As He delights in His own goodness, so He delights in the exercise of His goodness, and therefore He delights to make the creature happy, and delights to see him made happy as He delights in exercising goodness or communicating happiness. This is no proper addition to the happiness of God, because it is that which He eternally and unalterably had. The happiness that God experiences when He beholds His own glory shining forth in His image in the creature, and when He beholds the creature made happy from the exercise of His goodness, does not increase, because those and all things are from eternity equally present with God. This delight in God cannot properly be said to be received from the creature because it consists only in a delight in giving to the creature. Neither will it hence follow that God is dependent on the creature for any of His joy, because it is His own act only that this delight is dependent on, and the creature is absolutely dependent on God for that excellency and happiness that God delights in. God cannot be said to be more happy because of the creature because He is infinitely happy in Himself. He is not dependent on the creature for anything, nor has He received any addition from the creature. Jonathan Edwards
It is a delightful thing for the creature to think of him or herself as being totally dependent on God for all things, even joy. While some try to represent reality as if God looks to us to come up with joy or to respond with joy in our own strength, that is really nothing but false theology. God Himself is the origin and spring of all true joy and all true joy must come from Him and Him alone. For a creature to have true joy is for a creature to have that in him or her from God. That true joy is really the joy God has in Himself and is a work of the grace of God in the soul in giving that creature a joy and delight in Himself. God, as an infinite and perfect being, cannot obtain joy from any other source and is full of joy in Himself. He is worthy to be adored, admired, and worshiped for who He is as a God of infinite joy in Himself.
Humanity seeks after happiness and joy in all things that are done, but in doing what they do apart from God they show that they are obtaining joy in themselves and for themselves based on themselves. People seek joy and happiness in sin, yet sin is what brings misery. People will not seek God as their joy, which is a different thing than seeking God for joy, but instead they are like Adam and Eve who want to determine what is good for themselves. While it is true that seeking joy in sin will bring a certain amount of good feelings, those things are transient pleasures of this life. But those transient pleasures are so deceptive and seem to hold out promises of more joy. That deception, however, is really from pride and self. The sinful self longs for joy and so the things of the world gives it some taste of good feeling, but those good feelings are from self and self can never be the source of true joy. So self looks and looks at the world and tries to find joy, but since it cannot obtain true joy from them it keeps searching and has to have more and more to have any amount of good feeling. The heart being full of pride does not want to admit that it cannot obtain true joy in its sown way. So those without the Spirit of joy continue in their vain search for joy in the pursuit of self.
But God does not search for joy, but instead He exists in perfect and infinite joy. As such, for a human being to have true joy that human being must have Christ obtain joy for him or her and for the Spirit of Christ who is the Spirit of joy dwell in that soul. The fruit of the Spirit is love and joy (and so on). When the Spirit of Christ who alone can work joy in the soul actually works that joy in the soul, that soul has nothing more and nothing less than the very joy God that has in Himself in the soul. In other words, God shares His joy with that soul and so the joy has a true joy and delight in God Himself. If God’s perfect and infinite joy is in Himself, then He can give no greater joy than giving a soul a true joy in Himself.
The soul that has the joy and delight of God in the soul is a soul that God works in with and by His own joy. So when God beholds the soul that He dwells in and gives His joy, that is really the living God delighting in Himself. The creature, then, which is the image of God, can give nothing to God, but is simply a means by which God delights in Himself and manifests His own glory to Himself. The creature must learn that he cannot and must not try to reflect self back to God, but in striving to have more of God in the soul the creature should be a reflection of God back to Himself. In this we can see that the creature should have a joy and delight in the joy and delight of God. How utterly glorious it is for a human being to be humbled and broken from self and pride and to stop seeking to find joy in self, but instead to find joy and delight in God’s sharing of His own joy and delight in Himself. That is true grace found only in Christ and worked in human beings by the Spirit.
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