Lutheran Church Missouri Synod

Whose Suffering Saves Us?

By Dr. Richard P. Bucher

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed (1 Peter 2:24).

For Christ suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God (1 Peter 3:18).

At the soccer field the other day, I found myself in a conversation with a soccer mom. Our sons play on the same team (I'm the assistant coach). The conversation eventually turned to God and then to her father, who had died last October after a long illness. After listening awhile, I expressed my sadness for her loss and then said, "If your dad died a Christian, what great joy that now he is in heaven and will suffer no more." She responded, "After all the suffering he went through, I'm sure he's in a better place." I was thankful to God that I had the presence of mind to say, "Well let me put it his way. It is suffering that saves us, but Christ's suffering, not ours. It's His suffering and death on the cross that brings us to heaven." She looked thoughtful but said nothing.

Part of the reason I had the presence of mind to answer as I did is that I've heard the idea that she expressed often. The notion that human suffering is somehow atoning, that if we suffer in this life we are exempt from suffering in the next, is quite entrenched. This is not a Biblical idea. Nowhere in Scripture do we find the notion that our suffering exempts us from suffering in the next life (this idea does exist in rabinnic tradition -- more about that another time!).

Suffering of any kind is a horrible evil. But every Lutheran confirmand knows the Biblical teaching that suffering exists in the world because of sin. Suffering entered our world when our first parents chose to rebel against our Creator and thereby severed their relationship with Him and that of the whole creation (Genesis 3:16-19). God uses the suffering of His children for good, to chasten them, to prune them, to draw them closer to Himself -- but ultimately it is a fruit of the fallenness of a creation severed from its Creator (John 15:1-3; Romans 8:28; 1 Peter 1:6-7).

Suffering is many things, but it is not atoning: it does not have the power to cleanse our sins or pardon our crimes against God. Only Jesus' suffering can do that and did do that, for He alone is the the Righteous One, appointed Savior and Messiah. The notion that our suffering is atoning is a not-so-subtle form of works righteousness, i.e., that we secure heaven by something we do or experience. But as the Gospel declares again and again, "By the works of the Law no one will be justified in His sight" (Romans 3:20) and "for if righteousness comes by the Law then Christ died for nothing" (Galatians 2:21). The whole point of Christianity is that our disease of sin is so crippling, our crimes against God so severe, that nothing we do or experience can save us. For this reason we need a Savior. His wounds of crucifixion heal us and bring us to heaven, not ours. Those who think that their own suffering has the power to save them will be bitterly disappointed when they realize that they have consigned themselves to an eternity of even worse suffering. Those who put their trust in Christ's suffering on the cross will rejoice to enter paradise where suffering is no more.

June 1998