Emily, a listener in England, writes in to ask this. "Dear Pastor John, I'm confused about the role of suffering mentioned in Colossians 1, 24-25, where Paul says, 'I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions for the sake of His body, which is the church.' How can there be anything lacking in Christ's afflictions?" Excellent.

I love this question because I've wrestled with that text and I've had such a wonderful experience with regard to missions because of what I think this text means. Let me read it one more time. This is Colossians 1, 24. "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake." So Paul is rejoicing, this is crazy, right?

"In his sufferings for their sake." He was a means of gathering them into the body. "And in my flesh," that is, in my suffering flesh, "I'm filling up," or completing, "what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of His body," that is, the church. So Christ died and suffered for the sake of gathering His body and building His body, saving His body.

So what in the world does Paul mean here? Because it sounds heretical to say anything would be missing or deficient or lacking from Christ's afflictions. And surely it does not mean that anything is lacking in the atoning effect, the atoning sufficiency of those afflictions. Jesus said, "It is finished," John 19, 30, and He meant the atoning price is paid in full.

When Paul said Christ died for our sins, he didn't mean for some of them, or His death was partly a covering, or partly a curse, or partly a ransom. The covering is complete. The curse that He bore is the whole curse, and the ransom that He paid is the whole ransom.

So, no, Paul is not saying that the death of Christ is defective or deficient or lacking in any of its atoning accomplishments for his church. So what in the world, then, does he mean when he says, "I'm filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions"? And I found the key, and you test now whether you think this is the key or not, over in Philippians 2, 30.

And there are a couple other places where Paul uses this as well, but we'll just take one. I'm looking for, I went looking for the language of "filling up what is lacking." "Filling up what is lacking." What does that mean in Paul's language? And here's what he says in Philippians 2, 30 about Epaphroditus, who had just brought him gifts from the church in Philippi.

He said, "He nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete or fill up what was lacking," same language, "in your service to me." Now, what did he mean by "what was lacking in their service"? He didn't mean that their hearts were deficient, or the amount of their gift was deficient.

What he meant was, and he said this in chapter 4, verse 10, "You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity." So they're living hundreds of miles away, over there in Philippi. Paul's in jail in Rome. They've got a big gift ready for him, and it's not doing him any good, because he doesn't even know about it, and he doesn't have it.

So, what did Epaphroditus do? He filled up what was lacking, meaning, chapter 4, verse 18, "I have received full payment and more. I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent." So, the way Epaphroditus completed or filled up what was lacking in their service is not that he added to it, but that he brought it.

He brought it not only to make sure they saw it, and I mean, Paul saw it and felt it, had it in his hands, but that he brought it at the price of his own suffering. He risked his life to complete what was lacking. Now, let's go back and see if that's not what happened in Colossians 1:24.

"I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh," so this is Epaphroditus risking his life, "I'm filling up what was lacking." This is Paul bringing the gift to the nations, filling up what was lacking in Christ's afflictions. So, that doesn't mean that in Christ's atonement, something was added by Paul.

It means that in Paul's own missionary sufferings, he is displaying and transmitting the sufferings of Christ to the nations. He's telling them in his message, and he's telling them in his body, "Here's what he did. Here's the complete, atoning afflictions of Christ." And the sense in which he's completing them is by transmitting them.

They have zero effect on lost people until they're known, until they're seen and believed and loved. And here's the shocking thing for missions that I discovered. Paul really does mean that his own sufferings are the means by which people taste and see the sufferings of Christ. So, this is a sober word to missionaries, because it says, not only will you speak the sufferings of Christ, you will live the sufferings of Christ, and in both of those ways, bring people into contact with those sufferings so that they can be saved, and in that sense, complete the afflictions of Christ.

Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you, Emily, for the very perceptive question. Well, how would Pastor John explain Christian hedonism in 30 minutes over a lunch? That's the question that comes in from David, and we'll address that tomorrow. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.