What does "that your joy may be full" mean (John 15:11)?

John 15:11. In the 11th verse, He tells us, "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." "These things;" what things were the source of Jesus' joy? First to be the true Vine that never failed to bring forth fruit to the Father. Secondly, to walk in perfect obedience to His will and thus to have a perfect plea for intercession for His people. Thirdly, to abide in His Father's love by keeping His commandments. "These things" Jesus reveals as the source of His joy — a joy He would share with us; He would have us as full of joy as He was Himself. He says, emphatically, "That My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." Truly to abide in Jesus' love is fulness of joy.

It is generally accepted that we should read "be" instead of "remain" in this scripture, and a very slight consideration will show that the change yields the better sense. "Remain" implies that the Lord's joy was already possessed by the disciples, whereas "be" means that the Lord's object in these communications was that they might share in it, and this is really what He says. It is asked what this - His - joy is to which He alludes. It is the joy, as seen from the latter part of verse 10, which He experienced through keeping His Father's commandments and abiding in His love; in other words, it was His full enjoyment of the Father's love which He found in keeping His commandments. And He tells His disciples that if they keep His commandments they will abide in his love, for then there will be no hindrance to its manifestation to, and in, them (compare chapter 14:21), and that thus they will be sharers in His own joy, and their joy - their joy in the blessed experience of His love, and of communion with Him in His joy - will be full. Ah, what possibilities are thus opened out to the obedient heart! May we all seek to enter experimentally into this ineffable enjoyment!

Christ's Desires for His Own. — How the love of Christ to His own has already shone out! Still it is displayed. Of what He would do for them we have read of in chapters 13 and xiv. Here in chapter 15 we learn especially what He desired for them — first, fruit-bearing, and then the continued enjoyment of His love. "As My Father has loved Me, so have I loved you: continue ye in My love. If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love; even as I have kept My Father's commandments, and abide in His love. These things have I spoken to you, that My joy might remain [or, be] in you, and that your joy might be full" (9-11). The Lord here speaks of that which He had proved as a man upon earth, — love and joy; His Father's love as the obedient One keeping His commands, and the joy which He experienced for Himself as the dependent One in this world. These were His desires for His people, — the sustaining power of His love, consequent on the keeping His commands; and the joy, which He had known, for them to know, that their joy might be full. For it is not Christ's joy in them of which He speaks, but the joy that He as the obedient and dependent man had known. Christ's peace given us in chapter 14, His joy He would have us know in chapter 15. Here we get a little intimation of the Lord's inner life whilst in humiliation. We have seen in previous chapters what He had to meet from the opposition and hatred of men. We learn here that He was abiding in His Father's love, and had withal a joy with which neither His enemies nor His disciples would have credited the "Man of Sorrows." Now telling His disciples of it, He desired that they, bereft though they would be of His personal presence, facing, too, a hostile world, and suffering from it — He desired, we say, that they should continue in His love, and have a joy within, of which none could deprive them (Acts 2:46-47; 5:41; 13:52; 16:25).

373 "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you" (that is, "abide in you"; it is the same word all through). He had no joy from the world. He had perfect joy in the Father. His joy was in bringing forth fruit to the Father's glory. He is thus shewing to us how in fruit-bearing we can have joy and blessedness down here. "That your joy might be full." That is what He wants us to have - fulness of joy: and it is not from the world, but the kind of joy He had. It is His desire that we should have His own joy. "That my joy should remain in you, and that your joy should be full." So it is to the heart that is walking with and abiding in Him. If we have joy, it is His joy. If it is reproach, it is His reproach. It is His, whatever it is, to the heart that walks in the blessed consciousness of being in the same path that He trod here; and nothing else will do for the devoted heart. We ought not to be content without it, without the sense that we are abiding in His love, keeping His commandments, and walking like Him, in the fullest enjoyment of the Father's love, taking His words as our guide, keeping His commandments, and abiding thus in Him, He puts this confidence in us, but all connected with responsibility.

266 Then another aspect of this question of the vine opened out: "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you." The Father's glory was in their fruitfulness, and they were His disciples. Well, as He in the world was loved of the Father, so they of Him. Then how had He continued in this love? Keeping His Father's commandments. If they kept His commandments they would abide in His love. All this shows the practical position of the vine under the care held to be over it; not here mystical, and sure in its results, but practical, and exhibited in its plain characters. The object of this was not requisition in judgment, but that His joy might remain in them, the joy of full communion with the Father, as in One that ever had the consciousness of pleasing Him. Christ's joy was to do His Father's will, and the perfect consciousness of His union with Him, and so doing His will.

Now, Christ's joy is our portion (Christ's joy was in His own blessedness of obedience, and His union with the Father), and not only to have the same joy, but to have His joy, and we do stand in Him as in the close: "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord"; but here that it might abide in you, and so their joy might be full. He knew the blessedness of this earthly fellowship with the Father. In Him this was their portion, and so nothing would be wanting to their joy. But the manner of His joy was perfect obedience. He had loved them as the Father loved Him. If they walked in His commandments, as He in His Father's, the abiding of love would be theirs. Here was a full joy for a full communion. But the assertion was that thus it would be full.

Abiding in the love of the Lord Jesus is necessary in order that, as He says, “My joy might abide in you.” Before this He had spoken of ”My peace” (John 14:27), that blessed tranquility with which He faced all the circumstances of evil that opposed Him; then of “My love,” the love that was fully devoted to pleasing the Father; now “My joy,” the joy of doing the Father's will in His willing self-sacrifice (cf. Heb. 12:2). It is His joy abiding in the soul that causes our joy to be full. Compare 1 John 1:4.

Moreover the joy of which the Lord speaks is not only a joy that remains, but He can say to His disciples it will be "in you." Being in us it is not like the joy of this world, dependent upon outward circumstances. The Psalmist could say "Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and wine increased" (Ps. 4:7). Earthly joys depend on the prosperity of outward circumstances, the gladness of the Lord is in the heart. In His outward circumstances the Lord was an outcast Man and lonely — the Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. In His pathway of perfect obedience to the Father's will, He abode in the constant realization of the Father's love and in that love He found the constant spring of all His joy. We too, in as far as we walk in obedience to the Lord, shall abide in the realization of His love, and, in the sunshine of His love we shall not only find His joy, but, a fulness of joy that leaves no room for grieving over the failure of all things earthly.

The last motive the Lord brings to bear on the disciples as to this is contained in the next verse. "These things have I spoken to you that My joy may be in you, and your joy may be fulfilled." Nor is there a better criterion of our state, and, consequently, of our failure or success in entering into His mind. For if we take up the words of this chapter legally, scarce any words in the Bible are surer to plunge an upright soul into sorrow and depression; but if we understand them as He intended, they are expressly given to impart His joy to us and make our joy full. His joy when here was in pleasing His Father; to obey His commandments was not burdensome. This joy of His, unbroken in His path, He would now make ours.

The third great mark of the Christian company is "joy", as the Lord can say: "These things have I spoken to you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full" (v.11). The Lord speaks of this joy as "My joy," and further that it may be "in you." As regards outward circumstances, He was the Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, but He ever walked in the inward joy of the Father's love, and the glorious prospect before Him. He could rejoice in spirit in carrying out the Father's will, and for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross and despised the shame, and the contradiction of sinners, that He had to meet (Luke 10:21; Heb. 12:2-3). The Psalmist could say, "Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and wine increased" (Ps. 4:7). The world's joy depends upon prosperous circumstances — the increase of the corn and wine. The believer's joy is that inward gladness of heart that finds its springs in the unchanging love of the Lord, and the glorious prospect that only faith can enter into. In these verses the Lord speaks of, "My love," "My commandments," and "My joy," and these marks follow in beautiful order. The Lord's unchanging love is over all; walking in obedience to His commands we shall abide in His love, and abiding in His love we shall taste of His joy.

that His disciples might have their cup of joy filled to the brim, by the fact that His joy may be in us; and His utterances up to this point had this in view. His joy had been to do His Father's commandments and thus abide in His love. Now they and we, are committed to a life of obedience to the commandments of His love, and thus abiding in His love, we shall possess a joy of the same order as His, though realized of course in a much smaller degree. That we should be able to share in a joy that is His is an enrichment of a very wonderful kind.