And not only [that], but we also boast in tribulations, knowing that tribulation works endurance;
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
and endurance, experience; and experience, hope;
This verse sits in the middle of a chain that begins with rejoicing in trouble. Endurance leads to something, and that something leads to hope. The word in between is "character" in the ESV and "experience" in older translations. So the first question is what that word means.
The Greek word behind it carries two ideas at once: experience gained, and being approved.
The first effect, then, of tribulations is patience or endurance. (The Greek word, hupomone, seems to mean both bearing up patiently under the present evil and holding out to the end.) But patience and endurance produce experience, or being approved. The Greek word here (dokime) seems to show both. If we are impatient in our troubles, we gain only human experience. That kind is necessary, but it humbles us and tends to weigh us down — and it should. But if we learn in God's school to be still and patient under His hand, and to listen to His voice, we gain divine experience that lifts us up. We learn what God is.
This is not about looking inside ourselves. That comes later in the letter. What is proved here is God.
Again, "patience [works out] experience." This is not yet the experience of what is inside us. The letter takes that up fully later, from Romans 5:12 through to Romans 8. Here endurance works out what God is along the road, and we miss it as far as we allow impatience.
Put positively, trouble becomes the place where we prove God's care for ourselves.
The result of enduring in tribulation is that we gain experience. Endurance gives us real proof that God cares for us and takes an interest in us, keeping the soul through tribulation. So in tribulation we come to know God by experience. We prove for ourselves the grace, the tender sympathy and the mercy of our God.
The process is slower than we would like, and that slowness is part of the point.
See what trouble produces — "tribulation works patience." My will needs to be broken. I will expect to get something and never have it. I may have to cry to God for three weeks and fast, as Daniel did. I have to learn patience, and in it learn how rash my heart is, wanting everything at once… [Moses] was learning experience, and experience works hope. What blocked the hope and dimmed it is broken away in the process. Earthly hope has died away, and the heavenly hope has become more real and bright. And in it I learn what God is.
The change often begins in confusion rather than clarity.
In His dealings with us God is surrounded by cloud and darkness. Here faith should find its opportunity, yet it often finds confusion and perplexity instead. Even so, this forces us to admit that we are nothing, and to creep close to the side of the One who still walks with us. Forced to let God be God, we then experience a moral government that is a Father's… [His ways] produce no fear and no doubt, but a brightening hope that steadies as it brightens.
Hope grows because the God we are travelling toward is the God we have been meeting on the way.
We are next told that "experience works hope." On the path that leads to the glory we experience what the God of glory is — and how that glory brightens! By patient endurance we learn for ourselves the love, the care and the tender mercies of Christ, who never fails to care for us as He guides us on our way. How it makes us say, "What will it be to be with Him!"
These are not three stages you leave behind one by one. They work together and feed each other.
When a tested believer experiences Christ's faithfulness and sufficiency, hope flows more strongly in the soul. And hope, stirred like this, works back again to renew patience… So these three — patience, experience and hope — each produce or support the other. They work side by side, and together they confirm the confidence and the rejoicing of the child of God.
One caution keeps all of this from turning inward. Our feelings in affliction are not the foundation.
The result of tribulation is experience, and that works hope. Experience in affliction is an inner thing, and it does produce experience, but this inner feeling is not what we can lean on. The only support given to our faith is the love of God — the love He showed us in Christ. It is there that experience and faith meet.
- Proof — the word behind "experience" means tested and approved. Trouble does not just teach us. It proves something.
- Proof of God — what is proved is His care and faithfulness along the road, not our inner state. The letter takes that up later.
- Proof takes time — the will has to be broken, and impatience is what forfeits the lesson.
- Proof brightens — earthly hope dies away, the heavenly hope grows real and steady, and hope renews patience in return.
- Proof is not our footing — we stand on the love of God shown in Christ. That is where faith and experience meet.
and hope does not make ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by [the] Holy Spirit which has been given to us
This verse follows a chain of tribulation, patience, experience, and hope. It says why that hope will never let a believer down: God's own love, and God's own Spirit.
The love spoken of here is not the love we manage to feel toward God. That distinction is what makes the hope safe.
Romans 5:5. — The love of God to us, not ours to Him. Our love is so weak and unworthy that it makes every renewed soul ashamed; but His love is so full and rich that even the hope of His glory does not put us to shame. If the Holy Spirit, given to us, has poured that love into our hearts, then such a hope fits it well. It is the natural completion of the love that has already done such great things for us.
Verse 5 and verse 6 belong together. One speaks of God's love in us; the next of His love for us, shown for all to see.
So in verse 5 we have the love of God in us — His love poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. In verse 6 we have the love of God for us, because when we had no strength at all, "Christ died for us." What a picture for faith to look at! What a treasure for the heart to keep! What a stronghold in the day of trial! This love has come into our hearts through the presence of the Holy Spirit there. It is also shown openly in the gift, the work, the resurrection, and the glory of the Saviour.
This verse is not asking us to agree with an idea. What it describes does not stay in the mind.
I have said God's love is not a doctrine but a fact. It is not for the head but for the heart, as the next mention of it in this letter proves. It is too beautiful to pass by lightly: "the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." It is for the heart and in the heart. But if it fills the heart, it warms and spreads through the whole being. The head and hands and feet come under its influence. As the sun flooding a house with its rays drives out all darkness and chill, so the love of God acts on a life that opens to it.
Romans has said nothing about the Spirit until this point. The order is not an accident.
This verse is remarkable as the first one that speaks either of the Spirit given to us, or of the love of God which is poured into us by Him. We have His righteousness fully displayed and applied before there is any mention of either… It is good that the soul should be shut up to what is absolutely perfect outside ourselves, on God's part. This rests not on the Spirit's work in us, but on Christ's work for us… Had it come in before this, the heart would readily have turned from Christ and God's righteousness to its own workings and affections.
The Spirit is given, not achieved. That gift rests on the blood of Christ.
Here we see the Holy Spirit as the seal given to the believer. He seals to him the value of the blood of Christ, and the perfect cleansing he shares in through that blood. Washed from his sins, he becomes the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. He is the anointing, the believer's seal, and the down payment of glory… And here, in this passage, we learn that by Him also the love of God is poured into our hearts.
Because the verse follows a list of trials, some treat the Spirit as a prize at the end of the process.
People often read these words as meaning the exact opposite of what they say. They take them to mean that we must have this experience first, so that God may then pour His love into our hearts. They think that if we pray much and are very diligent in patience, experience, and hope, then we may hope for the gift of the Holy Spirit. No words can tell how utterly wrong all this is… To think God gives the Holy Spirit because of our own efforts, or experience, or devotedness, is to set aside the perfect work of Christ.
Knowing this love is what turns pressure from something merely endured into something a believer can boast in.
In the end it will make me hope, "because the love of God has been poured into my heart." This gives me the key to all the tribulation, and lets me glory in it. It is the fruit of God's own love. I trust Him. How do I get this? By the Holy Spirit who is within me… It is not mine but His, God's love poured out; God, who is love, is in me — God's own love. This brings us back to a strength of hope that nothing can shake.
- Ground — the love in view is God's love to us, not ours to Him; that is why hope built on it cannot end in shame.
- Proof — the love poured in (v. 5) rests on the love displayed outside us, when Christ died for people with no strength (v. 6).
- Gift — the Spirit is the seal of the value of Christ's blood and the down payment of glory; He is given, never earned by our diligence.
- Reach — this love is a fact, not a doctrine for the head; it warms the whole person, as sunlight fills a house.
- Result — in the day of trial this love is a stronghold, and the hope it feeds cannot end in shame.