“ …Grace to you and peace…” (Revelation
1:4)
This
morning (Monday), I woke up feeling the grace and peace of God. After a painful
letter arrived Saturday morning, sending me into a tailspin of depression,
Sunday was different. My time in God’s word, a few hours of fellowship with God’s
people, a good Sunday afternoon nap, and another letter offering hope I could
not see the day before, led me to a feeling of peace I could only explain in
one way: God was pouring his grace into my heart and blessing me with his
peace. I was experiencing Revelation’s greeting of “grace to you and peace”, and I was thankful.
All
of this reminded me of a beautiful expression of blessing God presented to his
people approximately a couple of dozen centuries ago. It reads:
The LORD bless you and keep you;
the LORD make his face to shine upon you and
be gracious to you;
the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and
give you peace.
Unlike
any other blessing we may have heard, this blessing is straight from the mouth
of God. This is his desire for his people. And, not only is it his desire to
bless his people in these ways, it is his desire that his people know that he
wants to bless us in these ways.
When
we add to this all the other God-breathed expressions of blessing, we get an
amazingly clear look into the heart of God. He wants to “bless us… keep us… make his face shine upon us… be gracious to us…
lift up his countenance upon us… and give us peace.” As the last book of
the Bible declares, he wants to bless his people with grace and peace.
In
Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, he totally turned religion on its head by
challenging what people thought would bring about God’s blessing. People were indoctrinated with the idea that they had to be as
good as the religious leaders to have any assurance of blessing from God. The
prostitutes, drunks and tax collectors could not even dream of being good
enough for that blessing, so they simply indulged in their sinful lives and
tried to squeeze out of the world’s deadness as much happiness as they could
imagine was there.
Jesus
began his good news by saying that God’s blessing was on the “poor in spirit”, rather than the proud,
religious hypocrites. He said that God blessed those who mourned their sinful
condition, not those who were self-satisfied in their pompous activities. He
declared that God’s blessing was expressed to the meek who knew they could not
fix their lives, not the arrogant who believed they could be good enough for
God in their own good works. And, he promised God’s blessing on those who
hungered for the righteousness they knew they did not have, not on those who
imagined they were already as righteous as God could ever wish.
What
were the blessings on the poor in spirit? Jesus promised, “theirs is the kingdom of heaven… they shall be comforted… they shall
inherit the earth… they shall be satisfied… they shall receive mercy… they
shall see God… they shall be called sons of God… theirs is the kingdom of
heaven… your reward is great in heaven…” That is all contained in the
summary of “grace to you and peace”.
One
thing stood out to me about the earlier blessing God pronounced on his people centuries
before Jesus came and proclaimed the good news. It was the way God concluded
the blessing. He said, “So shall they put
my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.” I had never noticed this before, the connection between God’s “name upon the people,” and his promise, “I will bless them.”
Noticing
this suddenly caused me to gain some insight into Jesus identifying that his
people had to do things in his name. It also added some understanding to why Paul would put such great
emphasis on believers being “in the Beloved.” God will bless what bears his name, and be a terror to those who do
not bear his name.
When
God delivered Israel out of Egypt, the Egyptian army chased after the
Israelites because their whole work force had just left town. By the time the Egyptians caught up to the Israelites, God showed
both groups of people that he was present between them in a pillar of cloud and
fire. This pillar of cloud by day and fire by night was God’s assurance to
Israel that he was with them to bless them. It was also God’s assurance to
Egypt that they were doomed because they were against his name.
God’s
name must be on people in order for them to receive his blessing. That is why
there is such emphasis on Jesus’ name.
ü
“you shall
call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
ü “Whoever receives one such
child in my name receives me,”
ü “For where two or three are gathered
in my name, there am I among them.”
ü
“Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the
Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.”
ü
“these are
written so that you may believe that Jesus
is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
ü
“And it
shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
ü
“Repent
and be baptized every one of you in the name
of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness
of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
ü
“…you were washed, you
were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ..”
ü
“And whatever
you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus,
giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
ü “And this is his commandment, that we
believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another,
just as he has commanded us.”
Another
way this is expressed is in Jesus’ use of the vine-and-branches metaphor. “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever
abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me
you can do nothing.” This cannot be true of a relationship with a god by any other name.
It is only true of those who are in Jesus’ name, who are in Christ, who are
under the name of the only true God. If we abide in Christ the way a branch
lives in the vine, we will have life. Apart from Jesus, apart from his name,
apart from living in him, we can do nothing.
All
of this tells us why we cannot believe that God makes himself known to
different ethnic groups by different names and descriptions. All through the
word of God, the gods with other names are called idols, and worship of idols
is condemned. Why? Because God knows his name, and will only bless those who are
“in his name”. There is no other god, or even any other version of God, that
can grant the fullness of the divine blessing on those who come into Jesus’
name.
One
day, “…at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every
tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” If we lived in Jesus’ name in this earthly life, confessing Jesus
Christ as Lord in heaven will be a thrilling and wonderful blessing. If we
rejected Jesus’ name in this earthly lifetime, confessing Jesus Christ as Lord
will be our own admission of guilt, shame and fear that we so poorly handled
such a rich and gracious name.
When
Jesus came the first time, many people did not know him, and many others would
not receive him and come under the blessing of his name. However, this description
of those who are blessed in Jesus’ name stands as an ongoing invitation to all
who are living outside of God’s blessing: “But to all who did receive him, who
believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,
who were born, not of blood nor of the
will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
Receive
Jesus and be blessed in his name with grace and peace!
© 2012 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, Canada, V1K
1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
