Is God opposed to pleasure?
Few questions shape daily life more than this one: does God frown on enjoyment, or does He give it? The commentators answer on both sides — they insist that God is the source of human happiness, while warning that a whole class of pleasure carries a hidden bill.
The Gloomy God Is a Slander
Writers in this collection treat the picture of a God who enjoys human misery not as a harmless mistake but as a lie about His character. Commenting on the drink offering — wine poured out as a symbol of gladness alongside the other offerings — one writer draws the conclusion directly:
The Bible TreasuryIt is a symbol of joy, and it goes with all the offerings except the sin and trespass offerings; there could be nothing joyful connected with those for anyone. But with the other aspects of Christ's life and death, God has appointed that our happiness shall be mixed in. The monkish idea that devotion is a gloomy and painful exercise is not divine; it is devilish. Yet it is an idea that many excellent people have done much to encourage and keep alive, though it contains a gross slander upon God and godliness. There is no human soul that has not been hindered by holding this slander… Wherever there lurks in our foolish hearts the wicked thought that God can take any pleasure in our suffering, this lesson is needed: that God wants us to be happy, and tells us where happiness is to be found.
God the Giver of Enjoyment
Far from stripping life bare, Scripture is quoted here as putting a positive value on ordinary things — food, marriage, family, hospitality:
VariousPlease do not misunderstand. The Christian is not to be an ascetic or a recluse. Godliness owns that every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving, "for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer" (1 Timothy 4:4-5), "and that God has given us all things richly to enjoy" (1 Timothy 6:17). Hospitality is commanded, marriage is honoured, and family ties are maintained. A good report from outsiders is a commendation, and a simple, unaffected life is shown to suit the people of God — a life with nothing gloomy or unnatural about it.
(The ESV renders 1 Timothy 6:17 "God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.")
Rules That Look Holy but Are Not
Some try to prove their devotion by forbidding things. One writer treats the "touch not, taste not, handle not" of Colossians 2 as belonging to a different order of things altogether, and notes what such rules actually feed:
William KellyProud, fallen nature is satisfied even by these efforts to put down the body; whereas God would have the body have a certain honour in its own place, and the Christian's body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.
The Real Question Is Not "What Harm Is There?"
If the things themselves are good, where does the danger lie? Commenting on Mark 8, one writer shifts the test from the object to the use made of it:
J. N. DarbyIt is said that there is no harm in these things — this is true, but that is not the question. They are good as created things… It is a question of the use we make of them. For instance, there is no harm in strength, but there is in the way it is used; with it a person harms his neighbour. Is it not true that the world, which does not know God, uses all kinds of pleasures to enjoy itself without Him? The heart that has not God in it tries to amuse itself… and after a few years, during which it has kept up its natural spirits, it finds itself tired and weary even of trying everything.
A dictionary entry in the collection puts the same diagnosis in one line — and names where the search ends:
Morrish Bible DictionaryJoy, or gladness, is what man craves and is set on finding, and he does find it when he finds God, and only then… Sin having come in, and man being alienated from God, his idea of joy is to be as happy as he can make himself without God and away from Him.
Pleasure With an Expiry Date
Scripture speaks of "the fleeting pleasures of sin" (Hebrews 11:25, ESV). One writer presses how short that season really is:
Hamilton SmithThe pleasures of sin must be short, because life cannot be long, and they both end together. Indeed, many times the pleasure of sin dies before the man dies: sinners live to bury their joy in this world… The heart set on the present has its snout in the trough, and while the drink lasts it thinks it will never end. Who would envy a condemned man his feast on the way to the gallows?
Moses is offered as the man who did the arithmetic. He walked away from Egypt's pleasures at forty, and lived eighty more years of desert and difficulty:
F. B. HoleMoses never regretted turning his back on all the pleasures that could only have lasted another eighty years.
Pleasures That Do Not Expire
The word "pleasure" is not banished from Scripture; it is relocated. On Psalm 16:11 — "in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore" (ESV) — one writer weighs each phrase:
Andrew Miller"Your right hand" — the place of dignity, power and special privilege. "Fullness of joy" — nothing lacking. "Pleasures for evermore." Not only is it the place of honour and joy, it is our everlasting place… No alloy, no fear of these pleasures ever coming to an end.
Summary
- Giver, not spoiler. God "has given us all things richly to enjoy"; the Christian is not called to be a recluse, and the idea that devotion must be gloomy is called a slander on God.
- Use, not object. The question is never "what harm is in this thing?" but what use is made of it — the world uses good gifts to enjoy itself without God.
- Season, not forever. Sin's pleasures end with the life that holds them; often the pleasure dies before the person does.
- Rules don't help. "Touch not, taste not" only feeds religious pride, and dishonours a body Scripture calls the temple of the Holy Spirit.
- Fullness, not scraps. Joy is what everyone craves and only finds in God — and at His right hand the pleasures have no end and no aftertaste.