How the Suffering of Christ Relates to the Suffering of
CounseleesThe Descent into
Glory
What is suffering?
Strong negative emotion or psychological or physical pain, which itself can cause further suffering
From mass atrocities, like the Rwanda genocide…
Horrible suffering happens in the world
To secret, repeated sexual and physical abuse of a single child
Horrible suffering happens in the world
The big problem for theists:
Why would God allow such suffering to happen?
Addressing the “problem of suffering” is often involved in Christian counseling
1. Many counselees have suffered a great deal, raising questions about God’s attitudes towards them
2. What does God feel and understand about human suffering?
3. How might suffering be related to human wellbeing?
What does the Bible teach about the reason for personal suffering?
2. Personal sin generally leads to suffering (Pr 1:18)
1. All human beings will suffer (Gen 3:15)
3. But not all suffering is due to personal sin (Job)
4. Suffering brings about wisdom and spiritual maturity (Job, Ro 5:1-3; Ja 1:3-5)But just knowing these things
doesn’t necessarily help us through sufferingWhy?
Our suffering affects our hearts
Adults who have suffered a lot may feel singled out or that even God is against them
Children who have suffered a lot will store those negative emotions in their memories and will be prone to re-experience them throughout their lives
What should Christians who have suffered a lot conclude?
What are some therapeutic goals for Christians who have suffered a lot?
What is God up to with all that suffering?
What does God have to do with suffering?
The Bible portrays him as the sovereign ruler of the universe, and all things that happen, even suffering, within his divine control (Eph 1:11; Dan 4:35)So he allows suffering. Consider the book of Job.But because he is good, he only allows it for good reasons (Gen 50:20). Satan wills it for evil.But if he ultimately allows it, many have concluded our only solace is to just to “accept his will,” and struggle with how he can understand and be empathic about our suffering.
What if God also suffers?Historically, Christians have rejected the idea that
God suffers, because it implies that God changes
But is that true?God’s anger against sin is not interpreted that way
Both truths are taught in Scripture
Some have wondered if Greek thought led to this interpretation
Is there a way to affirm that God never changes and that he suffers?
What if God also suffers?
“The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The Lord was sorry that he made man on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart.” (Gen 6:5-6)Consider his experience with the children of AbrahamThey gave him far more grief than joy
Why did he choose them, knowing what would happen?
To manifest his glory
How does God manifest his glory in the face of such chronic disappointments? Demonstrating virtues like patience
and forgivenessBut intrinsic to this demonstration is
his sufferingPatience and forgiveness can only be
practiced in the context of pain
What if God also suffers?
What does Jesus Christ communicate about the suffering of God?
What if God also suffers?
He is the Word of the Father (Jn 1:1)He is the radiance of God’s glory and
the exact representation of his nature (Heb 1:3)His suffering therefore communicates something about the suffering of God
Jesus suffered during his life and at his death
Christ wept with those who wept (Jn 11:35)
He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Is 53:3)
“My soul is very sorrowful, even unto death” (Mt 26:38)
Christ cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46)
What if God also suffers?
We know that the primary reason Christ suffered on the cross was to pay the penalty for our sins (Mt 20:38; Gal 3:13)
What if God also suffers?
However, what if a secondary reason was to reveal to us that he is a God who suffers
In addition to paying for our sins, he also demonstrated divine solidarity in our suffering
At the same time, we ought not to think that Christ’s suffering tells us everything about God’s relation to suffering.Much about his divine nature was concealed
in his becoming humanThe infinite God is both the omniscient,
sovereign ruler of all, who never changes (Mal 3:6), who is also perfectly empathic and compassionate about all the suffering in the world
What if God also suffers?
God is excellent (he combines paradoxical virtues; J. Edwards)
How does Christ’s suffering help in therapy?1. Cognitive: Knowing that one’s
Creator/Redeemer/Lover has experienced suffering personally means he knows what we’re going through (Heb 2:17-18)2. Cognitive: Knowing that God suffers makes it easier to believe that he suffers when we suffer: “In all their affliction, [God] was afflicted” (Is 63:9)
3. Cognitive, could be relational: When counselees feel they were abandoned by God or godforsaken, Christ understands what that is like, and he took away the godforsakenness
How does Christ’s suffering help in therapy?4. Cognitive: Because of their union with Christ,
believers are co-sufferers with Christ (Ro 8:17), suggestingChrist is with them in their suffering; they are
not aloneTheir suffering is divinely significantTheir suffering is linked to the suffering
of God5. Cognitive: By their suffering, believers are
“filling up that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ” (Col 1:24) We are collaborators in God’s suffering agenda
How does Christ’s suffering help in therapy?
6. God wants to glorify us in our suffering in the same way he glorified Christ in his suffering (Jn 17:5)
7. Relational: We are to lament, like Christ lamented: We are to take our suffering to God: “Pour out your hearts like water before the Lord” (Lam 2:19)
8. Narrative: Our story is being woven into God’s story
How does Christ’s suffering help in therapy?
Some of the suffering of believers is due to their sin
But even here, since Christ suffered for their sin, believers can still go to Christ in faith and repentance and find cleansing and forgiveness (1Jn 1:9)
How do we make use of Christ’s suffering in therapy?
All this discussion is therapeutic. Lovingly helping people to work through their suffering in the light of God and Christ is Christian therapy
We need to point all sufferers to the cross. We especially need to point extreme sufferers to
the cross, and hear Jesus say, “I understand. I’m with you. Trust me. I want us to be joined together in your suffering.” By pointing counselees to Christ, we help them look outside themselves and their personal experience. This can give them some transcendent objectivity and promotes mentalization or defusion.
Help people to experience an emotion shift regarding the negative emotion or psychological pain they are experiencing. How? 1. Direct the counselee to bring the negative emotion or pain into their present consciousness (our death)
2. Encourage the counselee to bring to mind, perhaps through imagery, Christ’s suffering on the cross, mindful of one of the truths we considered (union with the death of Christ)
3. Have the counselee mix them together, so that the emotion or pain is modified in a positive direction (union with Christ’s resurrection)
How do we make use of Christ’s suffering in therapy?
So why does God allow Christians to suffer?
1. To undermine our sin: our narcissism and willed loneliness2. To draw us into his glory and the communion of his love
3. To build into us more of his glorious virtues4. To conform us into the image of the Son of God,
the man of sorrows, to manifest his glory
www.Christianpsych.org
Recommended resources
Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine LoveHenry Law’s The Gospel in the PentateuchKlass Schilder’s Triology: Christ’s Suffering, Christ
on Trial, Christ CrucifiedJohn Stott’s The Cross of ChristC. J. Mahaney’s The Cross-Centered Life