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Many people in our culture crave comfort above all else, which is nothing more than a me-centered hunt for ease. The kind of comfort sought is an aversion that dulls the pain, gives a sudden euphoric feeling, or turns your mind away from your miseries. But the true, lasting comfort found in our Father through Jesus Christ is not a fleeting feeling like a tranquilizing drug. It’s not a flash of fleshly pleasure found in comfort food. God gives comfort that abides in Christ. Just as the believer can never be separated from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, so Paul assures us that God “comforts us,” or more literally: He is the One continually giving comfort, dispensing never-failing comfort “in all our affliction” (2 Cor. 1:4). In other words, God meets us with an ever-readiness to console and to provide real, lasting comfort of every kind.
For the biblical authors, and the Apostle Paul particularly, doctrine always leads to doxology. The truth of God always trumpets praise to God, and that’s a fact even in the fires of affliction. Paul was no stranger to affliction as his life was conformed to Christ, but the fraudulent teachers in Corinth dared to depict the Christian life as a distress-free, triumphalistic life. The flesh craves this kind of teaching, which pitches ease and peace now rather than presenting the cross-shaped pattern of the Christian life. But for Jesus, it was humiliation and then exaltation, just as it had been for Joseph, Moses, and David. This is the norm for those who follow in Jesus’ steps. The Apostle Paul, therefore, does not aim to empty the godly life of suffering. Instead, he focuses the hearts of his hearers on the God who meets us in the highways of affliction. Our comfort is not finding a worldly escape from the present crisis. Such a life of complete ease is not possible this side of glory, no matter what lie the devil tells us. Our comfort is tasting and seeing God’s mercy as it meets us in our sorrows. This is the truth that Paul ponders as he opens 2 Corinthians.
Paul begins with an eruption of praise. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 1:3). This opening echoes a Jewish benediction. “Blessed be the Lord” is all over the Psalms. Paul, however, gives this praise a distinctly Christian bent. This God whom we bless is blessed as our Father only through Jesus Christ. By virtue of the work of Christ and approaching God in Christ, we are led to the fountain of eternal love, the Father Himself. The Father sent His Son to save, and Jesus has secured for us the mercy and comfort of God. Therefore, even when darkness draws near, we have the sunshine of our Father’s face. We have peace with God through Jesus’ blood, access to the Father’s presence, and the hope of glory. The deepest pit cannot put out the comfort of these consoling realities.
Paul aims to plumb the depths of our Christian privileges. So he praises the Father as “the Father of mercies [note the plural] and God of all [or “every kind of”] comfort” (2 Cor. 1:3). Paul is explaining here that our heavenly Father is characterized by mercy. Step one to cultivating comfort in Christ is to view our Father rightly. He is not cold, austere, or harsh. He is abounding in love, tender, and a giving God, and “his mercies never come to an end” (Lam. 3:22). One cannot find the bottom of God’s well of mercy. Being a God rich in mercy, out of His deep love, He sent Christ, saved us through Christ, raised us up with Christ, and has made us to taste unceasing grace in Christ. Our destiny is secure irrespective of the inconveniences, piercing pains, and great griefs of a fallen world. What a comfort that is to our souls, and this comfort is found in Christ.
Are you fearful? Be steadied with the truth. “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine” (Isa. 43:1). If Jesus sank into the lowest pit, even tasting death for us, will He not meet us in our valleys? Are you downcast? Paul will say in just a few verses that he and his companions “were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself” (2 Cor. 1:8). That is a melancholic spot. But what did he learn in the dungeon of difficulty? He learned not to rely on himself but on God who raises the dead (v. 9). It’s not just that God raised Jesus. God raised Paul from a deadly situation. That’s the kind of God that He is. He is a God “who daily bears us up . . . , and to God, the Lord, belong deliverances from death” (Ps. 68:19–20).
Our comfort is cultivated when we see that even the deep darkness, whether a figurative darkness or death itself, cannot swallow us. Christ has conquered the grave. Our true comfort lives. Death has been defeated. Suffering will not last. Jesus is enthroned, and His purpose will prevail. What is that purpose? It is to see “our lowly body” transformed “to be like his glorious body” (Phil. 3:21). That is our hope, and therefore in the greatest of calamities we have a comfort that cannot fail. Do you ponder it? Do you muse on your privileges? Do you fight off heaviness of soul by fixing your faith on the gift of Jesus for your salvation? Do you bless the Father of mercies? Our circumstances may rise and fall in a broken world, but God’s comfort in Christ will never be cut off. The Lord’s commitment endures, and that comfort will carry us home. Let us think on these things.