The suffering Paul experienced in his ministry was unique because it included foretold suffering. From the outset of Paul’s walk with the Lord, God told Ananias, “I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake” (Act 9:16).1 Paul is shown that his sufferings would be filling up “the leftovers”2 of the sufferings of Christ (Col 1:24). Christ’s sufferings were not inadequate, nor was God’s justice dissatisfied with His payment for sin, but if our Lord were still here upon earth, they would still persecute Him because of His righteousness and gospel. So, Paul saw that his treatment was like the continuing waves after the storm (Joh 15:18-19; 17:14). Observe the striking parallels between the type of suffering Paul endured and the more intense afflictions that Christ already passed through. This final article on 2 Timothy will briefly meditate on the sufferings of Christ and those of Paul, observing a few examples in comparing Psalm 22 and 2 Timothy.
Forsaken
A marked comparison is found in the abandonment of both Paul and his Lord. At the end of Paul’s life, he laments that “all they which are in Asia be turned away from me,” specifying “of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes” (2Ti 1:15). Later, he mentions those who were in Rome, including “Demas [who] hath forsaken me,” and “at my first answer no man stood with me” (4:10,16). There was no one to help Paul.
The Saviour too found no human help. Praying in Gethsemane, He found His disciples sleeping instead of watching and praying (Mat 26:43,45). In our Lord’s greatest moments of need, “all the disciples forsook him, and fled” (v56). Paul knew a small taste of what the Lord experienced in those hours. What Paul could not enter into was what Christ experienced when forsaken by God upon the cross in “the night season” (Psa 22:2). The Saviour could cry, fulfilling the words of David, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (v1). We hear the cry through the Psalmist, “Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help.” “Be not thou far from me, O LORD: O my strength, haste thee to help me” (vv11,19).
Strengthened
Paul was careful to specify that no man stood with him, but he had divine help. He says, “Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me” (2Ti 4:17). He doesn’t inform us about how the Lord strengthened him, but an approach to the Throne of Grace, to the Great High Priest, could “obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb 4:16). In previous perilous positions Paul could proclaim, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Php 4:13). It is evident that he still could do all things because the Lord brought him the strength. Our Lord cannot help but “be touched with the feeling of our infirmities” (Heb 4:15). Remember, the Lord knew abandonment by the nearest disciples. The leading disciple of the twelve denied association with Him. He, however, was not ashamed of them and called them brothers after His resurrection (Joh 20:17). Paul could be confident that the Captain of his salvation was “not ashamed to call [him brother]” (Heb 2:10-11). During our suffering according to His will, He is never ashamed to call us His brother, even if others are.
Likewise, our Lord Jesus Christ could proclaim upon the cross the Psalm, “My strength is dried up like a potsherd” (Psa 22:15). This is a marvelously enigmatic statement. Still in that moment, He was the One “by [whom] all things consist” (Col 1:17). His strength was dried up, yet He cried triumphantly in a booming voice, “It is finished!” (Joh 19:30). So, our Lord Jesus still found His strength in His God, saying of Him, “O my strength, haste thee to help me” (Psa 22:19). He endured what no one else could undertake.
Delivered
Paul expresses that he “was delivered out of the mouth of the lion” and “the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work” (2Ti 4:17-18). Paul does not plainly express who the “lion” was – perhaps Nero, or Satan’s usage of political persecution, or, very unlikely, the lions in the Colosseum. The Lord, however, did deliver him from this imminent threat.
Paul’s confidence extends to every evil work. This evil work is not the evil that men could do to him. Alexander had already done much evil against him (v14), and he was experiencing the evils of a dank Roman dungeon. The “evil work” he would be delivered from was the same evil work pressing in around him, encouraging him to do the evil work of denying his Lord and the gospel, or to sin in response to his treatment. He was confident that the Lord “will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom” (v18), when he will reign with Christ and where the display of the grace of God will give expression. Paul was confident in deliverance from evil.
He could be confident knowing that his Lord was likewise delivered. Our Saviour was mocked in His suffering on the cross, even by those unknowingly quoting the Psalm, “He trusted on the LORD that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him” (Psa 22:8; Mat 27:43). He could not be delivered in those moments, for our salvation required that He endure the cross and the wrath of God that would be poured out upon Him, for He was “delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God … [and] taken, and by wicked hands … crucified and slain” (Act 2:23).
But would He be delivered? Praise the Lord, after His death He was delivered in resurrection. The writer to the Hebrews notes, “Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared” (Heb 5:7). In Psalm 22, what begins as a threnody turns to cheerful melody of one delivered: “For thou hast heard me” (v21); “in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee” (v22). The One who suffered is now glorified and desires to share this acquired glory with those who also will suffer with Him (2Ti 2:12).
1 Bible quotations in this article are from the KJV.
2 A.T. Robertson’s Word Pictures.
