Word of Encouragement (5/27/2020)

Yesterday, we talked about the meaning of our suffering based on 2 Cor. 1:3-4:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Cor. 1:3-4).

I hope simply remembering that He is “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort” was encouraging and comforting to us all. One of the reasons that God allows His people to suffer, even though He loves us with His infinite love, is so that we can come to know this Father of mercies and God of all comfort in a deeper and greater way.

But if we can take comfort in approaching God as the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, it is only because He is “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” By addressing God as “the God… of our Lord Jesus Christ," Paul is not denying the deity of Jesus. The title, “our Lord Jesus Christ,” as it is used throughout the New Testament, is a divine title (“Lord” being a dynamic equivalent of “Yahweh”). Here, Paul is trying to emphasize the fact that it is in Christ that we have God as “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort”—because God is “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” He is also “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort” to those who are in Christ Jesus.

Paul is also showing a redemptive-historical development from the Old Testament to the New Testament: the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is now delighted to be known as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is only right because Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the covenant promise God gave to the Patriarchs. Whatever intimacy Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob enjoyed with God as models of covenant fellowship—that is why the Old Testament saints delighted in calling upon Yahweh as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—we enjoy much greater intimacy with God because our model is Jesus Christ, the Son of God! In fact, Jesus is more than just a model we are to emulate. It is in Christ that we have fellowship with God since God has chosen us and forgiven us and accepted us and adopted us in Christ (Eph. 1:3ff). No wonder God is all mercy and all comfort to us!

May this reminder of your new relationship with God in Christ give you the kind of comfort you need today and for the rest of your life!

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