📖WEB · 2 Corinthians 1:3
What does 2 Corinthians 1:3 mean?
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort;"
— 2 Corinthians 1:3 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the assembly of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort;
who comforts us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
For as the sufferings of Christ abound to us, even so our comfort also abounds through Christ.
But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer.
Explanation
2 Corinthians 1:3 opens with an outburst of praise: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort." In plain language, Paul is saying that God deserves to be praised, and he identifies this God specifically as the one revealed through Jesus Christ — a God whose defining characteristics are mercy and comfort. Rather than launching into an argument or a request, Paul begins with worship, blessing God for who he is before saying anything else.
This verse opens Paul's second letter to the church in Corinth, written after a painful and strained relationship with that congregation. Paul had previously sent a severe letter (referenced later in this same letter) that caused sorrow but ultimately led to repentance and reconciliation. He had also endured intense personal suffering — he goes on in verse 8 to describe an affliction in Asia so severe that he despaired of life itself. So this doxology isn't abstract theology; it flows directly out of Paul's own experience of hardship and God's sustaining comfort in the midst of it. He writes as a pastor who has been through real anguish and wants to testify to the God who met him there.
Theologically, this verse establishes several important truths. First, it identifies God as "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" — meaning that Christians know God specifically through Jesus, not as a generic deity but as the Father revealed in the Son. Second, calling him "the Father of mercies" means mercy isn't just something God occasionally dispenses; mercy character
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