Romans 5:3–4
What does Romans 5:3–4 mean?
Not only this, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces perseverance;
The short answer
In Romans 5:3–4, Paul makes a claim that sounds almost impossible: believers "rejoice in our sufferings." Notice the small word doing heavy lifting there. Paul does not say Christians rejoice despite their sufferings, or manage to stay joyful while enduring them. He says they rejoice *in* them. The New Testament scholar Douglas Moo draws attention to exactly this point: the afflictions themselves become a reason for confidence. For the believer, hardship is not evidence that God has forgotten them — it is, strangely, further evidence of their new standing with God.
What kind of suffering does Paul mean? It would be tempting to limit this to persecution — trouble that comes directly from following Christ. But Moo argues against narrowing the word that way. In his reading, all the suffering a Christian experiences belongs to a larger conflict: the collision between the present age, still under evil's sway, and the coming age the believer already belongs to by faith. Illness, grief, loss, injustice — none of it falls outside the verse.
Paul then traces where suffering leads. It "produces perseverance," and perseverance produces proven character, and character produces hope. Suffering is not good in itself, but in God's hands it becomes a workshop. Each hardship endured strengthens the capacity to endure, and each act of endurance leaves behind a tested, reliable character — the kind of person whose hope is no longer theoretical.
The German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer presses the verse into a question about the heart. Some people, he warns, seek only an inner calm — they use the cross to settle their own anxieties. That kind of peace evaporates the moment real trouble arrives. But those who truly love the cross of Christ, he says, begin to love even the tribulation God sends, and can honestly repeat Paul's words as their own.
What scholars say
Douglas Moo examines what it means that Paul locates boasting *in* afflictions themselves — and why the word can't be limited to persecution alone — while Dietrich Bonhoeffer asks who can honestly say these words: not those seeking peace merely for their own comfort, but those who genuinely love the cross.
“Not only do sufferings not overthrow the reality of these blessings, but they are themselves occasions for joyful boasting. The believer should boast "not only" in the hope of the glory of God "but also" in afflictions. This means not merely that we are to exult "in the midst of" afflictions but that we are to exult "in" the afflictions themselves: that is, to view them as a basis for further confidence in our redeemed status. What are these "afflictions"? Some would confine them to those sufferings caused directly by the believer's profession of Christ. But Paul's use of the word "affliction(s)" makes any such restriction questionable. Indeed, in a certain sense, all sufferings are "on behalf of Christ." This is so because all the evil that the Christian experiences reflects the conflict between this age, dominated by Satan, and the age to come, to which the Christian has been transferred by faith.”
“Basically, they have sought only peace with the world and perhaps believe that with the cross of Jesus Christ they can at best deal with themselves and with all their own questions; that is, they can find an inner peace of the soul. Thus, they have used the cross but have not loved it. They have sought peace only for their own sake. But when tribulation comes, this peace quickly disappears. It was not peace with God, for they hate the tribulation that God sends…. Those who love the cross of Jesus Christ, who have found peace in it, will also begin to love the tribulation in their life, and ultimately they can say with the Scripture: “We also boast in our sufferings” (Rom. 5:3).”
What it means for you
This verse offers a way to reread the hardest chapters of your life. It does not ask you to pretend suffering is pleasant, or to hunt for silver linings. It asks you to trust that God is producing something in you — endurance, tested character, durable hope — that comfort alone never could.
It also poses an honest question: is your faith a tool for feeling calm, or a real peace with God that holds when trouble comes? Bonhoeffer's test is worth sitting with. A peace that only serves your own comfort will not survive tribulation; a peace rooted in the cross can learn, slowly, to say these words with Paul.
Romans 5 in context
Romans 5 opens a new movement in Paul's letter. Having argued in chapters 1–4 that people are made right with God by faith, Paul now describes what that new standing brings: peace with God, access to grace, and joyful hope of sharing God's glory (5:1–2). Verses 3–4 press that joy into the hardest territory — suffering — and verse 5 grounds it all in God's love poured into believers' hearts. The rest of the chapter contrasts Adam and Christ, showing why this hope will not disappoint.