There is a perception among Evangelicals that Reformed or Calvinistic Christians, especially of the Dutch variety, do not experience much joy in their religion. It has to be admitted that we Free Reformed people, sometimes give that impression. We are so afraid of the false and superficial joy that is found in certain circles that we tend to overreact so that anyone who displays an unusual degree of exuberance is for that reason viewed with suspicion.

This is unfortunate. Just because there is much counterfeit around does not mean that the real thing does not exist and cannot be experienced. Scripture teaches that God's people not only may have joy but that God commands them to be joyful and why.

In Deuteronomy 16:11 Moses exhorts the Israelites, "thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant," etc. This exhortation to rejoice is repeated at least eight times in this book, mostly in connection with the good things which the Lord has given His people and of which they must bring the first fruits to His house. Deuteronomy 26:11 states: "And thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the Lord thy God hath given unto thee." Failure to rejoice before the Lord provokes God to anger. In Deuteronomy 28:47 the Lord complains that He has to punish His people "because thou servest not the Lord thy God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things."

What was it that Israel was commanded to rejoice over? Especially the burnt offerings and other sacrifices which they had to present to the Lord in the tabernacle. Since these pointed to Christ, one could say that God commanded His people to rejoice in Christ.

That is certainly true in the New Testament. There Paul and the other apostles constantly exhort believers to rejoice in Christ and to be thankful for the salvation obtained by Him. "We joy in God," he writes to the Christians in Rome, "through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have now received the atonement" (Rom. 5:11).

In his second epistle, the apostle John writes that he looks forward to meeting "the elect lady and her children," so that "our joy may be full" (w.1,12). He also ex­plains how this fullness of joy is experienced, namely by walking in the truth, especially the truth that Jesus Christ is come into the flesh (v.7).

Kohlbrugge, in a sermon on this text, says that only when this doctrine of Christ is believed, namely that He has come into the flesh, we will have true joy and that the more firmly we believe this truth, the more complete our joy shall be.

Why is this doctrine of Christ's coming in our flesh so basic to the Christian's joy? Because it is the only comfort for a con­victed sinner. When God comes to us with the demands of His law, we will ex­perience distress. With Paul in Romans 7 we will cry out: "I am carnal (fleshy), sold under sin!" We realize that we cannot meet the law's demands and that this in­ability is our guilt. We know that God can justly demand perfect obedience from us, but we also realize that such obedience is beyond our ability. This awareness produces another cry: "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Rom. 7:24).

The deepest reason why we feel so wretched, says Kohlbrugge, is that we realize that whereas God is Spirit, we are carnal, that God is life and we are death and lie in the midst of death, and that therefore we are separated from God by an enormous gulf. But, Kohlbrugge continues, that gulf has been bridged. God has sent His Son in the flesh, our flesh. He has come to do in our flesh what we could never do, namely obey God's law perfectly and also pay the awful penalty due to us for breaking that law.

This is the good news of the Gospel. This is what caused the angel of the Lord to say to those fearful shepherds in the night of Christ's birth: "Fear not, for lo, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people."

We may be sure that this angel found it a most pleasant task to be the bearer of these good tidings. The same is true of preachers of the Gospel. Paul says that their main task is to be "helpers of the believers' joy" (2 Cor. 1:24). In his exposition of this text, Richard Sibbes says:

The end or purpose of the ministry is not to tyrannize over people's souls, to sting and to vex them, but to minister comfort, to be helpers of their joy; that is, to help their salvation and happiness which is here termed joy, because joy is a principal part of happiness in this world, and in the world to come.

The fact that ministers must help believers come to experience this joy implies that it is not so easily attained. Why? Because there is much in man, even in the new man in Christ, that opposes God's way of peace and joy. There is a great gulf between God and ourselves. He is pure Spirit; we are sinful flesh.

Although this gulf has been bridged by God sending His Son in the flesh, it is often difficult to persuade convicted sinners to embrace this Good News, because they see themselves as nothing but flesh. Stony ground hearers have no such problem. "Anon with joy they receive the Word," Jesus says in His parable of the Sower. But that is because there is no depth in them. The true convert usually does not jump for joy right away. The seed that falls into good ground first puts down roots and only afterwards there is upward growth. A convicted sinner cannot always believe right away. In fact, he cannot believe at all, left to himself. He sees that gulf that separates his carnal self from God and although he is exhorted to believe, he finds it impossible to do so.

Why is it so hard for him? Because of the enmity that is in all of us against free grace. When it comes right down to it, we cannot believe that God justifies the ungodly. We may confess this truth with our mouths, but in our hearts we believe quite the opposite, namely that we can only come before God with some merit of our own. Because we are so carnal we cannot believe that we may come to Christ as we are, and that God will accept us entirely apart from any merit of ours. We think that we must bring at least some peniten­tial tears and some holy desires, otherwise God will not look at us.

These offerings are never good enough, of course. We sense this, yet we keep trying to approach the throne of grace(!) with some work of our own. This is not the way to joy but to misery, and it is the preacher's task to make this clear. True, he cannot give this joy. As Sibbes says, ministers are helpers of the believers' joy, not the authors.

The Author of joy is the Holy Spirit. Yet He uses men to minister comfort to sin­ners from the Scriptures. The servants of God must set Christ forth in all His beauty and all-sufficiency, so that with the Spirit applying His own Word, the poor distressed sinner may see that only Saviour and flee to Him as a poor, lost sinner.

Why do so many of us stay so long in darkness and experience so little joy in Christ? Not because we do not believe in Christ at all, but because we take Christ and our own works and mix them together. Then, when God knocks our works out of our hands, we lose both our works and Christ. We lose sight of Him and have nothing left. As long as we can feel some tenderness, are able to shed a few tears now and then or cherish holy desires, we have some hope. But when sin surprises us we are frightened and end in despair.

What is the solution? This: we must get a clear grasp of the doctrine of justification. We must try to lay hold of the wonderful and liberating truth that "God without any merit of mine, but only of mere grace grants and imputes to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ" Even "though my con­science accuses me that I have grossly transgressed all the commandments of God and kept none of them and am still inclined to all evil." (Heidelberg Catechism, Lord's Day 23)

Yes, Kohlbrugge was right in saying that only the doctrine of Christ's coming into the flesh brings joy to a poor sinner who knows he is nothing but flesh. "O Christian," he says,

Never forget your Christ! He came in the flesh, your flesh and He made things right for you with God. Because of what He has done in the flesh God will not condemn you for being flesh. All your fears and anxieties arising from your in­ability to keep God's law, He has taken upon Himself. In all the things you are tempted, He too has been tempted, in your place, for your sake. In all your afflictions He was afflicted.

How precious Christ becomes now! He has done it all. No work from our side is required — indeed, it is strictly forbidden. Hence the command to rejoice in the Lord alone. "I will make mention of His righteousness," the psalmist says, "and His only" (Ps. 71:16).

Do you know something of this joy which comes only by faith in Christ's finished work? Do you believe that Jesus receives sinners and eats with them? And does this fact make you rejoice? Then you should try to have more of this joy.

Remember, it is our Saviour's express desire that our joy be full. Why is that so important to Him? Not only because without joy we are miserable and useless, but also because while we are in this sad condition we do not glorify God.

Richard Baxter mentions ten negative consequences of not rejoicing in God.

1. You vilify and dishonour God if you judge Him not worthy of your delight.
2. If you do not delight in Him, your thoughts of God will be seldom or unwel­come and unpleasant thoughts.
3. Your speech of Him will be seldom. The worldling thinks and talks of his wealth and business; the licentious beast boasts of his lusts and sports and delicacies, because he most delights in these. And so must the Christian think and talk of his God as being his delight.
4. Lack of joy will keep you away from holy duties in which you should have communion with God.
5. It will corrupt your judgments, and encourage you to think that a little is enough, that a little preaching and praying will suffice; and any lip service is acceptable to God.
6. If you do not delight in God you will do everything half-heartedly, with backwardness and weariness.
7. Lack of joy makes men apt to quarrel with the word, and every weakness in the minister offends them, as sick stomachs that find fault with the best food.
8. It greatly incites men to carnal and forbidden pleasures, because they do not taste the higher and more excellent meats.
9. The lack of delight in God and holiness leaves the soul a prey to sorrows, every affliction that assaults it may do its worst, and has its full blow at the naked and unfortified heart.
10. The lack of delight in God and holiness is the way to apostasy itself. Few men will persevere in a way they do not enjoy, when all other delights must be forsaken for it.

I would add yet one more evil consequence of not rejoicing in the Lord. It also brings great harm to the reputation of the Gospel. If people around us see nothing but sad faces and hear only moaning and groaning, no one will be attracted to such a religion. "Those who do not rejoice," says Sibbes, "bring an ill report upon the way of God, as if it were a desolate and depressive way; just as the spies brought an ill report upon the land of Canaan, whereupon the Israelites were discouraged from entering it." Therefore, "rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice" (Phil. 4:4).