Title What is ‘Christ’s suffering’/Colossians 1:24
Content What is 'Christ's suffering'/Colossians 1:24
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Through a text such as Paul's testimony today, what is the meaning of Christ's passion for modern people? Let's look at what God, who has made us his children through his Son's suffering, really expects of us.
First of all, the text is two sentences. There is one sentence, “I now rejoice in your sufferings” and the second sentence, “I fill the rest of the sufferings of Christ in my body for the sake of his body, the church.” He says that he rejoices in suffering for the sake of the Colossians. Furthermore, he reveals that he is filling the rest of the sufferings of Christ with his own body.
What is Paul's suffering now? He is now a prisoner in prison. Paul is saying that he is happy with his condition as a prisoner. Can you be happy?
It was because he knew that his suffering was for the Colossians who received this letter. If Paul had not been imprisoned, the Bible would not have been written. It would have been.
In Ephesians, which appears to have been written at the same time as the book of Colossians, also in prison, Paul is moved by his ministry as an apostle to the Gentiles (3:5-9, 13). Galatians 2:8-9 also reveals the same feelings. Paul rejoices because he knows that his imprisonment is for the body of the church, and he asks the saints to be a song of glory as well.
Also, what is the suffering of Christ that Paul is filling in his body? This suffering is different from the suffering that Jesus suffered on the cross on Good Friday. The suffering of the cross is suffering to save the church, and Paul's suffering is the suffering of the church. It is suffering in order to grow up to the full size of Jesus.
Saints are those who have been saved through the sufferings of Jesus. Therefore, there are sufferings that must be endured in order to live like mature believers. Because the work “to perfect the saints, to do the work of service, and to build up the body of Christ” is still in progress.
Christ shares the persecution and suffering of the saints. Paul vividly remembers the voice of heaven that shocked his entire being. “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Jesus of Nazareth said that his people were persecuted. When they receive it, he says, “Why are you persecuting me?”
Are there any ridicule, insults, persecution, and suffering now because of the gospel like then? It is never alone. Christ always suffers together. The passion of Christ continues as long as his body, the Church, is on this earth. Christ and the Church is one forever. Therefore, to suffer for the sake of the gospel is to share in the remaining sufferings of Christ.
No tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, or drenched danger or sword can ever separate us from the love of God in Christ. Doesn’t the Bible say that our sufferings in this life cannot be compared with the glory that will be revealed? He was a person who persecuted this, but now he is bearing suffering in his own body for Christ's sake.
I hope that the saints living today will also become faithful worshipers who are determined to live a life of suffering for Christ.