Various · Romans 8.

Christian sufferings may be great. Not unfrequently they are so. Surely none could speak more experimentally of such things than the blessed servant of Christ whose epistle is now in our hands (1 Cor. 4:9-13; 2 Cor. 11:21-33). Yet how does he here estimate them when weighed in the sober balances of Divine truth against the glory which is to be revealed! The comparison is of present sufferings against eternal glory. Thus weighed, the momentary trial of faith and patience is found to be as nothing, to be unworthy of all comparison with that which is to be revealed is us. This he reckons (verse 18). There is no sort of doubt in his mind: it is a deliberate measurement of truth with truth, of real suffering with most real and most certain and eternal glory. The believer, when thus sustained by the hope of glory, is able to endure the afflictions of the Gospel according to the power of God (2 Tim. 1:8).