The book of Isaiah speaks to people facing the Babylonian captivity. They had been cast out of the promised land because of their sins. Now in exile, they were oppressed and suffering in Babylon. However, the prophet declares in Isaiah 40:1, “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.” Like a mother tenderly caring for her wounded little ones, God sought to comfort their hearts.
Our need is the same. As Christians, we are identified as exiles (1 Peter 2:11). Adam was cast out of the garden because of sin, and now all his posterity live east of Eden. We reside in the wilderness of this fallen world, where we face many dangers, toils, and snares. We are hounded by sin, attacked by enemies, and squeezed by afflictions. Yet God has not left us. He comforts us in our troubles. What does it mean that God is our Comforter?
The Immanent God
God is transcendent and above His creation. He is the wholly other God who is distinct from all life. He is also the immanent God who has chosen to draw near to bring comfort. God is “not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:27). He is omnipresent. He is not limited by spatial boundaries. He is present everywhere at the same time. In His nearness “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). God’s immanence brings His power to bear for the benefit of His people:
God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble. (Ps. 46:1)
He keeps count of our tossings and puts our tears in His bottle (Ps. 56:8). God “upholds the universe by the word of his power,” not from a distance, but through His closeness in Christ (Heb. 1:3). The Father is actively immanent to comfort His people. Nothing can separate us from His love (Rom. 8:37–39). Nothing can keep Him from comforting our hearts.
The Incarnate God
Jesus Christ is God enfleshed. The angel told Joseph,
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel”
(which means, God with us). (Matt. 1:23)
After Jesus’ resurrection, Thomas declared of Christ, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28). The Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, took “to himself a true body, and a reasonable soul” (Westminster Shorter Catechism 22). He became what He was not—flesh—that we might become what we were not: ransomed, redeemed, restored, and forgiven. We could add to that list comforted. Jesus is our comfort.
Sin has brought us into a miserable state. We lost communion with the God who created us. We are under His wrath. We face the sufferings of this life. Death awaits us. And we deserve wrath and condemnation. However, the eternal Son of God became a man with two distinct natures in one person to remove us from our pitiful state. He came to bring us into fellowship with the triune God by suffering sin’s curse on the tree (Gal. 3:13). He reconciled our souls to God and delivered us from death by triumphing over the grave (Rom. 5:10). Jesus is the sympathetic, incarnate God who is now interceding for us and drawing near to us in the valley of tears. He encircles us with His omnipotent arms, upholding us with His divine grace and perfecting His strength in our weakness.1 The incarnate God came to bring true comfort to the souls of sinners.
The God of All Comfort
How does Christ comfort us? He has sent the Spirit of comfort. The Holy Spirit is the “Helper, to be with you forever” (John 14:16). Jesus will not leave us as orphans. He has given the Spirit of truth to assure and aid us. What does the Spirit use to comfort our hearts? God’s Word was “written for our instruction, that . . . through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rom. 15:4). The Bible speaks to people in varying circumstances and for different ends, but it is most certainly the Spirit’s letter of comfort to the distressed. It provides precious promises, which give comfort in affliction (Ps. 119:50). The psalmist declared,
When I think of your rules from of old,
I take comfort, O Lord.” (Ps. 119:52)
When struck with conviction of sin, Scripture gives assurance of God’s mercy and love:
He will again have compassion on us;
he will tread our iniquities underfoot.
You will cast all our sins
into the depths of the sea. (Mic. 7:19)
When discouraged by our struggles with sin and slowness in spiritual growth, the Bible reminds us, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). God’s Word encourages us to keep ourselves in His love, knowing that Christ is able to keep us from stumbling (Jude 21, 24). The Spirit comforts His people, especially through Scripture.
What does it mean that God is our Comforter? He is the immanent God who, as the Father, graciously draws near. He is the incarnate God who took on flesh to save. He is the Spirit who soothes our sorrows through the Word. He is the God of all comfort (2 Cor. 1:3).
See Octavius Winslow, The Sympathy of Christ With Man: Its Teaching and its Consolation (Sprinkle Publications, 1993), 186.↩
Ligonier Ministries