The doctrine of inner happiness

1. Happiness is older than the human race. Happiness is a characteristic of God. Therefore happiness as a principle has always existed and always been resident in God.

2. In eternity past God desired to share His happiness with man in time. But to share His happiness with man something had to be accomplished: salvation and subsequent perception of doctrine. Salvation does not mean happiness, it must be salvation and subsequent perception of Bible doctrine — Nehemiah 8:10.

3. The transition and the accomplishing of the transition between God’s perfect happiness in eternity past and the provision of that for man in the Church Age: This was accomplished through grace. In grace God found a way to give His happiness to mankind in time. This means through GAP.

4. But such happiness is definitely confined to the plan of God. Man enters the plan of God by faith in Jesus Christ — Acts 16:31. Salvation means only the possibility, not the reality of happiness. Becoming a believer does not mean instant or automatic happiness. Happiness for the believer in phase two is potential and it depends upon GAP. Every facet of GAP is designed to bring human happiness.

5. Ultimate for the believer happiness is found in the ECS — John 17:17.

6. Happiness prior to salvation is temporary and superficial. There is such a thing as an unbeliever being happy. For how long and under what conditions is something else. The happiness which the unbeliever can achieve is strictly temporary and it does not sustain in any pressure or adversity situation. Happy unbelievers become unhappy in pressure or adversity. Therefore human happiness [the happiness of the unbeliever] is fleeting and unstable. As a rule the unbeliever’s human happiness depends on circumstances. Human happiness is a form of slavery; you are a slave to your circumstances, to the details of life. Human happiness associates with a pleasant circumstance or with a detail of life. Therefore the loss of such details or the change of circumstances or environment means loss of human happiness. Human happiness is associated with something and the association leads to a form of slavery. Manifestations of this slavery are boredom, restlessness, instability.

7. God has designed phase two happiness to be permanent and stabilised. God’s happiness is not a slave to anything; He designed phase two happiness to be permanent, to be stabilised, to be greater than the circumstances and the details of life. So it is possible for the believer to be happy in spite of circumstances and without the details of life. Here is happiness without slavery. This is through the ECS — John 17:17. The inner happiness of the ECS sustains in every circumstance of life. Therefore GAP is the key to this happiness — 1 John 1:4.

8. We have to recognise a principle which is found throughout the Old and the New Testaments. Many times the word ‘happiness’ is found in a translation of ‘blessed,’ the beatitude word. This word is actually a plural noun for happiness. In the Hebrew it is ashere and it really means literally, ‘happinesses.’ In the Greek the word makarioi, used in the sermon on the mount among other places, is in the plural and it means ‘happinesses.’ So the literal word for ‘blessed’ is ‘happinesses.’ Why is it in the plural? Why does this plural always apply to some form of a believer or to some member of the human race who is following a divine law? The answer is because the happiness is a double happiness. It is in the plural to indicate that basically there are two sources of this happiness, and especially in the Church Age. The first source of this happiness is the filling of the Holy Spirit which produces happiness or joy. Then the ECS also produces +H. So happinesses means that when you log a maximum amount of time in the filling of the Spirit and when you erect an ECS as a mature believer you have double H. So blessing is not happiness in the singular, it is happiness in the plural. Why? Because blessing is the perpetuation of happiness. There is no blessing if you are happy one minute and unhappy the next; there is no perpetuation, there is simply an unstable situation. But if you can perpetuate happiness from one minute to the next and from one day to the next, then it becomes a blessing. Happiness is never a blessing unless it is perpetuated.

9. Inevitably the basic source of inner happiness is the daily function of GAP — James 1:25; Jeremiah 15:16; Matthew 4:4.

10. Happiness or +H is a protector. Not only is happiness something you enjoy but happiness protects you. Divine happiness or +H protects from areas of disillusion. There are three basic areas of disillusion: a) Disillusion from the circumstances of life — Philippians 4:11,12; b) Disillusion from the details of life — Hebrews 13:5,6; c) Disillusion with regard to Christian people, fellow believers — Hebrews 12:2.

11. Inner happiness enhances capacity for love. This inner happiness must be contained in the ECS. Again, the ECS depends upon the function of GAP, so Bible doctrine is the true basis for happiness — Jeremiah 15:16; John 13:17; 1 John 1:4.

12. The believer is commanded to be happy — Philippians 4:4.