What do you do when suffering comes like a punch in the stomach and knocks the wind out of you? No one gets out of this sin-sick world unscathed by the cosmic effects of humanity’s revolt against God. Sin has turned everything in the world upside down and we live under the painful weight of it. At times, this weight erupts into the gut of our being with a vicious blow.
How do we breathe when our soul’s respiratory system is gasping for air?
Trite answers don’t suffice when the pain is deep. Suffering brings up hard questions: why is there pain in the world? How can a good God allow pain? We are left with two seemingly irreconcilable and opposing truths: that God is good, and that God is in control. The deeper our suffering, the further apart these things seem.
Sin is that Bad
The Bible doesn’t give platitudes to fill up this blank, gut-wrenching space. God’s word gives us a bigger perspective on suffering, with the cross of Jesus Christ center-stage. Scripture tells us that the primary cause of pain is sin, which started with Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God. The existence and depths of pain we see in the world points to the fact that something is deeply wrong. God created a world that was very good, but when Adam and Eve chose their own way over God’s, sin spread to all men and devastated all of creation, just as God said it would (Genesis 2:17).
“The canon of Scripture shows us tracks of blood from the very edge of Eden outward. The biblical story immediately veers from Paradise to depictions of murder, drunkenness, incest, gang rape, polygamy, and on and on and on, right down to whatever is happening with you.”[1]
When we experience suffering, we are awakened to realities that we usually ignore when things are going our way. We get a painful reminder that things are not as they should be. In our most excruciating moments of suffering, we taste what sin has caused with great clarity and testify wholeheartedly that sin and what it produces is awful. We can say with greater realization: “sin is this bad.” The horrific nature of sin is true all the time, but it is often in suffering that this truth becomes deeply relevant to us. It begins to explain not just our pain, but all pain. This understanding helps us point our inevitable anger in the right place – at sin, not God.
Scripture shows us that while sin and pain are fundamentally connected, they do not have a simplistic relationship. It is wrong to assume that if someone is suffering, it is directly related to specific sin in his or her life. God had harsh rebukes for Job’s friends when they made that mistake (Job 42:7-8). Sometimes suffering ensues directly because of foolishness (see the entire book for Proverbs), but in much of life, pain and sin have a much less direct relationship. Sin and pain aren’t connected the way basic math connects numbers — like, one sin minus one painful trial evens the cosmos. No; the relationship between sin and suffering is more like a deep, complex calculus that only God knows about.[2] Our painful circumstances are often frustratingly perplexing (2 Corinthians 4:8) and the Bible tells us that there are secret things that belong only to the Lord (Deuteronomy 29:29). We simply do not have all the information for how and why suffering works out in our life. But God does, and he is ruling redemptively over all of it. He promises to work all things together for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28), bring good from what the enemy intends for evil (Genesis 50:20), and comfort us in every affliction (2 Corinthians 1:4).
There are riches to be found by digging deep in gospel truths when we encounter suffering. As I sit in the truth about sin and suffering I begin to realize: I am party to the problem – not a victim or a bystander – because I am a sinner. I, too, have usurped the rightful King of my life and put myself on the throne. And because of my treasonous heart, I deserve death (Romans 6:23).
The Gospel
I deserve death and nothing less. The question is often asked, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” The truth is, there are no good people: “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned, every one, to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6). Standing on my own merits, I deserve nothing good – ever. But this is not where the story ends.
“God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:12).
While I was still a sinner and unable to save myself, God sent Christ to die in my place. God does not simply ignore the punishment I deserve for my sin – He pours it out on Someone else. The good news of the gospel is that though the wages of sin is death, the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus (Romans 6:23). The cross teaches me that I am more sinful than I ever dared believe, but at the same time, more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than I ever dared to hope.[3]
Since Christ suffered in my place for sin and saved me from the wrath of God, I would love to think of Him as the one who will also save me from all suffering. But Romans 8:17 says that “we are children of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided that we suffer with Him.” Jesus told His disciples that following Him meant taking up a cross (Matthew 10:38). Peter says that Christ suffered, leaving us an example that we should follow (1 Peter 2:21).
Christ’s suffering doesn’t exempt me from partaking in suffering on earth – it prepares me for it.
Following Christ
As I turn my eyes to Christ in the book of Philippians, I see that Christ is both my Savior who suffered for my sin and my example in suffering. Through Him I have been given “a righteousness from God that depends on faith” (Philippians 3:9) – Christ’s righteousness. I stand before God with all of Christ’s merits credited to my account, including His perfect obedience in the face of suffering. He is my Savior, even as I squirm under the pressure of suffering. Even there, His obedient blood speaks for me.
My Savior is not only my righteousness through faith, but my example. Paul says in Philippians 3:10 that he wants to “share in Christ sufferings, becoming like Him in His death.” This is an important statement, since God intends all of His children to be made more and more like Christ (Romans 8:17, 2 Corinthians 3:18). What does Paul mean when he says he wants to become like Christ in His death?
Philippians 2:6-8 gives a glimpse into what Paul probably had in mind.
“Though He [Christ] was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
What was Christ like in His death? Humble.
Becoming like Christ in His death means growing in humility – in the face of suffering. There is no other way for this kind of humility to be cultivated and tested. Christ humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death. “Although [Christ] was a Son, He learned obedience through what he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). Christ’s humility and obedience to the Father was tested and proved in a battle with pain and suffering.
Victory
Christ humbly suffered and died, but His death led to resurrection, victory and exaltation:
“therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:9-10
How did Christ remain faithful as He was being crushed under the weight of suffering? Hebrews 12:2 says that Christ, “who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising its shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Jesus held onto the hope of coming joy – and He despised the shame of the cross. We can follow Christ’s example by holding on to the promise of joy ahead, despising sin and suffering as we do. This tension is sure to purify our hearts as we eagerly wait, with all of creation, for final redemption. We learn to hate sin more deeply and long for heaven more fervently. And because we see more clearly the destructive nature of all sin and want nothing to do with it, we begin go to war with any sin we still find in our own hearts.
Beholding Christ as both Savior and example gives me strength to not just endure, but to worship God in the midst of suffering. When pain crashes into me, I am pushed into deeper communion with the Man of Sorrows who was acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3). When I am awed afresh by the God-man bloodied on the cross for sin, I can’t help but be humbled and worship the One who “made Him who knew no sin become sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5:21). What other God takes the ultimate deathblow of sin so that I would never have to experience it? We may get splash overs of hell on earth, but those who are in Christ will never taste the full force of suffering that sin deserves because of the cross. And with this truth etched deeper on my heart, I can say with Paul:
“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ, and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness of God that depends on faith – that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, becoming like Him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” Philippians 3:7-11
Because Christ died and rose again, the troubles and loss that come from a world seething with sin will not separate us from the love of God, but make us more than conquerors through Him who loved us (Romans 8:35-37). We may be in the ring with sin and suffering in the opposing corner, but in Christ we have the knockout punch: faith and trust in a risen Savior — who promises to raise us, too.
[1] Russell D. Moore, Tempted and Tried: Temptation and the Triumph of Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011), p 18.