Rejoicing in Suffering, Growing Toward Maturity

Paul argues that our faith in Christ has put us in a position of grace with God, and that because of that position of grace, we can expect to both share and rejoice in God’s glory (Romans 5:1-2). Interestingly, in describing that process, he says that our rejoicing is in the hope of that divine glory. It is very important to understand that early Christians did not use that word hope in the same way that we do today. We might say something like, “I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow.” What we mean by that in the 21st century is, “It will be a better day tomorrow if it doesn't rain.” Our rendering of that word is riddled with uncertainty.  There is neither a connotative nor denotative shred of confidence in our use of the English word hope – only a kind of wishful thinking. In contrast, what those early New Testament Christians meant by the word that we translate as “hope” was a confident expectation.  For instance, they might say something like, “Jesus said that the sun will be out tomorrow and that it won’t rain, so I confidently expect [read “hope”] tomorrow to be dry and sunny.” So Paul’s use of the words rejoice and hope in the next two verses is very challenging, while at the same time, very intriguing. 

Paul argues in Romans 5:3a that we, as Christians, rejoice in our sufferings! That’s a difficult verse to plumb. How is it possible to show delight, or joy, or to celebrate personal suffering? Is Paul some kind of masochist? Not at all. The rest of that verse, along with the next one reveals what he means and it is in complete alignment with his fellow Apostle, James.  We are able to count our sufferings as joy because they test our trust in God to such a degree that they grow us spiritually (James 1:2-4). Paul says that suffering produces endurance or patience. This might be one reason that fasting is important.  To fast is to suffer temporarily.  The more regularly  you do it, the longer you are able to suffer or endure the discomfort of hunger. It is not uncommon for a man who has suffered a difficult time in his life to weather an even more challenging time in his life later on, even if that later challenge arises in a completely different area of his life than what was presented in the earlier challenge.  The earlier suffering gave him the stamina for the next challenge.  Paul then says that the endurance born from suffering produces evidence of Godly character. In other words, suffering produces patience, which is a fruit of the spirit (Galatians 5:22), and patience is evidence of spiritual maturity. This maturity gives us a hope – a confident expectation – that does not put us to shame (Romans 5:5). It does not put us to shame because our maturity in the wake of suffering spotlights God’s hand in the shaping of our character.

The more mature a Christian becomes, especially when that maturity is forged from trials, tribulations, and sufferings, the more that Christian recognizes the divine spirit poured into him by God. He recognizes fully that though he is now stronger because of the power of God’s spirit, that Christ died to produce that inner strength while he was still weak and ungodly (Romans 5:6)! A Christian of such maturity is able to rejoice in suffering because he already knows that the outcome will be for his good which is to make him even more mature and Christlike (Romans 8:28-29).