What kind of God do Christians worship?

Is God lonely, seeking fulfillment through creation? Does he require our worship in order to complete himself? Or does he possess within himself an inexhaustible fullness of life, joy, and delight?

Few theologians answer these questions with greater depth and warmth than John Owen (1616–1683). Although Owen never devoted an entire treatise to divine blessedness, the theme permeates his theology. His writings repeatedly return to the truth that God is perfectly sufficient in himself, eternally delighted within the fellowship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and graciously brings believers into communion with that blessed life.

For Owen, divine blessedness is not an abstract metaphysical concept. It is the living reality that grounds the gospel itself.

God Needs Nothing Outside Himself

Owen consistently affirms that God possesses every perfection in himself. He is not enlarged by creation nor diminished without it. God’s happiness is neither fragile nor dependent.

In Communion with God, Owen writes: “God was eternally all-sufficient unto himself. He stood in no need of any of those things which are made by him, nor of any such glory as doth arise from them.“¹ This conviction reflects the classical Christian doctrine of divine aseity. God is “of himself.” His life, goodness, and joy arise from no external source.

Creation is not God’s attempt to overcome solitude. Redemption is not God’s strategy for acquiring what he lacks. God does not save because heaven would otherwise be empty. Rather, God acts from fullness.

Owen repeatedly distinguishes between divine bounty and divine need. God works “not from indigency, but bounty.“² If God were needy, grace would become exchange. But because God is blessed in himself, salvation is sheer generosity. As Herman Bavinck would later observe, “The doctrine of God’s aseity is the heartbeat of true religion.” Owen anticipated this insight by grounding all God’s external works in his eternal sufficiency.

The Blessedness of the Triune God

Still Owen’s doctrine of divine blessedness extends beyond the affirmation that God needs nothing. God’s blessedness is distinctly Trinitarian. One of Owen’s greatest theological contributions is his insistence that God’s fullness consists not merely in abstract self-possession but in the eternal communion of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Reflecting on the love between the Father and the Son, Owen writes: “the mutual love of the Father and the Son is the delight and complacency of each person in the other.“³ This statement deserves careful attention. The Father eternally delights in the Son. The Son eternally delights in the Father. Their communion is not static but living, personal, and infinitely satisfying. The Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is not external to this fellowship but the divine person through whom believers participate in it.

Divine blessedness, therefore, is not simply divine self-consciousness. It is the inexhaustible delight of the triune God in the triune God. John 17 provides a biblical window into this eternal reality. Jesus speaks of “my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24, ESV). Before creation existed, the Father loved the Son. Before angels sang, divine delight already flourished. God was blessed before there was a world to bless.

Freedom Born from Fullness

Because God is perfectly blessed, he is perfectly free. He cannot be manipulated through human effort or enriched by creaturely offerings. Worship does not increase his happiness. Owen explains that God’s actions proceed from generosity rather than necessity. The distinction protects both divine transcendence and divine grace.

God did not create because he needed companionship. He did not redeem because he required servants. He loved because he is love. His goodness is not reactive. It is expressive. The gospel, therefore, reveals not divine desperation but divine abundance. His giving arises from fullness rather than deficiency.

Communion with the Blessed God

Perhaps nowhere does Owen’s doctrine of divine blessedness become more beautiful than in his understanding of communion with God. He famously defines communion this way: “Our communion, then, with God consisteth in his communication of himself unto us, with our return unto him.“⁴ Notice the movement. God gives himself.

Believers respond with faith, love, worship, and obedience. Communion is neither absorption into deity nor mere imitation of God from a distance. It is personal fellowship established by grace through Christ and enjoyed by the Spirit. This means that salvation is more than forgiveness. It is participation. The blessed God shares himself with his people. The saints do not merely receive gifts from God. They receive God.

Owen’s language anticipates later reflections on participation found in theologians such as Jonathan Edwards and, in a different register, Herman Bavinck. Human blessedness is derivative. We become happy not by finding satisfaction apart from God but by enjoying the God who eternally enjoys himself. As Jesus prayed: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory” (John 17:24). The final hope of believers is entrance into the Son’s own delight in the Father.

Blessedness and Assurance

Owen also recognized the pastoral significance of divine blessedness. Because God’s joy is immutable, his love is steadfast. The believer’s confidence rests not upon fluctuating divine emotions but upon God’s unchanging perfection. God’s purposes cannot fail because nothing external alters who he is. James declares that with God there is “no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17).

The God who justified sinners in Christ is not subject to mood swings or exhaustion. His covenant love proceeds from infinite fullness. This truth steadies anxious consciences. The Christian does not rest upon the uncertainty of personal devotion but upon the settled blessedness of God himself.

Owen’s Enduring Contribution

Augustine taught Christians to seek their rest in the supreme good. Thomas Aquinas described God as perfect beatitude itself. Jonathan Edwards emphasized God’s delight in the communication of his glory. Owen adds another note to this great theological symphony. He teaches us that the blessed God is the triune God who freely admits sinners into his own eternal communion of love.

Divine blessedness is neither cold self-sufficiency nor abstract perfection. It is the inexhaustible delight of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And from that inexhaustible delight flows creation, redemption, adoption, and glory.

The gospel begins not with a needy God seeking fulfillment from creatures, but with the infinitely happy God who, having all fullness in himself, graciously gives himself to those who have nothing. The deepest comfort of the Christian life is this: our salvation rests in the hands of the Blessed God.

Notes

1. John Owen, Of Communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1965), 2:8.
2. Owen repeatedly contrasts God’s bounty with creaturely indigency throughout his discussions of divine sufficiency and grace. See especially Communion with God, Works, 2:8–9.
3. Owen, Communion with God, Works, 2:35.
4. Owen, Communion with God, Works, 2:8.