What is happiness?

What the Bible says

The Bible is not embarrassed by happiness. The Psalter opens by asking who the happy person is.

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or set foot on the path of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers.

Ps 1:1

His blessing lies not in what he has but in whom he walks with. The psalm goes on to say that his "delight is in the Law of the LORD," and that he is like a tree planted by streams of water (Ps 1:2-3).

Jesus began his teaching on the mountain with the same word, and what follows turns common sense upside down.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Matt 5:3

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Matt 5:4

Jesus does not say that poverty or grief is good in itself. Those who know they cannot stand on their own before God, and whose hearts break at the world's pain, find the kingdom open to them. Happiness here comes not from everything going well but from the nearness of God. So the list ends with a promise that outweighs the rest: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God" (Matt 5:8).

Jesus speaks of joy just as plainly. It grows from remaining in the love of the Father and the Son.

I have told you these things so that My joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.

John 15:11

He adds that no one will take this joy away (John 16:22). Paul shows what that looks like. He writes to the church at Philippi while in chains, and says, "Rejoice in the Lord always" (Phil 4:4). Then he lets the reader in on the secret: it was learned, not inborn.

I am not saying this out of need, for I have learned to be content regardless of my circumstances.

Phil 4:11

None of this asks anyone to cover grief with a smile. Much of the Psalter is lament. Habakkuk looks at empty fields and still says, "yet I will exult in the LORD" (Hab 3:17-18), a confession made with the loss in full view.

Ecclesiastes speaks most directly to our question. Its Teacher has tested every route to happiness, pleasure, work, wealth and wisdom, and reports back.

Yet when I considered all the works that my hands had accomplished and what I had toiled to achieve, I found everything to be futile, a pursuit of the wind; there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

Eccl 2:11

Ecclesiastes does not call the good things of this world bad; it says they cannot carry the weight of our happiness alone. The book ends: "Fear God and keep His commandments, because this is the whole duty of man" (Eccl 12:13). Jesus also teaches that happiness is not the target: "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you" (Matt 6:33). If the greatest commandment is to love God and neighbour (Matt 22:37-39), then happiness is the fruit of that love and not its aim.

The church's witness

The church has always taught that it is not wrong to want to be happy. The question is where we look for it. Augustine opens his Confessions by saying that God made us for himself, and that our heart is restless until it rests in him Augustine, Confessions 1.1. The emptiness Ecclesiastes describes is the symptom of that restlessness. The Westminster Shorter Catechism likewise joins two things in its first answer: the chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 1.

Commenting on John 15, Augustine says what he takes this joy to be.

And what is our joy, which He says shall be full, but to have fellowship with Him?

Augustine

He adds that this joy begins in the faith of the born again and will be fulfilled in the reward of the resurrection, so present joy is a beginning.

On the Beatitudes, Pseudo-Chrysostom writes: "Such is the bounty of a rewarding God, that His gifts are greater than the desires of the saints" Pseudo-Chrysostom. On Philippians 4, Matthew Henry says: "Joy in God is of great consequence in the Christian life; and Christians need to be again and again called to it" Matthew Henry. Joy does not sustain itself.

In the original languages

The "blessed" of Psalm 1:1 is the Hebrew esher (אֶשֶׁר). It often works like an exclamation: "Oh, the happiness of that man!" It is less a wish than the cry of someone who sees a person already living well, in delight in God's law.

The "blessed" of the Sermon on the Mount is the Greek makarios (μακάριος). In early Greek poetry, many scholars note, its older form makar mostly described the gods, free of care and toil. Jesus applies it to the poor and the grieving.

Joy is chara (χαρά), which shares a root ("rejoice") with charis, "grace." A root does not fix a meaning, but the link is a fitting reminder that joy is first a response to something given. The "My joy" of John 15:11 is the joy Christ already has, now to be in us.

Common objections

"Seeking happiness is selfish. Shouldn't the good life be about duty, whether or not it makes us happy?" Goodness done only for the reward does seem impure, and Scripture knows this: its greatest commandment is stated as love, not as reward. But it never tells us to suppress the longing for happiness. The psalmist cries, "Whom have I in heaven but You?" and calls God his "portion forever" (Ps 73:25-26). If God himself is the goal and the blessing, longing for God is not selfishness. The order matters. When happiness is placed above God it becomes an idol; when it is found in God it becomes a gift.

"The righteous suffer and the wicked prosper. So the claim that trusting God makes us happy must be false." This objection is already inside the Bible: the writer of Psalm 73 says he nearly slipped when he saw the wicked prosper. Scripture does not promise that faith will make circumstances good; Job and Ecclesiastes argue against that idea. What it promises is a fellowship with God that no circumstance can cut. Paul says he rejoices in suffering, but he grounds this not in the suffering but in the fact that "God has poured out His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit" (Rom 5:3-5). That answer does not explain every pain; see Does suffering have meaning?

"Talking about joy hurts people who are depressed or grieving." This is a fair warning. Commanding someone who is ill in mind to rejoice does not help and may add guilt. The joy the Bible speaks of is not the absence of sorrow; Jesus wept, and joy can sit beside sorrow. Depression is not a lack of faith (see Is depression a lack of faith?), and a person in that place does well to talk to a doctor, a counsellor or someone close.

Going further

We often think, "If I only had this, I would be happy." The Teacher speaks as one who has had it all and still found his heart unfilled. The fact that nothing fills us completely may be a signpost toward the one who can. That fellowship has already begun, though it is not yet complete.

You might ask yourself: What do I believe will make me happy if I get it? Which of my joys would vanish if my circumstances changed? What would it mean for me to "learn to be content," as Paul did?

To read further, see What is love? and How should we live? Reading Psalm 1 and Matthew 5:1-12 slowly is a good place to start.