ectypal.net

Until Jesus comes, resurrection-eschatology is eschatology of the cross. The form of Christ's resurrection-power in this world-age is the fellowship of his sufferings as the cross-conformed suffering of the church. The sign of inaugurated eschatology is the cross. Believers suffer, not in spite of or even alongside of the fact that they share in Christ's resurrection, but just because they are raised up and seated with him in heaven. According to Peter, it is just as Christians suffer for Christ that God's Spirit of (eschatological) glory rests on them (1 Pet. 4:14). For the present, until he returns, suffering with Christ remains the primary discriminant of the eschatological Spirit.

All this raises large questions that need careful and probing reflection, especially where the church is in situations of relative freedom and affluence and suffering with Christ can seem remote and confined to the church elsewhere. Instructive at this point is what Paul has to say in Romans 8:18ff. about "the sufferings of the present time", particularly the present subjection of the entire creation, including the church, to "frustration" (mataiotes, vs. 20) and "the bondage of decay" (vs. 21). This suggests that Christian suffering is much broader than we usually think of it. It concerns the mundane and unspectacular of everyday living as well as what is monumental, heroic or traumatic. Christian suffering, we may say, is everything in the lives of believers, as they continue to be subjected to the enervating futility and decay that presently permeates the creation, everything about this present existence that is borne for Christ and done in his service.