Doctrine Download: Doxologies & Benedictions

There is a distinction between a benediction and a doxology. I want to define those two things for you. A benediction is typically going to be in the form of a prayer of blessing or a greeting of blessing over other people. 

I’ll give you some examples. In Numbers 6, Aaron gives a blessing over the people. It goes something like this and you will be familiar with this.

The Lord bless you and keep you;

25 the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;

26 the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

You may have grown up with that on the wall somewhere or you may have heard that spoken in church. What is that? That’s a benediction. It’s a prayer of blessing over people. Another one that I like is in the book of Ruth. There’s a scene where Boaz comes out into the field and gets off of his donkey where all of the people are working.

  And he said to the reapers, “The Lord be with you!” And they answered, “The Lord bless you.”

That’s good, isn’t it? That’s the way it ought to go. One person says, “The Lord be with you,” and the other person says, “The Lord bless you.” What they’ve done is they’ve greeted one another. You have this idea of sharing blessings, greetings, and speaking those over one another.

A doxology is an exaltation or a praise that goes up to God. A doxology is when you exalt the Lord for who He is. You praise Him for who He is. You sing praise and you speak truth. A doxology is powerful.

 In most societies in the secular world, you can see armies speak doxologies to their kings or their generals. They would praise the gods or they would praise the men themselves. This is the idea of exaltation and exultation. As a believer, this needs to be a part of your life. It needs to be part of your everyday life that you exalt the Lord, that you praise the Lord. If you’re not praising the Lord every day and if you are not lifting His name in praise, identifying who He is and worshipping Him for that then you are going to live a very unfulfilled life as a Christian. This is part of the way God has wired us as human beings. 

When a person becomes a Christian, the mechanism in a person to give someone or something praise gets put in the right place. Now that mechanism works to drive that praise toward Jesus. If that mechanism is not working properly or if I don’t have an understanding of who God is, then I’m going to praise something else. It might be in creation, some other person, or myself with self-exaltation. Early in the book of Romans, Paul says that this is what happens; when people didn’t give this appropriate praise to God then they began to praise and worship the creation rather than the Creator. 

So doxology is a right exaltation that drives our praise, and our effort, and all of our energy in worship toward God. An example of a doxology is Romans 11:36. 

Right there at the end of chapter 11, there is this doxology that is worshipping God. So, why would Paul put a doxology in the middle of Romans and then put another doxology at the end? Well, doxologies are just good all the time. Anytime is good to praise Jesus. Often you will see Paul do this. In the middle of a letter he will throw out a doxology. Not only Paul but other authors in the Bible will often do this. A doxology creates a pause in the story or the letter. It seems like the author is saying, “Let’s take a moment and worship God for what we’ve learned up to this point.”

Either a doxology or benediction is appropriate at the end of a worship service. In fact, we practice this at Red Oak, the church I am a pastor of. We come to the end of a worship service and we say, “May the God of all peace grant you…” and then we give a blessing. That’s a good thing. It’s not magic. The preacher doesn’t stand here and sprinkle a benediction of magic dust over you and then you go out and you receive extra blessings for the week. It’s a biblical thing that we speak the blessings of the Lord based on the promises of the Lord to His people and then we go out and we live our lives. 

“For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”

Romans 11:36