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Weekly Devotion
Rom. 3:27
Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.
Rom. 4:2
For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
Rom. 5:3-4
3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope
In the final section of Romans 3, the Apostle Paul draws out an implication of being justified in Christ by grace through faith. Paul reasons that if our justification was solely based on the merits of Christ imputed to us, then all forms of boasting in ourselves would be excluded. And to substantiate his point, he refers to the faith of Abraham as an example. If Abraham was justified by his works (as the Jews of Paul's day believed), then he would have had something to boast about. But he didn't because it was his faith in God that was credited to him as righteousness (Gen. 15:6).
In a way, Paul returns to the topic of boasting in the first half of Romans 5. In chapter 3, Paul asserts that our faith in Jesus excludes all manner of boasting in ourselves. At this point, we may be left wondering, "What, then, can we boast in?" In Rom. 5:3, Paul states that the believer can "boast" (translated as "rejoice" in the ESV; better understood is "to glory in") in his or her suffering.
On the surface, this notion seems antithetical. How can someone "boast" or "glory in" his or her pain? The key to understanding this verse is the preposition. It is not that we glory about the suffering or that we glory despite our suffering, but that we glory in (while we) suffer. As John Calvin, explained in his Institutes: "Whatever kind of tribulation presses upon us, we must ever look to this end: to accustom ourselves to contempt for the present life and to be aroused thereby to meditate upon the future life. For since God knows best how much we are inclined by nature to a brutish love of this world, he uses the fittest means to draw us back and to shake off our sluggishness, lest we cleave too tenaciously to that love."
In other words, when we suffer, the Christian ought to take it as a reminder that this world is fallen and temporary. When people hurt us, remember that God's peace reigns in heaven. When our bodies get older and break down, remember that we will be given glorified bodies in heaven. When death intrudes into our lives, remember the eternal life that is ours in Christ. What does it mean to "glory in" suffering? It is to use the pain as a reminder of all that we've been promised in the Gospel and to reorient ourselves in God.