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[Even as I.. .Ms love.] The statement of this sentence ig one of those which man can never fully grasp. That Christ kept the Father's commandments perfectly, while we can only keep His imperfectly, and that He abides in the Father's love con- tinually and without defect, while our abiding in His love is at least fitful and uncertain, are truths which no intelligent Chris- tian can dispute. In this, as in everything else, our Lord's ex- ample and pattern are propounded to us as things which we must strive to follow, though at a long distance, and not always with sensible comfort. But we may remember that, even when Jesus said on the cross, — " My God, why hast thou forsaken Me ? " — He was still abiding in the Father's love.
11. — [These things... might be full.] In this verse our Lord gives two reasons why all the things in His discourses were addressed to the disciples. One was that " his joy might abide " or re- main " in them," — that they might have a comfortable share of their Master's joy in their salvation and redemption. The other was that their own individual joy might be filled up and per- fected. Two joys are named, we must observe. One is that special joy mentioned in Hebrews xii. 2, which our Lord feels in the redemption of His people. The other is that joy which His people feel from a sense of Christ's love to their souls.
Here, as elsewhere, we should note, that the joy of believers is a thing that admits of degrees and increase.
Cyril, on this verse, remarks that it is the mark of prosperous Christians to rejoice in those things in which Christ rejoices ; and that this is the special object of the phrase, "my joy," — " that ye may continually rejoice in those things in which I re- joice, and so your own inward happiness may be increased."