3371. Two Choice Benedictions

A Sermon Published On Thursday, September 11, 1913.

“Speak to Aaron and to his sons, saying, ‘In this way you shall bless the children of Israel, saying to them, "The Lord bless you, and keep you: the Lord make his face to shine on you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance on you, and give you peace." And they shall put my name on the children of Israel; and I will bless them.’” {Nu 6:23-27}

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen. {2Co 13:14}

For other sermons on this text:

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2170, “Blessing of the High Priest, The” 2171}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3371, “Two Choice Benedictions” 3373}

   {See Spurgeon_SermonTexts "Nu 6:24"}

   {See Spurgeon_SermonTexts "Nu 6:25"}

   {See Spurgeon_SermonTexts "Nu 6:26"}

   {See Spurgeon_SermonTexts "Nu 6:27"}

1. It seemed to me that, since this was the last of the Thursday evenings of the dying year, and I should meet some of you, who only come here on Thursday evenings, no more during this year, it would be good for us to close the year as our Master closed his life on earth, with a benediction; and, oh! it will be a rich enjoyment in the year to come if, by God’s grace, we shall be able to grasp and make our very own the precious things which are presented here to the whole redeemed family of the living God.

2. I. I shall begin, therefore, first of all with: — THE AARONIC BLESSING.

3. This was pronounced at the close of the public tabernacle service, when the people were about to separate from each other. It is said by the Rabbis to have been only spoken at the morning sacrifice, and not in the evening; because, some say, the old faith of the few gave them the early blessing. But it remained for Christ to come in the evening of the world, at the end of time, to give us the evening blessing, the blessing of the great, eternal, evening sacrifice.

4. It is worthy of notice that the word Jehovah, which is put in capital letters in our English version, occurs three times — three blessings — and each time the word has a different accent in the original Hebrew; and the Rabbis, although they did not know the meaning of it, or pretended not to know, yet all agree that there is some significant mystery in it. The word would not be accented so differently, unless there were some different shade of meaning intended. I believe we have here the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. “The Lord bless you and keep you.” Is that the blessing of the Father? “The Lord make his face to shine on you, and be gracious to you.” Is that the blessing of the Son? “The Lord lift up his countenance on you, and give you peace.” Is that the blessing of the great forgiving Holy Spirit? I think it is very likely; at any rate, this threefold blessing from the Jehovah, whose name is mentioned three times, may direct our thoughts to the glorious Trinity, the Trinity in Unity, whom we cannot understand, but on whom our faith rests, and in whom our love finds delight and repose.

5. Let us look at these three blessings. “The Lord bless you and keep you.” When we bless God there is nothing more than well-saying and well-wishing; but when God blesses us, it is well-doing. We cannot bless God in the sense of giving to him so as to add to his riches or to his glory, for he is the infinitely great, the inconceivably glorious, and nothing that we can do can add to him. We can only bless him by expressing our thanks to him, paying to him our reverent love. “The Lord lives, and blessed be my Rock.” “Blessed be the name of the Lord from the rising of the sun, to the going down of the same.” But when God blesses us, I say, it is well-doing. He blesses us in our very creation, and much more in our new creation. It is a blessed thing to be born, but a much more blessed thing to be born again. He blesses us in our food, and much more in giving us Christ, who is the bread to keep alive and nourish our soul’s best life. We are blessed in being clothed, but infinitely more blessed in being wrapped around in the righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a blessing to be a member of a kind, loving, happy family; but it is an unspeakable blessing to be a member of the family of Christ, and adopted into the family of God.

6. What a blessing it is, my brothers and sisters, to have sin pardoned, to have righteousness imputed, to have sanctification worked in us, in short, to enjoy all the privileges and blessings of the new covenant! Now, I think, some of us can say, “God has blessed us, oh! how richly.” Blessed us sometimes when we did not perceive the blessing, for many of God’s mercies come, as it were, in at the backdoor of our house. We do not see the mercies; and when we do, we are too often ungrateful, and forget them. What blessings we have received in trouble — in deliverance from trouble — in sustaining us in it. Oh! what blessings have we not had! Some of you, perhaps, have had very remarkable mercies during the year. Now, while the blessing is pronounced, “The Lord bless you,” let your reply be, “The Lord has blessed me,” and this will encourage you to expect that he will continue to do the same. And what blessings, my dear friends, may we hope will be in store for us during the coming year? Many troubles, I have no doubt, are in store for us. If we were to have a telescope here this evening, and we could look through it and see the future, those would be very foolish who looked. He would be the wise man who said: — 

   This will set any heart at rest;

   What my God appoints is best.

For if that telescope were here, and you were trying to look through it, you would be sure to breathe on the lens with your hot breath, and in your anxiety you would see nothing but clouds and darkness; whereas, very likely, there would be nothing of the kind there. Leave that matter with your God. The future, though it may possibly have trial and trouble, will still be blessed if you are God’s servant. One thing there is of which you can be quite confident: he has said, “I will never leave you, nor forsake you.” Another thing will also be fulfilled, “As your days, so shall your strength be.” You are very poor, are you? Yet, at any rate, no one can rob you of this assurance, “Your bread shall be given to you: your water shall be sure.” If you are fearing many trials, this promise is your special fortifying, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you: when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned: neither shall the flame kindle on you.” You have God’s word for it, “Do not fear, for I am with you: do not be dismayed, for I am your God.” If, during the next year, it is appointed to you to die, you may still say, “Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” “The Lord bless you.” As I say that to each believer here, knowing that the Lord will so bless you, may your soul look forward not with dread, but with hope. “The Lord bless you” was the wish of the priest under the old law, and it is always the nature of God to confirm what he tells his servants to desire. “The Lord bless you.”

7. Now, observe the blessing which is said to spring out of that, “The Lord bless you, and keep you.” And it is a great mercy to be kept by God. Where should we be if he did not keep us in a moral and spiritual point of view, indeed, and in a natural point of view, too? It is God who keeps our lives from death, and our bodies from perishing. Perhaps, during the past year, some of you have been kept when in storms at sea, or when you have been on a railway, or when you have passed through places infected with disease. It is a great privilege to hear the Lord say “he will give his angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways: they shall bear you up in their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone.” The Lord has blessed us and kept us in that sense during the past year. Oh! brethren, what a privilege to be kept from falling into sin! He is poorly kept who is his own keeper; he is worse kept who has his brother for his keeper; but he is splendidly kept who has God to be his shield on his right hand, his glory, and his defence.

8. During the past year we have seen some high professors put out like candles, and the foul odour of their fall has filled the church with nausea and depression. We have known some who were like bright stars, that have turned out to be only meteors, and their once dazzling brilliance has suddenly died out in greater gloom. Why are we still kept? We have had enough temptation to cast us down, enough tinder here, inside our hearts, to have made a great blaze; how is it we are still unburned, and walking in the paths of righteousness?

9. Must we not say, “The Lord has blessed us, and kept us?” Let us, then, without reserve, commit our souls to him for the future. Let us not imagine that we shall not fall. Oh! that is a thought that is very apt to twine itself around us, like a serpent. “I am not so giddy as some people; I am not at all likely to do what some young people have done, and get into this sin, and that sin. I have had so much experience, I shall be able to stand.” That is the very man who is likely to fall. We are never so weak as when we think we are strong, and never so strong as when we know we are weak, and look beyond ourselves to our God. Do not trust in yourself, then. There would not be such a supplication as “The Lord bless you and keep you,” if you did not need keeping. Trust in God for your help. If you fear temptation, let this be your prayer, “Do not lead us into temptation,” and if you trust in God, you will pray, “Deliver us from evil.” You will be tempted during the year that is soon coming; but he will, with the temptation, also make a way of escape. He will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able to bear. You shall go through the wilderness leaning on your Beloved, and you shall not slip, though the way is ever so smooth, nor trip, though the road is ever so rough. You shall be upheld, for God is able to hold up in perfect safety those who rely on him. “The Lord bless you and keep you.” Holy Father, we breathe the prayer to you as we read this blessing, pronounce it on us now by the mouth of your own dear Son, and let us now and until life’s latest hour be kept by the power of God through faith to salvation.

10. Now, take the next blessing bestowed, through Aaron, on the people. “The Lord make his face to shine on you, and be gracious to you.” I understand by the expression, “The Lord make his face to shine on you,” his being completely reconciled to us. As they would say in the Hebrew, a man’s face frowned, his countenance fell, when he was at enmity or angry with another; but when he was his friend, and congenial towards him, then his face revealed it, it began to beam or shine. Now, this is the blessing of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is through him that God’s face is made to shine on us. The Lord would have no favourable regard towards a sinner as such, while his sins still lay on him because of impenitence and lack of faith. The Lord’s love might come to him as an elect creature, but viewing him merely as a sinner, he must be the subject of divine disapproval.

11. But when the sinner is washed in the blood of Christ, when the sinner is justified through the righteousness of Jesus, then the Lord looks on him with pleasure. That very man who was an heir of wrath becomes a child of love; and he who must have been driven from God’s presence with “Depart, you cursed,” is established in Christ’s heart with “Come, you blessed.” Now, dear friends, I hope many of us have already received, during the past year, this great blessing, “The Lord make his face to shine on you.” Do you not feel that you have tonight to look up to God, and do not feel any fear? You know that he is not frowning on you. He is reconciled to you; you are reconciled to him. You may say, “Behold, oh God, our shield, and look at the face of your anointed”; and you are persuaded that as God looks at Christ, and on you in Christ, you are well beloved in him. Well now, as it has been, so it shall be; for if God once makes his face to shine in the sense of his favour, he never takes that favour away. You may not see it; you may think he is angry with you, and in another sense he may be; but legally, and so far as concerns the law and its power of condemnation, there is not a single thought of anger in the mind, or feeling of displeasure in the heart of God towards any one of those who rest in Jesus.

12. You are accepted in the Beloved. God sees no sin in Jacob, neither iniquity in Israel. As he looks at them in his Son, he sees them without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing.

13. “The Lord make his face to shine on you.” Well, and what springs out of that? Why this, “and be gracious to you.” Because God is so favourable towards us through his dear Son, grace comes to us. And what a great, all-comprehending word is that! Grace! It has many meanings, and includes a whole universe of blessing. Grace: it is the free and undeserved favour of God; grace: it is the mighty operation of that favour, effectively working in those who believe; grace: it is what enlightens us to see our lost state: what leads us to see the all-sufficiency of Christ; grace: this works faith in us, gives us love for God: this creates our hope, this carries on the work within our souls, and this completes it, too. Grace: it is a term so comprehensive that I should need this whole evening, indeed, and longer too, to enumerate the mighty catalogue comprised and packed, as it were, in this golden chest of the word grace. “The Lord be gracious to you.” Well, now, beloved, he has been gracious to us in the past. Oh! the grace of God to me!

   Oh! to grace how great a debtor,

   Daily I’m constrained to be!

14. Can you say the same? Look at what a sinner you have been, and yet how favoured. Look at your backslidings; look at your ingratitude, and yet his mercy does not cease.

   “Oh! to grace how great a debtor!”

Let your hearts say it, if your lips do not. And now, beloved, he will be gracious to you in the future, as he has been in the past. Every mercy received is a pledge of mercies yet to come. He knew what he was doing when he began with us, and therefore he will not stop. If he had meant to destroy us, he would not have shown us such things as these. The great Master Worker would not have built the house so far if he did not intend to finish it. All his previous grace and glory will be wasted, and evaporate, if he should not complete his redeeming work. Therefore, I am sure, that after advancing so far with his glorious purpose, he will finish it, and if needs be, in the teeth of men and demons. He has begun, and his right arm, which always goes with his grace, will surely carry it through to the end. “The Lord make his face to shine on you, and be gracious to you.”

15. But now, thirdly, “The Lord lift up his countenance on you, and give you peace.” Is this the voice of the Holy Spirit? Whether it is so or not, does not greatly matter to us tonight. “The Lord lift up his countenance on you.” Does this not mean, “The Lord give you a conscious, a delightful sense of his favour”? Wishing to see a difference — I will not insist on it — wishing to see a difference, I put the second blessing as meaning God’s being reconciled; but the third blessing as meaning God revealing that reconciliation and giving his children the enjoyment of his favour. Now, God’s people do not always have this; it is not always sunshine. “The evening and the morning were the first day,” and there is evening as well as morning in the day of God’s people. God always loves his people; but his people do not always know it. Because of their sins, they do not always enjoy it. Oh! what a blessing it is when the Holy Spirit sheds abroad the love of God in the soul; when we can say, “Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ”; when we get out of these mists and fogs, and can see the sun once more shining clear and bright, beloved, it is heaven on earth; it is the true foretaste of heaven above, when the Lord lifts up his countenance on you. I have no doubt the original allusion is to a father whose child has done wrong, and he says, “Now, sir, get out of my sight, you have grieved and vexed me; you shall not see my face.” The child goes upstairs to bed — anywhere out of his father’s sight. And after a while, when the father hears he has been penitent, and sees his tears, he smiles again on him, gives him a kiss and presses him to his heart. May God the Holy Spirit give us just that! May every one of us have it! Some of us have had it during the past year. We grieve to confess that we did backslide, but when we returned again we found him just as willing to receive us as at the first, and he lifted up his countenance on us once again. We said, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation,” and he did so. We asked him to take away his wrath from us, and we found that “his anger is only for a moment.” When weeping came to us for a night, joy appeared in the morning. It will be just the same with us during the next year. If we transgress and repent, and return to him, we have an actual promise that he will forgive us. Now, what does the text say? “The Lord lift up his countenance on you, and give you peace.” There is no peace like the peace which we have with God, and no peace with God like what comes from a sense of his assured love. And belief in Christ for the pardon of sin gives us the blessing of non-condemnation. “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” But this sense of non-condemnation may sometimes be destroyed through weakness of faith. We may be brought very low, and our peace may be disturbed, but when we come back again to the cross, and look once more to him who died there, he is our peace, and we see in him that our peace is made with God, and then our peace becomes like a river, and our righteousness like the waves of the sea. I think it would be impossible for me to describe peace. You must feel it to know it. Peace with God is like that gleaming of the sun we sometimes see after a heavy shower of rain. With the thunder and lightning it seemed as if heaven would be torn in pieces, and all the earth shaken, and then, suddenly, it is all over, and the sun shines out. There is a rainbow, with its many colours, on the clouds, and all the flowers lift up their drooping heads, each one loaded with a gleaming blessing, and all the earth fragrant and smiling, and seeming to exude the incense of gratitude. Now, after the storm of the conviction of sin, when the Spirit of God comes, it is as quiet and peaceful as that; and after a storm of trouble — and I know what that means — after a hurricane of trial, we can take all our distresses and cares and lay them down at God’s feet, and feel that we need not care about them any more.

16. But if my Father did not undertake them, I would not, for I cannot. He has promised he will, if I cast my cares on him. You sometimes walk out of this place when God has blessed your soul, and feel, “Now, I do not know what may happen, and really I do not care what does. My heart is resting on my God: I have left it all to him, and I am sure it will be alright, whatever may come.” Like Jonah, you may lose your gourd, but you cannot lose your God. You may see dark weather before you, but still you can go to him who cannot fail you, and there your soul shall have repose. Now, that is the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, and therefore it must surpass all expression. The peace of God which can only be known by the man who enjoys it — a peace which the world does not give, and cannot destroy, but which heaven itself can work in the soul. Now, may we have this blessing, “The Lord lift up his countenance on you, and give you peace.”

17. If we stopped here tonight, and went no further, provided we got these blessings and fed on them, it would be quite enough. Let me just read that text again clearly. “The Lord bless” — now the next word is the very pith of it, and let it be read now to each one of you, my good sisters and brothers, you who are young in years and young in grace, never mind who it is, as long as you are resting on Christ — Jesus, the great High Priest, speaks from the eternal glory, and he says, “The Lord bless you.” “Oh! but I do not deserve it.” Just so; but “the Lord bless you.” “I am so unworthy, I am so backsliding.” Yes, but the Lord Jesus Christ knows all this, covers it all. We will read it, then: “The Lord bless you — you, and keep you: the Lord make his face to shine on you, and be gracious to you: the Lord lift up his countenance on you, and give you peace.” Oh! have you gotten that worked into your very hearts? It will be like a bundle of myrrh that you may keep in your heart, and it will sweeten your soul the whole year round, making you to know that you are blessed in, and by the Lord who made heaven and earth.

18. II. Now, I shall ask your attention for a little while to the second blessing, that spoken in God’s name by the apostle Paul, in the second Epistle to the Corinthians. “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.” Here we have: — THE NEW TESTAMENT BENEDICTION.

19. This second blessing is precisely like the first as for its essence and substance, But there is a little difference concerning the expression and circumstance. The first thing that strikes me in reading it through, as it almost always does when I pronounce it, is this: you notice it begins with the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus is the second person of the blessed divine unity — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but this benediction begins with the Son of God. Why is that? In the order of doctrine and fact, all infinite blessings begin with the Father. He is the fountain-head of creation; he is the fountain, Christ the channel, and the Holy Spirit produces the grand results. Father first, Son next, Spirit third. But in the order of experience — the order in which the blessing comes — it is always the Son first. “No man comes to the Father but by me.” Not the Father first, but the Son first. What a sinner learns to comfort him first, is not that the Father loves him. No. He learns first of all that Jesus Christ died for sinners, because God loves him, and so he puts his trust in him. The first thing a poor believer gets, then, is grace through Jesus Christ. After that, perhaps, he may sometimes think that God the Father has no love towards him; but as he begins to read his Bible, and to experience more of grace in his heart, he finds that God the Father is full of love. So, then, he goes on and gets the love of God the Father, and when he knows this, perhaps he often wonders what communion and fellowship may be like. And when he hears some of those delightful hymns which we sing at the Lord’s Supper he thinks he shall never get to them — to talk with God, to have communion with Christ: but, eventually, as the Lord leads him on from being a babe, he grows to be a man, and he gets into communion with the Holy Spirit. Babes in grace know “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,” but as they grow they discover “the love of God our Father,” and as they grow even more they come to “the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.” The three things are put in the order of experience, not in the order of fact, nor the order of doctrine.

20. Having noticed that, just observe the three blessings as they come. “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.” You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, “though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might be made rich.” You know his great poverty: you know his great grace which brought him from those starry heavens to lie in a manger, to live in obscurity for thirty-three years, and to die on the cross in pains that cannot be described. Now, grace comes to us through Christ, and therefore it is said “by his grace.” He is the golden pipe through which it all flows. Believing in him, we receive the mercy of God. Coming through him to the mercy seat, we obtain unnumbered favours, by virtue of our union with him. Just as the branch derives sap, and from there fruit from the vine, so we derive grace from him. He is to us the channel of all the good gifts of our heavenly Father. “May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.” Be with you all — it is not in the singular; it is not to each one; it is “with you all,” because the genius of the gospel is expansive. You notice the Redeemer’s prayer. It is not my Father; no, but “our Father who is in heaven” And the gospel’s benediction, though it is personal — blessed be God for that — yet it is also expansive — “be with you all.” We are to think of all our brothers and sisters; when we get a blessing, we are to look at ourselves as part of the divine family. When we come together to break bread, each one of us do not come there all by ourselves — though it would be the Lord’s Supper if only one man were there — but we come there in humble fellowship with each other. “Eat, drink all of this,” said Christ; “take, eat, this is my body.” He would have all his disciples come there and partake; and so with this blessing of the grace of Jesus Christ: may it be with all of you.

21. Has it been with us all during the past year? There are not so many here tonight as usual; may I, therefore, ask the question of each one personally? Has it been with you — and you — and you? Have you, my hearers, known daily the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ? Have you stood by faith at the foot of the cross, and felt that you rested your all on him? If so, I know you possess his grace. It is he who has given you power to trust him entirely and absolutely. All the grace there is in his great heart and mind belongs to you.

   Plenteous grace with him is found,

      Grace to cover all our sins;

   May the healing streams abound,

      Make and keep us pure within.

May it be with all of you!

22. Next comes “the love of the Father.” It is from the love of God that everything blessed and blessing springs. We must not imagine that Jesus Christ died to induce his Father to love us — that is a very foolish and pernicious idea. God the Eternal Father always loved his people, and Christ has removed the sin which restrained the shinings of the most glorious displays of that love; but he loved before Christ died. You know you can boast: — 

   ’Twas not to make the Father’s love

      Towards his people sure,

   That Jesus came from realms above;

      ’Twas not the pangs he bore

         That God’s eternal love procured,

      For God was Love before.

23. That fountain sprung up eternally. It was a well that needed no digging. Oh! dear friends, I trust we know what the love of God means. Has it not been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us? We shall know it in years to come, for where it once takes possession it never departs. Once in Christ, in Christ for ever. In Christ’s love you have begun a banquet which will never end. “May the love of God be with all of you,” is meant for all God’s people. But is that love present with everyone who is here? If you have not tasted God’s love, you do not know what life, true life, means. The richest, the most celestial, the most transporting joy that mortal mind can know, is a full assurance of the love of God. Dear hearer, do you love Christ? Can you answer the question, “Simon, son of Jonas, do you love me?” Then, if you have love for Christ, pure and true love and trust, if it is the fruit of God’s love for you, then be of good cheer. May the love of the Father be with you all your days!

24. Then comes “the communion of the Holy Ghost.” [[A very ugly word that — “Ghost.” A better translation of the original Greek word would be “Spirit.” “Holy Spirit,” and I sometimes wish that we always called him by that name. It is far more expressive. The word “ghost” bears such a strange and weird meaning now, that it would be better in this context to entirely abandon it.]] {a} The word “communion” means, not only the Holy Spirit coming to us and having conversation with us, but communion means co-partnership. When the churches in Macedonia made a collection for the poor church in Judea, Paul called the collection “communion,” because by means of giving money to the church in Judea they had a fellowship, something like the having of all things common — that is, the perfection of fellowship.

25. Now, the Holy Spirit, if I may use the expression, has all things common with God’s people. He gives to them all things. “He shall lead you into truth.” What the Spirit knows and teaches us, we are able to bear. He knows the mind of God. He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. He permits us to participate in all that he possesses. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of peace. He gives us peace. He is the spirit of holiness and sanctification; rather, he is the spirit of light; he kindles light in our souls. He is a sacred fire; he baptized the church in fire. Everything that the Holy Spirit is and has, he is and has for the church of God, and in common with the church of God. Now, what an unspeakable blessing this is, to enter into a sacred co-partnership with God the Holy Spirit; to talk with him, to live with him; to feast with him; to have him to be ours, and for us to be his! Now, may such a communion as this be with us! I question whether we have ever arrived at the fulness of this. I think I told you the other evening the story of a good woman, who was a little distressed in her mind, and who, in reading the passage, “Your Maker is your husband,” said, “Now, I will not be distressed any longer; when my husband was alive, I took care to live up to my income, and now I will take care to live up to my heavenly husband’s income.” Oh! I wish to get hold of living up to God’s income, for all he has is given to his people. What rich lives we should have if we were to participate in all that he has. We should be continually feeling his power in our souls. Have we done this? May each one of you say, “Lord, allow me to know the communion of the Holy Spirit all my days, until I shall be taken up to dwell where God reveals himself without a veil between!”

26. Now, in closing, you see the difference between the two benedictions is this — the second blessing is really exhibited, the first a little veiled; something like Moses, when his face was too bright for the people to look at, he put a veil on his face. So the blessing Aaron pronounced is not so distinct or clear as the apostolic blessing. Note, again, that the blessings in the second benediction are deeper; they are traced up to their source in the Triune Godhead, “grace, love, and communion.” The one is a deep, the other a great deep. Note, yet again, that they are wider. The blessings of the Old Testament are individual and personal; to “you” the blessings in the Old Testament are to the Corinthian church and to all the churches, “with all of you.”

27. In the first case there was a confirmation, and in the second case there is one also — “Amen,” which is the divine confirmation of this benediction.

28. But I notice in the apostolic benediction there is one thing which there is not in the first, namely, the communion; that is, the privilege — the privilege which comes to a child of God in this age of bliss, when Christ is fully revealed. Did you ever notice that, when John was born, an angel appeared to his father, Zacharias, to announce that Christ was coming? No sooner did that bell begin to ring to tell that Christ was coming, than what happened? The greatest blessing was about to be pronounced, and therefore the smaller blessing had to be silenced. When Zacharias came out, he was expected to bless the people, but what did he do? He could not speak a word; he was speechless, and he beckoned with the hand, and that morning the assembly went home without the benediction. The priest could not pronounce it. Now, I dare say they said to each other, “What a strange thing it was; we always had that benediction before, ‘The Lord bless you, and keep you,’ but this morning the priest could not speak a word.” You and I know what that means. We need to silence that one, because there is a better coming. God seemed, as it were, to give notice to his people, “I am about to hush the voice of Aaron because Melchizedek is coming; I am about to silence the sound of the symbolic, because the real Priest is coming: I am about to hush the voice of Zacharias, because the Son of God is now to appear and declare that the fullest blessing of Jehovah will rest on his people.”

29. Now, let us go our ways tonight, guided home, I trust, safely and rightly, and let us feed on and make our soul’s bread the two precious texts that have been before us: and I know that you will be like those who went out to gather the manna — you shall each have sufficient. He who needs much shall have an abundance, and he who requires little shall have no lack. Let us close by singing the benediction, and go our way to turn all life into a song of gratitude for God’s rich blessings. Amen.

{a} Spurgeon’s comments in [[ … ]] do not apply since the sermon editor has consistently changed “Holy Spirit” to “Holy Spirit” throughout the entire sermon set.

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