind of super saint who was so spiritual that he was beyond the realm of human frailty.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  Paul was very much an ordinary man, probably much like us in many ways.

Just like we would be prone to, he begged God to take away the thorn that had been given to him.  And it is in the Lord’s response to Paul’s request that we find the nature of God’s brand of comfort.  In verse 9 Paul writes: But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.”  That is all.  No promises to wipe away the pain of our burdens.  No assurances that we will not have to endure them long.  No guarantees of ease and contentment.  All that God gave Paul was a simple promise that the grace of God would sustain him.  All that God vows to us is that He will walk with us through the pain.  He will hold our hand when we are afraid.  He will put His arm around us when we stumble.  And He will carry us when we fall and cannot go on any longer.  God never promises us that He will remove us from our troubles.  He simply guarantees that He will bear them with us.

This is the message that our flesh often does not want to hear.  We desire peace.  We long for an easy life, free from trouble.  We sometimes come to God with an erroneous assumption that because we are Christians He will supernaturally clear the road for us so that we can drive straight through without any hassle of traffic or road blocks.

However, this is not at all the way God works and not remotely what He has promised His children.  Furthermore, although our flesh rails against it, it is not what we need either.  Moving back to chapter 1 and the heavy burden Paul endured to the point of death, we find his own “post game” commentary on what he had suffered, in verses 9 and 10: Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death.  But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.  He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us.  On Him we have set our hope that He will deliver us again.

The point of Paul’s affliction and the reason behind our suffering is the same.  It is to give the Lord an opportunity to comfort us in the midst of it.  The comfort He gives is the assurance that He will not forsake us.  Rather, He will guide us and nurture us through the pain.  This process of divine hand holding is the very thing that builds our trust, strengthens our belief, and straightens our spines to face ever greater tests of faith in the Lord our God.  If God were to magically warp us out of the tribulation, this transformation of character would never happen.  Furthermore, we would never come to experientially know the incredible surpassing power of God’s comforting hand.

As incredible as all that is to consider, it remains only half of the answer to our original question.  We asked, “Why do we suffer?”  And we have seen that the answer is, in part, so that God will have an opportunity to demonstrate His inexhaustible capacity to comfort, for the purpose of producing men and women of steel who trust Him implicitly, even unto death.  But there is another angle to our suffering.  There is another factor that must be considered.  It is found in the remainder of verse 4: so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

This is the utterly compelling reality of the communal aspect of our suffering.  We are afflicted for the sake of ministry!  The New Testament overwhelmingly presents an image of the Christian life in which people are born again, adopted into the family of God, and placed by Him into fellowship with a spiritual family of local fellow adoptees.  The expectation then becomes service and ministry to this new found family.

We can see this in Paul’s own chronicle of his life in this very letter.  In chapter 1, verses 12 to 15 the apostle writes: For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you.  For we are not writing to you anything other than what you read and understand and I hope you will fully understand – just as you did partially understand us – that on the day of our Lord Jesus you will boast of us as we will boast of you.  Because I was sure of this, I wanted to come to you first, so that you might have a second experience of grace.

Paul so highly regarded this group of spiritual brothers and sisters in Corinth that he counted his time among them as well as the letters he had written them to be outpourings of the grace of God, channeled through himself.  Furthermore, he fully intended to boast righteously in the testimony of the power of God in their lives, just as he expected them to boast in his life.  This was not mere words for Paul.  He desired to back up his conviction with physical visits, because he knew that time spent together in fellowship would only increase the grace experienced by both parties.

The result of such a spiritually uplifting relationship between Christians can be seen in chapter 3, verses 1 to 3: Are we beginning to commend ourselves again?  Or do we need, as some do, letters of commendation to you, or from you?  You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all.  And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

The incredible design of the church is that we pour ourselves into ministry to our brothers and sisters in Christ.  We invest in their spiritual growth just as they invest in ours.  And over time, the fruit of that ministry to each other becomes the greatest testimonial in the world of the power of God that works in and through us.  We cease to require words on paper to commend our efforts.  God Himself commends us through the medium of the many powerfully Spirit filled Christians we have touched with our service to both them and to Christ.

This is the pattern, the expectation, and even the commandment of how a Christian is to live.  And, backing up to chapter 1, verse 4 again, we see that the affliction we endure is the equipment we require in order to accomplish this task of ministry.  When we suffer we are being taught how to trust God.  We are being instructed with “on the job training” in how to commit ourselves to Him and Him alone fully and completely.  With this rigorous education under our belts, and with our tools close at hand, we then carry these lessons forward into ministry and service to the saints of the living God in whatever Christian relationships the Lord places us in, with the local church being a major emphasis of our efforts.

The astonishing, and frankly counter cultural, doctrine being taught here by Paul is that the life of a Christian has a single purpose.  There is only one unifying and underlying goal that should be driving every Christian forward in a never ending pursuit of the life and character of Christ.  That is ministry.  Our lives are for ministry.  Our salvation is given to us so that we can minister.  Our sanctification is carried forward by the Holy Spirit so that we can minister more effectively. 

Consider Paul’s evaluation of what he had endured and how it related to the Corinthian church, in verses 5 to 7: For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.  If we are afflicted it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.  Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

Paul’s estimation of his suffering is that it is for other Christian’s comfort and salvation.  His understanding of the comfort he receives from God is that that too is for others; for their future comfort that can only come from their own experience of suffering in which they are trained to trust God through the circumstances they face.  Our purpose in life then becomes the training of others in how to trust the Lord through the most horrible pressures and tribulations imaginable.  And in a glorious pattern that truly comes full circle, the comfort that God has promised He will provide is miraculously given through other believers.  We actually become a part of the Lord fulfilling His divine promise to comfort Christians in all their afflictions.  A Christian who is committed to ministry and service is a veritable conduit of grace.

Do you see the pattern that is emerging here?  It is a perspective that is unwaveringly focused outward rather than inward.  When we suffer our eyes are to be locked onto Christ rather than ourselves for sustenance.  When we are comforted our focus is to be upon the incredible mercies of God.  When we are at peace our hearts are to be seeking after others so that we can pour into them what God first poured into us.

This is the Christian life.  If you are reading this and everything I am writing is foreign to you, then I deeply apologize.  Because, you have completely misunderstood what it means to be a follower of Christ.  You have bought the shrink wrapped commercial brand of Christianity that has been sold in the United States and other countries for years.  You have succumbed to the lie that “church” is a place to go once per week so that you can be entertained or to have your spiritual gas tank filled up to get you through the rest of the week in which walking with Christ is the furthest thing from your mind.

And, sadly, you have so far missed the glorious product of a life lived like what Paul is describing in 2^nd Corinthians.  The end result of all this suffering, comfort, and service is an indestructible Christian whose faith is like steel.  I want to leave you with three lengthy passages, all from 2^nd Corinthians, that work together to paint a portrait of the life of a believer that is built on the solid rock of their faith in Christ.

Chapter 4, verses 6 to 10 begins the narrative by describing our triumph against all odds of our frail bodies and afflicted souls: For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.  We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.  There is no power in the universe that can crush the spirit of a born again Christian who is clinging to Christ as the source of their strength and who is committed to embracing their suffering as the means of their sanctification.

Chapter 5, verses 1 to 4 expand the view to include the focus of our future desires: For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.  For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked.  For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened – not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 

There is only one type of complaint that is permissible for a Christian when they suffer.  It is that they long to be free of the suffering so that they can be at home with the Lord in heaven.  Our desire for suffering to end must not be bound up in a wish for a good life here on earth.  Such a life does not exist, except inasmuch as it is lived for service and ministry like what Paul has been describing.  Our gaze must remain fixed heavenward at all times, especially in the midst of our trials.

Chapter 6, verses 1 to 10 is the longest passage of all.  But it is crucial to complete our understanding of Paul’s message here: Working together with Him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.  For He says, “In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.”  Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.  We put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise.  We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.

A Christian who lives continually in the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, who clings to God as their only source of comfort in their afflictions, and who expends their energy in service to others to teach them these same principles becomes an invulnerable fortress of faith that Satan will break himself to pieces on before he puts a dent or a chink in the outer walls.

Paul’s heart was wide open to these Corinthian believers.  He professes as much in the next three verses: We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide open.  You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections.  In return (I speak as to children) widen your hearts also.  Dear reader, will you widen your heart today to the glorious life that awaits you on the other side of your afflictions and through the course of the life of ministry that God has called you to?