Job 36:15, “He delivers the afflicted by their affliction and opens their ear by adversity.”
He delivers the afflicted by their affliction….another way to say this is that the Lord uses adversity and suffering as a means of deliverance and sanctification and healing for those who experience adversity and suffering. Affliction is made to serve those afflicted by it….is this not precisely what Paul says in 2 Cor 4:17-18? Or in Romans 8:35-39? For any and all who will ever savingly bow the knee to God in Christ, affliction serves the afflicted and will finally be revealed to have been a means to their deliverance and joy.
This is supremely true—and only possible in every other instance because of—in Christ. It is through Christ’s affliction on the cross (which, recall, is the affliction of all His afflicted people) it is through Christ’s affliction on the cross that He Himself—the quintessential “Afflicted One”—and all those in Him are delivered from affliction. The cross itself, the mechanism of affliction, becomes the chariot of Christ’s triumphal procession; the suffering of death itself becomes the crown of His glory; the sacrifice of His life becomes His overcoming of the world…..it is through His affliction that He—the Afflicted One—is delivered, and through His experience of our affliction that we—the afflicted ones—are able, through affliction, to finally find deliverance rather than destruction.
Yes, ALL affliction has the potential to serve deliverance because ALL affliction is revealed to be the means of deliverance in light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, by whom all things—including affliction—must be defined. Affliction most fundamentally IS what it is revealed to be in the word of the cross….and there it is revealed to be the means by which Christ overcomes all affliction and receives deliverance beyond all affliction. Thus, as defined on Calvary (ie, as it truly is), affliction is a means of deliverance. And for any and all who are in Christ, affliction becomes what it truly is, a salvific servant of final joy.
