Is Suffering a Paradox for Christian Hedonists?
00:00:00.000 | Welcome back to the podcast.
00:00:05.680 | Thank you for joining us today.
00:00:07.580 | We start this new week with an email from a listener named Shannon.
00:00:10.520 | Shannon is wondering if personal suffering is paradoxical for those of us who put so
00:00:16.260 | much stress on joy, for us Christian hedonists.
00:00:21.280 | Here's her email.
00:00:22.280 | Pastor John, hello, and thank you for the APJ podcast.
00:00:26.240 | My question is about 1 Peter 4, verses 1 to 2.
00:00:29.840 | There appears to be a point of arrival when we no longer live for human passions but for
00:00:35.880 | God's will.
00:00:37.680 | As a Christian hedonist, do you see an irony that my sinfulness will cease only after I
00:00:43.640 | have suffered for a certain amount of time, thus showing my life is not to live for my
00:00:49.600 | own sinful pleasure but to pursue God as my greatest treasure?
00:00:56.520 | Is suffering a paradox for Christian hedonists?
00:01:00.880 | Okay, there are two, at least I hear, two distinct issues to deal with here.
00:01:09.400 | One is whether Shannon is interpreting 1 Peter 4, verse 1 correctly, and the other is whether
00:01:21.060 | suffering is indeed appointed by God as a means by which sin is rooted out of our lives
00:01:28.300 | and is therefore a means by which we come to enjoy Christ more, more fully, as our supreme
00:01:37.900 | treasure.
00:01:38.900 | That's the kind of paradox she's saying.
00:01:40.620 | If that's true, then we're going to embrace suffering as Christian hedonists, and she
00:01:44.100 | regards that as kind of paradoxical.
00:01:46.900 | So let me try to take those one at a time because they really are separate issues.
00:01:50.380 | First, a few words about the meaning of 1 Peter 4, verse 1, where Peter says, so this
00:01:56.820 | is a quote from 4, verse 1, "Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves
00:02:04.820 | with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from
00:02:12.940 | sin."
00:02:13.940 | Now, I have good friends, and name them, a lot of our listeners would know who they're
00:02:20.020 | talking about.
00:02:21.020 | They're pretty famous folks.
00:02:22.860 | I have good friends who interpret this verse differently than I do, and they've both written
00:02:26.940 | commentaries and they've studied this more than I have.
00:02:30.780 | And I'm not infallible, as everybody knows.
00:02:34.220 | They say that arming yourself with the same way of thinking as Christ, who suffered, means
00:02:44.860 | that you resolve not to sin, even if it costs you suffering.
00:02:52.420 | And if you do that, it is evidence that you have in principle ceased from sin and are
00:02:58.860 | willing to endure the maligning referred to in verse 4, something like that.
00:03:03.980 | It's kind of complicated.
00:03:05.860 | But I have a hard time laying that interpretation on the text and seeing it clearly.
00:03:11.380 | Here's what I think Peter meant, and the folks will have to study this out for themselves.
00:03:16.460 | The criticism that my interpretation usually gets is that it looks like I've just taken
00:03:22.340 | it over from the Apostle Paul.
00:03:24.340 | And that's not fair.
00:03:25.940 | That's cheating.
00:03:26.940 | You can't run over to Romans 6 and grab an interpretation and come squish it into 1 Peter.
00:03:31.540 | I get that, but I don't think so.
00:03:34.540 | If I thought that's what I was doing, I would back down.
00:03:38.660 | Paul says in Romans 6—I'll give you the parallel that is so remarkable.
00:03:43.460 | Romans 6.6, he says, "We know that our old self was crucified with Christ in order that
00:03:52.380 | the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to
00:03:59.780 | sin, for the one who has died has been set free from sin."
00:04:07.340 | That's Paul's quote.
00:04:10.180 | That's very close to Peter saying, "Whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from
00:04:17.060 | sin."
00:04:18.060 | So, Paul is saying that when Christ suffered and died, we Christians, by union with him
00:04:26.740 | through faith, also suffered and died, and that this death with Christ was a decisive
00:04:35.660 | death blow to our life of sinning.
00:04:39.820 | We are an essentially new person in Christ, and the mark of the newness is that we hate
00:04:46.460 | our sin and we make war on it and we put it to death by the Spirit.
00:04:52.060 | Now that's essentially what I think Peter means in 1 Peter 4.1, but not because Paul
00:04:59.980 | said it so well, but because Peter's context points in this direction.
00:05:07.460 | In 1 Peter 3.18, just a few verses earlier, he says, "Christ also suffered once for
00:05:17.380 | sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death
00:05:26.900 | in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit."
00:05:31.460 | So, Christ's suffering, which 1 Peter 4.1 refers to, Christ's suffering in this verse
00:05:39.780 | is his death.
00:05:41.020 | He suffered unto death.
00:05:43.300 | He suffered once, that is, he was put to death in the flesh.
00:05:47.140 | So when 1 Peter 4.1 says, "Christ suffered in the flesh, so whoever has suffered in the
00:05:54.900 | flesh has ceased from sin," the natural meaning is Christ died.
00:05:59.500 | So whoever has died with him, I interpret, has ceased from sin.
00:06:07.260 | Now what makes that connection even more plain, I think, is chapter 2, verse 24, where Peter
00:06:15.540 | says, "He," that is, Christ, "bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might
00:06:23.180 | die to sin."
00:06:25.780 | That's a really amazing parallel to Paul and to chapter 4, verse 1 in 1 Peter, to die
00:06:31.620 | to sin and to live to righteousness.
00:06:34.180 | Christ died for our sins, that we might experience his death as our death, and thus die to our
00:06:44.100 | sins, that is, be set free from the dominion of sinning.
00:06:50.700 | So I don't think it's unique to Paul at all to say, as Peter does in 4.1, paraphrasing
00:07:00.500 | 2.24, "Christ suffered," that is, he died, therefore, have that mindset because you died
00:07:10.580 | with him and the effect of that death with him was that your old sin-loving self died
00:07:18.100 | and now you have ceased from your bondage to sin and are launched into a life of warfare
00:07:26.060 | in which sin will not have dominion over you.
00:07:30.780 | I don't think Shannon is right, therefore, to say that 1 Peter 4.1 teaches—this is
00:07:38.140 | a quote from her question—"My sinfulness will cease only after I have suffered for
00:07:46.700 | a certain amount of time."
00:07:48.700 | I think the point is, my bent towards sinning received a mortal blow when Christ died for
00:07:58.380 | my sin and I died with him.
00:08:02.260 | So I don't think she set things up correctly, but now we turn to the second issue where
00:08:08.860 | she's on track.
00:08:11.500 | That happens a lot of times, right?
00:08:13.220 | You see something in a text, you don't get the text quite right, but the conclusion you
00:08:17.060 | draw is pretty good.
00:08:18.660 | So here's the second issue, namely, whether suffering is indeed appointed by God as a
00:08:25.660 | means by which sin is rooted out of our lives and is therefore a means by which I come to
00:08:33.200 | enjoy Christ more fully as my supreme treasure.
00:08:37.460 | Now that's a different issue, and Shannon's way of saying it is that this would be a paradox
00:08:44.180 | for a Christian hedonist, that is, somebody like me who believes that God is most glorified
00:08:49.880 | in us when we are most satisfied in him.
00:08:52.580 | She thinks that would be a paradox, namely, since sin diminishes our greatest and longest
00:08:59.020 | joy, yes it does, joy in Christ as our supreme treasure, that's the greatest and longest
00:09:06.820 | joy, therefore Christian hedonists should welcome God-appointed suffering as a means
00:09:15.720 | of killing the very thing, sin, that robs us of our greatest joy, namely sin.
00:09:22.300 | That's the paradox, and I think that's right.
00:09:24.460 | I think that's basically right.
00:09:25.980 | She's onto something there.
00:09:28.300 | One of the reasons God appoints suffering for his children is to wean us off of reliance
00:09:34.520 | upon the world whose pleasures are deceitful, and they rob us of the greatest pleasures
00:09:41.120 | at God's right hand.
00:09:42.660 | And we could show this from a lot of places in the New Testament, 2 Corinthians 1, 8,
00:09:48.620 | 9, 2 Corinthians 12, 7 to 10, but let me just glance briefly at Hebrews 12, 6 to 11.
00:09:57.540 | So it says, "The Lord disciplines the one he loves."
00:10:02.180 | That's like a spanking, it's like suffering he brings into our lives.
00:10:05.340 | "The Lord disciplines the one whom he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives."
00:10:12.940 | It is for discipline that you have to endure.
00:10:15.860 | God is treating you as sons, loved sons.
00:10:19.620 | So God brings suffering into the lives of his children, and it is a sign of his love,
00:10:28.580 | not his wrath.
00:10:29.580 | It's for our good, our joy, our holiness.
00:10:33.220 | So the writer goes on.
00:10:34.580 | Here's verse 10 of Hebrews 12.
00:10:37.420 | "He disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.
00:10:44.400 | For the moment, all discipline seems painful."
00:10:47.500 | Yes, it does, rather than pleasant.
00:10:50.900 | But later, "it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained
00:10:58.500 | by it."
00:10:59.500 | So he contrasts the painful, unpleasant experience of suffering—that's the discipline of the
00:11:07.620 | Father—with the peaceful and pleasant fruit of righteousness.
00:11:14.380 | So yes, Shannon is right in principle.
00:11:18.700 | I don't think this is the point of 1 Peter 4:1, but it is the point of many texts in
00:11:25.420 | the Bible.
00:11:26.860 | God loves his children, and he knows better than any human physician what measures of
00:11:34.980 | displeasure are needed to kill the sins that rob us of the greatest pleasures, namely the
00:11:44.060 | ones in God's presence, with Jesus as our greatest treasure.
00:11:50.980 | So good.
00:11:51.980 | Yeah, the Christian hedonist welcomes God-appointed suffering as a means of killing the very thing,
00:11:58.020 | the sin, that robs us of our greatest joy in God.
00:12:04.700 | That is so good, so important.
00:12:05.940 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:12:06.940 | Thank you for joining us today.
00:12:07.940 | If you have a question for us, like Shannon did today, email us.
00:12:11.140 | Do it from our online home at AskPastorJohn.com.
00:12:16.580 | And speaking of Paul on suffering, Philippians 3 verses 1 to 14 comes to my mind when it
00:12:21.380 | comes to preparing for personal suffering.
00:12:24.700 | I know that's a text that you have explained before, Pastor John, and we're going to look
00:12:27.540 | at that text next time when we return.
00:12:30.380 | What is step one in preparing for suffering?
00:12:34.740 | I'm your host Tony Rehnke.
00:12:36.620 | We'll see you back here on Wednesday.
00:12:38.700 | See you then.
00:12:39.020 | [END]
00:12:39.420 | 1.
00:12:40.420 | What is step one in preparing for suffering?
00:12:41.420 | 2.
00:12:42.420 | What is the most important thing that God has given you?
00:12:43.420 | 3.
00:12:44.420 | What is the most important thing that God has given you?
00:12:45.420 | 4.
00:12:46.420 | What is the most important thing that God has given you?
00:12:47.420 | 5.