In his letter to the church at Colossae, the Apostle Paul says something that has often puzzled readers over the centuries:
“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church…” (Colossians 1:24, ESV)
The New Testament often connects joy and suffering—for example, see Romans 5 or James 1—but here Paul seems to go further, saying that he is “filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.” This is a unique statement in Scripture—nowhere else does it suggest that Christ’s suffering was incomplete or required further suffering by others to be completed. Many different explanations have been suggested to explain these words.
One can be rejected out of hand. A good rule applies when interpreting a passage that, if taken a certain way, would contradict clear teaching elsewhere in Scripture. As the Westminster Confession of Faith states, “when there is a question about the true and full sense of any scripture, it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly.” Therefore, to interpret this passage as implying that Christ’s suffering was insufficient for our salvation—when the rest of the New Testament so clearly affirms that sufficiency (think of Jesus’ last words on the cross, “It is finished!”)—should be discarded immediately. But what does Paul mean?
Suffering is, and always has been, a challenging topic in Scripture. This is especially true when we are in the midst of suffering or walking with loved ones through seasons of affliction. Our own community has been grappling with this in the wake of the fires that have disrupted and destroyed so many plans, hopes, and dreams. The Bible has much to say about suffering, and not all of it is easy to accept. The quick and simple answers we often desire are simply not present. The instinctive religious impulse is to make a one-to-one analogy between suffering and judgment: if a person suffers, he is under judgment; if he prospers, he enjoys God’s favor. This reasoning drives much of popular Christianity, often called the “prosperity gospel” or the “health and wealth gospel.” It suggests that aligning one’s life with God leads to prosperity. While it seems logical, any close reading of the Bible immediately shatters it. After all, this was the reasoning Job’s friends used when they came to comfort him—and God condemned them for it. They were wrong. This isn’t how God works.
For Isaiah, suffering was a real and pressing issue that his audience needed to understand. In Isaiah 48, which we examined this past Sunday, Judah and its people were slowly rebuilding their land after a devastating war with the Assyrians. Isaiah’s words in this chapter and those preceding it are not exactly encouraging. He predicts that their respite from destruction is only temporary. A few generations later, Jerusalem will again be besieged—this time, they will be destroyed. The Exile that follows is one of the most traumatic events in the history of God’s people. The prophet Jeremiah, who witnessed the Exile firsthand, left a searing and terrifying account of its suffering. The question is natural, even pressing: to what end?
In one sense, the answer confirms our instincts—suffering is often related to judgment. The Exile was the result of centuries of sin and rebellion. In the Mosaic Covenant, God had warned that persistent disobedience would, in time, lead to exile from the Promised Land. This sort of judgment still persists today in what we might call the natural consequences of sin. For example, if a person cheats on their spouse, the result is inevitable suffering—the marriage is changed forever, loved ones are devastated, and the person experiences innumerable negative consequences. This is true even if the sin itself is forgiven by the grace of the gospel. Written into the nature of things, there is a kind of suffering that emanates naturally from sinful decisions. Isaiah references this in 48:18 when he tells the people that had they “paid attention to my commandments, then your peace would have been like a river.”
But Isaiah also provides another explanation for suffering in this chapter, contained in the metaphor of refinement in verse 10. This is how he ultimately wants the people to understand the suffering of the Exile. When metal is refined, heat is applied to separate and remove impurities. Isaiah says the people will be “tried in the furnace of affliction.” The suffering of the Exile is the heat of the fire that removes their impurities. This is not judgment, but mercy. It is this type of suffering that Paul and James tell us to rejoice in because it enables us to see, understand, and walk with God more clearly, leading to strengthened hope and joy. The taxonomy of this suffering is laid out with clarity by Paul in Romans 5:3-4:
“Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
For this reason, when someone is suffering, it is neither right nor useful to assume it is due to judgment. This was the mistake of Job’s friends. Suffering and blessing fall on both the wicked and the good. Behind the mystery of this seemingly random pattern is the wisdom and goodness of God, who has so ordained the world that the sufferings we experience can be trusted.
Returning to Paul’s words in Colossians, the best understanding relates his statement to the metaphor of refinement, which so shapes our understanding of suffering. The sufferings of Christ were fully sufficient for the salvation of his people—no one who calls upon the name of the Lord should doubt this. But God so loves his people that he desires they undergo refinement so that they may delight in him and enjoy him in ways they never would unless they suffered. The sufferings of Christ are sufficient for our redemption, but in his love, God allows us to undergo refinement for our sanctification. This perspective on suffering is easy to write about—it is far more difficult to trust when one enters the furnace of affliction. Therefore, God tells us in advance—as he did to his people of old, predicting the Exile and promising that even in the midst of it, he would never cast them off or forsake them—so that we may carry into our suffering the promises and love of God.