1134. Paul's Prospective
Paul's Prospective
"That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death;
"If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead" (Php_3:10-11).
Paul had a consuming passion to know Christ and the fellowship of His suffering, and be conformed unto His death, because he knew that he might thereby attain unto glory and honour at the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. He realized that the Lord Jesus Christ will come and bring His rewards with Him. Let us study this outlook as Paul saw it.
1. Paul anticipated his sufferings as the stepping-stone to a crown. He said, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith, henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness" (2Ti_4:7-8). This man of God could truly say:
"I feel a deep thanksgiving
For the sorrows I have known;
For the worries and the crosses
For the pains and for the losses
That along my path are sown.
The great eternal meaning
Of each trouble I am gleaming,
'Tis the e'er enduring crown."
–Adapted.
How necessary it is that saints should look beyond the cross and behold the crown.
This is what was done by our Lord Jesus. It was the joy that was set before Him that caused Him to despise the shame and to endure the pain of Calvary's Cross.
This is what was done by Moses. He suffered the loss of Egyptian gold and glory, he took the place of suffering with the children of God, because he saw the coming recompense of reward.
"A beautiful crown in Heaven to wear,
For those who here the cross do bear,
So bear it, my brother, and when you get there,
A beautiful crown you'll wear."
2. Paul anticipated his sufferings as the stepping-stone to reigning with Christ. He said "If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him: if we deny Him, He also will deny us" (2Ti_2:12).
It seems that the Holy Spirit revealed to the Apostle Paul a conditional reigning with Christ. To be sure all raptured saints will be forever with the Lord–yet, that phase of the Lord's reign which has to do with earthly authority over cities is to be proportioned out, accordingly as saints suffer and serve in this present age.
In the Letters to the Churches, the overcomer at Thyatira is promised: "To him will I give power over the nations and he shall rule over them with a rod of iron."
To the overcomer at Laodicea, Christ wrote: "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne."
3. Paul anticipated his sufferings as a stepping-stone to his inheritance and to the glory which was yet to be revealed. "And if children, then heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be glorified together" (Rom_8:17).
There is no wonder that the Apostle Paul counted all the sufferings that he underwent, his pain, his perils and his privations, as "not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."
The very opposite of this truth is found in Rev_18:7, "How much she hath glorified herself, and lived luxuriously, so much torment and sorrow give her."
Our God is a just God and it is not to be marveled that the same basis of rewards will be meted out to both saint and sinner.
Saints should seek to have the eyes of their understanding enlightened that they may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory, not only of His inheritance in the saints, but also of their inheritance, which they have obtained in Him.
Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR