22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
The joy and peace which are also the fruit of the Spirit are likewise no natural qualities...Christian joy is the joy of the Lord, and its fountainhead is in God Himself, 'We joy in God', says Paul in Romans 5:11, and since God is unchangeable, and His salvation an accomplished work in Christ, our joy is not only full, but constant, and in no wise dependent on outward circumstances for its continuance, and cannot be subject to ebb or flow. There is therefore no conceivable circumstances on the human level that can possibly prevent us from knowing that joy which the Spirit brings to the birth in our hearts. It is this unchanging joy, independent of, and detached from, all possible circumstances around us, that the prophet Habakkuk knew in the midst of all the perplexities and forebodings that beset him in his ministry (Habakkuk 3:17-19). To joy in the Lord is just as independent of mood as Christian love is, and we may say the same for the peace of God, for peace is not in the first instance a subjective experience, but an objective reality, wrought by Christ in His atoning and reconciling work on the cross and applied to us by the Spirit. The mainspring of peace is seen in such statements as 'If God be for us, who can be against us?', and it is when this basic and unalterable reality dawns on our souls and grips us that the peace which is described as passing all understanding (Philippians 4:7) and as being like a river (Isaiah 48:18) fills our experience.