Tractates (Lectures) on the Gospel of John — Tractate 83

St. Augustine of Hippo

1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3

You have just heard, beloved, the Lord saying to His disciples, These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might be in you, and that your joy might be full. And what else is Christ's joy in us, save that He is pleased to rejoice over us? And what is this joy of ours which He says is to be made full, but our having fellowship with Him? On this account He had said to the blessed Peter, If I wash you not, you shall have no part with me. His joy, therefore, in us is the grace He has bestowed upon us: and that is also our joy. But over it He rejoiced even from eternity, when He chose us before the foundation of the world. [[Ephesians 1.4]] Nor can we rightly say that His joy was not full; for God's joy was never at any time imperfect. But that joy of His was not in us: for we, in whom it could be, had as yet no existence; and even when our existence commenced, it began not to be in Him. But in Him it always was, who in the infallible truth of His own foreknowledge rejoiced that we should yet be His own. Accordingly, He had a joy over us that was already full, when He rejoiced in foreknowing and foreordaining us: and as little could there be any fear intermingling in that joy of His, lest there should be any possible failure in what He foreknew would be done by Himself. Nor, when He began to do what He foreknew that He would do, was there any increase to His joy as the expression of His blessedness; otherwise His making of us must have added to His blessedness. Be such a supposition, brethren, far from our thoughts; for the blessedness of God was neither less without us, nor became greater because of us. His joy, therefore, over our salvation, which was always in Him, when He foreknew and foreordained us, began to be in us when He called us; and this joy we properly call our own, as by it we, too, shall yet be blessed: but this joy, as it is ours, increases and advances, and presses onward perseveringly to its own completion. Accordingly, it has its beginning in the faith of the regenerate, and its completion in the reward when they rise again. Such is my opinion of the purport of the words, These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might be in you, and that your joy might be made full: that mine might be in you; that yours might be made full. For mine was always full, even before you were called, when you were foreknown as those whom I was afterwards to call; but it finds its place in you also, when you are transformed into that which I have foreknown regarding you. And that yours may be full: for you shall be blessed, what you are not as yet; just as you are now created, who had no existence before.