God Appoints Suffering - 2

Examining John Piper’s works on “Why God Appoints Suffering For His Servants,” his second premise is a stretch. Biblical, but hard to grasp. “Suffering makes your cup increase.”

“By enduring suffering with patience, the reward of our experience of God’s glory in heaven increases.” He cites 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

“Paul is not merely saying that he has a great hope in heaven that enables him to endure suffering. That is true. But here he says that the suffering has an affect on the weight of glory. There seems to be a connection between suffering endured and the degree of glory enjoyed. Of course the glory outstrips the suffering infinitely, as Paul says in Romans 8:18, Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later.

“Jesus points in the same direction in Matthew 5:11-12 God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers. Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in heaven.

Piper then quotes a long passage of Jonathan Edwards, summarized by “It will be no damp to the happiness of those who have lower degrees of happinness and glory, that there are others advanced in glory above them: for all shall be perfectly happy, every one shall be perfectly satisfied. Every vessel that is cast into this ocean of happineess is full, though there are some vessels far larger than others; and there shall be no such thing as envy in heaven, but perfect love shall reign through the whole society…”

Piper closes the monologue with, “Thus one of the aims of God in the suffering of the saints is to enlarge their capacity to enjoy His glory both here and in the age to come.”

One of the conundrums of the Christian walk: what is the after-life really like upon death and for eternity? By faith we can say with the song writer, “I don’t know about tomorrow, but I know Who holds my hand.”