“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ…” (Ephesians 1:3)
Is God A Grumpy God?
We all know someone and have someone in or lives that is just generally unhappy. They are pessimistic, gloomy—and just generally and altogether unhappy.
Let’s be honest, these people just suck the life from us! They are negative, needy, and unpleasant to be around. Who would want to listen to what they have to say, let alone spend time with them?
Unfortunately, when many people think about God and what He is like, this is often the way they picture Him.
They think about some grumpy, gray-haired old man sitting in heaven that lives to give us rules and steal our joy and fun. He is irritable, short-tempered, bored—and just generally and altogether unhappy.
However, among the many ways the Bible describes God (loving, just, holy, etc.), perhaps the most over-arching characteristic and personality trait it gives us is this: God is a happy God.
Contrary to what most people may think about Him, our Lord is the most happy, joyful, elated, delighted, thrilled, excited, non-bored being in the universe! And this is the best of news.
God Is Happy Because God Is Trinity
Christians confess that our God is a Trinity: one in three and three in one—a complex oneness.
Admittedly, this is a complex doctrine. But under and above all the complexities, the Trinity is basically a relationship—a perfect relationship—between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
All three persons of the Trinity perfectly know and perfectly love one another. God the Father knows and loves God the Son—the perfect image of the Godhead. God the Son perfectly knows and loves God the Father and glorifies Him. God the Holy Spirit perfectly knows and loves the Father and Son and shows us and draws Creation to the Son.
We see this beautiful relationship most clearly in Jesus’ prayer recorded in John 17:1-11. Go read it and be amazed at the beautiful complexity of the infinitely intimate relationship between the Father and Son. Because God has eternally known and loved Himself, He is perfectly and eternally satisfied—or in other words, He is perfectly and eternally happy.
He doesn’t need anything.
The Gospel: The Good News That God Is Happy
God’s eternal, full, perfect happiness is such good news—and the essence and foundation of the Gospel—for this reason: because God is eternally happy and satisfied, God is able and free to give us all things (including Himself!) in order to make sure we are fully and perfectly satisfied and happy in Him. All of the blessings of the gospel are due to God’s Trinitarian happiness:
- The gospel blessings of Justification and Sanctification free us to enjoy God as uncondemned saints (Rom. 5:1, 5:11).
- The gospel blessings of Reconciliation and Adoption bring us into God’s family where we receive all the blessings and the inheritance as children of a happy Father (Eph. 1:7-11).
- The gospel blessings of Glorification and the Final Resurrection finally conform our fallen bodies and affections to the image of Christ and enable us to enjoy God forever in a New Heaven and Earth (Rom. 8:28-30; Rev. 21:1-6).
God’s Glory In Our Happiness… In Him
Most importantly, all of this makes God look infinitely glorious and beautiful, which at first might make God seem like an egomaniac. However, when God seeks to glorify Himself by making us happy in Himself, He’s actually giving us what our hearts most need.
This is actually the greatest act of love, because it cost Him the greatest price: God’s perfectly known and loved Son—Jesus.
Paul says this same thing in Ephesians 1:3-7—it is only because God is eternally blessed that He is able and free to bless us!
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ…” (v. 3).
Therefore, because God is a happy God, we can trust Him, in Christ, for all the deepest needs of our hearts.
For Further Reading:
The End for Which God Created the World, Jonathan Edwards
On the Trinity, St. Augustine of Hippo
Experiencing the Trinity, Joe Thorn
Delighting in the Trinity, Michael Reeves
The Pleasures of God, John Piper
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[…] our #GospelFoundations series, where we have been studying the foundations of the Gospel. So far we have seen that the Gospel is good news because our great Triune God is infinitely, perfectly happy. Because […]