In his book (and now feature movie), The Insanity of Obedience, Nik Ripken tells about meeting Dmitri in the former USSR. Born of Christian parents, Dmitri found himself and his family living under communism in an area where the nearest church was a three-day walk away. He started teaching his family one night a week, reading from the old family Bible. It seemed a natural progression to sing, and also to pray. And a Bible study turned into real family worship. Neighbours began noticing and some of them asked if they could come and listen to the Bible stories and sing the songs A small group began gathering. Local party officials came to see Dmitri. They threatened him physically, which was to be expected. What upset Dmitri much more was their accusation: “You have started an illegal church!” “How can you say that?” he argued. “I have no religious training. I am not a pastor. This is not a church building. We are just a group of family and friends getting together. All we are doing is reading and talking about the Bible, singing, praying, and sometimes sharing what money we have to help out a poor neighbor. How can you call that a church?” “I got fired from my factory job,” Dmitri recounted. “My wife lost her teaching position. My boys were expelled from school.” When the number of people grew to seventy-five, there was no place for everyone to sit. Villagers pressed close in around the windows on the outside. Then one night as Dmitri spoke, the door to his house suddenly, violently burst open. An officer grabbed Dmitri by the shirt, slapped him across the face, slammed him against the wall, and said in a cold voice, “We have warned you and warned you and warned you. We will not warn you again! If you do not stop this nonsense, this is the least that is going to happen to you’ (Nik Ripken, The Insanity of Obedience, (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group), 2014, pp. 279-282.)
In 2 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul reflected on recent trauma which brought him to the edge of despair as he felt unbearably crushed with all hope for life draining away (1:8). A break in the clouds of this unrelenting suffering and the ray of hope afforded by the comforting news from Titus about the Corinthians’ response to his “severe letter” (7:5–11) evokes his praise for God’s unexpected grace Paul talks about his own suffering (the fellowship of suffering) and the comfort that God provides that they may have hope. (Furnish: The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 65–68).
What do you do when the difficulties arrive? Do you avoid them, secretly blame God, or try to hide? Although we may not completely understand the difficulties we find ourselves in, when we share in the fellowship of suffering with our brothers and sisters across the globe who suffer, we can trust God, receive His comfort and praise Him even in the midst of the difficulties.
Looking at 2 Corinthians 1:3-7 through our relationship to Christ we share in the fellowship of suffering in general and we Share in His Suffering through: 1) The Father in Suffering (2 Corinthians 1:3-4), 2) The Son in Suffering (2 Corinthians 1:5-6) and through 3) The Saints in Suffering (2 Corinthians 1:7)
First, through our relationship to Christ we Share in His Suffering through:
1) The Father in Suffering (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)
2 Corinthians 1:3-4 [3]Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, [4]who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. (ESV)
We’ll spend most of our time on this point, less on the second, and only touch on the third.
Here, Paul launches his letter with a classic Jewish liturgical formula that praises God for His benefits. This affirmation has two implications. First, as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, God is no longer to be known simply as the Father of Israel. Through Jesus Christ all, both Jew and Greek, have access to the Father (Eph 2:18). One can only truly know God as Father as the Father of Jesus Christ. Second, it declares that Jesus is the foremost blessing God has bestowed on humankind (see Col 1:12). There is oneness or fellowship for all those who put their faith in God through Jesus Christ alone. Paul now identifies God as the God of endurance and comfort (Rom 15:5), the God who gives endurance and encouragement (Rom 15:5), the Father of all mercies and God of all comfort and implies that mercies and comfort are brought to realization through Christ (1:5). For us, the word “comfort” may connote emotional relief and a sense of well-being, physical ease, satisfaction, and freedom from pain and anxiety. Many in our culture worship at the cult of comfort in a self-centered search for ease, but it lasts for only a moment and never fully satisfies. The word “comfort” “has gone soft” in modern English. In the time of Wycliffe the word was “closely connected with its root, the Latin fortis: to “fortify”. When applied to a person it represents one who is brave, strong, courageous.”( N. Watson, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, Epworth Commentaries (London: Epworth, 1993) 3.)
Please turn to Exodus 3 (p.46)
The comfort that Paul has in mind has nothing to do with a lazy feeling of contentment. It is not some tranquilizing dose of grace that only dulls pains but a stiffening agent that fortifies one in heart, mind, and soul. Comfort relates to encouragement, help, exhortation. God’s comfort strengthens weak knees and sustains sagging spirits so that one faces the troubles of life with unbending resolve and unending assurance. Christians also learn that, unlike the Greek pantheon of gods who are quite unconcerned about human anguish, The LORD is much different:
Exodus 3:7-8 [7]Then the LORD said, "I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, [8]and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. (ESV)
• In the New Testament, the Greek word for “comfort” is related to the familiar word paraclete, “one who comes alongside to help,” another name for the Holy Spirit (John 14:26; Phil. 2:1). The Holy Spirit is God’s instrument of comfort (MacArthur, John Jr: The MacArthur Study Bible. electronic ed. Nashville : Word Pub., 1997, c1997, S. 2 Co 1:3).
In verse 4 Paul gives the reasons for his blessing God in verse 3: “God comforts us in all our affliction /troubles.” The purpose behind the comfort he receives: “so /in order that we can comfort those who are in any affliction.” Paul does not theorize in general terms about God’s comfort. He has in mind specific incidences in which he experienced God’s deliverance from affliction: the definite article in the first phrase suggests “in all the affliction we have faced,” (N. Turner, A Grammar of New Testament Greek, Vol. III, Syntax (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1963) 199–200.).
Paul uses the word “affliction” to refer both to external distress (4:8; Rom 8:35) and inner torment (7:5; Phil 1:17). Both may be involved here, though he does not detail what exactly these afflictions were. We can only guess what they were from the hardship catalogs in this letter (4:7–12; 6:4–10; 11:23–29) and from the accounts of his persecution in Acts: plots, riots, and mob violence (Acts 9:23–25; 14:19–20; 17:5–9; 19:28–41; and 21:27–36), false accusations (Acts 16:20–22; 17:6–7; 18:13; 19:26–27; 21:20–21; 21:28; and 24:5–6), imprisonments (Acts 16:16–40), and stoning (Acts 14:19). So far, God has delivered him from every peril. Paul’s response to these afflictions teaches us several things. First, he does not view this affliction as something alien to faithful commitment to Christ. These are not chance happenings that occasionally arise and catch the unlucky. God promised Paul suffering when he was called (Acts 9:16), so persecution is normal (see Mark 4:17; Acts 11:19; 14:22; 1 Thess 1:6; 3:3). These are also not the average troubles that hit Christian and non-Christian alike, such as worries about money, relationships, or illnesses. Nor are they the disasters that seemingly strike persons at random. These are afflictions that come from serving Christ. Affliction and suffering comes for anyone who preaches the gospel in a world twisted by sin and roused by hostility to God. If God’s apostle experienced so much distress in carrying out his commission, then we can see that God does not promise prosperity or instant gratification even to the most devoted of Christ’s followers. Paul never tried to explain the problem of suffering as many try to do today. He did not welcome it, but he never asked why bad things happen to good people. He does not try to flee from it or shield himself from it but instead embraces it. He never becomes resentful or embittered because of the tribulations he endured as an apostle for Christ. Severe adversity can cause one to be frightened about the future and bitter because others do not seem to care or because they add to their woes. Paul’s suffering did not cause him to doubt his faith in God but served only to confirm it. He needs to convey this lesson to the Corinthians who use false standards and false hopes to evaluate his sufferings.
Illustration: The task of Pruning is a fitting illustration Paul’s attitude toward his suffering: Pruning means cutting, reshaping, and removing what diminishes vitality. When we look at a pruned vineyard, we can hardly believe it will bear fruit. But when harvest time comes we realize that the pruning enabled the vine to concentrate its energy and produce more grapes than it could have had it remained unpruned. Grateful people are those who can celebrate even the pains of life because they trust that when harvest time comes the fruit will show that the pruning was not punishment but purification (H. J. M. Nouwen, “All Is Grace,” Weavings 7 (1992) 40.).
We also learn from Paul who the true source of comfort is. Affliction can come from many sources, but real comfort in every affliction can only come from God alone. Abandoning Christ might seem to offer an escape from suffering, but suffering comes also to unbelievers, and abandoning Christ means that one has also abandoned the only source of comfort. God’s comfort does not always remove the affliction, but God gives us the grace to face it through, such as when Paul learns that the thorn in the flesh will not be removed but also that grace is sufficient for him to bear it.
• The Greek tenses here are significant. “Sufferings” is plural and “comfort” is singular. The sufferings that Christians bear on behalf of Christ are numerous, yet the comfort that is channelled to them is singular through Christ (Simon J. Kistemaker. 2 Corinthians. Baker Publishing House. 2004. p.44)
Paul’s experience has taught him that God comforts him so that he can be a comfort to others. God’s comfort is not intended to stop with us. God always gives a surplus, and God intends it to overflow to others. It is given not just to make us feel better but to bolster us for the task of fortifying others to face suffering. God does not comfort us to make us comfortable but to make us comforters.
• Comfort is derived from the Latin con and forte, meaning to make strong together. It shows a relational aspect that greatly overshadows the idea of individualistic comfort that prevails today. The word implies that one party strengthens another (Simon J. Kistemaker. 2 Corinthians. Baker Publishing House. 2004. p.45).
Some in Corinth may have cast doubt on Paul’s sufficiency as an apostle because he was a victim of such great suffering (2:16). One thing is clear. Paul’s inordinate suffering is met by a superabundance of God’s comfort that makes him more than sufficient to shower divine comfort upon others. On his own, Paul cannot comfort anyone. The comfort is God’s, and it merely flows through him. Paul is not the source of comfort for the Corinthians, but, as Christ’s apostle, he is the relay station. God the Father is the source of the comfort (1:4); Christ is the channel (1:5); and that comfort multiplies through our comforting others (Barnett, The Message of 2 Corinthians, 30).
We experience God’s comfort in various ways. Since Christians are united to Christ, they are also bound together. Christianity is not a religion of the alone communing with the alone. We therefore experience God’s comfort when other Christians express their care for us. Suffering becomes an unbearable burden when we feel alone and abandoned. His sense that the Corinthians were on the verge of deserting him, coupled with the terrible affliction he experienced in Asia, acted like a pincer movement to make him almost despair of life. Paul will relate later in the letter that God comforted him with the news from Titus that the Corinthians felt a deep longing and ardent concern for him (2 Cor. 7:6–7).We also experience God’s comfort by caring for others even when we are in the midst of suffering. Sometimes the sudden onslaught of affliction may tempt one to retreat into a shell, to shut oneself off from others. The suffering, however, then becomes purposeless. Those who focus only on themselves are the most miserable of people. The persons who turn their pain to helping others can redirect and conquer that pain. Paul set his hope on God who delivered Christ Jesus from death and has faithfully delivered him in the past and will deliver him in the future. He shared this hope with others. We are not comforted to be comfortable but to be comforters (MacDonald, William ; Farstad, Arthur: Believer's Bible Commentary : Old and New Testaments. Nashville : Thomas Nelson, 1997, c1995, S. 2 Co 1:4).
We can also experience God’s comfort by witnessing its power in the lives of others. “The testimony of God’s grace in one’s life is a forceful reminder to others of God’s ability and willingness to provide the grace and strength they need.” (Kruse, 2 Corinthians, 61.)
Illustration:
During the night that Dmitri was speaking to the group in his house when an officer broke in and grabbed Dmitri, a small grandmother took her life in her hands, and waved a finger in the officer’s face. She declared, “You have laid hands on a man of God and you will not survive! ”That happened on a Tuesday evening, and on Thursday night that officer dropped dead of a heart attack. The fear of God swept through the community and at the next house church service, more than 150 people showed up. The authorities couldn’t let this continue, so Dmitri was arrested and sent to jail for seventeen long, lonely, torturous years. (Nik Ripken, The Insanity of Obedience, (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group), 2014, pp. 279-282.)
We experience the Sharing in His Suffering through:
2) The Son in Suffering (2 Corinthians 1:5-6)
2 Corinthians 1:5-6 5 For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. 6 If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. (ESV)
In verse 5 Paul offers an explanation (“For/because,” hoti) of how he is able to comfort others through his affliction (1:3). In describing his sufferings in Christ, Paul pictures a balance sheet of two columns: sufferings of Christ versus comfort through Christ. Ministering in this present evil age brings him a surplus of suffering that becomes almost unbearable. But the consolation column also shows a surplus, and it more than balances the suffering. Paul’s hope of our final deliverance melts the pain away: In Romans 8:18 he said:
Romans 8:18 [18]For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. (ESV)
• The future governs his understanding of everything in the present.
What are “Christ’s sufferings”? Most likely, it refers to sufferings Christ himself endured as mentioned in 1 Pet 1:11; 4:13; and 5:1. This would mean that the solidarity between Christ and his followers applies also to his sufferings. Christians are baptized into Christ’s death (Rom 6:3) and are called to endure the same sufferings, to go to dark Gethsemane with Christ (see Mark 10:38–39). Paul speaks of being “heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory” (Rom 8:17). ”… because Christians do not merely imitate, follow or feel inspired by Christ, but actually live in him, are part of him, dwell supernaturally in a new world where the air they breathe is his Spirit, then for them henceforward suffering accepted in Christ must bring comfort, death accepted in Christ must bring life, weakness accepted in Christ must bring strength, foolishness accepted in Christ must bring wisdom” (Hanson, II Corinthians, 32.).
In verse 6 Paul explains how he can comfort those in any affliction (1:4b). “If we are distressed/afflicted”, (thlibometha) may allude to one of the Corinthian complaints; some think that he is too much afflicted. Paul turns it around and argues that his affliction is for their “comfort and salvation.” He came to them in suffering but brought them the gospel. How can they disdain what brought them their new life in Christ? Paul has suffered much, but he has been comforted much and passes it along to them. His comfort therefore becomes their comfort.
We might ask, however, how does his suffering affect their salvation? First, his afflictions come from his proclaiming the gospel by which they are saved. If Paul had chosen to shrink from the dangers he faced and to retreat unscathed to safer places, many in the Gentile world would not have heard the saving word of the gospel when they did. This does not suggest that Paul’s suffering for them has any vicarious effect as Christ’s death for us does (5:14–15, 21). Paul’s sufferings simply became a channel through which God’s salvation and comfort reached them. Paul clearly implies that he benefits the Corinthians at great cost to himself, and therefore they are indebted to him. The problem was that the Corinthians did not appreciate the significance of his suffering. They considered that all this suffering cast doubt on the power of his apostleship. His life seemed to be filled with suffering, not with the Spirit.
Please turn to Romans 5 (p.942)
He argues, however, that his comfort produces endurance in them to suffer the same sufferings. We should not understand endurance as some human power that can last through hard times. The word for endurance(hypomonē) translates the Hebrew terms (qāwâ [in the piel], tiqwā, miqweh) that signify “expectant waiting, intense desire,” and this intense desire is usually directed toward God (see Pss 39:7; 71:5; Jer 14:8; 17:13). This virtue to one “who is counting on help from someone else.” That “endurance” is a “constancy in desire that overcomes the trial of waiting, a soul attitude that must struggle to persevere, a waiting that is determined and victorious because it trusts in God (Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, trans. and ed. J. D. Ernest (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994) 3:414–15, 418)
Romans 5:1-5 [5:1]Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. [2]Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. [3]More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, [4]and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, [5]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. (ESV)
• This understanding of endurance as something that comes from God and is focused on God (see Rom 15:5) runs counter to a do-it-yourself religion. If Christians endure without complaining or growing weary or despondent (see Matt 10:22; 24:13; Mark 13:13; Luke 21:19), it is because God enables it, not because they are extraordinarily heroic.
The “same sufferings” refer to “the sufferings of Christ (1:5). Paul believes that all those connected to Christ crucified will experience suffering, and he implies that they should therefore not disparage Paul for his suffering. They share these sufferings because they share Christ and because they live in a fallen world, inundated by malevolent powers that have pitted themselves against God.
Illustration:
We must always be prepared to accept the “overflow” of negative reactions to Jesus to impact our own daily lives. And the biblical context suggests our answer to this suffering lies in endurance. Not a grim, dark acceptance of troubles, but rather the spirit of triumph and victory.
The continuing story of Dmitri is of a long, painful, heart-wrenching separation; sons growing up without their father in a struggling environment. All because of his refusal to let go of Jesus; his refusal to stop telling the Good News to his family and neighbours; and insistence to walk the way of the cross. His crude, foul prison was a thousand kilometres away from home. He was the only believer among 1,500 hardened criminals. He shares that the spiritual isolation was worse than the physical torture. But he attributes his victorious endurance to two spiritual habits he learned from his father. Every morning he would stand by his bed, raise his arms in praise to God and sing a heart song to Jesus in spite of the jeers and taunting of the other prisoners. The second discipline was to write Bible verses and Christian song lyrics he could remember on little scraps of paper and post them on a concrete pillar as a praise offering to God in spite of the prison guards destroying them and repeatedly threatening him. He continued the two disciplines for years.
Finally, in only a concluding statement: we experience the Sharing in His Suffering through:
3) The Saints in Suffering (2 Corinthians 1:7)
2 Corinthians 1:7 7 Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. (ESV)
In verse 7 Paul gives a dire picture of the Corinthians’ disobedience in this letter, but he never loses confidence in them (see 2:3; 7:4; 9:3) because his hope for them centers on what God has done and will do in them. Paul repeats that they share in the sufferings. The sufferings directly refer again to the sufferings of Christ. Since the sufferings are connected to Christ, they will receive the same wealth of consolation that Paul has received. Since they share Christ, they share Christ’s sufferings. Since they share Christ’s sufferings, they also share Christ’s comfort.
Paul shares the intensity of his suffering with the Corinthians so “they will regard their own sufferings more patiently, and will also appreciate his own present comfort and derive comfort from it.” (Plummer, The Second Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, 15.)
In verses 3-7, the word “comfort” occurs nine times. It is a comfort that brings courage, enabling a believer to cope with all that life can do to him. This was true for Dmitri also. The prison authorities became frustrated with his unwillingness to sign a bogus confession. They then decided to drag him outside for execution. While going down the long corridors, 1,500 hardened criminals stood at attention by their beds, raised their arms, and began to sing the heart song that they had heard Dimitri sing to Jesus every morning for seventeen years. The jailers immediately released their hold on his arms and asked in horror, “Who are you?” He replied, “I am a son of the Living God, and Jesus is His name!” Soon after, Dmitri was released and sent home This miraculous action was a comfort from God that Dmitri then was able to share with his family, his neighbours, his church and even with Nik Ripken who concluded, “I felt drawn to this life Dmitri had lived: knowing Jesus, loving Jesus, following Jesus, living with Jesus.” (http://www.idop.ca/files/program/2016/Sharing_in_His_Sufferings_-_Message.pdf)
Today as you pray for the thousands of persecuted brothers and sisters around the world who are sharing in the sufferings of Christ, pray that God will comfort them with endurance and courage so that they can in turn comfort others in need.
(Format Note: Some Base Commentary from Garland, David E.: 2 Corinthians. electronic ed. Nashville : Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2001, c1999 (Logos Library System; The New American Commentary 29), S. 52)
