In this verse of Scripture joy is not the first but the last of three. Joy is the home in which the pilgrim rests; righteousness and peace are the paths by which he reaches it.
I. Righteousness. It is the want of righteousness, or guilt, that disturbs our peace or damps our joy. Here lies the root of the ailment, and here, therefore, must the cure begin. A righteousness suitable to our need must obviously consist of two parts the evil must be removed and the good imparted. Christ's sacrifice and work correspond to this twofold need of guilty man. His death blots out the guilt, and His life becomes the righteousness of His believing people. Christ personally is everything in the gospel.
II. Peace enjoyed flows from righteousness possessed. When I have righteousness then I have peace. The peace of which the text speaks dwells on earth, but it has been produced there by another peace which has its home in heaven. It is when God is at peace with me that I am at peace with God. When His anger is turned away my confidence in Him begins. I need not cherish my dread when He has taken His wrath away. When peace is proclaimed from the judgment-seat to me, peace echoes from my glad heart up to heaven again.
III. Joy in the Holy Ghost. Here at last is the thing we have been seeking all our days; it is joy, or happiness. There are two conditions possible to a human soul in this life: the one, to be in sin and at enmity with God; the other, to be righteous in Christ's righteousness, and at peace with God through the blood of the Cross. In respect of the happiness which these two conditions yield, they are related as night and day are related in respect to light. In the region nearest us, and at certain times, they may approach or seem to approach an equality. The night sometimes, through moon and stars and wintry meteors, has a good deal of light in it; and the day sometimes, through rising smoke and hovering clouds, has a good deal of darkness in it. A night of many stars may seem brighter than a day of many clouds; but the night is notwithstanding far different from day. Immortal souls in sin and under wrath may have many bright joys as they traverse this life, but their joys are only sparks on the surface of an eternal night; on the other hand, Christian disciples may have many sorrows, but these are only clouds hovering in the thin atmosphere of earth, hiding heaven from view for the moment, but leaving all the eternity beyond an undimmed, unending light.
W. Arnot, Family Treasury,July, 1861.
References: Romans 14:17. Parker, City Temple,1871, p. 445; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines,p. 97.