1. The Source of Comfort
James Buchanan
The blessed Lord intimated to His disciples before His departure, that He would not leave them desolate – or orphans – but would send them the Holy Spirit, that He might abide with them for ever; and He spoke of the Spirit as a paraclete (a Greek word which has been translated in our version as comforter and advocate, but which may be rendered monitor). The office of the paraclete should be to plead the cause, and to secure the welfare, of His people in various ways, by helping their infirmities, guiding them into all truth, strengthening them against the assaults of temptation, sustaining them under the pressure of trial and aiding them in prayer.
It is the less necessary to dwell on the mere meaning of that expression because unquestionably, in other places, the Spirit is represented as executing the office of a comforter; as when the Apostle says, “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost” (Rom 15:13). The joy and peace and hope which are mentioned here are the constituent elements of that comfort which God has provided for His people; elsewhere they are each described as of inestimable value, fruits alike sweet and precious of the riches of His grace: for this peace is called “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding”; and this joy is said to be a “joy unspeakable and full of glory”; and this hope is a living, a lively hope, “an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, which entereth into that within the veil”.
It may be useful to direct your thoughts to (1) the source of this comfort; (2) the method in which it is bestowed; (3) the various degrees in which it may be enjoyed.
1. The source of this comfort. It is important to remark that the joy and peace and hope in which this comfort consists are ascribed in Scripture to each of the three Persons in the Godhead and represented as flowing to us out of the various offices which They execute under the covenant of redemption. God Himself is the author of this comfort, and the inexhaustible fountain of His goodness is the source whence it proceeds.
But it is not as the God of nature and providence – the Creator, Preserver and Governor of the world – that He imparts comfort to His people; it is as the God of grace and redemption. It is to God in His covenant relation as God in Christ, the Reconciler and the Saviour of the guilty, that Paul refers when he speaks of Him as “the God of hope” and as “the God of patience and consolation”, and more expressly where he says, “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”.
As God is the author of this comfort, so it comes to us in and through Christ, as the Mediator of the new covenant. He was sent to preach peace to them that were afar off, and to them that were near. He is Himself “our peace” as He is “the propitiation for our sins”; for “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”. Christ is “the Prince of peace”, and His Word is the “gospel of peace”; and He was sent both to procure and to proclaim that reconciliation on which our joy and peace and hope depend: “the Lord hath anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted . . . to comfort all that mourn; to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness”.
Accordingly both the Father and the Son are conjoined in the Apostle’s prayer: “Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts, and establish you in every good word and work”. But this comfort, flowing from God Himself as its source, and through Christ the Mediator of the new covenant as the channel by which it is conveyed to us, is applied to our hearts by the gracious agency and inward operation of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle prays for the Roman converts that they might be filled “with all joy and peace in believing” and “abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost”. And we read of the primitive believers that they walked “in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost”.
The Spirit’s love as a Comforter is manifested in various ways. First, it was the Spirit with which Christ Himself was anointed in His human nature, for the execution of His great design, and by which He was qualified for it: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, for He hath anointed Me to preach”. Second, it was the Spirit who inspired the whole of that message of grace and mercy which is contained in the gospel, for “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost”. To Him therefore is to be gratefully ascribed every consolation which the gospel imparts, and every hope which it inspires. Third, it is the Spirit who, by His continued agency in the Church, and by His internal operation on the minds of believers, enables them to understand the gracious meaning of the gospel, and to feel its blessed influence, so that they are “filled with all joy and peace in believing” and “abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost”.
Such is the view which is given in Scripture of the source of the comfort that is here spoken of; it is ascribed to each of the three Persons of the Godhead and is represented as flowing to us out of the various offices which they fulfill under the covenant of redemption. By this view, two reflections are suggested, which may be briefly noticed. The first is, how gracious and lovely is the aspect in which God’s character is presented, when each person in the Godhead is declared to be so much interested, not only in the safety, but in the comfort and happiness of His people. The second is, How sweet and comforting is the dispensation under which His people are placed, seeing that it is alike fitted and designed to fill them with all joy and peace in believing, so that they may abound in hope through the power of the Spirit of God.
If then the Father is the very God of peace, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort; and if His beloved Son is the Prince of peace; and if the Holy Spirit is the Comforter, the Spirit of all grace and consolation; and if the gospel is indeed, as its very name implies, glad tidings of great joy; it follows that, however God’s people may sometimes have their peace disturbed from the operation of other causes – such as the remaining darkness of their understandings, or the unsubdued corruption of their hearts, or the weakness of their faith, or the strength of their temptations, or the number and weight of their trials – yet, in its natural tendency and proper effect, the gospel is fitted to produce and sustain a peace “which passeth all understanding” and a joy which is “unspeakable and full of glory”.
And if any of God’s people are “for a season . . . in heaviness through manifold temptations”, walking in darkness, and having no light, they may rest assured that their lack of present comfort arises from no defect in Christ’s gospel, and still less from any indifference to their real welfare on the part of God. He is, on the contrary, the Comforter of “those that are cast down”; and it is only “if need be”, and with a view to their ultimate good, that He subjects them for a season to this sore discipline, taking them, as it were, for a little time into the wilderness, that He may there speak comfortably to them.
Every sin will be adequately punished; blessed be God, not every sinner.
The gospel is just as much fitted for me as for you, and for you as for me. Christ and His sacrifice just meet your case, as they meet mine. The sinner’s need corresponds to what is in the sacrifice of Christ, and what is in the sacrifice of Christ corresponds to the sinner’s need.
John Duncan
1A first extract from a chapter entitled, “The Work of the Spirit as the Comforter”, in Buchanan’s book, The Office and Work of the Holy Spirit.