Understanding suffering

James tells us that we are to count it all joy when we encounter trials (James 1:2). Trials are things which put us to the test. By testing us, they bring out what is in us, for better or for worse. We could put it this way: Pressure reveals the person. Trials may be difficulties which come from outside, such as the persecution James’ own readers were probably facing, or they may come from our own inner struggles. The trials he goes on to refer to in verses 2-4 (where the testing of our faith produces endurance) are the first kind, whereas the trials (or “temptations”) of verses 13-15 are the second. Both kinds of trials occur when negative occurrences encounter our weak and imperfect human nature.

This raises some serious questions. For instance, where do trials come from?  James answers by way of a negative. They are not directly from God, he says.  God is the author of every good and perfect gift (1:17).  Sickness and suffering were never in the purpose of God when he placed his creation in the garden. They came as a result of our rejection of God. Our lives and the creation we live in came under a curse from that moment. The curse is lifted in Christ insofar as it pertains to our condemnation as sinners (Galatians 3:13; Romans 8:1), yet both we ourselves and the creation we live in still groan in the reality of the fallenness of this present world (Romans 8:18-23). Trials, in whatever form they come, are a sign of the continuing disorder in the creation. Suffering hits indiscriminately. Jesus said the people on whom the tower of Siloam fell were no more sinful than anyone else (  ). God promises to keep us spiritually in the midst of trial. If we choose to sin, to course, we can bring trouble on ourselves. Smoking causes lung cancer. Yet there are countless people struck by cancer who love the Lord with all their heart. Trials are like nuclear fallout -- they affect everyone. The plagues of Revelation represent the judgments of God on this fallen world throughout the church age, from Christ's resurrection until his return. Christians, along with unbelievers, suffer as a consequence, yet only Christians are spiritually protected in the midst of them. Part of our joy in suffering is the realization that this life is only the doorway to an eternity in God's presence.

But a second question arises. Are trials simply indiscriminate and without meaning? To this the answer is No, certainly for the faithful Christian. James says we are to find joy in affliction because affliction kicks off a process which leads to the perfection of our faith (James 1:2-4). Paul says the same thing. We rejoice in our sufferings, because suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character and character produces hope (Romans 5:3-4). For the unbeliever, affliction becomes a cause of despair, but for the Christian, it leads on to hope. Why? Because God has always has a plan to bring good out of evil and to use everything in a positive, redemptive manner. His ways are always constructive and never destructive. God has the capacity to take the worst possible thing and still bring good out of it. What is wrong is wrong and what is evil and evil, but God can bring good out of anything. Trial in the life of the Christian is often intended to remove the false and unreliable supports of this world. This process can be painful, but in return we gain something far better: the true support that comes with the presence and comfort of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

What should our response to suffering and trial be? We aren't called to rejoice because of the suffering itself. We are called to rejoice because God has a plan to turn our suffering into joy, and in the process draw us closer to himself.  But to see this happen, we must work with Him and not against him. Blaming God is the road to death. Ultimately we have only ourselves and our corporate sin in Adam to blame for any trial. The nuclear fallout of sin may have hit you harder than the next person, and that does not make you any worse than they are. It simply means you still live in a fallen world. But remember this. God himself endured the greatest suffering in all of history in the sending and the death of his Son. Through that suffering, God produced the greatest good -- our eternal salvation.

The fact is God has kept all of us through many difficult circumstances. He has not abandoned us. We have grown through them. I regularly ask people if they have grown spiritually the most in times of suffering or times of ease. The answer is always the same. He who has kept us will bring us safely to his heavenly kingdom, and then our joy will indeed be full.

Seizing the impossible

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for" (Hebrews 11:1). It's sometimes amazing the light a Greek word sheds. One example is the word hypostasis or "substance," which is found three times in Hebrews. I've written about this before, but I'm going to take another stab at it here. In the Greek language, this word originally meant that which supports something, a deposit or sediment in the ground, or even an item of immovable property.  It came to refer in a more figurative sense to the underlying reality behind a thing.

In Hebrews 1:3, Christ is pictured as the exact representation (charakter -- used of the imprint of the likeness of the Emperor on Roman coins) of the “substance” (hupostasis) of God. Christ, in a very exact and accurate way, brought the untouchable substance of the eternal God into this flesh and blood world. The eternal reality of who and what God is in the eternal, unseen realm is made physical, earthly reality in Christ. Then in Hebrews 3:14, believers are said to share in Christ if they hold fast the beginning of their hupostasis -- meaning the substance of their faith -- to the end.

Finally, we come to Hebrews 11:1.  Here it states that faith is the "substance" of things hoped for.  There is a neat parallel here between what is said of Christ in chapter 1 and what is said of faith in chapter 11. And that shouldn't be surprising, because our faith is faith in Christ. The power of faith is in its object. Your old school experiment of a magnet drawing iron filings would be a good illustration of this. In chapter 1, Christ is said to bring the substance or reality of who God is in the eternal realm into this present material, physical and transitory world. Not only that, he does so in an entirely accurate manner (remember the charakter).

In the same way, the exercise of faith brings the things that exist in the eternal realm --  the “things hoped for” -- into flesh and blood reality in the lives of individual believers. As Christ himself brings the invisible substance of God into this physical world, so faith in Christ brings the things we hope for, the things we do not yet possess, into our possession.

This is an incredibly powerful statement about faith. Our faith in Christ reaches out for and secures what is real in the invisible world and brings it into the physical reality of this present world. The outward realities of this world, which sometimes seem to us insuperable obstacles, are in fact only passing shadows. What is real in the eternal world but has no substance in the material world gains substance through the exercise of our faith. It is this substance which enabled the heroes of faith, whose lives are recorded as chapter 11 unfolds, to conquer everything the world threw against them, and still emerge victorious, whether in life or in death.

It's time for us to be men and women of substance, who dare to seize the impossible by faith and change the world.

The surprising results of God's rest

In the last two posts, we highlighted two things. First, we enter God's rest by faith. Second, God's rest is actually his rule and reign. Please take a moment to read these two posts first if you haven't yet and then come back to this one! You'll get a lot more out of it that way.

But how do we fit into this picture? Well, to begin with, we saw that to rest means to reign and rule. A significant truth is revealed about this by understanding something you may not have known about the tabernacle of Moses. God deliberately designed the whole camp, centering upon the tabernacle, to mimic the pattern of Egyptian military encampments of that same period of time. Egyptians camps had the same three-part structure, the same measurements, were oriented toward the east, and in the innermost chamber had an image of Pharaoh, which rested with two winged creatures on either side. The Egyptians believed that the soul or spirit of Pharaoh resided in the idol, so that Pharaoh was with them, whether he was physically present or not. Their camps were surrounded by troops divided into four units.

What was the point God was making? He was sending a message to the Egyptians as well as trying to give a revelation to his people of who he was and what he was going to do for them. Even as the idolatrous Pharaoh led his troops from his innermost chamber, so the God of Israel led his troops from the Most Holy place, which contained no Egyptian idol but the majesty presence of Almighty God himself. Israel’s tabernacle was a travelling war headquarters from which God, in his place of rest, directed his troops until they achieved total victory. This shows us that God’s people are meant to exercise his authority on earth.

God’s rest reveals his sovereign power. God’s rest is not his retirement -- it is his reign! It is the place of rulership where all his enemies have been defeated. Why does Scripture say repeatedly of God that he is “enthroned above the cherubim” (2 Samuel 6:2; 2 Kings 19:15; 1 Chronicles 13:6; Psalm 80:1, 99:1)? God did not go into the tabernacle or the temple to sit down and retire. He went in to sit down on his throne and reign!

So if the Israelites were meant to rule and reign, what about the church? Because of what Christ did, what is true of Israel is even more true of the church! In Ephesians 2:5-6, Paul makes three amazing statements. We may have read them so many times they no longer seem amazing to us, but they should. He uses three compound verbs, all beginning with the Greek preposition sun, meaning “together with,” to describe what God has done for us. He made us alive together with Christ, he raised us up together with Christ, and he seated us in heavenly places together with Christ.

These three verbs express an astonishing truth which, if we comprehend it not just in our mind but in our spirit, will change the way we look at everything. And this is the life-changing truth: what God accomplished in and for Christ he accomplished also for us. God made Christ alive. He has done the same for us. He raised Christ from the dead. He has done the same for us. He seated Christ in heavenly places. He has done the same for us.

You and I, who just an instant ago were lost sinners enslaved to the world, the flesh and the devil, now share in the destiny of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. We are taken up out of our despair, our darkness and our depression into his life, his glory, his power and his authority. We are taken into his very throne room to sit beside him, to reign and rule. What God gave to Christ, he has given to us. What God purposes for Christ, he purposes for us. The authority God gives to Christ, he gives to us.

Where the devil seeks to blind us to our authority, Jesus gives his truth to set us free (John 8:32). Take your place of rest, and begin to share his rule!

The unexpected truth about God's rest

Hebrews 4:1-11 teaches us about entering God’s rest. Two questions are significant: what is the rest, and how do we enter it? The second question is answered easily: we enter it by faith, by receiving forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ, and by becoming part of God’s people. Where Israel failed in its own efforts, we succeed through Christ’s.

The first question-- what is the rest? -- requires more explanation, and to answer it we must go back to the garden. Our mistaken concept is that rest equates to inactivity, to leisure, to doing nothing because God has done everything. But even as that is a misunderstanding of grace, so also is it a misunderstanding of rest. Rest is what God did when he finished his work of creation. Did God retire once his creative work was finished? By no means. That was the very point he began to exercise authority over what he had just created. That gives us an initial clue of what God’s rest is. Not only that, the verb used to describe how God “put” Adam into the garden (Genesis 2:15) is the word usually translated as “rest,” so that the best translation would be “God put Adam into the Garden to rest”. Yet Genesis clearly also says that God put Adam into the garden to work it and keep it (Genesis 2:15). That brings us to this unexpected conclusion: Adam exercised the government of God over the garden, yet this activity of ruling and reigning, of working and keeping, is described as rest! Then of course came the sad end to the story. Adam lost this place of government and authority when he disobeyed God, and he was ejected from his place of rest.

Here is another interesting fact. There are some astounding links between the garden, the tabernacle and the temple. When we examine Scripture, we find that the building of the tabernacle under Moses, and later the building of the temple under Solomon, were both patterned on God’s creation of the universe. Seven times from Genesis 1:3 through 1:26, the phrase “And God said” occurs, each of which marks a stage of the creation process. At the end of the sixth day, it says that “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). After this, God rested (Genesis 2:1).

The building of the tabernacle was likewise fashioned around seven creative words of God, “And the Lord said” (Exodus 25:1, 30:11, 17, 22, 34; 31:1, 12). At the end of the tabernacle creation process, it says, “Moses saw all the work” the people had done according to the command of the Lord, and he blessed them for it. Then when the tabernacle was finished, God’s presence entered into it and his glory filled it so that Moses was not able to enter (Exodus 40:34-35). What was happening in this process? God was taking up his rest.

The same parallel is present when we look to the building of the temple. Here we find -- and it cannot be a coincidence -- that Solomon took seven years to build it (1 Kings 6:38), he dedicated it on the seventh month during the feast of booths, which lasted seven days (1 Kings 8), and his speech of dedication was built around seven prayers (1 Kings 8:31-55)? And then -- and this is the critical point -- just as God rested on the seventh day from his work of creation, so when the temple was finished, God took up a resting place. How do we know this? The psalmist tells us: “Arise, O Lord, to your resting place, you and the ark of your strength... For the Lord has chosen Zion; he has desired it for his habitation. This is my resting place forever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it” (Psalm 132:8, 13-14).

So now we understand that the resting place of God is the very place where God begins his rule. In each case -- creation, tabernacle and temple -- God first subdued disorder, then began to rule over what he had created. At the beginning of creation, the earth was “without form and void” (Genesis 1:2). Once he had brought order from chaos and nothingness, and thus finished his creative work, he began to rule over what he had created. Not only that, he shared his place of rulership and rest with Adam, who then tragically lost it.

Now look how the pattern repeats itself. God subdued the chaos the Egyptians had created by bringing Israel out of Egypt and destroying the armies of Pharaoh. Then he established his presence in the tabernacle, took up his place of rest and began to rule over the people he had brought out of chaos into freedom. And again much later, after he subdued Israel’s enemies through King David and had the temple built by Solomon, he took up his place of rest in the temple and began to rule over the people he had once again restored. In each case, first God acts in power to establish order out of chaos,then he takes up his rest and begins to rule over what he has brought order to.  But each time -- whether with Adam, Moses or Solomon -- he shares his authority with the people he has given rest to.

The bottom line in all this? We are to enter his rest and begin to reign with him!

Entering God's rest

Hebrews 4:3: "For we who have believed enter that rest." God's rest is not what you may have thought it to be, and that is something we will look at in the next couple of posts. But there is no doubt it is the place you want to be. It is the place of being right in the middle of God's plan and God's will for your life. The word of God had come to previous generations, verse 2 has told us, but because it was not received with faith it did them no good. But for us it is different: we are to enter God's rest. The sin of the Israelites was their refusal to believe the unproven word of God. They were looking for physical evidence to back up what God was telling them to do, but God was requiring them to obey his Word without such evidence -- obey it, in fact, even if the evidence was to the contrary. But an attitude of faith obeys the Word of God even when it has not been outwardly verified by circumstances.

Why? Because the Word of God itself is the only evidence that faith requires. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the proof of things not seen (Heb. 11:1). The heroes of faith whose stories are unfolded in chapter 11 are men and women who defied everything in the natural world around them, all the evidence of their senses, and came to a place of simply believing what God had said to them and told them to do. That is why faith and obedience cannot be separated. Faith is an action. It is a lifestyle. You cannot truly believe God without doing what He tells you to do.

This becomes clear in this statement: “And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient?” (Heb. 3:18). The next sentence continues, “And so we see that they were unable to enter because of...” -- and here we expect the word “disobedience,” but instead we get the word “unbelief”. They were disobedient, but they could not enter because of unbelief. In other words, “disobedience” and “unbelief” are one and the same thing. Unbelief leads inevitably to disobedience as much as faith results unswervingly in obedience.

God's rest is presented here as something very desirable to take hold of.  It can be entered only one way: by faith. The verb "enter" in verse 3 is in the present tense. It is something in front of us right now. We know that what we have now is only a foretaste of our future inheritance in heaven. Yet this verse tells us we can enter God’s rest, and enter it right away.

Recently I went swimming in the freezing waters of the North Sea off the coast of north-eastern England. The friend I was with was braver than me. He just shouted to me, "Don't think about it - just run in." That's faith!  You know where you want to go and you know there's only way to get there.  You can't stand around rationalizing it or waiting until the circumstances improve.  If God has called you to something, just do it. Through God's grace, you faith will impel you to a place of obedience. You'll begin to do things you never thought you could do.

I did survive the freezing swim, even though I couldn't feel my toes for half an hour after. But I'd done it. And so can you.