Is Jesus Happy?

Is Jesus happy?

For the joy that was set before him [Christ] endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2

In Christ one sees the path to happiness and discovers the virtues and practices constitutive of happiness. For Christians, happiness is a way of life by which we gradually are conformed to the love, goodness, and beauty of God revealed to us in Christ. PAUL WADELL

MANY SCHOLARS BELIEVE that Christ is the personification of “Lady Wisdom,” who is depicted in Proverbs 8. Speaking of the Father, this ancient and eternal Wisdom says, “When he established the heavens, I was there. . . . When he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman” (verses 27, 29-30). Wisdom—clearly not just an attribute, but a being—says, “I was constantly at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind” (verses 30-31, NIV).

Dylan Demarsico says of this passage, “Rejoicing is a conservative translation of the Hebrew word sachaq. More accurate would be laughing or playing. We’re understandably reluctant to ascribe laughing and playing to Almighty God. Still, you can see for yourself in any Hebrew lexicon what the word means—and subsequently what God and wisdom were doing when they created the world: laughing and playing.”^a

The Common English Bible captures these words of God’s all-wise Son: “I was having fun, smiling before him all the time, frolicking with his inhabited earth and delighting in the human race” (Proverbs 8:30-31, emphasis added). The Good News Translation says, “I was his daily source of joy, always happy in his presence—happy with the world and pleased with the human race.”

Creation is attributed to Christ (see John 1:1-3; Colossians 1:16). But here he’s seen as playfully interacting with his Father and his creation. What an amazing portrayal of the preincarnate happiness of Jesus!

Demarsico says of this passage, “If you had witnessed this transcendent Being-in-Three-Persons letting out roaring laughter as he played, thus creating the universe, you probably would have shouted and cried out with joy. . . . The joy of the Lord is not something trifling. It’s a playfulness that created and sustains the universe, a laughter that guides history to its glorious end.”^b

Since we’re told that the angels shouted for joy when the triune God created Earth (see Job 38:4, 7), surely we would have done the same. Perhaps we will someday on the New Earth—maybe God will open the past and delight us with a front-row seat beholding his original creation!

In the first-ever gospel message of the newborn church, the apostle Peter preached that Psalm 16 is about Christ: “David says concerning him, ‘I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken; therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced. . . . For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption. . . . You will make me full of gladness with your presence’” (Acts 2:25-28, emphasis added). This effusive statement, attributed to the Messiah, is a triple affirmation of his happiness!

The passage Peter ascribed to Jesus includes Psalm 16:11: “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” The New Life Version says, “Being with You is to be full of joy. In Your right hand there is happiness forever.”

I’m convinced we should view this first apostolic sermon as a model for sharing the gospel today. Peter, full of the Holy Spirit, preached a prototypical gospel message, asserting three times the happiness of the one who is at the center of the gospel—Jesus. Yet how many people, unbelievers and believers alike, have ever heard a modern gospel message that makes this point? Peter preached that Jesus was “full of gladness”; why shouldn’t we?

Psalm 45:6-7 is quoted in direct reference to the Messiah in Hebrews 1:8-9, where the Father says of his Son, “You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.” The Contemporary English Version renders it, “Your God . . . made you happier than any of your friends.”

Who are Jesus’ companions in this passage? This could refer to his immediate group of friends, all believers, or all his fellow human beings. If it’s the latter, he has gladness that exceeds that of all people (which makes sense because he created us). If we were to ask a random group of believers and unbelievers, “Who is the happiest human being who ever lived?” few people would give the correct answer: “Jesus.”

Reflecting on these passages in Psalm 45 and Hebrews 1, John Piper writes, “Jesus Christ is the happiest being in the universe. His gladness is greater than all the angelic gladness of heaven. He mirrors perfectly the infinite, holy, indomitable mirth of his Father.”^c

Lord Jesus, your happiness is a gift you share with our Father and the Holy Spirit, and—miraculously, inexplicably, extravagantly—with us! Thank you!