Praise God, from whom all blessings flow

Re-translation of stanza 1:

1. Praise Father, whence all blessings spring;

Praise Son, redemption finishing;

Praise Spirit, working to apply& mdash;

Praise God with voices lifted high.

Formerly, God was outside of man and had nothing to do with man; there was a great distance between God and man. However, the Triune God desires to transmit Himself into us. In order for the Triune God to fulfill this desire, God the Father is the source, God the Son is the course, and God the Spirit is the flow (2 Cor. 13:14). This thought is expressed in the second stanza of a hymn in our hymnal: "Praise God the Father who's the source; / Praise God the Son who is the course; / Praise God the Spirit who's the flow; / Praise God, our portion here below!" (Hymns, #8). The Spirit is revealed as the flow of the Trinity in Revelation 22:1. This verse says that the river of water of life, a symbol of the Spirit, proceeds out of the throne of God and of the Lamb in the middle of the street (cf. John 7:37-39). This indicates that the Spirit as the river of water of life flows and that this river has not only a source from which it flows but also a course, a way in which the source flows. In Revelation 22:1 the Triune God, the Divine Being, is portrayed as living water in three aspects: the source, the course, and the flow. God the Father is the source of the river of water of life, God the Son is the course of this river, and God the Spirit is the flow of the river. In the New Jerusalem the river of water of life spirals down from the throne in the middle of the golden street to water the whole city. This is a picture of the transmission of the Triune God as living water into the believers. When the Spirit as the flow comes to reach us, the entire Triune God is transmitted into us.