The Christian Benediction
THE CHRISTIAN BENEDICTION
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all.”—2 Corinthians 13:14.
This threefold invocation is familiarly known as the Christian Benediction. The Old Testament form of blessing was authorised to be used in the assemblies of Israel, but there is nothing to indicate that these words were ever intended for regular use in the gatherings of the Christian Church. They have been chosen for universal use because of their appropriateness; for they are both a confession of the Christian faith, and a declaration of Christian privilege. The Benediction of the New Covenant marks a great advance upon that of the Old. “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto Aaron and unto his sons, saying, On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel; ye shall say unto them:
“The Lord bless thee and keep thee:
“The Lord make His face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:
“The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace:
“So shall they put my name upon the children of Israel; and I will bless them.”
In that Name put upon the children of Israel, everything is omitted that makes the Name of God distinctively Christian. There is no mention of the Divine Fatherhood, the Divine Son, or the Divine Spirit. Neither is there any mention of the love of God, the grace of Christ, or the communion of the Holy Ghost. It conveys no sense of nearness, but gives the impression that God is remote, transcendental, and majestic, who graciously condescends to bless Israel His people. The Christian Benediction brings God near in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost. It sets forth,—
I. The Christian Doctrine of God.
II. The Christian Realisation of God.
III. The Christian Manifestation of God.
I
The revelation of God was necessarily a slow development. To gird at the imperfections and limitations of the Old Testament is to misunderstand the nature of the revelation, and to ignore the only possible method of education. The revelation was to the consciousness of the Nation, and had to be accommodated to the moral and spiritual capacity of the people. The coming of Christ waited for the fulness of time, and as with Christ, so with truth. The God of discrimination sent forth His light and truth as men were prepared to receive it. There are those who cannot understand why the Sermon on the Mount was not preached at Sinai, and why the world was kept waiting for ages for the Gospel of Christ. They are perplexed because the Scriptures represent God associated with things that shock our moral sense, and forget that the revelation of God came through the troubled history of an ancient people. God could only reveal as they were able to bear. Even Jesus had to close His ministry with many things unspoken, because the disciples could not receive them. The history of Israel is virtually the history of the educational process, by which they came to the knowledge of God. He declared Himself in mighty deeds rather than in words; through long ages He chastened them, and sent His prophets to interpret His name through their experience. Thus, slowly and through much tribulation, they came to know the Lord.
The first thing to be learned was the falseness of Polytheism and Idolatry. They came out from a land that worshipped an elaborate system of deities, and were surrounded by worshippers of false gods. The heathen multiplied gods according to their fears. The snare of Israel was idolatry. Every new crisis renewed the temptation to establish deities like other nations. An invisible God lacked location and tangibility. Spiritual worship makes demands of a high order on the intelligence and moral powers of the worshipper, and it is not surprising that Israel was so ready to lapse into the worship of idols. The one great declaration to the delivered people, therefore, was, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.” The two first commandments aimed at the preservation of the people from false gods and idolatry. “I am the Lord thy God … Thou shalt have none other gods beside Me. Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor the likeness of any form that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them nor serve them.” It took Israel thousands of years to learn the lesson of those two commandments. The one great truth of the Old Testament revelation is the unity of God.
When this was achieved, there came into view indications of distinctions within the one God. The use of the plural pronoun may not be a conclusive argument, but taken in conjunction with other considerations it is at least significant and suggestive. In Isaiah’s vision it would be hazardous to base a doctrine of primary importance upon the Seraphim’s threefold ascription of praise, but when the cleansed soul of the Prophet hears “the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?”, it is calculated to provoke inquiry as to the meaning of the change from the singular to the plural number. Still more suggestive is the presence in the Old Testament of a Godlike being, distinct from Jehovah, to whom is attributed the qualities and operations of Divinity. The Angel of Jehovah, the Son of God, and the Divine Wisdom have each the attributes of God. These are glimmerings of the fuller revelation, but their meaning was not known till they were interpreted in the light of Christian truth. Every Old Testament saint was Unitarian.
The Christian revelation comes to us through Jesus Christ. The communication of the truth concerning God is no longer confined to the prompting of men’s minds, but is revealed in the Person of the Son of God. He came to reveal the Father, and declared that only He could reveal Him. At the close of His ministry He claimed to have accomplished His Mission. He said to Philip, “He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father”; and to God He said, “I glorified Thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which Thou hast given Me to do.… I manifested Thy Name … and I made known unto them Thy Name.” That manifestation involves a Trinity of Persons in the One God. The word Trinity is not found in the Scriptures, nor is the doctrine of the Trinity formally stated. The Scriptures do not systematise doctrine; they furnish data and leave the work of systematising to others. But the Trinity lies at the foundation of all New Testament teaching. Jesus claimed to be equal with God, and spoke of the Spirit as Personal and Divine, and yet there are not three Gods, but One. The Apostles everywhere proclaim His doctrine, and recognise the threefold distinction in the Persons of the One God. The equal Deity of the Son and Spirit with the Father is the mystery and the glory of the Gospel they preach.
The Benediction stands closely linked with the Baptism of Jesus and the Baptismal formula He gave to His disciples.
John the Baptist came preaching repentance toward God, faith in a Coming One who should take away the sin of the world, and in the Holy Ghost who should be given by the Son of God. When Jesus came to be baptized of him in Jordan, S. John recognised Him as “the Son of God,” by the Spirit descending and abiding upon Him. At the same moment the Father bare witness, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The Father gave, and the Son received the Holy Ghost. The Father in the Heavens declared the Divine Sonship of the Christ, and the Spirit proceeding from the Father to the Son, afterward to be also the gift of the Son, is equally a Person, and equally Divine with the Father and the Son.
Christ’s reception of the Spirit was the call and equipment of God for His Messianic ministry. As He was sent, so He sends. “As the Father hath sent Me, even so send I you. And when He had said this, He breathed on them and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” “All authority hath been given unto Me in Heaven and on earth. Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.” Baptism into the Name means baptism unto God, and the Name of God in the new covenant is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. This is the culmination of Christ’s teaching concerning God. He ordained it for all time to be the initiating confession of faith for all who would enter His kingdom. It is the formula with which all believers are to be received into the fellowship of Christ, and like all such formulæ it sets forth the fundamental doctrine of the Christian ecclesia. It is the basis of all Christian doctrine and the universal confession of the Christian faith. “I believe in God the Father … and in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord … I believe in the Holy Ghost.” Three Persons, One God.
In the Benediction S. Paul invokes the Trinity as the Source of Grace, Love, and Communion. Its unique features must not be overlooked. The order is unusual; and the Names used are unusual. He places the Son before the Father. He does not speak of them as Son, Father, and Spirit, but as the Lord Jesus Christ, God, and the Holy Ghost. The explanation of these things is found in the fact that this is not a Doxology, not primarily a confession of faith, but a Benediction. A Doxology is an ascription of praise; a Benediction is a word of blessing. One ascends from the heart of man to God, the other descends from God to man. Consequently the Benediction does not approach the subject from the standpoint of theology, but of experience. It is not concerned with definition, nor does it contemplate the glory of God in the absoluteness of His Deity, but it sets Him forth as He is realised in the soul. The process is in this order. We come to the knowledge of God through Jesus Christ, and the Spirit is the gift of both the Father and the Son. It is through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we come to the knowledge of the love of God, and it is by grace and love we enter into the life of communion with the Holy Ghost. No other order is possible. To sinful men there can be no love apart from grace, and fellowship is impossible without love. God is always revealed as He is involved in His relation to the world and the human race, and here He is revealed as He becomes known to the soul in the process of salvation through faith in His name. The Christian knows God only in and through the Man Christ Jesus. He thinks of God in the terms of Christ, comes to God through the grace of Christ, and lives in fellowship with God through the Spirit of Christ.
II
This Benediction sums up the blessings of Christian privilege in the three great words of the Gospel—Grace: Love: Communion.
These three gifts of God are attributed to different Persons in the Trinity. Grace is attributed to our Lord Jesus Christ, Love to God, and Communion to the Holy Ghost. There is a distinction of functions as well as of Persons in the Godhead. Each takes precedence in His own peculiar work, and there seem to be distinct limitations in the operation of each. We cannot trace the limits, and must be careful lest we divide to our hurt, and conceive of God as Three and not One. Each belongs to All. Grace is of God and of the Spirit as well as of the Son. Love is of the Son and of the Spirit as well as of the Father. Our communion is with the Father and the Son as well as with the Spirit. Grace, Love, and Communion are of the One God, as Father, Son, Spirit is the One Name of God. But in the economy of Redemption, Grace comes to us through Jesus, Love is of the Father, and Communion by the Holy Ghost. These distinctions interpret Christian experience, and are necessary to its existence.
“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The word grace is S. Paul’s token in every Epistle. Eight of them close with the Benediction, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you,” sometimes varying the form to “with your spirit.” The fuller Benediction is the development of what is involved in the abiding of grace. It leads to the consciousness of love and the life of communion; it is the great word of the Gospel of Christ. It is more than mercy and greater than love. Justice demands integrity, mercy is the ministry of pity, love seeks correspondence, appreciation and responsiveness, but grace demands no merit; it flows unrestrained and undeserved upon those who have no goodness to plead, and no claim to advance. Grace seeks the unfit and the unworthy. It is love, mercy, and compassion stretching out towards the guilty, ungracious and rebellious. It is the only hope for sinful men. If salvation come not by grace, it can never be ours. Without grace, there can be no reconciliation, no pardon, no peace. We are saved by grace. “God commendeth His own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Redemption originated in that disposition of the Divine mind. It was by the grace of God Jesus Christ tasted death for every man, and it is to the same grace every man owes his salvation. It begins in grace, is continued in grace, and is perfected in grace. At no stage is it of works; it is a gift of God, the outflowing of His grace.
In the New Testament use of the word it passes from an attribute of the Divine character to an active energy in the soul. At the Throne of Grace we “find grace to help us in time of need.” The heart is “stablished by grace,” and by grace “we may offer service well-pleasing to God.” It is in “the grace that is in Christ Jesus” that we find our strength, and we are assured of its sufficiency for endurance as well as for service “My grace is sufficient for thee.” We are commanded to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” These passages all speak of the Divine influence in the soul as the operation of grace, and regard that which has its source in the grace of God as the working power of salvation. Grace pardons the guilty, restores the fallen, delivers the captive, sanctifies the sinner, sustains and perfects the believer.
This grace is always connected with “our Lord Jesus Christ.” He is the manifestation of God, full of grace and truth. Grace is His glory. The love of God is revealed to men in the grace of Christ, and the grace of God will be for ever the grace of Christ. That is why His Name takes precedence in the form of blessing. It is by the grace He brings that every other gift of God becomes possible to men. Love is without meaning for us apart from grace, and fellowship is impossible without a basis of love. This is the reason also for the choice of the human and not the Divine name of our Lord. The manifestation of grace is through the Man Christ Jesus. It is made known to us in His life of sinless obedience, His ministry of compassion, His suffering and death. It is through the grace of God embodied and revealed in Christ that we come to the knowledge of the Father.
“And the love of God.” It does not invoke the love of the Father, but of God. He is contemplated in the completeness of His Being, and the Name is used which includes all relationships. The Christian revelation concerning Him is that He is Love. From everlasting to everlasting God is Love. Does not the fact of Eternal Love involve personal subjects and objects of love within the Godhead? Is it possible to conceive of love absolutely unrelated? It was Eternal Love that gave the gift of the Eternal Son. Love was behind grace, and grace made way for love. Christ brings us to the Father, and makes known to us the love of God. “Love could not flow to us save through the grace of atonement; and the grace of atonement could not flow to us save through the love of God.” Realisation of the love of God in the redeeming work of grace brings the conscious experience of the love of God to the soul. The love of God is shed abroad in the heart through the Holy Ghost. The general love of God for the world becomes through faith a personal and conscious possession. The barriers of the soul disappear, all sense of distance and alienation is lost, every shrinking fear and haunting dread is cast out, and the heart finds its rest and home in God. It is useless to attempt to define or describe the consciousness of love, for it passeth knowledge. It cannot be known except through personal experience. The secret of love is revealed only to love. Every one that receives the grace knows the love. “And we know and have believed the love which God hath in us. God is love; and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him.” Love is peculiarly attributed to God, as grace is associated with Jesus Christ, though it is of the love of Christ it is said that “it passeth knowledge,” and God is called the God of grace.
“And the communion of the Holy Ghost.” Grace leads to love, and love opens the way to communion. As grace is through Jesus Christ and love is of God, so communion is with the Holy Ghost. The Spirit is the gift of both the Father and the Son, and is Himself the Giver of each. “No man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit”; and if “the love of God hath been shed abroad in our hearts,” it is “through the Holy Ghost which was given unto us.” The Spirit is always revealed as the immediate Agent in the communication of God to the soul. It is He who convicts and converts, assures and inspires, equips and strengthens. In the Christian kingdom He is the Paraclete, who abides with us for ever. His abiding presence in the soul is the result of accepted grace and realised love. The end of Redemption is realised in conscious communion with God through the Holy Ghost.
Communion is a great word. It means Companionship, Partnership, Co-operation. Communion is heart to heart fellowship, where without speech soul blends with soul. Company does not make companionship, it is the subtle consciousness of affinity and mutual love that gives the sense of intimacy. But it is more than companionship. The word implies a common possession; a mutual proprietorship as well as mutual affection. The communion of the Holy Ghost means partnership with Him. We share with Him the things of God. We are joint-possessors with Him of the wisdom, power, and glory of God. He associates us in all things with Himself. Every resource of the Infinite He brings without reserve to the commonwealth of God. We are partners in the work of the Spirit as well as in His possessions. Salvation is the work of both man and God. Man works out his own salvation, but the Spirit works in him both the willing and the doing of the Divine good pleasure. The work of the kingdom is the united work of redeemed men and the Spirit of God. We are workers together with Him. He clothes Himself with men, takes possession of their powers, directs their energies, and through them works mightily in the world for the destruction of sin and the glory of Christ. He is with us in the secret experiences of the heart, our Companion, Helper, and Friend; we are with Him in the participation of every gift of God, and in active co-operation in the glorious work of salvation.
This is the Benediction of God to man: Grace, Love, Communion. Grace through Jesus Christ, love from God, and communion with the Holy Ghost. This is the order of the Divine process. Through Christ to God and through both to the abiding Presence of the Spirit; through grace to love, and through love to the life of Divine communion.
III
In what sense and to what end may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost be said to be with us? It cannot mean less than a conscious personal Presence. The invocation cannot seek grace, love, and communion as gifts apart from the Persons, in whom alone they are to be found. Neither grace, love, nor communion can have any reality apart from personality. We cannot give love and withhold ourselves; there cannot be communion without mutual exchange. The prayer cannot be for anything less than for the conscious presence of God in the soul. Jesus teaches that the Father, Son, and Spirit are all equally present in the soul of the believer. Speaking of the Spirit He says, “He abideth with you, and shall be in you”; of Himself and the Father He saith, “If a man love Me, he will keep My word: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him and make our abode with him.” The Personality is neither lost nor confused. They come distinctly as Father, Son, and Spirit, but One Lord. Jesus dwells in man the source of all grace, God abides in him the spring and perfection of all love, and the Holy Spirit communes with him and energises for all the will of God. Man is indwelt of the Triune God and dwells in Him.
What is the purpose of this Indwelling? It is by this Divine Presence in the soul that the work of man’s salvation is accomplished. God cannot save man from a distance. Salvation must come from within; and God, and Christ, and the Holy Spirit achieve man’s restoration to holiness and fellowship by coming and dwelling in his heart. Grace, love, and communion save from within. They bring provision for every need. Grace covers the whole area of sin. It pardons the past, and delivers the sinner from his sin. There is no habit or condition over which grace cannot prevail. The love of God assured to the soul meets every problem of Providence. Faith can always wait for love that is consciously assured. Communion with the Spirit brings every needful gift for service and for prayer. There is no want of the life, nor no hunger of the heart that is not met, in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost. If these abide with us, we shall never fail nor want for any good thing.
The purpose is more than personal. God dwells in men that they may become one with Himself: like Him in mind and heart, like Him in character and purpose, like Him in spirit and work. The Christian reflects his God. The qualities he finds in Him, he manifests in himself. The recipients of grace become “stewards of the manifold grace of God.” It is given for ministering as well as for perfecting. “God is able to make all grace abound unto you; that ye having always all-sufficiency in everything may abound unto every good work.” The grace by which Jesus Christ tasted death for every man is intended to produce a like spirit of sacrifice in us. Because He laid down His life for us, we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” If the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with us, it will work in us as it worked in Him. They that know the love of God must live the life of love. If we say the Love of God is with us and we walk contrary to love, we are liars, and know not the truth. The God of love dwells in us that we may live the life of Godlike love. So it is also with the communion of the Spirit. He does not share with us His riches that we may hoard them, or endue us with His power that we may spend it on ourselves. The companionship, partnership, and co-operation into which He brings us is intended to send us forth with like privileges to others. The threefold Benediction is to abide with us that its threefold grace may be manifested in us, and the presence of its Three-One God demonstrated through us. All are included in the blessing, and none are omitted from the purpose.
The Benediction defines the mission of the Church of God. It is a brotherhood by the grace of Christ, living in the love of God, and realising the spirit of communion in the Holy Ghost. Its symbol is a simple meal of commemoration, which celebrates the supreme act of grace and looks forward to its final triumph in the return of its Lord. It is a family gathering of the Brotherhood of Christ where all other considerations disappear. They dwell in the love of God, and from the beginning the reality of both the grace and love has been demonstrated in the spirit of loving and practical fellowship. Grace, love, and communion are the signs of the Divine Presence in the Christian Church.
The message of the Church to the world is the message of the Benediction. Its gospel is a gospel of grace to the lost; the burden of its message is the love of God; and it calls all men to the communion of the Spirit and the fellowship of them that believe. It brings its Good Tidings to the worthless and the unfit. Others preach the doctrine of self-righteousness and self-reliance; we preach a doctrine of grace which brings uttermost salvation to the uttermost sinners. Grace, Love, Fellowship! The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost; that is the Gospel and the power by which the world is to be restored and saved. Man finds his destiny in an Indwelling Divinity, and in the practice of the Divine qualities of Grace, Love, and Communion. This is man’s way to his destined divinity: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.