St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology

Suffering
Kelly M. Kapic

First published: 17 November 2022

https://www.saet.ac.uk/Christianity/Suffering

Citation
Kapic, Kelly M. 2022. 'Suffering', St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology. Edited by
Brendan N. Wolfe et al. https://www.saet.ac.uk/Christianity/Suffering Accessed: 5
February 2025

Copyright information
Copyright © Kelly M. Kapic CC BY-NC

ISSN 2753-3492
Suffering
Kelly M. Kapic

Suffering is a topic commonly driven by human questions and experience, with Christians
facing these challenges in light of their own sacred scriptures and broad tradition.
Individuals and communities are consistently faced with painful situations that provoke
them to ask nagging questions, such as why some suffer more than others and how God
relates to the suffering in this world. Pain and hurt often force believers to move beyond
general reflections about suffering to particular and personal ones. These deliberations
are inescapably tied to how one thinks about God, oneself, and the world. They involve
questions about cause, effect, and purpose, producing speculations about the past,
present, and future as people try to make theological and pastoral sense of suffering.

Keywords: Suffering, Pain, Divine goodness, Theodicy, Sin, Lament, The fall, Suffering of
Christ, Healing, Divine impassibility, The Suffering Servant (in Isaiah), Liberation, Kingdom
of God

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Table of contents
1 The Old Testament on suffering

1.1 The goodness of creation and the problem of the fall

1.2 Holistic accounts of sin and suffering

1.3 Lament and praise

1.4 Prophetic voices

2 The New Testament on suffering

2.1 Signs of the kingdom: healings and help

2.2 The suffering of Christ

2.3 Resurrection and ascension

2.4 Suffering, endurance, and cosmic redemption in the New Testament letters

3 Theological challenges of suffering

3.1 Philosophical speculations and ecclesial responses

3.2 Does God suffer?

3.3 Liberation and suffering

4 Conclusion

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1 The Old Testament on suffering
The Old Testament, honoured by both Judaism and Christianity, does not provide easy
answers to the challenges of suffering: instead, it gives us stories full of tension and faith.
Avoiding simplistic reductionism, these scriptures portray a good and sovereign God who
presides over all things, but who, nonetheless, also appears to allow events to happen
that he does not think are good. Sometimes God appears to act directly in creating events
that cause the suffering (e.g. in Lev 26:25 a plague is unleashed; cf. 2 Chr 7:13). At other
times, the event that causes suffering occurs in opposition to God’s revealed will (e.g.
Prov 6:16–19 catalogues seven ‘things that the LORD hates’, yet all of them happen in this
world, creating great evil and disorder, presumably against his ‘will’). Amid this tension,
worshippers of Yahweh are to cling to the Lord who made a covenant with them, listening
carefully to his prophets while practising epistemic humility by trusting in God’s goodness
and provision (Deut 29:29).

Thus the Old Testament displays an abiding tension in which the believer is asked to face
the suffering and problems in this world by affirming the holy goodness of God, despite
the frequent appearance of events that might seem to give evidence otherwise. Hence,
when the thinkers of the Enlightenment began to engage with this tension much later in
history, they were not the first to discover this tension; nor were they the first to ask hard
questions, since these challenges had always been a major part of the Jewish tradition. As
we will see, however, such questions were less asked about God and more directly asked
to God.

Reconciling trust in Yahweh with hardship and suffering is central to Israel’s story, and that
dynamic is one reason that later Christians found (and continue to find) the Christ event
so powerful: in the Christ event, God acknowledges the deep and multi-layered trouble in
this world even as the incarnate Son enters his fallen creation to make right what has gone
wrong. In Christian accounts of suffering, the Creator God thus accomplishes the work
of re-creation, defeating the sin and suffering that have intruded into his good creation.
But before we reach that conclusion, we need to gain a proper appreciation of the key
movements in the story of the Hebrew texts. To that end, we will move from creation to the
fall and then look at the tradition’s handling of the resulting tensions.

1.1 The goodness of creation and the problem of the fall

While later textual traditions (e.g. 2 Macc 7:28; Heb 11:3) affirm that God created the
visible out of the invisible or non-existent (creatio ex nihilo), the Genesis narrative
highlights the Creator bringing order out of that which was ‘formless and empty’ (tōhū
wābōhū; cf. Levenson 1988; May 1994). From its beginning, Genesis emphasizes that
the Creator God brings about good in all that he makes, orders, and sustains – ultimately

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calling it ‘very good’ (Gen 1:3, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31; cf. McFarland 2014). It is so good, in
fact, that God rests from his creative efforts for a day, apparently content with what he had
thus far accomplished (Gen 2:1–3).

At the pinnacle of this good ordering of creation emerges ʾadam: humanity as male and
female, uniquely imaging this Creator God and his relationship to his creation (Gen 1:27).
As that image, humans were called to ‘be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue
it’ (Gen 1:28). In other words, the narrative portrays a good Creator who entrusts especial
care of his creation to human creatures (e.g. Levering 2017: esp. 109–226). They were
to walk with God, to care for their neighbours, and to cultivate a healthy relationship with
the land (cf. Bonhoeffer 1997). This was God’s original design and expectation. Only with
this positive creation narrative as background can Christians begin to make sense of the
horror of suffering: lament later becomes important because the hurt and problems are
contrasted with the original promise of good that somehow became lost or distorted.

Alongside the doctrine of this good creation, therefore, an understanding of what became
known as the ‘fall’ is also foundational for a classical Christian account of suffering (see
Anderson 2009; Blocher 1999; Johnson and Lauber 2016; McCall 2019; Nelson 2011). In
Genesis 3 – a narrative which has historically been used as a starting point for reflection
on the problem of sin’s entrance into human experience – a crafty serpent appears,
casting doubt about God’s words and intentions into the minds of his human hearers: ‘Did
God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden?”’ (Gen 3:1, NIV).

This strange encounter appears to presuppose that an element of the not good – in the
form of a deceptive serpent – has found its way into God’s otherwise good creation.
The text leaves the strange elements (e.g. why a talking snake? Where did evil come
from? Why did God allow evil to enter the garden?) undeveloped and unexplained;
perhaps because of this, some Christian traditions (e.g. Anselm, Milton) expanded on that
theme, placing great weight on an angelic rebellion that they believed happened prior to
humanity’s first sin and which later provoked the temptation humanity faced in the garden.
Although these are fair questions about the snake, evil’s origin, and the like, the text –
which is what we have to deal with – does not answer them. As it stands, the text points
us elsewhere, to the nature of human rebellion and to the consequent sin and suffering in
the whole world. Now Adam and Eve are naked and vulnerable, their eyes are open, and
they are afraid (Gen 3:6, 7, 10). Shalom – the Hebrew concept of expansive wholeness
and peace – has been deeply disrupted at multiple levels: now human relationships with
the Creator, with their neighbours, within themselves, and with the earth have all been
corrupted (Gen 3:11–24; cf. Plantinga 1995). Each of these disruptions (i.e. human to God,
human to human, intra-human, and human to the earth) opens us to suffering.

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In Gen 2:16–17, God warned that to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
would bring death. Since Adam and Eve did not immediately die physically, many Christian
interpreters believed this warning to indicate not immediate death, but the entrance of
unexpected forms of suffering and painful aspects of life that anticipate the ultimate grief
of death. Adam and Eve were exiled from the tree of life; now all live in the shadow of this
failure. Humanity’s relationship to the earth is rendered unpleasant and difficult rather than
mutually enriching as originally intended (Gen 3:17–19). Further, contrasting Cain and
Abel’s story (Gen 4) with the original intent of communion shows that neighbour relations
are now bent in adversarial rather than supportive directions (cf. Moberly 2009: esp. 94–
99). Although one might affirm that there was a positive use for pain prior to the fall (e.g.
heat from a fire could helpfully warn a person to draw back), the strictly negative or purely
disruptive aspects of pain and suffering follow from this disordering of God’s ordered
creation. Christians have, therefore, at various times examined each of these four main
relationships (to God, neighbour, oneself, and the earth), with different traditions regularly
focusing on one relation more than the others. They are generally consistent, however, in
tracing suffering back to the early events of Genesis.

1.2 Holistic accounts of sin and suffering

Even though various traditions disagree on details and their implications, all of them place
a tremendous amount of theological weight on the three opening chapters of Genesis as
they try to make sense of suffering. They frequently categorize particular evils into three
groups: the moral, the natural, and the demonic (e.g. Plantinga 1982). This categorization
allows us to see how God might relate distinctly to different kinds of corruption and the
ongoing reality of suffering.

Philosophers and theologians (e.g. Aristotle, Augustine, Boethius, Calvin) have often
considered human agents to be a microcosm of the universe, so that Christian accounts
often understand their actions either to foster shalom or to hinder it for the rest of the
creation (e.g. John of Damascus, ‘The Orthodox Faith’ 2.12). The misuse of human
agency (i.e. moral evil) causes suffering through power differentials, jealousy, or ‘hard
hearts’ (callousness or lack of compassion). Narratives describing how people repeatedly
rebelled against God, hurt one another, and suffered under the consequences permeate
the Old Testament. Even early in Genesis, God makes a sober assessment of the human
plight: ‘the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth’ (Gen 8:21). But, although
this disordering of the human heart leads to disharmony and pain, the Old and New
Testaments also leave room for disharmony and pain that is not so easily traced back to
moral evil. Within the canon, there are both occasions of a retributive understanding of
suffering (Deut 27:11–28:68; Ps 37; e.g. Prov 10:3, 9; 11:5–6) and suffering that cannot be
so easily explained (Eccl 7:14; 8:14; see also Walton 2008: 650–654).

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Sin does cause suffering, if only in the diminished capacity of the sinner to experience
the goodness of God. Further, when God presents his judgments, repentance leads to
restoration and peace, whereas rebellion eventually leads to destruction. But even in
the clear cases in which sin leads directly to suffering (see the warnings of the prophets
below), God is slow to anger; he repeatedly urges sinners to repentance, and he is quick
to restore the repentant to his fellowship and to wellbeing. The connections between
sin and suffering are much too complicated to allow the reader to draw simple cause-
and-effect connections between any particular case of suffering and personal sin (cf. the
‘retribution principle’, in which God punishes people as a direct consequence of their sin).
The Old Testament (see especially the entire book of Job) and then later Jesus himself
(e.g. John 9:2–3) reject such unnecessary and overly simplistic correlations that blame an
individual for their suffering.

A great deal of human pain and suffering occurs not because people hurt one another
but because natural forces create destruction. Theologians and philosophers commonly
group tragedy resulting from earthquakes, tornadoes, flooding, and the like into another
category: natural evil. Although some are clear that this is really not ‘natural’ at all (e.g.
Hart 2005). When people are struck by such ‘acts of God’, at the very least we take it
as a sign that the original shalom God was creating is not currently being achieved in its
fullness. This establishes a link between protology and eschatology: to understand the
larger story of suffering, one must look both backwards and forwards, yet always being
mindful of the present situation. Creation reveals an original harmony (protology); the fall
asserts that things are not as they should be (present experience); and hope promises
that one day God will not simply restore but make things gloriously good at a level not yet
seen (eschatology). The Apostle Paul taps into this tradition when he observes creation is
currently ‘groaning’ as it longs for deliverance (Rom 8:19–22). Paul does not here create
a new idea, but draws on the Jewish eschatological expectation that one day surprising
levels of earthly harmony will be restored – a harmony represented in the Old Testament
by descriptions of former adversaries in the animal world now living at peace together and
with humankind (e.g. Isa 11:6–9; 65:25).

Finally, Christian traditions have sometimes categorized forces that oppose God and his
rule under the label ‘demonic evil’ (e.g. Anselm, ‘On the Fall of the Devil’; Boyd 2001; Wink
1984). Modern scholars and theologians have commonly understood such demonic forces
metaphorically as a phenomenon located in the individual, a cosmic force to which all
beings are victim, and/or the systems of evil that perpetuate sin (e.g. Bultmann, Kasmann,
liberationists; see Croasmun 2017). However, these forces of evil have commonly been
traditionally understood in personified form as Satan and other particular, and often
personal, demonic forces.

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In an effort to make sense of the serpent in Genesis 3, strange figures like the nephilim
(Gen 6:1–4) and the ‘watchers’ (e.g. 16:1; 86:1–4), the Satan (Hebrew śāṭān) or Devil
(Greek diabolos) in places like Job 1–2 and Zechariah 3, a fairly large consensus emerged
that suffering cannot be explained merely in terms of human agency or natural disasters
but also involves larger forces that appear to be at enmity with God – a theme we will see
repeated in the teachings and ministry of Jesus. While Ezekiel 28 has been employed
by many Bible readers (and now rejected by many scholars!) as a source for explaining
Satan’s origins, the apocryphal book of Wisdom explicitly links Satan’s envy with death’s
entrance into the reality of human existence (11:24). The Book of Revelation (12:9), written
later, similarly links the ‘great dragon’ with ‘the Devil and Satan’, identifying this composite
figure as the deceiver of the world.

However, many Christians throughout history have believed that God promised from the
beginning that this non-human force of disruption and suffering will be overcome (Gen
3:15). Even though this serpent-like enemy will still cause havoc and pain, suffering and
death will not be the final word for God’s people. Further, the scriptures sometimes link
these hostile spiritual forces acting contrary to God not only to heavenly figures but also
to earthly powers (e.g. Ezek 28). The book of Revelation draws upon this tradition as it
seeks to make sense of the church’s pain in the midst of persecution and suffering. Yet,
as theologically mysterious and potentially problematic as they may be, the biblical texts
always present the Creator God as kingly and sovereign over all the world, somehow over
these evil powers and the pain they inflict (Job 1:9–12; 1 Kgs 22:19; Judg 9:23; 1 Sam
16:2, 14–23) – tolerating them for a time, but eventually annihilating them. In other words,
the Old Testament does not present a Gnostic or Manichean account of evil and suffering,
but a much more mysterious and complicated view of a Creator God who reigns and yet
does not affirm all that happens in this fallen world as ‘good’.

Some texts (e.g. Deut 11:26–28; Josh 23:15–16; 24:20) assert that blessings and curses
will result from obedience or disobedience, respectively (cf. Coats 1981; Westermann
1978). Other texts simply threaten that curses will directly result from rebellion against
God (e.g. Lev 26:14–16; Deut 28:15–68). Some texts view suffering as divine punishment
inflicted upon disobedient humans – both corporately (e.g. Jer 24:8–10) and individually
(e.g. 2 Sam 12:13–15) – also proclaiming that, if the people would repent, they would be
restored and experience relief from sufferings and the arrival of fresh waves of flourishing
(e.g. Exod 15:26; Lev 26:3–13).

The Old Testament treats body, mind, will, and affections as inseparably interconnected, a
holistic view that seems at odds with the modern tendency to divide suffering into physical,
psychological, spiritual, and social categories (cf. Wolff 1974). For example, God’s Spirit
departs from Saul and an ‘evil spirit’, also from God, then torments him so that he raves
and is overcome with anger (1 Sam 16:14–16; cf. 1 Sam 18:10–11); but the lyre-playing

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of David calms him. Saul’s physical, psychological, spiritual, and social experience are
all part of an integrated whole (for more on disease, illness, etc., see Amundsen 1996;
Seybold and Mueller 1981).

Nevertheless, these same scriptures also affirm that not all suffering or pain is a direct
result of divine punishment. For example, Mephibosheth was crippled, not because of this
own sin but because of an accident that happened as people hurried about (2 Sam 4:4),
which could still be related to the general disruption of shalom in this fallen world. Nor did
the common experience of ‘leprosy’ (ṣāraʿaṯ – now more closely linked with something
like psoriasis rather than what is known as leprosy or Hansen’s disease today) necessarily
mean the person afflicted had done anything especially wrong: rather, it was a sign that the
good creation was now distorted and littered with what was ‘unclean’ (e.g. Lev 13:8). Other
texts, however, directly link ‘leprosy’ to particular acts of unfaithfulness (e.g. Num 12; 2 Kgs
5:27).

When illness of whatever sort came upon people, it was understood that only God had the
ultimate power to heal (e.g. Exod 15:26) and deliver (Brown 1995). Not trusting him to deal
with physical illness (cf. Jer 30:17) or with suffering from oppressive outside agents (e.g.
Deut 1:31–33; 2 Chr 16:1–10) might be deemed unfaithfulness. Hezekiah thus becomes
a model of crying out to God amid sickness and suffering: while Isaiah – speaking on
behalf of God – tells Hezekiah to get his house in order because his sickness would lead
to death, the weakened man does not stoically accept the prophetic utterance but instead
‘turned’ to God and prayed, even weeping bitterly (Isa 38:1–2). Rather than be upset that
the ill king did not merely accept the bad news, God responded positively to his sincere
prayers, extending Hezekiah’s life by fifteen years (Isa 38:4–6).

Turning to God for healing was meant not simply to bring health but also to provoke praise
(e.g. Jer 17:14; Ps 103:2–3). Healing was never merely thought of as physical or mental
in isolation, for Yahweh both ‘heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds’ (Ps
147:3; cf. Ps 34:18). Accordingly, the texts that deal with suffering sometimes link acts
of repentance, prayer, and praise with the sought-after healing (e.g. Jer 3:22; Ps 50:15).
The prophets and the people even wrestle with God, not accepting the punishments God
foretold, but returning instead to the Lord in humility, obedience, and love, because God is
always ready to forgive and restore the repentant (e.g. Jer 15:1–21; Joel 2:13).

The conceptual tension remains unresolved: the sovereign creator God originally made all
things good, but that good creation has been disrupted by original and ongoing rebellion
from both human and non-human forces. This disruption has disordered – and continues
to distort – human relationships with God, others, oneself, and even the earth, producing
pain and suffering that culminates in death. The biblical texts continually reject easy
solutions: God is neither absent nor ignorant, nor is he a puppet master or mad scientist.

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Instead, Israel’s sovereign Lord is holy and compassionate, wise and patient, just and
gracious (e.g. Num 14:18; Neh 9:16–17; Ps 86:15). Based on that theology, biblical
authors respond to suffering by advocating the practices of lament and praise, to which we
now turn.

1.3 Lament and praise

In the biblical texts, God consistently calls his people to be truthful – both regarding his
character (i.e. God is holy, good, compassionate, and loving), as well as about their sin
and the real suffering of the world. Abandoning a truthful account of one or the other
might produce an easier problem to solve, but that would be worthless in real life. Job,
who appears to try to disentangle this intellectual puzzle, is unable to solve it. Instead of
attempting to resolve a philosophical quandary, Israel is encouraged to respond to the
brokenness of the world and their lives at the personal level, crying out with both corporate
and individual laments to the God who heard them (see, e.g., Billings 2015; Brock and
Harasta 2009; Pinn 1999).

Hebrew has several different terms to express lament, all connected to some form of
suffering and often death. To provide only a few examples: sāpaḏ and the related mispēḏ
most often refer to the mourning rites, like wailing and the tearing of one’s clothes,
demonstrated at someone’s death. Qînāh denotes a poem that is chanted in mourning;
’ābal often indicates mourning rites for the dead, but it can be used metaphorically (Isa
24:4). Nāhāh signifies the wailing itself that occurs with mourning.

Some laments call for corporate participation: for example, King David’s lament over
Saul’s death spoke not only for himself (1 Sam 1:17–27), but for all of Israel. The book
of Lamentations, which is filled with sorrow, questions, and longings, calls for the whole
community to mourn the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. Long after the event,
gatherings in Jewish synagogues would annually remember this devastation by reading
this book and joining the chorus of lament, mourning an institutional hurt that God had not
yet relieved. Individual worshippers sometimes also embodied their lament by rolling in
the dust of the earth (e.g. Mic 1:10; Jer 14:2) and even ashes (Ezek 27:30), pointing to
humanity’s humble beginnings and the sober expectation that suffering so often ends in
dissolution and futility. Lament was often the expected response to suffering and death
(e.g. 2 Chr 35:25): not only family members but also, if they could be afforded, professional
mourners were involved, and this mourning generally lasted seven days.

Within the Old Testament, it is probably the Psalter that has proven to be the resource
most often drawn upon by believers dealing with various forms of suffering. Many
scholars estimate that approximately thirty to forty percent of the Psalms could be roughly
categorized as some form of lament (e.g. Waltke, Houston and Moore 2014). Apart from
a single psalm (Ps 88) that almost exclusively focuses on pain and darkness without

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significant mention of hope or promise, most of the laments move between fear and
hope, questions and confidence, complaint and praise, but not in consistent proportions.
All of these lamentations (even Ps 88) are examples of worship, for here the author or
community of faith takes their fears, frustrations, hurts, and grief directly to Yahweh,
believing that ultimately all the chaos of this world occurs not outside of his sovereignty but
in some mysterious way within his watch and care.

Lamenting worshippers pose their questions directly to God. As only one example, Ps
101:1 asks: ‘Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of
trouble?’ This form of direct address is possible because God is not a distant deity, but
the living hope of Israel (cf. Pemberton 2012). Sufferers often feel forsaken (Ps 22:1),
forgotten (Ps 42:9), judged (Ps 74:1), and abandoned by their God (Ps 115:2). ‘Where
is your God?’ is a taunt that others employ against suffering believers (e.g. Ps 42:3,
10; 79:10). Similarly, the question, ‘How long?’, presented directly to Yahweh, recurs
throughout the Psalter (e.g. Ps 6:3; 13:1–2; 35:17). Even though this good and holy
God cannot be considered evil nor personally do wickedness, evil and suffering clearly
happen in this world that Yahweh created and sustains (Isa 45:7). Because of this tension,
the worshipper can only resolve to bring these concerns directly to God. Further, these
laments and prayers display the humility of those who remember that they are but clay
(see Isa 45:9), finite creatures rather than infinite Creator (Job 38).

Rather than presenting God in his sovereignty as a puppet master who directly pulls every
string and personally makes everything happen, the laments in the scriptures point in a
different direction. The texts show how Israel viewed Yahweh as the sovereign king of a
kingdom. Though events may happen in his realm that the king doesn’t personally do or
even approve of, that king is still in some way responsible for what has taken place under
his reign. In some sense the king could have prevented any and all threats from entering
the land; but when he doesn’t, complaints can appropriately be voiced directly to this king.
This is always within the context of recognizing the Creator-creature distinction between
God and human beings, and being mindful of human limits in understanding and power.
Nevertheless, maintaining a view that this sovereign king is good – despite the presence of
the sin and suffering experienced in his land – depends on an expectation that the king will
one day fully restore justice and usher in shalom.

Given that the relationship of this God to his people is emphatically and intensely personal,
lament was the appropriate response to their suffering. God repeatedly calls them to voice
their hearts to him: far from being a sign of unbelief, therefore, their heartfelt expressions
of concern, question, fear, ache, and pain were profound expressions of trusting in the
Lord, especially when they can find neither answers nor earthly deliverance. In all their
suffering, whether as a consequence of rebellion (Num 32:15–23) or in the complete
absence of any direct connection to some personal sin (as with Job), the Lord of Creation

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and God of the Covenant calls them to turn to him in trust, to rely on his abundant
compassion, his quick forgiveness, and his company on their dark path (e.g. 2 Kgs 13:23;
2 Chr 36:15; Ps 79:8–9; Isa 49:13–15; 63:7; Zech 10:6). God in his compassion never
forgets that we are but dust (Ps 103:13–14), and thus, even if for a time God appears to
have deserted his people, he is inclined towards mercy and he promises to restore and
gather those who trust in him (Isa 54:7–8; Lam 3:32; cf. Matt 23:37).

By the end of the book of Job, God does not give Job a direct answer to his questions
about his own suffering (cf. Ham 2013). As with Job, the scriptures also do not explain
why some who follow Yahweh do not, in their lifetimes, appear to escape their pain and
suffering even as the wicked often appear to prosper (e.g. Ps 94:3; cf. Prov 11:10). The
indirect answer, however, is more important than any solution to the intellectual conundrum
could be: while God may not deliver some people from the trials of this life, he promises
to be with them in the midst of their troubles (cf. Dan 3). And for Christian readers, the
answer to Job was not ultimately a sentence, but a person: in the Son becoming incarnate,
God himself becomes Job (Kapic 2017). In Christ we encounter the sympathetic high
priest who personally knows not only the pain of suffering, but also of feeling forsaken.

Christians will later deduce that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection constitute the
substance of the answer to this problem, although the New Testament authors articulate
no abstract philosophical explanation for suffering. Far from advocating the establishment
of a new earthly political power as the way to end their suffering, they present to us a
very human Messiah who is hurt, betrayed, and ultimately suffers unto death. They make
further connections: the Father of Israel is none other than the Father of the Lord Jesus
Christ. The eternal Son sent by the Father in the power of the Spirit becomes genuinely
and fully human (e.g. John 1:14), experiencing pain and suffering, facing the darkness
of that same death and hell which Christ and we so deeply lament: Jesus becomes the
embodiment of Psalm 22’s lament (Kapic 2011; see the whole of Ps 22 as the context
of the cry of dereliction in Matt 27:46 and Mark 15:34). Through his suffering and death
(Ps 22:15, 30–31; cf. John 19:30; Heb 5:7), followed by his resurrection and ascension (1
Tim 3:16), Jesus uniquely brings his people the promised deliverance. Thus, while those
who hang on a tree as a lawbreaker are under the curse (Deut 21:22–23), Jesus in some
mysterious way enters into the curse in order to restore the blessings to those who by faith
are found in him (Gal 3:10–14; cf. Rom 6:23). However, before looking at the material in
the New Testament, it is necessary first to examine passages from the prophets regarding
suffering.

1.4 Prophetic voices

Hebrew prophets were less concerned with predicting the future than with shaping it.
Prophets sent by God proclaimed that if the people did not repent of their rebellion, God

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would destroy their violent and corrupt ways of life – in short, serious suffering would
follow. These prophetic warnings, however, contained promises of escape. Jonah, for
example, reluctantly warns Nineveh that in forty days the city will be overthrown (Jonah
3:4). His reluctance derives from his fear that they will actually repent, and – much to
Jonah’s dismay – the Ninevites took his denunciations seriously and changed their
behaviour (3:5), thus avoiding the disaster that had threatened them (Jonah 3). But years
later, the prophet Nahum’s call for repentance apparently goes unheeded, and the city is
destroyed (see Nah 1–3). The narratives in the prophetic books thus display the two roads
of judgment: the people could submit to his verdict condemning their behaviour and turn
back to Yahweh in repentance, thus often escaping painful consequences; or they could
harden their hearts and ignore his calls for repentance, opening themselves to having his
judgment violently thrust upon them.

In the discussion of rebellion and suffering in Israel’s history there also lies a fascinating
thread of what is often called ‘remnant theology’ (cf. Hasel 1972). This tradition becomes
vital to Jesus’ self-understanding and to later Christian approaches to the problem of
suffering. Generally called the ‘servant songs’ (i.e. Isa 42:1–4; 49:1–6; 50:4–7; 52:13–
53:12), the canonical book of Isaiah includes four poems that highlight a strange and
hopeful idea: a remnant could suffer on behalf of others, and in a vicarious manner could
bring deliverance and protection for the larger community. Here emerges the imagery of a
Spirit-filled suffering servant, who, in his gentleness, brings justice to the earth (Isa 42:1–
4). This remnant – whether corporate or individual – represents Israel (49:3), bringing
light and salvation (49:6). He speaks not to condemn but to sustain the weary (50:4–5),
although in the process he would willingly absorb the blows and afflictions he does not
deserve (50:5–8). The servant figure who emerges is ultimately exalted, ‘lifted up’ (52:13),
not as an impassive personage but presented as a figure who took on the pain of others
and was ‘so marred’ that ‘his appearance [was] beyond human semblance’ (52:14). He
exhibits manifold evidence of suffering, from physical distress to rejection and scorn, filled
with sorrow and grief (53:2–3). This picture contains a vital element of the remnant motif,
especially as it describes the suffering servant who absorbs the pains of others:

Surely he has borne our infirmities

and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way,
and the LORD has laid on him

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 the iniquity of us all. (Isa 53:4–6)

Sobering images of a lamb led to slaughter (Isa 53:7), of oppression and judgment, of exile
and isolation – all of these came upon the servant figure who was innocent of violence
or deceit (53:7–9). Somehow by bearing the iniquities of others, suffering in anguish,
‘he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for transgressors’ (53:12). Here Isaiah
presents a remnant theology in which this one could act on behalf of others (cf. Mark
10:45). This Hebrew idea illuminates Jesus’ self-understanding in contrast with certain
messianic expectations of others (cf. Bock and Glaser 2012), such as that in a single ‘day
of the Lord’ the Messiah will bring destruction and save Israel, ushering in a purely earthly
kingdom, bringing total devastation to the Gentiles (cf. Ridderbos 1962). Instead, Jesus’
vision shapes later Christian interpretation of the Messiah’s suffering and death as offering
them the basis for life and redemption (e.g. Green 1990). At the same time, for Christians,
reading the salvific work of Christ through the lens of Isaiah provided a powerful prospect
for a fresh approach to the problem of ongoing human suffering and pain.

2 The New Testament on suffering

While the Old Testament provides the soil out of which Christian approaches to the
problem of suffering grow, the massive tree that centres the garden is Jesus the Messiah.
In New Testament perspective, all of Christian theology can only centre on this Messiah
– the one filled with the Spirit beyond measure (John 3:34), the one who became
the representative and fulfilment of Israel. This Messiah was the king who uniquely
inaugurated the in-breaking kingdom of God (start with Wright 1992; 1996). Earlier
messianic expectations had heavily used royal imagery, and by the first century they were
often understood in predominantly earthly political categories that expected deliverance
from this-worldly political enemies (e.g. Rome); instead of merely fulfilling those overly
narrow expectations, Jesus reinterprets and redirects them (cf. France 1971).

Whereas the Old Testament often links suffering with experiencing divine judgment –
though certainly not always – the New Testament often portrays suffering as being linked
to following Jesus and being willing to face difficulty for his name’s sake, as in persecution.
The story of Jesus’ own suffering reshaped how believers viewed suffering in general for
several reasons. First, Christians claimed that God in Christ had entered into human pain
and suffering. Further, they honoured those who willingly endured suffering that resulted
from following this Messiah and sacrificially serving others in his name. Finally, because
the imitation of Christ was central to the concept of being called ‘Christian’, to undergo
times of suffering because of that imitation transformed their whole view of suffering.

Only after his life, death, resurrection, and ascension do the followers of this Messiah
reconstruct their understanding of what suffering is and how to respond to it. In doing so

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they are not rejecting the Old Testament but affirming its fulfilment in the Messiah. This
reconstruction will be clarified by a brief examination of Jesus’ healing ministry, his death,
and finally his resurrection and ascension.

2.1 Signs of the kingdom: healings and help

Jesus was not naive about the problem of sin and suffering or about human rebellion
against God. Yet in responding to suffering he directs people not only to the past and
present but to the future, giving Christian theology a distinctively eschatological turn. He
brings promises of future hope into one’s present situation, accompanied by tastes of a
new creation. As Immanuel, God with us (Isa 7:14; Matt 1:22–23), Jesus is presented
as consistently gentle, concerned, and compassionate in the face of suffering (e.g. Matt
11:29; 20:34; Luke 7:13). He does not present himself as a politician seeking to gather and
expand military or earthly power, but as the kingly Son of Man who has come to rescue
others (e.g. Matt 20:28; Luke 19:10). He speaks and acts as a servant who identifies with
the most vulnerable and weak, ultimately showing genuine solidarity with others as he
undergoes temptation (Heb 2:18), suffering, and even enters into the darkness of death
(e.g. Mark 10:45). But before turning to the significance of the cross, we must pay attention
to his deeds and words – not simply to understand Jesus’ messianic identity, but also to
see how they shape Christian conceptions of pain and suffering.

Jesus both warns against equating personal suffering with personal sin (John 9:2) and
consistently exhibits a sensitive kind-heartedness and empathy towards those who suffer.
Many have argued that this compassion, expressing his love, is his strongest and most
common passion (e.g. Warfield 1950; cf. Voorwinde 2005; 2011). Spiritual union with
Christ, then, means that Christians are not only endowed with Christ’s attitudes but also
consciously seek to imitate him, thus reshaping the Christian concepts of how believers
should experience and treat suffering.

When John the Baptist (who was suffering in prison) sent messengers to Jesus asking if
he was indeed the expected Messiah, Jesus tells them to report what they see and hear:
‘the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the
dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them’ (Matt 11:5). Rather than
offering a non-physical spiritual or philosophical answer, he points at the relief of concrete,
genuine, present forms of suffering. John the Baptist had explicitly drawn on eschatological
passages of judgment, reflecting Isaiah’s warnings of ‘terrible recompense’ and the ‘day
of vengeance’ to come, warning (in John’s words) of the ‘axe’ and the ‘winnowing fork’
that are on the way, and the ‘chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire’ (Matt 3:1–12; cf.
e.g. Isa 29:20; 35:4; 61:2). Jesus responds to John, not by directly denying aspects of
judgment, but instead directing the hearers to parallel passages in Isaiah that stated God’s
promises of healing, passages that John seemed to ignore or downplay (e.g. Isa 29:18;

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32:3–4; 26:19; 35:5–6; 61:1). Jesus is telling John and all who were to follow that he was
bringing healing and hope, and that the expected judgment was not going to fall on those
who deserved it, but upon him, their suffering servant (cf. Dunn 2003: 445–455; Kapic
2018: 75–88).

Furthermore, the healing Jesus brings – drawing on Isaiah – addresses not merely
physical suffering (e.g. being blind or lame) but also the associated non-physical suffering,
such as financial distress, social and religious isolation, feelings of divine abandonment,
and psychological trauma. For example, in the healing of the Geresene demoniac (Mark
5:1–20), the man is liberated not only from the possession of the league of demons within
him, but also from a space of intense social isolation and religious uncleanliness among
the tombs; this also implied not only psychological healing but also opened up economic
changes that might naturally follow as this person is able to function well within society
again (cf. France 2002). Similar multi-layered healing could be read fairly from almost all
of the miracles of Jesus, as this was never merely about one’s spiritual nor simply their
physical wellbeing, but about their whole selves (e.g. Mark 5:25–34; Luke 37–43; Luke
17:14; John 11:38–44).

Word and deed go together for Jesus, who went about ‘teaching in their synagogues and
proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness
among the people’ (Matt 4:23). Jesus frames his reply to John the Baptist in terms of
healings, thus fundamentally shaping how Christians understand the ‘good news’ about
this king and his kingdom. People looked to Jesus not merely for his teachings, but also
for his power to end their suffering; many people consequently brought to him those most
deeply wounded and hurting (e.g. Matt 4:24; 15:30–31; Mark 7:32–37; 9:25). When he
healed them, he also often pronounced them ‘clean’ (e.g. Matt 8:3–17), connecting their
physical healing with the forgiveness of sins (e.g. Matt 9:1–8) – since, for shalom to again
take root, it must penetrate social situations and even into one’s heart. Shalom is ‘the
reign of God’s peace and justice; the restoration of wholeness in the created order’, which
Christ embodied and exhorted his followers to emulate (Gorman 2015; see also Fikkert
and Kapic 2019). This holistic healing thus signified the in-breaking of the kingdom of God.
It was with this significance that Jesus then sent out his disciples to ‘proclaim the good
news’ that ‘the kingdom of heaven has come near’, and told them to ‘cure the sick, raise
the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons’ (Matt 10:7–8) as the sign of that coming.

We noted earlier that the Old Testament indicates the presence of evil powers that oppose
God and his reign. The New Testament also takes up this theme, stating that Jesus not
only relieves guilt but also defeats the evil powers that enslave people (e.g. Russell 1981;
Schlier 1961; Twelftree 1985; 1993). Jesus and his followers sometimes spoke of suffering
as related to demonic activity. Jesus himself, led by the Spirit into the wilderness, faces
‘the tempter’ there (Matt 4:1–11). Whereas the original Adam, facing a serpent, had given

15
into temptation and opened the way to suffering, this last (eschatos) Adam (1 Cor 15:45)
resisted temptation and was faithful in the midst of suffering; whereas Israel roamed the
wilderness for forty years (Josh 5:6), Jesus as the true remnant faced forty days and nights
in the wilderness being tempted by the devil, yet he never gave in (Luke 4:1–13). He
then begins his ministry of proclamation, filled with the Spirit and declaring ‘release to the
captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free’ and he proclaims ‘the
year of the Lord’s favour’ (Luke 4:14, 16–19).

The authors of the New Testament often described this captivity and oppression as coming
from hostile forces and evil powers, including ‘the ruler of this world’ from whom they need
rescue (John 12:31; Matt 6:13; cf. Matt 5:37; 13:19; John 16:11; 17:15). They also connect
Jesus’ acts of healing diseases and blindness with rescuing these people from the grip
of ‘evil spirits’ (Luke 7:21; cf. Acts 19:12–15). Similarly, when Jesus liberates a man from
demons, he sends him home to declare all that God has done for him (Luke 7:38–39). In
its broadest sense, the ‘good news’ meant healing for the physical and spiritual needs of
the ‘oppressed’ and the ‘captives’, though such liberation was not always experienced
in the present. These evil forces sometimes had very human representatives (e.g. Wink
1984; Dawn 2001), as we will see in the book of Revelation in its comments about the
demonic ‘Babylon’ (more on this in section 2.4).

The Messiah also shows great power over nature (e.g. Twelftree 1999). Observing this
phenomenon reshapes the views of Christ’s followers about God’s attitude towards their
earthly needs. Jesus multiplying loaves and fishes (e.g. Mark 6:35–44, 8:1–9; cf. Ps 23:1,
72:6; Ezek 34:25–31) or filling empty nets with an abundance of fish (e.g. Luke 5:1–11;
John 21:1–11) were acts not just of power, but of God’s compassion. And Jesus is unafraid
of the deep waters that had previously represented chaos and threat (e.g. Job 38:8–11; Ps
89:9–10; Dan 7:3), walking on the water without aid (Mark 6:48–51). Nature, even in an
apparently life-threatening storm, submits to his command that the violent wind and waters
‘be still’ (Mark 4:39). The gospel writers seem to link this power over nature – especially
when it threatens harm (cf. natural evil) – to his divinely given authority, which not only
rebukes those winds and waves but also brings peace (Mark 4:39, 41; cf. Matt 8:27).
Besides informing early views of his identity as the Son of God, Jesus’ demonstrated
power over nature gave his followers confidence that natural disasters are outside neither
the concern nor the control of God. Thus Jesus in many ways embodies the vision of the
Psalmist when he declares of God: ‘You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise,
you still them’ (Ps 89:9; cf. Hays 2016: esp. 66–69). Subsequently, when believers faced
the suffering that comes from forces of nature, they could connect the Creator with the
Redeemer, knowing that Jesus both knew what it was like to live in the midst of a storm
and also had the power to quiet it. Later readers in the midst of personal suffering could
find great refuge in texts like this.

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Finally, a major contributor to suffering both in the ancient Near Eastern world and today
is material poverty (cf. Schottroff and Stegemann 1980; Longenecker 2010). As such, it
should not be ignored that one of the signs Jesus mentions to John the Baptist is that the
‘poor have good news brought to them’ (Matt 11:5; Luke 7:22, euangelizontai). Showing
a kind of partiality to the poor similar to that in Mary’s song of faith (Luke 1:46–55), his
first sermon expositing Isa 61:1–2 links the person and work of Jesus with both physical
healing and material wellbeing (Luke 4:18–19). This is not a new message, since God had
always called his people to be particularly concerned for the poor (e.g. Ps 72:1–4, 12–
14; Prov 29:14; Isa 11:4; Jer 7:5; 22:1–4), but now the Messiah himself proclaims it. Just
as God had expressed his anger towards ancient kings who neglected the poor (e.g. Isa
1:10–17; 3:14; Jer 22:1–30), so now this messianic king pursued not just the concerns
of the physically broken, but also of the prisoners, the sojourners, and the fatherless, all
easy victims of oppression (Ps 146:7–9). Therefore he is especially welcomed by the
disenfranchised, women, foreigners, children, and the marginalized (e.g. Matt 8:8–10;
9:2, 22, 28–29; 15:28). But what he primarily offers is himself (cf. Barclay 2015; Kapic
2018), overflowing with grace and forgiveness. Those who received him also saw that they
needed to address their own injustices towards the poor (e.g. Luke 19:1–10). Those who
were unwilling to care for the physical needs of the suffering in their presence would face
the very sober question: ‘Are you a sheep or a goat?’ (Matt 25:31–46). Similarly, 1 John
links the Christian’s experience of God’s love in Christ with concern for the material needs
of others, even connecting ‘hating’ others with ignoring their poverty (e.g. 1 John 3:11–
4:21). The relief of material suffering was important to Christ and to the community of faith
that followed him.

This Messiah came not merely to liberate humanity from the problem of guilt, but to bring
about a work of new creation, which includes caring for physical and material needs
(Fikkert and Kapic 2019). It is along these lines that the early church, after seeing the
resurrected and ascended Christ, intuitively began to share their possessions with one
another (e.g. Acts 2:42–47), thus pointing not only back to a pre-fallen condition free of
suffering, but forward to a future glory in which the suffering that arises from neglect and
need will no longer exist.

2.2 The suffering of Christ

Although Christians sometimes speak as if Jesus only suffered when he was on the cross,
it is far more accurate to see the cross as the culmination of his lifelong sharing in the
suffering of the world (e.g. Garrett 1998; Matera 1986; Tyson 1986). Early on, his own
family lived not in comfort but experienced the challenges of migration to a distant land,
danger, and later had resettlement in Galilee (Matt 2:13–23). But he also knew what it
was like to be betrayed, to be hungry, to be spoken harshly against, to be doubted. Jesus
not only suffered sleepless nights; he confronted suffering and death. These encounters

17
produced not a stoic detachment in him, but rather he was ‘greatly disturbed’ and ‘deeply
moved’ as he wept (John 11:33–38). He spoke of suffering and death as threats that
overshadowed the world and as enemies he would overcome.

But the biblical texts do not treat the suffering of Christ as if it only made him to be
one more sufferer like us. Rather, they treat his afflictions as accomplishing something
for others. Matthew explicitly picks up the theme of the ‘suffering servant’ from Isaiah
(especially 52:13–53:13) to highlight Christ as the servant whose ministry brought
holistic healing, ultimately by means of his own suffering (8:17; cf. Isa 53:4). The book of
Revelation presents the now-enthroned Lamb (see esp. Rev 5:6; 7:17) as having removed
the suffering of his people. Jesus’ self-identification as ‘the Son of Man [who] came not
to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many’ (Matt 20:28) frames
his whole life, and took him to his death on their behalf. He did not stand at a distance to
judge, remote and rejecting, but drew near to absorb their sin and suffering (see, e.g. Matt
8:17; cf. Isa 53:4).

A difference of viewpoint between Jesus and Peter illustrates how much of a shift in
thinking Christians would later make: whereas the disciple (surprisingly) identifies Jesus
as the Messiah (Mark 8:29), he still does not understand the nature of Jesus’ mission,
expecting him to redeem Israel by earthly or external power. But this approach to victory
sees the problem as merely outer and material. Jesus rebukes this approach, telling them
instead that his suffering, death, and resurrection are necessary to his mission (Mark 8:27–
38). Looking back, the disciples see that Christ’s suffering was central to the salvation
story of Israel (Luke 24:25–27). Acts continues this pattern of linking Jesus’ suffering to
the suffering servant imagery in Isaiah (e.g. Acts 3:13–14 and Isa 52:13–53:12; Acts 8:32–
3 and Isa 53:7–8). Because the cross and resurrection shifted how the church viewed
suffering, later Petrine theology also draws from Isaiah (‘by his wounds you have been
healed’; 1 Pet 2:24 and Isa 53:4, 11) to show the vicarious nature of Christ’s pain. That is,
Jesus’ suffering can liberate believers from fear in the midst of their suffering because pain
is not the final word for those tended by the ‘shepherd and guardian of your souls’ (1 Pet
2:21–25).

The theme of disciples ‘taking up their cross’ (Matt 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 14:27) does
not mean that they, like Jesus, atone for the sins of others. Instead it illustrates the fact
that their lives are not independent of his but derive from the life of their Messiah (see Gal
2:19–20). This means that they, like him, will be subject to persecution from the world, will
fight spiritual forces, and will pursue a new set of values that look to the outsider like a kind
of self-demotion. The suffering will take the form of hardships that result from willingness to
serve others and follow the Messiah that the world opposes.

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No Christian understanding of suffering can make sense apart from this now central
imagery of the cross (cf. Bauckham 1998; Treat 2014). The sacrament of the eucharist,
exhibiting the body and blood of Christ as symbols of his identification with his people and
his death on their behalf, thus become a key factor in shaping the church’s identity (e.g.
Byars 2011: esp. 183–308; Pitre 2011; 2015; Koenig 2000). As John makes clear through
Jesus, without feasting on the body and blood of Christ there can be no life in him (e.g.
John 5:22–58). John writes that the dual movement of the Son of Man both as descending
to us and as being lifted up (e.g. John 3:13–15; 8:28; 12:32–33), both of which point to the
event of crucifixion, are necessary aspects of his mission. With great irony, Jesus’ death
on a cross transforms one of the most horrific forms of torture the world has ever known
into a symbol of the hope of forgiveness, healing, and life (Hengel 1977). The Messiah’s
life, death, and resurrection become the means for a new creation which promises shalom
and eventually a freedom from suffering and pain.

2.3 Resurrection and ascension

Jesus’ suffering is not the final word in the New Testament: he is raised from the dead,
ascends to heaven, and lives at the right hand of God the Father. But even before his own
resurrection, he was credited with raising people from the dead. Jairus’ daughter is raised
even while Jesus performs other miracles (Matt 9:18–19, 23–26; Mark 5:21–24, 35–43;
Luke 8:40–42, 49–56); Jesus tells the dead son of the widow of Nain to arise (Luke 7:11–
17); and he calls his friend Lazarus, who was left dead in the grave, to come out of the
tomb (John 11:38–45). All of these people had to face death again, so that these events
are only a foreshadowing of the ultimate defeat of death and all suffering, and not the final
victory (cf. Allison 1985).

By contrast, when Jesus himself is raised, a new world breaks into the old one, and it
grips his followers (for extensive background, see Wright 2003). Even though Jesus had
already connected laying down his life with taking it up again (John 10:17), the disciples
did not absorb that connection until later. When they approach Jesus’ tomb, they still
do not know what to expect. Their uncertainty is deep enough that they need repeated
reassurance, first from an angel, who tells them, ‘Do not be afraid’, and, ‘He is not here; for
he has been raised’ (Matt 28:5b); and then from Jesus himself, again telling them not to
fear (Matt 28:10). Gospel accounts record that one of the reactions to the risen Jesus by
his disciples was to worship him: when ‘Mary Magdalene and the other Mary’ see Jesus at
the tomb, they ‘took hold of his feet and worshipped him’ (Matt 28:1, 9). Similarly, Thomas
responds to the risen Christ by saying, ‘[m]y Lord and my God’ (John 20:28). The new
situation is jarring enough for the disciples that the first words of Jesus to them at several
post-resurrection meetings is the word ‘peace’ (e.g. Luke 24:36; John 20:19, 21, 26). One
may take the word ‘peace’ (Greek eirene ̄ , ̄ cf. Hebrew sǎ lō m)
̂ in this Jewish context to carry
the nuances of shalom and thus to imply holistic wellbeing, healing, and the removal of

19
suffering (Beck and Brown 1986). The combination of these themes constitutes a promise
for the future, that their death-defeating Messiah will eventually deliver them from all
suffering into a kingdom of shalom where he reigns as king.

The Christian understanding of suffering therefore requires not only the cross, but also
the empty tomb. These two pivotal images represent the promise that the Messiah had
overcome the three great enemies of humanity – sin, death, and the devil – and that
he had secured the eventual end of suffering (cf. Aulen 1969; Rutledge 2017). Early
Christians could thus have courage and hope no matter how bad things became for them,
because they worshipped a crucified and resurrected Christ who always reigns in glory as
Lord (cf. John 2:21; Rom 4:24; 10:9; 1 Pet 1:21).

The New Testament therefore proclaims Jesus as the firstborn from the dead (e.g. Col
1:18; Rev 1:5) and that those who are united to him by the Spirit are part of a new creation
(e.g. 2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15). If there had been no resurrection, then all this preaching and
eschatological hope is in vain (1 Cor 15:14). But because he did, in fact, rise from the
dead, Christians no longer live under the tyranny of death nor mourn the deaths of others
as those who grieve without hope (1 Thess 4:13). And they can have this attitude, not
because they are naive about pain, suffering, and death, but because they are convinced
it is not the final word. Jesus’ resurrection anchors the great hope of the early church: ‘the
last enemy to be destroyed is death’ (1 Cor 15:26), and Jesus has secured that victory,
having risen from the dead and reigning now in heaven (cf. Torrance 1976; Dawson
2004). When his people suffer and are in trouble, the king who now sits at the right hand
of God (e.g. Luke 22:69; Col 1:3; Heb 1:3; 1 Pet 3:22) intercedes for them and attends
to their needs (e.g. Acts 7:55–56). He is their sympathetic high priest, whose risen life
continues forever and who is ready to save them as they draw near to God (Heb 7:24–25;
cf. Rom 8:34). Christian views of suffering are thus shaped from the root upward by the
eschatological hope anchored in the Christ event.

2.4 Suffering, endurance, and cosmic redemption in the New

Testament letters
Few writers shape Christian conceptions of suffering as much as the Apostle Paul. Himself
no stranger to facing all manner of afflictions, Paul even seems to provide a catalogue of
his hardships (e.g. 2 Cor 11:23–29), listing trials and suffering he faced as a result of his
ministry (cf. Fitzgerald 1988; Hafemann 1990). How these parallel, and differ from, other
ancient literature need not detain us here, except to say that Paul mentioned these trials
not to show himself superior in strength or energy but rather to glorify his God (e.g. 2 Cor
1:8–9). His weakness displayed God’s strength. He took this suffering not as invalidating
his prophetic calling but as a sign of apostolic authenticity (cf. Gal 6:17; 1 Cor 2:1–5; 2 Cor
11:23–29; Phlm 1:30; 2 Tim 1:11–12). Even as he dealt with a ‘thorn in the flesh’ which

20
was accompanied by ‘a messenger of Satan to torment’ him (cf. the Old Testament, which
saw physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering as interrelated), Paul comforted himself
with a divine revelation given to him by the risen Christ: ‘my grace is sufficient for you, for
my power is made perfect in weakness’ (2 Cor 12:7–9).

Paul does not deny the reality of pain and suffering, especially when received as a result of
following Christ; but he affirms that these challenges cannot destroy the promises secured
by the crucified and risen Lord (Black 2012; Bloomquist 1993). The followers of Christ
may be hard-pressed but not crushed, feel perplexed but not despair, face persecution
and know they are not forsaken (2 Cor 4:8–12), since believers also participate in Christ’s
death and in his resurrection. Thus, even if death itself should overtake the followers of
this Messiah, Paul promises that ‘the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with
Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence’ (2 Cor 4:14). Those who faced pain
and suffering in this life still have the promise of eventual shalom. In the meantime, their
suffering is not wasted, but often produces endurance, character, and finally hope (Rom
5:3–4). Further, believers who suffer and experience Christ’s comfort are also then able
to comfort others in their suffering (2 Cor 1:3–7). Because they are members of the Body
of Christ, believers who suffer on behalf of others can view their afflictions as ‘completing
what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body’ (Col 1:24), not in the sense
of atonement, but in the sense of ministry. Paul thus left an example of such suffering for
later believers to emulate (e.g. 1 Cor 4:8–13; 6:7; 9:1–27). Suffering wasn’t an excuse to
stop loving, but an opportunity to show God’s love even amid one’s own weakness (2 Cor
8:1–2; 1 Thess 1:2–7; 2 Thess 1:3–5). ‘Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will
hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?’ (Rom
8:35). Paul reminds his readers that, because they are united to the risen Christ, suffering
is not the final word for Christians, but instead one day they will fully share in Christ’s glory
(2 Cor 4:14; 2 Thess 1:7; 1 Cor 15:20–34). Christians join with the groaning creation that
longs for the fullness of shalom again to be the reality on earth as it is in heaven (Rom
8:18–25). Until then, Paul encourages Christians to ‘not lose heart’, for ‘even though our
outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight
momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure’ (2
Cor 4:16–18).

Petrine theology similarly asserts that suffering does not indicate that one is outside of
God’s favour, but can be taken as a sign of living within it (cf. Beker 1994; Elliot 1981;
Jobes 2005: esp. 225–296). The suffering associated with doing evil (e.g. murder, thievery)
is not in view here, but afflictions that result from bearing Christ’s name (1 Pet 4:15–16).
Whereas the gospels record Peter as trying to convince Jesus to avoid suffering, the
epistle of 1 Peter treats suffering for the sake of doing right and proclaiming the gospel
as being of no great consequence (e.g. 1 Pet 2:19–25; 3:13–17), citing Christ’s suffering
for the sins of others (1 Pet 3:18) as an example of enduring affliction for the sake of

21
righteousness. The king will make all things right, but in the meantime his people struggle
and suffer as ‘exiles’ and ‘aliens’ (1 Pet 1:1; 2:11) who are ‘spiritual sacrifices acceptable
to God through Jesus Christ’ (see Sacrifice and the Old Testament) (2:5). They ‘share
the sufferings of Christ’ and can look forward to ‘the revelation of his glory’ (4:13; cf. 1:6–
7). The theme here of suffering because of persecution for the faith (e.g. 4:14) becomes
increasingly important in the early centuries of the church when persecution also led to
martyrdom, which gained an especially prominent role in modelling radical self-sacrifice for
the faith (Horbury and McNeil 1981; Frend 1993).

The book of Revelation similarly focuses on suffering as a result of persecution by

evil spiritual and earthly forces that oppose God and his people. The opposition to
God comes not only from individuals but also from institutional and group entities (like
nations, commercial enterprises, entire societies, political movements, etc.) that exercise
oppressive and wicked power (cf. Boesak 1987; Fiorenza 1985; Sweet 1981). While
experiencing a kind of exile, the letter speaks of the city on the seven hills, Babylon (i.e.
Rome), as an entity that creates suffering for many. The letter ‘to the angel of the church
in Smyrna’ (2:8–11) links suffering of the believers there with a group it calls a ‘synagogue
of Satan’ (2:9; cf. 3:9). These and other spiritual entities exclude believers from everyday
commerce (13:17), deceive the world (11:7–10; 13:3b–4, 8, 14; 18:11–19; Rev 20:3),
attempt to deceive the church (2:20, 24), and imprison or kill Christ’s followers (2:10, 13;
6:9–10; 12:17). The believers face pressure from political, economic, social, and other
sources. Thus the book warns against accepting the ‘mark’ of the beast (perhaps the
emperor cult) in order to avoid current sufferings (cf. Thompson 1990), because a larger
divine drama is unfolding, and that idolatry will not go unheeded by the true God (e.g.
14:9–11; 16:2; 19:20).

Although it may appear that the church is losing against the forces of evil and will never
emerge from suffering, Revelation reinterprets the empirical evidence, revealing forces
and dynamics that are invisible to the worldly eye. It reveals principalities and powers that
seek to crush the people who belong to the divine king. But this king and his people will
eventually prevail (19:11–16), and be liberated from suffering, and they will reign together
(20:4–6). Then the ‘new heavens and new earth’ will become the home of God with his
people (21:1–4).

The narrative power of the book of Revelation is that it enables those undergoing
persecution and even martyrdom to see their suffering in transcendent terms, knowing
that unseen powers are at work – that heaven will descend on the earth, and that God will
dwell with them there (cf. Matt 6:10). Tyrants will no longer have power over them, nor will
plague, disease, and distress any longer afflict them, but they will live with their king in
his kingdom (Rev 19:6–9). An even greater shalom than that of the Garden of Eden will
be theirs in the New Jerusalem (21:9–26). What is most healing about this vision is not a

22
prospective change in location, but the promise of unhindered communion with God. Sin,
death, and the devil are all overcome. God himself wipes their tears away (7:17; 21:4).

Other New Testament voices could be added to this discussion (cf. Talbert 2018). James
addresses economic and social suffering that grows out of prejudice and injustice (e.g.
Jas 2:1–13; 4:1–12; 5:1–5). Hebrews calls on the people of God to contrast their present
challenges with the benefits they receive from their sympathetic high priest who suffered
on their behalf (Heb 4:15), even enduring the cross ‘for the sake of the joy that was set
before him’ (12:1–2). ‘Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to
help those who are being tested’ (2:18). Like the saints who went before them (2:11), they
also should push forward in faith and hope even when circumstances are difficult and
bleak. God has always sustained and cared for his people, supremely in the coming of
the Messiah; so now believers can, by his Spirit, gain courage in the midst of hardship
knowing they will never be abandoned.

3 Theological challenges of suffering

While countless volumes have been written on different theological questions related to the
challenge of suffering, here we only have space to mention three themes that can at least
point readers in relevant directions.

3.1 Philosophical speculations and ecclesial responses

Theodicy (1985, first published 1710) by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) tries to
resolve the tension between affirming the goodness and power of God and the existence
of evil (see Leibniz 1985). Leibniz seeks to make a defence of the ways of God (thus the
work’s title) without trying to explain each particular instance of evil. As hard as it might
be for us to imagine, he claims that our world must be ‘the best of all possible worlds’,
and that events in it therefore do not contradict divine justice or purposes. The tragic 1755
Lisbon earthquake, however, was thought to seriously erode the plausibility of this thesis.
Voltaire’s Candide is the classic refutation-by-mockery of Leibniz’s idea and all similar
proposals, maintaining that no amount of goodness to follow this life could possibly make
right the horrendous suffering in this world, whether death by volcanic eruption or the
violence of rape.

In the wake of the Enlightenment, those outside and inside the church continue to debate
how to reconcile the claim that God is good, omniscient, and omnipotent with the horrors
and apparent irrationality of so much pain and suffering in this world (see Rice 2014 for
an accessible survey). Some writers (e.g. process theologians and open theists) attempt
to rationally resolve the tension by diminishing or reimagining God’s attributes, while
others seek to make peace with it by saying that evil and suffering in some way foster
necessary growth for creatures (e.g. Hick 2010) or by focusing on the creature’s freedom

23
(cf. Plantinga 1977). Others, who find some or all of these approaches objectionable, often
end up denying God’s existence altogether, convinced that the tension amounts to an
outright contradiction. The claim that one cannot even identify evil and good apart from
an affirmation of some kind of transcendence (thus reducing the matter to Nietzschean
‘will to power’ dynamics) does not tend to satisfy the questioners, nor does it resolve the
tension. These modern philosophers and theologians, as diverse as Immanuel Kant and
Alvin Plantinga, each seek in their own way to bring some rational sense to this nagging
problem. The common impulse is to try to answer or explain so that irrationality might be
avoided.

Whatever the legitimacy of such an approach, the church has historically responded to the
challenge of suffering less often by seeking abstract answers for the problem, and more
by proclaiming the gospel and engaging in practices that seek to alleviate pain. Elenore
Stump’s Wandering in Darkness (2010) is a contemporary and significant philosophical
and theological work that navigates these questions in fresh ways, using narrative to
enable people to live in the face of suffering. Stump draws on what she calls a ‘Franciscan’
way of knowing in contrast to a ‘Dominican’ one: the latter is more analytical and uses
abstraction to categorize, while the former is more driven by stories and the typology that
emerges from them. She pushes her readers to consider evil without trying to explain it
away, making space not only for pain but for God’s presence and grace in the midst of it.

Turning from a philosopher to biblical scholars and theologians, those such as Henri
Blocher (2004) and N. T. Wright (2006) have also moved away from seeking to simply
reconcile philosophical syllogisms about suffering; instead, they consider how the life,
death, and resurrection of Jesus changes this world, even redeeming the darkness of
real suffering (cf. Kapic 2017). Such an approach takes seriously the fact that humans
are undeniably confounded by the presence of suffering, answering that the Messiah has
entered Israel’s story and redeemed his people, which makes living in the midst of pain
not only bearable but hopeful. It also encourages Christians not merely to receive God’s
peace, but to work for and extend that peace to others.

In the patristic period, church leaders (e.g. Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, etc.) often
affirmed that God was not the author of evil – even as they confessed some form of
divine sovereignty and the goodness of the Creator despite their sober acknowledgement
of the pain in this world (see, e.g., Harrison and Hunter 2016). While seeking to avoid
forms of dualism, they responded to suffering not so much by seeking an abstract
philosophical explanation (although they did that, too) as by moving their people to worship
in general and, more specifically, to lament, fasting, acts of mercy, and especially justice
(cf. Hauerwas 1990; Swinton 2007). Rather than debate how a good God could allow
babies to be abandoned on trash heaps, they gathered the abandoned children, cared
for the poor, and tried to heal the sick. Rodney Stark (1996), for example, writes that

24
these practices grew out of a young church responding to the suffocating injustice and
suffering around them; and that, as a result of these world-altering practices, Christianity
experienced exponential growth, moving from being a tiny sect to becoming a world
religion. In other words, from its earliest days, Christian identity was wrapped up in
concern for those in pain and determination to minister to them. Rather than being
paralysed by the insoluble questions of why people suffer from a plague, or how God could
do it or even allow it, they more often moved into actual care for the vulnerable and needy.
Again, because the early church followed the example of a crucified Saviour who wept
and bled but now was at the right hand of God, even horrendous events like martyrdom
or hunger or nakedness were less often viewed as God’s abandonment, and more as
painful elements of a sinful and broken world (e.g. Perpetua’s martyrdom). Even in all their
weakness and suffering, they still believed they could experience God’s presence and
mercy. The ancient church did, however, occasionally have to make it clear that suffering
and even martyrdom were not to be sought out, but accepted only as one was overtaken
by such circumstances (Frend 1993). Overall, the church became a people and a space
where others could experience some relief from suffering and gain hope to meet one’s
hardship.

Practices shaped the Christian community – beginning with the liturgy, which consistently
brought believers before the reality of a suffering servant who lived, died, and rose on their
behalf. Their ministries to the poor, the marginalized, and the forgotten also transformed
their lives. By prayers and fasting, songs and offerings, these humble believers were
formed into people who lived with a defiant hope, seeking to bring the light of Christ to the
darkness of this world. So while the post-Enlightenment approach to the matter of suffering
answers the problem with sentences, the ancient and medieval church more often sought
to respond by relieving the pain of others and by worshipping the Lord who suffered for
them.

3.2 Does God suffer?

Only in the context of their practical rather than theoretical approach to suffering can
one properly understand the early church’s confession about God’s relationship to it.
The confession of many early church leaders that God was ‘impassible’ was not driven
primarily by inherited pagan philosophy – a common but overly simplistic stereotype – nor
with a goal of presenting God as distant or unconcerned (apathetic in the modern sense
of the term). Rather, it was used to help make sense of the strange wonder and beauty
of the condescension of the Son and the gravity of his suffering and death. Working from
the common assumption that the Creator is not the creation, and thus is not subject to
entropy, destruction, coercion, or death, it was affirmed that God cannot ‘suffer’. Rather
than affirming God is ignorant or unconcerned, they were affirming that the Creator cannot
be manipulated by outside forces (thus ‘passive’) and therefore cannot suffer. And yet,

25
part of the wonder of the incarnation is the revelation that this very God, who cannot bleed
or die, has willingly taken on a human nature; and thus, as God incarnate, the Christ is
open to all manner of suffering, temptation, pain, and even death (e.g. Cyril of Alexandria
1995). In this way the impassible God experiences real suffering as the God-man (e.g.
Gavrilyuk 2004; Weinandy 2000; Cameron 1990). Rather than trying to undermine God’s
compassion, concern, or care for his creation and his people who suffer, those holding this
emphasis were trying to ground this revelation more fully in the Christ event.

Modern commentary on the ancient affirmation of divine impassibility often alleges that it
demonstrated an intellectual dependence on Hellenism more than on the Hebrew Bible
(cf. Fretheim 1984; Gavrilyuk 2004 provides numerous examples) and wonder if such
an approach is not hard-hearted, or at least indifferent, toward real pain (e.g. Farley
1990). After all, Israel’s ancient prophets often spoke of God’s anger, his compassion,
and his deep concern for Israel – this God who attached himself to these vulnerable and
sometimes hard-hearted people was often described as responding in ways otherwise
considered as ‘passions’ or forms of suffering. How could these emotively loaded words
fit the idea that God ‘does not suffer’ or that God is ‘without passions’? Though careful
philosophical attempts to make sense of Christianity in light of the horrors of evil has
continued in a post-Auschwitz world (e.g. Swinburne 1998; Pinnock 2002; Van Inwagen
2004), many have been concerned that a particular defence of ‘impassivity’ sounds not
only sterile but cruel. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2010: 479) once wrote, ‘[o]nly the suffering
God can help’.

The ravages and horrors of war have led biblical scholars (e.g. Heschel 1962) to push
more strongly against the idea of divine impassibility. Christian theologians joined in by
questioning the idea that the human nature of Jesus alone was what made God able to
‘suffer’, since they concluded God himself has always been a suffering God, and this
passion or willingness to suffer is simply exemplified on the cross. Most significantly,
Jürgen Moltmann’s The Crucified God (1974, English ed.) captured the imagination of the
theological world and beyond, expanding on the tradition of Martin Luther’s theology of the
cross (see also Hall 1986). Moltmann affirmed not only divine empathy and solidarity with
humankind as the way of understanding and healing achieved by the ‘death of God’ on the
cross, but also that this suffering was distinctly experienced within (ad intra) the life of the
Triune God. His account resonated far and wide, quickly moving outside of Europe and
is now deeply appreciated (even if modified) around the world, from Peru to Japan. While
Moltmann’s analysis of God’s suffering had become deeply influential and accepted by the
start of the twenty-first century, some philosophers and theologians have recently pushed
back. Many disagree with the way contemporary theologians have misrepresented or
misunderstood ancient and medieval sources, and they express concerns that Moltmann’s
results undermined the uniqueness of the incarnation and its significance for framing
God’s relationship to suffering (cf. Keating and White 2009). This debate is far from over,

26
as it necessarily touches on all manner of doctrines (e.g. Trinity, Christology, theological
anthropology) as well as having deep significance for pastoral care.

3.3 Liberation and suffering

Particular questions and insights into suffering naturally arise out of communities in which
oppression is the common experience, as opposed to affluence or ease (Boff and Boff
1987). Since space here is limited, we can only mention a few examples to illustrate the
Christian conversations that speak to the political, cultural, and economic struggles facing
the Body of Christ (that is, the church) globally.

The theme of liberation has gained prominence in global theology and liturgy. Drawing
heavily from the Exodus motif and prophetic voices (e.g. Micah), Christians in communities
that have experienced great injustice have reclaimed the biblical call to liberate those who
suffer. They often interpret the Exodus as an event that did not proclaim the salvation
of people’s ‘souls’, but sought freedom to worship Yahweh and freedom from politically
oppressive rulers, unjust economic systems, and disordered social dynamics (see esp.
Exod 1–16 for the background narrative). The exodus of the Hebrew people from Egypt
was a moment of liberation that related to every aspect of their lives, from the ability to
safely have as many children as they wanted to how much they would work and when
they would worship. Picking up on biblical motifs like this, Gustavo Gutiérrez (1973)
sought to revolutionize the church’s theology. He wanted it to be shaped less by the
affluent and powerful and more people ‘from below’, by those who personally lived with
pain and suffering, poverty and death – these were the voices that Christian theology
needed to hear in order to reform itself. Suffering in this theological process becomes
less of an afterthought and more of an original driving force that shapes how one is to
understand God, the incarnation, the Spirit, and the church. David Kelsey’s massive study
of theological anthropology (2009) reflects this modern sensitivity when he argues that
Christian anthropology should consider beginning not with an idealized vision of humanity
as in Genesis, but with a vision of the broken and hurting as found in the wisdom literature,
for example in Job.

While early expositions of liberation often emerged from Latin America (e.g. Gutiérrez
1973; Boff 1987), similar treatments are found throughout the world: whether from Asia
(e.g. Song 1986) or South Africa (Frostin 1988), each new analysis offers its distinctive
contributions – but they share a starting point of affirming the reality of suffering and
its importance in making sense of God, the world, and a believer’s faith. Starting ‘from
below’ (with painful human existence) rather than ‘from above’ (in some medieval,
academic, scholastic manner), this sensitivity to suffering then re-shapes all theological
topics (e.g. Sobrino and Ellacuría 1996). Few works demonstrate this re-shaping more
ably than James Cone’s classic, The Cross and the Lynching Tree (2011), where he

27
powerfully explores the paradox that lies at the heart of Christianity – that it is a religion
centred on a crucified Saviour. And thus, to understand correctly the one who hung on
a tree, people should listen to the cries and insights of those who bore witness to the
hangings of beloved ones at the hands of tyrannical people and systems. Only in this way
can a vision of the true God break through the distortions of a theology constructed by
those so accustomed to power they have lost sight of what it means to be identified with
the Messiah who was crucified as a criminal.

In some respects, Black theology (e.g. Cone 1970; Pinn 1999), feminist theology (e.g.
Fiorenza 1983), Womanist perspectives (e.g. Williams 1993), ecological concerns (Fischer
2009), or queer theology (e.g. Tonstad 2018) have similar lines of development. Some
non-Western theologians have, however, asked to what extent these theologies still reflect
Western academic presuppositions far more than is usually realized, and thus are not
truly reflecting a theology ‘from below’ (e.g. Chan 2014; cf. Reed 2017). Even with their
disagreements and differences, each of these approaches maintains a similar thread: this
God is present in the pain, marginalization, and struggle of his people, and in this dynamic
one discovers more clearly who God is and then how to approach this world in ways that
can oppose remaining injustices and inequalities on the earth. Among the great variety of
approaches real disagreements remain: for example, some writers purposely anchor their
theology of suffering in a distinctly christological manner, while others move more towards
relativist presuppositions, according to which Jesus (not always explicitly mentioned)
primarily serves as an example or symbol, rather than as the Son of God and the locus of
divine self-revelation.

Another area in which Christian examinations of suffering are receiving renewed attention
is in the area of disability studies (e.g. Swinton 2016; Brock 2019). While it had often been
assumed the so-called ‘disabilities’ were problems to be overcome, some have raised
questions as to whether Christians (and others) have too often confused difference with
suffering (e.g. Eisland 1994). Should a condition like Down’s syndrome be immediately
categorized as suffering and thus viewed as a problem to be solved? Should Down’s, for
example, instead be seen as a distinctive human experience that enriches the church
and world, rather than as a condition to mourn? The cause of suffering may not lie in
the syndrome itself, but the inappropriate responses of those who chiefly consider those
who have Down’s syndrome to be merely ‘other’ and therefore to be ignored or hidden
away. Navigating these questions is profoundly difficult, but Christian ethicists like Stanley
Hauerwas, Amos Yong, Brian Brock, and John Swinton are leading fresh inquiries that
bring together theology and experience, seeking to understand suffering that often lingers,
in one way or another, around those living with ‘disabilities’.

4 Conclusion

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The biblical material on suffering is vast, from the opening chapter in Genesis through to
the closing eschatological vision in Revelation. Between these two bookends one finds
constant tension between the positive statements about God’s character and negative
statements about pain and suffering. One writer will emphasize divine agency, another will
emphasize human agency, and yet others will look at the effects of other forces (nature,
the demonic, etc.). The primary response to suffering in the Bible and in the church is to
urge God’s people to turn to him and to minister to one another. This promotes a faith
that lives within this tension, sometimes developing one aspect of the tradition more than
the others. And as long as people who experience suffering also believe in the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, they will wrestle with how to navigate their faith and life amid the
challenges of real pain and suffering.

Attributions

Copyright Kelly M. Kapic (CC BY-NC)

29
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