Christ...made perfect through suffering! How?

Christ...Made Perfect Through Suffering. How?

In the last thought we looked at why the Captain of our salvation was made perfect through suffering and I asserted that fallen man, without Christ, cannot be made perfect through suffering. That is because the dying nature of man cannot bring life out of death. The just shall live by faith. Works cannot make them live. As one ancient fellow Celt wrote.....

Going to Rome

Going to Rome

Perchance you might find Christ there!

But you will not find Him there

Unless He go in your heart! 

But this must never be taken to mean that when one receives the free gift of divine nature that suffering has no value. Suffering, as God permits it to come, has value to the child of faith. Where God is there is a new creature. Then all aspects have changed. All things have become new because of a new principle in the soul... Then suffering can reveal perfection's work just as fire reveals the gold in a gold rich ore. 

 (1Pe 4:12)  Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: (1Pe 4:13)  But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. 

The trial of faith is for the purpose of revealing the qualities of Christ in us. Faith is strengthened with the exercise. The suffering itself has no magic in it.Without the gift of Christ's divine nature there is nothing to be refined. The dead human agent must receive the gold of Christ into the heart first by faith in order for suffering to work out anything of value at all. Suffering does not make gold...it only reveals the gold if it is present.

But the thought that suffering cannot perfect the natural man is accepted by another class to support a religion of the lovers of pleasure. They think that indulgence and avoidance of self control exalts their faith in the righteousness of Christ. They miss the argument of Paul.."shall we therefore sin that grace may abound? God forbid!"

But how did Christ perfect a salvation for us through suffering, since we cannot, of ourselves, perfect anything but sin through suffering?  This has to do with the yoking of two natures in Christ. It was to be seen that our humanity in the hand of divinity could abound in righteousness were heretofore it abounded in sin. The Captain could sail the ship of humanity through the storm that no other sailor had weathered without failure. We must keep this in mind when we seek to attain the perfection of Christ. If any man manifest this perfection  it is only as an outgrowth of what Christ alone attained. "I no longer live....Christ liveth in me" says Paul. It must be Christ's gold that is refined for we have no gold at all. From righteous Able to the last believing souls on earth....none attained the spotlessness life that Christ alone did ..they only became conduits for the manifestation of His perfection. "I am the vine"...says Christ...."ye are the branches." The branch cannot bear fruit of itself. Hang a  pruned off branch on a string and see what it will do. But the pruned vine with its root is another story. Let this remind us of our comparison to Christ lest we exalt ourselves. Oh the glory of Jesus our Deliverer! He is the man that is made more precious than the gold of Ophir and His gold overlays the heavenly temple, for He is all of the tabernacle of Life to the helpless human agent.