Comfortable Words (Part II)
In four verses of Scripture, the Prayer Book’s “comfortable words” invite us, who in the confession of sin have acknowledged ourselves justly condemned as sinners and subject to the impartial judicial wrath of God, to put our faith in Christ, that in him we may find comfort – deliverance from guilt, fear, and shame into favor and life eternal with God.
The first word of comfort (St Matthew 11:28) is one of invitation to rest: “Come unto me, all ye that travail and are sore laden, and I will refresh you”. The invitation is both universal and exclusive, for it is made to all, without distinction, but found only in the person of Christ. The translation is from the Great Bible of 1539; in the King James Version of 1611, “rest” is specified, rather than “refreshment” – but the difference between “refreshment” and “rest” is not so great as might appear: both point to relief from carrying the heavy burden with which we “travail” or “labor”. In the preceding confession we had said that “the burden of [our sins] is intolerable” – which means, literally, “too heavy for me to bear” ( (Psalm 38:4). It is the burden of sin, of guilt, fear, and shame at our moral failures, and also the burden the law imposes of atoning for all those sins. Now both burdens are taken away; for the Lamb of God has taken that burden on himself, having perfectly fulfilled the law on our behalf, and atoned for our transgression of it in satisfying the justice of God on our behalf (Isaiah 53:4, 6), and so he offers us respite, relief, refreshment, rest from our labor and travail.
The famous second word (John 3:16) concerns the love and gift that gives life – a gift that comes from Father as well as the Son: “So God loved the world” – the word “so” means “this is how much God loved the world” – “that he gave his onlybegotten Son, to the end that all that believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”. The “world” that God loves is not only “world” in the neutral sense of the word (the global community of mankind, “all sorts and conditions of men”) but also its most common Biblical sense, as human society organized as if God did not exist. The measure of the greatness of this undeserved love is found in the gift of his only Son, in order that rebels may be delivered from the death their sins deserve, into the life that he alone deserves. “Love for the loveless shown, that they might lovely be”. Once again, comfort is found only in “his onlybegotten son”, and is offered to “all”, whoever they may be, “that believe in him”.
In the third and fourth words, we move from the witness of Christ to the witness of two chief apostles – “for out of the mouth of two or three witnesses” is truth established (Deut 17:6; 19:15). The third word belongs to St. Paul (1 Timothy 1:15), “This is a true saying, and worthy of all men to be received, That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”. We have heard of the Son’s being given for the life of the world: now we hear of his advent and mission. He comes from God and “into the world” by his incarnation, for this purpose, “to save sinners”. Once again, this comfort is offered to “all men”, and is grounded in the one person of “Christ Jesus”.
If the third word concerns Christ’s coming from Father into the world for our sake, the fourth word (from St. John) follows his return from the world to the Father (cf. John 15:28) on our behalf: “If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the Propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:1, 2). Once again, the comfort is offered to “any man”, without restriction, and is grounded in the one person of “Jesus Christ”, but in this fourth word is declared the grounds upon which his mission to save sinners from perishing was accomplished. First, though we have sinned indeed against divine Majesty, yet we have “an Advocate with the Father”, a ‘paraclete’ to plead our cause, to appear on our behalf, and to intercede for our pardon. If God willed us to perish, he would not have appointed such an Advocate to speak for us, one who is distinguished as “the righteous”, and thus qualified as no one else is to speak on behalf of sinners. What makes the intercession of this righteous Advocate uniquely efficacious, is that he has appeased the judge’s wrath against sin by his own self-offering in our place, as the “propitiation for our sins”, thus turning God’s wrath to favor, and bringing us from death to life.
With this final word, we are ready to hear the exhortation that follows – with hearts set free from the intolerable burden, we can now ‘lift them up unto the Lord’ in adoring praise of his holiness, and so enter the heavenly places where Christ in his humanity reigns at the Father’s right hand, that we may be made partakers of all the benefits of his sacrifice.