God finds happiness in the Son because the Son reflects the glory of the Father (Heb. 1:3). God finds happiness in people, not only because he created them but because, like his creation and like his Son, his people are a reflection of his glory!
Jonathan Edwards helps us comprehend the reality of God’s happiness: “It is of infinite importance … to know what kind of being God is. For he is … the only fountain of our true happiness …”1 Notice, then, several reasons for God’s happiness.
The Reasons for God’s Happiness
God finds happiness in himself
The primary reason for God’s happiness is this: he is God. We find a God in Scripture whose greatest delight is in – himself! So we begin with the doctrine of the Trinity which helps us understand the supreme happiness among the members of the godhead. C.S. Lewis argues, “The words ‘God is love’ have no real meaning unless God contains at least two Persons. Love is something that one person has for another person. If God was a single person then before the world was made, he was not love.”2 Daniel Fuller adds, “God’s love is primarily to Himself … and his infinite delight is in Himself, in the Father and the Son (and the Spirit) delighting in each other … The happiness of the Deity, as all other true happiness, consists in love and society.”3 God has from all eternity been happy in the marvelous fellowship of the Trinity!
God finds happiness in creation
May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the LORD rejoice in his works (Ps. 104:31, ESV).
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