Suffering, Glory, and God
Gleanings from the Doctor on the good found through the trials and tribulations of the Christian life.
Romans 8 is a most beloved portion of the Scripture. One eminent preacher of our day called it the “Best Chapter in the Bible.” And he’s not wrong!
Romans 8 takes us out of the depths of the despair over our sin in Romans 7 and brings us into heaven as we anticipate the glory to come. But there is one verse in Romans 8 that is among the most dear to God’s people:
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)
The greatest preacher of the 20th Century, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, asserted of this verse and its “exalted doctrine” that there was nothing “higher than this.” He even goes so far as to call it “ultimate doctrine.” This sweetly practical doctrine too.
This doctrine - that all things work together for the good of God’s people - has been the greatest comfort for the saints in times of trial, distress, disappointment, and tribulation. What sweet consolation it is to know that God rules and overrules those things for our eternal good.
It is not, however, that God uses those providences to prepare us for better “things” in this life necessarily, as Wendell Talley explores in his own essay.
But nonetheless, all things work together for our good. How does that happen? How is this the case? Lloyd-Jones highlights several ways in which God orders trials and hardships for the good of His people. We might categorize these benefits under three headings: knowledge of self, knowledge of God, and knowledge of glory.
I. Knowledge of Self
First, trials shock God’s people into a state of heightened spiritual attentiveness. “We are now ready to pay attention not only to the problem, but also to ourselves and our spiritual condition.” So often Christians go through life accustomed to things simply “working out” and we become negligent about our spiritual disciplines. But that is the moment of our greatest vulnerability to Satan’s attacks and schemes.
But when something goes wrong, “it has the effect of pulling us up and startling us and awakening us” to the spiritual dangers all around us. And that is always for our eternal benefit because it makes us evaluate our routines and our activities with greater spiritual discernment.
Second, trials reveal to us just how small and frail we are. When things are going reasonably well, Lloyd-Jones warns us we “develop a false self-confidence. Although we know we have been saved by grace, we begin to think we can live the Christian life ourselves, and before we realize it we begin to develop a carnal confidence.”
That is so true; when life seems all ‘peaches and cream,’ we start to think we maintain our spirituality by our Bible reading, church attendance, praying, and coming to the Table. But when we are overwhelmed by tragedy and trial, we realize it was not our Bible reading, church attendance, praying, or even coming to the Table that sustains us, it is God meeting us there, it is God holding us, and God pouring out His grace upon us that sustained us. We realize God is all we have.
We then come to realize the vastness, the depth of the Christian life.
II. Knowledge of God
Third, trials raise our awareness of our sinfulness. This cuts two ways. Sometimes when things are going well, we are not prone to search ourselves for indwelling sin, unconfessed sin, but just go along without much thought. But the Apostle warns us:
And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. (James 5:15)
So trials give us opportunity to search our hearts and discern if we are cherishing any ‘pet sins’ and to find God’s mercy afresh.
But trials often also reveal to us the faulty ideas about God that we had. Says Lloyd-Jones: “when things go wrong, we tend to complain and to grumble and to wonder why God has allowed this trial to happen to us…Thus we are awakened to our own sinfulness and…readiness…to harbour unworthy thoughts concerning God who has loved us with an everlasting love.”
And this is humbling: to realize we did not know God so well as we presumed, but that He is greater than we had imagined. And “humility is ever the greatest safeguard in the spiritual life.”
Fourth, trials confront us afresh with our need of forgiveness. As our awareness of our sinfulness grows, so too grows our awareness of our need of God’s mercy, pardon, and grace in Christ.
Fifth, trials teach us our utter dependence upon God. When life is going well, when success, approval, and affirmation greet us at ever turn, we tend to think we have it all under control. But then hardship comes and we are “driven back to an utter, entire dependence upon God.” Trials force us to ‘re-learn’ the gospel.
Sixth, God uses trials to teach us things about God we did not know and to deepen our knowledge and understanding of God’s truth. When we come to salvation, we know something of God. But God reveals to His saints new depths of His grace, kindness, compassion, tenderness, and care for His people in the midst of suffering and sorrow.
Lloyd-Jones goes so far as to point out it is in the endurance of suffering and tribulation that we begin to truly understand God’s love for us, His eagerness to show mercy, forgiveness, and to restore us to Himself.
Knowledge of God is critical. And God uses suffering to grow us in grace and knowledge of Himself. Since “our greatest trouble is our ignorance of God” and God uses troubles to “draw us to Himself,” we begin to see how God works these things for our good.
III. Knowledge of Glory
Seventh, trials and suffering enable us to properly value the things of this life and world. When everything is going swimmingly, we can easily become lost in matters of family life, school life, community life, work life, and even church life: “half our spiritual troubles arise from the fact that we become lost in these things and tend to live for them.” When this life is all sweetness, we think too little about glory.
But when hardship dawns, we are made to realize the true nature of this life: all these things are only for a little while and then they are gone. “When we are suddenly deprived of these things, and are shown how tenuous is our hold upon them, we begin to remind ourselves that…death is not the end, and that the glory is awaiting us.”
How strange to us God’s ways are that even suffering, physical and material deprivations should increase our knowledge of and our joy in God’s glory and the glory that is to be revealed to us.
God orders and overrules suffering for the good of His people to work in them knowledge of themselves, knowledge of Himself, and knowledge of the glory that is to come.
Here again we see the greatness and riches of God’s grace: we are so hardhearted and slow to understand that often the most fruitful times for knowing ourselves, knowing God, knowing glory are not when we are experiencing the earthly blessings of God, but when he takes some of them from us.
We study God’s goodness comparatively little when things are good. But when things are bad the eyes of faith are so better tuned to seek and find God’s goodness. Yet God still bears with His people and remains faithful to us even though we are so slow to seek Him. Let us praise Him that He has sought us. And that He keeps us.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one. (John 10:27–30)
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “Chapter 13: Working for Our Good” in Romans: The Final Perseverance of the Saints, 158-170. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975.