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The seventeenth-century English poet William Habington stated, “He who is nice is joyful.” Certainly. He who is nice and abounds in all good issues is happiest and most blessed. And since none is nice like God is nice, none is blessed like God is blessed.
God’s blessedness or felicity (that’s, his enjoyment of the best good) was not given a lot consideration within the work of the Reformers. Even after the time of the Reformation, blessedness doesn’t obtain the kind of consideration that different attributes do. Curiously, within the medieval interval of church historical past, two of essentially the most well-known theologians, Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, gave copious consideration to God’s blessedness. Others earlier than the medieval interval, like Augustine within the early church, had been clearly not unaware of this particular attribute of God after they related the best good with God’s personal felicity and blessedness.
We reside in a time when a reacquaintance with God’s blessedness may show extraordinarily helpful for pastors and their flocks. This attribute may operate as an evangelistic software to a era of individuals, younger and outdated, who’re decidedly not experiencing true blessedness and pleasure.
Rediscovering Blessedness
Meditating upon God’s blessedness ought to, in a sure sense, trigger us some holy envy of what God possesses. His attributes, as we conceive of them, contain an ideal union of all that’s good. So, for instance, his blessedness is an unchangeable blessedness, an everlasting blessedness, an infinite blessedness, and so forth. God’s delight is mainly in himself as a totally self-sufficient being who wants nothing as a result of he possesses all the pieces. The apostle Paul speaks of “the gospel of the glory of the blessed God” and calls God “the blessed and solely Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords” (1 Timothy 1:11; 6:15).
The concept of blessedness because the union of all good issues is just not significantly obscure. If we may conceive of a superb God who’s unable to impact good as a result of he lacks the ability to take action, he wouldn’t be joyful however depressing. Or contemplate a God each holy and merciful however missing the knowledge to be each simply and the justifier of sinners — he additionally can be depressing. God is an ideal being insofar as his attributes usually are not in competitors with each other, however as an alternative gloriously harmonize in a approach that may solely imply he’s blessed above all.
Theologians discuss with God as a totally actualized being such that he’s not simply blessed however infinitely blessed. He can’t be kind of blessed than he’s. The place unchangeable and infinite holiness, justice, energy, data, knowledge, and goodness exist, there should be blessedness.
Blessed Data
God enjoys blessedness as a result of there isn’t a ignorance in him. He is aware of himself absolutely. As Stephen Charnock says,
The blessedness of God consists not within the data of something with out him however within the data of himself and his personal excellency, because the precept of all issues. If, subsequently, he didn’t completely know himself and his personal happiness, he couldn’t take pleasure in a happiness. For to be and to not know to be is as if a factor weren’t. “He’s God blessed eternally” (Romans 9:5) and subsequently eternally had a data of himself. (The Existence and Attributes of God, 624)
God is blessed as a result of he absolutely is aware of his blessedness. God’s life is “most joyful,” because the Reformed theologian Benedict Pictet stated. Anybody who understands true happiness will affirm that God is “most joyful” since he’s “in want of nothing, finds all consolation in himself, and possesses all issues; is free from evil, and full of all good” (Theologia Christiana Benedicti Picteti, 2.4.7).
“In contrast to people, God doesn’t want something exterior of himself to make him joyful and blessed.”
In contrast to people, God doesn’t want something exterior of himself to make him joyful and blessed. The blessedness on this universe, wherever it could be, is from God and might solely be from God. Even the human nature of Christ receives its happiness from the divine essence. As Edward Leigh as soon as stated, “The human nature of Christ himself in heaven . . . lives in God, and God in it, in a full dependence on God, and receiving blessed and wonderful communications from him” (A Treatise of Divinity, 2:200).
Trinitarian Blessedness
Once we say that God is “most blessed” we’re affirming that the Father, Son, and Spirit all equally possess this infinite happiness. There isn’t a divine attribute that belongs to 1 individual and never one other.
John Owen, who by no means shied away from his sturdy Trinitarian theology, speaks of the blessedness of God because the “ineffable [that is, indescribable] mutual inbeing of the three holy individuals in the identical nature, with the immanent reciprocal actings of the Father and the Son within the everlasting love and complacency of the Spirit” (Works of John Owen, 1:325). The reciprocal love between the individuals makes them blessed. Real love is the bottom for true happiness. The one who loves most is most joyful.
We worship and serve a most joyful God, which ought to make us joyful. We bow earlier than the three individuals understanding they aren’t distressed just like the pagan gods however quite stuffed with pleasure, which is nice information for us. God isn’t just joyful however free from all miseries. “God is gentle, and in him isn’t any darkness in any respect” (1 John 1:5). God is aware of his good blessedness, which implies he additionally is aware of he can not not be blessed. It’s inconceivable for any distress to ever be in God.
Christ’s Blessedness
Affirming God’s blessedness raises an essential query for us concerning our Savior, Jesus Christ. We drink from God’s blessedness as a result of Christ drank in our distress because the God-man. God despatched his Son to make us joyful. However what, then, can we are saying about Christ’s personal felicity, pleasure, and blessedness?
Was not Christ “a person of sorrows” (Isaiah 53:3)? Or was he a person of pleasure on the similar time? Whereas possessing a human nature permits for the expertise of actual distress, we must also consider our Savior as a person of pleasure who was at all times conscious of his blessedness. Christ was at all times joyful and subsequently blessed whereas on earth, although he was additionally acquainted with grief.
As one who acquired the Spirit with out measure (John 3:34), he would essentially have been joyful (Galatians 5:22). As one free from sin, he didn’t possess the miseries of a sinful nature; quite, he was holy, harmless, and unstained (Hebrews 7:26). He would have been supremely happy in his holiness, which he acquired from the Father by the Spirit. Our Lord additionally knew that he was doing God’s will (John 4:34; 17:4), which brings pleasure and blessedness. Even going to the cross, Christ had pleasure set earlier than him (Hebrews 12:2). Understanding that each one he was doing would result in the salvation of his bride can be trigger for nice felicity. At one time, we learn of Jesus rejoicing within the Spirit as a result of the Father had revealed to “little kids” the salvation achieved by defeating the satan (Luke 10:18–21; Hebrews 2:14).
Our Lord was and particularly now could be a blessed man, essentially the most blessed man.
His Blessedness Is Ours
What does the church acquire by recovering blessedness at the moment? There isn’t a denying that we live in a day when persons are missing pleasure. Melancholy is on the rise, and plenty of are coping in unhealthy methods with their miseries.
We consider that God is the fountain of all blessedness and pleasure. We can not expertise true pleasure on this life till the triune God turns into our God. We’re solely as joyful or depressing because the God we serve. Blessedness is just not solely one thing God is however one thing he gives, applicable to our creaturely situation. God has determined to supply one of the best to us in and thru his Son, Jesus Christ, which we will obtain by our union with him and the Spirit’s dwelling in our hearts.
George Swinnock correctly states,
Those that serve the flesh as their god are depressing (Romans 16:18; Philippians 3:18) as a result of their god is vile, weak, deceitful, and transitory (Psalm 49:20; 73:25; Isaiah 31:3; Jeremiah 17:9). Equally, those that prize the world as their god are depressing as a result of their god is useless, troublesome, unsure, and fleeting (Ecclesiastes 1:2–3; 5:10; 1 Corinthians 7:29–31; 1 Timothy 6:9–10). However those that have an curiosity on this nice God are joyful: “Comfortable is that folks, whose God is the Lord” (Psalm 144:15). (The Blessed and Boundless God, 167)
The Lord Jesus acquired his happiness from God by the Spirit. We obtain our happiness from God, in Christ, by the Spirit. This blessedness is the one blessedness value having as a result of it comes from an inexhaustible fountain overflowing into our hearts, a pleasure that will probably be ours eternally.
Many individuals assume that riches or status will make them blessed, however these items simply flip into curses when God is just not put first. And it’s exhausting to place God first after we obtain riches and status. Except we obtain the best present that God may give — his Son — we can not obtain any blessing effectively. David understood this in Psalm 16. He speaks of how the traces fell for him in nice locations (verse 6), however solely within the context of having fun with the Lord as his “chosen portion” (verse 5). At God’s proper hand are pleasures forevermore (verse 11), which is how one could also be actually blessed on this life and the life to return.
And we must always not overlook who’s at God’s proper hand now: the exalted Christ. At God’s proper hand is his biggest pleasure, his Son, and we’re most just like the Father after we love what he loves, which is true blessedness.
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