Sárospataki Füzetek 21. (2017)
2017 / 2. szám - MISCELLANEOUS-SONSTIGES - Homoki Gyula: Where to look in suffering? A fictional round-table discussion with
Gyula Homoki of the Christian life is shaped by this imitatio Christi in the reasoning of Calvin. “Through Christ, the believer must undergo mortification. This process of mortification has two distinguishable dimensions: an outward and an inward one.”22 The inward one is the self-denial towards the fellows and God,23 the outward one is the “bearing of the cross”, the different kinds of suffering.24 The same notion is found in Taffin’s reasoning. While human suffering is universal, for the believers it is a process of becoming more and more like Christ or a clear sign that we are in fellowship with him: “It would indeed be strange if we, living under a Head crowned with thorns, would be treated sweetly and gently. Should we then doubt our adoption as children when we are called to the same way of life that he as the beloved Son of the Father has assumed?”25 In this way, by looking back to the former times and seeing the lives of the heroes of the faith to whom the world was not worthy (Hebrews 11:38), we receive the comfort that we share the same faith with them and the same promise, and by looking at Christ we see not only a comforting example of the perseverance in suffering, but by looking at him we become sure that we belong to him and are being transformed more and more into His image. Look up - to God! Trust in the Sovereign God and his Sovereign will is a firm theological ground in the troublesome situations and times. Looking up to God, fixing our eyes on the Heavenly Ruler of everything, exclude all fortunate powers to play in our life. This trust is crucially important for Calvin and Taffin. Both Reformers use the same analogies describing the work of God in the human afflictions. For Taffin, as I have pointed out above, suffering serves as a mark that we are truly the children of God. By referring to Hebrews 12, he stresses that if God did not use chastisements (oppression, persecution) we would be bastards but not real sons. We must trust that the sufferings are “sharp and painful darts, shot by a gentle and loving hand”26 and that “the righteous God never sends us suffering for any reason other than that we deserve them”.27 Whatever we have to deal with, we must accept it and hold it as a “way that leads to everlasting glory”.28 Calvin also speaks about the educating hands of the Father,29 saying that the clear difference between believers and non-believers lies in the acceptance of the chastisement of God: “the latter, as the slaves of inveterate and deep-seated iniquity, only become worse and more obstinate under the lash; whereas the former, like free-born sons turn to repentance”.30 22 Minnema, Calvin's interpretation of human suffering, 154. 23 Calvin: Institutes, 111.6-7. 24 Calvin: Institutes, 111.8. 25 Taffin: The Marks of God's children, 98. 26 Taffin : The Marks of God's children, 107. 27 Taffin: The Marks of God's children, 111. 28 Taffin -.The Marks of God's children, 125. 29 Calvin: Institutes, III.8.6. 30 Ibid. 140 Sárospataki Füzetek 21, 2017 - 2
