What does the Bible tell us about the suffering of this present time (Romans 8:18)?

“For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waits for the manifestation of the sons of God.” Who ever was better able to reckon on this matter than Paul? Bonds and imprisonments awaited him in every city — a life of constant suffering with Him he so loved to serve; yet he says, “the sufferings or this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” Indeed, even “the earnest expectation of the creature waits for the manifestation of the sons of God.” What a solution of the perplexing paradox of all creation! The groans of battlefields shall cease; the misery and poverty and degradation of the multitude; the sufferings of creation, shall come to an end.

Such a universal element in the lot of the child of God — "for all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution" — it is well to have in true perspective and careful estimation. One who, perhaps beyond others, himself experienced to the full what that was, has by the spirit been led to give us such an estimate. And this is his carefully-pondered and deliberately-expressed judgment. "I reckon" he says (Rom. 8:18) "that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." It is in the light of the future glory that the present suffering can assume true proportions. No suffering, any more than chastening, can for the present seem joyous but grievous. But things are not what they seem, and when the present, freed from the exaggerated bulk it assumes in our distorted vision now, falls back into its true place and perspective by and by, not only will the profit of our exercises under it be apparent, but its intrinsic importance, the "momentary lightness of our affliction," will be seen in true comparison with its sequel, the "eternal weight of glory." This as to the suffering in itself. But when further it is remembered that suffering with Christ is the true character of all that is hardest in our path through this world, that association with Him in that respect is our privilege now, the estimate of the apostle has its significance intensified when he looks on to the future and reckons as he does. It will yet be seen by each one of us how great the privilege was of co-suffering with Christ in this the scene of His sorrow and rejection, and ere yet His kingdom in power was set up, or He had taken to Him His great power and reigned.

To the future, however, as the apostle so immediately directs our gaze, we turn. We learn that to be glorified together with Christ is the portion yet reserved for us. "If so be that we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together." Peter, in his epistle, writes in similar strain to what we have here. In a beautiful summary at the close of his First Epistle (1 Peter 5:10), we have "But the God of all grace, who has called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered awhile, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you." Called unto His everlasting glory — there is purpose there, the eternal purpose of God. We are "the called according to His purpose," and glory is the end of that path on which His calling sets our feet. "Whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate. … Whom He did predestinate them He also called, and whom He called them He also justified, and whom He justified them He also glorified."

We are passing through a world from which Christ has been rejected — a world of vanity, sin and sorrow. The effect of knowing God as our Father, and the blessedness of the scene of glory to which we are going, only gives us a deeper sense of the sorrows and miseries of the world we are passing through. But the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glories that are coming. The sufferings are passing, the glories are eternal.

Paul's Experience. — Now follows the recorded experience of one who suffered with Christ, and was thus suffering at that time. We know that the Master has gone before, and we are only asked to follow in His steps. Alas, how faltering and irresolute often have been our steps! Here one of like passions with us now speaks, and records what he has proved, who suffered as few, if any, of the apostles, or disciples ever suffered (Acts 9:16). "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in (rather, to) us." He had carefully estimated the two — present sufferings, and future glory. For himself it was a settled thing that the latter far out- weighed the former. Now he was not speaking without adequate experience, as the list of trials he had passed through, recorded in 2 Cor. 11:23-27, abundantly testified. Writing to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 4:9-13) on an earlier occasion, he reminded them of the treatment which had been meted out to him and other of the apostles, "set forth last," as he writes (in allusion, some think, to the spectacles in the amphitheatre) "as appointed to death." Addressing that same company in his second epistle, he acquaints them with the heavy trouble he had but recently encountered at Ephesus (2 Cor. 1:8-10). Addressing the Colossians years afterwards, he explains that in all he passed through, he was but filling up that which was lacking of the afflictions of Christ in his flesh (Col. 1:24), that is, what he was appointed to suffer (Acts 9:16). Who then was more competent to speak on such a subject than Paul? How clearly does he express himself after years of suffering for Christ! "I reckon," he writes, "that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us (18)." What must the future have been to him! What encouragement should his experience be to all saints!

Soon, there will be the display of the glory of God. It will be seen personally in Jesus, but also in those who are the sons and heirs of God, and who have been brought into living association and relationship with the Son of God. God's children, His heirs, and joint-heirs with Christ, are passing through a world that does not know them. They are suffering with Christ, sharing His place of rejection by this present evil world, but soon they will be glorified with Christ (Romans 8:17), when Christ comes out of heaven in His glory. Then the apostle adds, "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us" (verse 18). Some translate this "the glory to be revealed to us." There is both glory that we shall behold that belongs personally to the Son of God, and glory that, in grace, God has given us to share with His Son as His joint-heirs.

The apostle will not allow that the sufferings of this present time, the light momentary affliction, is worthy to be compared with the eternal and weighty glory which is about to be revealed in us. And if he lets us know how he reckons, it is in order that our hearts might be encouraged to reckon as he does. He did not occupy himself with the difficulties and sorrows which beset his path, but with the things unseen, the glories hidden with Christ in the heavens which were about to be revealed, and he knew that in those heavenly and eternal things lay more than compensation for all his loss here below.

But the Apostle could say, “I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.” This shall much more than compensate us for all the sorrows we have to pass through on our way to heaven. The sorrows of creation must continue till the sons of God are manifested, and then they shall cease for ever. Creation awaits the manifestation of the sons of God for its deliverance from the bondage of corruption; but we await the redemption of the body. Our groaning will cease when our bodies are changed into the likeness of Christ’s, the groans of creation will cease when we come forth with Christ out of heaven. May each of us be able to reckon with the Apostle, that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us (Rom. 8:1-30).

In the previous verse the apostle speaks of the children of God as heirs and joint-heirs with Christ. That means that believers possess all things, for if heirs of God they must possess all that is His; and as Christ has all things given to Him, and they are joint-heirs with Him, there is nothing that is not theirs. Of course, this involves suffering, but if we suffer with Him we shall also be glorified together. This present time is the time of suffering. Scripture speaks of the sufferings of Christ, and of the glory that should follow. Suffering comes before the glory. Peter calls himself a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory about to be revealed. (1 Peter 5:1.) In a certain sense the present time is the time of the sufferings of Christ. When He was upon the earth He suffered from the hand of sinful man, and on the cross from the hand of God for us. What He suffered from the hand of God is all over for ever, but He is still the rejected One, and He is still deprived of His rights, and His people suffer with Him, and in this sense His sufferings continue until the day of His appearing in glory. And when that day comes we shall share His glory with Him.

And here we get the estimate which the apostle put upon these sufferings of ours when he thought of them in the light of the coming glory. He says, "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." The day of His glory will be a great day for us; we shall see Him glorified, and we shall be glorified as His companions. He says to His Father, "The glory which thou gavest me I have given them." (John 17:22.) We rejoice in hope of this glory as those that will have part in it. And we shall be displayed in it before the world, for it is by this that the world is to know that the Father sent the Son, and has loved us as He has loved Him. Therefore the reckoning of the apostle is, that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.

Now see the beautiful reasoning of the Spirit of God. If I am a child, then am I an heir, an heir of God, and a joint-heir with Christ. What titles to the glory! Then the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Afterwards the creation itself, not only the soul, at the time of the glorification of the children, shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption. Grace delivers the soul from it now. Glory is about to deliver even creation itself. We have salvation. We are waiting for the redemption of the body. While waiting we have the earnest of the Spirit who dwells in us, and He groans in us according to God, and gives a voice to the actual sufferings of the creation, although often we ourselves know not what we should pray for - to help us in our infirmities. Now God who searches the heart knows what is the mind of the Spirit when He intercedes thus in us. Thus, in the real believer, who has submitted to the righteousness of God accomplished in Christ, the Holy Spirit dwells, as the spring of a faith holy and infinite, while giving me the consciousness of being a child of God and heir of the glory, and as Comforter amid the sufferings of the present time, urging the soul to seek relief in God, with groanings that cannot be uttered.

The world's joy can have no place in our hearts, if walking in fellowship with Christ, for if we go on with the world, Christ will not accompany us there. Jesus groaned down here, and deeply, in spirit, and so do we, as part, too, as regards our bodies, of the groaning creation; but does this set aside the word of our Lord, "that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves?" No, not in the least; for there is still joy by reason of the effect of God's presence in the soul, as an earnest withal of the inheritance of glory, which makes me say, "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed to us." But, then, the effect of the blessedness of God's presence gives a deep and sorrowful sense of God's absence from those around, and of the passions and miseries which sin has brought in; every misery becomes a groan in my heart, every sorrow presses on my spirit, because it is a sign how sin has come in, and has ruined all man's natural blessings, and made him more than a stranger to all spiritual ones.