Shared Suffering

"Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions." Colossians 1:24 NASB

Sometimes I wonder why Paul, (or more important yet, why the Holy Spirit) said such things and just left them hanging there for us to discover and wonder about. This passage is one of those passages that is not easily worked with and is often avoided or totally misunderstood. I do not know if my current understanding is totally accurate (for we are all very often wrong about most things), but it is Holy Writ, so we do well to search the Spirit for what He is talking about. It is good to get at least an understanding we can wrap our minds around, even though the entire truth of it may escape us.

We all know Paul often suffered in his body as he fulfilled his assignment as an apostle. He not only suffered the emotional difficulty of being rejected over and over again, but he was also physically abused often. So he makes this unique statement about his unity with Jesus Christ and his inclusion in the body of Christ, the church. He sees Christ as one with us, and our sufferings (rejections as well as physical mistreatment because of the gospel) as being a part of His and included in His.

We know the redemptive work of saving us was completed through the cross suffering of our Lord over 2,000 years ago, so this is not redemptive suffering, but it is shared suffering.  When Christ died, we died (2 Corinthians 5:14-15), when He was raised, we were raised, (Ephesians 2:4-6), when He was seated in the heavenlies, we were seated in the heavenlies. So the entire work of our Lord Jesus is viewed by our God as our participation with Him in His body. It is not only substitutionary, it is also participatory. It was not only done for us, it included us in the action of its being.

So, Paul is introducing us to the "us" factor in Christ. When He suffered, Paul suffered and we suffered. When we suffer, our Lord is a participant in that with us. Our lives become as He is (1 John 4:17) and everything is a sharing together -- an in-depth fellowship with our God through the power of the Spirit in us. The church (not as an organization as we think of it, but the corporate body of redeemed people) is His body. Just as each of us are included there, so also are our sufferings for His sake counted as a part of His. So Paul rejoiced in them because he knew nothing was lost in this Body -- everything counts as we do our part.