Hi Melchizedek,
I suppose I have a more radical view of the extent and purpose of Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross than most others who hope for universal salvation. Sharing in Christ’s suffering is really not possible in my mind. Christ experienced the full extent of all the suffering and death since the beginning of time, 14 billion years worth. This is how I see the true nature of God revealed to the world in the crucified Jesus, not an omnipotent God but an “omni-empathetic” God who knows and feels all the pain and death of the universe and takes it (the judge who saves the world) into Himself to heal all things by emptying Himself into all of creation. What those who witnessed the crucifixion saw and what we know from their account is like the 4% of the universe that we can perceive while the vast majority is the 96% that is dark (the experience of Jesus’ godforsakenness hidden from us) which is beyond our perception and understanding.
When he is revealed to us at the Parousia we will see fully who he is and what he endured for everyone’s sake and that will transform us into the authentic image of God we were meant to be.
My concern is that when we talk about the suffering that occurs in this world is what is attributed to be the cause of that suffering. It is one thing to say that 1st century believers suffered at the hands of Rome for the sake of gospel and quite another to attribute the suffering of the infants who we thrown alive into a fire pit at Auschwitz as in any way being a chastisement from God. We need to be very careful and specific when we assert that the suffering that is rife in this world is somehow mandated by God or even allowed by Him. I don’t think you or most others on this board are doing that but a general reader who should happen across these kinds of discussions may infer that God does somehow “save” people by putting them through “hell on Earth” experiences in this world rather than saving them from such hells.
This is an interesting point; So far as I can see, he did not afflict those already afflicted in order to produce faith. But neither do I think that discipline or the lake of fire take the role of “affliction” as such; It seems that these are perhaps more circumstantial manfestations of God’s purification; sort of a “trial by fire” concept in order to strip us of that which keeps us from wholeness. By way of example; a surgeon cutting out a cancerous tumor is not afflicting his patient, yet it is a process which must be endured by the patient to become well and restored to wholeness.
The “trial by fire” concept sounds awfully pagan to me, something like trial by combat. But then of course Jesus did not merely cure the sick, he healed them, made them whole in the full sense of the word; a precursor sign of the eschatological resurrection. Modern medicine has made some significant advances in the past century but it doesn’t come close what Jesus was able to do. So I don’t think comparing the healing touch of Jesus with modern medicine is a fair comparison.