What Does the Aaronic Blessing Ultimately Promise Us?

A Benediction of Shalom

The ultimate climax or aim can be seen, first of all, from the stair steps of the blessing itself. “The Lord bless you and keep you.” That is the Lord’s protection, his preserving power. “The Lord make his face to shine up on you and be gracious to you.” God’s grace. And then the third line is, “The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.” And so shalom is that big idea of God reigning for the good of his people and their happiness and his glory. Shalom is in the benediction itself. That’s the goal or the purpose.

But when we step back and look at that in the larger biblical context, we see the face of God—the beatific vision. That’s the highest happiness of every believer, to see the face of God unmediated, not just having to look with the eyes of faith but actually one day seeing with our eyes.

And so the Aaronic blessing not only contains but also anticipates the greater fullness of seeing God face to face, seeing our Creator and our Redeemer as he is, and as a consequence, sharing in his divine life, sharing in his beatitude, his blessedness.

And so what the Aaronic blessing offers is actually the climax of what the Scriptures overall offer. Now, we have seen even more fully than Old Testament Israel did because we see the glory of God now in the face of Christ (2 Cor. 3–4). We look upon the face of God through faith by his word now in anticipation of that beatific vision in the end. That’s the big promise. That’s the big offer of the Aaronic blessing.

Michael J. Glodo is the author of The Lord Bless You and Keep You: The Promise of the Gospel in the Aaronic Blessing.

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