God in Christ makes His Face Shine upon us and He is Gracious to us for our Enjoyment

In the eternal blessing of the Triune God as recorded in Num. 6:25, the second part says, Jehovah make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you; this refers to Christ the Son who came as God’s shining and is grace to us for our enjoyment.

This blessing in Num. 6:22-27 is the eternal blessing of the Triune God – it is not merely an Old Testament blessing of the priests for God’s people, neither is it only a New Testament blessing, but it is the Triune God dispensing Himself in His Divine Trinity into us for our enjoyment.

The first part of the blessing can be ascribed to God the Father, “Jehovah bless you and keep you”; the Father is the One who keeps us away from the evil one, and He blesses us.

God the Father blesses us in every way and in every aspect in His love, and He is the One who keeps us in every way and in every aspect in His power.

The Lord Jesus prayed for us, His believers, that we would be kept from the evil one; He asked the Father in John 17 not to take us out of the world (which lies in the evil one, under his sphere of influence), but to keep us in His name and power, and keep us away from the evil one.

As believers in Christ we many times do not realise how much the evil one tries to attack us, deceive us, corrupt us, and bring us down; we thank the Lord for the Father who keeps us from the evil one.

And He not only keeps us from the enemy, but He also blesses us – He predestinated us and chose us, and He is taking us through a process to make us the same as Christ, so for this He blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessings in the heavenlies!

All the spiritual blessings are ours in Christ Jesus, and it is of God that we are in Christ Jesus; because we are in Christ, we are blessed with every spiritual blessing.

And these blessings are not merely “things” that God gives us as gifts; these blessings are in the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity into us. In other words, we need to pray that we would be kept in the dispensing of the Triune God and altogether outside of the evil one; the real blessing is to be under the divine dispensing!

We don’t know what we really need; we think we need more patience or joy, but as long as we remain under the divine dispensing, being kept by the Father in the dispensing Triune God and away from the enemy, we will receive all kinds of spiritual blessings for us to live the Christian life and church life for the fulfillment of God’s purpose.

God was Incarnated to Show Himself to us in a Shining Way; now His Face Shines upon us

In Num. 6:25 the priests were to bless the people of Israel by saying, Jehovah make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you; such a blessing can be ascribed to God the Son.

How does the Triune God bless us? He doesn’t bless us only in a general way in all things, but He blesses us by making His face to shine upon us and by being gracious to us. It is not a small thing to have Jehovah’s face, even a shining face, a face that shines upon us.

When God’s face shines upon us, this means He is gracious to us, He is giving grace to us, and He is being grace to us. How do we see that God shines on us and gives grace to us?

In Luke 1:78, when the Lord Jesus was about to be born, Zachariah prophesied, The rising sun will visit us from on high; the rising sun is the Son in the Divine Trinity who was incarnated to show God to us in a shining way.

As seen in Luke 1:78, Matt. 4:16, and John 8:12, God was incarnated to show Himself to us in a shining way, and when Christ came, He came as a great light, even as the light of the world.

When God became incarnated, when the Word became flesh, God came out of eternity into time to become man; this was the Divine Trinity shining His face upon man, the Sun rising and visiting us from on high.

Hallelujah, He who is the light of the world came to shine upon us who are in darkness and walk in darkness so that we can have the light of life!

God’s incarnation is God’s shining to show Himself to us in a bright and shining way.

No one has ever seen God, but through His incarnation we have seen His face and have beheld His glory (John 1:14), and ever since He has been shining upon us continually.

Now God’s face shines upon us, and both when He was on earth and throughout the ages, wherever He is, there’s light shining on the people sitting in darkness, for He is the light of the world.

It is His face that shines upon us; face signifies the presence.

As the One whose face shines upon us, Christ is the visible presence of the invisible God.

God is invisible; His presence is invisible; He cannot be seen or touched, but through His incarnation He became the shining sun, that is, His invisible presence became visible!

God’s presence became visible and shining in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, and some of His disciples had a glimpse of His glory when they beheld Him on the mount of transfiguration (see 2 Pet. 1:16-18; Matt. 17:1-2).

If we read the four Gospels we will see a Man walking among the sinners, among the disciples, and among all the people there; He was once the invisible, unseen, and unapproachable God, but now He became incarnated to be visibly present and seen among men.

This is Jehovah shining His face.

Thank You Lord Jesus for coming as the shining of God’s face. Hallelujah, God was incarnated to show Himself to us in a shining way, and now His face shines upon us! Lord, we were in darkness, with no light or divine life, but You came as the rising sun shining from on height, and You brought God to us in a shining way! Shine on us, Lord, and bring more of the element of God into our being! May Your face shine on us and may Your face shine through us to others, bringing God to them and making God visible and real to them!

God Makes His Face Shine upon us and He is being Gracious to us for our Enjoyment

Jehovah makes His face shine upon us and He is being gracious to us; these two matters added together equal John 1:14, 16-17.

Here we see that the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, full of grace and reality; then, of His fulness we have received, and grace upon grace, for grace and reality came through Christ Jesus.

God came in the Son, in Christ, to be present with us in a visible way; this is the shining of His face.

Where the shining of His face is, there is the giving of grace; whenever we see the face of God in Jesus Christ, we also receive His grace.

Along with the shining of His face there was the dispensing of His grace; for the Lord to be gracious to us means that He is continually grace to us.

What is this grace? This grace is the grace of Christ (2 Cor. 13:14) which is actually Christ Himself coming to us for our enjoyment; when we have Christ, we have grace, and we enjoy Him as grace.

God comes to us in Christ as grace so that we may enjoy Him. We could say that God the Father keeping us is more objective, but God the Son coming to us to shine on us and be gracious to us is more subjective and experiential.

Grace is God for our enjoyment; God comes to us in Christ to be enjoyed by us. Hallelujah, the Triune God is altogether gracious to us, coming to us in the Son to shine upon us and give us grace.

God wants us to enjoy Him, and for this He first keeps us and blesses us, and second He comes to us in the Son to shine upon us and be gracious to us for our enjoyment.

God’s incarnation was the shining of His presence, and along with this shining there was grace; this grace is the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is actually Christ Himself.

When Christ came, grace came; when Christ came, God became enjoyable in Him.

The blessing is the person of the Son coming to us as grace, and the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is with us all, even with our spirit. Amen!

This triune blessing of the Triune God in Num. 6 is really significant and wonderful.

First we see that the Father blesses us and keeps us, then the Son makes His face shine upon us and is gracious to us, and finally the Spirit lifts up His countenance upon us and gives us peace.

The Father keeps us and blesses us, the Son is gracious to us and shines upon us, and the Spirit expresses the face of the Triune God to give us peace by His countenance.

In quite a few Epistles we are told, Grace to you and peace (see Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:3; 2 Pet. 1:2; Rev. 1:4); grace is God for our enjoyment, and peace is the result of our enjoyment of God as grace.

When we enjoy Christ as grace, peace is with us; when we have peace, we have the enjoyment of grace. May we remain under the shining of God’s face in Christ, and may we enjoy the grace of Christ all the days of our life!

Lord Jesus, we want to see Your face, receive the shining of Your face, and live before Your face to enjoy You as grace! We would like to be under the shining of Your face all the time, for in Your shining we receive and enjoy grace. Hallelujah, grace is the Triune God to be everything to us for our full enjoyment, and God blesses us with being gracious to us for our enjoyment! Amen, Lord, may we be enjoying grace all the days of our life, may we live a life in grace, and may we minister grace to others to bless them with the dispensing Triune God!

Read this article / blog post in Romanian – puteți citi acest articol și în limba română la următorul link – Dumnezeu în Cristos face ca fața Sa să strălucească asupra noastră și este îndurător față de noi pentru savurarea noastră.

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 Numbers, msg. 11 (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 Son, rose as the morning sun; / God in the flesh brought glory and grace; / Be gracious to us, do shine upon us; / Grant us Your presence, show us Your face! (Song on, Eternal Blessing)
  # In darkness once I groped, / A person with no hope. / But light in darkness shined, / My heart enlightened. / You came to me as Light / And shattered all my night. / Your glory, what a sight! / You made me, Lord, so bright. (Song on, O God of glory)
  # This grace, which is the living Christ Himself, / Is what we need and must experience; / Lord, may we know this grace and by it live, / Thyself increasingly as grace to sense. (Hymns #497)