Take Up the Cross

Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you:
— 1 Peter 4:4

That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:
— 1 Peter 1:7

Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.
— 1 Peter 5:9

Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations:
— 1 Peter 1:6

The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed:
— 1 Peter 5:1

A Practical Commentary Upon the First Epistle of Peter 4:12-13, by Robert Leighton. The following contains an excerpt from his work.

1 Peter
VER. 12.—Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:
VER. 13.—But rejoice, inasmuch as you are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.

This fighting life, surely, when we consider it aright, we need not be dissuaded from loving it, but have rather need to be strengthened with patience to go through, and to fight on with courage and assurance of victory; still combating in a higher strength than our own, against sin within and troubles without. This is the great scope of this Epistle, and the Apostle often interchanges his advices and comforts in reference to these two. Against sin he instructs us in the beginning of this chapter, urging us to be armed, armed with the same mind that was in Christ, and here again against suffering, and both in a like way. In the mortifying of sin, we suffer with him, as there he teaches, verse 1 of this chapter: and in the encountering of affliction, we suffer with him, as here we have it: and so, the same mind in the same sufferings will bring us to the same issue. Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, &c. But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that when his glory shall be revealed, ye likewise may be glad with exceeding joy.

The words, to the end of the chapter, contain grounds of encouragement and consolation for the children of God in sufferings, especially in suffering for God.

These two verses have these two things, I. The close conjunction of sufferings with the estate of a Christian. II. The due composure of a Christian towards sufferings.

I. It is no new, and therefore no strange thing, that sufferings, hot sufferings, fiery ones, be the companions of religion. Besides the common miseries of human life, there is an accession of troubles and hatreds for that holiness of life to which the children of God are called.

It was the lot of the Church from her wicked neighbours, and in the Church, the lot of the most holy and peculiar servants of God, from the profane multitude. Wo is me, my mother, says Jeremiah, that thou hast born me a man of strife, and a man of contention to the whole earth. Jer. 15:10. And of all the Prophets, says not our Saviour, handling this same argument in his sermon, So persecuted they the Prophets that were before you? Matt. 5:12. And afterwards, he tells them what they might look for: Behold, says he, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. Matt. 10:16. And, in general, there is no following of Christ, but with his badge and burden. Something is to be left, we ourselves are to be left—Whosoever will be my disciple, let him deny himself; and somewhat to take—Take up his cross and follow me. Matt. 16:24. And doth not the Apostle give his scholars this universal lesson, as an infallible truth, All that will live godly in Jesus Christ, shall suffer persecution? Look, in the close of that roll of believers conquering in suffering, what a cluster of sufferings and torture you have. Heb. 11:36, &c. Thus in the primitive times, the trial, and fiery trial, even literally so, continued long. Those wicked emperors hated the very innocency of Christians; and the people, though they knew their blameless carriage, yet, when any evil came, would pick this quarrel, and still cry, Christianos ad leones.

Now this, if we look to inferior causes, is not strange, the malignant ungodly world hating holiness, hating the light, yea, the very shadow of it. And the more the children of God walk like their Father and their home, the more unlike must they, of necessity, become to the world about them, and therefore become the very mark of all their enmities and malice.

And thus indeed, the godly, though the sons of peace, are the improper causes, the occasion of much noise and disturbance in the world; as their Lord, the Prince of Peace, avows it openly of himself in that sense, I came not to send peace, but a sword, to set a man at variance with his father, and the daughter against the mother, &c. Matt. 10:34. If a son in a family begin to inquire after God, and withdraw from their profane or dead way, oh, what a clamour rises presently! “Oh, my son, or daughter, or wife, is become a plain fool,” &c. And then is all done that may be, to quell and vex them, and make their life grievous to them.

The exact holy walking of a Christian really condemns the world about him; shows the disorder and foulness of their profane ways. The life of religion, set by the side of dead formality, discovers it to be a carcass, a lifeless appearance; and, for this, neither grossly wicked, nor decent, formal persons, can well digest it. There is in the life of a Christian a convincing light, that shows the deformity of the works of darkness, and a piercing heat, that scorches the ungodly, and stirs and troubles their consciences. This they cannot endure, and hence rises in them a contrary fire of wicked hatred, and hence the trials, the fiery trials of the godly. If they could get those precise persons removed out of their way, they think they might then have more room, and live at more liberty: as it is, Rev. 11:10, a carousing, [χαροῦσιν]. What a dance there was about the two dead bodies of the two witnesses? The people and nations rejoiced and made merry, and sent gifts one to another, because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth. And from the same hearth, I mean the same wickedness of heart in the world, are the fires of persecution kindled against the saints in the world, and the bonfires of joy when they are rid of them.

And as this is an infernal fire of enmity against God, so it is blown by that spirit whose element it is. Satan stirs up and blows the coal, and raises the hatred of the ungodly against Christians.

But while he, and they in whom he powerfully works, are thus working for their vile ends in the persecution of the saints, he who sovereignly orders all, is working in the same, his wise and gracious ends, and attains them, and makes the malice of his enemies serve his ends and undo their own. It is true, that by the heat of persecution many are scared from embracing religion: such as love themselves and their present ease, and others that seemed to have embraced it, are driven to let it go and fall from it; but yet, when all is well computed, religion is still upon the gaining hand. Those who reject it, or revolt from it, are such as have no true knowledge of it, or share in it, nor in that happiness in which it ends. But they that are indeed united to Jesus Christ, do cleave the closer to him, and seek to have their hearts more fastened to him, because of the trials that they are, or may probably be put to. And in their victorious patience appears the invincible power of religion where it hath once gained the heart, that it cannot be beaten or burnt out: itself is a fire more mighty than all the fires kindled against it. The love of Christ conquers and triumphs in the hardest sufferings of life, and in death itself.

And this hath been the means of kindling it in other hearts which were strangers to it, when they beheld the victorious patience of the saints, who conquered dying, as their Head did; who wearied their tormentors, and triumphed over their cruelty by a constancy far above it.

Thus, these fiery trials make the lustre of faith most appear, as gold shines brightest in the furnace; and if any dross be mixed with it, it is refined and purified from it by these trials, and so it remains, by means of the fire, purer than before. And both these are in the resemblance here intended; that the fire of sufferings is for the advantage of believers, both as trying the excellency of faith, giving evidence of it, what it is, and also purifying it from earth and drossy mixtures, and making it more excellently what it is, raising it to a higher pitch of refinedness and worth. In these fires, as faith is tried, so the word on which faith relies is tried, and is found all gold, most precious, no refuse in it. The truth and sweetness of the promises are much confirmed in the Christian’s heart, upon his experiment of them in his sufferings. His God is found to be as good as his word, being with him when he goes through the fire, (Isa. 43:2,) preserving him, so that he loses nothing except dross, which is a gainful loss, leaves only of his corruption behind him.

Oh! how much worth is it, and how doth it endear the heart to God, to have found him sensibly present in the times of trouble, refreshing the soul with dews of spiritual comfort, in the midst of the flames of fiery trial.

One special advantage of these fires is, the purifying of a Christian’s heart from the love of the world and of present things. It is true, the world at best is base and despicable, in respect of the high estate and hopes of a believer; yet still there is somewhat within him, that would bend him downwards, and draw him to too much complacency in outward things, if they were much to his mind. Too kind usage might sometimes make him forget himself and think himself at home, at least so much as not to entertain those longings after home, and that ardent progress homewards, that become him. It is good for us, certainly, to find hardship, and enmities, and contempts here, and to find them frequent, that we may not think them strange, but ourselves strangers, and may think it were strange for us to be otherwise entertained. This keeps the affections more clear and disengaged, sets them upward. Thus the Lord makes the world displeasing to his own, that they may turn in to him, and seek all their consolation in himself. Oh, unspeakable advantage!

II. The composure of a Christian, in reference to sufferings, is prescribed in these two following, resolving and rejoicing: 1. Resolving to endure them, reckoning upon them, Think it not strange, μὴ ξενιζεσθε; 2. Rejoicing in them, χαίρετε, Be glad, inasmuch, &c.

Be not strangers in it. Which yet naturally we would be. We are willing to hear of peace and ease, and would gladly believe what we extremely desire. It is a thing of prime concern, to take at first a right notion of Christianity. This many do not, and so either fall off quickly, or walk on slowly and heavily; they do not reckon right the charges, take not into the account the duties of doing and suffering, but think to perform some duties, if they may with ease, and have no other foresight; they do not consider that self-denial, that fighting against a man’s self, and fighting vehemently with the world, those trials, fiery trials, which a Christian must encounter with. As they observe of other points, so Popery is in this very compliant with nature, which is a very bad sign in religion. We would be content it were true that the true Church of Christ had rather prosperity and pomp for her badge than the cross; much ease and riches, and few or no crosses, except they were painted and gilded crosses, such as that Church hath chosen, instead of real ones.

Most men would give religion a fair countenance, if it gave them fair weather; and they that do indeed acknowledge Christ to be the Son of God, as St. Peter did, yet are naturally as unwilling as he was to hear the hard news of suffering; and if their advice might have place, would readily be of his mind, Be it far from thee, Lord. Matt. 16:22, 23. His good confession was not, but this kind advice was from flesh and blood, and from an evil spirit, as the sharp answer tells, Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art an offence unto me.

You know what kind of Messiah the Jews generally dreamed of, and therefore took offence at the meanness and sufferings of Christ, expecting an earthly king, and an outwardly flourishing state. And the disciples themselves, after they had been long with him, were still in that same dream, when they were contesting about imaginary places. Yea, they were scarcely well out of it, even after his suffering and death: all the noise and trouble of that had not well awaked them. We trusted it had been he which should have restored Israel. Luke 24:21.

And, after all that we have read and heard of ancient times, and of Jesus Christ himself, his sufferings in the flesh, and of his Apostles and his saints, from one age to another, yet still we have our inclinations to this practice of driving troubles far off from our thoughts, till they come upon our backs, fancying nothing but rest and ease, till we be shaken rudely out of it.

How have we of late flattered ourselves, many of us one year after another, upon slight appearances, Oh, now it will be peace! And, behold, still trouble hath increased, and these thoughts have proved the lying visions of our own hearts, while the Lord hath not spoken of it. Ezek. 13:7. And thus, of late, have we thought it at hand, and taken ways of our own to hasten it, which, I fear, will prove fool’s haste, as you say.

You that know the Lord, seek him earnestly for the averting of further troubles and combustions, which, if you look aright, you will find threatening us as much as ever. And withal, seek hearts prepared and fixed for days of trial, fiery trial. Yea, though we did obtain some breathing of our outward peace, yet shall not the followers of Christ want their trials from the hatred of the ungodly world. If it persecuted me, says he, it will also persecute you. John 15:20.

Acquaint, therefore, your thoughts and hearts with sufferings, that when they come, thou and they not being strangers, may agree and comply the better. Do not afflict yourselves with vain fears beforehand of troubles to come, and so make uncertain evils a certain vexation by advance; but thus forethink the hardest trial you are likely to be put to for the name and cause of Christ, and labour for a holy stability of mind, for encountering it if it should come upon you. Things certainly fall the lighter on us, when they fall first upon our thoughts. In this way, indeed, of an imagined suffering, the conquest beforehand may be but imaginary, and thou mayest fail in the trial. Therefore, be still humble and dependent on the strength of Christ, and seek to be previously furnished with much distrust of thyself, and much trust in him, with much denial of thyself, and much love to him; and this preparing and training of the heart may prove useful, and make it more dexterous, when brought to a real conflict. In all, both beforehand and in the time of the trial, make thy Lord Jesus all thy strength. That is our only way in all to be conquerors, to be more than conquerors, through him that loved us. Rom. 8:37.

Think it not strange, for it is not. Suit your thoughts to the experience and verdict of all times, and to the warnings that the Spirit of God hath given us in the Scriptures, and our Saviour himself from his own mouth, and in the example which he showed in his own person. But the point goes higher.

Rejoice. Though we think not the sufferings strange, yet, may we not well think that rule somewhat strange, to rejoice in them? No, it will be found as reasonable as the other, being duly considered. And it rests upon the same ground, which will bear both. Inasmuch as you are partakers of the sufferings of Christ.

If the children of God consider their trials, not in their natural bitterness, but in the sweet love from whence they spring, and the sweet fruits that spring from them, that we are our Lord’s gold, and that he tries us in the furnace to purify us, (as in the former verse,) this may beget not only patience, but gladness even in the sufferings. But add we this, and truly it completes the reason of this way of rejoicing in our saddest sufferings, that in them we are partakers of the sufferings of Christ.

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