As the believers experience and enjoy God as the Father in His love, He has mercy on them. Paul’s experience in Philippians 2 indicates that the Father’s having mercy on us is also a matter of His dispensing. In verse 25 Paul told the Philippians, “I counted it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, but your apostle and priestly minister to my need.” This reveals that Epaphroditus was intimately related both to the Philippians and to Paul. He was their apostle, one sent with a commission, and he was a priestly minister to Paul’s need, for in ministering to Paul’s physical need he served as a priest. In verse 26 Paul says of Epaphroditus, “He was longing after you all and was distressed because you had heard that he was sick.” However, Paul did not exercise his healing gift. Instead, he experienced and enjoyed the Father’s mercy in His dispensing. For this reason, in verse 27 Paul goes on to say, “Indeed he was sick, very near to death, but God had mercy on him, and not on him only, but also on me that I might not have sorrow upon sorrow.” At the juncture where Epaphroditus was very near to death, God had mercy on him and also on Paul. Epaphroditus was healed gradually, not by a miracle but by God’s mercy. Thus, Paul did not say, “God performed a great miracle,” but said, “God had mercy on him, and not on him only, but also on me.” From this we see that Paul and his fellow workers were continually under the dispensing of the loving God. They enjoyed healing as a mercy from God. If it were not for God’s mercy, Epaphroditus would have died. But through God’s mercy he lived, and Paul could send him to the Philippians. This mercy is a matter of the dispensing of the divine element into the believers.
Those who experience a miraculous healing may not enjoy God’s dispensing. Even though such ones are healed, there is no change in their life, no change in their being. However, the healing experienced by Epaphroditus was a mercy from God in His dispensing. This means that the healing of Epaphroditus was God’s mercy dispensed into him and also into Paul. After this dispensing, neither Epaphroditus nor Paul was the same. This is indicated by Paul’s tone in these verses. The tone in which Paul expresses himself here indicates that he was a divine person. Paul and Epaphroditus were under the divine dispensing, and this dispensing caused them to become divine.
God the Father also encourages, comforts, the believers through Christ that they may encourage, comfort, others (2 Cor. 1:4-5; 2 Thes. 2:16-17a). God’s encouraging is His comforting, His dispensing. Through His encouraging He dispenses Himself into us. Some divine element is dispensed into us with which we can encourage, comfort, others. It is not adequate to comfort a troubled believer simply by speaking words of encouragement. In order to encourage others and comfort them, we need to impart to them the divine element which we have received of God, and this element will become in them the element of encouragement and comfort.
In 2 Corinthians 1:3 and 4 Paul says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassions and God of all encouragement; who encourages us in all our affliction, that we may be able to encourage those who are in every affliction through the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God.” The Greek word rendered “compassions” also means mercies, pity, sympathy. Encouragement is slightly different from comfort and consolation and has the sense of being cheered. Such a title as the Father of compassions and God of all encouragement is ascribed here to God because 2 Corinthians is a book of comfort and encouragement.
In verse 4 Paul says that we encourage those in affliction through the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God. First we must experience the encouragement of God. Then we shall be able to encourage others with the encouragement we have experienced of God. Hence, we are encouraged so that we may be able to encourage others. This requires experience. When we are experienced, we have the spiritual capital necessary for encouraging others.
This encouragement, this comfort, is related to God’s dispensing. We are encouraged by God, comforted by Him, through His dispensing. God is dispensing Himself into us, and this dispensing is His encouraging, His comforting.
As indicated by the record in 2 Corinthians, while Paul and his co-workers were suffering for the sake of the gospel, the Triune God was dispensing Himself into them, and this dispensing became their encouragement and comfort. Furthermore, through their experience of being encouraged through the divine dispensing, they had the riches with which to comfort others. Their comforting of others was also a matter of dispensing. As the apostles were encouraging the saints, they were dispensing into them the riches of the Triune God that they themselves were enjoying.
In 1:5 Paul goes on to say, “Because even as the sufferings of the Christ abound unto us, so through the Christ our encouragement also abounds.” The sufferings here are not the sufferings for Christ but Christ’s own sufferings as shared by His disciples (Matt. 20:22; Phil. 3:10; Col. 1:24; 1 Pet. 4:13). “The Christ” in 2 Corinthians 1:5 is a designation of the condition of Christ, not a name (Darby). Here it refers to the suffering Christ who suffered afflictions for His Body according to God’s will. The apostles participated in the sufferings of such a Christ, and through such a Christ they received encouragement. Through Christ they experienced the divine riches and thereby were able to dispense the Triune God into others who were suffering for the Lord’s sake. Today we also may enjoy the divine dispensing for our encouragement and comfort and then dispense the divine riches into others for their encouragement and comfort.
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