Usually in the Old Testament, blessing is used in the passive voice meaning “to be blessed” when it is used of people who do not have the power to take care of themselves. This concept of blessing is also shown to us in the New Testament through the writings of Paul. The apostle wrote the following about Jesus Christ,
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name. (Philippians 2:6–9)
In this passage, Paul tells us that God entered our human world though Jesus Christ. Jesus humbled himself and was obedient to the will of God. This obedience ultimately resulted in his crucifixion. God then exalted Jesus through his resurrection. By giving Jesus to the world, God has blessed us. However, there is no mention of what we might have done in order to have deserved God’s blessing. We do not deserve Jesus, and there is nothing we can do in order to earn his grace.
In the New Testament, the English word “blessing” comes from the Greek word “markarios.” This word can mean “to be blessed and fortunate”; and as a result, the person being bless also experiences happiness. The special characteristic of a blessing in the New Testament is the religious joy that people experience from being certain of salvation and thus of citizenship in the kingdom of God. As with the Old Testament, most New Testament uses of blessing are also in the passive voice, “to be blessed.” The Beatitudes found in the Gospels of Matthew 5:3–12 and Luke 6:20–23 are understood to be new blessings accompanying the establishment of the new covenant with God through Jesus Christ.
Overall, the basic understanding of a blessing is that of an undeserved gift. As a person receives the blessing of an undeserved gift, which he cannot earn on his own, he was also blessed with happiness and joy of a close relationship with the God who has blessed him.
Relationships and Blessings
The Bible describes various types of relationships which involve blessings. Different Bible stories show us that certain individuals can be the ones who do the blessing, and different people can be the recipients of these blessings. According to the Bible, God blesses people, and people could bless God and other people. The pronouncement of blessings could even be made for the sake of animals and physical objects.
God Blesses People
Accounts of God blessing his people are found in many Bible passages. One specific example of God blessing an individual is when God blessed Abram,
The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. (Genesis 12:1–3)
In this passage God offered Abram a new covenant and a new relationship with him. A part of that covenant is that God promised Abram that he would bless him.
Also found within this covenant is the promise that God would bless other people through Abram. The blessing of God did not stop with one person, but was extended to others. This is often true of any blessing from God. When God blesses one person, other people in the person’s life are affected by the blessing. For example, if a man and wife are blessed with the birth of a child, then everyone who knows this family will be affected by the joy of the couple, as they regale us with their stories of the birth and growth of the baby, and as they overwhelm us with a multitude of baby pictures. The blessings given to one person or family can become in turn a blessing to those who are around them.
The same thing should be true of a person who by believing in Jesus becomes a Christian. Paul described such a person as becoming a new creature, that he has miraculously become a new person. Jesus described the new disciple has having been “born again.” This person has been blessed with eternal and abundant life, and he should want to share the joy of this blessing by telling everyone what God has done for him. His new family, the church, is also blessed by seeing the miracle of salvation in his life. The church should also rejoice and tell others how God continues to work in the lives of people and in the church itself.
It has always been God’s intention to bless mankind. Using the illustration of a Shepherd and sheep found in the Thirty-fourth chapter of Ezekiel, the Lord made it clear how he intended to bless his people. In the historical setting of that chapter, God asserted that the Israelite people had been misguided and mistreated by their spiritual leaders. In order to correct the situation, and in order to bless them, God promised to shepherd his people himself.
Because Jesus also called himself the good Shepherd, he will do all things which an earthly shepherd should have done but did not do or had left undone. The reason Jesus blesses his people is because he loves them in the same way that a Good Shepherd should love his sheep. The Shepherd blesses his sheep because he loves them, and not because the sheep have done something to deserve the Shepherd’s love or blessings.
People Can Bless God
We need to realize that people can bless God. The Bible has passages in which it describes and encourages people to bless God through praise and thanksgiving. The Bible contains some verses that can be used by a person in his worship of God and in his relationship with God. In Psalm 68:18, a psalmist wrote a blessing that a person can use by proclaiming, “Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.” It is important to keep in mind that when a person uses this verse as a blessing in worship that the person truly believes that God needs to be praise because of his daily care. These words should not be simply spoken because they are found in the Bible. Instead, God’s people should use Bible passage like this because they believe these words describe their God and their relationship with him. Faith should produce our words. Our love for God should result in our praise of him.
By definition, a blessing is an undeserved gift. But how is that the case with people blessing God? How can God not deserve our blessing? In a sense, he does deserve our praise and thanksgiving because of all that he has done for us: however, God does not demand or require us to bless him. Our blessing is not a debt we are paying back to God because he first blessed us. Instead, our blessing is a heart-felt expression of love for the one who first loved us and who taught us what love is all about. Jesus shows us that if you love someone then you will bless them as in the next example of blessings.
People Can Bless Other People
An important part of the human experience is when people bless other people. The Bible has several stories where a person blessed someone else. These blessings help to show the close relationship people had with one another because they loved each other. They proved their love through the blessings they presented to one another.
One story of a person blessing other people has an interesting twist, and this story is found in the Forty-eighth chapter of Genesis. Joseph had brought his two young sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, to their grandfather Jacob in order that Jacob might pronounce a personal blessing for each of these boys. The Hebrew people believed that whatever blessing a father or grandfather spoke toward his children or grandchildren would then come true in that person’s life. In front of Joseph, Jacob blessed his two grandsons.
However, Jacob did something unexpected in this story. Normally the older son or grandson was given a greater blessing from his father or grandfather than any blessing his younger brothers might receive. The younger siblings would receive less favorable blessings. Jacob did not do this for Manasseh and Ephraim; instead, Jacob switched the blessings and gave the greater blessing to Ephraim, the younger brother, rather than giving it to the older brother Manasseh. Jacob indicated this switching of blessings by crossing his hands, and putting his right hand on Ephraim and his left hand on Manasseh. This switching of blessing displeased Joseph, and he tried to correct Jacob. However, Jacob refused to follow Joseph’s guidance, and basically told him, “I know, my son, I know what I am doing. Manasseh too will become a great people. Nevertheless, his younger brother will become greater than he.” As the