The Two Tribulations: Pressure (Thlipsis) vs. Pain (Pathema) 🤕
The New Testament uses two distinct Greek words often translated as “suffering” or “tribulation,” and understanding their difference clarifies that the persecution faced by the saints is both an external pressure and an internal purification.
1. The External Pressure: Thlipsis (θλιˊψις)
- Meaning: This word literally means “pressure,” “compression,” or “squeezing.” It derives from a verb meaning “to crush” or “to press together” (like grapes in a winepress or stones squeezed into a narrow passage).
- Theological Focus: Thlipsis describes the external oppression, distress, and anguish placed upon believers by the world, circumstances, or the Antichrist’s system. The focus is on the source of the hardship.
- Key New Testament Use: Jesus warns the disciples, “In the world you will have tribulation (thlipsis)” (John 16:33). This is the inevitable external pressure of living in a fallen world. Revelation uses this term for the Great Tribulation (Matthew 24:21), the crushing pressure of the end times.
Thlipsis is the crushing weight of the world against the Church.
2. The Internal Pain: Pathema (παˊθημα)
- Meaning: This word refers to experience, emotion, or passion—the inner feeling of pain, suffering, or feeling what is done to you. It is the root of the word “pathos.”
- Theological Focus: Pathema describes the internal experience of suffering and the purifying outcome of that experience. The focus is on the result and the response of the saint. Paul speaks of the “sufferings (pathemata) of Christ” (Romans 8:17) that believers share.
- The Shocking Tie: This word transforms suffering from a mere affliction into a spiritual experience that perfects the believer. Peter states, “After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace… will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (1 Peter 5:10). The suffering (pathema) is the means of purification.
The Eschatological Conclusion
The final persecution is a mandatory two-part experience:
- The world applies the crushing pressure of Thlipsis (tribulation).
- God uses that external pressure to produce the purifying pain of Pathema (suffering) within the believer, conforming them to the image of Christ.
The final generation of the Church will be perfected by fully enduring the thlipsis in such a way that the pathema refines and confirms their faith for the Lord’s return.
The Return Question
If the external Thlipsis is guaranteed, but the internal Pathema is intended for purification, what specific external pressure are you trying to escape today, avoiding the necessary inner suffering that God intends to use for your ultimate spiritual confirmation?