Is God Pleasure? (A question on the nature of God.)
Answer 38.
God is pleasure, or so assert some pleasure-centric philosophers. Such is the ever increasing misconception on the nature of God; people have begun to override what Scripture says about God with what their philosophies say God "ought" to be.
- God is love (1 John 4:8, 4:16)
- God is holy (Leviticus 11:44, 19:2, Psalm 99:5)
- God is almighty (Psalm 47:8, Isaiah 13:6, 2 Corinthians 6:18)
God is love. Love is not present with God, rather, God is love itself. Where there is true love, there is God. All that God does is loving. It is His nature. They will know we are Christians by our love for one another (John 13:35). Love is not simply a tool or a reward that God manufactures, God Himself is love.
God is holy. Again, holiness is God’s nature. Holiness is not an aspect of God He can choose not to manifest. God does not become holy only to favored individuals, God is holy to all. God is holy.
God is almighty. God created all. God owns all. God rules all. His nature, His being, His title is ruler and creator. God is almighty.
Is God pleasure? Is it His nature to know only pleasure and to be incapable of experiencing anything unpleasant? No (Ezekiel 18:32, 33:11, Isaiah 53:3). Instead of it being His nature, pleasure is a tool that God uses to reward men, to draw them to Himself, to help men visualize one possible eternity. God also uses the tools of trials, suffering, and sorrow in much the same way, to motivate men to repent and to serve Him (Hebrews 12).
God is not "sorrow" by nature. God is capable of feeling both sorrow and pleasure, but God’s nature is neither comprised of sorrow nor pleasure. God can choose to exhibit and bestow sorrow, or He can choose to exhibit and bestow pleasure. Such are the choices He makes with His tools.
As God is love, He can act only in a manner that is loving. As God is holy, He can act in ways that are holy and can never choose to sin–in fact, He cannot even be tempted (James 1:13). As God is almighty, He can never select a new being on whom to place the glory of His kingship while He abdicates and walks away (Isaiah 42:8).
Perhaps this was why the miracle of God becoming a man was so significant. While God cannot be tempted to sin, the man Jesus was tempted though all the while remaining holy (Hebrews 4:15). While God cannot abdicate his glory as King of Creation, the man Jesus could temporarily put aside the glory of that title, though not the weight of its responsibility (Philippians 2:7). Jesus, the man of sorrows, became an example of the perfect man.
Unlike agape-love and holiness, pleasure exists, even apart from God.
What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (James 4:1-4)
Pleasure is not god. God is not pleasure. Pleasure, when it becomes a desire of man, can become the source of lust and sin. How unlikely it is that pleasure is the essence of God’s very nature.
Psalm 16 refers to God as dispensing pleasure and joy from His right hand to the resurrected dead, not as being composed of pleasure itself.
For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.
You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever. (Psalm 16:10,11)
In fact, a careful reading of Psalm 16:11 demonstrates that joy and pleasure are the reactions of the believer, the response of those who encounter God, who stand in His presence. It does not say that God’s nature is composed of joy and pleasure. Rather, joy and pleasure are the internal responses that the children of God will experience when placed into God’s presence eternally, following death and after the judgement.
Man’s response to God’s glory as King and Creator is often described as fear and awe (Psalm 89:7). This does not mean that God’s nature is fear and awe. Man’s response to God’s holiness is often sorrow and repentance (Hebrews 12). This too does not mean that God’s nature is sorrow and repentance. So it is with resurrected man’s response to God’s perfection and forgiveness, man responds with joy and pleasure yet it does not mean that God’s nature is joy and pleasure.
When discussing the nature of the Lord God Almighty, it is wise to be most careful with Scripture. The Word does not say, "God is pleasure." Rather it does tell us that resurrected man responds to God with both joy and pleasure having been saved from the decay of the grave forever. It is a mistake to characterize man’s happy response to God’s grace as if man’s responses were what composed the nature of God.
- God is holy.
- God is love.
- God is almighty.
Let us be awed and rejoice in the fact that someday we will be in His holy, loving, and mighty presence. Until that day, let us pursue holiness as He is holy.
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You are invited to read more about God’s nature in the article:
