In The Master's Service

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BLESSED

Elder Mark Green

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3).

The word “blessed” is used twice in this verse, but we need very particularly to understand that it is not used in the same sense in both instances. We bless God because He blesses us, but it does not involve an equal exchange. The psalmist wrote, “Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation” (Psalm 68:19). God's blessings to us involve benefits, or good things that we receive at the Lord's hand. Our situation is improved by God's blessings, whether it involves our eternal salvation or our lot here in this world. God is not improved by our blessing His name. His lot or situation is not bettered by our words or thoughts, because He is perfect and could not be made greater by them.

The hymn writer confessed that we are “poor, weak and worthless.” We had and have nothing to give to God that could help Him. “For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills” (Psalm 50:10). He made the world and owns everything in it. He has all virtue, righteousness and holiness; He is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient. How could we improve God's situation? How could there be any exchange, equal or unequal, between us and God wherein benefits are passed between us? The apostle reminded us, “Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?” (Romans 11:35). Who has benefited God so that God would need to pay him back?

We, on the other hand, are dependent upon God for all our blessings, whether they are natural or spiritual. Our text plainly states that all spiritual blessings come from God. Our natural blessings come from God, also. On Mars Hill, Paul told the Athenians that “in him we live, and move, and have our being.” Our very existence depends upon God's will and power. The air we need and our ability to draw it into our lungs come from Him. If we stop to count our blessings, we can truly say that He “loadeth” us with benefits, “pressed down, and shaken together, and running over.”

When we bless God, we are merely praising Him and thanking Him for what He has done for us. When we "bless God who has blessed us," we are thanking God because He has given good things to us that have made our lot better than it otherwise would have been.

The Arminian would not admit it, but he views salvation as an exchange. He presents God as desiring the salvation of all mankind, but unable to effect it. If we are to take their presentation as sincere, then God feels a great lack and emptiness because some of those who could have been in heaven with Him are not. That is a benefit He has been denied because of something that He cannot do, i.e., He cannot force men to accept Him against their wills. So, when men accept the offer of salvation, they provide a benefit or a good thing to God that He desires to have but is lacking. Under that view of things, we are able to bless God in the same way that He can bless us, and salvation becomes to some degree recompense or exchange, or a matter of man's works and merit.