1 John 1:4 And these things write we to you, that your joy may be full. I. THE NATURE OF THIS JOY AS PRIMARILY CHRIST'S. Joy, as commonly understood and exemplified among men, is a tumultuous feeling; a quick and lively passion or emotion, blazing up for the most part upon some sudden prosperous surprise, and apt to subside into cold indifference, if not something worse, when fortune threatens change or custom breeds familiarity (Ecclesiastes 7:6). Even what must in a sense be called spiritual joy may be of that sort. There may be joyous excitement when the glad jubilee trumpet fills the air with its ringing echoes, and an enthusiastic multitude are hastening to keep holiday. There may be a real elevation of spirit when some affecting scene of spiritual awakening is witnessed, or some gracious ordinance is celebrated, or some stirring voice is heard. Such joy is like the goodness which as a morning cloud and as the early dew goeth away. II. THIS JOY, "HIS JOY," IS TO BECOME OURS; it is to "remain in us." "Our joy is to be full" by "His joy being fulfilled in us." 1. Christ would have His joy to be really ours. In all that constitutes the essence of His own joy the Lord associates us in intimate union with Himself. (1) In His standing with the Father, and before the Father, He calls us to share. (2) He makes us partakers of the very same inward evidence of acceptance and sonship which He Himself had when He was on earth. (3) We have the same commission with Christ, the same trust reposed in us, the same work assigned to us. Accepted and adopted in Him, sealed as He was sealed by the Spirit, we are sent, as He was sent, into the world. (4) He is "meek and lowly in heart," and therefore "His yoke is easy and His burden is light"; so easy, so light, that He may count it joy to bear them. In His case, as in Jacob's, the charm is love; love, rejoicing in His Father, whose will He is doing; love, rejoicing over us, whom He is purchasing to be His spouse. We, like Him, must be emptied of self. 2. The reality of this joy — Christ's own joy remaining in us — may now be partly apparent. But who shall venture to describe its fulness? In the 45th Psalm the Messiah, rejoicing over His Church as a bridegroom over His bride, is thus saluted: "Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness; therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee," etc. This gladness of the anointing oil and the sweet-smelling spices is all associated with His loving righteousness and hating wickedness. The secret of His full joy lies in His being, as His Father is, the holy one and the just. To one who is at once a servant and a son that is "fulness of joy." Is it attainable by us here? Yes, in measure, and in growing measure. Let our nature be assimilated to that of God, our mind to His, our heart to His. Let our souls learn the lesson of seeing as He sees and feeling as He feels. III. THE PROPRIETY OF THIS "JOY OF THE LORD" — THIS "JOY IN THE LORD" — IS NOT MERELY A PRIVILEGE, BUT A DUTY. "Rejoice in the Lord; and again I say unto you rejoice." For this joy is not anything like that sort of mysterious, incomprehensible rapture into which the spirits may be occasionally thrown under some sudden and irresistible impulse from without or from within. It is a calm and sober frame of mind, suited for everyday wear and everyday work. Its elements and causes can be specified. Its rise and progress can be traced. We have it in us, the germ of it, the essence of it, if we have Christ in us; if we have the Spirit of Christ. Stir up, then, the gift that is in you. Do you ask how? Observe the different connections in which your sharing the Lord's joy stands in the farewell discourses and the farewell prayer; as first, with your keeping His commandments and abiding in His love, as He kept the Father's commandments and abode in the Father's love (John 15:10, 11); secondly, with your asking in His name as you have never asked before (John 16:24); and, thirdly, with your being kept in the Father's name in ever-brightening disclosures of the Father's glorious perfections (John 17:11, 13). And observe, in the fourth place, the beloved apostle's warm appreciation of this joy as realised in the communion of saints (2 John 12). (R. S. Candlish, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.WEB: And we write these things to you, that our joy may be fulfilled. |
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