These joys which the Church is to receive shall be new joys (continued)
Joy 125 fullness of Christ's satisfaction, in which God received double for all our sins; the latter to the fullness of heaven's joys, in which we shall receive more than double for all our services and sufferings. Job's case illustrates this. When God turned again his captivity He gave him twice as much as he had before.
3. THE CyurcnH's New Joys
These joys which the Church is to receive shall be new joys (Isa. Ixv. 18). For:
(a) All the church's friends, and all that belong to her shall rejoice. You shall "'be glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create'. The new things which God creates in and by His Gospel are and shall be matters of everlasting joy to all believers. My servants shall rejoice (Isa. Ixv. 13). At last they shall; though now they mourn. "Enter thou into the joy of the Lord."
(b) The Church shall be the matter of their joy—so pleasant, so prosperous shall her condition be. '"'I create Jerusalem as rejoicing, and her people a joy."' The Church shall not only rejoice but be rejoiced in. Those that have sorrowed with the Church shall rejoice with her.
(c) The prosperity of the Church shall be a rejoicing to God Himself, who has pleasure in the prosperity of His servants (Isa. Ixv. 19). I will rejoice in Jerusalem's joy, and will joy in my people. For in all their afflictions He was afflicted. God will not only rejoice in the Church's well-doing but will Himself rejoice to do her good and rest in His love to her (Zeph. iii. 17). What God rejoices in it becomes us to rejoice in.
(d) There shall be no allay of this joy nor any alteration of this happy condition of the Church. 'The voice of weeping shall no more be heard in her." If this relate to any state of the Church in this life, it means no more than that the former occasions of grief shall not return, but God's people shall long enjoy an uninterrupted tranquillity. But in heaven it shall have full accomplishment, in respect both of the perfection and perpetuity of the promised joy. There all tears shall be wiped away.
4. THE JOY OF THE LoRD
But the state of the blessed, as is the state of the Church, is one of joy, not only because all tears shall then be wiped away, but all the springs of comfort shall be opened to them, and the