Thinking Through Suffering

From Lesson 16 of The Biblical Framework Series

Charles Clough

I’m going to deal with suffering on the notes but one of the things you see in the Scripture is that the Bible is quite realistic, and the emphasis is really on what you think. I’ve been batting this around ever since we went through that Job passage, and God sounds so ferocious and uncompassionate to Job when He confronts him, almost ridiculing him, but then if you stop and look at what God is saying to Job, it’s all questions. If you think about it, why do you ask questions? If a person is emotionally upset, angry, or just depressed, or hurting, what happens when you ask them a question? You get the mind working, and I think it’s very interesting that you see this pattern, even at the cross.

It’s interesting when the soldiers went to offer Jesus, basically a drug, while he was dying for our sins, that was done universally in Roman crucifixions to at least act as an anesthetic and Jesus refused it. It’s interesting that in the course of bearing our sin and going through that tremendous kind of suffering Jesus insisted on the full use of His mind. You don’t believe with your emotions, you believe with your mind, and it’s not just your mind, it’s the spirit through the mind, but nevertheless, it is the spirit through the mind, and the mind has to function, you can’t just sit in a passive catatonic state and expect to cope with suffering, it won’t work that way.

That’s important. We don’t feel our way to God, we think our way, He demands some response here. You can’t be on drugs and have a mystical experience and think that’s contact with God. Contact with God is always with the mind active; the mind can’t be shut off, drugged into a stupor or whatever, the mind has to be active. That’s why the Lord Jesus, while He was dealing with sin on the cross, He refused medication, He didn’t get the sponge of stuff until after He was through, then He accepted it. Why was that? Because while He was going through the stress He needed to think; yeah, it was painful, but in the middle of the pain He had to be able to think because you can’t talk to God without thinking, so He was trying to protect His mind while this was going on.

That’s important. We don’t feel our way to God, we think our way, He demands some response here. You can’t be on drugs and have a mystical experience and think that’s contact with God. Contact with God is always with the mind active; the mind can’t be shut off, drugged into a stupor or whatever, the mind has to be active. That’s why the Lord Jesus, while He was dealing with sin on the cross, He refused medication, He didn’t get the sponge of stuff until after He was through, then He accepted it. Why was that? Because while He was going through the stress He needed to think; yeah, it was painful, but in the middle of the pain He had to be able to think because you can’t talk to God without thinking, so He was trying to protect His mind while this was going on.