5 For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ.
6 Now if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.
7 And our hope for you is steadfast, because we know that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so also you will partake of the consolation.
sufferings of Christ (v.5) — the persecution He endured, and that we endure because of our faith in Him
afflicted (v.6) = constricted, pressed upon, made to feel hemmed in
salvation (v.6) — deliverance from persecution. The consolation with which Christ fortifies the believer, enables him to endure the persecutions. The Apostle and the Corinthians were join partakers in these common persecutions, and were, therefore, join partakers in the common consolation. — Williams, page 896.
comforted (v.6) = consoled and encouraged
Our Lord … is forever blessed, and exalted “far above all.” It is we redeemed sinners, who suffer their [the rebellious world] rebellion against Him. Indeed, the greatest evidence that the present dispensation is “the dispensation of the grace of God” is found in Acts 28, where Paul, the great apostle of love and grace is left a prisoner, condemned to death. Shortly before this he wrote to the Colossians that he was “filling up that which was behind [lit., which still remained] of the afflictions of Christ” (Colossians 1:24).
The world does not hate us because we have the same failures as they; they hate us because we represent Christ. Even when our Lord was yet on earth He forewarned His disciples: “If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20).
All other suffering is common to all mankind, the results of the fall. It is “the sufferings of Christ” in particular that God permits us, His children, to bear as training in sympathy, “that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble” (v.4). — Stam, page 35.
partakers (v.7) = sharers, partners, companions
As His children and representatives of Christ, “the world,” i.e., this world system, hates us, but may our attitude be such that any sufferings borne as a consequence, may qualify us to “comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.” — Stam, page 36
Other verses on the same theme.
Romans 8:16-17—The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.
2 Corinthians 4:8-11—We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
Philippians 3:10—That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.
Colossians 1:24—I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church.
