So who is God?
For 2,000 years, Christians have said God is Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, God in three persons, blessed Trinity.
I’d like to zero in on the adjective Paul and that great hymn place in front of God; that word “blessed.”
And to do that, we should sing with John Lennon, “Imagine there’s no heaven…” or earth for that matter.
A helpful way to think about God and by default the Gospel, is to imagine God never created, and since he never created, never saved. Go ahead. Imagine. And then, if God never created…
Would He still be God? Yes.
Would Jesus still be the Son? Yes.
Would the Spirit still be God? Yes.
God has always been God and always would be God had He never created.
Frederick Faber captures this perfectly in his hymn: “When
Heaven and earth were yet unmade, when time was yet unknown,
Thou in Thy bliss and majesty, didst live and love alone.”
God, Father, Son, and Spirit, has always been in bliss, majesty, perfection, joy, happiness, and on and on and on, IN HIMSELF.
Pre-creation, God was not lonely, but He was alone.
For all time, God the Father loves God the Son in the love of
God the Holy Spirit. Think of God’s dwelling as “The Happy Land of the Trinity”
This is the Divine Blessedness 1 Timothy 1:11 is getting at, “… the gospel of the glory of the blessed God…”
So who is God? Blessed.
Romans 9:5, “To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever.”
2 Corinthians 11:31, “The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever…”
The blessed God has always been the blessed God. There’s never been a time He wasn’t blessed. He has no need for us to add blessing to Him. He is blessed.
1 Tim 6:15, “...He who is the blessed and only Sovereign…”
Who is God? Blessed!
Paul praises God’s divine majesty and exaltedness, His mystery and sovereignty; beginning with His blessedness.
This is THE attribute of God. Not only is God sovereign, not only is He exalted above all powers, and not only incomparably perfect; but behind that, in the Happy Land of the Trinity, God is something even more: God is blessed.
Without any reference to creation or the image bearers he placed in it, God is blessed, whole, full, complete, happy.
It is because of this truth about God we changed a lyric to a ...