What does it mean that God is the God of all comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3)?

As is well known, the words "comfort" and "consolation" (they are the same word in the original), which run through this scripture, might be, and often are, rendered "encouragement." It is not easy, however, to press all their meaning into any one single term; for, as will readily be perceived, wherever encouragement is ministered, by whatever means, the effect will be comfort to the soul. The same word in another form, it will be remembered, is used of the Holy Spirit by the Lord Himself in John's Gospel, and is given in our translation as the "Comforter"; and it is adopted by John in his first epistle to describe the service of our blessed Lord on high in relation to any of His people who may fall into sin, though here our translators have chosen the word "Advocate" to express its meaning. We need not further discuss the term, for what has been said will suffice to enable the reader to compare the several passages: we simply add that in the following remarks we shall keep to the term "comfort," leaving it to the reader to expand its significance and apply it as he may be taught and led by the Holy Spirit.

How blessed, then, to know that the God of our salvation, the One who has been fully set forth in Christ, is "the God of all comfort." The phrase is preceded by another - "the Father of mercies"; that is, as we understand it, the mercies or compassions which have been ministered to us through our Lord Jesus Christ have all flowed out to us through Him from the Father's heart. (Compare Rom. 12:1; 1 John 3:1.) In like manner, God is the blessed fount and source of all the comfort which can be received, and He is this because He is the God of resurrection. Now that . He has been fully glorified in the death of His beloved Son, He is set free in righteousness to let the mighty tide of His comforts flow out, without let or hindrance on His side, into the sorrowing hearts of His people in every part of the world. The only barrier to its inflow, at any time of need and distress, is to be found in our own state. A clear way has been made for Himself to minister it; but, alas! its reception is often checked by our unbelief and lack of expectation.

Together with this it must be remembered that, if He is "the God of all comfort," there is no comfort outside of Himself. It is one of the sorrowful failings of His people that they do so often turn to other sources for relief and alleviation in seasons of grief; and thereby they miss the blessed lessons which He would teach them through their exercises under His chastenings. Like Israel of old, instead of turning at once, when under pressure, to Himself, they frequently have recourse to the broken cisterns which can hold no water. Not living amid unseen things, they want human sympathies and support, and seek thus to comfort themselves, only, however, to realise, sooner or later, that the very thing which they most craved for and obtained for themselves was but another means of sorrow. No! God is "the God of all comfort," and His mourners are shut up to Him, for He alone can put off their sackcloth and gird them with gladness, and cause them to sing praise to Him and not be silent. Taking up this attitude of waiting alone upon Him, they will soon learn that, if weeping endure for a night, joy cometh in the morning. Let these two things, therefore, be engraven upon our hearts, that He Himself is the source of all our comfort, and that there is no comfort elsewhere to be found.

After the opening words of salutation, the Apostle blesses God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. The Apostle had many trials and testings, as well as much suffering, and in all these depressing experiences, God had graciously ministered unto him. 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 a greater reality to the believer and display His gracious favor towards His beloved people. The Apostle had made this experience, "Who comforteth (or encourageth) us in all our tribulation that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." In all his distress and tribulation he had drawn near to God, and God had not failed him, but ministered to his need. The blessing and encouragement he had received from God fitted him to comfort those who are in trouble.

An important principle concerning true ministry in the body of Christ is made known in these words of thanksgiving. God must minister to our hearts first, and, through what we receive, we can minister to others. And so all true ministry is of Him. He knew the sufferings of Christ in an abundant measure, but while the sufferings of Christ abounded toward him, so did his consolation abound through Christ also. All he passed through and suffered as a devoted servant of Christ in an antagonistic world, were the sufferings of Christ. Of these sufferings he speaks more fully elsewhere in this Epistle. And both, the trouble and the comfort, were not exclusively for him, but for all Christians likewise. All was for their benefit and blessing. The Apostle states, that whether afflicted or comforted, it is for their consolation and salvation, and that the same result is wrought in" them by their own participation in a like experience. The Lord in His gracious dealing would turn affliction to their blessing as well as the consolation. His heart had been encouraged by what he had heard from Titus about their godly sorrow and therefore he could express his confidence "and our hope of you is stedfast, knowing that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so are ye also of the consolation."

In his second letter to the Corinthian believers the apostle Paul speaks of God as the "Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort." This is a most precious title, and whilst the word used carries with it more the thought of encouragement, the two meanings are not unrelated to each other. Our source of comfort and of encouragement is in God Himself. What perfect understanding the blessed God has of all our needs, and what infinite resources from which he can meet those needs, ministering comfort to our hearts in doing so. As encouraged by Him it is our happy privilege to act in like manner towards others, and how extensive the circle of those needing comfort is! "Who comforteth us in all our tribulations, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." How precious a service! perhaps rendered in obscurity, but valued by God who is Himself the Source of all encouragement. A letter to a bereaved saint; 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. In many and various ways the comfort wherewith we ourselves have been comforted can be ministered to others.

The God whom he blesses is "the Father of all consolation and the God of all encouragement" (N.Tr.). And thus Paul knew Him. This was not theology, cold, pulseless theology, correct and orthodox; it was not mental knowledge learned by rote to be repeated again, parrot like. No, Paul had learnt what he knew by experience; he knew God in the very depths of his soul and had proved the greatness of His consolations in his darkest hours. He had got to the Source, to the Originator of every bit of true comfort that ever came to any suffering man or woman on earth, for God is the Father of all compassions. Many and varied are the channels through which His comforts flow, but His heart is the spring of them all, and Paul knew Him, and knew Him as greater than the greatest calamity that could befall a man on earth. God was his resource and his reward and be wanted nothing more.

God is “the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort” (2 Cor. 1), and it is His will that His people should be comforted and not distracted; this is the commission He has given to His servants. This comfort is not exactly that which a mother gives her sick or tired child, soothing it to forgetful slumber: it is more than that, it is encouragement for the discouraged, strength for the weak, and restoration for the fainting, it fills the soul with the buoyancy of hope, for it flows from the knowledge of God who is “the God of hope” and “the God of patience and consolation” (Rom. 15).

The God of All Comfort

Paul, in his service for the Lord Jesus, has many grievous trials, but in them had experienced in a very full and blessed way the comfort of God. In thinking of this, the Apostle, in 2 Corinthians 1, breaks forth in praise, saying, “Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort; who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God” (2 Cor. 1:3-4).

God’s comfort can meet us in whatever trial we may be found, for He is the God of all comfort, ministering to the troubled heart a divine solace that dispels anxious care, and brings into the soul the sense of His great love, and the realisation that He knows all about what is happening, not a disinterested spectator, but One who is ordering all for His own glory and our greatest good. He can comfort directly as we go to Him, and pour into His listening ear what afflicts us. Every feeling of the heart is known to Him as is every circumstance in which we find ourselves. Perfect love and perfect skill blend in the circumstances directly ordered of Him, and all that He may allow the enemy to bring against us is controlled by Him, for the enemy is not free to do as he pleases with us.

Observe, also, that he does not need to begin by reminding the Corinthians, as he had done in the first epistle, of their calling and their privileges as sanctified in Christ. He breaks out in thanksgiving to the God of all consolation. Holiness is brought forward when it is practically wanting among the saints. If they are walking in holiness, they enjoy God, and they speak of Him. The way in which the various parts of the work of God are linked together, in and by means of the apostle, is seen in the expressions that flow from his grateful heart. God comforts him in his sufferings; and the consolation is such that it is suited to comfort others, in whatsoever affliction it may be; for it is God Himself who is the consolation, by pouring into the heart His love and His communion, as it is enjoyed in Christ.

If afflicted, it was for the comfort of others by the sight of similar afflictions in those who were honoured of God, and the consciousness of unison in the same blessed cause, and relationship with God (the heart being touched and brought back to these affections by this means). If comforted, it was to comfort others with the consolations that he himself enjoyed in affliction. And the afflictions of the Corinthians were a testimony to him that, however great their moral weakness had been, they had part in those consolations which he enjoyed himself, and which he knew to be so deep, so real, which he knew to be of God, and a token of His favour. Precious bonds of grace! And how true it is in our little measure, that the sufferings of those who labour re-animate on the one hand love towards them, and on the other re-assure the labourer as to the sincerity of the objects of his christian affection, by presenting them anew to him in the love of Christ. The affliction of the apostle had helped him in writing to the Corinthians with the grief that was suitable to their condition; but what faith was that which occupied itself with such energy and such entire forgetfulness of self about the sad state of others, amid such circumstances as then surrounded the apostle! His strength was in Christ.

"Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." (1:3). What strikes one here is, the apostle begins the opposite way from that in which most would begin. If we had anything to relate as he had, we should have started with our troubles and pressures, and gone on perhaps to tell of the comfort and consolation ministered by God to us; but the apostle begins with the source of all comfort, "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies." Thus he begins at the fountain head, and not at the stream; he comes down to the stream, "that we may be able to comfort;" he did not go up to God from that, but from God Himself he came down, to the comfort he ministered. It makes an immense difference at what end we begin. We find broken hearts in this world, it is the very scene to meet them in; who can bind them up but God Himself? But we must take care not to make our need the measure of His comfort; if you make your troubles, or sorrows, or difficulties, the measure of anything that is in God, you limit to that what is in Him.

There was One who had unmeasured trouble and sorrow here, and only One — the blessed Lord; to us, all is measured out, either God-given, or God-permitted, sorrow. He puts on us only what He sees needful for us. There is no temptation, but that which is common to man. God will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able. He knows exactly what the vessel is able to bear. He puts the right amount on it, and then places His own blessed strength, as it were, under it, and so helps us to carry it. All goes on under His hand, no amount of God-given consolation, in the midst of the troubles we pass through, could ever be the measure of what is in God's heart, so the Apostle breaks out with "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," who is the source of it all. Then we find the relationship, "Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," — this defines the relationship we are in to Him, and then 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 fulness, divine sufficiency; and then the Apostle comes down to what He does, "who comforteth us," etc. The Apostle is passed through all he speaks of here in order that he might be able to minister it to others. The servant is passed through many an exercise and difficulty, many a pressure and trial, often not so much for himself as for those he would serve under Christ. He produces in the servant that character which it is His object to develop by means of his service. He puts the servant in the stocks, as it were, that he may be able to come forth and say, — "Oh, I have tasted the mercy of God as the God of all comfort.'"

In 2 Cor. 1:3, the expression "Father of Mercies, the God of all comfort" conveys that in these we find the most noteworthy in the realm of time. We are the objects not only of abstract mercy, but of ceaseless specific mercies, i.e., the countless incidents in which we are debtors to the mercy of God! In consequence He is the God of all comfort. The evidence of God's care for us must necessarily afford as nothing else can. He is the Author of those mercies, i.e., their origin.

And verse 3 shows the heart of Paul full of responsive appreciation of the faithfulness of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, not, as in Ephesians, for the unspeakable blessings in the heavenlies eternally secured for every saint of God, but for abounding grace and encouragement given of God amid stern tribulation. In practice, he has found Him "the Father of compassions, and the God of all encouragement." And the encouragement He gives not only eases their burden, but arms them with ability to encourage others who may be in any trouble, by communicating the same comfort by which God encourages them. This is not merely passive, but active faith.

Verse 5 refers to the sufferings of Christ in His earthly service (not on the cross), and such sufferings abounded in the apostles. They suffered because devoted to the ministry of Christ; and so truly felt for His interests in souls that everything contrary to this meant suffering. But this being so, their encouragement also abounded by Christ: He could not fail them in such service. The word for comfort or consolation here is more rightly translated "encouragement," for it is that which stirs one to active ministry.