The man’s joy is the joy of eternal life in Jesus, leading to self-denial: taking up your cross to follow him. This field is worth everything, because its hidden treasure secures the future. Faith sees what others cannot, and so sells all it has to buy land with a value hidden from others. Jesus thus shows how the kingdom’s objective value brings a great subjectively experienced joy.
The joy of the man in the parable of the hidden treasure signifies the joy of eternal life revealed in Jesus, which leads to self-denial, to taking up your cross and following him. This bare field is worth everything, because it contains the future. Faith sees what others cannot. Faith is like the finder who, in joy, sells all he has in order to buy that piece of land whose value remains hidden to others.1
Jesus thereby also shows us that the objectively very great value of the kingdom of heaven corresponds to a great joy that is subjectively or inwardly experienced.2
44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.