Is there purpose in suffering? If there is, what is the ultimate purpose of suffering? What is the overarching reason for suffering in the lives of believers? Is conformity to the image of the Lord Christ Jesus the ultimate end?

As glorious a grace it is for God to be patient with His people to work death in them that spiritual life in them may be given greater life, I’m convinced that it pales in comparison to God’s working great suffering in His people that His name may be magnified and His character glorified through the ages. The fulfilling of the plan of Redemption.

In God’s goodness and grace He counts us worthy in Christ to take part in His grand design as trophies of grace. We are called to suffer and die. God calls us to march onwards in all courage towards our final destination of death. But it is not the end. But is the consummation of God’s eternal plan to complete the redemption paid and purchased by Christ. That through suffering we too may be made perfect in Him.

Redeeming Through Suffering

In the life and passion of Christ we see most clearly that suffering is the way God has chosen to bring redemption to a fallen world. Jesus was known as a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. His life and ministry followed in detail the mission set forth by Isaiah of the Suffering Servant of the Lord.

We read a fascinating story in the Book of Acts:

Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, “Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is desert.

So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury and had come to Jerusalem to worship, was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet.

Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go near and overtake this chariot.”

So Philip ran to him and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him.

The place in Scripture which he read was this:

“He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so He opened not His mouth. In His humiliation His justice was taken away. And who will declare His generation? For His life is taken from the earth.”

So the eunuch answered Philip and said, “I ask you of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man?”

Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him.

—Acts 8:26-35

Who is the Servant of the Lord? The Ethiopian eunuch asked Philip a crucial question. He had been reading from Isaiah 53 and was puzzled. His question is pivotal: “Of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man?”

Philip’s answer was directly to the point. Isaiah was talking about Jesus.

The point may seem so obvious to the reader that one wonders why I take time to expand upon it. That the New Testament identifies Jesus with the Suffering Servant of Israel should be so obvious as to eliminate the need for discussion.

But it matters. It matters profoundly. Not only is our understanding of Jesus tied to this question, but the agonizing question of the meaning of our own suffering is tied to this.

I do not think it is an overstatement to declare that the New Testament portrait of Jesus stands or falls with this issue.

In modern times we have seen a kind of biblical scholarship that considers all references of Jesus to Isaiah’s Suffering Servant as contrived inventions of the New Testament writers. In a word, the charge is that the biblical writers fraudulently “doctored” the history of Jesus. After Jesus suffered and died, the early church had to invent an explanation for all this suffering. Therefore they created this link between Isaiah’s Suffering Servant and Jesus. Then they put words into Jesus’ mouth that He never uttered.

The critics have an ax to grind against the biblical view of Christ. Their ax is so heavy that they bump themselves in the head with it. If we know anything of the historical Jesus we know Him as one who suffered and died as the Servant of God.

In Luke’s Gospel Jesus utters these words:

For I say to you that this which is written must still be accomplished in Me: “And He was numbered with the transgressors.” For the things concerning me have an end.

—Luke 22:37

Here Jesus quotes directly from Isaiah 53. He identifies Himself with the Suffering Servant of God. The nation of Israel was called to be a suffering servant. That vocation was then personalized and crystallized in one man who represented Israel. Philip’s answer was clear: That man was Jesus.

Jesus suffers “for us.” Yet we are called to participate in His suffering. Though He was uniquely the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, there is still an application of this vocation to us. We are given both the duty and the privilege to participate in the suffering of Christ.

A mysterious reference to this idea is found in the writings of the Apostle Paul:

I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church.

—Colossians 1:24

Here Paul declares that he rejoices in his suffering. Surely he does not mean that he enjoys pain and affliction. Rather, the cause of his joy is found in the meaning of his suffering. He says that he “fills up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ.”

On the surface Paul’s explanation is astonishing. What could possibly be lacking in the afflictions of Christ? Did Christ only half finish His redemptive work only to wait for Paul to complete it? Was Jesus overstating the case when He cried from the cross, “It is finished”?

What exactly was lacking in the suffering of Christ? In terms of the value of Jesus’ suffering it is blasphemous to suggest anything was lacking. The merit of His atoning sacrifice is infinite. Nothing could possibly be added to His perfect obedience to be even more perfect. Nothing can be more perfect than perfect. What is absolutely perfect can be neither augmented nor diminished.

The merit of Jesus is sufficient to atone for every sin that has ever been or ever will be committed. His atoning death needs no repetition for His deed once-for-all. Old Testament sacrifices were repeated precisely because they were imperfect shadows of the reality that was to come.

It was not by accident that the Roman Catholic Church appealed to Paul’s words in this text to support their concept of a treasury of merits, by which the merits of the saints are added to the merit of Christ to cover the deficiencies of sinners. This doctrine was at the eye of the Protestant Reformation tornado. It was this eclipsing of the sufficiency and perfection of Christ’s suffering that was at the heart of Martin Luther’s protest.

Though we vigorously deny Rome’s interpretation of this passage we are still left with our question. If Paul’s suffering does not add merit to what is lacking in Christ’s sufferings, what then does it add?

Adding in Our Own Sufferings

The answer to this difficult question lies in the broader teaching of the New Testament of the believer’s call to participate in the humiliation of Christ. Our very baptism signifies that we are buried with Christ. Paul repeatedly points out that unless we are willing to participate in the humiliation of Jesus we will not participate in His exaltation. (2 Timothy 2:11-12.)

Paul rejoiced that his own suffering was a benefit to the church. The church is called to imitate Christ. It is called to walk the via dolorosa. Paul’s favorite metaphor for the church was the image of the human body. The church is called the Body of Christ. In one sense it is proper to call the church the “Continuing Incarnation.” The church is really the mystical body of Christ on earth.

Christ so linked His church to Himself that when He first called Paul on the Damascus Road He said, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?” Saul was not persecuting Jesus. Jesus had already ascended to heaven. He was already out of reach of Paul’s hostility. Saul was busy persecuting Christians. But Jesus saw such a relationship of solidarity with His church that He regarded an attack upon His body, the church, as a personal attack on Himself.

The church belongs to Christ. The church is redeemed by Christ. The church is the Bride of Christ. The church is indwelt by Christ. But the church is not Christ. Christ is perfect; the church is imperfect. Christ is the Redeemer; the church is the company of the redeemed.

The church participates in Christ’s suffering. But this participation adds no merit to Christ’s merit. The sufferings of Christians may benefit other people but they always fall short of atonement. I cannot atone for anyone’s sins, not even for my own. Yet my suffering may be of great benefit to other people. It may also serve as a witness to the One whose sufferings were an atonement.

The word for “witness” in the New Testament, martus, is the word from which we get the English word martyr. Those who suffered and died for the cause of Christ were called martyrs because by their suffering they bore witness to Christ.

What is lacking in the afflictions of Jesus is the ongoing suffering which God calls His people to endure. God calls people of every generation to fulfill His divine plan of redemption. Again this suffering is not to fulfill any deficiency in the merit of Christ but to fulfill our destinies as witnesses to the perfect Suffering Servant of God.

What does this mean in practical terms? Let me return to the illustration of my own father. I’m sure that while he was suffering he must have asked God the question, “Why?” On the surface his suffering seemed useless. It seemed as though his pain was for no good reason.

Now I must be very careful. I do not think that my father’s suffering was in any way an atonement for my sins. Nor do I think I can read God’s mind with respect to the ultimate reason for my father’s suffering. But I know this: My father’s suffering made a profound impact on my life. It was through my father’s death that I was brought to Christ. I am not saying that the ultimate reason my father was called to suffer and die was so that I could become a Christian. I don’t know the sovereign purpose of God in it. But I do know that God used that suffering in a redemptive way for me. My dad’s suffering drove me into the arms of the Suffering Savior.

We are followers of Christ.

We follow Him to the Garden of Gethsemane.

We follow Him into the Hall of Judgment.

We follow Him along the Via Dolorosa.

We follow Him unto death.

But the gospel declares, we follow Him through the gates of Heaven.

Because we suffer with Him, we shall also be raised with Him. If we are humiliated with Him we shall also be exalted with Him.

It is because of Christ that our suffering is not useless. It is part of the total plan of God who has chosen to redeem the world through the pathway of suffering.

—R.C. Sproul, (1996, c1988). Surprised by Suffering. Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.

Purchase the book “Surprised by Suffering” here, or read more here.