Look at verse 22. This begins with the Lord speaking to Moses. This is the Son, who is always the mediator and the representative of the Father. He is the one who is the Word of God with a capital W. It is he, therefore, who speaks to Moses.
The Lord speaks to Moses, telling him to speak to Aaron and his sons. There is an important instruction here for the church. Aaron and his sons—the high priest, and his sons—the priests. They bless the people of God.
But the Lord doesn’t just give a general command to bless. He could have done that. He could have said, “Just bless the people generally,” but he doesn’t say just that. He tells Aaron and his sons to bless them in a specific way: “Thus you shall bless the people of Israel. You shall say this to them,” verse 23. And what follows is the specific blessing which Aaron and his sons are to put on the people.
This is a prayer, a specific prayer that is to be prayed. But it’s not just any prayer; it’s a prayer of blessing, what’s traditionally called “benediction,” which just means blessing. It’s a prayer that the people would be blessed, that they would be happy, that they would have the goodness of God upon them and all the favour of God upon them. Here we have an outlining of who the Lord is.
We can’t pass on someone’s blessing accurately if we don’t reflect who they really are. If the people were going to receive a true blessing, then, if what was said about the God who was blessing the people was false, it wouldn’t make sense. It would be like saying, “I’m writing a birthday card on behalf of my wife,” and I claimed in the birthday card that she really wanted you to go and buy yourself some peanut butter for your birthday.
That’s what she really wants! Really? Maybe not. I need to find out what she really wants if I’m going to represent her. And so, if Aaron and his sons are going to represent the living God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—then they’re going to need to give an accurate message from them, a blessing that accurately reflects who they are. And that’s what we get here.
It begins simply with verse 24: “The Lord bless you and keep you.” And again, these words are so familiar to us that we might let them wash over us and not really think about what they mean. But just that first phrase—”The Lord bless you”—is an absolutely massive theme in Scripture. It’s how the whole book of Psalms begins: “Blessed is the man.” It’s how the whole of the Sermon on the Mount begins: “Blessed are those,” otherwise translated as “Happy the man” or “Happy are those.”
And so, the whole prayer begins with a request that the Lord would bless the people, would cause his favour to be shown to them. Then we start to think, “Why has this blessing been divided into three? Is there significance to that?” We know from elsewhere in the Bible that there are three who are the Lord. We know that even from the first chapter of the Bible—the Word, and God, and the Spirit: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…
That is continually how the living God is revealed to us—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is one, as we know from elsewhere in the Bible, but we also know that God is three. This three-part blessing seems to suggest something of the three. Is it the case that each part of this blessing represents one person in the Trinity?
We begin with the Father, therefore, who Aaron and his sons are to pray that he would bless the people and keep the people. That’s how the Lord Jesus prayed in the Psalms, Psalm 17:8—”Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings,” as a fatherly role, keeping, hiding. Psalm 121 is similar: “The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.”
In that case, we’re worried that that’s not a specific role that the Father takes. The Lord Jesus confirmed to us in John 10 that the Father, who has given his people to him, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. It is the Father’s role of keeping the people.
Which leads us to the second blessing, which is, as we would assume rightly, the Son—the Lord Jesus, whom we now know as the Lord—”to make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.” So, David prayed in Psalm 4, “There are many who say, ‘Who will show us some good?’ Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord [Jehovah]”. Paul takes up this idea of grace being specific to the Lord Jesus, when he says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” So, it’s the grace that Jesus is specifically connected to.
Which leads us to the third blessing, which, as we would expect, if the first blessing is to do with the Father and the second blessing is to do with the Son, then the third blessing is to do with the Holy Spirit: “The Lord lift his countenance upon you and give you peace” (verse 26).
So here is the work of the Spirit particularly being connected to peace. And both Romans and Ephesians, Paul talks about that being particular to the work of the Holy Spirit. “But to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace” (Romans 8:6); “Eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3). That’s what the Spirit does: he brings about peace. The face of the Holy Spirit being brought near to us—extraordinary.
And then the way it’s closed there, by the Lord, that “so shall they put my name upon them.” So yes, this is the three persons of the Trinity and yet one God, one name, “my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.” So, there’s a unity that’s emphasised there. But perhaps that’s the most amazing part of all—that the name of the living God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, would be on the church, here represented by the people of Israel. “I will bless them.” Singular.
So united by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that he is in and among us, blessing the people. So for us, we need to think through this. We need to thank the Lord that he speaks. He has spoken in his word—that’s what we’re being pointed to there. That the Lord spoke to Moses, the Lord spoke to holy men who wrote down what they heard from the Lord, and how they were inspired by the Holy Spirit, so that we’ve got the Bible.
So, we thank God for the Bible. We need to thank God for people who preach the Bible, which is what Aaron and his sons represent. We elders don’t call ourselves priests in our church because every believer is a priest, and there’s negative connotations that come from the Roman Catholic priesthood, which is unhelpful, it causes people to be too highly exalted and is at risk of replacing Jesus as the mediator.
But the idea of a pastor who blesses the people and preaches what the Lord has said to holy men in the Bible, is essential. And that’s what we have here. That’s what we have in church; it’s what we have to have. So, give thanks for elders. Pray for pastors.
And then, most of all, think about what they say about the living God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Think about the Father and the blessing that he brings on the keeping that he does.
Think about the Son and his face, and how we long for the Son’s face—for Jesus’ face—to shine upon us, and how we long for Jesus to be gracious to us, to show us undeserved love. In order for the face of the Lord Jesus Christ to shine upon us, Jesus’ face had to be marred and disfigured beyond recognition (Isaiah 52:14) on the cross.
And yet that cross was the way for us to be saved. Jesus’ face was marred, so that our faces wouldn’t have to be. We don’t have to go to hell, because Jesus has suffered hell instead of us. And then think about the Holy Spirit and his face too, and how we long for him to give us peace and fellowship—with God, and with each other.
And then, overall, remember the privilege of having the name of the living God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, on us, on us. And that comes with a great responsibility: Do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. If we, having been blessed, go out into the world and abuse the name of Jesus, and Father, and Spirit, by behaving not as someone who is blessed by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit should behave, then we are deeply mistaken.
So, remember that, but also remember the privilege it is. It’s awesome to have the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit on us—to be blessed when he shows favour towards us, as we heard on Sunday evening. Jesus did not come to condemn the world; he came so that the world might be saved through him.
And so, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have not come near so that they may condemn us, but so that they may bless us. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit want our best. That living God wants our best. He must have favour on us. He wants us to be happy, and that’s wonderful.
