A true Christian always finds his greatest joy in God, even before he enters into the fullness of sanctification. God is to the inner spirit a greater joy than he is seldom aware of. Even though he finds a measure of irksomeness in religious duties, and many conflicts in the foul propensities of his nature, yet in spite of all this, there is an interior happiness in his very desires after God, and in the bright hope that he will some day be like God. The very brightness of this hope, that he can be transformed into the image of God, is a secret fountain of inspiration.  

But when he enters the state of heart purity and the fullness of the Spirit, his joy in the Lord widens out over all his being, and becomes a dominant force in his life. We have been struck with the strong words of the Psalmist, “I will go to God Who is my exceeding joy.” There is a difference between joy and pleasure. Joy is deep; its fountains are hidden in the depths of the spirit; it pervades the interior nature like the law of gravity that silently abides in every atom of the earth.  

Pleasure is on the surface. It deals with the senses and is the gratification of our outward nature. Joy is calm, like the placid river, or the quiet, unspeakable wealth of the gorgeous sunset, or the entrancing contentment of looking from a lofty mountain over a magnificent landscape. Its very nature is to quiet and soothe the inward parts of the soul. On the other hand, pleasure is stormy; it agitates the faculties like the wind ruffling the sea, or as a splendid pageant that thrills the vision, and may be increased till it rises to rapture.  

There is both a natural joy and a natural pleasure, and also a spiritual joy and a spiritual pleasure. Natural joy is a shadow of the spiritual, and so natural pleasure is a shadow of the spiritual. Joy is more than pleasure, and much more enjoined upon us in Scripture. In spite of the awfulness of sin, and all the woes and sorrows of this world, God has, in infinite mercy, so arranged creation that ever in a state of nature there shall be more joy than sorrow. It may not look so at times, but on a little examination we will discover that the benevolence of God has poured into the very structure of creation and life, thousands of joys so hidden and ramified as not to appear always on the surface. To prove this, how few persons on earth would be willing to exchange themselves for somebody else, in everything? This proves a secret joy in mere existence which few minds ever look into. How persons reproach themselves for not grieving more over the dead! In spite of themselves the Creator has put more joy in His own creation than there is of sorrow.  

In all darkness there is a soft, subtle invasion of light. In the darkest night some starlight will sift through the clouds. In the darkest room some light will leak in, for nothing in all creation is so all-searching and penetrating as light. Light in the physical world is the exact type of joy in the soul-world, and the Creator seems to force a natural joy into every part of creation—into the animals, the insects, the birds, the vegetable kingdom, the instincts of the mind, the nervous organization, the play of the will, the action of the intellect, the despotism of natural affection—so that even apart from grace, God will not let His creation be bereft of at least a semblance of the joy that is in God.  

When we enter the kingdom of grace, we begin to touch those joys which are spiritual, which fill the beings in Heaven, which are pure and ever deepening. Natural joys are only temporal, and will come to an end; gracious joys in God are everlasting. Natural joys have a thousand disappointments in them; spiritual joys always turn out to be better than we expect. Natural joy is only a type and a prophecy; spiritual joy is fulfillment and fruition. There are two forms of joy in God. In order to understand this, let us be willing to tax our minds to a little close thinking, and though it may cost us some mental exercise to grasp the distinctions, it will greatly pay us in the end.  

1. There is a joy which we may have in God, known as intrinsic, Divine joy—that is the joy which flows out through Jesus into us by virtue of our relation to God. This joy arises from certain gifts and graces which God bestows upon us. When God, through Jesus, forgives us our sins, there springs up our first spiritual joy. He removes the load of guilt from the conscience, and gives us a sweet sense of reconciliation, assuring us that He loves us, and that His wrath against our sinful acts is past.  

Then, after seasons of heart-searching and inward grief over the hidden evils of the heart, Jesus is revealed to us a complete Cleanser, and we are made conscious that the secret chambers of the heart are purified by His precious blood, and the Holy Spirit floods the soul with a sweet sense of inward purity. Then there springs up a heavenly joy far deeper and stronger than the sense of pardon. It may be more quiet and interior, but is stronger and more satisfactory.  

Then as the Holy Spirit reveals to us God’s love for us personally—His minute and immutable care over us in every detail of life—and brings us in touch with God’s fidelity by showing us in so many ways how He has kept His covenant with us, then our joy in the Lord increases. As life goes on, and we see more clearly God’s dominion over us, how He rewards His servants even in this world, how He punishes our disobedience, how He often extends His chastisement into the little details of life with such precision and appropriateness as to make us even admire and love the way He corrects us—all this only draws us more closely to Himself. There is a holy joy in the knowledge of His dominion over us. There is a joy in every grace which the Holy Spirit imparts to us in the conscious possession of the graces and in the exercise of them.  

All these forms of joy might be termed the joys of grace, including the joys of pardon, cleansing, filling, healing, correcting, guiding and preparing us for the heavenly world.  

2. But there is a still higher and stronger form of joy in God, when we enter by faith into the joys of God Himself that is when we apprehend the inherent joys of the triune God. There is in God’s very nature an infinite, boundless, eternal, inexhaustible, immutable ocean of blessedness of love, glory and satisfaction, forever abiding in His own self, which is over and beyond all the operations of saving grace toward us.  

The very end of saving grace is to bring us up into union with God Himself, so that we will enjoy Him even over and above the joys of being saved from our sins. Salvation from all sin, and death, and hell, is a preliminary condition that we may enter into a fruition of the three Persons of the Godhead, and enjoy the attributes, the character, and the very love of God Himself. When our souls are united to God through the precious humanity of Jesus, and our spiritual understanding is illuminated by the Holy Spirit, it is an inexpressible joy to look on God and contemplate His perfections. It is a joy to look at the trinity of God and contemplate from everlasting to everlasting, “Thou art God.” To get down before the Lord in secret prayer, and lovingly contemplate His perfections, each one of which, as we meditate on it, is like a separate universe of unspeakable glory, is an exercise which constitutes the blessing of angels.  

When we stand on the seashore, and let our eyes quietly and restfully wander over the vast shining waters, there is a nameless joy that springs up in the mind, not only a joy in what the sea is to us as a benefactor, but a joy in what it is in itself. We are glad the sea is there, and glad it is what it is; glad of its shape, and size, and color, and motion, and sublimity; glad that it will remain there, and that nobody can destroy it. We positively enjoy the attributes of that vast ocean, without even thinking of the benefactions it may bring to us in the form of fish, or pearls, or commerce, or health in its medicinal breezes.  

In like manner, to gaze on God and calmly rest our thoughts upon the eternity of His love—the gentleness of His nature, the brightness of His wisdom, the sweetness of His disposition, and the absoluteness of His authority over us, the infinitesimal minuteness of His guardianship over every atom, the inflexible impartiality of His justice, the exquisite beauty of His spiritual nature, the melting pathos of His parental sympathy—causes our souls to melt with joy in the simple fact that He is God.  

There springs up a secret gladness that He is just the God He is, that there can never be any God except Him, that nobody, and no event in eternal ages, will ever cause Him to change from the blessed, loving God He is now. We are glad He has the very attributes and character which He has revealed. Every thought of Him is a joy, and this joy is over and above any thought of self-interest, or personal and private blessings He may confer upon us in the shape of rewards.  

Both of these kinds of joy in God are Scripturally and manifestly for us. The joys arising from God’s saving grace are peculiar to us as a race saved from sin, but the joys arising from satisfaction in God Himself are participated in by all, angels as well as saints. The one is a joy of grace, and the other a joy of glory. The latter joy is pre-eminently the one that the redeemed will enter upon at the Judgment Day, when Jesus will say to those on the right hand, “Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”