Jesus asked, “why do you call me good? There is only one who is good.”  But if we press further, we must ask: What kind of good? A relatively good God? A distant perfection? A static absolute? God is not merely perfect in power or knowledge. He is perfect in blessedness. He is complete, overflowing, inexhaustible joy.

This study argues that divine blessedness expresses God’s plenitude or his complete self-sufficiency and overflowing fullness of life and joy. We will carefully analyze 1 Timothy 1:11 and 6:15–16. We will also examine Romans 1:23 and John 5:26. Finally, we will study Psalm 16:11 and Psalm 36:9. Through this, we will see that God is perfect blessedness. This is because he possesses fullness of life, joy, and incorruptible perfection in himself and from himself.

The State of the Question: From Divine Impassibility to Divine Happiness

Medieval theology emphasized divine impassibility. God could not suffer, change, or be affected by creation. This protected divine transcendence but risked portraying God as emotionally inert. The Reformers inherited this framework but nuanced it. Calvin insisted that God accommodates himself to human language about divine “repentance” or “grief” (Institutes 1.17.13). Yet Calvin also spoke warmly of God’s “delight” in his people.

The Puritans pushed further. Thomas Goodwin wrote that “God had communion with himself from all eternity” and that the Trinity enjoyed “mutual delight” before creation (The Glory of the Gospel, Works 4:87). John Owen described God as “infinitely satisfied and delighted in his own perfections” (Communion with God, Works 2:24). This was not innovation but recovery. The doctrine of divine blessedness reclaimed the biblical portrait of a God who rejoices.

Modern theology has fractured along two paths. Process theology rejects immutability and insists God needs creation for fulfillment. Open theism softens omniscience to preserve divine responsiveness. Both err by making God’s happiness dependent on creatures. Classical theism, by contrast, holds that God’s blessedness is a se or “of himself.” He does not need us or anything else to be happy. God is perfect happiness “of himself.”  Still,  he freely shares his happiness with us.

1. The Blessed God: Exegesis of 1 Timothy 1:11 and 6:15–16

Paul twice calls God μακάριος which mean s”blessed” or “happy” (1 Tim 1:11; 6:15). In 1 Timothy 1:11, he writes of “the gospel of the glory of the blessed God” (τοῦ μακαρίου θεοῦ). The term μακάριος in classical Greek denoted someone who possessed fullness of well-being. In the Septuagint it regularly translates Hebrew אַשְׁרֵי (ashrê), as in Psalm 1:1, “Blessed is the man.” The root conveys deep contentment arising from a rightly ordered life. 

When Paul applies μακάριος to God, he turns the concept inside out. Among humans, makarios refers to the one who is favored, to whom good has come from outside themselves (cf. Matt 5:3–11; Ps 1:1 LXX). Yet when Paul calls God τοῦ μακαρίου θεοῦ—“the blessed God” (1 Tim 1:11)—he reverses this direction. God’s blessedness does not arise from anything beyond himself. He is not made happy by circumstances or sustained by external goods. Rather, he is blessed in himself, possessing within his own being the inexhaustible source of life, joy, and goodness. The genitive construction τοῦ μακαρίου θεοῦ is best taken as attributive, identifying blessedness not as something God has but as something he is. God’s glory consists precisely in his blessedness; his self-sufficiency is radiant joy. This is no contingent or accidental state but an essential perfection. To predicate makarios of God is to confess that his delight is rooted in his very nature, not in relation to created benefit. His joy is identical with his being.

Paul’s theology elsewhere confirms this interpretation. In Acts 17:25–28, he declares that God “is not served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.” The apostle grounds divine independence in divine plenitude: God supplies all things precisely because he lacks nothing. He is the unborrowed giver, the fountain from which all life flows. Humanity lives, moves, and has being in him, not he in us. Similarly, in Romans 11:36, Paul concludes his doxology with the sweeping claim, “from him and through him and to him are all things.” The preposition ἐκ (“from”) signifies origination; all that exists issues forth from God’s infinite sufficiency. Were there some good that God received rather than gave, his aseity—his self-existence—would collapse. The logic of divine blessedness thus depends upon divine perfection. Because all things are from him, he must already have all things.

Hence, to confess God as makarios is to affirm that he is the summum bonum, the highest and self-existent good. As the source and measure of every created good, he cannot receive goodness without ceasing to be God. His blessedness is not participation but plenitude. He is, in Augustine’s phrase, “the perfect possession of eternal life” (De civitate Dei 19.20)—life without loss, joy without need, perfection without shadow.

In 1 Timothy 6:15–16, Paul intensifies the vision of divine plenitude first introduced in 1:11. He writes of God as “ὁ μακάριος καὶ μόνος δυνάστης”—“the blessed and only Sovereign”—who “μόνος ἔχων ἀθανασίαν,” “alone having immortality.” The syntax weaves together divine makariótēs (blessedness), monarchy (sovereignty), and aphtharsía (incorruptibility) into a single portrait of absolute self-sufficiency. Each term is exclusive. The repeated μόνος (“only”) denies participation or dependence. God’s sovereignty is unrivaled, his life unborrowed, and his blessedness unshared in origin though diffusively communicative in grace. The grammatical construction itself underscores divine aseity. The participle ἔχων (“having”) is a present active participle of possession, not reception. Paul does not write that God received immortality but that he has it—continuously, inherently, and by nature. Immortality is not an endowment granted to God; it is the mode of divine being. As ζωὴν ἐν ἑαυτῷ ἔχων (“having life in himself,” John 5:26), he alone is life’s fountainhead. What he has, he is.

Paul’s coupling of μακάριος with δυνάστης unites joy and dominion in a single divine perfection. God’s blessedness is not passive contentment but active sovereignty. His reign flows from the fullness of being, not from exertion or acquisition. The “only Sovereign” rejoices eternally in the possession of his own infinite life. In contrast to creaturely rulers whose happiness depends on circumstance and whose power is bounded by contingency, God’s sovereignty and blessedness are mutually interpretive: he is blessed because he reigns without lack, and he reigns because he possesses all that constitutes perfect joy. This interpretation coheres with the broader Pauline pattern of doxology, where the confession of God’s attributes culminates in self-contained plenitude. In Romans 11:36, all things are said to be “from him and through him and to him”; in Acts 17:25–28, he “gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” yet “is not served by human hands, as though he needed anything.” In both passages, divine blessedness implies absolute independence.

Augustine expressed it with characteristic clarity: Beata vita Dei ipsa est substantia eius—“The blessedness of God is nothing other than his own substance” (De Trinitate 13.5.8). The formula reveals a metaphysical precision already implicit in Paul: what God has, God is. Blessedness is not a state that befalls God but the unchanging actuality of his essence. As the blessed and only Sovereign, God is the plenitude of life rejoicing in itself, the eternal fullness that gives without loss and rules without need. Van Mastricht summarizes: divine blessedness is “that whereby God rejoices in and enjoys himself, his perfections, and all things, and communicates himself to his own that they might have fruition of joy” (Theoretical-Practical Theology, 2.20.1). Blessedness is both God’s self-enjoyment and his overflowing generosity.

2. Incorruptibility and the Perfection of Being: Romans 1:23

Romans 1:23 contrasts “the glory of the incorruptible God” (τὴν δόξαν τοῦ ἀφθάρτου θεοῦ) with images of corruptible creatures. The adjective ἄφθαρτος (“incorruptible,” “imperishable”) appears in Hellenistic literature to describe what is unaging and unchangeable. Paul’s usage, however, is theological. God’s glory consists in being ἄφθαρτος—incapable of decay or diminution. It is not merely an affirmation  that God cannot die. It is the affirmation that God cannot be diminished from his infinity. The phrase τοῦ ἀφθάρτου θεοῦ defines divine glory as ontological plenitude. Corruption (φθορά) implies loss and movement from fullness to lack. Incorruption (ἀφθαρσία) signifies the opposite—immutable perfection. Paul’s contrast reveals that idolatry exchanges plenitude for deficiency. To worship creation is to trade the infinite for the finite, the perfect for the perishing.

Novatian reflected on this text: “To call God eternal, immortal, incorruptible, or unchangeable is one and the same thing” (De Trinitate 2). Divine incorruptibility expresses God’s unchanging fullness. He neither acquires nor loses being, happiness, or glory. Bavinck captures the point: “God’s blessedness includes perfect self-enjoyment without decay” (Reformed Dogmatics 2:215). The incorruptible God cannot be improved. He is already full. His blessedness is not threatened by time, circumstance, or creaturely failure. It rests secure in his unchanging nature.

3. Life in Himself: John 5:26 and the Aseity of the Father

John 5:26 declares, “As the Father has life in himself (ζωὴν ἐν ἑαυτῷ), so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.” The phrase ἐν ἑαυτῷ carries locative and reflexive force. Life exists within the subject. The Father does not receive life. He possesses it inherently. This is the biblical articulation of aseity—God exists of and from himself (a se). The grammar is precise. The dative ἑαυτῷ (“in himself”) indicates location. Life is not external to the Father. It is intrinsic. He is not alive because something makes him alive. He is life itself. The verb ἔχει (“has”) denotes possession. The Father has life as an essential attribute. There is no potentiality in God, no becoming. He is pure actuality.

Likewise, Psalm 36:9 says: “For with you is the fountain of life” (מְקוֹר חַיִּים). The Hebrew maqor (“source,” “spring”) underscores divine origination. God is the uncaused cause of life. He gives life to all yet depends on none. Irenaeus interprets this to mean that God “confers immortality on those who are worthy because he alone possesses it” (Adversus haereses 4.20.5). God shares what he alone has underived. John’s theology describes divine plenitude as living fullness. The Father’s possession of life in himself reveals divine blessedness as vitality, not passivity. God is not a static being who happens to live. He is life overflowing. His blessedness is dynamic, not dormant.

4. Fullness of Joy: Psalm 16:11 and the Rejoicing God

Psalm 16:11 proclaims, “In your presence there is fullness of joy” (שֹׂבַע שְׂמָחוֹת). The Hebrew שֹׂבַע (sova’) means “abundance” or “satiation.” The plural שְׂמָחוֹת (simḥot) intensifies the idea: multiple joys overflowing from divine presence. David speaks of eschatological life in communion with God, but the phrase implies that such joy exists originally in God himself. Creatures receive what God already possesses. 

Zephaniah 3:17 reveals that God “rejoices over you with gladness” (יָשִׂישׂ עָלַיִךְ בְּשִׂמְחָה). The verb שׂוֹשׂ (sos) and the noun שִׂמְחָה (simḥah) indicate active delight. God is not emotionally static. He is eternally rejoicing in his own goodness and the fulfillment of his will. Isaiah 62:5 uses bridal imagery: “As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.” This is not anthropomorphism disguising divine apathy. It is revelation of divine passion. Augustine distinguished between God’s joy and ours. We rejoice because something good happens to us. God rejoices because he is the good that happens. “God’s blessedness is not from any external source but from his own fullness” (De civitate Dei 19.20). 

God does not wait for reasons to be happy. He is happiness itself. Owen wrote, “The blessedness of God is his infinite complacency in his own perfections” (Communion with God, Works 2:25). God delights in himself because he is infinitely delightful. The Psalms’ language of fullness of joy points beyond creaturely experience to the self-enjoyment of the triune life. The Father loves the Son. The Son glorifies the Father. The Spirit proceeds as the bond of love. This is eternal joy without beginning or interruption.

5. Divine Infinity and the Logic of Plenitude

If blessedness implies fullness, and fullness excludes limitation, then divine blessedness presupposes divine infinity. Scripture consistently describes God as beyond measure. Job 11:7–9 asks, “Can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limit of the Almighty?” Psalm 145:3 declares, “His greatness is unsearchable.” Infinity means no boundary, no deficiency, no unrealized potential.

The infinite perfection of God guarantees that his blessedness cannot be increased. Finite beings grow in happiness. We move from less to more. God does not. He is already all that he can be—not because of constraint but because of fullness. Aquinas captured this biblical logic: “Beatitude in God is his very essence; for he is perfect in himself and by himself” (Summa Theologiae I.26.2). God’s happiness is not a quality added to his being. It is identical with his being. Van Mastricht and Bavinck echo the same insight. God’s infinite perfection is the ground of his blessedness. Infinity, aseity, and immutability converge to form a single truth: God is full, unchangeable, and self-sufficient joy. He cannot be made happier. He cannot lose happiness. He is happiness. Calvin warns against speculating about God’s inner life apart from revelation (Institutes 1.13.21). But Scripture does reveal God’s blessedness. It is not secret knowledge reserved for mystics. It is the open confession of Paul, the Psalms, and the prophets. God is blessed, and he has told us so.

6. Synthesis: Blessedness as the Sum of the Divine Perfections

The biblical witness portrays blessedness as the sum of divine perfections.

• From 1 Timothy, God is μακάριος—the eternally content and sovereign God.
• From Romans, he is ἄφθαρτος—incorruptible and unchangeably full.
• From John, he is ζωὴ ἐν ἑαυτῷ—life itself, self-existent and self-sustaining.
• From the Psalms, he is שֹׂבַע שְׂמָחוֹת—the source and fullness of joy.

These texts articulate plenitude. God is perfect blessedness because he is the infinite, incorruptible, self-living, and rejoicing God. Augustine wrote, “The blessedness of God is the perfect possession of eternal life” (De civitate Dei 19.20). God does not possess blessedness as something distinct from himself. He is blessedness.

John Owen explored this in his treatise on communion with God. He argued that the Father’s love for the Son and the Son’s delight in the Father constitute the eternal blessedness of the Godhead (Communion with God, Works 2:26–28). Creation adds nothing to this. Redemption glorifies God not by making him happy but by displaying the happiness he already enjoys. Bavinck synthesized the classical and Reformed traditions: “God’s blessedness is his self-sufficiency and self-enjoyment, which overflows in the communication of himself to creatures” (Reformed Dogmatics 2:216). Blessedness is both immanent and economic. God rejoices in himself eternally. He shares that joy with us temporally.

Conclusion: The Blessed God and the Blessed Life

To confess that God is perfect blessedness is to affirm that every divine attribute—immutability, aseity, infinity, goodness—converges in eternal joy. The gospel of “the glory of the blessed God” (1 Tim 1:11) proclaims that the plenitude which God enjoys in himself overflows toward creatures in grace. Van Mastricht concludes, “God is perfectly sufficient for himself and for us” (Theoretical-Practical Theology, 2.20.1). He needs nothing, yet gives everything.

The blessedness of God is not abstract metaphysics. It is the living heartbeat of Christian theology. It grounds the believer’s joy. The God who rejoices in himself invites his people into participation in that joy. This is the telos of redemption. We are saved not merely from sin but for blessedness. We will see God and be satisfied (Ps 17:15). We will enter into the joy of our master (Matt 25:21).

The perfection of divine blessedness establishes both the sufficiency of God and the hope of the redeemed. God’s fullness becomes the fullness of all who dwell in him. And because God’s blessedness is infinite, our participation in it will never end. We will drink forever from the fountain that never runs dry.