Happiness and Joy, Part Two

This is part two of my rebuttal of Randy Alcorn’s assertion that happiness and joy are used synonymously in Scripture. In part one I explained why I think the difference between happiness and joy is an important one. In this post I will present my evidence that the Bible makes a clear distinction between the two words. In his article “Is There a Difference Between Happiness and Joy?” Alcorn makes the bold statement that, “An ungrounded, dangerous separation of joy from happiness has infiltrated the Christian community.” After citing an example of this “dangerous separation,” he says, “Judging from such articles… you’d think the distinction between joy and happiness is biblical. It’s not.” He is wrong; the Bible makes a clear distinction between the two.

First I want to explain why I will only use the New Testament in this argument. There is an important hermeneutical (interpretative) concept that demands we interpret a less clear passage with a more clear one. In this instance, Alcorn uses numerous Old Testament passages to support his argument. While I agree that we can learn much about God from the Old Testament, we must always use the New Testament to clarify the Old.

There are several reasons why the New Testament gives a better picture of God than the Old. The Hebrew language of the Old Testament is far less precise than the New Testament Greek. Also, the idea of progressive revelation leads us to understand that God revealed more detail about himself and his creation in the New Testament. Finally, God’s interaction with his people is significantly different after the Cross than before Calvary. Many of the errors that exist in the church today are a result of misunderstanding this important difference.

Second I want to explain why Alcorn’s argument about the English use of happiness and joy is irrelevant. The Holy Spirit inspired the writers of Scripture to use certain words, and I believe there is a reason for each and every choice. Neither Noah Webster nor any of the translators of English versions of the Bible can make the claim to be inspired by the Holy Spirit, so their opinions matter little. The New Testament Greek is a very precise language, far more precise than English in many cases, and the best Bible interpretation must take into account how the Greek handles any subject.

Third, I want to refute Alcorn’s argument that using happiness and joy in the same context proves they are synonymous. Quite the contrary, side-by-side use argues for a difference of kind or degree; it makes little sense to apply two words with identical meanings to a situation. This would be like saying the weather is wet and damp; that would be needlessly redundant. However, if one says the weather is cold and damp, the purpose of using two words is obvious. I believe this is precisely the reason for a Scriptural usage of both happiness and joy, even when they appear in the same passage.

Alcorn is correct to note that many modern translations use happiness and joy almost interchangeably. However, this is not reflective of the original Greek; the Greek has two different words with distinct meanings: chara (χαρα) for “joy” and makarios (μακαριοs) for what might be called “happiness.” Chara appears 59 times and makarios 50 times. The King James Version (KJV) does the best job of maintaining this distinction. The KJV translates chara as joy or a cognate of joy 55 times and gladness three times. Of the 50 occurrences of makarios, the KJV uses “blessed” 44 times and “happy” or a cognate the other six. In other words, the translators of the KJV recognized the difference between the words and rendered them as different.

It is noteworthy that the KJV used “blessed” for makarios. The English word “blessed” well reflects the Greek sense of makarios. One cannot have blessed (hear how strange that sounds). One can only be blessed; it is a reflexive verb. When circumstances outside a person are pleasant, the person is blessed; the person may feel happiness. Curiously, happiness is also a type of word that requires something to happen outside one’s self. Happiness results from good happening. Read any of the verses in the New Testament where makarios appears, and you will find precisely this type of situation. (eg. Matthew 5:11-13; James 1:25; Luke 11:27-28)

Because of the reflexive nature of the verb makarios, it is patently obvious that it cannot be commanded. It is illogical to suggest that God would command his people to have circumstances that would bring about happiness. God in his sovereignty can do such a thing, but humans are often powerless to change their situations. In fact, God has been known to do just the opposite. Consider Moses on the “backside of the desert,” or Jonah inside the whale, or Paul with his “thorn in the flesh.” It may be uncomfortable for Alcorn and others like him to admit, but God does not always orchestrate things for our happiness. God’s strength was shown in Paul’s unhappiness; Nineveh repented due to Jonah’s unhappiness; the Israelites discovered a strong leader following Moses’ unhappiness. God will be glorified with or without human happiness; it is his choice, not ours.

Chara or joy on the other hand can be commanded, and it is. I said in my previous post that I hesitate to call joy an emotion because I believe it is a spiritual state, and emotions reside in the soul, not the spirit. Certainly our joy can bubble over into an emotion, since our human condition is inseparably and mysteriously connected soul with spirit. But the strange irony is that we humans can experience sorrow and joy simultaneously. When my 33 year old sister succumbed to cancer and left a husband and four children behind, her funeral was heart-wrenching, yet we were peaceful and occasional laughter was heard as we rejoiced in the fact that she had been relieved from her suffering and was with Jesus.

Read the Bible verses that contain the word joy and you will see that it is not anything that could be called happiness. Peter and James admonish believers to have joy knowing that trials and suffering will be inevitable. It would be sick on the level of psychotic to say that we should be happy to suffer unless we recognize the joy that awaits our patience. Suffering does not bring happiness; knowing we can suffer and be carried through the suffering by the power of the Spirit and our hope in God brings joy, but not happiness. Even secular psychologists caution against seeking happiness indiscriminately, warning of a “shallow, self-absorbed or even selfish life.” This sounds very much like Solomon’s estimate of such things as vanity.

It is ironic that Alcorn advocates for an emotional experience from the platform of Eternal Perspective Ministries. The true eternal perspective eschews emotional experience in favor of the spiritual. Perhaps Alcorn does not recognize the difference between the spirit and the soul, much as he ignores the difference between joy and happiness. This mistake is not insignificant. The web page touting his book, Happiness, says, “Christians are supposed to be happy…. this book is a paradigm-shifting wake-up call for the church and Christians everywhere.” His book does indeed shift the biblical paradigm; it shifts it from truth to falsehood.

It is unkind and unbiblical to claim as Alcorn does that God wants his people happy without qualification. God created the universe perfect and placed his human vice-regent in charge. Sadly, Adam rejected his proper role in that perfect world where happiness would have been the normal state and cast all humanity into the state of sinful unhappiness we now know as normal. Until Eden is restored, happiness is transitory and dependent on things mostly out of our control. Certainly we can have moments of happiness, but the Sovereign God dictates when those moments occur; we can only do what we are required to do and hope for the best on earth while sharing our joy with men of good will. Once heaven is realized, happiness and joy will be co-eternal for all God’s chosen.