God's blessing is His creative word of goodwill over us.One who blesses, according to the picturesque literal significance of the original Hebrew, speaks a good word over him who is blessed, whether it be in the form of a mere wish, as we frequently do with respect to one another, or in the form of a prophetic reading from the counsel of God, as the old and dying patriarchs did over their sons.
Peculiarly divine is the power to bless.
Man's efforts to bless man are impotent. He may bestow many gifts upon his fellow man, but blessings is not in things, and though he enriches his neighbor with abundance and wealth according to this world, he still is powerless to bless his brother. He may express all the good wishes of a kind and loving heart upon him, but his word cannot realize the thing it conveys; it is impotent to create the thing it ardently desires; it is powerless to bless.
He is no source of blessing, for he is not the fountain of good.
A divine prerogative and power it is to bless. God speaks and it comes to pass. His word is a creative word. He speaks before things are, and they are caused. His word calls the things that are not as if they were. So we understand by faith that the things that are seen are not made of things that do appear. When He speaks well upon a creature, the blessing comes; and when he speaks ill, who will prevent the certain curse?
His blessing is upon His people.
His powerful, almighty power, creative word for their good is constantly upon them, proceeds toward them from His mouth continuously, surrounds them, meets them in the way, guides them by day, watches over them by night, is in them to fill them with good things, dwells with them in their homes, permeates their food and drink, keeps their enemies from harming them, makes them step upon the serpent and the young adder, turns all the evil for them into eternal good, causes those to be their servants who rise up against them, guards them in danger, strengthens them and makes them patient in suffering, and follows them all the way to the eternal inheritance that is prepared for them from before the foundation of the world.
For only what is good and truly a blessing is conducive for our everlasting salvation!
Whether anything is a blessing or a curse (and it surely is one or the other) is a question that may be answered only in the light of eternity.
The human criterion of blessing and good is false. It is earthly, temporal, subjective, and shortsighted.
We are inclined to judge all things in the light of this world and of the present time, frequently of the immediate present. Of eternal values and of ultimate ends we are apt to lose sight. The fulfillment of our desires and the realization of our aspirations we consider a good. Failure to reach the desired end, disappointment with respect to our personal wishes, things that are contrary to the longings of the flesh, we deplore as evils. We confuse blessing with success and look upon prosperity as a good, long for it, aspire after it, pray for it, strive for it, and stand weeping and wailing and murmuring against our lot when our chastisement is there every morning. We forget that what appears to us to be a good may be an evil in disguise, and what presents itself to our earthly perception as a present evil may be a means to our eternal glory. Foolishly we inquire whether the road is smooth without caring about the direction, and carefully we would avoid the rougher and steeper stretches of the way, though without them we cannot reach the promised heavenly country.
The man of the word prospers in his business, accumulates much wealth, and claims that a kind providence is blessing all his efforts- and everybody is inclined to believe him. We forget that the almighty word of the Most High may be in his goods, cursing him to damnation.
When the farmer's fields yield well and an abundant crop he harvests, so that he must increase the capacity of his barns, he is considered a well-blessed man. We seem oblivious to the reality that the Lord might take his soul from him and cast him into eternal destruction.
In these so-called bad times of depression, our souls are inclined to bewail the passing of the wave of abnormal prosperity of recent years. Barely is the hand of the Lord touching us and we are inclined to pray to heaven for prosperity. We can hardly be taught to see that the good times were bad and the bad times are better than the good times for the people of God.
According to the world, a nation is blessed when it prospers and grows mighty. An army is blessed when it claims victory. A church is blessed when it grows in numbers.
Always the same false standard of blessing and good is applied: the standard that is earthly, temporal, and carnal.
But God's blessing is not so.
It is upon His people to their eternal salvation. It is upon them when every word He speaks over them flows from His everlasting good pleasure unto their eternal glory, from His counsel of salvation, from His eternal thoughts of grace and mercy and peace upon them.
When that word is spoken upon them, it causes what it expresses. It changes every apparent evil into an eternal good, for it is the cause that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
The irresistible operation of God's unchangeable, efficacious, almighty, all-comprehensive grace, through every means, in every way, in all the experiences of this present time- that is blessing.
God's blessing is His creative word of grace.
Herman Hoeksema
All Glory to the Only Good God, (Reformed Free Publishing Association, 2013): 210-212
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