The Perseverance of the Suffering Faithful in the NT, Part 1

The Gospels and Acts

(avg. read time: 11–22 mins.)

This year, my non-Tolkien writings will be focused on the NT, as I plan to write something related to every book of the NT. My first series of this new year will address a theme that is not quite ubiquitous in the NT, but which is still present in most of the books: the perseverance and vindication of the suffering faithful. I will be primarily focused on the first item in this theme, since commenting more fully on the latter would require going more in depth on resurrection, which I leave for other projects (though, for background on this, I encourage my readers to review my series on resurrection in the OT, especially the last part on Daniel). In any case, the latter serves as a support structure for the former, as perseverance is a matter of present exhortation and conduct while vindication is a matter of future hope, thus it is not as if it will be entirely avoidable here. There are terms that may be associated with the theme of perseverance, such as ὑπομονή and ὑπομένω, but it goes beyond the presence of such terms. We will track that presence here in four parts. Part 1 concerns the theme in the Gospels and Acts. Part 2 concerns the theme in Paul’s letters. Part 3 concerns the theme in Hebrews and the General Epistles. Part 4 concerns the unique book of Revelation, in which the theme is especially pervasive and crucial for exhortation and identity formation.

Matthew

The first time we encounter this theme in Matthew is in Jesus’s Beatitudes, his description of kingdom virtues. His eighth beatitude (5:10) matches the first (5:3) in terms of the blessing, as those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness (or possibly justice) are those who will receive the kingdom of heaven. That blessing in itself suggests vindication for those who persevere in the face of pressure to abandon the path of righteousness. These points are carried further by Jesus’s follow-up in 5:11–12 calling “blessed” those who are reviled, persecuted, and slandered for his sake. This sentence clarifies the previous one in that “righteousness” is defined in relation to Jesus, which, in the context of the Gospel, foreshadows how believers will share in his vindication that he has by his resurrection to everlasting life. But in the immediate context, Jesus describes this vindication in terms of reward and of how their treatment matches the prophets, whom God vindicates not only by their messages of judgment coming to pass, but also by the fact that Jesus is here to fulfill what was spoken through the prophets.

This ethos also undergirds what Jesus says about praying for one’s persecutors in 5:44 as part of his larger teaching on loving enemies as God loves. The persecutor is not simply someone who has an antipathy towards the person receiving this instruction; the persecutor is someone who has actively contributed to and inflicted suffering. Perseverance comes in the act of loving them anyway, for this is what is like to bear the image and likeness of God, who shows love in action towards his enemies—otherwise, none of us could be saved. This show of love represents complete integrity that the person holds to even in the midst of suffering out of a dedication to be as loving and merciful (as Luke presents the teaching in Luke 6:36) as God is loving and merciful. In this case, no reward is mentioned for such perseverance of character in the face of the one who inflicts suffering, but the vindication is, of course, implied in the fact that this way of life reflects God and thus is part of fulfilling what it means to be humans, to be bearers of the image and likeness of God.

When Jesus sends the Twelve out to spread his message and ministry in ch. 10, much of his teaching concerns their coming suffering on his behalf. After all, he is sending them out as sheep among the wolves (10:16). They will do such things as hand them over to councils, flog them in the synagogues, and drag them before governors (10:17–18). But this calls for perseverance, because Jesus’s disciples will not face these trials alone. The Spirit will be with them, giving them the words to say so that they may persevere in proclaiming what they have proclaimed (10:19–20). Those who inflict suffering will even be among one’s own family, but Jesus promises vindication in that those who persevere to the end, until their reach their goal (τέλος), will be saved (10:21–22).

Of course, all of this should be as the disciples should expect. If they opposed the teacher, they will surely oppose the students. If they persecute him to the point of having him put to death, the disciples should expect no less. But a further motivation for perseverance is that these persecutors can kill the body, but they cannot destroy a person altogether in hell (10:24–28). Jesus thus provides a way of looking at the trials of the present with a view to the eschatological judgment. Those who fail in persevering through trial by denying Jesus before others will themselves be denied by Jesus before the Father, so that their submission to the will of others gets them less than nothing in the end. But those who confess and profess him (the word ὁμολογέω can be translated either way) before others and in the midst of these trials will be vindicated at the final judgment as Jesus confesses and professes in confirmation that they are his before our Father (10:29–33).

Fittingly, this teaching brings to mind Mic 7:6 (10:35–36), which speaks of the day of Israel’s misery and punishment, leading to the breakdown even of the family as the members turn against each other. But the speaker in this context watches in hope for the Lord, awaiting when the Lord will vindicate and save his faithful one, as the rest of the chapter articulates in the promise of eschatological restoration for Israel. Jesus applies this text to the response inspired by him and his ministry, whereby the hearts of all are revealed. Those who cave into the conflict and love their family more than Jesus are not worthy of him (10:37). Rather, the one who would follow him must take up the cross, for the one who loses their life for his sake will find it (10:38–39). Herein we see how perseverance in faithfulness to the point of losing one’s life is all that which God will vindicate by giving everlasting life. As I have noted in my entry on Daniel, and in my dissertation, God’s ultimate vindication of this way of life is enabling it to go on forever.

That last point of Jesus’s teaching about perseverance also appears in his fundamental teaching on discipleship. As in all the Synoptic texts (Matt 16:21–28 // Mark 8:34–9:1 // Luke 9:23–27), Jesus’s first prediction of his death and resurrection is followed by his teaching on what it means to be his disciple. Now that he has given definition to what it means for him to be Messiah (as Peter has confessed in the previous story), he now must make clear for his disciples that that path he treads to Golgotha is the same path they must tread. Whoever wants to come after him must deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow him. Only by this way will one find life, for whoever tries to keep it will lose it in the end. Perseverance in faithful obedience unto death is precisely the path that Christ laid to Golgotha. And Christ declares in this teaching that this is the way to vindication, to finding life, as well. After all, as indicated already in his prediction of the resurrection (but drowned out by the perplexity of the disciples at the prediction of his death), the path to Golgotha is the path that leads out of the empty tomb by the will and power of the God who raises the dead.

Jesus also showed how he anticipated his disciples suffering for their faith in other areas of Matthew. First, he speaks of sending prophets, sages, and teachers to his generation, but that they would persecute them, flog them in the synagogues, and/or have them killed and crucified (23:34 // Luke 11:49). Second, in anticipation of the coming judgment on Jerusalem, he once again speaks of the need to persevere to the end to be saved amidst persecutions, executions, betrayals, and deceits coming from the rising of false prophets (24:9–13). Even through it all, the Spirit takes the perseverance of the faithful and works through it to bring the gospel of the kingdom to all nations (24:14). The judgment against the persecutors and—by extension—the final judgment will provide vindication for those who persevere in proclaiming this message (for more on this point, see this series).

Mark

As one might expect, the material from Mark has largely already been covered in Matthew, but there are a few noteworthy points to make in the two relevant cases for our analysis. Regarding the first text of Mark 8:34–38 after Jesus’s first prediction of his death and resurrection, Mark arranges this story closer to the halfway point of his text than Matthew or Luke, though like them he also features it right after Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi. In this way, more clearly than in the other Synoptics, Jesus’s teaching on discipleship in terms of denying oneself, taking up the cross, and following him serves as a second call to discipleship after the turning point in the story at which Jesus has declared his purpose. The state of the disciples at this point in this story is also implicitly connected with the uniquely Markan story of the two-step healing of a blind man, which parallels how the disciples see Jesus imperfectly by Peter’s recognition of him as the Messiah, but they will need a second step before they can properly understand who he is and what his purpose is. That it functions in this way is all more vividly conveyed in Mark by the fact that, whereas Matthew focuses only on Jesus addressing the disciples, Mark says that he spoke this teaching on discipleship to the crowd together with his disciples (8:34).

This same text also includes an aspect of Jesus’s teaching that appeared elsewhere in Matthew, but not in the parallel of this text. Both texts speak to the vindication of those who persevere in faithfulness even to the point of losing their lives, but Mark’s text includes a note that is only the negative side of what we saw from Jesus in Matt 10 about Jesus’s response to his disciples. In v. 38 he says that those who are ashamed of him and of his words will also be those of whom Jesus is ashamed at the final judgment after he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. The positive side of this teaching is left implicit in this context because Jesus is primarily warning his disciples here (rather than warning and comforting as he does in Matt 10). Still, the logic dictates in light of this warning, and in light of Jesus’s connection of his own fate with what is required of his disciples, that vindication will come for those who persevere, just as Jesus was resurrected by God after his crucifixion.

The second relevant teaching appears in Mark’s version of the Olivet Discourse in ch. 13. In the similar place where Matthew features Jesus’s teaching on perseverance in 24:9–13, Mark also features such teaching in 13:9–13. But the content is closer in resemblance to some of the teaching in Matt 10:17–25. The note in Matt 24:14 about the gospel being proclaimed to all nations is present here in 13:10. Jesus comforts his disciples after warning of what they would have to face with the assurance that the Holy Spirit will be with them and give them the words to say (13:11), even as the Spirit has been with them through the proclamation that caused their persecution in the first place. The faithful will endure even betrayal in their own households. But Jesus assures them again that the one who perseveres to the end will be saved (i.e., vindicated).

Luke

The Gospel according to Luke again features material that we have encountered in the other Synoptics. Luke’s Sermon on the Plain contains instruction that parallels the Sermon on the Mount, although what was more distinctly structured as Matt 5:38–42 and 5:43–48 (as well as 7:12) is here interwoven in Luke 6:27–36. But in this case Jesus more directly speaks of reward/vindication for those who love their enemies as he instructs, which he then connects with what Matthew also relates in terms of how acting this way demonstrates that they are children of the Father/Most High (6:35).

Luke 9:23–26 also matches what we have seen of Jesus’s teaching on discipleship after his first prediction of his death and resurrection, although Luke’s version of the text before this does not include Peter’s rebuke and Jesus’s counter. It is otherwise a closer match with Mark’s text than Matthew’s. The most interesting variation is in v. 23 in that Jesus says that one must take up the cross “daily.” This could be reasonably inferred from the other versions, but only Luke’s version makes this an explicit point that the decision to take up the cross is one that must be renewed daily, which further accentuates the theme of perseverance. And, of course, this daily decision is anticipated to receive vindication from the God who raised Jesus from the dead and will likewise raise those who follow him to everlasting life.

Luke 12:4–12 features what we have already seen in Matt 10 and Mark 13, though it also features a statement from Jesus about the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit (12:10). Likewise, Luke 12:49–53 reflects what we have seen in Matt 10:34–36. 21:12–19 is also reflective of Matt 10 and Mark 13, with a few additions about how the time of trial will turn out to be a testimony and about receiving words and wisdom that opponents cannot refute. It, too, ends with the promise of vindication in gaining life through perseverance.

For all the differences between the Synoptics, it is interesting how this theme and the teachings that exemplify it remain consistently part of the message. There is no uniquely Matthean, Markan, or Lukan pericope addressing this theme, though each author has particular things they accentuate by structured presentation and by inclusion. All of the Synoptic authors recognized the importance of this theme as part of Jesus’s exhortation to his earliest followers and thus to their successors. The call to discipleship is the call to perseverance in faithful obedience unto death. Those who follow Jesus in persevering as he did will receive the vindication he did in their resurrection that conforms them to his image.

John

As in many other cases, John has his own way of presenting a theme he holds in common with the Synoptic authors. In this case, all of the relevant texts appear in the Farewell Discourse of chs. 14–16 and Jesus’s high priestly prayer in ch. 17. While various parts of John’s text featured references to the eschatological future and instructions to the disciples, this part of John is where the most focus is placed on how the disciples must carry on in their lives as disciples after the major gospel events, the events by which Jesus would be exalted, came to pass.

First, Jesus warns in 15:18–25 that the world will hate them because it hated him. The slaves are not greater than their master, as those who persecute him will persecute them as well. Despite John not featuring the discipleship teaching after the well-known death-and-resurrection prediction, he still connects how the world treats Jesus with how the world will treat his disciples, similar to what we saw in Matt 10. There is thus a suggested similarity of outcome. While the instruct to persevere is not at the forefront of this particular section, the previous text supplies that aspect of the teaching in that Jesus instructs his disciples to abide/remain in him (15:1–17). Those who persevere in keeping his commandments and abiding in him will indeed follow him in the path of the gospel story from death in faithful obedience to resurrection and exaltation (as is implied in earlier teaching on resurrection in chs. 5 and 6).

A point that John peculiarly stresses as part of a motif of his work is the fact that those who persecute Jesus and his followers do not know the Father who sent him (15:21). This root of ignorance is also carried over in 16:1–4, and it is preceded by the same sort of note we have seen in the Synoptics about the promised presence of the Spirit who will guide the disciples in persevering in faithful testimony (15:26–27). But the promise of vindication based on the union of Jesus with his disciples is amplified in 16:33. Jesus tells his disciples that they have suffering in this world, but he has conquered the world. This statement of victory is the source of comfort for the believers because they will share in his victory, as they will share in his vindication.

As part of Jesus’s high priestly prayer in ch. 17, he asks the Father to protect his disciples while they are in the world (17:11–19). He reiterates what he has said in the Farewell Discourse about how the world has hated them, since they are not of this world just as he is not. He does not ask for the Father to take them out of the world, but simply to protect them from the evil one (17:15). Once again, we see here that the basis of hope that the believers have in the face of the trouble they will face from the evil world is the fact that they are in union with Jesus. This is shown in that Jesus sanctifies himself in order that his disciples should be sanctified. They share in his hatred by the world, his suffering from the world, and his sanctification, thus they will also share in his vindication and victory.

Acts

While the Gospels present the suffering of those faithful to Jesus as something to expect in the future, Acts portrays it as something happening in the present tense of the narrative. The book includes many examples of and broader references to this reality. While the proclamation of the gospel is still in its beginning stage in Jerusalem, Peter and John are brought before the Sanhedrin twice in chs. 4 and 5. Both times they proclaim the gospel (4:8–12; 5:30–32) and insist to their persecutors that this is what they must do to obey God rather than them (4:19–20; 5:29). In the face of the Jewish leaders’ threats, the Church prays for boldness, knowing that the powers that be that united against Jesus have now turned their focus on his followers (4:27–30). When Peter and John are apprehended in ch. 5 after the angel liberates them from prison, they are ultimately flogged and threatened again to keep from proclaiming the gospel in the name of Jesus (5:40). But they instead rejoice that they are considered worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name that they proclaim (5:41; cf. 2:21, 38; 3:6, 16; 4:10, 12, 17–18; 4:30; 5:28). We see here how the gospel story has shaped their perspective on their suffering, for it actually draws them closer to Jesus, who suffered at the hands of the same powers.

Our next example of suffering faithfulness is the protomartyr, Stephen, in 6:8–7:60. I have looked at Stephen’s speech previously, and here I will again only discuss it briefly. The scriptural themes he draws from in his speech show that his message and his example fit with his scriptural predecessors, which again helps him to make sense of his suffering for his faithfulness to God in Jesus Christ. The Jews of his day resist his message as their ancestors had resisted others like Joseph, Moses, and most importantly (and recently) Jesus. Stephen represents a further fulfillment of Jesus’s promises for his persecuted followers in Luke 21:15 that he will give them words and wisdom that their opponents will not be able to withstand (6:10). Indeed, in the narrative framework of the speech Luke connects Stephen with Jesus in multiple ways. Luke’s trial narrative does not mention the false witnesses or the claim that Jesus would destroy the temple, but this was clearly a known feature of Jesus’s trial among the witnesses he consulted (including Mark, and possibly Matthew, depending on the precise relationship between the Synoptics), and these things are featured in Stephen’s trial (6:11–14). The high priest is present for both trials and questions both (7:1; though he is part of a crowd in Luke 22:66–67, 70). Jesus speaks of how he will be seen sitting at the right hand of God (Luke 22:69) and Stephen sees Jesus standing at the right hand of God (7:55–56). After this, both are put to death for blasphemy, though Stephen receives the traditional punishment of stoning from the mob while Jesus was put to death in a more official manner by crucifixion going through the Roman powers. Both Jesus and Stephen ask for God to forgive their persecutors (7:60; Luke 23:34 [while I think this latter text is authentic, I will not be dealing with the text-critical issues concerning it here; instead, I refer readers to this]). And both of them verbally commend their spirits to God (7:59; Luke 23:46). As the first member of the Church to be killed for his faith, it is fitting that Stephen should emulate Jesus in his perseverance and trust in the promises of vindication, and that his story should be told in a fashion so reminiscent of Jesus. The Saul who bore witness to Stephen’s death (7:58; 8:1) would then spearhead the effort to persecute the Christian movement in general, leading to the scattering of all but the apostles from Jerusalem (8:1–3).

As is well known, this Saul would himself become a follower of Jesus and suffer much for proclaiming the gospel in Jesus’s name. It all started with his encounter on the road to Damascus with Jesus, which is recounted in chs. 9, 22, and 26. Crucially, something included in all three accounts is that Jesus refers to himself as the one who Saul is persecuting (9:4–5; 22:7–8; 26:14–15). Most likely, this represents one of the roots of Paul’s theology of the union of Christians with Christ, as it was a matter of revelation to him in the event that changed his life forever. And we will see in the next part how this idea also shapes Paul’s statements about suffering and union with Christ, as well as how it contributes to the expectation that God will raise Christ’s followers from the dead as he raised Christ with whom they are in union. In fact, he had to come to terms with the personal implications of faithfulness to Jesus and communion with this community he had been persecuting early on, as Jesus said to Ananias (9:16) and as he would experience with the first plot against his life in Damascus after he began proclaiming the gospel (9:23–25).

But before we can continue with the travails of Saul/Paul in Acts, we have one more story from Peter to mention. While Peter’s earlier stories in Acts featured him with John, this time he is mentioned alongside James, the other member of the central three of the Twelve (12:1–3). Herod Agrippa I had put James to death and he was going to put Peter on trial as well after the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Peter himself would eventually be martyred decades later, but we see in his story in comparison with both James and Stephen the same dynamic that we see in the two halves of Daniel, wherein the first half shows the miraculous deliverance of the faithful and the second half assumes that other faithful ones will die. It is usually not predictable, from our perspective, who will be delivered from death and who will need to face death when it comes to suffering and persecution. But people in both circumstances face the common call to persevere in faithful obedience, no matter the immediate outcome. After all, the promised vindication is not an immediate one that staves off death for a time; it is one of everlasting consequence, for it is the resurrection to everlasting life. In both cases—one contingently and temporarily and the other absolutely and everlastingly—God shows how he makes a way where there is no way, whether miraculously delivering out of prison and heavy guard or conquering death with resurrection to everlasting life.

Several episodes in Saul’s/Paul’s life that take up the rest of Acts illustrate how he and his companions (such as Barnabas, Silas, Luke, and others) needed to persevere through much suffering to remain faithful to the commands of Jesus. On more than one occasion, riots were started in order to target them (17:5–9; 18:12–17; 19:23–41; 21:27–36; cf. 22:22–23; 24:5–9). They were imprisoned after being stripped and beaten (16:16–40; cf. 22–28), were shipwrecked in the process of being transferred to Rome for trial (27), were driven out of town (13:50), had their deaths plotted against them (14:5; 20:3; 23:12–15; 25:3), and were stoned and left for dead (14:19–20). Understandably, it was a point of exhortation that “It is necessary for us to enter the kingdom of God through great suffering” (14:22). Likewise, in Paul’s farewell speech to the Ephesians he speaks of how he served the Lord in their midst during severe trials from the plots of his Jewish opponents, and he knows that he will face yet more hardship when he arrives at Jerusalem. But he is interested not in preserving his life, but in persevering for the sake of completing the task God has given him of testifying to the gospel (20:18–24). Indeed, he would not be dissuaded from going to Jerusalem even by the prophetic utterance of Agabus, instead saying that he was willing to die if he needed to for the name of the Lord Jesus and the Way he once persecuted (21:10–14; cf. 22:4–5). He was confident that when he died the promise of resurrection to everlasting life awaited him.