physical.” Any follower of the Lamb, living in opposition to the world, the flesh and the devil, will ex perience the same. The “fellowship of His sufferings” also involves both the mental and the psychological at titudes of other people. It involves the oppression of the devil and the temptations of the flesh. Not only were these sufferings real, but also the Apostle knew how to reckon with them. After all, it is not what we meet in life, but how we meet it that counts! It is also possi ble to “resign oneself” rather pas sively to our sufferings, as though God’s sovereign will were a mill stone around our neck; or, we can meet them, and triumph over them, by the grace and power of God. The Apostle Paul gives us the key to victory over our sufferings. Phil lips translates Romans 8:18: “In my opinion, whatever we may have to go through now is less than nothing, compared with the magnificent fu ture God has planned for us.” The word compare in the text means to throw two things against each other, as weights in a scale. Paul simply threw time against eternity, and suf fering against glory, dismissing the former things as “nothing” com pared to the magnificent future which lies ahead of every child of God. The Apostle was not speculat ing, but coldly calculating the end- result of his fa ith ! When Michael Faraday lay dying, someone asked the great scientist, “What a re you r speculations?” “Speculations!” he answered. “I have none! I’m not resting my dying head on guesswork!” He then quoted II Timothy 1:12, and fell asleep in Christ! Similarly, John Calvin died in 1564 with Romans 8:18 yet unfinished on his dying lips! What will be the “glory” of which Paul speaks in the text? The first creation is in no wise comparable to the second, for God is not through
THE NEW ORDER A study of Romans 8:18-25 by A rv id Carlson C hapter O ne T he victorious life extends itself to all areas of life. God’s intent is for the believer to have victory all the way! It appears that in Ro mans 8:18-25 justification and sanc tification merge into glorification. Every major theme of Bible truth converges here. The Apostle has traced for us the history and con demnation of sin; the inability of the law to justify or to sanctify; the power of the atonement to forgive and justify us by faith; our victory over sin through our union with Christ, and the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. You cannot build a society without God any more than you can build a house without a foundation! Paul testifies, “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” (Rom. 8:18). The sufferings of this world were very real to Paul. Christianity was no “bed of ease” or “pathway of roses” for him. The Apostle Peter, too, makes much of the fact that the “sufferings” must precede the “glory” (I Pet. 1:11). So it was with our Saviour, and so it must be with us. (The only place in the New Tes tament where Jesus is “made our example” is in I Peter 2:21.) This was Paul’s experience from the be ginning of his Christian life. In Acts 9:16, the ascended Christ said of Paul: “I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.” These sufferings of Paul were not “penal” nor necessarily 6
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