John 15:11 These things have I spoken to you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. Christ enters the world bringing joy: "Good tidings of great joy." So now He leaves it, bestowing His gospel as a gift of joy. This testament of His joy He also renews in His parting prayer: "These things I speak in the world, that they might have My joy fulfilled in themselves." "Man of sorrows" though we call Him, still He counts Himself the Man of joy. It is an impression that the Christian life is one of hardship and suffering: Christ, you perceive, has no such conception of it, and no such conception is true. I. To clear this truth, it is necessary, first of all, to exhibit THE MISTAKE OF NOT DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN HAPPINESS AND JOY. 1. There is a distinction represented in the words themselves. (1) Happiness is that which happens or comes by an outward befalling. It is what money yields, or will buy — settlement in life or rank, political standing, victory, power. All these stir a delight in the soul, which is not of the soul, but from without. Hence they are looked upon as happening to the soul, and, in that sense, create happiness. The Latin word "fortune" very nearly corresponds with the Saxon. For whatever came to the soul, bringing it pleasure, was considered to be its good chance, and was called fortunate. (2) But joy differs from this, as being of the soul itself. And this appears in the original form of the word, which, instead of suggesting a "hap," literally denotes a "leap" or "spring." Here again, also, the Latin bad "exult" — a "leaping forth." The radical idea, then, of joy is that the soul has such springs of life opened in its own blessed virtues, that it pours forth a sovereign joy from within. It is not the bliss of condition, but of character. 2. And we have many symbols of joy about us from which we might take the hint of a felicity higher than the mere pleasures of fortune or condition: the sportive children, too full of life to be able to restrain their activity; the birds pouring out their music, simply because it is in them. Precisely, too, history shows us the saints of God singing out their joy together in caves and dens of the earth, and the souls of martyrs issuing, with a shout, from the fires that crisp their bodies. II. It is necessary, in order to a right conception of Christian joy, as now defined, that we discover HOW TO DISPOSE OF CERTAIN FACTS, WHICH COMMONLY PRODUCE A CONTRARY IMPRESSION. 1. Thus, when the Saviour bequeaths His joy to us, He lives a persecuted life, and passes through an agony to His death. Where, then, is the joy of which He speaks? To this I answer that He was a Man of sorrows in the matter of happiness; that is, in the outward condition of His earthly state; still He had ever within a joy, a spring of good, which was perfectly sufficient. Indeed, He reveals the victorious power of joy in the Divine nature itself; for God, in the contradictions of sinners, suffers a degree of abhorence and pain that may properly be called unhappiness; and He would be an unhappy Being were it not that the love He pours into their bosom is to Him a welling up eternally of conscious joy. And exactly so He represents Himself in the incarnate person of Christ. In His parable of the shepherd calling in his neighbours to rejoice with him over the sheep he has found, He opens the joy He feels as being that Shepherd. And then, how much does it signify when, coming to the close of His career, He says, glancing backward in thought over all He has experienced, "My joy," bequeathing it to His disciples as His dearest legacy. What, then, does it signify of real privation or loss to become His follower! 2. But it requires, you will say, painful thought to begin such a life — sorrow, repentance, self-renunciation, and to pass through life under a cross. How can the Christian life be called a life of joy? It is not, I answer, in these things, taken simply by themselves. But consider what labours, cares, self-denials, all men have to suffer in the way of what is called success — in scholarships, e.g., and in war. Are these made unhappy because of the losses they are obliged to make? Are they not rather raised in feeling on this very account? But how is this? The solution is easy, viz., that the sacrifice made is a sacrifice of happiness, a sacrifice of comfort of condition; and the gain made is a gain of something more ennobling, a gain that partakes of the nature of joy. The man of industry and enterprise says within himself, These are not gifts of fortune; they are my conquests, tokens of my patience, economy, application, fortitude, integrity. In them his soul is elevated from within. And it will be found that even worldly men despise mere happiness. None but the tamest will sit down to be nursed by fortune. In such a truth you may see how it is possible for the repentances, sacrifices, self-denials, and labours of the Christian life to issue in joy. III. THE POSITIVE REALITY ITSELF. We notice — 1. The fact that, in a life of selfishness and sin, there is a wellspring of misery which is now taken away. No matter how fortunate the external condition of an unbelieving, evil mind, there is yet a disturbance, a sorrow within, too strong to be mastered by any outward felicity. The whole internal nature is in a state of discord. And this discord is the misery, the hell of sin. How much, then, does it signify that Christ takes away this? For Christ is the embodied harmony of God, and he that receives Him settles into harmony with Him. Just to exterminate the evil of the mind, and clear the sovereign hell which sin creates in it, would suffice to make a seeming paradise. 2. Besides, there is a fact more positive: the soul is no sooner set in peace with itself than it becomes an instrument in tune, discoursing heavenly music; and now no fires of calamity, no pains of outward torment, can for one moment break the sovereign spell of its joy. 3. But we must ascend to a plane that is higher. Little conception have we of the soul's joy, or capacities of joy, till we see it established in God. It dares to call Him Father without any sense of daring. It is strong with His strength. It turns adversity into peace, for it sees a friendly hand ministering only good in what it suffers. In dark times it is never anxious, for God is its trust, and God will suffer no harm to befall it. To a mind thus tempered, for. tune can add little, and as little take away. 4. The Christian type of character is a character rooted in the Divine love, and in that view has a sovereign bliss welling up from within. No power is strong enough to forbid love, none therefore strong enough to conquer the joy of love; for whoever is loved must be enjoyed. Besides, it is a peculiarity of love that it takes possession of its neighbour's riches and successes, and makes them its own. Loving him, it loves all that he has for his sake. It understands the declaration well, "For all things are yours." Having such resources of joy in its own nature, the word that signifies love, in the original of the New Testament, is radically one with that which signifies joy. According to the family registers of that language, they are twins of the same birth. Love is joy, and all true joy is love. And Christ is an exhibition to us of this fact in His own Person, a revelation of God's eternal joy, as being a revelation of God's eternal love, coming down thus to utter in our ears this glorious call, "Enter ye into the joy of your Lord." He finds us hunting after condition. He says, "Behold My poverty, watch with Me in My agony, follow Me to My Cross. Coming up into love, you clear all dependence of condition, you ascend into the very joy of God; and this is My joy. This I have taught you; this I now bequeath to your race." IV. SOME OF THE INSPIRING AND QUICKENING THOUGHTS THAT CROWD UPON US IN THE SUBJECT REVIEWED. 1. Joy is for all men. It does not depend on circumstance or condition; if it did, it could only be for the few. 2. The reason why men have it not is that they do not seek it where it is — in the receiving of Christ and the spirit of His life. They go after it in things without, not in character within. 3. It is important that we hold some rational and worthy conception of the heavenly felicity. How easy it is for the Christian, who has tasted the true joy of Christ, to let go the idea of joy and slide into the pursuit only of happiness or the good of condition. No getting into heaven as a place will compass it. You must carry it with you, else it is not there. Consider only whether heaven be in you now. For heaven is nothing but the joy of a perfectly harmonized being filled with God and His love. (H. Bushnell, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. |
    |