Blessing in God’s Plan of Redemption

Receiving and Mediating Blessing

Blessing plays a significant role in God's plan of redemption, in that blessing is the goal of God's plan of redemption. Often, when we think about God's redemptive work, we can theologically divide it up into different areas or different subjects or ideas. We can talk about the atonement, we can talk about Jesus's work on the cross, we can talk about justification, we can talk about growing and holiness. We can kind of pick up these theological topics.

Divine Blessing and the Fullness of Life in the Presence of God

William R. Osborne

In this addition to the Short Studies in Biblical Theology series, William Osborne traces the theme of blessing throughout the Bible, equipping readers with a fuller understanding of God’s benevolence for everyday life.

How do blessings fit into that kind of systematic discussion of redemption, or what God is doing to redeem his people? Ultimately, blessing is what God has been working toward ever since the beginning. From Genesis 1 to Revelation 22, God's redemptive work has been bringing his people into a place of experiencing his blessing, but also mediating his blessing.

Scripture also calls us to live lives that bless others so that we become a channel of blessing to the world.

So as Christians today, when we think about God's redemptive work in our lives, we're not just the recipients of God's blessing—though we are that—but Scripture also calls us to live lives that bless others so that we become a channel of blessing to the world.

We become as lights shining in the darkness, as a city set on a hill. God's goodness is not for us to just absorb like a sponge, but in fact, it is to be displayed as God's people live lives that bless others.

William R. Osborne is the author of Divine Blessing and the Fullness of Life in the Presence of God.

William R. Osborne (PhD, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) serves as associate professor of biblical and theological studies at College of the Ozarks and is the author of Divine Blessing and the Fullness of Life in the Presence of God. He lives in southwest Missouri with his wife and four kids.