A very slight glance over the Epistle will show how continually the note of gladness is struck in it. Whatever in Paul's circumstances was at enmity with joy' could not darken his sunny outlook. This bird could sing in a darkened cage. If we brought together the expressions of his joy in this letter, they would yield us some precious lessons as to what were the sources of his, and what may be the sources of ours. There runs through all the instances in the Epistle the implication which comes out most emphatically in his earnest exhortation, Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice.' The true source of true joy lies in our union with Jesus. To be in Him is the condition of every good, and, just as in the former verses trust in the Lord' is set forth, so the joy which comes from trust is traced to the same source. The joy that is worthy, real, permanent, and the ally of lofty endeavour and noble thoughts has its root in union with Jesus, is realised in communion with Him, has Him for its reason or motive, and Him for its safeguard or measure. As the passages in question in this Epistle show, such joy does not shut out but hallows other sources of satisfaction. In our weakness creatural love and kindness but too often draw us away from our joy in Him. But with Paul the sources which we too often find antagonistic were harmoniously blended, and flowed side by side in the same channel, so that he could express them both in the one utterance, I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again.'
We do not sufficiently realise the Christian duty of Christian joy, some of us even take mortified countenances and voices in a minor key as marks of grace, and there is but little in any of us of the joy in the Lord' which a saint of the Old Testament had learned was our' strength.' There is plenty of gladness amongst professing Christians, but a good many of them would resent the question, is your gladness in the Lord'? No doubt any deep experience in the Christian life makes us aware of much in ourselves that saddens, and may depress, and our joy in Him must always be shaded by penitent sorrow for ourselves. But that necessary element of sadness in the Christian life is not the cause why so many Christian lives have little of the buoyancy and hope and spontaneity which should mark them. The reason rather lies in the lack of true union with Christ, and habitual keeping of ourselves' in the love of God.'
