How do you respond when you are told you are going to suffer? A few weeks ago my doctor told me my PSA levels were a bit high. I made an appointment with a urologist, and he said I ought to have biopsies drawn. I thought about it and countered with a question. “What is the level of pain connected with such a procedure?” He said, “I will not be your friend after you have this procedure.”

I was told by some who underwent this procedure that they were sedated and felt virtually nothing. I, on the other hand, was not sedated. After the third biopsy was drawn, I was very uncomfortable; and by the eighth and final biopsy, I was in so much pain and discomfort that the doctor told me to move slowly from my side to my back on the table and just breathe deeply. I only relate this story to remind us of at least one kind of suffering we are promised in this life—medical suffering. Why is it that we face such suffering in this life? As I meditated on that question and did a quick word search on all places the Greek word translated “suffering” is found in the New Testament, I eventually settled on, to my knowledge, the first place in the Bible we were promised suffering: Genesis 3:14-21.

Three forms of suffering are promised in these verses. The woman is promised what I am calling medical suffering and the man is promised what I am calling physical suffering. With respect to medical suffering I say, “Thank You, Lord, for Dr. Julian, who first synthesized cortisone.” Cortisone helps when our joints are inflamed because of the suffering we experience as we till the ground and serve the creation over which God made us to be vice-regents. With respect to physical suffering I say, “Thank you, Lord, for Dr. Alexander, the engineer who designed the Tidal Basin Bridge that enables those in the Washington, D.C., area to go from one shore to the other above the water.” Suffering in the fields of agriculture and industry have been the mother of marvelous inventions.

I used to shingle roofs, and I learned how to feed nails through two fingers and hammer them in, four nails per shingle. Now we use nail guns. A whole plethora of medical advances as well can be attributed to the promise Yahweh Elohim made to the woman: “I will surely multiple your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children” (Gen. 3:16). I had the privilege of observing the birth of four of my children. Women have pain. But we have epidurals now and we’ve also learned how to do controlled breathing. Both seek to bring some measure of comfort in spite of the pain. Just think of the number of medicines that have been invented to curb suffering—how many diseases are there that we no longer fear. The medical arena rallied around us and we expect to enjoy long lives.

Yahweh Elohim promised suffering medically and physically, and humankind rose to the challenge. But what about suffering brought on through bad morals? What about suffering that afflicts us because of sin? We don’t like to talk about bad morals as being sin, because in our society we want to define what good and bad morals are. Some who are against alcohol might have rejoiced when they heard that bartenders and tavern owners poured Russian vodka out on the streets in Pittsburgh, until they found out why. They were not doing it as a protest against drunkenness; they were doing it because Russia banned homosexual “marriage.” They dumped vodka because in Russia there are laws against people being demonstratively homosexual. We decry abortions—the human solution to unwanted pregnancies. After all, many reason, why should a woman suffer twice for a crime perpetrated on her, or for “a mistake”?

Praise God for the promise of Genesis 3:15, because there in Genesis 3:15 is the third promise of suffering mentioned as a result of our first parents’ fall into sin! In Genesis 3:15, a clear promise of suffering, we have God’s solution for bad morals—that is, God’s solution for sin: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” The path of Jesus Christ was a path of pain. The path of the church of Jesus Christ, the woman, is a path of suffering.

It ought not to surprise us that someone is nipping at our heels to impede our progress, just as the devil nipped at our parents’ heels and set them off the path on which God would have them walk. And how did he do it? “Don’t you want to be like God? If you do, eat the fruit God told you not to eat.” What had they forgotten? God already told them, “You are My image bearers.” He already told them, “You are like Me and, in being like Me, you will love Me and we will talk in the cool of the day in the garden day after day.”

You know the story too well. One day when the Lord God came into the garden He did not see Adam and his wife. They had hidden themselves and covered their naked bodies with leaves they had sewn together. They had seen their nakedness and they were ashamed. They had eaten the forbidden fruit! They did not want to see God because they knew they had broken fellowship with Him. What does God do? The all-seeing God asks, “Where are you?” They answer, “We are hiding over here because we saw we were naked and we were afraid.” They had reason to be afraid, didn’t they? What did God promise? Eat the forbidden fruit and you will die. Sin, and the wages of sin, is death.

What did the Lord God do? Fast-forward to when Joseph learns his fiancée, Mary, is pregnant. He wants to do the honorable thing. The Holy Spirit, through an angel of the Lord, informs Joseph that Mary is pregnant by the Holy Spirit. “Mary is the mother of God’s beloved Son—the offspring of the woman promised back in the protoevangelium after Adam and his wife ate the forbidden fruit.” Instead of striking our first parents dead immediately after they sinned, the Lord God revealed what was determined before the foundation of the world, that Jesus will be the suffering servant. Jesus came to this world through the womb of the virgin Mary and walked in complete and total obedience to the word of God.

In the wilderness Jesus profoundly experienced the devil’s temptations. At the end of 40 days of fasting Jesus was tempted by the devil to deviate from the path established for Him to traverse. The devil sought to bruise Jesus’ heel like he had bruised the heels of our first parents, but Jesus rested on the revealed word of God to withstand those temptations. In essence, Jesus said His food is the Bible! The Bible was the food that sustained Jesus through the wilderness. It was not just in the wilderness that Jesus suffered, but also on Calvary’s cross.

We know the Son learned obedience through the things He suffered. We too learn obedience through the things we suffer. I remember vividly the day my second son fell into the pool before he knew how to swim. How many of you have been told by your parents to stay away from the edge of a pool because you did not know how to swim? Perhaps some of you fell and almost drowned because you disobeyed your parents’ warning. I am so glad I was at the pool when Joshua fell in so that I could pull him out of the water and say to him something like, “I wish you listened to me! I am glad I was here to help you!”

Often it is through the things we suffer that we learn obedience. But what did Jesus suffer? His mother and his brothers and sisters thought he was a lunatic. Have you ever been called crazy for Jesus? When did He suffer the most? There He was, on the cross: “He saved others, but He cannot save Himself” (Matt. 27:42). But that issue was settled, wasn’t it? The night before, in the garden called Gethsemane, Jesus knew that for no sin of His own He would be forsaken by His Father. For no sin of His own, He would hang on that cursed cross. For no sin of His own, He would cry out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46). In fact, it was those who shared His Jewish heritage who cried, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” (Luke 23:21). However, at the end of the day, Jesus willingly went to the cross and died the death that sinners deserve to die for their sins. He became sin who knew no sin and suffered because of the sin imputed to Him (2 Cor. 5:21). Of course, we read in Hebrews 12:2, He did this “for the joy set before Him.” For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross!

Should we expect anything less? When we sin, should we expect to suffer? Yes! When we do good, should we expect to suffer? Yes! Aren’t we told by the Apostle Paul in the letter he wrote to the Philippians, “For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should suffer for righteousness’ sake. For it is better to suffer for doing good if it is the will of God than for doing evil. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit” (Phil. 1:29). Do you remember the account of Joseph being sold as a slave by his brothers? He suffered, it seems, mercilessly; but at the end of the story Joseph states, “As for you, you meant it for evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today” (Gen. 5:20).

When Paul wrote his second letter to the Corinthians, he said a remarkable thing.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort…which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort (1:3-7).

What is our comfort? Our comfort is knowing that we are secure in the bosom of our Father who loved us and sent His Son to die for us. Our comfort is secure in knowing that the Holy Spirit is alive and well within us. When we don’t quench Him, we will rejoice when we are called upon by God to suffer. When we recognize that our comfort rests in Jesus Christ and all He has done for us, we will be able to comfort others who are suffering so that they may live.

—Bruce R. Backensto

Bruce recently retired as pastor of First RPC of Beaver Falls, Pa. This is the fifth and final article in a series on the theme of suffering, based on devotional messages to the 2013 RPCNA Synod.