‘Because to you it has been granted on the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer on his behalf, having the same conflict which you saw in me, and now hear to be in me.'
One evidence of the certainty of their salvation was that it had been ‘granted' to them that they should believe on Christ and suffer for Christ. This belief and suffering are thus seen as being a privilege and a gift from God (compare the ‘gift of repentance' given to believing Israel - Acts 5:31). It is a reminder that testing and trial is a part of the Christian life, and is indeed a means by which Christians are morally transformed, and experience the love of God shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Spirit Who is given to them (Romans 5:2-5; compare James 1:2-12; Hebrews 12:3-12). It is here described as aligning them with Paul who, as they would know, had suffered for Christ in the past at the hands of lawless men, and was at this time, as they had now heard, suffering for Christ. They were therefore to see themselves as privileged to be experiencing the same conflict against evil and Satan and wicked men as he was. Note how suffering for Christ in one way or another is to be seen as very much a mark of those who have been truly saved.