Biblical Christianity is Eschatological

I do not like suffering anymore than you do. Yet as St. Peter articulates it, the authentic Christian life will be marked by suffering now - make no mistake! It is then followed by incomparable joy at the coming of Christ. As such, biblical Christianity is by definition eschatological:

1 Peter 1:6-8 (translated by J. Ramsey Michaels):

6 Then you [will] rejoice—though now for a little you must suffer affliction in various ordeals. [You must suffer] 7 so that the genuineness of your faith—a quality more precious than gold which, though perishable, is [also] tested by fire—may be found to result in praise, glory, and honor at the time when Jesus Christ is revealed, 8 You have never seen him, but you love him. Even now, without seeing, you believe in him, [and] you [will] rejoice with inexpressible and glorious delight 9 when you each receive the outcome of your faith, your final salvation.

"The passage delineates two time periods: the present, characterized by grief in this sense, and the future, characterized by joy. Peter is not speaking paradoxically of joy in suffering (as he is, e.g., in 4:13) but eschatologically of joy after suffering."^[1]

Admittedly, this is difficult to accept. Our contemporary culture screams for better things now. It's precisely why I contend that biblical Christianity is eschatological.

By eschatological, I mean what the Bible reveals as the final things to come as enacted through the eternal program of God that is revealed in Scripture and centered on Christ:

eschatology (from Gk. ἔσχατος ‘last’, and λόγος, ‘discourse’), the doctrine of the last things, that is the ultimate destiny both of the individual soul and the whole created order.^[2]

As hard as it is for American Christians to sometimes accept, God has designed the journey to traverse suffering as a result of our identity in Christ. Yet this is precisely why the Lord has given us a glimpse of the glory to come: a foretaste of the eternal joy is graciously dispensed to us as a punctuation throughout the painful steps of sanctification - that refining process Christ does in his church.

Thus, the next time you ask God "why?", reflect on the refinement that is being done in your life. Accept the suffering as a reminder that this world is not our home, and that true permanence and joy is found in Christ and will be fulfilled when "Christ is revealed".

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^[1] J. Ramsey Michaels, 1 Peter, vol. 49, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 1998), 29.

^[2] F. L. Cross and Elizabeth A. Livingstone, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford;  New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 563.