Is God’s Happiness A New Thought?

Is God’s happiness a new thought?

I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation.

Isaiah 61:10

The beholding of God’s happiness will increase the joy, to consider that he is so happy who is so much the object of his love. That love of God in those who shall see God, will cause them exceedingly to rejoice in the happiness of God.

JONATHAN EDWARDS

IN HIS BOOK IS GOD HAPPY?, Marxist philosopher Leszek Kołakowski answers no to his title question. He says that God can’t be happy and that as long as there’s pain and death, humans can’t be happy either. If happiness were utterly incompatible with sin and sorrow, I’d have to agree. But despite present conditions in the universe, God’s unchanging nature includes underlying happiness—and the power to give us reasons for happiness too.

Though a long line of ancient philosophers, theologians, and regular folks once believed in God’s happiness, this concept has largely disappeared from the thoughts of countless Christians. It’s time to rediscover what believers before us knew and taught for centuries.

Anselm was a Benedictine monk who became the archbishop of Canterbury. Arguably, he was the greatest theologian between Augustine and Aquinas. In the opening of his philosophical treatise Monologion, Anselm spoke of the things “we must believe about God.” One of those was God’s happiness: “There is one nature, supreme among all existing things, who alone is self-sufficient in his eternal happiness, who through his omnipotent goodness grants and brings it about.”^a Few of us would be surprised that Anselm included God’s omnipotence and goodness, but most modern Christians tend to bypass God’s happiness.

Puritan Matthew Henry (1662–1714), the greatest Bible commentator of his era, wrote, “The eternal God, though infinitely happy in the enjoyment of himself, yet took a satisfaction in the work of his own hands.”^b God was all-happy before Creation, yet he delighted in his creation in a special way.

John Gill (1697–1771) sang God’s praise in ways that may seem surprising for a “body of divinity” written by a Hebrew scholar, pastor, and serious theologian:

Happy, thrice happy, are the people whose God is the Lord! Who, besides the good things he bestows on them here, he has laid up such goodness for them hereafter, which the heart of man cannot conceive of. How blessed and happy then must he himself be! Name whatsoever it may be thought happiness consists in, and it will be found in God in its full perfection.^c

H. D. M. Spence-Jones (1836–1917) was a Cambridge graduate who taught Hebrew and was the general editor of The Pulpit Commentary. I was struck by his observation on Jeremiah 32:41, where God says, “I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.”

Spence-Jones wrote,

God has joy. He is not indifferent, nor is he morose; we are to think of him as the “blessed” God, i.e. as essentially happy. . . . The brightness and beauty of the world are reflections from the blessedness of God. Because he is glad, nature is glad, flowers bloom, birds sing, young creatures bound with delight. Nothing is more sad in perversions of religion than the representations of God as a gloomy tyrant. . . .

These fragrant meadows, broad rolling seas of moorland heather, rich green forest-cities of busy insect life, flashing ocean waves, and the pure blue sky above, and all that is sweet and lovely in creation, swell one symphony of gladness, because the mighty Spirit that haunts them is himself overflowing with joy. Our God is a Sun. And if divinity is sunny, so should religion be. The happy God will rejoice in the happiness of his children. . . . God is so joyous that he finds joy even in us.^d

Modern writer John McReynolds says, “God is happy. His happiness is an intrinsic part of who He is. He was happy in eternity past, He is happy now, and He will be happy for all eternity. . . . His happiness, like all of His other attributes, is infinite and absolute.”^e

May we today, in our own lives and families and churches, add our names to the list of Christ-followers throughout the ages who believed that God is happy, that Jesus his Son is happy, and that the gospel we believe and embrace and share with others is a happy one.

Father, help us to grasp the liberating, gladness-producing truth of your happiness. Knowing that you are so happy that your delight spills out in the universe and in us changes everything—now and forever. Empower us to live this day in the awareness of this great truth.