LESSON FOUR – WHY SHOULD BELIEVERS SUFFER?

2 Cor. 4:16-17 — Therefore we do not lose heart; but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For our momentary lightness of affliction works out for us, more and more surpassingly, an eternal weight of glory.

TWO CREATIONS—THE OLD AND THE NEW

The experience of every saved person provides at least some evidence that God is the living God, but comparatively few of the saved realize that the God who dwells within them is the God of resurrection. If the distinction between the living God and the God of resurrection is not clear to us, many problems will arise in our experience as we seek to press on.

The Bible speaks of two creations, the old and the new. The divine nature does not indwell the old creation, and that is why it has become old. Where God is, there is always newness. The Jerusalem above is called New Jerusalem because it is full of God.…The first creation, though brought into being by God Himself, is allowed by God Himself to pass into death so that it may emerge in resurrection as a creation of dual nature, that is, combining the natures of God and man.

THE NEW CREATION BROUGHT IN THROUGH SUFFERING

Though the old creation has come into being by the mighty hand of the living God, He Himself does not reside within it. It is created by Him and it displays His might, but it does not display His presence. How can the old creation be transformed into the new? It is by the incoming of God. But how can His incoming be secured? This is the point at which a major difficulty arises. The old nature must be shattered to make way for Him. Brothers and sisters, everything in your life must pass the supreme test of death to make a way for the God of resurrection. If you only know the living God, your knowledge will be too objective. God will be God; you will be you. You need to know the God of resurrection, and it is only through death that He can cleave a way for Himself into your life.

THROUGH SUFFERING THE VERY NATURE OF GOD BEING WROUGHT INTO MAN

What is the significance of suffering? It is this, that the devastation it brings to the old creation provides an opportunity for the God of resurrection to impart Himself into His creatures so that they emerge from the death process with a divine element in their constitution. The primary purpose of suffering in this universe, particularly as it relates to the children of God, is that through it the very nature of God may be wrought into the nature of man. “Though our outward man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). Through a process of outward decay, an inward process is taking place that is adding a new constituent to our lives.

THROUGH SUFFERING MAN EXPERIENCING THE GOD OF RESURRECTION PERSONALLY

Beloved brothers and sisters, through hardship and pressure a divine element is being wrought into the very fabric of our beings so that we cease to be colorless Christians but have a heavenly hue imparted into our life that was lacking before. Whatever else suffering may effect in this universe is incidental; this is primary—to bring those whom the living God has made possessors of created life into the uncreated life of the God of resurrection. It is in the death experiences, which come through suffering, that the life of the creature is blended with the life of the Creator. We may know the living God without such drastic experiences, but only through death can we come to an experiential knowledge of the God of resurrection. (CWWL, 1957, vol. 3, “The Living God and the God of Resurrection,” pp. 184, 188-190)

Reference: CWWL, 1957, vol. 3, “The Living God and the God of Resurrection,” ch. 3

IF THE PATH I TRAVEL

Longings— For Fellowship with Christ – 377

• If the path I travel
  Lead me to the cross,
  If the way Thou choosest
  Lead to pain and loss,
  Let the compensation
  Daily, hourly, be
  Shadowless communion,
  Blessed Lord, with Thee.

• If there’s less of earth joy,
  Give, Lord, more of heaven.
  Let the spirit praise Thee,
  Though the heart be riven;
  If sweet earthly ties, Lord,
  Break at Thy decree,
  Let the tie that binds us,
  Closer, sweeter, be.

• Lonely though the pathway,
  Cheer it with Thy smile;
  Be Thou my companion
  Through earth’s little while;
  Selfless may I live, Lord,
  By Thy grace to be
  Just a cleansed channel
  For Thy life through me.