Every Blessing!

And I Will Bless Them

(Numbers 6:22-27, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, May 20, 2018)

[22] The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, [23] “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them,

[24] The LORD bless you and keep you;

[25] the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;

[26] the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

[27] “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”

The Command

3500 years ago Yahweh, the I-AM of heaven and earth, gave a command to Moses regarding words that were to be spoken through weak, sinful priests, Aaron and His sons, over the Lord's people, Israel. Priests were mediators between God and His chosen ones. They lifted up the prayers of sinful people to the Almighty together with their sacrificial offerings and spoke grace from God to unworthy mortal men and women.

The Blessing

The content of this blessing was three-fold. First, “The LORD bless you and keep you.” Yahweh, Jehovah, I-AM-WHO-I-AM, is the only true God in a fallen world of clean and unclean angelic spirits, lawful and presumptuous human authorities, false idols that men wrongly cling to and serve, and needy people wanting power for living. He is the author of “every good gift and every perfect gift” (James 1:17). These all come “from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” He is the One—the only. We need Him, not He us.

“Blessing” is a verb and a noun, an authorized activity of the priests and a desired result upon Israel with specific content. In Leviticus 26:3 God says to Israel, “If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them,” then I will “bless” and “keep” (guard) you. These blessings included rain, food, military security, safety from wild beasts, victory over adversaries, population increase, and especially as God says in Leviticus 26:13, “I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people.” In the New Testament we are instructed about the preeminence of this final point in 1 Timothy 6:6-10, “But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.” These two passages help us to understand the content of the blessings that were to be spoken over the people: Godliness with contentment.

Second, amplifying this importance of God's presence, the priest was to say, “The LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.” The Son of God has always been the visible “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). In the “fullness of time, God sent forth His Son” (Galatians 4:4). Now the church has this experience of “seeing” God in Christ with the eyes of our hearts as He is presented in the Word, “and we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18). “For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).

Importantly, the Old Testament priests were to speak words of hope beyond the “if” of the conditional blessing of Leviticus 26 and the inability of ancient Israel to keep the Promised Land. We don't do well with “if,” but Aaron and his sons were to speak these words, “be gracious to you” about a life that would flow from the achievement of the One who would be the very face of God to us, Jesus our Savior. He gives grace to those who turn to Him for His steadfast love. Remember the story Jesus told about the two men praying, and find yourself saying along with the second man “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13). This is the only way to have forgiveness, or as Jesus puts it, “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other.”

Third, note the end result of pure grace from God for the undeserving, “The LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.” God's plan for Israel was for something far greater than the “peace” which is the absence of conflict. The word is “shalom” and it means wholeness and fullness that can only find its highest and best expression in the resurrection. Such shalom requires the coming of the Man who became the countenance of God in the midst of Israel, living according to God's Law, and especially the Law of perfect Love, and then dying the death required by holy justice. Shalom required the cross, but it also needed the resurrection. It is the power of our risen and ascended Lord which fills us with the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:19).

The Name

Leviticus 9:22 records Aaron's posture when he gave this blessing: “Aaron lifted up his hands toward the people and blessed them.” We are told in Numbers 6 that this act was a way of putting God's holy Name upon the people. The raising up of the hands over a group of people is equivalent to laying hands on each individual with the intention of blessing. With this in mind, many New Testament passages come to mind to help us to think about this ancient practice today for our lives as followers of Jesus Chist as those who have the Name of God on us and belong to the Lord in a very intimate way.

2 Corinthians 13:14 has the three-fold pattern, but now explicitly using the three persons of the Trinity: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” In Matthew 19:13-15 we read that Jesus touched the little ones with His hands and prayed for them. Especially in Matthew 28:19 we have the connection between the singular “Name” and the three-fold blessing, “baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” In Acts 2:39 Peter connects baptism with the promise to Abraham, “For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” Finally in Luke 24:50 the ascending Jesus “lifting up His hands he blessed them.”

For all who call upon the Name of the Lord, God's Word of blessing rightly administered is mighty upon His chosen flock. As He has said to true Israel, “I will bless them.” The church throughout the world has received the blessing of our ascended Lord, a better priest than Aaron. We have been marked in baptism with the Name above all names, and we have become agents of the Lord's benediction upon the true people of God. How should we respond to this great divine blessing? Bless, and do not curse, by the presence of the risen Christ within you (Romans 12:14 and James 3:10).