How can we glory in our sufferings (Romans 5:3)?

“But we glory in tribulation also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience (or endurance); and patience, experience; and experience, hope.” At the very outset, the Christian ought to settle it in his heart to expect a path of tribulation. Justification gives no assurance of an easy earthly path: quite the reverse. But it brings heavenly joy into the midst of the trouble — beauteous testimony to the grace of God! Sorrow and trial become the very sphere of the conquest of eternal joys, which will not be defeated by these mere momentary hindrances. And it is no mere bearing our troubles with submission (more or less), but of rejoicing in them, realizing that they are working steadily to an end of more exceeding blessing for us and glory to God. Tribulation (properly regarded) is the teacher of endurance: endurance soon bears fruit in abundantly valuable experience — valuable in regard to all our relationships of life, whether in making personal decisions, whether in contacts with the saved or the unsaved, in home affairs, in the assembly, in business. In all these things, no one would deny the value of hard-learned experience. And experience is the very nourishment of hope. For true experience teaches the vanity and shallowness of all that is of the world. Such is the very plain recording of the book of Ecclesiastes, written by a man of wisdom declaring the findings of his own experience. But if this is so, how much more fully will experience (rightly regarded, of course), draw the heart toward Heaven and quicken in the soul the hope of glory. The reality of this all who have tasted it know well. Another point, however is this — that while experience teaches the transitoriness of life on earth, it is also always the proof of God's abiding faithfulness, and such realization cannot but stir the hope of the soul to be eternally in His presence.

The Apostle Paul wrote these words, which we have selected as a title, when engaged in the calm and reasoned setting forth of the Gospel of God. He did not declaim them in the midst of glowing oratory, when the best of men may be guilty of exaggeration. They were literally true. He did not look upon tribulation as an evil, necessary perhaps, but always to be avoided if possible. He rather regarded it as good and a subject for rejoicing, because, as he tells us in the succeeding verses (Rom. 5:3-5), he knew the wholesome and desirable effects that it produced within.

Meanwhile there is nothing but desert around. Do we boast in hope notwithstanding? Assuredly, "and not only [so], but we boast in tribulations also." This flesh can never do; it may affect stoical insensibility: but faith, while it increases our feeling, alone gives us to triumph.

Here, however, there is a process to which we need to take heed. In hoping for the glory of God, our boast is direct. It is not so with our tribulations. We should and do boast in them, but it is not immediate. It is the fruit of intelligent apprehension of God's gracious aim in these afflictions. Hence the apostle proceeds to set out how we are brought thus to traverse the judgment of nature. We boast in tribulations, says he; "knowing that tribulation works endurance; and endurance, experience; and experience, hope; and hope makes not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost that was given to us."

Such is the shining pathway of the Christian even here, because Christ is before the heart: otherwise, tribulation works out the impatience of the first man, not endurance through the Second. Then endurance sustained in faith works out experience (i.e., the proof of what is tested and stands); as this again, from what God is shown to be in gracious present care, strengthens hope; and this does not put to shame by failure and disappointment; because the Holy Ghost sheds abroad in our hearts the love of God, who loved us when there was nothing lovable in us, as we are shown after self is thus detected and judged, the world seen in its true colours, and God more than ever proved, and prized, and trusted.

Nevertheless, God intends that the tribulation we may pass through shall turn to our spiritual blessing. Therefore, the Apostle adds, "We glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation works endurance". He does not suggest that we glory in tribulation as such, but because it works to our spiritual advantage. Tribulation leads to endurance. In the light of what is coming we learn to endure what is present. Our Lord has been before us in this path. Walking in the light of the glory that was before Him, He endured the trials He had to meet; as we read, "Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the Cross despising the shame"; and again we read, He "endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself". Truly, in His case, the trial drew forth the perfection of the endurance that He had; in ours we have to learn endurance. Rejoicing in hope of the glory we, too, shall be able to endure in the midst of tribulations. Losing sight of the glory we shall be in danger, in the presence of trial of giving up, rather than enduring.

(V. 4). The result of enduring in tribulation is that we gain experience. Endurance leads to a practical proof of the reality of the care and interest of God in preserving and keeping the soul in tribulation. Thus, in tribulation, we gain an experimental acquaintance with God; we practically prove the grace and tender sympathy, and mercy of our God.

Rom. 5:3. "We boast (or rejoice) in tribulations also." The ways of God towards us during the crossing of the wilderness are designed to mortify the flesh, to break the man, and thereby to form us for the knowledge of God. The flesh is a veil which hides heavenly things from us. God acts in our interest, as to this veil, and afterwards we see better throughout. In this verse 3 it is in view of the subjective fruit, which results from the tribulation that we boast. In Rom. 5:11 we boast in view of the objective blessing — we joy or boast in God. By objective blessing is meant the blessing which specially belongs to faith, as the knowledge of God, His work of grace accomplished outside us in Christ, etc. Subjective blessing is said of the effects of grace produced in us.

Rom. 5:4. The result of tribulation is experience, and that works hope. While experience in affliction is an inner thing and productive of experience, it is not on this inner feeling that one can lean. The sole support given to our faith is the love of God, that love which He showed in Christ toward us. It is there that experience and faith meet. Accordingly there are two aspects in which Paul presents the love of God:–

From this point in Romans 5, we progress in the knowledge of Himself. Verses 3 to 5 give us, in a sense, experience in circumstances of trial and contrariety — in other words, wilderness experience. What marks a wilderness is barrenness, no sustenance. In the spiritual counterpart of this the believer learns that there is no support for him in the world through which he passes. Yet, in the good of verses 1 and 2, he says, "and not only so, but we glory in tribulations also."

This obviously cuts across the natural course of things — "glory in tribulations"? Yes, because we know that tribulation is used to form us as we go through it in communion with God. The moral quality of "patience" (endurance) is acquired in the face of trial. We are morally strengthened to stand against the storm just as the tree bending to the wind strikes its roots deeper. This endurance works experience, for we are brought to the conscious knowledge of the faithfulness and support of God. We learn to distrust ourselves, for we are just as incapable of sustaining ourselves in the path of faith as we were of justifying ourselves. So we learn God when things are seemingly against us. Blessed experience that gives us to trust Him unreservedly!

But see what the result of tribulation is - "tribulation works patience." I need my will to be broken, I shall expect to get a thing and never have it; I may have to cry to God three weeks, and fast, as Daniel: I have to learn patience, and in it learn the rashness of my heart that would expect everything at once. And so "patience works experience." A man in earnest to do right will, if his will be at work, be in a hurry, but he will have to find out that he must wait for God's help, as Moses had to do, who kills an Egyptian in his haste without God's bidding, and Pharaoh hearing of it, off he goes. He has, in blessed true-heartedness, chosen to leave the court of Pharaoh's daughter, where he had been brought up, and to take his place with the afflicted brickmakers. But though sincere and devoted, and with a right intention, giving up the high position in which providence had placed him, his flesh had to be broken down, and this was through forty years' tribulation in the wilderness, keeping his father-in-law's sheep. He was learning experience, and experience works hope; because what hindered and dimmed the hope is broken away by the process; earthly hope has died away, and the heavenly become more real and bright; and because in it I learn what God is. Moses had more knowledge of what the people were to be delivered for, when he went to Pharaoh by God's sending; he knew nothing of the Canaan they were to go to when he slew the Egyptian.

The first effect, then, of tribulations is patience or endurance. (The Greek word, hupomone, seems to imply both the patient bearing up under the present evil, and the enduring unto the end.) But patience and endurance work experience or being approved. The word in the original (dokime) appears to indicate both. While being impatient in tribulations we only make human experiences, which, though necessary, are humbling and apt to weigh us down, and ought to be so. But if we learn in God's school to be still and patient under His hand and to listen to His voice, we make divine, that is, elevating experiences, learning what God is. The former kind of experiences, humbling though they be, impart no strength, and often lead to a sort of sham humility, as will often appear in meetings of legal christians for so-called "edification." They often seem to have met solely for the purpose of talking of their human experiences instead of speaking of God and His Son, the ground of our "most holy faith" and of all true edification, and of the experiences which they have made of Him. If we cannot say anything good of ourselves, we like to say something bad of ourselves. But it is always self instead of Christ. This is not building up but pulling down one another and often leads to something worse: sham humility, — a kind of emulation which of them has made the most experiences of self, and thus one learns to boast in that which ought to be our shame, instead of "rejoicing in tribulations," that is boasting in God, and "rejoicing in Christ."

The believer feels in his body, no less than the unbeliever, the sufferings of the present time, and far more in his spirit. Yet he rejoices; yea, exalts. How can this be? "And not only so, but we rejoice [or, boast] in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope; and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." The Christian hope has received from the love of God a pledge that cannot fail, even the Holy Spirit; "and if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies because of His Spirit that dwelleth in you." Thus the Christian hope is divinely warranted.

The Jewish Christians were tried and persecuted. Peter also speaks of this in his epistle, encouraging them to suffer with patience. James exhorts them, as Paul also had done in Romans 5, to esteem persecution as all joy, and for the same reason that Paul had given. The trial of faith works patience; the will of man is broken; he has to wait for the operation of God; he feels his dependence on God, and that he lives in a scene where God alone can produce the result desired, overcoming and arresting the power of Satan. Often we may wish when occupied with good, that the work should be hastened, that difficulties should disappear, and that we should be freed from persecution; but the will of God - not ours - is good and wise: the works that are done upon the earth, He does them Himself Patience is the perfect fruit of obedience.

See what is said in Colossians 1:11: "Strengthened with all might, according to the power of his glory" - what mighty deeds should not such strength produce! - "unto all patience and longsuffering, with joyfulness." All might, according to the power of His glory, is needed to enable us to bear everything without murmuring, and even with joy, since all comes from the hand of God. It is His will, not our own, which sustains the heart. When Paul, in 2 Corinthians 12:12, gives us the signs of an apostle, the first is patience with all longsuffering. Paul also gives us the key to this apparent contradiction: "We rejoice in hope of the glory of God; and not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us," Rom. 5:3-5.