The suffering of the sanctified - Chambers, Oswald
Forasmuch then as Christ suffered in the flesh, arm ye yourselves also with the same mind; for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin. 1 peter 4:1
There is suffering that is preventable, but there is an inevitable suffering that is essentially gods will for us. We do not know the preface to our own story any more than job did; we suffer, and god alone knows why. It is beside the mark to say that it is because we deserve to suffer; job did not deserve to suffer for he was a man perfect and upright, and one that feared god, and eschewed evil. Neither is it at all satisfying to say that suffering develops character. There was more in jobs suffering than was required to develop his character, and so it is with the sanctified soul. The preface to jobs story lets in the light from the revelation point of view, viz. , that gods honour was at stake, and the issue fought out in this mans soul vindicated gods honour.
This point of view does not deny that we receive whippings from our father for being wilful and stupid, or that we are chastened to purity; or that any of the obvious or beautiful and sentimental things that are said and known about suffering are not true. They are true, but there is a deeper suffering in connection with sanctification that cannot be exhausted by any or all of these views.
The picture of god in the bible is of one who suffers, and when the mask is torn off life and we see all its profound and vast misery, the suffering, sorrowing god is the only one who does not mock us. He was despised, and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3 RV ).
The cross of Christ pronounced final and irrevocable judgement against the prince of this world (see john 12:31). The cross of sanctification is not the cross of god in the sense that the cross of Jesus Christ was. The inevitable suffering of the sanctified is that they side with the cross of god, and with his way against the way of the prince of this world. The prince of this world defies god at the cross, his insidious temptation is save thyself: if thou art the son of god, come down from the cross. Suffering was inevitable to our lord before god could make his saviourhood a fact; he learned obedience by the things which he suffered (rv). Jesus Christ is not our example, he is the captain of our salvation; his position is unique. We do not suffer in order that we may become sav- iours; we suffer in order to enable god to fulfill his idea of saintship in us (see colossi ans 1:24). The evident indifference on the part of the saints in the new testament, and since, to the experience of suffering is accounted for, not on the ground of insensitiveness or by trampling on the finer feelings, but by the expulsive power of a new affection. When we are saved and sanctified through the atonement we are led out into the fulfilment of the ideas of god under the lord- ship of Jesus Christ. Every other aim falls into insignificance, and through earths heart-breaks, sorrows and griefs, the sanctified soul treads calm and unwavering, unafraid even of death itself, summing up all as our light affliction, which is for the moment . . . (RV).
The sufferings of the sanctified are caused by growing into the idea of the will of god. God did not spare his own son, and he does not spare his sanctified ones from the requirements of saintship. A child is a perfect specimen of the genus homo, so is a man. The child as it develops, suffers; it is a false mercy that spares a child any requirements of its nature to complete the full stature of manhood, and it is a false mercy that spares the sanctified child of god any of the requirements of its nature to complete the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. We do not evolve into holiness, it is a gift we evolve in it, attainment after attainment, becoming sons and daughters of god, brothers and sisters of the lord Jesus. That is pauls meaning in Philippians 3:1314, reaching forth unto those things which are before, i press toward the mark.
. . . A child in the natural world is not fit for life unless it is perfectly healthy; sanctification is spiritual health, perfect soundness.
May the god of peace sanctify us wholly so that we are no longer sickly souls retarding his purposes, but perfected through suffering. Oh, that from every heart may rise the yearning longing, as from the apostle paul:
Then as I weary me and long and languish,
Nowise availing from that pain to part,—
Desperate tides of the whole great world’s
anguish
Forced thro’ the channels of a single heart.
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Oh to save these! to perish for their saving,
Die for their life, be offered for them all!
Myers