Aristotle observed, the pursuit of happiness is unavoidable, but its character is not undisputed.

The phenomenon of happiness is disputed because our perception of happiness is both limited (due to our finitude) and liable to distortion (due to our fallenness). We disagree about whether happiness exists—is it truly achievable or is it just a mirage? We disagree about what happiness is—does it lie in riches, wisdom, power, pleasure, or fame? And we disagree about how happiness may be achieved.

Happiness Begins In God

A Christian account of happiness begins with God, the primary form of happiness in the universe and the principle from and to which all other forms of happiness flow. As God is the supreme good (Mark 10:18), to be extolled above all by all at all times in all places (Ps. 145:1–3, 21), so also is he the supreme beatitude, “the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords” (1 Tim. 6:15).

Along with divine perfection and divine glory, divine beatitude is a summative attribute. A summative attribute is not simply one attribute among others, but instead an attribute that characterizes all of God’s attributes. Divine beatitude refers to the satisfaction of God as he rests in, and rejoices in his own perfection.

God’s beatitude is simple. Nothing “makes” God happy. God does not “have” happiness. “God is happiness by his essence.” He is happy because he is who he is (Ex. 3:14).

A communicable attribute

God’s happiness is a communicable attribute, that is, an attribute that he shares with creatures. As the supreme good, God is also the supreme source of creaturely goods: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). And each creaturely good carries with it a distinct form of happiness for creatures capable of happiness. Some creaturely goods are worthy of our love: we are called to love our neighbors as ourselves (Matt. 22:39). Other creaturely goods are not worthy of our love but are to be received and shared with our neighbors for our mutual enjoyment: wine gladdens the heart of man, oil makes his face shine, and bread strengthens his heart (Ps. 104:15). All creaturely goods are limited goods, and therefore sources of limited satisfaction, pleasure, and happiness. But all creaturely goods are true goods, and therefore sources of true satisfaction, pleasure, and felicity.

God is the source and end of all creaturely goods. All creaturely goods, both material and social, are to be received “ with thanksgiving” to the happy God who makes us happy through them (1 Tim. 4:4).

Created to be Happy

In the work of creation, God created creatures to be beneficiaries of both temporal and eternal blessings. God made human beings, along with the angels, for good that lies outside of themselves in communion with Him. Though God placed a natural appetite for eternity in the heart of human beings, natural revelation and natural reason are not sufficient to lead human beings to the eternal happiness that alone can satisfy our natural desire (Eccles. 3:11) because eternal happiness transcends nature (Job 28).

God was pleased therefore to reveal to human beings both the object of eternal happiness, God Himself (Ps. 2), as well as the path that leads to eternal fellowship with him (Gen. 2:9, 16–17; Psalm 1; Mark 10:17).13 “You make known to me the path of life” (Ps. 16:11). Man was created for eternal happiness in communion with God.

The fall and man’s rebellion.

Created for eternal happiness in communion with God, man has nevertheless plunged himself through with many sorrows (Ps. 16:4; 1 Tim. 6:10) and plunged the entire creation into a state of corruption, pain, and futility (Rom. 8:20–22).

In forsaking God, man has enslaved himself, along with his various appetites (2 Pet. 2:12; 1 John 2:16), to the various creatures he was made to rule. He chases after food and clothing (Matt. 6:31–32), after the honor of man (John 5:44), and after the riches that (he believes) alone can afford them all happiness(Matt. 6:24). And he is in conflict with anyone who would impede the blind march of his pleasures and ambitions (James 4:1–3).

God’s happiness to show mercy

Due to their rebellion against God, human beings are objects of the divine wrath that “is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men” (Rom. 1:18; see also Eph. 2:3). But the God who is “full of wrath” (Ps. 78:21) is also “rich in mercy” (Eph. 2:4). The blessed and triune God is compassionate toward miserable sinners, determined to bring them out of the misery they have inherited from Adam into the happiness he has appointed for them in and through Jesus Christ.

Out of the Father’s love, by the Son’s grace, and within the Spirit’s fellowship, God makes miserable sinners blessed in him.

God’s happiness through his Son

The mercy of God toward miserable sinners is accomplished by “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 13:14): “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that being rich, he made himself poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9). Mercy is  accomplished by the pure grace of God the Son in his mediatorial person and work.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ bring salvation to pass. “He made himself poor” (2 Cor. 8:9). Without ceasing to be the eternally rich God by nature, the Son of God willingly took our poor humanity into personal union with himself. Rich and happy in himself, he was happy to own our poverty and misery. To what end? Not to gain happiness or riches for himself, but to communicate his happiness and riches to us (Mark 10:45). Through his poverty, we are enriched.

The incarnate Son of God, secured riches of mercy for us through his humiliation and poverty, bestows these riches upon us from his exalted place at the right hand of the Father as the head of his body, the church. In union with the incarnate, crucified, and exalted Son of God, we are reconciled to God. Now the “The oil of gladness” (Ps. 45:7) with which he is anointed flows, by the Spirit, from the head to the body, filling it with the fullness of divine happiness (Ps. 133:2). Filled with all the fullness of God (Eph. 1:22–23), our pleasure in the once-slain, now-reigning Lamb is perfected in his praise (Eph. 5:18–22).

 God’s happiness for us is by his Spirit

The mercy of the blessed Trinity toward miserable sinners reaches its goal in “the fellowship of the Holy Spirit” (2 Cor. 13:14). As the loving purpose of God the Father is fulfilled in the self-giving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, so the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, having fulfilled the purpose of God the Father, abounds in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit through the Word (Eph. 3:1–13).

The Spirit awakens us to the new happiness inaugurated through Jesus’s death and resurrection and assures us of our eternal inheritance in God: “But when the goodness and kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:5–7).

The Spirit enables us to possess and perceive the mercy purposed by the Father and purchased by the Son. The Spirit, who searches the depths of divine happiness (1 Cor. 2:10–11), shows the depths of God’s mercy to us and bestows the depths of God’s mercy upon us: “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God” (1 Cor. 2:12).

The Spirit enables us to see and receive the goods of heaven and earth, of this age and the age to come, as they really are: as gifts that radiate outward from the throne of the blessed and triune God. The Spirit then enables us to return these goods in sacrifices of praise, honor, and thanksgiving to the triune God (Gal. 4:6; 1 Cor. 12:3; Heb.13.15).

God’s own happiness in his people

By the Spirit, God pours his love into our hearts and awakens in our hearts the love of God (Rom. 5:5). The love poured into our hearts by the Spirit trains us rightly to affirm the being and well-being of God and of all things in relation to God, and it trains us rightly to exchange the goods of heaven and earth in fellowship with God and all things in relation to God. Such love is the bond of perfection in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit (Col  3:14).

The mercy of God, makes miserable sinners blessed in him. Flowing from the Father’s love in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, by his humiliation and exaltation, causes his joy to dwell in us and thereby makes our joy full (John 15:11). The Father, who rests in his Son by the Spirit, and the Son, who by the Spirit rejoices in his Father, by the same Spirit come to rest in us, causing us to rejoice in them (John 14:23).