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Scripture Reading: Num. 6:22-27; 2 Cor. 13:14
In this message we come to a wonderful section of the book of Numbers — 6:22-27. These verses cover the matter of being blessed by God in His divine trinity.
This section on being blessed comes after the dealing with defilement, the test of suspicion, and the vow of the Nazarite. These three things are actually three steps. First, we must deal with anything that is defiling. Then we need to undergo the test related to suspicion. Following this, we should consecrate ourselves to the Lord by taking the vow of the Nazarite.
If we spend time to consider these three steps, we will realize that to serve the Lord and to fight for His kingdom are not shallow, small, or light matters. On the contrary, these matters are very deep, high, and profound. We must be up to the level of a Nazarite, one who overcomes natural affection, earthly pleasure, rebellion, and unexpected death. If we overcome these four things and stay away from them, we will be in a position to receive God Himself as our blessing.
After the record of the Nazarite vow, the Lord told Moses to tell Aaron and his sons — all the priests, who were so close to Him — to bless His people in the way of His divine trinity. Jehovah is the Triune God. As the Triune God, He dispenses Himself into us in His divinity and in His divine trinity. Without being triune, God could not dispense Himself into His chosen people as their blessing. The very blessing is God Himself dispensed into His chosen people. Although God desires to bless His chosen people in this way, they need to come up to a standard that matches His blessing.
The unique blessing in the whole universe is God Himself. Anything besides God is vanity. The entire universe was created by God, yet without God, apart from God, even the universe created by God is vanity. The existence of the universe is a great miracle, but without God the miraculous existence of the universe is vanity. Apart from God, everything is "vanity of vanities" (Eccl. 1:2). Only God Himself is real. Only He is the blessing to us. If we gained the entire universe yet missed God, we would be the most pitiful persons. History is filled with cases of people who gained many riches and many material things but who eventually realized that, without God, it was all vanity. God Himself is our blessing, and this blessing comes to us through the dispensing of the divine Being into us in His divine trinity — in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The traditional and even the basic theology concerning God's divine trinity does not have the view that the divine Trinity is for God to dispense Himself into us. This light has come to us only in the last thirty years.
Ephesians chapter one gives us a record of how the Triune God blesses His chosen, redeemed, and transformed people in His divine trinity. This chapter is mainly on the three steps of God's blessing us in His divine trinity, that is, on how He blesses us in the Father (vv. 3-6), in the Son (vv. 7-12), and in the Spirit (vv. 13-14). Eventually, because of such a flow of the divine Trinity as the blessing to God's chosen people, there is an issue, and the issue of this blessed flow is the church as the Body of Christ, the fullness of the One who fills all in all (vv. 22-23). The church as the Body of Christ is the total issue of the divine Trinity as a flow to dispense all that God is into His chosen people. The Body of Christ is the fullness, the totality, of the One who fills all in all.
Like Numbers, Revelation, the last book of the Bible, is also a book of numbers. This is true in a particular way concerning the description of the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem has twelve gates with the names of the twelve tribes (21:12), and twelve foundations with the names of the twelve apostles (v. 14). Furthermore, the tree of life bears twelve kinds of fruit (22:2). Among these twelves the Triune God is hidden, and even mingled, as His people's blessing.
The consummation of the record of the entire Bible is God the triune as the very particular and subjective blessing to His people. As the consummation of the entire record of the Bible, the New Jerusalem is just the very God in His divine trinity — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — wrapped up in the number twelve with His chosen, redeemed, and transformed people as their blessing. This blessing will last eternally. Such a blessing is the ultimate fulfillment of God's blessing to Israel in Numbers 6. Only when the New Jerusalem comes, will this blessing be completely fulfilled.
In the blessing in Numbers 6, "Jehovah bless you and keep you" (v. 24) is ascribed to the Father; "Jehovah make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you" (v. 25) is ascribed to the Son; and "Jehovah lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace" (v. 26) is ascribed to the Holy Spirit. The Father blesses us, the Son shines upon us, and the Holy Spirit lifts up His countenance upon us. As a result, we are kept, we receive grace, and we have peace.
Most of the Epistles of Paul open with a word concerning grace and peace. Grace is of the Son and peace is of the Spirit. Grace is somewhat objective. Peace is subjective; it is the result, the issue, of our enjoyment of grace. First we receive grace and then we enjoy peace. We receive grace in the Son and we enjoy peace in the Spirit.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, full of grace (John 1:1, 14). Of His fullness we have all received grace upon grace (John 1:16). Whereas the law was given through Moses, grace came through Jesus Christ (John 1:17). This grace is actually a person, Christ Himself. When we receive grace, the result is that we have peace. This peace is the pneumatic Christ, the Christ who is the life-giving Spirit becoming the Spirit of peace within us.
The blessing in Numbers 6 is neither an Old Testament blessing nor a New Testament blessing. Rather, it is the eternal blessing of the Triune God, which is the Triune God dispensing Himself in His divine trinity into us for our enjoyment. This is God's eternal blessing.
"Jehovah bless you" means that Jehovah gives Himself to you. However, God does not give Himself to us merely in an objective way like one brother giving a gift to another. God gives Himself to us in His trinity, step by step and little by little. If you were to ask me what blessing I have received from the Lord, I would answer, "The only blessing I have received from the Lord is my Triune God. My Triune God is my blessing."
Referring to the Father, Numbers 6:24 says, "Jehovah bless you and keep you." The Father blesses us in every way and in every aspect in His love (cf. Eph. 1:3), and He keeps us in every way and in every aspect in His power (cf. John 17:11, 15).
The blessing One keeps us. In Numbers 6:24 the word keep is of crucial importance. In John 17:11 the Lord Jesus prayed that the Father would keep us in His name. This is to keep us in the dispensing Triune God. While the Triune God is dispensing Himself into us, we are kept in the dispensing One. In John 17:15 the Lord Jesus went on to pray that the Father would keep us from the evil one. When we are kept in the dispensing Triune God, there is nothing left for the hand of the enemy. We should pray for the blessing of being kept absolutely in the dispensing Triune God and altogether outside of the evil one. What a blessing this is!
The second part of this blessing says, "Jehovah make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you" (Num. 6:25). In Luke 1:78, when the Lord Jesus was about to be born, Zachariah prophesied, "The rising sun from on high shall visit us." This rising sun is the Son in the divine Trinity. This implies God's incarnation to show Himself to us in a shining way. No one has ever seen God, but through His incarnation we have seen His face and have beheld His glory (John 1:14), and He has been shining upon us continually. Wherever He went, He was a great light shining upon the people sitting in darkness (Matt. 4:16), for He is the light of the world (John 8:12).
The word face in Numbers 6:25 signifies presence. As the One whose face shines upon us, Christ the Son is the visible presence of the invisible God. God and His presence are invisible, but through His incarnation He became the shining sun. This shining sun is God's invisible presence becoming visible. God's presence not only became visible — it was also shining. On the Mount of Transfiguration, some of the Lord's disciples beheld Him in His glory (2 Pet. 1:16-18; Matt. 17:1-2).
Numbers 6:25 speaks not only of Jehovah making His face to shine upon us, but also of Jehovah being gracious to us. These two points added together equal John 1:14, 16-17. God's incarnation was the shining of His presence. Along with this shining there was grace. "The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us..full of grace" (v. 14). The Lord is gracious to us; He has even become grace to us. For the Lord to be gracious to us means that He is continually grace to us. This grace is the grace of Christ (2 Cor. 13:14a), which is actually Christ Himself. When we have Christ, we have grace. The Triune God is altogether gracious to us. Day after day we enjoy Him as grace.
The third part of this blessing says, "Jehovah lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace" (Num. 6:26). In the blessing in Numbers 6 we have both the face and the countenance, and there is a difference between them. The face denotes the presence of the person, and the countenance denotes the expression of the person. To lift up your countenance upon a person means that you confirm, assure, promise, and give everything to that person. Jesus came as the face of God, and the Holy Spirit comes as the countenance of God. Ephesians 4:30 says, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God." If we grieve Him, His countenance will drop. If we obey Him, He will be happy with us, and He will lift up His countenance to confirm us, assure us, guarantee us, promise us, and give us everything.
The Father blesses, the Son shines, and the Holy Spirit lifts up His countenance. When the Triune God is dispensed into us, we have the face of the Triune God and also His countenance. He is happy with us, assuring us, confirming us, guaranteeing us, promising us, and giving us everything. Eventually, we are kept in the Triune God, the Triune God becomes grace to us every day, and we have peace.
In Numbers 6:23-26 there is no mention of material blessing. In these verses the Lord did not tell the children of Israel that He would bring them into the good land, that He would give each one of them a portion of the land, that He would keep them from famine and give them rain, that He would protect them from their enemies, and that He would cause them to flourish. The blessing here is not of such a nature.
What, then, is the blessing in Numbers 6? This blessing is the Triune God in His person as the Father, as the Son, and as the Spirit. In the Father we receive the blessing and are kept in the Triune God. In the Son we receive God's presence and enjoy Him as grace. In the Holy Spirit God's countenance is over us, and we enjoy peace day and night.
Second Corinthians 13:14 says, "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." The blessing here is actually the same as that in Numbers 6:23-26. The grace of the Lord is the Lord Himself as life to us for our enjoyment, the love of God is God Himself as the source of the grace of the Lord, and the fellowship of the Spirit is the Spirit Himself as the transmission of the grace of the Lord with the love of God for our participation.
In both Numbers 6:23-26 and 2 Corinthians 13:14 the blessing is not outward and material. The blessing here is not a matter of an excellent job, a nice house, a high education, and a good family life. Furthermore, this blessing is not related to having any kind of position in the church. Sometimes when we consider our situation, we may be disappointed and feel that we do not have anything. It may seem to us that everything under the sun and even everything in the spiritual field is vanity of vanities. We may feel that nothing is real, not even in the church life. What should we do when we feel this way? We should turn to the Triune God. He is our real blessing and portion. What a blessing it is to have Him as the blessing! What a blessing it is to have His face, His presence, and to enjoy Him daily as grace! The more we suffer, the more we enjoy Him as grace. What a blessing it is to have His countenance smiling upon us, assuring us, and confirming us! And what a blessing it is to have peace in Him, by Him, and with Him! This is the Triune God as our blessing. Oh, may the grace of Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all!
