The God of All Comfort: What Paul Gives a Suffering Believer

In none of the passages below does Paul promise the Body of Christ that trouble will pass us by. He tells us who meets us in it, what that God does for us there, and what we are to do with what He gives. All three are in the opening verses of his second letter to the Corinthians, and his other letters confirm each one.

A believer in pain is usually handed something else. It happened for a reason, and you will understand later. Claim the promise; God heals those who believe. Where is your faith? Articles already on this site take those answers apart. The Plan No Verse Mentions — God Has Not Scripted Every Detail of Your Life shows that no verse says God has scripted the details of a believer's life. Prayer in the Dispensation of Grace: Praying as Paul Taught, Not as Israel Was Instructed shows what prayer is and is not for the Body. Feigned Faith of the Fathers shows whose promises of healing those were. This article does the other half of the work. It sets out what Paul actually gives a believer who is hurting.

God comforts us in all our tribulation, and Paul shows what comfort is

Paul begins his second letter to the Corinthians, after the greeting, not with a doctrine but with a blessing, and the blessing names God by what He does for the hurting:

"Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth 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. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ." (2 Corinthians 1:3-5 KJV)

In all our tribulation. The sentence puts no condition on the comfort, and the verses after it add none. Paul's next word is just as wide: we are to comfort those in any trouble. He does not list the kinds of trouble that qualify. Neither should we.

What does he mean by comfort? He answers by using the word. Writing to the same church later in the same letter, he says that "I am filled with comfort, I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulation" (2 Corinthians 7:4). The tribulation and the comfort stand in one sentence, and the tribulation is still there. The next verse says so: "our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side; without were fightings, within were fears" (2 Corinthians 7:5). Then comes the comfort: "Nevertheless God, that comforteth those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus" (2 Corinthians 7:6). In Paul's use here, comfort is strength and gladness given while the trouble stands, and God gave it through a brother who arrived with news.

It is also a gift already given. Paul writes to the Thessalonians that the Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father "hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace" (2 Thessalonians 2:16), and then prays, "Comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work" (2 Thessalonians 2:17). Hath given, everlasting, through grace. Nothing in that sentence waits on how well a believer is bearing up.

The apostle despaired of life and told the Corinthians so

Paul does not stop at the blessing. He tells them the trouble that stands behind it:

"For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us;" (2 Corinthians 1:8-10 KJV)

Four things stand in those verses.

The apostle despaired, and he wanted them to know it. We would not … have you ignorant is Paul choosing to tell the church. He was pressed above strength, to the point that he despaired even of life. A believer who has come to the end of himself has not left Paul's company. He is standing where Paul stood in Asia.

The trouble was above his strength. A familiar saying holds that God never gives a believer more than he can bear. The nearest verse is 1 Corinthians 10:13, and it says something else: "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able" (1 Corinthians 10:13). That verse is about temptation, and it promises a way of escape from it. Paul's report in Asia is about trouble, and he says the trouble was above his strength. He does not say it broke his faith.

He gives the reason. We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead. The reason is stated, and it sits on the same verse as the trouble. This is how Scripture handles a reason when it has one. It says so. The reason Paul gives here belongs to this trouble. It is not a rule that every trouble has a reason waiting to be found, and it is no warrant to invent one for yours.

He reports a deliverance and states a trust. He does not make a promise to them. Delivered … doth deliver … will yet deliver. The three tenses are Paul's own account of what God did and what he expects. He does not turn it into a promise that the Corinthians' trouble will end the same way. And the ground of his trust is the one named in verse 9, God which raiseth the dead. Elsewhere he states it as a certainty for every believer: "Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you" (2 Corinthians 4:14). The deliverance that Paul finally rests on is one no trouble can prevent.

The same apostle, in the same letter, asked the Lord three times that a thorn in the flesh might depart, and it did not. The Lord's answer is what carries over to us: "My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9). The reason for that thorn was tied to the abundance of revelations given to Paul, so the thorn is not a template for every believer's trouble, and Prayer in the Dispensation of Grace sets out why. The principle the Lord spoke does carry over, because the grace is the grace the Body stands in: "this grace wherein we stand" (Romans 5:2).

Paul closes the passage by naming how the Corinthians had helped him: they were "helping together by prayer" (2 Corinthians 1:11), and the purpose he states is that thanks might be given by many. Does Sharing a Prayer Request Get God's Attention? reads that verse to its end. What the many multiply is the thanksgiving.

What God gives in the trouble is given to be passed on

Go back to verse 4. The comfort has a purpose: that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. What Paul passes on is the comfort he received from God. It is not sympathy and it is not a theory about the trouble. It is what God did for him in it.

That is why verses 6 and 7 tie the two together: "our hope of you is stedfast, knowing, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation" (2 Corinthians 1:7). The believer who suffers is promised the consolation along with it, and shall ye be here is a certainty Paul states. A believer who has been comforted in a trouble has something to give to the next one.

Paul's other letters show it running both ways. He sent Timothy to the Thessalonians "to establish you, and to comfort you concerning your faith" (1 Thessalonians 3:2), and when Timothy came back, Paul wrote that "we were comforted over you in all our affliction and distress by your faith" (1 Thessalonians 3:7). The comforter was comforted. The apostle was not above receiving it. And what he commands is not for apostles alone: "Wherefore comfort one another with these words" (1 Thessalonians 4:18), and "comfort yourselves together, and edify one another" (1 Thessalonians 5:11). The ministry of comfort belongs to every member of the Body.

Romans 5:3-5, in the order Paul wrote it

Read Romans 5:1-5 in the order Paul wrote it:

"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." (Romans 5:1-5 KJV)

Paul fixes the believer's standing before he mentions a single trial. Being justified by faith, we have peace with God. Whatever follows, the tribulation does not arrive as a verdict on the believer. The verdict has already been given.

Then he adds. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also. The glorying in verse 2 is in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so adds a second thing to glory in, and that second thing is the tribulations. He does not stop there. He says what makes the glorying possible: knowing that tribulation worketh patience. The glorying rests on something known.

Then the chain: tribulation, patience, experience, hope. Each link produces the next. The word to read carefully is experience. The King James uses it only three times. Two of them are not addressed to us, and they are quoted here only to show how the King James uses the English word: Laban says "I have learned by experience that the LORD hath blessed me for thy sake" (Genesis 30:27), and the Preacher says "my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge" (Ecclesiastes 1:16). In both, experience is knowledge a man has gained by going through something. In Laban's mouth, what he learned was that the LORD had blessed him. Romans 5:4 has the same shape. The believer who has gone through tribulation with patience has learned something he had only believed before: that the hope he was given holds. The verse does not spell out the content of the experience. The chain asks for this sense, because the thing being proved is the hope.

Then the hope, and why it does not put the believer to shame. And hope maketh not ashamed. Which hope? The one just named, the hope that experience produced, because that is the nearest hope in the sentence. The text does not introduce a second hope. Verse 2 names the hope by what it looks for, the glory of God. Verse 4 names the same hope again after trial has proved it. And Paul gives the reason it does not put the believer to shame: "because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us" (Romans 5:5). Because makes the love the ground. The love is not the product of the hope. It is why the hope is not put to shame. And Paul names who does the pouring: the Holy Ghost, given to us. He also says what the love is, in the next verses: "when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly" (Romans 5:6), and "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). A believer who has no strength left is standing exactly where Paul says the love was proved.

What glorying is not. It is not glorying in the pain. The word knowing stands between glory in tribulations and the chain, and the glorying is in what the tribulation works. It is also not the absence of sorrow. Paul describes himself as "sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing" (2 Corinthians 6:10), and he does not forbid grief at the grave. He denies the believer a grief without hope: "that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope" (1 Thessalonians 4:13). He records his own sorrow without apology. Epaphroditus was sick nearly to death and full of heaviness, and Paul says that God had mercy on him, "lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow" (Philippians 2:26-27).

And what Paul commands. What Romans 5:3 describes, Paul also commands: "Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer" (Romans 12:12), "Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice" (Philippians 4:4), "Rejoice evermore" (1 Thessalonians 5:16), and "In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you" (1 Thessalonians 5:18). A believer who cannot rejoice in a given trouble is short of a command. He is not short of his standing, because the standing was settled in verse 1, before the trial is mentioned. A command corrects a believer. It does not cast him out. That is a different matter from a delay in the answer to prayer, which, as Prayer in the Dispensation of Grace shows, is not a withholding for an unmet condition.

Paul told them beforehand: affliction is our appointed lot, and wrath is not

The Thessalonians had received the word "in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost" (1 Thessalonians 1:6), and the affliction came from their own countrymen (1 Thessalonians 2:14). Paul sent Timothy, and he tells them why:

"And sent Timotheus, our brother, and minister of God, and our fellowlabourer in the gospel of Christ, to establish you, and to comfort you concerning your faith: That no man should be moved by these afflictions: for yourselves know that we are appointed thereunto. For verily, when we were with you, we told you before that we should suffer tribulation; even as it came to pass, and ye know. For this cause, when I could no longer forbear, I sent to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter have tempted you, and our labour be in vain." (1 Thessalonians 3:2-5 KJV)

The comfort is aimed at faith. Timothy was sent to comfort you concerning your faith. In this passage Paul does not say he sent Timothy to end the afflictions. He sent him because the afflictions can move a man, and he names what stands behind that: the tempter. The danger Paul fears is that the affliction will be used to unsettle the faith, so that our labour be in vain.

They had been told, and Paul gives that as the reason not to be moved. Yourselves know … we told you before that we should suffer tribulation; even as it came to pass, and ye know. A teaching that promised ease would turn every affliction into an argument against the teacher. Paul's teaching turns the affliction into something he had already said.

Appointed thereunto. The verse names what we are appointed to: afflictions. It does not name which ones, to whom, or when. That is the shape The Plan No Verse Mentions finds in the word appointed in Hebrews 9:27: a stated lot, declared beforehand, and not an entry in a diary. The Thessalonians knew it because Paul had said it.

And the same letter says what we are not appointed to. "For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thessalonians 5:9). They were waiting for God's Son from heaven, "which delivered us from the wrath to come" (1 Thessalonians 1:10). One letter names two appointments: afflictions now, and no wrath at the end. The English word tribulation covers both of them, and the context decides which is meant. The Tribulation of the prophecies is a day of wrath that the Body is delivered from. The tribulation in Romans 5:3 and 1 Thessalonians 3:4 is the lot of believers now. The Rapture: Comfort in Sorrow and Deliverance from Wrath sets out the deliverance, and They Shall Never Perish: Kingdom Salvation, Eternal Life, and the Resurrection of Israel's Remnant shows why the great tribulation of Revelation is not the Body's.

Paul's own comfort came through them. When Timothy returned, Paul wrote, "Therefore, brethren, we were comforted over you in all our affliction and distress by your faith: For now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord" (1 Thessalonians 3:7-8). The apostle's life leaned on the standing of the believers he had comforted. No member of the Body is only a recipient.

Persecution follows the stand, and the stand is commanded

Paul wrote to Timothy out of his own record:

"Persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me. Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived." (2 Timothy 3:11-13 KJV)

Verse 12 forecasts; it does not command. Shall suffer persecution uses the same construction as verse 13, shall wax worse and worse, and no one reads verse 13 as the duty of evil men. Both are forecasts. The duty is laid where Paul lays it: "be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God" (2 Timothy 1:8), "Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ" (2 Timothy 2:3), and, to the Philippians, "For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake" (Philippians 1:29).

The condition is will. All that will live godly. The verse names a purpose to live godly in Christ Jesus, and persecution follows that stand. It does not say the reverse, that persecution proves a man godly or that its absence proves he is not. Rightly Dividing Denying Christ reads the verse the same way.

And persecution is not the only word Paul uses. Verse 11 names both persecutions and afflictions, and verse 12 forecasts only the first. The comfort of 2 Corinthians 1 reaches any trouble, a wider field. Paul sets the trouble and its limit side by side in his second letter to the Corinthians: "We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed" (2 Corinthians 4:8-9). Each pair names the trouble first and then what the trouble did not do. Feigned Faith of the Fathers uses the same verses to show that bad things do happen to believers and that the Lord did not forsake Paul.

The hope Paul gives the sick and the dying outlasts the body

In the same second letter, Paul says what the weight of the whole matter is:

"For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." (2 Corinthians 4:16-18 KJV)

Paul assumes the outward man perishes. Though our outward man perish. He does not hold out recovery here. He holds out something that goes on while the body declines: the inward man is renewed day by day. The renewal is daily, and it is present, while the outward man is perishing.

He calls the affliction light, and he had a record to call it from. Two chapters later he lists his own: "in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings" (2 Corinthians 6:4-5). The man who counts all of that light is not minimizing pain. He is weighing it against what is on the other side of the scale: "the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us" (Romans 8:18). Why Did God Create Man, Knowing He Would Sin — and Would It Have Been Better Not to Create at All? carries that weighing through, and this article only borrows its verses.

He does not deny what is seen. We look not at the things which are seen. He does not say they are not there. He says they are temporal, and that the things not seen are eternal.

For the grave, he gives words to say. That ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope, and then the catching away, and then the instruction: "Wherefore comfort one another with these words" (1 Thessalonians 4:18). The comfort for the dying and the bereaved is that the dead in Christ rise first and we are caught up together with them, so that we shall ever be with the Lord. The rapture article linked above sets that out.

What to do with this

When you are the one hurting, go to the God Paul names. The Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort comforts in all tribulation, and Paul's own use of the word shows what He gives: strength and gladness while the trouble stands, often by the hand of a brother. Do not wait for the trouble to end before you receive it. Paul did not. And read Romans 5:1-5 in the order he wrote it. Your standing is settled in verse 1. The hope is not put to shame, and the reason is the love already shown at the cross while you were without strength.

If you are slow to rejoice, take the command as a command and not as a verdict on your standing. If the trouble came as a surprise, hear what Paul told the Thessalonians beforehand: we are appointed thereunto. The lot is afflictions now, and no wrath at the end.

When someone near you is hurting, do not hand them the three answers this article began with. Do not tell them it happened for a reason you cannot name. Do not tell them God owes them healing for their faith. Do not ask where their faith is. Give them what you have been given. Tell them what God did for you in your trouble, as Paul did, and tell them what the Lord said to Paul: "My grace is sufficient for thee" (2 Corinthians 12:9). Then do what Paul commands the whole Body to do: "comfort yourselves together, and edify one another" (1 Thessalonians 5:11).