We close the week with an important question from a listener named Anthony in San Diego about whether God's happiness is contingent on our happiness. And it'll make sense here in just a moment. Here's the email. "Hello Pastor John, thank you for taking my question. I am very curious to get your thoughts on the following quote I found in J.I.

Packer's book, Knowing God, a classic. J.I. Packer writes this, "God was happy without humans before they were made. He would have continued to be happy had he simply destroyed them after they had sinned. But as it is, he has set his love upon particular sinners, and this means that by his own free voluntary choice, he will not know perfect and unmixed happiness again until he has brought every one of them to heaven.

He has in effect resolved that henceforth, for all eternity, his happiness shall be conditional upon ours." Okay, so that last line, "his happiness shall be conditional upon ours," it's tough for me to swallow. I think I understand what he's saying, but I would love to hear your take on this.

How would you take this line, Pastor John? That quote from Packer is found on page 125 in my edition of Knowing God, and I mention it just because I'd like every one of our listeners to read Knowing God. I just think it's a classic. It's sold a million-plus copies way over, and it's so foundational, and it's chock-full of good sentences like that.

So the sentence that Anthony is having a hard time swallowing says, "God has in effect resolved that henceforth, for all eternity, his happiness shall be conditional upon ours." Here's why I think that sentence sticks in our craw. If you didn't know J.I. Packer, if you didn't know the wider context of the book or his theology, the word "conditional" might imply to you that Packer has made God's joy dependent on our self-determining achievement of joy so that the achievement of it appears uncertain, and therefore God's joy appears uncertain, and if that's true, he's not God.

This is a big deal. A God who is making his happiness dependent on his creatures and then crossing his fingers in the hope that their happiness will be achieved decisively by them is not God. So he's raising an important question. Therefore, in addition to—not instead of, but in addition to saying that God's happiness is conditional upon ours, we need to say also that God's happiness is the invincible pursuit of ours.

Or to put it another way, God's joy is not only a response to our joy in him, God's joy is also the cause of our joy in him. Or to put it yet another way, the entire plan and history of salvation is the overflow of God's joy bringing into being through Jesus Christ a glorious family of believers who share in his joy.

So God is not waiting to see if we will become happy by the use of our self-determining powers so that he can then be happy in response to our happiness. No, no, no. God is not waiting to see. God is eternally happy in the Trinity, and his happiness is overflowing with creation and redemption and the whole process of bringing us to the point where we have fullness of joy in his presence and pleasures at his right hand.

So, the way to think about God's joy being conditional upon our joy is that he takes pleasure in the pleasure that we have in him, which he himself brought about in us. So yes, yes, his joy is conditional upon ours, but not with any degree of uncertainty that our joy will come about and that our joy in him will be full.

That's certain because that's what he's pursuing with omnipotent resolve. He has not just resolved, like Packer says, he has not just resolved to make our happiness the condition of his, he has also resolved to make our happiness the creation of his. So Jesus says, for example, in Luke 12.32, "Fear not, little flock.

It is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." In other words, God's not pictured here as standing by, watching, wondering whether we get happily into the kingdom and then rejoicing that we're in. Instead, the picture is God's great joy, his good pleasure, as Jesus calls it, his good pleasure is to give us the kingdom, is to get us into the joy of the kingdom.

So yes, by all means, according to Luke 15.7, there will be more joy in heaven, including God's joy, more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 persons who don't need any repentance. Yes, indeed, that's true. But the very repentance that brought about God's joy in heaven was the gift of God, and he didn't give it begrudgingly.

He gave it joyfully. This is his good pleasure. It is his good pleasure to get us into the kingdom by repentance. So how do we get in? How do we get into the covenant where our sins are forgiven, the law is written on our hearts, we delight to do the will of God so that God delights in our happy obedience?

How do we get in there? And here's the answer of Jeremiah 32, one of my favorite passages in all the Bible, Jeremiah 32, 40. I will make with them an everlasting covenant that I will not turn away from doing good to them, and I will put the fear of me in their hearts so that they may not turn from me, and I will rejoice in doing them good.

And with all my heart and with all my soul. So yes, God's joy is driving him in total freedom to bring his people into the covenant and keep them in the covenant and make them glad in the covenant with the very gladness of God, just like Jesus says in, I forget, Matthew 25 somewhere, 41, I think, "Enter into the joy of your master." We enter into the joy of Jesus.

And then, as J.I. Packer says, God himself rejoices over us, and our joy in Jesus becomes a constituent part of God's joy in us. As it says in Zephaniah 3, 17, "The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness.

He will quiet you with his love. He will exult over you with loud singing." Zephaniah 3, 17. Great verse. So, three cheers for J.I. Packer, and 3,000 cheers for God, who not only has made our joy in him, the condition of his joy in us, but has also made our joy in him, the creation of his joy in us.

A beautifully intricate plan, all orchestrated for our joy and for God's glory simultaneously. So good. Thank you, Pastor John. And again, we're talking about the classic book today, Knowing God by J.I. Packer. And if you've not read it, do it. Make it a priority to get this book read in your diet in 2018.

You'll have to part with about 12 bucks at Amazon, which is chicken feed compared to the glory that you'll find inside of it. Thank you for listening and for making the podcast part of your week. You can subscribe to our audio feeds and search our past episodes in our archive, and even send us an email of your own, even questions related to God's happiness and his happiness in us.

Those are always most fitting for our APJ podcast. Thank you for this question, Anthony. You can do all of those things that I just mentioned at our online home at DesiringGod.com. Well, we believe it is God's design to raise up a few qualified men to lead the local church.

Not all men inside the local church, just a few men. Most men are not called to lead churches as pastors, but elders are exclusively male according to the pastoral epistles of the New Testament. So when it comes to seminary professors, is there a role for women to lead courses in seminaries or not?

It's a big question. It opens up a big conversation about God's design for pastoral training. And that's the next question on the table when we return on Monday. Should be interesting. Until then, I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Have a wonderful weekend. We'll see you then.