We cannot speak of the joy that the New Testament proclaims without starting with the Old Testament.[1]
It seems that already in the Old Testament there is everything we need to say only about Christian joy, and that we first have to learn the lesson of the Old Testament.
That the creature honors the Creator with rejoicing: the stars, since he founded the earth; the son ne, it runs like a hero; the field and the arable earth, blessed by God; – that heaven and earth, mountains, steppe and wasteland rejoice, since they see the deeds that he does to his own; – that he creates and gives all the joy that unites us human beings, the joy of work and youth, the joy of the mother, the joy of husband and wife, the joy between father and son, the joy of welfare and prosperity; that he gives „a merry heart“: – all this already Israel knows to say, from the most ancient to the most recent times.
And God chooses his people, his congregation, a people who rejoice in him and to whom he delights. They rejoice toward him when they celebrate his feasts. Rejoicing and joy is the tone to which the cult is tuned, from ancient times, and in Deuteronomy and Leviticus no different than in the Temple Psalms, the pilgrimage Psalms, Chronicles, and the testimonies of rabbinic Judaism. The joy of YHWH’s great deeds resounds at Passover, at the Feast of Tabernacles; God’s victory over his enemies is celebrated: since he created the world, he triumphed, and when he comes and establishes his reign, he will triumph. But when Israel celebrates its feasts, it partakes of YHWH’s victory and ascent to the throne, and with the colors of the primeval times and the last days is painted, [40] what they know to sing of YHWH’s deeds of old and new, of the Exodus and Passage and Sinai, of the deliverance from exile: „Serve the Lord with gladness, come before his face with rejoicing.“ And when the psalm of joy rejoices, it already transports itself in the spirit to the coming day: God has triumphed, everything is now new.
More! What the Psalms confess in joyful prayer, it is the innermost experience of the individual. „Let the heart of those who seek the Lord rejoice!“ How one experiences his exaltation and help, in sickness and distress, in the face of death! But in all this, the one thing: „who forgives all your sin.“ External and internal distress cannot be separated in the Psalms: Contempt, suffering, lack, sickness and guilt fall into one; and one is certainly right to see here also the typical n: in the individual experience lies something of the great struggle against the demonic powers; but the God of Israel has triumphed. Nevertheless, what the Psalms say remains real, genuine individual experience. Individual people – not only the congregation as a whole – have known this joy and „delight“ „in the Lord“. Then, of course, no one keeps anything for himself alone. The joy of the individual is only in and with the congregation. All the „righteous“ are to join in rejoicing, all the „wretched“ who wait on God, in what YHWH has done. „That not the adversary“, God’s adversary, „rejoice“, that YHWH is right and his own are made right by him, – that is the reason for joy.
And the last is not yet said. The highest joy of the pious Jew is YHWH’s word, and that means for him: YHWH’s law. „In walking according to your testimonies, I rejoice more than in all riches.“ One simply has to believe the 119th Psalm and all the similar testimonies that they speak from experience. These people have known that it is joy and delight to hear God’s word, that it is joy and delight to receive and fulfill God’s holy law. We must not interfere with them and say that they were mistaken, or that they spoke all this only with a view to the Messiah or to the expiation of the Day of Atonement. We have no right to do either. Rather, [41] the task we mentioned at the beginning begins here: learning the lesson of the Old Testament.
It is literally correct what the Psalms say about the fulfillment of the law. Wherever God’s commandments are obeyed in the least, there is joy. Everybody knows it from the upbringing of children; everybody knows it who stands in living tradition, be it of serious ecclesiastical custom or of living pietism or also of „ethical idealism“: Paul presupposes that also the Gentiles know God’s law, yes (Rom 2!) do it; and of what he possessed as a Jew, he boasts joyfully (Phil 3, Rom 9 and more, despite Rom 7!). And one has to leave it to the Pharisaic-rabbinic Judaism that the joy of the psalms of the law, the joy of the time of Ezra and Chronicles has never fallen silent in it.
And as here, so in all others the Old Testament rises to the New. Paul counts worship among God’s highest gifts, and Jesus himself sanctifies the temple with his own hand. All the joy of the created returns in the New Testament, since Jesus sanctifies marriages and children; since the apostles give „tables of the house“ as every Jew and Gentile understands them: but these ordinances are conceived „in Christ“, from „being thankful in all things“, from „praying without ceasing“ and „always rejoicing“. Paul’s joy, however, is God’s work in God’s church („my joy and my wreath“); and it is joy „in hope“, joy in the „dear Last Day“, because there they will stand before Christ’s face, his „children“, and then God’s work will be finished. But all the joy of the Christians is eschatological joy: the reward is great in the heavens; „joy and delight“ is the revelation of the light glory of Christ, and this is already reflected now in the doings and sufferings of his own, indeed precisely in the suffering. But in this, as in the Psalms, the outer and the inner cannot be separated. That Jesus heals the sick and the demonic and saves them from death is joy and rejoicing just as much as when he forgives and proclaims the future reign of God as a presence – presence in him.
Is not all that is in the New Testament already there in the Old – the joy of the created, of the church, of worship, [42] of God’s help, of forgiveness of sins, of eschatology already becoming present, the joy of God’s word and of the law fulfilled?
But above it all, in the New Testament, there is one word: „In Christo.“ And with that, everything the Old Testament says becomes completely new.
We have not yet heard the end of the Old Word. Next to the joy there is the unquenched suffering that is consuming. Next to the joyful, God-pleasing deed stands the sin, unburdened and accusing. Possibly in the same psalm, both stand abruptly and un resolved next to each other; for the whole of the Psalter it is obvious: there is no balance between the „Before you no living person is righteous“ and the joyful pride of the fear of God. This is especially clear in the beautiful Nehemiah word (8:10): „Joy in the Lord is your strength.“ Israel weeps (8:9) as it hears God’s law; but it is rebuked: „For (10) joy in YHWH is your stronghold.“ But is this not said, as it were, in retraction? In Neh 9 the true state of affairs comes to light: this poignant prayer of repentance and those similar to it from Old Testament late times, which we – rightly – still pray along with, would they not in truth be the last word of the Old Testament? Perhaps still with the cry: „Let me hear joy and gladness! Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your help!“ – But this very thing, says the Letter to the Hebrews, is also the ultimate meaning of all worship: it is only ever anew „remembrance of sins“ (10:3). All the rejoicing and joy cannot deceive us.
Thus the New Testament stands in the line of the prophets. They announce the disaster that must come and must not fail to come, and then, they say again and again, the rejoicing of the cult will cease; then „I will make joyful rejoicing and gladness rejoicing, bridegroom’s rejoicing and bride’s rejoicing disappear“. Accordingly, however, the new time which God Himself is bringing up is described, again and again, as the time of supreme joy, like joy of harvest, like joy of victory, like joyful drawing of water: „Everlasting joy shall be upon their head, joy and gladness shall take hold of them, and sorrow and [43] grief shall flee away.“ – Yes more! „As a bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.“ That God rejoices over us, that is the last and the only „ground of everlasting joys.“
Here, of this highest and last, Jesus says: it is there! „Joy is in heaven,“ that is, joy is with God, „over one sinner who repents, more than over ninety-nine righteous who have no need of repentance.“
Can we now take the step, all the way over the threshold, all the way into the New Testament?
But we are warned to be hasty. That God is pleased with his own is not only written in the prophet, it is also written in the law; but there with the warning either-or: It will be YHWH’s pleasure to destroy and destroy you, as he was pleased before to make you happy and numerous. Perhaps, you still turn back when the curse is fulfilled, and obey again and do all his commandments: then „YHWH will have joy in you again, as he had joy in the fathers“.
I wonder if that was ever fulfilled. Israel was inclined enough to believe it. When the exile ended, when the temple was rebuilt, they believed that now it was there, the eternal joy, the promised new world of God; and then everything remains the same, and the contrast we spoke of only intensifies.
In the Judaism of Jesus‘ time it is sharpened to the last. On the one hand, the proud joy of possessing and fulfilling the law; on the other hand, the gloom of an unending „repentance“ and an unresolved fear. The pious Jew knows that God rejoices in him, rejoices in his pious ones; however, sackcloth and ashes, fasting and the „Teshuba“, the „conversion“, the „repentance“ befit the pious one. But just from this he makes his pride again, that he repents so beautifully, is so deeply shattered. Not only the description of Mt 6 shows us this, but also the documents of the Judaism of that time.
But Jesus comes to these pious people with the message of perfect joy: „How can high tent people fast?“ It is wedding, time of perfect joy. And must you really fast, is really repentance and sorrow your condition before [44] God: anoint your head! For repentance is joy. Joy reigns in Zacchaeus‘ house, joy in Levi the publican; – for God rejoices in the repentant, rejoices in the prodigal. Should not the proud one, who From me, rejoice, not rejoice with the Father, since the prodigal returns? „But rejoice and be glad, for this your brother was dead and has come to life, was lost and has been found.“ Did the pious man hear the message that struck him even in his lostness? He rejects the messenger of joy, he rejects the message of joy; because it is only for the „poor“.
Only here the lesson that the Old Testament wanted to give us is completed. Everything can be present in us that the pious Jew already possessed; and yet the joy of Jesus, the perfect joy, is missing. Everything can be there with us: like the joy in the good and its fulfillment, of which we spoke, so the joy in God and his service, the joy in God (really in God!) in his creative gifts, the joy in God’s church and its community, the joy of experienced answers to prayer, experienced forgiveness of sins, the joy in God’s future world; and above all, an awareness that God rejoices in us: for if he were not still „well pleased with his works,“ still somewhat pleased with his Creator, we would all have passed away. But next to all this joy there is unresolved rebellion against God, and it shows itself no differently than in the case of Jesus‘ contemporaries: in pleasing ourselves to the point of prayer and repentance, in rebellion against others getting ahead of us, who were much „worse“ than we were. And then we do not need to be surprised by the symptoms of joylessness that are so often described in ascetic writings and songs, the „drought“, the disappearance of forgiveness, the need to struggle, probably even the gaining of space by Satan. We fall „under the law“, that is, under the wrath, the curse, the eternal death, under the joyless unrelieved fear.
But this is precisely where Lk 15 belongs: God rejoices in the lost, especially in the lost. This is not a lesson that can be learned, or even taught, but it is the reality of Jesus; he in person is the joy that God has in the lost. He „rejoiced in spirit,“ and glorified the Father [45] in heaven, that he hid such things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them to babes. His whole life, from his birth, is under this sign. The message of joy of the angels says that God is pleased with us people of the lost world, that he rejoices in us as he once rejoiced in his perfect creation. And Jesus‘ own word and work is meant by the parables in Lk 15. It is he who takes care of the lost; it is he who confronts the older brother with the decision whether he does not want to belong with the younger one.
And in the state to which he called his own, he also receives them. They return enthusiastically from the sending; for Satan had to give way to them. But this must not be their joy – one can speak prophetically and cast out demons and still be lost oneself (Mt 7,22f.): – „rejoice that your names are written in heaven,“ that God knows you as His own, as the citizens of His eternal city; that God is well pleased with you. So he says it in the farewell speeches, and prays for it in the High Priestly Prayer: that his joy may remain in his own, the perfect joy. His joy, that means: the perfect pleasure of the Father. The Father’s good pleasure rested on him, on the one Son, and therefore the Father did not leave him alone for a moment; and he gives his own a share in this good pleasure, in this perfect joy.
The perfect joy! It is the joy that „no one can take from you“, it is the eternal joy, the joy of the future world of God. And the word to which we alluded speaks of the resurrection, when His own „saw Him again“. In the resurrection of Christ, as the whole New Testament says, the future world of God has come to us. And so, through all the resurrection accounts, the sound of joy resounds again and again, in the midst of fear and unbelief and doubt, the great joy.
But before that goes the shame and fear and disgrace of the cross. This runs through the entire farewell discourses; it is expressly stated in the Epistle to the Hebrews: instead of the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross and did not pay attention to the shame. And what this means is said most clearly in the Letter to the Hebrews and the Gospel of John: it is the full dung of temptations, it is the struggle with Satan; it is (as the first evangelists dare to report) the abandonment of God, the „totalis derelictio“, and the Church of all times, the Church of the Reformation in particular, has known that this happened „for us“: „otherwise we would have to despair“.
But the crucified, risen one gives to his church, which lives „in him“, the eternal, perfect, everlasting joy.
We must take the New Testament at its word. Again and again the word of „perfect“ joy resonates; again and again the admonition to rejoice „always“, „always“, without ceasing. This means, after all, that the wavering we spoke of earlier has ceased. This comes from the fact that the church is given „perfect“ hope, and therefore „joy and peace in faith“, and therefore joyful hope.
Nothing else is said when joy is called „joy in the Holy Spirit“, „fruit of the Spirit“, „joy of the Holy Spirit“, or „in the power of the Holy Spirit“. For the Holy Spirit is the deposit and pledge of the world to come, he is the presence of the future reign of God, he already now grasps the righteousness which God will award to his own in the final judgment. Yes, the Spirit is the immediate presence of God; and the joy of which we speak, if it is otherwise really spiritual joy, is something supernatural and supramundane, something that does not come from human psychology and human nature, but only from God. Again and again, the joy of God’s work runs through the letters of the New Testament and through the description of the Acts of the Apostles. The joy that, out of nothing and against all appearances, a congregation grows like that of Thessalonica, a congregation flourishes like that of Philippi; the joy that the separation between Jews and Gentiles, which threatens the existence of Christians, is overcome; the joy of the Gentiles that they also belong to God’s reign; the joy of the messengers over congregations that they themselves did not found: but without envy Barnabas sees the flourishing of the Antiochian, Paul [47] that of the Roman community. „Co-workers of joy“ Paul calls the gospel messengers; and the joy can also consist in the messenger himself becoming aware of his weakness, while the church de strengthens. „No greater joy“ than that „my children walk in the truth“; indeed, the love that seeks the other rejoices along with the (personified!) truth where truth triumphs, and can no longer rejoice over „unrighteousness,“ i.e., that I am so much better than the other. Envy-less joy unites the one who sows and the one who cuts; triumphing joy, the foretaste of the world to come, unites the congregation in the breaking of bread.
But all this, what we called the work of God, happens through God’s word. It is a radiant joy to encounter the word of God. This is already described in the Gospels, in the Acts of the Apostles in some familiar stories, and in all the letters of Paul from the earliest to the last: God’s final word is a message of joy, the call of God, which gathers the church and carries it constantly, the call out of the realm of darkness, towards God’s glory of light, towards his eternal kingdom.
But with all this we have seen only one side. Joy „always„: this means, after all, that joy is alive even and especially where sorrow, fear and distress seem to prevail. And as what has been said so far spoke of joy „in the Lord“ in such a way that the effect of the resurrection was shown to those directly (if one may say so), so it is now to be remembered that the exalted one remains the crucified one, and that the joy of his own bears and keeps the crucifixions.
We probably all think first of the joy in the midst of persecution, indeed precisely about persecution. The Beatitudes speak of it, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistle of James, but especially the two great documents of the first Christian persecutions, the Epistle to the Hebrews and the First Epistle of Peter. Is it not the clearest proof of the supernatural cha racy of Christian joy that it grows precisely in persecution? – But once again we are warned to be hasty. There is proud joyful martyrdom in pre-Christian Judaism (Maccabees!) as well as in postapostolic times (Ignatius!). What distinguishes this pride in martyrdom from the original Christian joy is the bond with the crucified. Here is no human glory, but „by heart struggle, within fear.“ Here is really a being forsaken, a fearing, being afflicted: this is how Paul means his famous descriptions in the Corinthian letters, and (as Schlatter once says) the memory of the suffering, weak Paul was most unpleasant to the proud Corinthians. But Paul tells them how the angel of Satan strikes him, and how just in this grace and power of the exalted Christ is perfected in weakness. Thus the suffering of the Christians is directly a participation in the suffering of Christ, even its completion. But precisely in this it is joy: „if we suffer with others, we will also be glorified with them.
There is something else in this. Paul repeatedly calls Christian joy the joy of faith. But what he understands by faith, we know from Rom 4 and 5 and 9 and 10: Renunciation of oneself, submission to the judgment of God, which justifies the ungodly, constant access to grace. So joy can be found in being punished (2Cor 7!), in failure and being offended (Phil 1), in being sacrificed and consumed. Already the Baptist says it in John: „He must increase, but I must decrease“; but this is joy. May a little of what the New Testament testifies to us become true in our lives.
Source: Julius Schniewind, Geistliche Erneuerung, Gottingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1981, pp. 39-48.
[1] Time of origin and destination can no longer be inferred from the manuscript.
NAMENSgedächtnis 