Comfortably – Commend

Comfortably

kum'-fer-ta-bli (`al lebh, "to the heart"): "To speak to the heart," i.e. to speak kindly, to console, to comfort, is the ordinary Hebrew expression for wooing: e.g. Boaz spake "to the heart" of Ru (Ruth 2:13 margin; the King James Version "friendly," the Revised Version (British and American) "kindly"). The beauty of the Hebrew term is illustrated in Genesis 50:21 where Joseph "spake kindly" unto his brethren, winning them from fear to confidence. Rendered "comfortably" in five passages: thrice of human speaking, and twice of the tenderness of God's address to His people. David was urged to win back the hearts of the people by kind words: "speak comfortably" (2 Samuel 19:7). Hezekiah in like manner comforted the Levites (2 Chronicles 30:22) and encouraged his captains (2 Chronicles 32:6). The term has exceptional wealth of meaning in connection with God's message of grace and forgiveness to His redeemed people. The compassionate love that has atoned for their sins speaks to the heart ("comfortably") of Jerusalem, saying "that her iniquity is pardoned" (Isaiah 40:2). The same promise of forgiveness is given to the penitent nation by the prophet Hosea (Hosea 2:14); "comfortable words" (Zechariah 1:13), i.e. words affording comfort.

Dwight M. Pratt

Comforter

kum'-fer-ter: This is translation of the word patakletos, in the Johannine writings. In the Gospel it occurs in John 14:16,John 14:26; John 15:26; John 16:7, and refers to the Holy Spirit. The word means literally, "called to one's side" for help. The translation "Comforter" covers only a small part of the meaning as shown in the context. The word "Helper" would be a more adequate translation. The Spirit does a great deal for disciples besides comforting them, although to comfort was a part of His work for them. The Spirit guides into truth; indeed, He is called the Spirit of truth. He teaches and quickens the memory of disciples and glorifies Christ in them. He also has a work to do in the hearts of unbelievers, convicting the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment (John 14:1–16:33). The Comforter remains permanently with disciples after He comes in response to the prayers of Christ. The word parakletos does not occur elsewhere in the Scriptures except in 1 John 2:1. In Job 16:2 the active form of the word (parakletos is passive) is found in the plural, where Job calls his friends "miserable comforters." The word "Comforter" being an inadequate, and the word "Helper" a too indefinite, translation of the word in the Gospel of John, it would probably be best to transfer the Greek word into English in so far as it relates to the Holy Spirit (see PARACLETE).

In 1 John 2:1 the word parakletos refers to Christ: "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." Here the translation Advocate is quite correct. As the next verse shows the writer has in mind the intercession of Christ for Christians on the basis of His mediatorial work: "And he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world" (1 John 2:2).

See ADVOCATE; HOLY SPIRIT; PARACLETE.

E. Y. Mullins

Comfortless

kum'-fert-les (orphanous, "orphans"): The Greek original is found but twice in the New Testament; rendered "comfortless" in John 14:18, the Revised Version (British and American) "desolate"; "fatherless" in James 1:27 (compare Psalms 68:5). The term signifies bereft of a father, parents, guardian, teacher, guide, and indicates what must be the permanent ministry of the Holy Spirit to the disciples of Jesus, in comforting their hearts. In harmony with these parting words Jesus had called the chosen twelve "little children" (John 13:33); without Him they would be "orphans," comfortless, desolate. The coming of the Holy Spirit would make Christ and the Father forever real to them, an abiding spiritual presence.

Dwight M. Pratt

Coming, Second

See PAROUSIA.

Commandment, The New

nu (entole kaine): The word "commandment" is used in the English versions of the Old Testament to translate several Hebrew words, more especially those meaning "word" (dabhar) as the ten words of God (Exodus 34:28) or king's "command" (Esther 1:12); "precept" (mitswah) of God (Deuteronomy 4:2), of a king (2 Kings 18:36); "mouth" or "speech" (peh) of God (Exodus 17:1), of Pharaoh (2 Kings 23:35). They express theocratic idea of morality wherein the will or law of God is imposed upon men as their law of conduct (2 Kings 17:37).

1. Christ and the Old Commandment:

This idea is not repudiated in the New Testament, but supplemented or modified from within by making love the essence of the command. Jesus Christ, as reported in the Synoptics, came not "to destroy the law or the prophets .... but to fulfill" (Matthew 5:17). He taught that "whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:19). He condemned the Pharisees for rejecting the commandments of God as given by Moses (Mark 7:8–13). There is a sense in which it is true that Christ propounded no new commandment, but the new thing in His teaching was the emphasis laid on the old commandment of love, and the extent and intent of its application. The great commandment is "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, .... (and) thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments the whole law hangeth, and the prophets" (Matthew 22:34–40; Mark 12:28–34; compare Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18).

2. Principle instead of Law:

Whey the law realizes itself as love for God and man in men's hearts, it ceases to bear the aspect of a command. The force of authority and the active resistance or inertia of the subject disappear; the law becomes a principle, a motive, a joyous harmony of man's will with the will of God; and in becoming internal, it becomes universal and transcends all distinctions of race or class. Even this was not an altogether new idea (compare Jeremiah 31:31–34; Psalms 51:1–19); nor did Christ's contemporaries and disciples think it was.

3. Christ's Love Fulfilled in Death Becomes the Law of the Church:

The revolutionary factor was the death of Christ wherein the love of God was exemplified and made manifest as the basis and principle of all spiritual life (John 13:34). Paul therefore generalizes all pre-Christian morality as a system of law and commandments, standing in antithesis to the grace and love which are through Jesus Christ (Ro 5-7). Believers in Christ felt their experience and inward life to be so changed and new, that it needed a new term (agape = "love") to express their ideal of conduct (see CHARITY). Another change that grew upon the Christian consciousness, following from the resurrection and ascension of Christ, was the idea that He was the permanent source of the principle of life. "Jesus is Lord" (1 Corinthians 12:3). Hence, in the Johannine writings the principle described by the new term agape is associated with Christ's lordship and solemnly described as His "new commandment." "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another" (John 13:34). To the Christians of the end of the 1st century it was already an old commandment which they had from the beginning of the Christian teaching (1 John 2:7; Revelation 2:1–29); but it was also a new commandment which ever came with new force to men who were passing from the darkness of hatred to the light of love (1 John 2:8–11).

4. The New Revelation:

The term in the Gospel we may owe to the evangelist, but it brings into relief an element in the consciousness of Jesus which the author of the Fourth Gospel had appreciated more fully than the Synoptists. Jesus was aware that He was the bearer of a special message from the Father (John 12:49; Matthew 11:27), that He fulfilled His mission in His death of love and self-sacrifice (John 10:18), and that the mission fulfilled gave Him authority over the lives of men, "even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." The full meaning of Christ's teaching was only realized when men had experienced and recognized the significance of His death as the cause and principle of right conduct. The Synoptists saw Christ's teaching as the development of the prophetic teaching of the Old Testament. Paul and John felt that the love of God in Christ was a new thing:

(a) new as a revelation of God in Christ,

(b) new as a principle of life in the church, and

(c) new as a union of believers with Christ. While it is love, it is also a commandment of Christ, calling forth the joyous obedience of believers.

See also BROTHERLY LOVE.

T. Rees

Commandment; Commandments

ko-mand'-ment (mitswah; entole): The commandments are, first of all, prescriptions, or directions of God, concerning particular matters, which He wanted observed with reference to circumstances as they arose, in a period when He spake immediately and with greater frequency than afterward. They were numerous, minute, and regarded as coordinate and independent of each other. In the Ten Commandments, or, more properly, Ten Words, EVm (debharim), they are reduced to a few all-comprehensive precepts of permanent validity, upon which every duty required of man is based. Certain prescriptions of temporary force, as those of the ceremonial and forensic laws, are applications of these "Words" to transient circumstances, and, for the time for which they were enacted, demanded perfect and unconditional obedience. The Psalms, and especially Psalms 119:1–176, show that even under the Old Testament, there was a deep spiritual appreciation of these commandments, and the extent to which obedience was deemed a privilege rather than a mere matter of constrained external compliance with duty. In the New Testament, Jesus shows in Matthew 22:37,Matthew 22:40; Mark 12:29,Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27 (compare Romans 13:8,Romans 13:10) their organic unity. The "Ten" are reduced to two, and these two to one principle, that of love. In love, obedience begins, and works from within outward. Under the New Testament the commandments are kept when they are written upon the heart (Hebrews 10:16). While in the Synoptics they are referred to in a more abstract and distant way, in both the Gospel and the Epistles of John their relation to Jesus is most prominent. They are "my commandments" (John 14:15,John 14:21; John 15:10,John 15:12); "my Father's" (John 10:18; John 15:10); or, many times throughout the epp., "his (i.e. Christ's) commandments." The new life in Christ enkindles love, and not only makes the commandments the rule of life, but the life itself the free expression of the commandments and of the nature of God, in which the commandments are grounded. Occasionally the word is used in the singular collectively (Exodus 24:12; Psalms 119:96; 1 Corinthians 14:37).

See TEN COMMANDMENTS, THE.

H. E. Jacobs

Commandments, The Ten

See COMMANDMENT; TEN COMMANDMENTS.

Commend

ko-mend':

(1) For paratithemi (Luke 23:46), translating the Hebrew paqadh (Psalms 31:5), in the dying words of Jesus: "Into thy hands I commend my Spirit." the King James Version in Psalms has the more general word "commit." The use of the Greek word in the sense of "deposit what belongs to one into the hands of another" is not uncommon in the classics. So also the derivatives paratheke (2 Timothy 1:12) and parakatatheke (1 Timothy 6:20; 2 Timothy 1:14). See DEPOSIT. This sense of the English, while slightly archaic, corresponds to the first meaning of the Latin, whence it comes, "to commit for preservation," especially of the dying; to commend children, parents, etc., to the care of others (for examples, see Harper's Latin Dictionary).

(2) For sunistiemi, "to stand together," and then, by standing together, to establish, prove, exhibit, as "righteousness" and "love of God" (Romans 3:5; Romans 5:8), and thus to attest (2 Corinthians 3:1; 2 Corinthians 4:2), and, finally, to certify or to recommend a stranger (Romans 16:1; 2 Corinthians 6:4). The use of paristemi in 1 Corinthians 8:8 is equivalent.

(3) "To praise," epaineo (Luke 16:8), and sunistemi in 2 Corinthians 10:12,2 Corinthians 10:18; for the Old Testament, Hebrew hillel, in Genesis 12:15 the King James Version; Proverbs 12:8.

H. E. Jacobs