With Every Spiritual Blessing (Part 1)
It is all too easy to talk about blessing in general sense and not understand that God blessed us in very specific ways. God’s blessing is not merely the general blessing of life, substance, health, and the like. In the age of the Enlightenment (the 18th-century), there were many who viewed God as if he had "wound up" his creation and left it to run on its own. They thought of him as disengaged from his creation. In their view God had given us all wonderful world to live in, a world that functioned wonderfully and was truly marvelous, but world that he did not directly involved himself in. They thanked God for these blessings, but did not understand them to be "particular" blessings.
Set over against this idea, is the Biblical truth that God is personal and transcendent. By personal we mean that God is a person, possessing all of the attributes of personhood. In fact, realistically speaking, we derive our definition of what a person is from the truth that God is a person. We are persons because we share some of the things that make God a person. By transcendent we mean that God interacts with his creation. He is not aloof were far off. Rather, he is very active and very interested in all of the things that occur in what he has created and those he has created to live in it.
This personal and transcendent God can thus be said to bless in a personal and transcendent fashion. That is, he blessed us as one person to another; and his blessings are knowable and relevant to our particular experiences and situations.
Paul tells us that God’s blessing/blessings are particular ones. God desired to bless his creation and so he blessed us "with" all spiritual blessings... . The word "with" indicates that God shows a specific mechanism with which to bless. He was not content with blessing in general, though such general blessing does exist.
We need to be sure to note that this "blessing" cannot be referring to a general type of blessing (along the lines of common grace) because of the little word "us". If the verse stopped after this phrase, there could be some confusion about who "us" refers to. However, the verse does not stop here. The rest of verse 3, and in the most of the rest of chapter 1 makes it clear that it is the redeemed that are in view. The blessings that are here spoken of are blessings for the redeemed of God, and for the redeemed alone. This does not deny the blessing of God’s graciousness, patience, and forbearance to all mankind. It simply tells us that there is special blessing, tremendous blessing, reserved for those who are in Christ.
It is interesting to note that the blessing referred to here, though realized in the present, has its roots in the past. The blessings of redemption and its accompanying works stand firmly on the grounds of Christ’s finished work on Calvary’s cross. This "blessing" was accomplished in the past, but applied in the present. Jesus died, not only to remove sin, but also to provide great blessing, namely, spiritual life! When he died real sin was actually (not potentially) paid for. Likewise, as that payment for sin was real so also was the provision of blessing resulting from that work. God blesses his children today fundamentally because of Christ’s work then.
This is important for us to understand. The Scripture clearly speaks of the relationship between obedience and blessing. Yet, the Bible also tells us with perfect clarity that even such blessings as come from our obedience have their root and Christ’s broken body and shed blood. We dare not look to our obedience as the true source of God’s blessing. Rather, we must, in humility, look back to the cross and there see the grace of God as the true fount of every good work. Pride comes easily, as does a pride-like satisfaction in "our" performance. We must be as Paul who, rather than boasting in his own fleshly accomplishment, chose to boast in the cross of Christ.