Blessed [be] the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassions, and God of all encouragement;
Paul opens this letter with praise rather than complaint. He names God by three titles — Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Father of mercies, God of all comfort — and each one was learned in the furnace of his own troubles.
This praise rises out of what Paul had lived through.
After the opening words of greeting, the Apostle blesses God — the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. He had many trials and testings, and much suffering. In all these depressing experiences God ministered to him in grace. Therefore he blessed God in this outburst of praise. We can only bless God as we know Him. Trials, afflictions, sorrows and sufferings make God more real to the believer. They show His gracious favour towards His beloved people.
This double title runs through the letters. It goes back to the message Jesus sent on the morning He rose.
"Go," He says to Mary, "go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God" (John 20:17). We learn from these words that the place the Father would have us take as His children is the very place Christ Himself enjoys. As man, God was the God of our blessed Lord; as Son, His Father. These two relationships cover the whole position He held when He was here, and now that He is glorified at the right hand of God.
Calling God the Father of mercies says where every mercy begins.
Then we find the relationship, "Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" — this defines the relationship we are in to Him, and then Paul adds "the Father of mercies." He is the spring and source of every mercy — it is all mercy, mercy every step of the way; every trouble is mercy, all His way with us is mercy. Paul begins with God. He starts from the holy glorious person of the blessed God Himself — all in Him is perfect fullness, divine sufficiency. Then the Apostle comes down to what He does: "who comforts us."
There is a cost to learning the title, and a reason Paul knew it better than the Corinthians did.
God is the God of resurrection. His way of dealing with His people is to show His strength in their weakness. If we want to know Him as the "Father of mercies and the God of all comfort," we must be ready for Him to put us into circumstances where we feel our need of mercy. Mercies are the forms in which the mercy that dwells in the heart of God expresses itself. The Corinthians did not think they needed much comfort. But Paul had to travel the world, and he carried the churches in his heart. He found out his need of mercy and comfort.
Comfort has one source, and only one thing can block it.
God is the blessed fountain and source of all the comfort we can receive. He is this because He is the God of resurrection. He has now been fully glorified in the death of His beloved Son. So He is set free in righteousness to let the mighty tide of His comforts flow out, with nothing hindering it on His side, into the sorrowing hearts of His people in every part of the world. In any time of need and distress, the only barrier to its inflow is our own state.
What God pours in does not stop with the one who receives it.
What perfect understanding the blessed God has of all our needs! And what infinite resources He has to meet those needs, ministering comfort to our hearts as He does. As those He has encouraged, it is our happy privilege to act in the same way towards others. How wide the circle of those needing comfort is! A letter to a grieving believer. A visit to the sick-bed. A word of cheer to the depressed. A helping hand to the harassed and weary. A word of encouragement to the young in the faith.
- Source. Every title in the verse points back to God as the origin — of the relationship, of the mercies, of the comfort. Paul starts with who God is before he says what God does.
- Relationship. The title is twofold. Christ shares both sides with His own: His Father is our Father, His God our God.
- Mercies. Mercy in God's heart takes shape as real mercies along the road. We learn the title where God puts us in need of it.
- Comfort. The tide flows because God is the God of resurrection. The only thing that blocks it is our own state.
- Overflow. Comfort received becomes comfort given — a letter, a visit, a word of cheer. The stream that begins in the Father's heart reaches others through us.
who encourages us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to encourage those who are in any tribulation whatever, through the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged of God.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Because, even as the sufferings of the Christ abound towards us, so through the Christ does our encouragement also abound.
Paul has just blessed God as the source of all comfort. Now he gives the reason it flows. Suffering and comfort come together, and both carry the name of Christ. Two questions follow. Which sufferings count as sharing in "Christ's sufferings"? And why does the comfort come in the same measure?
The phrase does not mean that believers share what Christ bore in atonement. Commentators draw a firm line between two kinds of suffering.
We must make a distinction. In Christ's sufferings in atonement no one can share. In His suffering for righteousness He is not alone.
Once atonement is set apart, two kinds of suffering remain, and we are given a part in both.
Christ suffered for sin so that we never would. We are healed by His wounds; we do not share in them. What Christ suffered when God forsook Him in wrath, He suffered alone and in full. As far as we are concerned, His aim was that we should never taste one drop of that dreadful, bitter cup, which we could never bear. If we drank it, we would drink it as condemned sinners. But in the sufferings of Christ for righteousness, and in those caused to Him by His work of love, we are to have a part, poor and feeble as our faith is.
These sufferings carry His name for two reasons: who they are borne for, and what kind they are.
Notice that the sufferings are "of Christ." They are not only endured for His sake. They are the same kind He endured, because He identified Himself completely with God and God's interests.
That explains why such sufferings abounded in Paul. His whole place in the world was fixed by his devotion to Christ.
The trouble he speaks of came to him from the place he held in the world as a man devoted to Christ. The sufferings of Christ abounded to a man for whom to live was Christ and nothing else.
God sets both sides of this scale. He measures the comfort against the suffering.
God fits the comfort to the sufferings and gives it in proportion. If the sufferings are slight, the comfort is slight. If the sufferings abound, the comfort abounds.
The comfort also comes through a Person. Paul suffered for Christ, and comfort flowed back to him from Christ.
His sufferings were for Christ, and his comfort flowed to him through Christ in an even greater measure. To suffer for that name was a marked privilege of his calling. And the One who had made him a chosen vessel for Himself did not forget him in his hour of need. The Lord stood by His afflicted and hard-pressed servant, and showed Himself to his soul with a fullness of blessing that more than made up for the pain.
The word translated "comfort" carries more than soothing. For the apostles it meant fresh strength for their service.
Verse 5 refers to the sufferings of Christ in His service on earth, not on the cross, and such sufferings abounded in the apostles. And because of this, their encouragement also abounded through Christ: He could not fail them in such service. The word here for comfort or consolation is better translated "encouragement," because it is what stirs a person into active ministry.
God fills the servant first, so the servant has something real to pass on.
- Not the cup. Christ bore the wrath for sin alone, so that we would never taste one drop of it. No one shares that suffering.
- But the fellowship. Two kinds of suffering are open to us: suffering for righteousness, and suffering that comes from love's work. Christ knew both, because He stood wholly with God and God's interests.
- The measure. God fits the comfort to the suffering. Slight sorrow, slight comfort. Abounding sorrow, abounding comfort.
- The channel. The comfort comes through Christ. The One you suffer for stands by you, and His blessing more than makes up for the pain.
- The outflow. God ministers to us first, and then we minister to others. The comfort is encouragement, and it stirs a person back into active service.