The Blessed God

So many passages of Scripture talk about the blessed God. Three that I have come up against in recent days are these.

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places," (Ephesians 1:3, ESV)

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you," (1 Peter 1:3-4, ESV)

"in accordance with the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted. " (1 Timothy 1:11, ESV)

As I have meditated on these passages I have come to see that it is not so much that we bless God as it is that God is blessed and blesses us. One theologian goes deep on this phrase as he ponders,

“Blessedness when ascribed to God comprises three elements: In the first place it expresses the fact that God is absolute perfection, for blessedness is the property of every being that is perfect or complete: that has life, and is free from disturbance, whether inwardly or outwardly. . . . Because of the fact that God is absolute perfection, the sum-total of all virtues, the highest essence, the supreme of goodness and truth, in other words, because he is absolute life, the fountain of all life, he is the God of absolute blessedness.… Secondly, the word blessedness when applied to God implies that this absolute perfection is the object of God’s knowledge and love . . . God knows himself with a knowledge that is absolute, and he loves himself with a love that is absolute. Hence, the word blessedness when applied to God implies thirdly that God delights in himself in an absolute sense, that he rests in himself, that he is perfectly self-sufficient. His life is not a continual development, a mere striving and becoming, as is taught by pantheism, but an uninterrupted rest, an eternal peace” (H. Bavinck, The Doctrine of God, p. 248)

What a privilege to know the gospel of the glory of the blessed God who knows and loves His absolute perfection!