For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation aboundeth by Christ.
The sufferings and the consolation
Our cross is not the same as Christ’s, yet we have a cross. Our sufferings are not the same as Christ’s, yet we have sufferings. The cross is like Christ’s, and the sufferings are like His, but yet not the same in kind or object. Yea there is a wide difference; for our trials have nothing to do with expiation. The meaning and use of trims.
I. It shows god to be in earnest with us. He does not let us alone. He takes great pains with our spiritual education and training. He is no careless Father.
II. It assures us of his love. “As many as I love I rebuke and chasten.”
III. It draws prayer to us.
IV. it knits us in sympathy to the whole body.
V. It teaches us sympathy with brethren.
VI. It brings us into a mood more receptive of blessing. It softens our hearts.
VII. It makes us prize the word. The Bible assumes a new aspect to us. All else darkens; but it brightens.
VIII. It shuts out the world. It all at once draws a curtain round us, and the world becomes invisible.
IX. It bids us look up. Set your affection on things above.
X. It turns our hope to the lord’s great coming. (A. Bonar.)
Consolations of the sufferings of Christ
The quality and extent of suffering depends not so much on the exciting causes of it as upon the nature of the faculty which suffers. It is the power of suffering that is inherent in any faculty that measures suffering, and not the magnitude of the aggression which is made outwardly. For there are many who will stand up and have their name battered, as if they were but a target, almost without suffering, while there are others to whom the slightest disparagement is like a poisoned arrow, and rankles with exquisite suffering. A stroke of a pound weight upon a bell two inches in diameter will give forth a certain amount of sound. Let the bell be of one hundred pounds weight, and the same stroke of one pound will more than quadruple the amount of aerial vibration. Let the bell be increased to a thousand pounds, and the same stroke will make the reverberations vaster, and cause them to roll yet further. Let it be a five or ten thousand pound weight bell, and that same stroke that made a tinkling on the small bell makes a roar on this large one. The very same quality that being struck in a small being produces a certain amount of susceptibility, being struck in a being that is infinite, produces an infinitely greater experience, for feeling increases in the ratio of being. The same suffering in a great nature is a thousandfold greater than it is in a small nature, because there is the vibration, as it were, of a mind so much greater given to the suffering. The chord in our souls is short and stubborn. The chord in the Divine soul is infinite; and its vibrations are immeasurably beyond any experience of our own. Sorrow in us is of the same kind as sorrow in Christ, and yet, as compared with the sorrow of Christ, human sorrow is but a mere puff. (H. W. Beecher.)
Consolation proportionate to spiritual sufferings
I. The sufferings to be expected.
1. Before we buckle on the Christian armour we ought to know what that service is which is expected of us. A recruiting sergeant often slips a shilling into the hand of some ignorant youth, and tells him that Her Majesty’s service is a fine thing, that he has nothing to do but walk about in his flaming colours, and go straight on to glory. But the Christian sergeant never deceives like that. Christ Himself said, “Count the cost.” He wished to have no disciple who was not prepared “to bear hardness as a good soldier.”
2. But why must the Christian expect trouble?
(1) Look upward. Thinkest thou it will be an easy thing for thy heart to become as pure as God is? Ask those bright spirits clad in white whence their victory came. Some of them will tell you they swam through seas of blood.
(2) Turn thine eyes downward. Satan will always be at thee, for thine enemy, “like a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour.”
(3) Look around thee. Thou art in an enemy’s country.
(4) Look within thee. There is a little world in here, which is quite enough to give us trouble. Sin is there and self and unbelief.
II. The distinction to be noticed. Our sufferings are said to be the sufferings of Christ. Now, suffering itself is not an evidence of Christianity. There are many people who have troubles who are not children of God. A man is dishonest, and is put in jail for it; a man is a coward, and men hiss at him for it; a man is insincere, and therefore persons avoid him. Yet he says he is persecuted. Not at all; it serves him right. Take heed that your sufferings are the sufferings of Christ. It is only then that we may take comfort. What is meant by this? As Christ, the head, had a certain amount of suffering to endure, so the body must also have a certain weight laid upon it. Ours are the sufferings of Christ if we suffer for Christ’s sake. If you are called to endure hardness for the sake of the truth, then those are the sufferings of Christ. And this ennobles us and makes us happy. It must have been some honour to the old soldier who stood by the Iron Duke in his battles to be able to say, “We fight under the good old Duke, who has won so many battles, and when he wins, part of the honour will be ours.” I remember a story of a great commander who led his troops into a defile, and when there a large body of the enemy entirely surrounded him. He knew a battle was inevitable on the morning, he therefore went round to hear in what condition his soldiers’ minds were. He came to one tent, and as he listened he heard a man say, “Our general is very brave, but he is very unwise this time; he has led us into a place where we are sure to be beaten; there are so many of the enemy and only so many of us.” Then the commander drew aside a part of the tent and said, “How many do you count me for?” Now, Christian, how many do you count Christ for? He is all in all.
III. A proportion to be experienced. As the sufferings of Christ abound in us so the consolations of Christ abound. God always keeps a pair of scales--in this side He puts His people’s trials, and in that He puts their consolations. When the scale of trial is nearly empty, you will always find the scale of consolation in nearly the same condition, and vice versa. Because--
1. Trials make more room for consolation. There is nothing makes a man have a big heart like a great trial.
2. Trouble exercises our graces, and the very exercise of our graces tends to make us more comfortable and happy. Where showers fall most, there the grass is greenest.
3. Then we have the closest dealings with God. When the barn is full, man can live without God. But once take your gourds away, you want your God. Some people call troubles weights. Verily they are so. A ship that has large sails and a fair wind needs ballast. A gentleman once asked a friend concerning a beautiful horse of his feeding shout in the pasture with a clog on its foot, “Why do you clog such a noble animal?” “Sir,” said he, “I would a great deal sooner clog him than lose him; he is given to leap hedges.” That is why God clogs His people.
IV. A person to be honoured. Christians can rejoice in deep distress, but to whom shall the glory be given? Oh, to Jesus, for the text says it is all by Him. The Christian can rejoice, since Christ will never forsake him. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Suffering and consolation
1. It would be difficult to exaggerate how much suffering, patiently and heroically borne, contributed to the propagation of the Christian religion. All the apostles were martyrs, except St. John, and he was a martyr in will.
2. This Epistle is one which is marked by intense feeling. We see the different emotions of joy and sorrow, thankfulness and indignation, disappointment and confidence, distress and hope, breaking forth every here and there in this Second Letter to the Corinthians. The apostle is speaking in the text of troubles, afflictions, and persecutions which he himself had endured, to which he refers in verse
3. But he does not repine.
I. “The sufferings of christ abound in us.”
1. First, notice what a very different view of suffering we find in the New Testament from that which was taken of old. The Jewish estimate was very narrow. We see from the Gospels that the Jew regarded suffering as retributive, but not as remedial or perfective. There are many reasons for interpreting the purposes of pain and affliction in a wider way. The sufferings of Job, “a perfect and an upright man,” and the sufferings of the animal world, might have opened the eyes to the inadequacy of their theory.
2. The apostle says, “The sufferings of Christ abound in us.” Is not Christ in glory? How canst. Paul speak still of His sufferings? The words have received three interpretations. One, the sufferings of Christ means our sufferings for Him. Another, by the sufferings of Christ is meant sufferings similar to those which He bore; and so the martyrs might all claim a special likeness to Him in their violent deaths. But the third interpretation seems more to the point. The sufferings of Christ mean His sufferings in us. Christ said, when Saul was persecuting His members, “Why persecutest thou Me?” So close is the union between the Head and the members, that Christ, as an old commentator asserts, was in a manner stoned in Stephen, beheaded in Paul, crucified in Peter, and burnt in St. Lawrence.
II. Now, “our consolation.”
1. Our sufferings differ from Christ’s, in that we have consolation which is apportioned to our trial. Christ suffered without solace. His Passion was endured amid what spiritual writers describe as “dryness of spirit.” This, it need not be said, intensifies affliction (John 12:27; Matthew 27:46).
2. But with the Christian, if the sufferings “abound,” the consolation “abounds” also. This accounts in part for the different spirit in which the martyrs faced death from that which the King of Martyrs displayed.
3. Christ purchased the consolation which is bestowed upon His members. The text runs, Our consolation aboundeth by Christ,” or, Revised Version, “through (διά) Christ.” Through His death and passion, through His all-prevailing intercession, through the gift of the Spirit, and the grace of the sacraments--trial and persecution have been endured even with thankfulness and joy (James 1:2; Philippians 3:10).
III. lessons.
1. To take a right view of suffering.
2. To realise the consolation as the gift of Christ, and as measured out in proportion to our day of trial.
3. Especially to seek this “consolation” from the Comforter, God the Holy Ghost--like the Churches of old, who walked “in the comfort of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 9:31). (Canon Hutchings, M. A.)
How Christ comforteth those who suffer for Him
I. As our sufferings are for Christ, so by the same Christ are our comforts. Consider in what respects comforts may be said to abound by Christ.
1. Efficiently. He being the same with God, is therefore a God of all consolation, and as a Mediator He is sensible of our need, and therefore the more ready to comfort. Christ that wanted comfort Himself, and therefore had an angel sent to comfort Him, is thereby the more compassionate and willing to comfort us. Thus you may read Christ and God put together in this very act (2 Thessalonians 2:16-17). Christ, therefore, not only absolutely as God, but relatively as Mediator, is qualified with all fitness and fulness to communicate consolation; He is the fountain and head, as of grace, so of comfort.
2. Meritoriously. He hath merited at the hands of God our comfort. As by Christ the Spirit of God is given to the Church as a guide into all truth, and as the Sanctifier, so He is also the Comforter, who giveth every drop of consolation that any believer doth enjoy.
3. Objectively--i.e., in Him, and from Him we take our comfort. As Christ is called “our righteousness,” because in and through His righteousness we are accepted of in Him, so Christ is our comfort, because in Him we find matter of all joy (Philippians 3:3).
II. How many ways Christ makes His comforts to abound to those that suffer for Him.
1. By persuading them of the goodness of the cause, why they suffer.
2. By forewarning of their sufferings, All who will live godly must suffer tribulation. Christ hath done us no wrong, He hath told us what we must look for, it is no more than we expected. The fiery trial is not a strange thing. Surely this maketh way for much comfort, that we looked for afflictions beforehand; we prepared an ark against the deluge should come.
3. By informing us of His sovereignty and conquest over the world. If our enemies were equal or superior to Christ, then we might justly be left without comfort; but what Christ spake to His disciples belongs to all (John 14:18; John 16:33).
4. By virtue of His prayer put up in that very behalf (John 17:13).
5. By instructing us of the good use and heavenly advantage all these tribulations shall turn unto.
(1) Our spiritual and eternal good. This will winnow away our chaff, purge our dross, be a school wherein we shall learn more spiritual and Divine knowledge than ever before. Sufferings have taught more than vast libraries, or the best books can teach.
(2) Our eternal glory. (A. Burgess.)
The sacred joy
These words fathom a depth of human experience which can only be touched by those who seek in the life of Christ the key to the mystery of pain. There is a suffering which is common to man, and there is in respect of such suffering consolation in God. But there is a suffering which belongs to life under its highest conditions and which the mere man of the world never tastes, but for which there is a Divine joy which is equally beyond his range.
I. The nature of the suffering which is to be regarded as a sharing of the suffering of the Lord. Among the elements which enter into it are--
1. The spectacle of the misery of mankind. On earth Christ wept as He beheld it, and the Christian is also bound to feel the pressure of its burden.
2. The deadly nature of evil. We cannot cheat ourselves into the belief that it does not much matter, that God is good and will make it all right at last. Sin is to be looked at in the light of Calvary. That teaches how terrible it is to the eye of God, how deadly in the heart of man.
3. The resistance of the will of the flesh to the best efforts and influences; its determination to reject the things that heal and save. It was this that made Christ the Man of Sorrows (Luke 13:34). To see a man perish within reach of rescue is one of the most piteous of spectacles. Imagine, then, what the world must be to Christ as He says, “Ye will not come unto Me that ye might have life.” This burden the disciple of Christ has ever pressing upon him as he fulfils his ministry in a scornful world.
4. The future eternal destiny. The thought pressed as a constant burden on the heart of Christ. It was this that drove Paul into barbarous lands, if he might save a soul from death. The fellowship of the Redeemer’s tears is no unknown experience to the disciple.
II. How our consolation aboundeth in Christ. If we are called to share the suffering, we are called also to share the consolation. There was a joy set before Christ for which He endured the Cross, etc.
the joy of a sure redemption of humanity. These are some of the elements of the joy.
1. The God of all power and might has taken up the burden and wills the redemption of the world. God has come forth in Christ to undertake in person the recovery of our race. In working and suffering for man we have the assurance that God is with us. We see Mammon or Moloch on the throne, but it cannot be for ever. With all the vantage strength of His Godhead, Christ is working at the problem of man’s salvation. When we feel saddened by the burden of human misery let us rest on the thought, “God is in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.”
2. There is a joy in the fulfilment of a self-sacrificing ministry which is more like heavenly rapture than any other experience which is within our reach. Unselfish work, inspired by the love of Christ, is the soul’s gymnastic culture. To sow the seed of the kingdom is the present joy of a lifetime. No man who has known it would part with it to be a crowned king. The certainty of the issue (Isaiah 55:10-13). (J. Baldwin Brown, B. A.)