"Unto the woman he
[God] said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy
conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children... And unto
Adam he said... cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil
(sorrow) shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; ...in the
sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread" (Genesis 3:16,17,19).
"The creation was
subjected to vanity... For we know that the whole creation
groaneth and travaileth in pain..." (Romans 8:20,22).
The presence of the law of
travail in the whole creation is beyond dispute. That it was
something imposed by the Creator because of sin is a fundamental
truth of the Bible. That it is something not in the first thought
of God, but something running counter to man's nature, is common
experience. But we are left to draw from God's act and the
Bible's teaching the meaning and necessity of travail. What that
meaning is lies at the heart of this present meditation.
It can be put very precisely in
this way: What costs little is little valued. What comes easily
is let go easily. What we suffer over becomes precious. What we
labour for is not despised, but jealously guarded. And so on.
That brings us to a surmise and
a deduction as to the introduction of this law. But note, the law
was not established with partiality. Not only was the woman to be
subjected to it, but man also. Then we are told that "the
whole creation... travaileth".
The surmise and deduction to
which we are brought is that the behaviour of Adam and Eve in the
garden implied or indicated a serious lack of reverence and
esteem. Everything was made for them and given to them as a trust
and a responsibility. They were the custodians of Divine
interests. Nothing was an end in itself; all was full of glorious
potentialities, to be sacredly guarded and let out to full
realisation. It would seem that all was taken too much for
granted and as a matter of course. An adequate and governing
sense of values was lacking, and they just looked upon everything
in the light of how it served their pleasure. This
weakness and lack was fully exploited by the discerning tempter,
and was made the ground of his assault. Hence, the law of travail
was established to counter this disposition. Man must be made to
realise that God places a value upon His gifts, and that
everything in His mind is costly and precious. What we are not
prepared to suffer for we lightly esteem. This is surely and so
clearly seen in redemption. Whether it be basic redemption in the
Cross of Christ, or the progressive redemption in the Christian's
life, or the consummation of redemption in the 'creation's
deliverance from the bondage of corruption', and the
'manifestation of the sons of God', all is at very great cost and
through deep and anguished travail. Christ sees His seed through
the travail of His soul. The Church and true Christians come to
spiritual fulness through "the fellowship of his sufferings".
The creation itself will come to glory through great upheavals
and anguish. The Bible says and shows all this.
But to return to the specific
point and its application. If God gives freely and richly He will
look for and expect a reverent and serious regard for, respect
for, and appraisal of His gifts, as for a sacred trust and
responsibility. The presentation of salvation is often too cheap,
and that unspeakably costly thing is made a matter of the
pleasure of the recipient. The result is that when the true value
is involved in a testing ordeal of trial and adversity, many are
disappointed and go away. They have not seen that it is something
of such value as to be worth suffering for.
If the Lord gives a rich and
costly ministry to His people, sooner or later they will pass
into a time which will be nothing less than deep and desperate
travail, and that ministry will be tested as to how much it
really means to those to whom it has been given. The same is true
with regard to those who minister. A true servant of God is one
in whom, through suffering and passion, that which he gives has
been born. His ministry must carry the impress of deep history
with God. A merely ritualistic, liturgical service, however
devoutly performed, will not produce spiritual men and women. It
may make people religious, but that can be true in realms other
than Christianity.
Christ's travail was not
because there was no religion. There was an abundance of it in
Jerusalem and elsewhere. But there was little or no sense of the
costliness of God's gifts. Two thousand years of anguish in the
case of Israel is God's way of showing that His greatest Gift -
Jesus Christ, His Son - cannot be so lightly regarded and
disposed of as Israel thought.
The travail of a mother has
much to do with her love for her children, unless she is wholly
unnatural and subnormal. When the farmer or gardener has toiled
and laboured, and spent anxious days and nights over his harvest,
he does not lightly esteem the seed or the soil, but cherishes
and cares for it.
Let us look at suffering and
adversity as God's way of seeking to bring us into His estimate
of what He has given. 'He that has suffered most, has most to
give.'
First published in "A Witness and A Testimony"
magazine, Jul-Aug 1961, Vol 39-4