Must We Choose Between Holiness And Happiness?

Must we choose between holiness and happiness?

Happy and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection!

Revelation 20:6, PHILLIPS

This first act of divine sovereign pleasure concerning us, was the choosing of us from all eternity unto holiness and happiness. JOHN OWEN

AS A YOUNG PASTOR, I preached, as others still do, “God calls us to holiness, not happiness.”^a This sounds spiritual, and there’s a half-truth to it. I saw Christians pursue what they thought would make them happy, falling headlong into sexual immorality, alcoholism, materialism, and obsession with success. They’d turned from holiness, and the lure of happiness appeared to me to be at odds with holiness.

I was attempting to oppose our human tendency to put preferences and convenience before obedience to Christ. It sounded God honoring to say, “God wants you holy, not happy,” and I could quote countless authors and preachers who had persuaded me of this (though I confess I hadn’t carefully thought it through).

There were several flaws in my thinking, including inconsistency with my own experience. I’d found profound happiness in Christ; wasn’t that from God? Furthermore, calling people to reject happiness in favor of holiness was ineffective. It might work for a while but not in the long run, given the reality that all people inherently seek happiness.

It has become common for Christians to draw a line between the holiness we know we should seek and the happiness we do seek. We see the world seeking happiness instead of holiness. Therefore, we assume we should do the opposite. But we’re wrong.

Tony Reinke gets it right: “Sin is joy poisoned. Holiness is joy postponed and pursued.”^b Christians fear happiness because they think it entails irresponsibility and negligence. Some Christians see happiness as the opposite of holiness. But Scripture says otherwise.

Consider Leviticus 9:24: “Fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed the burnt offering . . . on the altar. And when all the people saw it, they shouted for joy and fell facedown” (NIV). The radically holy God sent down fire, and they did what? They fell facedown . . . and “shouted for joy”!

This remarkable response flows from the utter holiness of submission combined with the utter happiness of praise. To fall facedown before the infinitely holy God while shouting for joy is a stunning picture of redemptive glory!

In his exegetical treatment of the Psalms, Mark Futato affirms that happiness and holiness are the book’s two dominant themes. He argues, “A holy life, according to the book of Psalms, results in a happy life . . . a life lived in keeping with God’s instructions.”^c

Any understanding of God that’s incompatible with the lofty and infinitely holy view of God in Ezekiel 1:26-28 and Isaiah 6:1-4, along with the powerful view of the glorified Christ in Revelation 1, is utterly false. God is decidedly and unapologetically anti-sin, but in no sense anti-happiness. Indeed, holiness is what secures our happiness.

Too often our message to the world becomes a false gospel that lays upon people an impossible burden. “Give up happiness; choose holiness instead” is not good news in any sense, and therefore it is not the true gospel! It bears more resemblance to the legalistic worldview of the Pharisees Jesus condemned (see Matthew 23:2-4).

If we believe the lie that saying no to sin means saying no to happiness, then no amount of self-restraint will keep us from ultimately seeking happiness in sin.

The wonderful news is that holiness doesn’t mean abstaining from pleasure; holiness means recognizing Jesus as the source of life’s greatest pleasure.

If given a choice, people who grow up in evangelical churches will predictably choose what appears to be the delightful happiness of the world over the dutiful holiness of the church. Satan tries to rig the game by leading us to believe we can’t have both happiness and holiness. Offer people a choice between being hungry and thirsty or having food and drink, and their choice is obvious. Never mind that the meal may be laced with cyanide or the drink injected with arsenic. Any offer of happiness, with or without holiness, will always win over an offer of holiness devoid of happiness.

DNA’s double helix is perfectly balanced at the core of human life. Two strands wrap around each other, forming an axis of symmetry and providing a perfect complement for each other.

God has made holiness and happiness to enjoy a similar relationship: each benefits from the other. For those of us who are Christ-centered believers, our lives should overflow with both. Neither alone will suffice; both together are essential for the truly Christ-centered life.

When Jesus says, “Be perfect” (Matthew 5:48), we should recognize that true happiness in him is part of what he intends. Our pleasure is won in the “Aha!” moments of discovering firsthand why God’s ways really are best. As we grow in knowledge, we can increasingly join Paul in saying, “We have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16) on the things he has revealed. The more we discover God’s ways and experience the goodness of his holiness, the less we try to find happiness apart from him.

Holy and happy Father, loving you is our only true path to happiness. You’ve said that when we delight in you, your desires become ours. Thank you for making the life of true holiness a glad life with abundant delights!