word of Encouragement (7/13/2021)
The prayer we are reflecting on is, “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word” (2 Thess. 2:16-17). Yesterday, we revisited the familiar titles of Jesus and God and viewed their redemptive significance. Today, we want to reflect on the actual benediction Paul pronounces on them: he prays that our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father would comfort their hearts and establish them in every good work and word.
Here, Paul makes an emphatic appeal to Jesus: “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself....” After His resurrection, Jesus declared, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt. 28:18). As the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ has always been the sovereign Lord of all. The “all authority” Jesus speaks of in the Great Commission pertains particularly to His authority to “ransom people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9). As the sovereign Lord of all, He has all things at His disposal to use to accomplish for His purpose: “...I will accomplish all my purpose, calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it” (Isa. 46:10-11). He often uses secondary causes, such as the laws of nature, natural elements, and people, to achieve His goal.
In this benediction, however, Paul prays that our Lord Jesus Christ Himself would comfort our hearts, etc. Is he praying for Christ’s direct work on our hearts without any mediation or means? We can understand why we would like that very much. One of the reasons we look forward to heaven is to commune with Christ directly without the means of grace—not to see Him “in a mirror dimly, but... face to face” (1 Cor. 13:12). But we should not think that Christ working through secondary means is not Christ’s work: He is still the One, who is working through means; without His work, these means cannot accomplish anything by themselves. Just because a surgeon uses his surgical instruments doesn’t mean that he is not doing the actual work of surgery!
There may be another reason for the expression Paul uses here: he is emphasizing that what he is praying for can come only from our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father. He is praying that Christ and God would comfort the hearts of the Thessalonians and establish them in every good work and word. This may not seem so special. But notice what kind of comfort he is talking about. It comes from the Ones, “...who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace....” He is talking about the kind of comfort that comes from the love of God. So much can be said about God’s love, of course. God’s love is eternal and infinite, without any limitations. It is almighty; there is nothing He wants to do for us out of His love that He cannot do. It is unconditional: it is not based on our merit or goodness, which we have none, but solely on His sovereign will. It is unchangeable: once He determines to love us by His sovereign will, He will never revoke His love. It is active: He does not just feel love for us; He acts on what His love desires to do for us—even to the point of giving His only begotten Son so that we might not perish but have everlasting life! Even in this prayer, we are told that, because He loved us, He “gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace.”
Flowing out of such love, the comfort with which He comforts us is “eternal comfort.” It is good, not just for this moment, just for this affliction we are going through; it will be there to comfort us in our next affliction and the affliction after that—it is good for all eternity. That means this eternal comfort is not only for one kind of affliction but also for all other kinds of afflictions as well. In the First Commandment, God told the people of Israel to have no other gods before Him. How shocking and refreshing this must have been to them! They just came out of a polytheistic culture, in which there was a god for every occasion and activity. Now, their God, Jehovah, was telling them they don’t need any other god(s) because He is the sovereign Lord of all! The comfort that such a God provides is sufficient for all our afflictions and trials. And only our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father can give such comfort. So, Paul prays emphatically that our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father would comfort us! May the Lord bless you today with His eternal comfort in Jesus Christ!