If God Is Happy, Why Does He Seem Bad-Tempered?
00:00:00.000 | This week, Randy Elkhorn joins us on the phone.
00:00:07.800 | He is the author of the new book, Happiness.
00:00:09.940 | You'll want to check it out.
00:00:11.440 | Randy, as you know, God is happy.
00:00:13.800 | Scripture tells us that God is happy.
00:00:15.880 | So if God is so fundamentally and essentially happy all the time in himself, why does he
00:00:22.360 | seem so often to be ill-tempered in the biblical stories?
00:00:28.280 | I think what we've got to do is realize that sin is a reality in this world, and the suffering
00:00:35.520 | that comes out of sin.
00:00:36.880 | We're under the fall.
00:00:38.160 | We're under the curse.
00:00:40.020 | Even though Christ has become a curse for us who believe in him, we recognize that we
00:00:45.340 | still face the realities of sin and suffering in this life.
00:00:53.080 | This sin that infiltrates the world is a temporary condition.
00:01:00.080 | I think this is the key to understanding how it is that God could be, from eternity past,
00:01:06.880 | utterly happy within himself, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, delighting in each other.
00:01:13.040 | I developed this in the book, and others have developed it, of course.
00:01:16.280 | John Piper, in The Pleasures of God, develops it tremendously, and somewhat in Desiring
00:01:22.000 | God as well.
00:01:23.000 | That is this union of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Father who says, "This is my
00:01:28.760 | beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased."
00:01:31.880 | I think it's Luke 10, where it says, "Jesus then rejoiced in the Holy Spirit after telling
00:01:40.360 | his disciples to rejoice that their names are written in heaven."
00:01:47.040 | But he has always been happy.
00:01:49.720 | He will always be happy, and he is predominantly happy now.
00:01:55.680 | Sin is a temporary condition, so the causes for God's unhappiness are themselves temporary,
00:02:04.200 | and his primary identity is as a happy God, not an unhappy one.
00:02:11.320 | Sin is so prevalent, and the Bible is written to deal with the sin problem and point out
00:02:17.600 | the sin problem, hence we often do see a God with anger and wrath.
00:02:24.680 | It's easy to overlook all of the loving-kindness passages, and all the God delighting in his
00:02:31.160 | people, and God being pleased, and the Master in Jesus' words saying to the servant, "Well
00:02:39.520 | done, my good and faithful servant.
00:02:41.360 | Enter into your Master's happiness."
00:02:43.920 | Enter into a happiness far more ancient than the world itself, a happiness that preceded
00:02:51.600 | all creation, a happiness that goes on undaunted and will continue forever.
00:02:59.360 | God not only says this to us so that at the end of our life we might be welcomed into
00:03:04.120 | his happiness, but so that we can front-load, so to speak, that happiness into our life
00:03:12.160 | right now because of his redemptive work.
00:03:16.440 | Even then, when people will say, for instance, "Well, Jesus is called the Man of Sorrows,"
00:03:22.280 | and I get this a lot from people, and I'm writing a book on happiness.
00:03:25.920 | By the way, unbelievers would always think it was great when I tell them I was writing
00:03:31.960 | a book on happiness.
00:03:32.960 | Then when I would say it to believers, they'd say, "Whoa, wait a minute," and scrunch up
00:03:37.160 | their face.
00:03:38.160 | "Do you mean like giving joy?
00:03:39.160 | I mean, why are you talking about happiness?"
00:03:41.600 | I get a couple-page letter from a pastor telling me why I shouldn't write on the subject of
00:03:45.200 | happiness and all of that.
00:03:47.760 | But for unbelievers, they see the appeal of it because that's what they long for.
00:03:53.080 | But look at Jesus.
00:03:54.080 | He's called the Man of Sorrows, which people point out, but that's in Isaiah 53, and it's
00:03:58.760 | specifically in relationship to his redemptive work, a man of sorrows and acquainted with
00:04:03.880 | grief.
00:04:04.880 | He's pierced for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities and all of that.
00:04:10.040 | But even that redemptive work was done for the joy set before him, according to Hebrews
00:04:17.040 | 12.
00:04:18.040 | So if we picture Jesus going around in perpetual sadness or anger and grumbling and looking
00:04:24.680 | to condemn more than to extend grace, then we're really not seeing the Jesus of the Bible.
00:04:31.160 | Children were attracted to him, by the way.
00:04:33.480 | Who are children attracted to?
00:04:35.720 | They're not attracted to unhappy people.
00:04:39.680 | When people today are saying, "Well, I've got the joy of Jesus way, way deep in my heart,
00:04:46.200 | even though my life is pretty miserable," it's like, "Well, you know what?
00:04:49.280 | I think that joy needs to work its way to your face once in a while."
00:04:53.960 | After all, we are called to rejoice in the Lord always, and again, I say rejoice.
00:04:59.320 | And God, if he were not happy, would not call us to be happy.
00:05:03.920 | And furthermore, if God were not happy, he could not be the source of our happiness,
00:05:09.480 | because God can't give us what he doesn't have.
00:05:13.640 | We are to value joy, happiness, gladness, delight, precisely because our God is characterized
00:05:22.560 | by that, and the gospel we preach to people should be a gospel of a holy God, yes, but
00:05:28.720 | also a happy God.
00:05:30.240 | Yes, amen.
00:05:31.240 | Passages like 1 Timothy 1:11 and 1 Timothy 6:15 explicitly tell us that God is happy
00:05:36.960 | or blessed, as most translations put it.
00:05:40.400 | You know, I heard you recently argue in another interview somewhere that all the times in
00:05:44.720 | the Bible that talk about God delighting in someone or something means that God is essentially
00:05:51.360 | joyful because he is always postured to delight.
00:05:55.760 | That's a fascinating point you make.
00:05:57.480 | Exactly, because, you know, who delights?
00:06:00.560 | A person who has the capacity to delight and the desire and orientation to delight.
00:06:08.240 | A person who delights in delighting, who is pleased by pleasure, who is happy in happiness.
00:06:14.080 | Yeah, that is so insightful.
00:06:15.560 | And, you know, some theologians say that God's wrath is the flip side of his love.
00:06:20.040 | So if there's no love in God, there's no wrath.
00:06:22.960 | They both come together.
00:06:24.920 | Anger against sin is the flip side of his desire, then, for his creation to rejoice.
00:06:30.320 | Would you say that?
00:06:31.680 | Yes, absolutely.
00:06:32.720 | Because I think the very fact that he is unhappy with sin is an indicator that sin is what
00:06:43.440 | robs people of happiness.
00:06:46.680 | So he is happy with that which is not only in conformity to his holy standards, but that
00:06:54.880 | which is in conformity to his happiness and delight.
00:06:58.520 | He wants the best for us.
00:07:01.120 | He wants sincerely for us to participate in his happiness.
00:07:08.040 | And his joy and his delight and sin is the enemy of all that.
00:07:12.720 | Yes, it sure is, Randy.
00:07:14.280 | Thank you for your time.
00:07:15.280 | We're talking about Randy Elkhorn's new book, Happiness, my pick for the book of the year
00:07:19.240 | in 2015.
00:07:21.680 | And tomorrow I'm going to ask Randy, how does worry and anxiety poison our joy?
00:07:27.080 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.
00:07:28.920 | I'll see you tomorrow on the Ask Pastor John podcast.
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