GOD’S DESIRE FOR BELIEVERS
‘The Lord bless thee, and keep thee,’ etc.
Here is the Gospel in its shining grace and fulness. Here is a God who seeks to bless. He is not, first of all, the great Judge executing vengeance upon iniquity, but the great Father, coming to be gracious. This is the Gospel, unknown to any nation that had not the Scriptures. They knew God as a Judge, and expected a judgment; but the thought of a God who was fatherly towards His children, pitiful and gracious, seeking them, not to punish their sins, but to bring them salvation—that was a new thought, and it is the Gospel. The other side of the Gospel is the reply of God’s children to His offer, gratefully accepting it. That is saving faith. It is not believing certain doctrines, but casting the whole soul upon the gracious God in loving trust. This is all God requires for the acceptance of His salvation.
I. ‘The Lord bless thee and keep thee!’—To ‘keep’ is to value, treasure, guard; it promises protection. The soul that trusts a merciful God will never be forsaken nor put to shame. However unworthy, ignorant, feeble or sinful, it will be protected.
II. ‘The Lord make His face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee!’—Like the shining of the sun after rain, like the rising sun after a black night of fear or agony; such, in the experience of God’s people, is the shining of His face when the sinner beholds the atoning Saviour and accepts God’s offer of salvation. To him the Lord is gracious; that is, He feels and acts toward him in grace, not according to justice, but in outflowing, unmerited love, pardoning all his sins. That is the Gospel message—a loving Father, through an atoning Saviour, offers pardon to every soul that will accept it.
III. ‘The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee and give thee peace!’—This seems to refer to the favourable attitude and expression of some superiority in authority, to whom a suppliant looks. The head is frankly and kindly lifted up, the eyes look with favour and kind consent into the eyes of the suppliant, and the suppliant’s heart is given peace.
Protection, pardon, peace; these are the three Gospel gifts to believers. ‘So,’ says the record, ‘shall they put My name upon the Children of Israel, and I will bless them.’ The love of God the Father, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, are offered and promised to every soul that will accept them. Christianity is, therefore, first of all, not a system of doctrine, but an experience of soul. All our great teachers have begun with such experiences. As in the days of the early Church, when St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. John spake that which they knew, so to-day missioners and evangelists are enabled for effective service by an experience of God’s blessing them, making His face to shine upon them, lifting up His countenance upon them, and their accepting His offers of protection, pardon, and peace. Every sinner needs such an experience, and every one may have it. There are no exceptions. And every believer needs to renew such experiences continually. They are the basis of true religion.
Illustration
(1) ‘Our High Priest still speaks this benediction: what if we cannot see or hear? Is His intercession any the less real? And should we not bow believingly beneath those Hands of Blessing, and say “Amen. Let it be”? The blessing spoken there becomes actual here, according to the simple believingness of our response. So, morning by morning, let faith listen as He says, “The Lord bless thee and keep thee,” etc., ever answering with its confident, “Yea, Lord, so shall it be.” And, when our faith really cries “Amen” to His prayer, what is there in earth, or hell, or self, to hinder the answer! Then day by day let me listen to His praying, and respond with my believing “Amen.” ’
(2) ‘The Gospel has revealed to us the Trinity—Father, Son, and Spirit. And we are taught that we may count on keeping, because God is our Father; that we may count on grace, because Jesus is full of it; and we may count on peace, because the Holy Ghost brings us into communion with God. Jehovah bless thee and keep thee—that is the function of the Father; Jehovah cause his face to shine upon thee and be gracious to thee—that is the function of the Son; Jehovah lift up His countenance upon thee and give thee peace—that is the function of the Holy Spirit. And it is in the Trinity, as revealed to us in its full radiance in the New Testament, that we get God’s answer to the dream and hope and passion of the Old Testament.’