SUFFERING AND GLORY
Principal E. J. Price, in his address as President of
the Congregational Union, said: "Everywhere there
is a solemn conviction that Christianity is confronting a crisis far more
deep-searching and epoch-making than any other in its history." It is said that more Christians have been
martyred since the Great War than in the first hundred and thirty years of the
history of the Church. For the whole
Church of God, therefore, no words can be more golden in their inspiring power
than Paul's: "I RECKON THAT THE SUFFERINGS OF
THIS PRESENT TIME ARE NOT WORTHY TO BE COMPARED WITH THE GLORY THAT SHALL BE
REVEALED IN US" (Rom. 8: 18).
And not for the Church only, but for the
suffering individual believer: with this verse upon his lips, and unable to
finish it for the acuteness of his sufferings, John Calvin expired.
But
before we ponder the comparison, let us remember most carefully that, by the
wonderful alchemy of God both in nature and in grace, suffering itself works out
a deep-laid plan. Suffering is a
consequence, and therefore a warning and preventative, of sin, and so works for
the highest. Take but one form of
suffering-pain. "Pain," said Dr.
Carpenter, "is but the prayer of a nerve for
healthy blood;" while the consulting surgeon of the Royal Free
Hospital said recently: "Having been actively
engaged in the relief of human suffering for a period of more than forty years,
during 37 of which I was a hospital surgeon, it has been my lot to witness more
of the turmoils and distresses of the body and soul
of man than any other sphere of experience in relation to mankind could have
offered to contemplation. Pain is the
indicator which announces that the body is touched by some destroying finger
within or without. The experience of
past pain is an education - obviously for the personal preservation of the
body. With relation, therefore, to both
body and soul, suffering is not a curse but a blessing in disguise."
But
Paul’s point here is a different one: his conclusion is the fruit of a
deliberate calculation. He says, not I
believe, I imagine; but "I reckon",
I calculate, I judge: the word he uses means to reason, or to cast up accounts.
The
balance between present suffering, even of the worst, and coming glory is so
absurdly out of proportion as to be totally incomparable: they "are NOT WORTHY TO BE COMPARED"* Paul,
more than most men, was fitted to balance the account. "Five times received I forty stripes save one; thrice
was I beaten with rods; once was I stoned" (2 Cor. 11: 24): on the
other hand, alone of men he could tell, in the very next chapter, how "he was caught up into Paradise, and heard unspeakable words"
(2 Cor. 12: 4). And Paul’s calculation was so certain, so
unchallengeable, that he based all his
life on the calculation.
[*
It only modifies the shape of the truth that the date of the glory is
determined by the nature of the suffering. Suffering for Christ, and for the
truth’s sake, is a condition of
entrance into the
Now
the first element in the comparison is so overwhelming as to make the balance
instantly kick the beam. It is one word:- ETERNITY. "It is only the heel
of the saint that may be bruised now; but the head of the Enemy shall
be bruised for ever" (Govett). In this little life of ours, suffering pushed
far enough, ends itself: the body swoons, or even dies, under excessive pain;
and so solves the problem. The worst suffering, therefore, is
exceedingly sharply limited. But the
resurrection body is immortal; suffering, in it, is unknown and its joy is for
ever. The two are therefore utterly
incomparable. Eighty years, at the most
ninety, is all I can suffer: on the other balance, having cast in
my lot with Christ, millions of years will not diminish by a moment my perfect
bliss. As Robert Hall puts it:- "If our
temporary afflictions extended through the whole period of life, and that
period were protracted to antediluvian longevity, still they would be lost in
less than a moment, in comparison with eternal glories - they would be almost
invisible motes in a sunbeam."
Another
very obvious contrast rules out all comparison between a Christian’s present
suffering and his coming glory. Our sufferings, at their worst, are never
without wonderful alleviations, and special compensating comforts from God;
even this life holds, for us, as much joy as pain: but our glory in the eternal
ages has no mixture at all; it will be pure and sinless joy, and therefore
without the least alloy of sorrow. Erhard Doebler,
Vicar of St. James’s in
Moreover,
the glory which we balance against our sufferings is not only glory for us, or
glory around us, but glory in us:* "then
shall ye also be manifested with him IN GLORY" (Col. 3: 4). It is not only the inconceivable wonder of our
association with angels, and with apostles, and with great saints of all the
ages, and with the great saints we have known; but we shall be like
God:- God’s judgment ruling our intellect; God’s
love reproduced in our heart; God’s will shaping all our motives: "we shall be LIKE Him, for we shall see him even as he
is" (1 John 3: 2). "When all the
children of
[*
The R.V. is correct- "to us-ward"; but
other Scriptures explicitly state our coming personal glory.]
The King there in His beauty,
Without a veil is seen;
It were a well-spent journey
Though seven deaths lay between:
The Lamb with His fair army
Doth on
And glory, glory dwelleth
In Immanuel’s land.