Thesis #93 of 95 - The ultimate purpose of human suffering is indicated in Heb2:10. Even the sinless Saviour was perfected for His priestly office and future glory by suffering. How much more the need for such salting and grist to be provided for the mere mortals who will come to share His glorious inheritance – hence the perennial existence of evil in the world until Christ comes to restore all things.
BIBLICAL REFERENCES
Acts3:21 Christ, the One whom Heaven must receive until the time of the restoration of all things which God has spoken of through the mouths of His holy prophets since the world began.
Rev10:7 In the days when the voice of the seventh messenger is about to sound off, then the mystery of God shall have been completed, as He announced to His servants the prophets.
COMMENTS
As the thesis indicates, the solution to the mystery of human suffering is hinted at in an extraordinary verse in Hebrews: “It was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the originator of their salvation through suffering” (2:10). So, even the sinless Saviour was perfected for future glory by suffering. How much more the need for such salting and grist to be provided for mere mortals, some of whom will have an immediate share in His inheritance.
This is why things have always been as they have been in the world and in the Church. Suffering partnered with essential spiritual healing and progressive enlightenment are how God is drawing mankind toward its ultimate destiny as exemplified by His Son’s own experience. The suffering Jesus had endured was principally (and most would have thought exclusively) to provide for man’s redemption. Yet it also fulfilled another unexpected function as Heb2:10 shows – that is His perfection for His kingly, priestly office. Verse 17 affirms as much when it states: “Therefore in all respects (Jesus) had to be made like His brothers so that He would become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God”.
And as royal priesthood for the world, God’s elect are expected to share in that suffering . For such are to be “the heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him” (Rom8:17NASB).
And, alluding to the previous thesis regarding Adam and Eve, none of this would have been possible if events had unfolded differently at Eden. If Satan had not been permitted his little triumph, there would have been no glorious victory for God and His Christ, for there would have been nothing to conquer. How then could God have demonstrated the staggering extent of His love and grace if He could have spared His only Son? If Adam had not sinned or the humanity project been rebooted, there would have been no Saviour. And what a Saviour: O felix culpa, quae talem ac tantum meruit habere redemptorum! [note 1].
Truly, it was never God’s intention merely to restore humanity to pre-Fall Adamic innocence. Rather, the Creator wished to raise the sons of earth such that they would one day consort with the divine, partaking themselves of the divine nature (2Pet1:4). Such staggering elevation could not have been accomplished without the existence of evil and its inevitable consequence – suffering, the grist for glory. This taken with the vastly broader benign providence I have set out in my Little Book (link#1) surely resolves the providential mystery of God, affirming Him to be the personification of love.
יִצְחָ֔ק
NOTE #1 – Catholic Easter hymn: “Oh happy fault, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!”
LINK #1 – https://richard777.blog/2021/07/10/the-little-book-of-providence/
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