Book Review: Divine Blessing (SSBT), William Osborne

What does it mean to be blessed? Are we “blessed” if we win the championship trophy (or at least score the winning strike in volleyball)? Are we “blessed” when we go to a friend’s birthday party? “Even if we don’t hold to a prosperity-like overemphasis on the physical manifestation of old covenant blessings, we can easily engage in over- spiritual explanations of how old covenant physicality is replaced by new covenant spirituality. How do we navigate this transition from divine blessing looking like more cattle and crops to what Paul calls “every spiritual blessing” in Ephesians 1?” (17).

In his book Divine Blessing, William Osborne tackles this issue head-on. He writes, “Divine blessing in the Bible is always physical and spiritual because it is fixed upon the reality of the fullness of life in the presence of God” (17). That is, “Divine blessing in the Bible looks like God’s creatures experiencing the fullness of life—both physically and spiritually—in his presence” (17).

How we experience God’s blessing changes with the Bible’s redemptive storyline that passes through creation, fall, redemption, and final restoration. Blessing always flows from God’s gracious design in creation for his people which is also seen as they obey his will. Osbornes goal “is to provide a biblical theology of blessing by examining those references to blessing in the Old and New Testaments, recognizing not only their literary context but also their setting in God’s plan of redemption” (18).

Osborne offers three different ways we see the word bless (Hebrew: brk; Greek: eulogeō) used in Scripture:

1. Blessing as an action
2. A blessing as a thing
3. Being blessed as a set of being

While Israel was only one of many nations where everyone lived with a specifically supernatural worldview, “one primary difference is the source of authority and power of divine blessing” (24). So does this mean that anyone can speak a word of blessing and another will be blessed? Is there true “power” in our words, that what we speak actually comes to be?

Osborne writes, “In the Old Testament, the significance of a blessing is grounded more in the person speaking the blessing than the content of the blessing uttered” (25). To use an illustration from Osborne, “The words ‘I do’ have much more significance when spoken by couples adorned in white dresses and tuxedos than they might with two college students answering ‘Do you love me?’ over a cup of coffee” (25).

Prophets, priests, and parents have God-given authority, and they “pronounce blessings petitioning God to act with that authority” (25–26). Think of Aaron’s priestly prayer in Numbers 6:22–27. The Lord blesses his people through the words of Aaron’s priestly prayer to show how God relates to his people.

Following with the aims of this series, Osborne moves views the plan of redemption from creation to new creation to show how Christ and his kingdom are the highpoint of how God wants to bless his world.

God’s very nature is Trinitarian and relational (ch 1). He is outward-oriented. As God creates the world, he blesses it. His blessing as an extension of his “creative activity” on a world that should have been filled with abundant life through his divine imagers, something God will work through Abraham beginning in Genesis 12 (33). Chapter 1 focuses on Genesis 1–3. 

Chapter 2 focuses on blessing in the rest of Genesis. Looking at the beginning of Abraham’s story, Osborne writes, “The fivefold repetition of blessing in these verses [Genesis 12:1–3] clearly indicates that the promise given to Abram is to serve as the divine corrective to the unshakable sin and curse that has plagued humanity up until this point” (57). Abraham and Jacob in particular were quite wealthy, having plenty of cattle and people with them. With Abraham there are many declarations of his being blessed. When we see Isaac and Jacob here is a move to the status of being blessed. However we see that this wealth also beings conflict. So, unlike what many think, blessing does not exactly equate to wealth. Wealth is neither good nor evil, but relationships matter. As Osborne shows, we see this in “the transformation of Jacob from one stealing a blessing for personal gain to a man clinging to God alone for reconciliation with his brother, blessing, and peace in the land he was promised” (74).

Chapter 3 summarizes the covenant blessing for God’s people. Osborne begins with Exodus through Deuteronomy and observes how blessing come through being in God’s presence, through sacrifice (which allowed Israel to remain in his presence), and how the land was a blessing. Osborne briefly looks at what the prophets and the psalms and wisdom literature had to say about blessing. Due to the restraints of the series this had to be kept short, but it was illuminating nonetheless.

Osborne teaches that we should seek God through the gifts that he gives us. We have seen since the beginning of the Bible that “that divine blessing was always intended to be material, spiritual, and relational” (104). People were called to live in real places, physical locations. Within those places, whoever they were, God promised to “meet their material needs for life by providing abundant food, fertile herds, protection, authority, and a heritage” (104). They could only understand these blessings by living faithfully in covenant with God. Yet it was when Israel’s spiritual relationship with the Lord broke down that they lost their physical blessings through exile. Yet, God sent his prophets to Israel to, in part, declare that he would still bless the world through Israel. This would come through a new covenant brought by the King’s presence in their very land.

The goal of Osborne’s final two chapters is to present a biblically and theologically informed answer to how the Old and New Testaments portray blessing. On a face reading it appears that blessing in the OT is physical and material. People win battles, they have thousand of sheep and cattle, and they are strong and courageous. But in the New Testament we follow Jesus’ cruciform life style, and blessing comes through weakness (2 Cor 12:9) and martyrdom (Rev 6:9–11). Is this actually a faithful reading of the Bible?

Blessing always required knowing God. It required being in God’s presence! Gods promises are fulfilled in Christ. We are now new creations who have eternal life in the new covenant, even though we are still waiting for those promises to be completed as well. Osborne writes, “Therefore, in order to understand the fullness of life in the presence of God in the new covenant era, we must map the way that Jesus fulfills the Old Testament Scriptures and points toward these new covenant and new creation realities” (109). Jesus’ death and resurrection began the fulfillment of Gods promise to Abraham to bless the whole world. He fulfills Gods promises to both Abraham (offspring) and David (eternal royal dynasty). Osborne shows how Jesus fulfills prophecy and OT figures and events throughout Matthew’s Gospel.

Believers are blessed in Christ, but like the rich, young ruler who came to Jesus, we must be wary of the wealth we have. We can’t let the pennies we have in this life eclipse the eternal wealth in the new creation. In fact, Matthew 5:2-12 tells us of the path to happiness in this upside-down kingdom. Osborne observes, “The emphasis of Jesus’s teaching in these verses is on the reality of discipleship in light of Christ’s coming kingdom. ‘Happy’ or ‘fortunate’ is the one who lives in light of the kingdom of heaven and allows this future reality to define his or her present experience in the world. Jesus’s words are ethical (instructive to his followers) and eschatological (oriented around the coming of his kingdom)” (120).

The question believers today need to ask is if a certain thing or circumstance is drawing us closer to or farther away from the triune God. Is it a gift that points us to God or do we treat it purely as a distraction?

Chapter 5 looks at what the New Testament epistles say about our new covenant lives in the Spirit and the future that is promised to us. We receive good gifts from God now that point us to the perfect future we will enjoy together with him. This chapter was incredibly short (being just over eight pages). This need not be a negative thing. There are plenty of books out there that look at the spiritual blessings we have now, and very few (comparatively) that look at the blessings of the Old Testament in greater detail. I say that since the first two chapters of the book are in Genesis alone.

Recommended?

Osborne fulfills the aim of the book by writing a short biblical theology on the topic of blessing. Sure, much more could have been said, but what I like about this series is that not everything that can be said needs to be said in one book. Perhaps it is because I have small children, but I simply can’t spend as many hours as I used to on how one single topic runs through the entirety of Scripture.

Osborne helpfully draws the connections between the Old and New Testament view of blessing, showing that it all points us to the One who gives good gifts generously to his people (James 1:5, 17). Osborne writes, “In God’s economy, wealth can be a precursor to judgment (Ps. 73), and poverty can be a sign of godly surrender (Mark 10). However, God can bless the godly with wealth (126) to better meet the needs of others, while sinful decisions can often lead to pain and loss. There is no simple answer to these questions. But God’s divine favor—his blessing—always brings us to himself” (127).