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‘I am filled with comfort, I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulation.’
2Co_7:4
I. The character of his consolations.—These words imply—
(a) More than mere resignation.
(b) More than mere acquiescence in the will of God, Who had seen fit that His servant should suffer.
(c) More than that chastened thankfulness which a man feels when he confesses that God’s will is good will, and that ‘all things shall work together for’ his ‘good.’
(d) It was composure rising into the highest rapture that he was counted worthy to suffer for Christ’s sake. ‘I am filled as full as I can hold, body, spirit, soul, with consolation. I abound much more exceedingly than I can conceive or describe in joyfulness.’ A comfort to which nothing can be added, a joy which it is impossible to exaggerate. How seldom do men in their highest spiritual moods, with all the bounties of God’s providence surrounding and crowning them, feel like that! Yet that was St. Paul’s experience in the midst of trials and difficulties which seldom fall to the lot of any man.
II. The grounds of the Apostle’s joyfulness and comfort were twofold: human and Divine. Let us glance at the Divine and consider this as applicable to ourselves. What are they?
(a) The Divine indwelling. ‘Ye are the temple of the living God.’ Mark the contrast: ‘Without were fightings, within were fears.’ God dwelleth in me. Not God comes occasionally and soothes a sorrow and dries a tear; not God comes so near that I may touch the hem of His garment; but, He ‘dwells in me.’ Realise that and ‘labour will be rest and pain sweet.’
(b) The Divine possession: ‘And I will be their God and they shall be my people,’ which makes the indwelling perpetual. God is not merely the tenant, but the owner of the soul. The idea is twofold. St. Paul could say, I am His and He is mine. ‘I am His.’ Why? God had purchased him, he was not his own, he was bought with a price. And he felt he was valuable in God’s eyes in proportion to the price that was paid for him. Hence St. Paul felt safe. ‘Well, what if I am in tribulation, what if there are fightings and fears, I don’t belong to them, I belong to God, therefore they cannot harm me.’ It was this thought that supported the Apostle in all his trials and nerved him for that noble and heroic life of his.