St. John Studies

“For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.”

As the Apostle Paul writes this line in his letter to the Galatians, the meaning of his words is ripe for Christians.  John Stott concludes his book The Cross of Christ with the seven affirmations from Galatians, seven affirmations that express a summary of what he has tried to write in his whole book about the centrality of the cross for Christian life.

Today we will focus on the meaning of Galatians 2: 19-21 [the second affirmation].

When Paul says he has died to the law why is that so important?  What he probably means is he is dying to Judaic Law, the overwhelming number of binding rules and regulations that Jesus challenged in his life here on earth.   Paul is talking about the grip the Pharisees had on everyday Jewish life by centering their political power on themselves as arbiters of the “rules.” 

When Paul states he died to the law, he is making a bold statement that he is following Jesus and not Pharisaical law.  When he dies to the many rules and regulations, he can live for God.   Essentially Paul is telling us that “The Law” gets in the way of someone trying to live a righteous life.

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”  Of course Paul was not actually put on a cross at Calvary with Jesus but when he says he has been crucified with Christ, he is using a metaphor that applies to all Christians.  Metaphorically, all Christians “died” on that cross with Jesus. Our old lives died and our new life with Christ began.  As He was resurrected, we are resurrected.  The law condemns us all, but Jesus came to bear the brunt of our punishment so can we live a righteous life.    Jesus came to provide a better way for us to connect to God.  We no longer have to be perfect by following all the laws of Moses; Jesus knew we cannot meet that standard.  He provides and better and more reasonable way to get close to the Father.  Jesus knew what it felt like to be human and at the same time being God incarnate.  That allowed Him to live a sinless life.  He instructed us in his years on earth.  He acted out what it was like to focus on the real intent of “the law.”   Even though is it not Galatians, when Jesus responded to a Pharisee who was an expert on the law, he got to the heart of God’s laws.  The expert asked Jesus “which is the great commandment in the Law?”  What was intended as a trap for Jesus became an opportunity for Jesus to tell everyone that it is not about obeying 613 commandments and countless interpretations by the Pharisees; it is about getting right with God.   “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important commandment. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37–40).  These words shed light on what Paul is saying when he writes that he has died to the law and is now living in Christ.

Paul is “all in” with Jesus when he writes “I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”  Paul knows that Jesus has saved him from his own death on the cross.  Paul knows he deserves to be punished [as we all do].  Stott writes of Paul “(the old, sinful, guilty I) live no longer.  But Christ lives in me.  Or since plainly I am still alive, I can say that the life I now live is an entirely different life.  It is the old I (sinful, rebellious, guilty life) that lives no longer.  It is the new “I” (justified and free from condemnation) who lives by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me [Stott, 332-33].

Paul is expressing one the most difficult concepts of Christian life: the grace of God.  Why would God come to earth to live among us?  Why would God take my punishment for my sinful life?  Do I deserve this?  What can I do to repay Him?  I can’t live the sinless life of Jesus.  What am I to do?

Be thankful.

God loves us.  He gives us all a chance for a better life in His actions.  Take His sacrifice and use it.  Try to tap into the Holy Spirit and live a better life.  Believe.  Accept Him into your life.  Let the Holy Spirit guide you.  Know that God understands you and He understands me, that we are human [with a sin nature] but He loves us anyway.  We don’t have to live or die by the Judaic law, for Jesus has come to save us. His sacrifice supersedes The Law.  If we attempt to attain righteousness through the law, we will surely fail.  The law condemns.  Justification by faith in God and His Son Jesus magnifies the  grace of God, declaring that we are saved by His grace alone.

Be thankful.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” [John 3: 16].

He gives us all a chance…

“Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever.”   [Galatians 1: 3-5].

These verses constitute the beginning of John Stott’s conclusion for his book The Cross of Christ.  He summarizes all the main points of his previous thirteen chapters and then he focuses on Galatians.

Why?  What is so special about Paul’s letter written to the church at Galatia around 48 A.D.?

First of all, it was Paul’s “first letter” written just fifteen years after the death and resurrection of Jesus so that it was not far removed from Jesus’ actual time on earth.  Secondly, Stott feels that the letter focuses on the cross.  Add to this, Paul feels the gospel message in these scriptures is coming from God and not Paul. Stott refers to the Letter to the Galatians as the “seven affirmations” and he feels there is no more fitting way to conclude his book.

When one considers the “seven,” Stott feels “we have an amazingly comprehensive grasp of the pervasive nature of the cross.”

Let’s upack Galatians 1: 3-5.

“Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins.”  The first words may just be thought of as words of introduction and salutation but Stott says Paul is doing more in this letter.  He is setting up the readers for what he is really going to say. 

The death of Jesus was both voluntary and determined.  What does this mean?  Jesus went to the cross with a sense of free will.  He volunteered for the punishment, but was it a total voluntary process?  Students of Scripture point to Isaiah and say that His end was foretold.  The Garden of Gethsemane moment when He said “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from Me: nevertheless not My will, but thine be done.”  Jesus accepted His predetermined fate and He went forward with it.  We must remember that He was a man in the Garden, well aware of the pain and suffering which lay before Him.  He had great courage, given to Him by His Father.

The death of Jesus was for our sins.  That in itself is unusual because the sinner is usually the one who dies for the sinning.  In this case the sinless was sacrificed for sinful man.  He took our penalty in our place.

The purpose of Jesus’ death was to rescue us.  Stott calls this rescue “out of the present evil age.”  What this means is that Jesus ushered in a new age, a new relationship, a new covenant that we might live the new life that God intends for us to live.  The Old Covenant is finished, “Behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent.”  Jesus came for us to have new life.

The present result of Jesus’ death is grace and peace.  Grace is God’s unmerited favor.  Do we deserve to have our sins forgiven?  No.  God forgives anyhow.  Will we continue on with our “badness?”  Yes.  God forgives us anyhow, knowing that we are all flawed, weak individuals prone to temptation, prone to fall, again and again.  Our only hope is to learn from the process of life, learn from the failure, learn from the recovery from sin.  “For the call of God is a call of grace, and the Gospel of God is the Gospel of grace” [Stott, 331].

The eternal result of Jesus’ death is that God will be glorified forever.   “Grace comes from God; glory is due to God” [331].  If there is an ongoing lesson I am learning as a Christian it is this: what we accomplish in this life it is due to the power of God.   When we experience freedom from sin, we should give the glory to God.  When we do a good work, we should do it in His name.  When we have peace in this life, we should give credit where credit is due; give it to God.  Too often I am tempted to give myself credit, but that is folly.  I revert to going my own way.  My independent behavior and weakness are symptomatic of my sinful Adamic nature.  I need to recognize that God has given me the power to do what I can do, give me the wisdom to make good decisions and the peace to deal with the ebb and flow of life.   

I owe it all to Him.*

*The next post will elaborate on Galatian 2:19-21 as I continue with Stott’s “Seven Affirmations” in Galatians.

For years I have had such high regard for John Stott.  I discovered his writing many, many years ago when I most needed him.  I was a “baby” Christian when I picked my used copy of Basic Christianity off my book shelf.   When I originally bought the book I was just a curious learner, collecting books I thought looked interesting.  I was not a born-again Christian. Basic just sat on the shelf, waiting for me to open it, read it and be inspired by it.  When I finally did read it, it had answers for many of my questions.  I knew I had “found” Jesus but I was unsure about what a life in Christ entailed.  When I began to read Stott’s book, I did not know I was reading the words of a world renowned preacher.  I did know that for me he was a world-class teacher of Christianity. He gave me answers.

When I began this blog on December 30, 2014 I knew I wanted to discuss “Christian living literature.”  I began with simple books and I wrote every day on St. John Studies.  I soon began to see that was unsatisfying, short simple discussions, undeveloped.  I gravitated to more complex books and more lengthy discussions.  I quit trying to contribute to my blog every day.  I found it better to study sections of more complex books and write after several days of thought and careful preparation.  I had bloggers tell me that over a thousand words is hard, that audiences did not want to read that much, but a thousand plus words worked for me.  I could write that much fairly easily at least on a weekly basis.   I began working with more complex authors like Dallas Willard, W. Bingham Hunter, J.I. Packer and then John Stott.  With Stott, not only was he complex, but he meant so much to me.  I started his magnum opus on October 25, 2020 and when I began to work with it, I could see that I was in above me head theologically.  After all, on the dust jacket is says: “The work of a lifetime, from one ot the world’s most influential thinkers, about the heart of the Christian faith.  I thought it would be good to mix in early Stott with magnum opus Stott so I began a discussion of Basic Christianity on December 7, 2020. 

It has been a long journey to get to the end, but I am there.

I finished my comments on Basic on October 6, 2022.  I continued on with Chapter 13 of The Cross on October 15, completing this last chapter on November 27^th.

A lot has happened in my life these past two months to make me a very irregular writer.  First of all, my mother [who is 92] has become a serious fall risk, reaching the stage of life where she is feeble and unable to live independently.  This process really began in February 2022 when she began a series of very upsetting illnesses requiring that I participate in living in her home at least a day or two or three every week.  That and other things were what my family did to keep her in her home but it became clear that was not working.   She was not happy, very anxious and fearful even in her own home.  Professional sitters were not an option due to lack of availability and cost.  She fell in her kitchen, breaking some ribs and had to spend a week in the hospital.  After recovering from that, she fell again asking to be taken to the hospital where she received a professional evaluation regarding her ability to be mobile.

Mom has always railed against nursing homes, despite paying thousands of dollars for a long-term care policy, so we were praying the evaluation would not be nursing facility.  The recommendation was “assisted living” which meant a lot of work moving her from her home, downsizing and placing her in an assisted living facility near my home.  It sounded good because she would be safe and she had a chance to live a good life with people her own age.   My family moved her on November 8, 2022.   We moved her body, but we could not move her heart.  She longed to go home, even though we were told to allow her to live alone would be neglect on our part with her in her feeble condition. 

In her new home, she has fought the fight to return to her home, much to her detriment.  I have never seen anyone fight so hard not to change.  On top of this, she is still having “upsetting illnesses” that make transitioning even harder.  The illness got so bad I had to hospitalize her on November 27^th and tend to her needs in the hospital for five days.  When the hospital released her, I took her back to her assisted living apartment only to find my frequent visits to the hospital exposed me to Covid -19.  Others would have to step in and take care of Mom for at least the 10 day quarantine period.

I write all this to explain my absence from St. John Studies recently.  Life has not been the same since February but lately it has been very upset.

My apologies.  I give you reasons for my absence, not excuses.

When I began this project on October 25, 2022, I had no idea that it would take so long.  At times, my editor, my wife has begged me to “get through with this book!”.   I have put a few posters up at church and it is featured on the led marquee out front.  I am sure that anyone who notices suspects I have been blogging on The Cross of Christ for years.

But I am on the chapter entitled “Conclusion: The Pervasive Influence of the Cross” and I am going to finish commenting on the book. 

Like my Mother’s stubbornness to have what she should not have, I have a deep-seated need to persevere in my completion of my discussion.   When everything is going our way it is easy to demonstrate discipline.  When we encounter those times when we struggle against formidable odds to get our work done is when perseverance becomes so important.  I know I will complete my blog on Stott and even though it will be hard, I will transition to another book.  I have faith in God’s timing, I have faith in His omnipotence and I have faith in His love. 

Life does not unfold in “lock-step” manner.  Thursday was my normal publishing day and when it rolls around and you are leading some “normal” life, you rip off 1,000 words.  You find yourself delivering medicine to a loved one, sitting in a hospital trying to cheer someone up or making an effort to get out of bed when your body is wracked by Covid fatigue and those 1,000 words get pushed to the “back burner” for more pressing matters. 

I will post my closing thoughts on Stott’s conclusion soon and I promise you they will be reflective of his work and reflective of my interpretation of his work. 

I know I will finish for, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” [Phillipians, 4:13].

On October 15 I began my discussion of the last chapter of John Stott’s The Cross of Christ.

In that post I quoted Stott regarding human suffering: “The fact of suffering constitutes the single greatest challenge to the Christian faith….Its distribution and degree appear to be entirely random and therefore unfair.  Sensitive spirits ask if it can possibly be reconciled with God’s justice and love” [Stott, 303].

Since October 15, Stott has explored the idea of patient endurance, maturity through suffering, suffering service, the hope of glory and the suffering of God’s servant Job.* 

Now we come to the last and “most sublime” manner in which the suffering of Christ relates to human suffering.  God suffers right along with us.  Our pain is His.  We are totally connected to God in our suffering and He is totally connected to us.

I find it interesting that Stott begins the discussion of his “most sublime” connection with the theological idea of impassibility.  Stott has taught me so much as I have plowed through his book but here is a new term and a new discussion in his last chapter.  Impassibility means that some theologians do not relate human suffering to Divine suffering at all.  God is indifferent to human pain.  “We picture Him lounging, perhaps dozing, in some celestial deck chair, while the hungry millions starve to death.  We think of Him as an armchair spectator, almost gloating over the world’s suffering, and enjoying His own insulation from it” [320]. 

How could they think this?  What reasoning has led to this conclusion?  Stott says it goes back to ancient church fathers who wished to safeguard the truth that God is perfect, nothing can add to or subtract from Him.  He cannot be influenced from the outside or the inside, meaning that He is the Creator of this world and “is never ‘passive’ in the sense of having things happen to Him except with His consent; also He is constant, and free from gusts of feeling carrying Him this way and that.”**  In accordance with these ideas, their view is that God is “impassible” or incapable of suffering.  The very idea that God could suffer along with man somehow diminishes the Divine nature of God.

Stott admits that human suffering is not is short supply.  One merely needs to turn to the daily news and see that suffering rains down on believer and unbeliever alike, but He needs a couple of particular examples that catch attention.  He picks hunger and poverty on a global scale and the Nazi holocaust [the murder of six million Jews].

I have “seen” poverty in my lifetime but I have never experienced it firsthand.  My parents gave me a good home, nice clothing and plenty of good food to eat but I have driven through pockets of poverty in my community.  I have been in impoverished homes and I have seen large-scale poverty in Colombia South America.   I have seen the hillside slums of Bogota known as Ciudad Bolivar where 700,000 people live in the city’s highest density of poverty.  When I visited Bogota, my host would not drive in that part of the city, either from shame or fear of harm.

What I am saying is that I cannot relate to the concept of poverty but if I was impoverished, I would wonder why God allowed such conditions to exist.  Can God relate to poverty?  Stott tells the story of a poor man who climbs from the slums of Rio which are called favelas.  Like in Bogota, these slums are on the hillside overlooking Rio.  A difference is the ninety-eight foot tall statue of Christ the Redeemer with His arms stretched out ninety-two feet.  He is overlooking the Rio favelas.  The poor man climbs 2,310 feet up to the statue and speaks: “I have climbed up to you, Christ, from the filthy, confined quarters down there, to put before you, most respectfully, these considerations:  there are 900,000 of us down there in the slums of this splendid city….And you, Christ, …do you remain here at Corcovado surrounded by Divine glory?….Don’t stay away from us; live among us and give us new faith in you and in the Father.”***

What would Christ say in response to such a request?  Stott writes that Christ would say, “I did come down to live among you, and I live among you still” [324].

What about the Holocaust, the horrific extermination of six million Jews, God’s own people?  For many (Stott writes) after the Holocaust, they found it impossible to believe in God.  I can’t imagine the suffering of concentration camps: Stott uses words like bestiality.  I have seen the pictures of stacked, emaciated corpses of men, women and children.  I have watched “Schindler’s List” but there is mental distancing that occurs; I can’t really understand the situation because I was not there.  I don’t really want to understand because it was too horrible.  I know I could not bear it.  I can only imagine the fervent prayers that God’s Chosen People prayed from those camps and time after time those prayers seemed to remain unanswered.   Elie Wiesel was cited as an example of a Jew who entered a camp as a Jew and left the camp as a Christian.  He witnessed a young boy who was tortured by guards and then they hanged him for all to see.  Thousands of prisoners were ordered to march by the child; in death he had a beautiful and “refined” face.   Wiesel heard a fellow prisoner whisper “Where is God?  Where is He?”  After viewing the boy, that same prisoner changed his comment: “Here He is—He is hanging here on the gallows.”

Stott says that there is ample Biblical evidence that God suffers right along with His people.  As we are entering the Advent season, it is appropriate that we consider the complete and serious meaning of Emmanuel [God with us]. 

God’s sympathy is not limited to the suffering of His Covenant people.  He says when we give food to the hungry and thirsty, clothe the naked, tend to the sick and minster to the prisoners we are ministering to Him.

Stott cites theologian H. Wheeler Robinson who says the best way to confront the notion of impassibility is to ask “what meaning there can be in love which is not costly to the lover.”  Jurgen Moltmann writes “were God incapable of suffering…, then He would also be incapable of love,” whereas “the one who is capable of love is also capable of suffering which is involved in love.”  Deitrich Bonhoeffer [who died at the hands of the Nazis] writes that “only the Suffering God can help.”

Impassibility is a new concept for me, but I (like Stott) don’t feel it describes my God.

Let me close this post with Stott’s words about His God.  “ I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in Godforsaken darkness.  That is God for me!  He laid aside His immunity to pain.  He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death.  He suffered for us.  Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of His.****

*Discussion of all these ideas occur on St. John Studies October 20, October 29, November 5, November 12 and November 19.

**from William Temple, Christus Veritas.

***from Walbert Buhlmann, The Coming of the Third Church.

****underlining mine.

As I finish discussing John Stott’s connection between the sufferings of Jesus on the cross to our suffering [Chapter 13 in The Cross of Christ], I am not surprised that number five of his final six examples of connection is the Bible character Job.  Job is an innocent man whose life has been turned upside down.  He has had many blessings from God.  He has a large family, is incredibly wealthy and he has enjoyed God’s protection in his life.

However, the devil has observed Job and the devil did not understand this man’s faith in God.  He felt that Job loved God because it was profitable; in other words, his faith in God was self-serving.  But The Lord knew differently ;  He declares, “There is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil” (Job 1:8; 2:3).  God is really declaring that Job loves Him with or without his excellent life.

Some have always felt this story is an example of God betting with the devil that Job would be “true” in his faith, but Stott reveals that Job’s story is much more than a Divine wager.  Stott feels God explains the attitude of self-surrender in the story of Job and His suffering, an explanation of how Christ’s suffering relates to our suffering.

Certainly Job suffers, having to bear the grief of seven dead sons and three dead daughters.  All of his wealth vanishes in a single afternoon.  He is loathsome to his wife, his brothers and even the little children of his community as he loses his health and began to lie on an ash heap outside of his town.

At this point, the devil figures that all the good things Job enjoys are gone; now he is going to turn his back on God. Obviously some see Job as a prime example of persevering faith.  He is surrounded by doubters.  His own wife tells him to curse God and go ahead and die.  To be honest, Job is not perfect in his perseverance.  He does feel self-pity.  He feels God is being cruel to him and even ruthless in his suffering.  Job sees his situation as a “contest” between himself and God.  He thinks the matchup is so unfair that Job even calls for a mediator.  He feels God has acted against him in an unjust way and Stott writes “if only he [Job] could find God, in order to personally press charges against Him! Meanwhile he vehemently maintains his innocence and is confident that one day he will be vindicated” [318].

With Job’s older friends, the response is very different.  They feel Job is suffering because he is sinful.  “His afflictions are the divine penalty for his misdeeds” [318].  This is conventional orthodoxy about suffering but Job is having none of it.  Job calls his friends “worthless physicians” and “miserable comforters” who talk nothing but nonsense and falsehoods.  Job silences his friends by showing that there is no connection in this world between righteous living and prosperity or between wicked living and suffering.  In essence, the righteous often suffer more than the wicked and the wicked often prosper more than the righteous.

When Job’s younger friend Elihu counsels Job, he continues the old orthodoxy that Job has brought his situation upon himself, but he does take his explanation further.  He feels Job’s suffering is God telling Job to discipline himself.  God is speaking to Job, telling him “to turn from wrongdoing and keep away from pride.”  Elihu feels that God speaks through human affliction; a form of “wooing” and people who suffer should repent and deliver themselves from their own distress.

Finally, after his older “comforters” speak and then Elihu, Yahweh reveals Himself and speaks.  Stott calls God’s recommendation “self-surrender.”  He takes issue with Job’s attitude of blaming Him [“Would you discredit my justice?”].  When Job sees God, he switches from self-pity and assertion of injustice  to despising himself and worshipping God.  How does this happen?  Stott says that it is the result of “glimpsing the glory of the creator.”  God controls snow, storms and the stars.  God supervises the animal world.  He gives Job a revelation of His creative genius, and convinces Job that he needs to repent of his rebellion and trust God in all things, even his suffering. 

If it is reasonable for Job to trust the God whose wisdom and power have been revealed in creation, is it not even more reasonable for us to trust the God whose love and justice have been revealed to us on the cross?  Stott writes “no one is more trustworthy than the God of the cross.  The cross assures us that there is no possibility of a miscarriage of justice or of the defeat of love either now or on the last day” [Stott, 320].   Stott turns to Romans 8:32: “He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all—how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things.”  What does Job need to do?  Trust in God.  What do we need to do?  Trust in God. 

The cross does not solve the problem we all have when we suffer; we don’t like it.  But it does offer a unique perspective on suffering.  God is in control even in times of suffering; we are not.  We need to look at the evidence of the cross.  God demonstrates His holy love by sacrificing His only Son. 

Let us accept that and no matter what we are going through…

let’s trust Him.

We don’t have to have all the answers, the explanations, the justifications.  God calls us to surrender to His will.

When Job sees the awesome power of God, he suddenly becomes silent in the midst of his suffering, he becomes humble , he repents and he trusts.

And God takes care of him.

God restores his health and his fortune, blessing the latter days of Job more than his beginning; “for he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys. He had seven sons and three daughters. In all the land there were found no women so fair as the daughters of Job; and their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers. After this, Job lived 140 years, and saw his sons and his grandsons, four generations. So Job died, an old man and full of days” [from Job 42].

The lesson of Job is to believe in God, that we must trust that what He is doing is right and good, repent of our questioning of God’s motives and be satisfied that the Holy Will of God is being done and He is in control      

 and no matter what…remember…

He loves us.

As I finish commenting on Chapter 13 of The Cross of Christ, I am faced with having to explain the fourth way that Christ’s suffering relates to ordinary human suffering.  John Stott is ending his book trying to answer the question “How does the cross speak to us in our pain?”  He presents six possible answers for this question, from the simplest to the most sublime. 

So far we have explored patient endurance [October 20], mature holiness [October 29], and suffering service [November 5].*   Now we have to consider the hope of glory.

The hope of glory is based on having faith in the future, that as we end our lives, we will be glorified in heaven.  In my past I remember studying historical examples of people who suffered mightily on this earth.  For example, medieval life was tough, especially for ordinary people [peasants] who lived under the harsh rule in the feudal system.  I recall their focus on their reward in heaven because life on earth was so full of suffering.   I studied American history and one of the darkest blots on our past was human slavery.  Slaves suffered so much in their life that religion played a huge part and the focus often mentioned was the hope of glory [heavenly reward].  I recall the expression “vale of tears” which describes the trials and tribulations of life and how when the Christian passes from this world, trials and tribulations are left behind for the reward of a life with The Father.  We literally leave this “vale of tears.”

This attitude is hard for many to understand because it hinges on our practicing delayed gratification.  It also hinges on the belief that Jesus actually looked beyond His death to His resurrection.  As He suffered before going to the cross and as He suffered on the cross, He was sustained by “the joy set before Him” [Hebrews 12: 2].

How this relates to believers is that Stott explains that Jesus expected his followers to have that same attitude toward life.  It is a fact that all of us suffer from time to time but how do we bear up under the suffering?  Do we really think that the suffering will end with our death and our resurrection?   Also in Scripture, it is a major theme that everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted [Stott, 314].  Jesus felt that believers are not supposed to be spectators in His suffering; they are supposed to be participants.  The “world” does not understand the Christian way of life and that leads to persecution of various sorts.  

The hope of glory is what makes all this suffering bearable.

Stott comments: “Our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us, ‘because’ our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” [Stott 314].

What is this eternal glory?  What is this eternal goal?  What is our ultimate destiny?  “It is that we may ‘be conformed to the likeness of His son’”.

Before we go too far with this, this glory, goal or destiny is not a prize that we can work toward.  This is not a situation where we can work our way to heaven although many Christians have that mentality.  We are all sinners and we may parse the role of our sinning in our suffering all day long, but we must rely on the grace of God and Jesus’ sacrifice for us to get to heaven.  We are saved by faith and the resurrection of Christ.  Upon death, the spirits of Christians go to heaven while the spirits of unbelievers go to a holding place called hell.  At final judgement we are separated from God for eternity if God does not extend His grace to us and forgive our sins. 

So as Stott says, it is not a “no pain, no palm” or “no cross, no crown” situation.  Our only reward is that Christ be recreated in us.  One way that this recreation can occur is through our own suffering. “We shall be like him, for we shall see Him as He is” [Ephesians 1: 4].

How many of you are reading this saying I don’t want God to change me if it means I am going to have to endure pain!  C.S. Lewis comments “We may wish indeed that we were of so little account to God that He left us alone to follow our natural impulses—that He would give our trying to train us into something so unlike our natural selves: but once again we are asking not for more love but for less….To ask that God’s love should be content with us as we are is to ask that God should cease to be God.” [from C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain].

Stott expresses this dilemma best in the following words:  “Things look different when the horizon closes in on us, a horror of great darkness engulfs us, and no glimmer of light shines to assure us that suffering can yet be productive.  At such times we can only cling to the cross,

where Christ himself demonstrated that blessing comes through suffering” [317-18].**

*See blog posts on St. John Studies for those topics on those dates.

**bold print and underlining mine.

“The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” [John 12: 25]. 

This Biblical scripture has always confused me.  Why would anyone who loves their life lose their life?   Why would a man who hates his life keep it eternally?  It has always seemed to me to be some esoteric idea that is from a culture that is nothing like America or from a religion that is nothing like Christianity.   But I have never taken the time to read the scripture in the context of Jesus’ suffering or considered that the verses referred to Jesus as the “suffering servant”.   After many years of being confused, I think I finally have a better idea of what this scripture means.  John Stott’s Chapter 13 “Suffering and Glory” from The Cross of Christ concentrates on these verses and they finally make more sense to me.

My perplexity stems from the first sentence, “The man who loves his life will lose it.”  That sounds so extreme and I always assumed that it refers to making the ultimate sacrifice of dying for God but I should have read further and should have carefully considered the importance of the second verse.  Giving up one’s life for a cause is strange enough for someone from a western culture, but if one loves their life and loses their life that makes it even harder.  “The man who hates his life in this world adds new meaning to the first sentence.  Why would someone hate their life in this world?  Maybe the answer resides in the fact that they are merely passing through this world, on the way to their eternal home—God’s kingdom.  Real life occurs after this earthly life is over.

Jesus was (of course) the perfect model of suffering service.  He was chosen by God to show the power of gentleness, meekness and love for His fellow man.  When He was beaten, He did not retaliate.  When His beard was pulled out, He did not complain.  When He was spat upon, He did not react.  He had a mission and that was to bring Israel back to God and provide a light to all nations. 

Stott explains “What is particularly striking in this composite picture is that suffering and service, passion and mission belong together…. We see this clearly in Jesus, who is the suffering servant par excellence, but we need to remember that the servant’s mission to bring light to the nations is also to be fulfilled by the church” [Stott, 312].  Jesus’ mission is now our mission.   “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” [Matthew 28:19-20].

I find it very interesting that Stott focuses on Jesus’s agricultural metaphors to express his main point.   “Death is more than the way to life; it is the secret of fruitfulness.  Unless it falls into the ground and dies, the kernel of wheat remains a single seed.  If it stays alive, it stays alone but if it dies it multiplies” [Stott, 312]. 

When Jesus speaks of God being glorified in His death, He was not only speaking of Himself.  He wanted to communicate this concept to His disciples who followed Him and would also lose their lives for God.  But Jesus intended for all followers to understand this message. 

Stott admits that the role of the suffering servant is hardly ever taught today so maybe I am not alone in my confusion.   Stott writes that other ideas are more common.  For example, a preacher can experience death of popularity because they may be preaching an unpopular Biblical gospel.  A devout follower of Christ can experience death of pride due to the Holy Spirit encouraging them to be modest instead of self-centered.   Furthermore, God may inspire believers to forego material comfort in favor of a simple lifestyle. 

Even in these less severe examples, the servant must suffer some loss in order to bring light to others.  The seed must die if it is to multiply.

The idea of the suffering servant is the third way the cross relates to human suffering after patient endurance [October 20, 2022 St. John Studies] and maturity through suffering [October 29, 2022 St. John Studies].  Stott “pulls no punches” as he takes us through six possible answers about how God’s glory is displayed through Jesus’ suffering.  He describes the answers rising “gradually from the simplest to the most sublime.” 

Suffering service may not be the most “sublime” answer but it may be the most foreign to our culture. 

“The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to Myself” [John 12: 32].

If we follow Jesus, we know our best life will never be experienced in this world.  Even if we love our earthly lives, we should want to lose them because our best life is in heaven with God.  If we hate our life in this world, we know that a future life with God is our ultimate goal, our ultimate best life.  Why would we want to stay in this world and miss our best life?

Jesus suffers and the world is drawn to the light of His suffering …

As we consider Chapter 13 of John Stott’s Cross of Christ we find ourselves confronted by what he calls “the single greatest challenge to the Christian faith.”  That is the idea that the world [a world created and ruled by God] has suffering. He writes “how does the cross speak to us in our pain?”

In this post, I will comment on the idea of patient endurance.  Stott covers six possible answers to the question of pain and suffering in His world.  Patient endurance is what Stott calls “the simplest.”

We will see…

First of all, I find it interesting that Stott declares suffering as evil and “it should be resisted” but as we all know, there come times in life when we have to accept it because it happens.  The key is how we accept it. 

With patient endurance…

What is the source of our suffering?  Is it the result of some painful accident?  Is it caused by a disease?  Are we in the wrong place at the wrong time when nature destroys our home and livelihood [e.g. the recent hurricane Ian]. 

The Bible has a lot to say on suffering:  “We rejoice in our suffering, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character and character produces hope” [Romans, 3-4].  James 1: 12 says “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.”  Then we have Romans 15: 4-5 that says, “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

Another word for patient endurance is “longsuffering.”  God is patient with us.  We are to be patient with others.  “Through our trials and tribulations, we must be long-suffering.  We must keep our eyes on the Lord and not grow faint”  [Ephesians 4: 1-3 and 1 Thessalonians 5: 14].

All this sounds challenging and it is.  Where do we look for instruction in patient endurance?

We look to none other than Jesus Christ.    From First Peter 2:18-25 we read the following words about slaves and harsh masters:  “Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh. For it is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because they are conscious of God. But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps.  He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in His mouth.  When they hurled their insults at Him, He did not retaliate; when He suffered, He made no threats. Instead, He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly. He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by His wounds you have been healed.   For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.”

What are we to do when confronted with suffering?  Like Christ on the cross, we endure it.  Why, because it is pleasing to God.  Why, because enduring suffering is a good thing to do and it produces character.  We know we live in a world that does not promote this attitude.   When we suffer, we complain.  When we suffer, we lash out at others.  When we suffer we try to make others suffer with us. 

What did Jesus do when He went to His death for crimes that He did not commit?  He never retaliated.  Could He have used His heavenly power to change the situation in His favor?  Of course He could, but He chose not to do that .

We are encouraged to fix our eyes upon Jesus for He endured the cross, despite how horrific the method of punishment was.   Stott writes that “Christians in every generation have gained from the sufferings of Jesus, which culminated in the cross, the inspiration to bear undeserved pain patiently, without ever complaining or hitting back” [Stott, 307].

What is the value of all this?

Part of the value resides in people who see us suffer and bear up under the pain.  I have a dear friend who is in the last days of her fight with cancer. Recently hospice was called in to assist her needs and I thought surely she would accept some pain medication and spend more time in bed.  In a recent visit, she revealed that the pain meds dulled her mind and she did not want that and she preferred to be up and around in her home as long as she could.  When I drove to her home for a visit, my wife and I found he at the end of her carport where she greeted us.

What is happening?  Her faith is witnessing to others.   She is being strengthened in her time of need.  She is steadfast in her faith, enduring her trouble with God.  Philippians 4:13 comes to mind: “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”  Where is her strength coming from?  God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are working in her and as she patiently endures, she is giving God the glory.  I think of her and recall Colossians 1: 11 “May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy.” 

A visit to her is amazing as she does not focus on her troubles but continually asks about visitor concerns.  A visit to her is also amazing as she “cracks” jokes; when she was in my Sunday school class, we could count on two or three during a class session.  She is still telling jokes in the midst of her suffering. 

John Stott may label patient endurance the simplest answer for how Christ’s suffering relates to ours but let me tell you, to see it modeled first hand is an amazement. 

I have had my moments of suffering but I did not bear up under it as well as my friend with cancer. 

When her last hour will come she will surely be able to take solace in James 1: 12:  “Blessed is the man (or woman) who remains steadfast under trial, for when he/she has stood the test he/she will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love Him.”