Praise the Lord, the Spirit as God’s lifted-up countenance confirms us, promises us, guarantees us everything, and He gives us peace!
The third aspect of the eternal blessing of the Triune God on His people as recorded in Num. 6 is related to the Spirit, for the Spirit lifts up His countenance upon us and gives us peace (Num. 6:26).
The Father blesses us and keeps us, the Son makes His face shine upon us and is gracious to us, and the Spirit lifts up His countenance upon us and gives us peace.
In such an eternal blessing of the Triune God we do not see anything physical, material, or outward; what we see here is the Triune God dispensing Himself in His Divine Trinity as the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, to reach man and keep man, be gracious to man, and give man peace.
The Father keeps us as His people – He keeps us in the right position for us to receive His blessing.
The Son comes to us as the shining face of God; He causes God to be real, expressed, and shining upon us, and He is gracious to us. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all – what a blessing this is!
First Christ came as God incarnated to be man, and He as the Word of God became flesh and tabernacled among us, full of grace and reality. No one has ever seen God, but Christ came and declared Him, expressed Him, and shined Him forth, and we all beheld His glory, glory as of the Only begotten of the Father.
God’s incarnation was to show Himself to us in a shining way, and when we read the four Gospels we see the wonderful, shining, divinely-human living of this One who shined God forth and was gracious to us.
As the One whose face shines upon us, Christ the Son of God is the visible presence of the invisible God. God is invisible, in an unapproachable light, and He cannot be touched or seen by man; however, Christ came as the face of God, the visible presence of God, and He embodied God and made God real to us.
He came to shine God and express Him, and He also came to give us grace. Whenever we touch the Lord, whenever we come to God’s word and have a turned heart to Him, the veil from our face is taken away, and we see Him, we enjoy Him, and we receive grace.
Whenever we see the Lord’s face in spirit, we have His shining and we enjoy Him as grace. We want to see His face, live before His face, and be under the shining of His face all the days of our life, for where His shining face is, there His dispensing of grace takes place.
The Spirit as God’s Lifted-up Countenance Confirms us, Promises us, and Gives us Peace
In Num. 6:26 we see that Jehovah lifts up His countenance upon us and gives us peace; this can be ascribed to the Spirit. The face denotes the presence of a person; when you see someone’s face, you have his presence.
The countenance denotes the expression of the person, the expression of his inward feelings. When you lift up your countenance upon a person you confirm, assure, promise, and give everything to that person.
First, Christ came as the shining face of God to be gracious to us, and now we see that the Spirit is God’s lifted-up countenance to assure us, guarantee us, promises us, and give us everything.
Countenance refers to the “God-emoji”, the smiling face of God, His lifted-up countenance upon us.
God doesn’t only have a shining face but also a lifted-up countenance; the shining of the face of God is Christ, and His countenance is the Holy Spirit. The radiant shining of God is simply Christ the Son being with us, and by having God’s shining face we have Christ the Son of God present with us.
Praise the Lord, even though we were not on earth at the time of the Lord Jesus to have His shining on us, we can exercise our spirit to enjoy His shining face today!
Even more, we have God’s countenance, which is in a way more dear, for it is the expression of His face. The countenance of God expresses His inward condition and feeling.
The blessing of God is not just His shining on us but the expression of His inward parts, His countenance.
The Apostle Paul had the index of the Lord’s eyes; he was not only beholding the Lord’s shining face, but he had His countenance, and he discerned what was in the Lord’s heart concerning others, whether He was happy or not.
The blessing of the Triune God is a lifted-up countenance, God being happy with us; When God comes to us with a lifted-up countenance, something good is coming.
When God has a lifted-up countenance, He confirms us, He assures us of what He has spoken, He promises things to us, and He gives us everything He has promised; what a countenance this is!
If we put this together with Eph. 4:30 where we are told not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God in whom we are sealed unto the day of redemption, we realise that the Spirit is the lifted-up countenance of God on us.
The Spirit’s blessing in Eph. 1 is in the form of a pledge, a guarantee; we have been sealed by the Spirit, and God gave us the Spirit as the pledge of our inheritance.
The indwelling Spirit in us, the Holy Spirit with our spirit, is God’s lifted-up countenance within constantly assuring us, confirming us, promising us, and pledging us all the benefits from the dispensing Triune God, all the unsearchable riches of Christ, and all that God is for our possession and allotment.
The Spirit is pledging us, giving us a foretaste, a sample of the full taste of what it is to come, sealing us in this way unto that day – the day of our redemption.
Hallelujah, the Spirit is blessing us unto the day of our full enjoyment of the Triune God! Therefore, we must not grieve the Holy Spirit, we must not cause the lifted-up countenance of God to be downtrodden or cause Him to be unhappy with us, thus losing His blessing.
If we grieve the Holy Spirit, His countenance will drop; but 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.
There may be times in our Christian life, church life, or even in the Lord’s service when we become weary, discouraged, or disappointed; we may feel we don’t have the assurance and we have lost all hope.
But when we contact the Lord, we enjoy the blessing of the lifted-up countenance of God, which is the Spirit, and this will lift us up. Without such a blessing, we cannot go on with the Lord.
The lifting up of the Lord’s countenance upon us and His giving of peace is the gracious work of the Spirit.
The Spirit gives us peace constantly; He gives us peace not only in our environment but also in our being – in our heart, spirit, and mind. It is in the Spirit, through the Spirit, and with the Spirit that we have peace.
When others around us are troubled in heart or mind, when the environment is not very pleasant, we are not troubled because we enjoy the peace from the Spirit, for His countenance is lifted up over us.
Lord Jesus, may we have the lifted-up countenance of God upon us giving us peace. We do not want to grieve the Holy Spirit in whom we were sealed unto the day of our redemption. Amen, Lord Jesus, we open to You and we want to enjoy You as the Spirit with our spirit promising us, assuring us, confirming us, and giving us everything! What a blessing it is to have the Spirit’s countenance being lifted up over us and giving us peace! We want to remain here, in the dispensing of peace by the Spirit who lifts up His countenance over us.
The Eternal Blessing of the Triune God is to bring us into the Enjoyment of God
If we read and pray over the verses in Num. 5 concerning the eternal blessing of the Triune God we will realise, first of all, that God’s blessing has nothing to do with anything physical or outward, and secondly, it brings us into the enjoyment of God.
There’s no mention of material blessing, deliverance from the troubles, allotment of the good land, being kept from famine, being protected from the enemies, or flourishing in Num. 6:23-26.
What we see in this portion is simply that God comes to us as the Triune God in His Divine Trinity – the Father blessing us and keeping us, the Son shining on us and being gracious to us, and the Spirit lifting up His countenance over us and giving us peace – for us to enjoy the Triune God.
The Father’s keeping and blessing, the Son’s shining and being gracious, and the lifted-up countenance of the Spirit to give us peace, all these are for our enjoyment and experience of the Triune God in His Divine Trinity.
The threefold blessing in Num. 6 is the pattern of blessing by the priests in the Old testament, which is the proper blessing; this blessing is to bring others into the presence of God, into the light of His face, and into the shining of His countenance so that they may be kept by Him, participate in His grace, and have peace.
The Triune God wants to bless us; our God is a blessing God, and His blessing is simply Himself being dispensed into us first to keep us, then to shine on us and give us grace, and finally to be happy with us and give us peace.
The blessing of the Divine Trinity is not related mainly to material things but to the Triune God being gracious to us, appearing to us, and being seen by us to be enjoyed by us. We need to enjoy the blessing of the Triune God and bless others with the Triune God in this way.
When we speak to others, we simply need to bring them into the enjoyment of God by blessing them with the dispensing of the Divine Trinity.
We need not only to understand the eternal blessing of the Triune God and be thankful for it, but we need to enjoy God’s blessing by praying to be kept by the Father, enjoy the Son’s shining as grace, and receive the Spirit’s peace!
As we enjoy the blessing of the Triune God, the eternal blessing, we will be the blessed people of the blessing Triune God, and we will also bless others with the Triune God!
Thank You God for blessing us with the Father’s keeping, the Son’s shining face and His grace, and the Spirit’s lifted-up countenance and His peace. Keep us enjoying Your blessing, Lord, in all its wonderful aspects! May we be kept under God’s blessing, enjoy Christ as grace in His shining, and be filled with peace as the Spirit is happy with us. May we be the blessed people of our blessing Triune God, and may we bless others with the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity into them for their participation in His grace and peace!
Read this article / blog post in Romanian – puteți citi acest articol și în limba română la următorul link – Duhul ca și chip înălțat al lui Dumnezeu ne confirmă, ne promite și ne dă pacea.
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Genesis, msg. 95 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallisation-Study of Numbers (1), week 7, The Eternal Blessing of the Triune God.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Eternal Spirit, countenance lifting, / Dispensed into us as joy and peace; / Your eyes assure us, Your gaze approves us; / Your smiling visage, our guarantee! (Song on, Eternal Blessing)
# The loving seekers of God’s Word, / Will often see God’s face; / His countenance, when lifted up, / Infuse His loving grace. (Song on, God’s Loving Seekers)
# God the Father’s keeping; / God the Son is shining; / God the Spirit’s countenance / Cheering, uplifting you; / What a Triune blessing; / God Himself dispensing, / For your rich enjoyment / All your days. (Song on, Jehovah bless you and keep you)
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