Romans 5:3

‘And not only so, but we also rejoice in our tribulations,'

But what is the road that leads to the glory of God? It is the road of tribulations. It is because of the joy that is set before us that we endure what comes before it. Just as, for Christ, prior to the resurrection there came the cross, so also for us, prior to glory, will come tribulation. And it because these are closely connected that we also rejoice in tribulation, for that tribulation is the prerequisite to enjoying His glory. We know that if we suffer with Him we will also reign with Him (2 Timothy 2:12). It is ‘if so be that we suffer with Him so that we might be glorified together' that we are ‘joint heirs with Christ' (Romans 8:17). This was very much the experience of the early church. Paul stressed to them that it was ‘through much tribulation that they would enter under the Kingly Rule of God' (Acts 14:22). And we are not exempted. For tribulation is a necessary first step towards our final glorification. Whilst we may not experience the same kind of tribulation as they did (Rom 8:35 ff; 1 Corinthians 4:11; 1 Corinthians 7:26; 1 Corinthians 15:30; 2 Corinthians 1:3; 2 Corinthians 11:23), all who seek to serve Christ faithfully will at some stage experience the hardships that result from being a Christian, whether it be through the taunts of those to whom we witness, or through the consequences of our being fully obedient to Him, something which the world has no time for.

This was an important point to make at this stage, for otherwise some would have wondered why those who were in God's favour were being so fiercely persecuted. It is a recognition for us that although we are accounted as righteous in God's eyes, we still have to face our everyday problems, sometimes even accentuated. For we must necessarily remember that we are not walking in a private park (as Adam originally did) but in a battlefield. We are called on to be good soldiers of Jesus Christ, not becoming entangled with the affairs of this life (2 Timothy 2:3). We are called on to stand firm in the face of the Enemy and to wrestle with the powers of darkness (Ephesians 6:10). And we should not therefore be surprised if the shells of tribulation fall upon us and explode around us.

And this does not necessarily stop with the tribulations peculiar to the Christian life, for Paul here speaks generally of ‘tribulations'. It can therefore also refer to all the sorrows of life to which mortal man is subject, and indeed the travail of the whole creation (Romans 8:22), in whose sufferings we have a part (Romans 8:23). This includes not only various trials that we may face off and on through life, but also painful and debilitating disease and natural catastrophe in as far as they affect ourselves (we must not be complacent about them as they affect others). And we rejoice in them, not for what they are in themselves, but because they help to shape and fashion our lives and because they remind us among other things that we are not to look at the things which are seen, which are but temporary, but at the things which are unseen, which are eternal (2 Corinthians 4:17). We rejoice in them because they shake us out of our complacency and turn our thoughts towards Christ. We rejoice in them because of what they accomplish in us. We are not, therefore, to see the world as a vale of pointless hardship, but rather as a training ground (1 Corinthians 9:24), as a potter's wheel (Romans 9:23; Jeremiah 18:3), as a blacksmith's fire (Zechariah 13:9), as a place where God shapes and moulds us to His will (Hebrews 12:3).