Suffering with Christ in hope

I finally feel up to thinking and writing.  I have been a healthy person for most of my life.  The thought of being sick like I've been this past week for the next six months or longer is not a very pleasant thought.  In the midst of the physical pain and discomfort of the past 3 days I've been reflecting on what Romans 8:17 really means when you are actually in the midst of suffering.  To remind you, it reads (ESV), "...and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him."  So when you are laying on a "bed of pain", too weak to move, to sick to care, what does it mean to "suffer with him"?

First, it means that you suffer in hope.  Clearly that is the point that Paul aims to make in the verses that follow.  Verse 18 declares the hope we have: our present sufferings cannot be compared to the glory to be revealed to us.  Verse 19 says the entire creation is eagerly longing for that final glory when all those who belong to Christ will be made fully visible to the naked eye at the resurrection from the dead.  Right now it is not always clear who are those who are truly trusting in Christ.  No one can see those who are now dead.  But one day, all of God's people will be raised out of the dead, just as was our great Savior and we will be recognized as the redeemed children of God by the entire creation.

Verse 20 tells us that the reason the creation is waiting for that day is because when Adam and Eve sinned the entire creation was subjected to fuility by God "in hope."  God knew on the day he cursed the universe that one day he would restore that universe by the work of the eternal Son of God who became man.  Then Paul uses the metaphor of labor and birth to describe both how creation groans and how we groan.  Like a woman in labor who is full of pain, yet full of hope as she knows the baby is about to be born so we are full of pain but know that the pain has a purpose.  There is a "birth" coming to all those who trust in Christ and to the entire creation when Jesus returns.

As v. 23 says we "wait eagerly our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies."  In 8:15-17 Paul says that we have already received the "Spirit of adoption as sons", that we already belong to the family of God, so how can he say here we are waiting to receive our adoption?  Many of us know a family who has adopted a child out of an orphange in a foreign country.  The process is long and often grueling.  In some of the cases I have heard of there is sometimes a period of time after the decision has been made and the child is legally adopted prior to the new parents being able to pick up the child and bring her home.  The child will have received the news of the adoption and had gifts given to it and knows that soon, she will be leaving the orphange and going to live in her new home.  That is the sort of situation we are in.  We have been legally adopted and made God's children but we are waiting for our elder brother, the Lord Jesus, to come get us and take us home.  We are still in the orphanage but we know we soon will leave.

That is exacltly where Paul goes in his argument.  In v. 24 he says, "For in this hope we were saved.  Now hope that is seen is not hope.  For who hopes for what he sees?  But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience."  Hope, in the Bible, is not a wish.  Rather we have a confident, eager expectation that we will one day be raised out of the dead.  Our hope is grounded in the actuaal, historical person and work of Jesus.  He truly did live upon this earth.  He did die upon that Roman cross and most importantly, he was raised from the dead and has now ascended to his Father's right hand where he waits to return for us.  We are not yet living in the new heavens and the new earth with our resurrected Savior with new, eternal bodies which will never die.  We are confident and eagerly waiting for that day, but we are not there yet.  Thus while we lay in the "bed of pain" we remember and in our hearts rejoice in the fact that this is temporary and we will soon be home and we won't even remember the pain in the midst of the overwhelming joy.

We don't grow discouraged.  We don't wonder if God has abandoned us.  We remember that it is because of what Jesus did for us that we have a sure and certain future.  We are like the woman in labor who knows the pain is leading to the birth and then the pain will end and the joy will come.  There is an end to the pain and O what a day that will be!!  We will wait with patience, just like our Lord waited for 33 years to be delivered from the miseries of this world through the torture of hell for us.  There is more in Romans 8 about how to suffer with Christ, but I'll save that for another day.