Or, Enduring the Process
Scripture: Romans 5:3-5
Date: May 1, 2022
Speaker: Sean Higgins
Peter blessed God that the elect are born again to a living hope (1 Peter 1:3). Paul wrote that because believers have peace with God they exult in hope of the glory of God. Those who are spiritually dead have false hope at best, if they have any hope, and if they could understand what they were up against, they would be terrorized by what gives Christians hope.
Hope is a gift of God. Christian hope is the real deal. Hope works. Hope holds up. True hope is more than getting through the commercial break of a Hallmark movie.
How do we get more hope? Can we get more, or more vertebrate hope? Yes, we can. Yes, by God’s grace we will. We will graduate one day from needing hope, but it’s a required class for all His people.
Almost out of nowhere Paul brings up suffering, except it’s not really out of nowhere if we pause to think about what hope is good for. Hope is the end of Romans 5:1-2, and here again in 5:3-5. The “not only but also” starting verse 3 says, in effect, Wait, there’s more. Peace with God gives us hope, and so do problems. Hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and things going badly.
There’s no command to be found here. It’s teaching, and actually more reminding, since we are “knowing,” already aware of how it works. More than reminding, it’s rejoicing, of the leaping/exulting sort. This is a doctrine of trials, even a doxology of trials, glorying in the hope (and glory) that God brings about in our sufferings.
There is a process that makes us more hopeful (verses 3-4) and a presence (verse 5) that makes the process effective.
When I taught through Ecclesiastes a number of years ago I emphasized what I understand to be Solomon’s theme: enjoying the process. It’s about finding joy in our toil under the sun, which is only possible by fearing the Lord (see Ecclesiastes 2:24-26). Here in Romans 5 it’s more than just vanity and striving after wind, it’s double-double toil and ouch. It requires endurance.
”Not only but also” (οὐ μόνον δέ, ἀλλὰ καὶ) coordinates two rejoicings that may not seem obvious. We rejoice in hope and we rejoice in trials, which produce hope. Peace with God is a hope-giver, so are circumstances that are not peaceful. We exult in sufferings.
Sufferings , beloved, are more than one. There are numerous sufferings in one’s lifetime, there may be numerous sufferings at the same time. The translations vary in how to express this cocktail of problems: afflictions (HCSB), tribulations (Tyndale, NASB), sufferings (ESV). At its root the idea is pressure. Depending on the direction these either squeeze in or weigh down, or both.
What causes pressure? If you stick your head in a vice and crank that’s pressure, and don’t do that. Sin causes suffering so don’t pull the granite slab onto yourself. There’s also pressure just from living with gravity in a fallen world; things fall on us or we fall on things. There are also evil actors, spiritual and human, and they seek to crush God’s people (see Psalm 94:5).
Peter wrote that there is no credit if we sin and face the consequences bravely. Beyond that, though Paul adds no qualifications and provides no pietistic measuring stick. Jesus taught that being slandered is persecution (Matthew 5:11), though we can acknowledge it’s not the same as being stick-and-stoned to death. Being beaten and robbed hurts more than being canceled online, so we might be slower to build monuments for social media martyrs. Yet pressures and burdens and pains, words and more, all count.
The pressures might come from those who are abandoned to their lusts and are surprised you won’t join them (as in Romans 1:18-32, see more in 1 Peter 4:3-5). The pressures might come from the self-designated virtuous (Romans 2:1), condemning you for not following their rules. But there is application for genetic and family pressures, from governments and generations, from Satan (unlikely as it is for him to harass you personally) and Judases. There are debilitating and excruciating, nagging and annoying, public and private, physical and emotional and relational trials.
Paul states the matter as fact. Here are tribulations, rejoice in them. No call to watch out for what’s coming; they’re here, in some ways it’s too late to prepare. Here are tribulations, rejoice don’t run. There are other passages that allow for wise removal; Paul left through a window in a wall through basket (Acts 9:25), and Jesus knew when it was no longer time to slip through the crowd.
Paul gives a reason for our attitude and it is no mystery, knowing that… followed by a three stage process. This is what is true, and we don’t need more specifics. The general pattern is enough, which is also why “pressure” is broad. We know what trials produce.
First, trials effect endurance. Exercise makes it so that you can exercise a little longer and builds up the more you’re consistent. Lifting weights makes it so that you can lift heavier weights, at least, to a point. But whatever a man’s max capacity, he doesn’t start at it. Endurance is carrying a load. It’s not quitting, even when it’s tempting. In Romans 15:5 Paul calls God the “God of endurance,” and think of what it takes for God to show of that excellent attribute, and think of how He works that communicable attribute into His people. James listed a similar progression (James 1:2-4), starting with counting joy, and for him endurance/steadfastness (same Greek word, ὑπομονὴ) was what makes a man “perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” The pressure, by God’s grace, is leveling up our perseverance.
Second, endurance produces character . The KJV translates it as “experience,” we might say maturity, like that of a veteran. It belongs with the well known NT illustration of testing metals to purify and refine. It’s a testing that leaves what has been tested, the genuine. So the NASB has, “proven character.”
Then the third stage, character produces hope . Been there, seen God help with that. Been there, God got us out of there. Been there, not fearful of there, because we’ve felt the pressure before.
Maybe you’ve heard the term antifragile. Nassim Taleb wrote a book about it, but the idea is easy enough to illustrate. A person can be fragile, robust, or antifragile. If you were sending some whiskey glasses to a friend in Scotland, those glasses would need a stiff and a lot of padding. If you sent your friend a book about whiskey, you’d be a lot less concerned. A book is robust. But a book is not really the opposite of the glasses. The opposite of easily broken is easily bettered by the pressure. We don’t have a good word for that, which is what antifragile was made for.
Trials aren’t only a threat to your endurance and hope, they are increasing your endurance and hope. Forget the Ministry of Truth, this is the Ministry of Tribulation (cf. Murray). This is why we exult in them. When we don’t, we are at least out of line, and possibly sinning, in impatience and discontent. That said, Paul did tell the Thessalonians to “Rejoice always” (1 Thessalonians 5:16).
This is why empathy, as typically defined and demanded today, is not Christian. We should weep with those who weep, but not because two sad people make anything better. Singing songs to heavy hearts is foolish and wrong (Proverbs 25:20). But difficulties complained about and moaned about, rather than helped through, cripple endurance and corrupt hope.
But someone pushes back, “If I don’t have empathy for my friend who is being oppressed, how will she know that I love her?” As valuable as your commiserating may be, it is not so comforting as the indwelling Holy Spirit who communicates God’s love directly.
Hope does not put to shame or disappoint. Hope doesn’t have to put a bag over its head and slink off into the corner. We do have hope in the glory of God, and that will be a vindication. But that day will also be the end of hope. Verse 5, though, isn’t the future, its present. Our hope will not give out because of who has come in. Our hope is shameless.
This is true of the judgment day, for sure, when God’s glory is revealed, but it is also true of the haters today, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Our hope is tied to God’s love. His love is poured out, as in great quantity, and directly, without mediation, into our hearts. The presence of God in the third Person, the Holy Spirit, is the gift and guarantee, the one who communicates love and causes us to hold onto the love. He does also produce love, but verse 5 is one way, from God to us. The Spirit who is love between Father and Son is also love from Father and Son to us.
Not Stoicism, but supernatural rejoicing in heaviness.
Trials are a double whammy without peace, especially if you think that God is against you and therefore sending the trials.
The doctrine of trials:
Left on earth for more than evangelism. Why does a good God let bad things happen to good people?
Trials are trials, sufferings are sufferings. Whether pointy or heavy or both, they hurt, they’re heavy, they’re not fun. But sufferings are not sovereign, their effects on us are not unpredictable.
If you position a piano in your living room, is it more surprising if it gets played or is unplayed? If you’re a soldier in a war, is it more surprising if you get shot at or not? If the world is full of those who hate what is good, do good and trust the Creator of the world (1 Peter 4:19). He is increasing your hope through the things you see which don’t look hopeful. If you could see hope, it wouldn’t be hope (Romans 8:24).
Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. (1 Peter 4:12–13, ESV)