Jesus Walks With His Disciples by the LakeBible World
15:14John 15:14
Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
Ye are His friends if ye do whatsoever He commands, with friendship made conditional on full obedience without exception. His command is to love one another as He has loved, with unselfish love willing even to lay down life for friends. Obedience is the test, evidence and measure of friendship and true Christianity, not feeling, display or profession. His obedient ones are no longer mere servants ignorant of their Lord's work, but friends to whom He makes known all things He heard from the Father, whom He chose and ordained to bring forth abiding fruit, and to whom the Father gives whatever they ask in His name. Abiding in His love by keeping His commandments brings full and abiding joy, glorifies the Father by fruit that marks true discipleship, and sanctifies believers into His image through the truth.
Words and Historical Setting
These words were spoken in the upper chamber after Judas had left, when Christ was alone with the eleven, looking upon them with divine love and with the tenderest sympathy. They were among His last words to His disciples before His crucifixion and His separation from them, given while a cruel death lay before Him and His words were full of hope for them. They were words of comfort and counsel to stay their hearts in coming disappointment and trial, to strengthen them for the trials and temptations ahead, showing His love and making His purposes known to be remembered in their work and counsel. The disciples did not fully understand them until after the resurrection, and in them their appointed work was made to depend on divine power working together with human effort, building ministry on Christ and seeking the power God provides. Obedience in them is joined to continuing in His love and to loving others as He loved His disciples.
The saying belongs to the teaching of the true vine and the branches, in which Christ is the true vine and His Father is the husbandman. Every branch in Him that bears no fruit is taken away, and every branch that bears fruit is purged so it may bring forth more fruit, and those who claim to believe must understand this teaching and reveal it in daily life, through which the Word gives spiritual strength. Branches joined to the same vine draw from the same source and share the same life, sustaining fellowship and love while retaining individuality without requiring uniformity. True branches have a vital connection to Him and must abide in Him, unlike spurious connection, and being connected as a living branch shapes conduct, including speech and work. Bearing such fruit as fruitful branches requires conversion, growing in spirituality, and working with Him to bring people to the truth.
The saying belongs to the farewell instruction of John 13-17 and to John 15 as a whole, which points followers to coming trials and conflicts yet to eternal realities and divine help. It is an important lesson that must be read and obeyed, showing relationship to Him through obedience rather than fellowship with the world and its aims and service. The lessons are of deep import and need to be studied and even committed to memory, with diligent searching of the Word and studying the meaning of every word, keeping the mind as a storehouse of truth from which to draw the richest consolation to impart to the oppressed, the sorrowful, the afflicted, and those ready to perish. The instruction is to be believed just as spoken, watched unto in prayer, stood for faithfully, received into practical life and obeyed unto eternal life and unto unity with Him and with one another, while dissension and self-exaltation show failure to live it. Doing what He commands in it means each one doing his God-given work as workers together with God in perfect unity and love, as distinct branches drawing all sustenance from the true vine, bearing fruit to the glory of God. It requires daily emptying the heart of self and of hereditary and cultivated tendencies to wrong, depending wholly on Christ, being cleansed and prepared to receive the Holy Spirit, putting away supposed wisdom, wearing His yoke and learning His meekness and lowliness to find rest and peace more precious than gold, with Thus saith the Lord and It is written ever on the lips and the soul like a garden whose waters fail not, refreshing all around.
The little word if makes friendship conditional on doing what He commands, and whatsoever means without exception. Knowing His will is not enough, nor merely professing to keep the commandments, for His friends actually do in action what He commands. The commands to be done are duties specified by the Substitute and Surety that must be carefully studied and earnestly practiced, not neglected for unimportant matters while things of eternal consequence make only faint impression, for actions speak. Practicing them honors God and Jesus Christ whom He sent and bears divine credentials to the world that God loved the world by giving His only begotten Son so that believers do not perish but have everlasting life. Obedience is shown especially by loving others with the unselfish love He demonstrated through His sacrifice, which is love to God and love to neighbor, loving one another as He loved, by which when lived out the world knows His followers belong to Him. Applied especially to dealing with brethren in business connected with God's cause, it forbids working evil to a brother's interest under excuse of helping some line of work, for by advancing that one work the doer hinders brethren from doing the work given them for truth and righteousness, and such service gained by robbery is not accepted. Its if also calls parents to promptly share with their children the impressions and light given them for managing their children.
Friendship Conditional on Obedience
Christ calls His followers His friends when and if they do what He commands, and doing whatever He commands is what marks, expresses, shows, and constitutes friendship with Him and with Jesus. In this setting His command is to love one another as He has loved them. Obedience is the condition He names for friendship with Him, and friendship with Christ and with God is conditional on doing everything He commands. Obedience, not changing feelings or emotional religious experiences, is the test of character and true Christianity, and resisting temptation and neglect of duty, overcoming selfishness and passion, and willingly and cheerfully doing His will give stronger evidence of being a child of God than brief bursts of religious feeling. Keeping His commandments evidences love for Him, and obedience is the Bible test for those who have had the privilege of receiving light. All who call themselves Christians are thereby pressed with the question whether they obey His command to love one another as He loved them, with the greatest love that lays down life for friends, and His love for those who obey is unchangeable and unparalleled.
To be His friend is to submit to His authority and make His will and law the rule of life, and friendship with God is measured by the extent of His rule over a person. Obedience is the response of those who belong to Him and remain under His control, and their obedience sets them apart from the world and reflects attachment to higher and holier things. His authority is not exercised like a taskmaster but in wisdom and love, requiring only what results in good, and His rule brings peace, joy, and the fruits of love into the heart, making it His temple and throne. Obedience to His commands is joined with love for Him and with the close, familiar fellowship in which He makes known what He has received from the Father. Those who live in close fellowship with Him become His friends by obeying whatever He commands, and this obedience belongs with abiding in His love and loving one another as He loved them.
The servant who does the best he can for his Master and loves to obey His commands is promoted to positions of trust and admitted to familiar intercourse with Him, and in faithful discharge of duty believers become one with Him. Because they are obeying God's commands they may speak to Him freely, and the one who talks most familiarly with his divine Leader has the most exalted conception of His greatness and is the most obedient to His commands, constantly asking His will, abiding in His love by keeping His commandments, bearing much fruit, and loving one another even to laying down life as He loved. Obedience is the mark of loving fellowship with Him and of continuing in His love, and it marks a true, living connection with Him in contrast to a spurious or merely superficial connection. Service to God is not merely obeying requirements but also becoming like God, set within the relationship of Father and child as a oneness of nature made possible through Christ.
Command to Love One Another
In its setting the command to be kept is to love one another as He has loved, and to continue in His love is to keep His commandments even as He kept His Father's commandments and abides in His love. Friendship is expressed by doing what He commands, and those who do so are distinguished from servants who do not know their Lord's work because He has made known to them what He heard from the Father. That love is the evidence of discipleship and the means of representing Him.
It is unselfish and self-giving love, willing to sacrifice for another's good even to laying down life for friends, for the greatest love lays down life for friends. It goes beyond loving a neighbor as oneself. Its depth was made fully clear and understood only after He demonstrated it by dying for them, offering Himself in humiliation and suffering to pay the price of salvation.
This commandment sums up loving God supremely and neighbor as self, fulfilling the two great claims of God's law on which hang all the law and the prophets. It embraces love to God with all heart, soul, mind, and strength and love to neighbor as self, keeping the first four and the last six commandments and the new commandment, loving one another as the fulfilling of the law. Keeping it is obedience to God's law, abiding in His love with the joy of obedience, and it is the test of perfect love, the believer's only safety, and what enables Christian life to be a wholesome, saving influence in the world as salt.
It is a decided, positive command, repeated for emphasis, plain and leaving no room for misunderstanding, requiring doers and not mere profession. Keeping it brings unity and love among believers, oneness as Christ is in the Father and the Father in Him, attainable through the imparted Holy Spirit of love, with love for Jesus and love for one another prevailing at home, in the family, and in the church so that unhappy dissensions end. Mutual love so testifies to the world that they are His disciples and that He is formed within them, and it answers His prayer for oneness and brings spiritual power and supremacy as His people. Disregard of it brings guilt, dishonors God before unbelievers, and calls for repentance and redeeming the time.
Privileges of Friends Revealed
Obedient believers cease to be mere servants who do not know their Lord's work and are called friends, because all things heard from the Father have been made known to them. This friendship is expressed by doing what is commanded, above all loving one another as loved with the greatest love that lays down life for friends. The knowledge thus given is to be made known to others, joined with the testimony of the Spirit of truth. Holding confidence firm to the end, hearing and receiving and obeying, letting the words enter the intents and purposes until the will becomes His under His full control, brings the blessing that always comes from obedience in the daily life of the heart.
He Himself chose and ordained His friends, who did not choose Him, to go and bring forth fruit that remains. He sustains them as they work for Him and appoints them to bear lasting fruit in contrast to spurious connection. That abiding fruit shapes conduct and speech and work as living branches, bears fruit in words and deeds, glorifies the Father, and gives clear evidence of discipleship as children of God molded to the divine likeness. The faithful servant who does his best for his Master and loves to obey is thus promoted to positions of trust and admitted to familiar intercourse.
To such fruit-bearing friends is given the promise that the Father will give whatever is asked in His name. The promise is to be believed and honored by believing every word of the great Teacher, fulfilling His promises day by day. Abiding in love means keeping the commandments even as the Father's commandments were kept, and abiding in love. Continuing in that love keeps believers in Christ's love, makes them one with Him in the faithful discharge of duty, and enables them to speak to Him freely.
That obedience keeps His joy remaining with full joy that no other source can give. Those who show implicit trust through such obedience receive new light in darkness, guidance of the Holy Spirit into all truth, full joy remaining in them, and power that makes itself a place, with the joy of the Lord expressed in countenance and life and character. It is the joy of obedience from His treasurehouse, the keynote for all who receive the Light of life, whose love is not love of self or love for the highest place but meekness and lowliness of heart. It also gives joy to Christ Himself when souls turn from darkness to light and from error to truth and confess their new faith, being given another trial to form such characters as can safely be called sons and daughters, members of the royal family, children of the heavenly King.
Doctrinal Meaning for Believers
Friendship with Christ belongs to those who obey His commands, and that obedience is part of abiding in Him and marks a true, living connection with Him in contrast to a spurious or merely superficial connection. Being His friend is joined to doing what He commands, and this obedience grows from abiding in Him and bears fruit that reflects His character, including self-denial, patience, meekness, love, and service that helps save others. Obedience, abiding, and bearing fruit are evidence of discipleship and of Christ's love living in a person, with fruit including self-denial, patience, love, and work to save others. Friendship with Jesus depends on doing all He commands, and obedience is the evidence of conversion and of genuine love for Him, not mere feeling of attachment but willing obedience as a strong, fixed principle revealed in word and action. God's commands regulate the human heart, and the true beauty of the soul is found in obedience to His will, with lives of obedience lived because of love for Jesus, esteeming every precept He has given as right as Enoch was a friend of God and walked with God.
Those who so obey have the guarantee of Christ's presence with them always even to the end of the world, while disobedience even in a very small matter forfeits blessing, as Adam and Eve's disobedience lost Eden. Christ gives His friendship to those who obey His commands, not because they were perfect but because through Him they can be sanctified through the truth and obey the truth. The verse means a greater power of grace is offered than is grasped, Christ states the terms plainly as they are, and His friends become laborers together with Jesus Christ in God to glorify God. Friendship with Christ is sanctification through cheerful performance of daily duties in perfect obedience, and failure to cooperate with Him in redemption is a loss eternity cannot supply.
Bearing much fruit glorifies the Father and marks discipleship, and continuing in Christ's love as the Father loved Christ means keeping His commandments and abiding in His love even as Christ kept His Father's commandments and abides in His love. Christ's love is not love of self or love for the highest place, but His meekness and lowliness of heart, expressed in loving one another and in the greatest love of laying down life for friends. His command is to love one another as He has loved them, and that love includes being willing to sacrifice for another's good, giving evidence of discipleship and helping represent Christ. Keeping His commands means not yielding when tempted, representing the character of Christ to those around, speaking words of hope and faith to sinners, and thus bearing fruit to the glory of God.
Everyone who is truly His friend does His works, for a vital connection with Christ leads to a witness for Him, and unsanctified traits of character are out of keeping with that friendship. Keeping Christ's commandments keeps believers abiding in His love just as Christ kept His Father's commandments and abides in His love, giving full and abiding joy. Those who show implicit trust in God through such obedience receive new light in darkness, guidance of the Holy Spirit into all truth, full joy remaining in them, and power that makes itself a place, with the joy of the Lord within expressed in the countenance and in the life and character, for rejoicing is the keynote for all who receive the Light of life.
Christ Himself defines who His friends are by obedience to whatever He commands, and His commandments mean keeping the commandments of God, loving God supremely and neighbor as self, and loving one another, which is the fulfilling of the law. Doing them keeps believers abiding in His love as He kept His Father's commandments, and brings the joy of obedience which He alone can give from His treasurehouse of precious gifts. Their obedience is submission to God's law, whose principles they must practice, and this is their only safety and enables Christian life to act as salt in the world. Obedience to God's law is the believer's safety and enables Christians to be a wholesome, saving influence in the world, for obedience means abiding in His love by keeping His commandments, including His command to love one another as He loved His disciples with self-giving love even to laying down life for others.
Obedience to God's law is the test of perfect love for Christ, and the purpose of His sacrifice is to bring people back to loyalty to God and a life of obedience. The Father welcomes Christ's friends as His own, for Christ bore the law's penalty so sinners could repent and believe, and He credits His righteousness to the repentant believer, who thereby becomes God's friend. Faith in Christ does not make God's law void but establishes the law and produces obedience, for to have faith in Jesus is to follow His commands and walk as He walked. Christ died to provide remission of past sins and grace and help to keep God's commandments, and knowing Him as friend leads to leaving wrong habits with gratitude and love filling the heart.
The verse plainly outlines God's will for those who minister in word and doctrine and for all acquainted with present truth who do genuine missionary work, and God means just what He says in it. It is the privilege and duty of ministers to believe every word of it and to live it out before their fellow ministers, which requires conversion and renunciation of self. Christ counts His ministers as His friends when they do whatever He commands, and His will is plainly outlined in John 13-17 to be believed just as spoken, watched unto in prayer, stood for faithfully, and lived out before fellow ministers. Doing what He commands means each one doing his God-given work as workers together with God in perfect unity and love, bearing fruit to the glory of God as distinct branches drawing all sustenance from Christ the true Vine.
It requires daily emptying the heart of self and of hereditary and cultivated tendencies to wrong, depending wholly on Christ, being cleansed and prepared to receive the Holy Spirit, putting away supposed wisdom, wearing Christ's yoke, and learning His meekness and lowliness to find rest and peace more precious than gold. His words set conditions for receiving His grace and belonging among His people when He comes in glory, and those who refuse to comply will be unready to meet Him. The verse states the requirements of God for being His friends, and those requirements are deep and solemn. It gives plain and decided testimony of man's duty to God and to fellow men, so churches and individuals are without excuse if they miss the way, make mistakes, follow human devising, and lose their souls. The command is applied as an obligation to love others, warn them, and work to bring souls to the truth, and each person can know whether they obey it.
Living Out Friendship Daily
Doing whatever He commands means each one doing his own God-given work as workers together with God in perfect unity and love, as distinct branches drawing all sustenance from Christ the true Vine and bearing fruit to the glory of God. It requires daily emptying the heart of self and of hereditary and cultivated tendencies to wrong, depending wholly on Christ, being cleansed and prepared to receive the Holy Spirit, putting away supposed wisdom, wearing His yoke and learning His meekness and lowliness to find rest and peace more precious than gold. Friendship is joined to obedience expressed in a life that practices the Word and represents Christ in character and conduct, practicing the truth as He did, with faith working through love and purifying the soul in loving, tender conduct that glorifies Him. It means conscientiously practicing the lessons He gave and fearing to offend Him by disobedience, doing all possible to save a soul by opening the door of hope and welcoming back one who confesses and pleads for another trial even without evidence of marked change, acting as Christ Himself would act. The command lays obligation on each person to love others, warn them, and work to bring souls to the truth, and each can know whether he obeys it. Being on His side and working with Him to the best of ability to overcome the temptations of the enemy, His friends labor unitedly and heartily for victory at every step, and He reveals Himself to them so they are never alone.
For parents and children this obedience means loving one another while parents require obedience, and parents can insist on obedience without scolding or driving love from the heart. The conditional word calls parents to promptly share with their children the impressions and light God has given for managing them. Fathers and mothers are never to get into a scolding line in the home because scolding gains nothing, but are to bring children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord by teaching them the love and nurture and knowledge of Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus is the best friend, and children become His friends by loving, fearing, and obeying Him, while mothers have the duty to train them and mold their characters to give their young hearts to God. That training is by daily instruction about the precious Saviour and His love, teaching self-denial and to love, fear, and obey the Lord.
In daily life obedience without exception forbids working evil to a brother's interest in business connected with God's cause under excuse of helping some other line of God's work, because advancing one work by hindering brethren from the work the Lord gave them for truth and righteousness is service gained by robbery and not accepted by the Lord. It includes seeking God's counsel in prayer and acting wisely without extremes, as in considering Sunday observance. Depending on the Lord enables His friends to do what they should without murmuring or disputing, living out the principles taught in God's Word and willing to do His expressed will. His word abiding in them is shown by actions that do not use gifts for self-exaltation or measure others by wealth, but follow His example in serving and helping the poor, needy, and distressed, in harmony with His mission and showing the character that can be trusted with heaven's eternal riches. This love draws the surrendered soul into harmony with God and unity with Christ.
Keeping His commands means not yielding when tempted, representing the character of Christ to those around, and speaking words of hope and faith to sinners, thus bearing fruit to His glory. His friends are to reveal Him to the world, showing that humanity can lay hold of divinity and overcome through His strength. Their mutual love in abiding in His love and loving one another as He loved them is to be a testimony to the world that they are His disciples and that Christ is formed within them. Following His commands means refusing the world's sinful ways, which brings the same persecution He faced, and overcoming the world as He did with Him as example. Obedience and self-giving love even to laying down life, not dramatic bodily displays or claims of spiritual power, show His character, and walking humbly with God in obedience brings safety amid danger and the unity and spiritual power of His prayer.
Such obedience brings the blessing that always comes from obedience, with His promises fulfilled day by day. Keeping His commandments because it is His requirement, following the best light and becoming peculiar from the world, brings joy rather than bondage and gives privilege to claim His blessing and lay the whole burden on Him by faith in His whole sacrifice, suffering, death to bring sinners to God, and cleansing blood that frees from sin for whole salvation. His rule brings peace, joy, and the fruits of love into the heart, making it His temple and throne, and trusting the faithful Creator with the keeping of the soul makes present cares and anxieties seem light. Implicit trust through obedience in loving one another with His meekness and lowliness rather than love of self or of the highest place brings new light in darkness, guidance of the Holy Spirit into all truth, full joy remaining within expressed in countenance, life, and character, and power that makes itself a place. Walking in the direction of His words as those for whom He was about to lay down His life leads to eternal life, entering through the gates into the city where there is no more death, no more sin, no more temptation and no devil, seeing the King in His beauty with right to the tree of life in beauty of character, which will come in only a little while when earth's history is closed.
Ye are His friends if ye do whatsoever He commands, with friendship made conditional on full obedience without exception. His command is to love one another as He has loved, with unselfish love willing even to lay down life for friends. Obedience is the test, evidence and measure of friendship and true Christianity, not feeling, display or profession. His obedient ones are no longer mere servants ignorant of their Lord's work, but friends to whom He makes known all things He heard from the Father, whom He chose and ordained to bring forth abiding fruit, and to whom the Father gives whatever they ask in His name. Abiding in His love by keeping His commandments brings full and abiding joy, glorifies the Father by fruit that marks true discipleship, and sanctifies believers into His image through the truth.
Words and Historical Setting
These words were spoken in the upper chamber after Judas had left, when Christ was alone with the eleven, looking upon them with divine love and with the tenderest sympathy. They were among His last words to His disciples before His crucifixion and His separation from them, given while a cruel death lay before Him and His words were full of hope for them. They were words of comfort and counsel to stay their hearts in coming disappointment and trial, to strengthen them for the trials and temptations ahead, showing His love and making His purposes known to be remembered in their work and counsel. The disciples did not fully understand them until after the resurrection, and in them their appointed work was made to depend on divine power working together with human effort, building ministry on Christ and seeking the power God provides. Obedience in them is joined to continuing in His love and to loving others as He loved His disciples.
The saying belongs to the teaching of the true vine and the branches, in which Christ is the true vine and His Father is the husbandman. Every branch in Him that bears no fruit is taken away, and every branch that bears fruit is purged so it may bring forth more fruit, and those who claim to believe must understand this teaching and reveal it in daily life, through which the Word gives spiritual strength. Branches joined to the same vine draw from the same source and share the same life, sustaining fellowship and love while retaining individuality without requiring uniformity. True branches have a vital connection to Him and must abide in Him, unlike spurious connection, and being connected as a living branch shapes conduct, including speech and work. Bearing such fruit as fruitful branches requires conversion, growing in spirituality, and working with Him to bring people to the truth.
The saying belongs to the farewell instruction of John 13-17 and to John 15 as a whole, which points followers to coming trials and conflicts yet to eternal realities and divine help. It is an important lesson that must be read and obeyed, showing relationship to Him through obedience rather than fellowship with the world and its aims and service. The lessons are of deep import and need to be studied and even committed to memory, with diligent searching of the Word and studying the meaning of every word, keeping the mind as a storehouse of truth from which to draw the richest consolation to impart to the oppressed, the sorrowful, the afflicted, and those ready to perish. The instruction is to be believed just as spoken, watched unto in prayer, stood for faithfully, received into practical life and obeyed unto eternal life and unto unity with Him and with one another, while dissension and self-exaltation show failure to live it. Doing what He commands in it means each one doing his God-given work as workers together with God in perfect unity and love, as distinct branches drawing all sustenance from the true vine, bearing fruit to the glory of God. It requires daily emptying the heart of self and of hereditary and cultivated tendencies to wrong, depending wholly on Christ, being cleansed and prepared to receive the Holy Spirit, putting away supposed wisdom, wearing His yoke and learning His meekness and lowliness to find rest and peace more precious than gold, with Thus saith the Lord and It is written ever on the lips and the soul like a garden whose waters fail not, refreshing all around.
The little word if makes friendship conditional on doing what He commands, and whatsoever means without exception. Knowing His will is not enough, nor merely professing to keep the commandments, for His friends actually do in action what He commands. The commands to be done are duties specified by the Substitute and Surety that must be carefully studied and earnestly practiced, not neglected for unimportant matters while things of eternal consequence make only faint impression, for actions speak. Practicing them honors God and Jesus Christ whom He sent and bears divine credentials to the world that God loved the world by giving His only begotten Son so that believers do not perish but have everlasting life. Obedience is shown especially by loving others with the unselfish love He demonstrated through His sacrifice, which is love to God and love to neighbor, loving one another as He loved, by which when lived out the world knows His followers belong to Him. Applied especially to dealing with brethren in business connected with God's cause, it forbids working evil to a brother's interest under excuse of helping some line of work, for by advancing that one work the doer hinders brethren from doing the work given them for truth and righteousness, and such service gained by robbery is not accepted. Its if also calls parents to promptly share with their children the impressions and light given them for managing their children.
Friendship Conditional on Obedience
Christ calls His followers His friends when and if they do what He commands, and doing whatever He commands is what marks, expresses, shows, and constitutes friendship with Him and with Jesus. In this setting His command is to love one another as He has loved them. Obedience is the condition He names for friendship with Him, and friendship with Christ and with God is conditional on doing everything He commands. Obedience, not changing feelings or emotional religious experiences, is the test of character and true Christianity, and resisting temptation and neglect of duty, overcoming selfishness and passion, and willingly and cheerfully doing His will give stronger evidence of being a child of God than brief bursts of religious feeling. Keeping His commandments evidences love for Him, and obedience is the Bible test for those who have had the privilege of receiving light. All who call themselves Christians are thereby pressed with the question whether they obey His command to love one another as He loved them, with the greatest love that lays down life for friends, and His love for those who obey is unchangeable and unparalleled.
To be His friend is to submit to His authority and make His will and law the rule of life, and friendship with God is measured by the extent of His rule over a person. Obedience is the response of those who belong to Him and remain under His control, and their obedience sets them apart from the world and reflects attachment to higher and holier things. His authority is not exercised like a taskmaster but in wisdom and love, requiring only what results in good, and His rule brings peace, joy, and the fruits of love into the heart, making it His temple and throne. Obedience to His commands is joined with love for Him and with the close, familiar fellowship in which He makes known what He has received from the Father. Those who live in close fellowship with Him become His friends by obeying whatever He commands, and this obedience belongs with abiding in His love and loving one another as He loved them.
The servant who does the best he can for his Master and loves to obey His commands is promoted to positions of trust and admitted to familiar intercourse with Him, and in faithful discharge of duty believers become one with Him. Because they are obeying God's commands they may speak to Him freely, and the one who talks most familiarly with his divine Leader has the most exalted conception of His greatness and is the most obedient to His commands, constantly asking His will, abiding in His love by keeping His commandments, bearing much fruit, and loving one another even to laying down life as He loved. Obedience is the mark of loving fellowship with Him and of continuing in His love, and it marks a true, living connection with Him in contrast to a spurious or merely superficial connection. Service to God is not merely obeying requirements but also becoming like God, set within the relationship of Father and child as a oneness of nature made possible through Christ.
Command to Love One Another
In its setting the command to be kept is to love one another as He has loved, and to continue in His love is to keep His commandments even as He kept His Father's commandments and abides in His love. Friendship is expressed by doing what He commands, and those who do so are distinguished from servants who do not know their Lord's work because He has made known to them what He heard from the Father. That love is the evidence of discipleship and the means of representing Him.
It is unselfish and self-giving love, willing to sacrifice for another's good even to laying down life for friends, for the greatest love lays down life for friends. It goes beyond loving a neighbor as oneself. Its depth was made fully clear and understood only after He demonstrated it by dying for them, offering Himself in humiliation and suffering to pay the price of salvation.
This commandment sums up loving God supremely and neighbor as self, fulfilling the two great claims of God's law on which hang all the law and the prophets. It embraces love to God with all heart, soul, mind, and strength and love to neighbor as self, keeping the first four and the last six commandments and the new commandment, loving one another as the fulfilling of the law. Keeping it is obedience to God's law, abiding in His love with the joy of obedience, and it is the test of perfect love, the believer's only safety, and what enables Christian life to be a wholesome, saving influence in the world as salt.
It is a decided, positive command, repeated for emphasis, plain and leaving no room for misunderstanding, requiring doers and not mere profession. Keeping it brings unity and love among believers, oneness as Christ is in the Father and the Father in Him, attainable through the imparted Holy Spirit of love, with love for Jesus and love for one another prevailing at home, in the family, and in the church so that unhappy dissensions end. Mutual love so testifies to the world that they are His disciples and that He is formed within them, and it answers His prayer for oneness and brings spiritual power and supremacy as His people. Disregard of it brings guilt, dishonors God before unbelievers, and calls for repentance and redeeming the time.
Privileges of Friends Revealed
Obedient believers cease to be mere servants who do not know their Lord's work and are called friends, because all things heard from the Father have been made known to them. This friendship is expressed by doing what is commanded, above all loving one another as loved with the greatest love that lays down life for friends. The knowledge thus given is to be made known to others, joined with the testimony of the Spirit of truth. Holding confidence firm to the end, hearing and receiving and obeying, letting the words enter the intents and purposes until the will becomes His under His full control, brings the blessing that always comes from obedience in the daily life of the heart.
He Himself chose and ordained His friends, who did not choose Him, to go and bring forth fruit that remains. He sustains them as they work for Him and appoints them to bear lasting fruit in contrast to spurious connection. That abiding fruit shapes conduct and speech and work as living branches, bears fruit in words and deeds, glorifies the Father, and gives clear evidence of discipleship as children of God molded to the divine likeness. The faithful servant who does his best for his Master and loves to obey is thus promoted to positions of trust and admitted to familiar intercourse.
To such fruit-bearing friends is given the promise that the Father will give whatever is asked in His name. The promise is to be believed and honored by believing every word of the great Teacher, fulfilling His promises day by day. Abiding in love means keeping the commandments even as the Father's commandments were kept, and abiding in love. Continuing in that love keeps believers in Christ's love, makes them one with Him in the faithful discharge of duty, and enables them to speak to Him freely.
That obedience keeps His joy remaining with full joy that no other source can give. Those who show implicit trust through such obedience receive new light in darkness, guidance of the Holy Spirit into all truth, full joy remaining in them, and power that makes itself a place, with the joy of the Lord expressed in countenance and life and character. It is the joy of obedience from His treasurehouse, the keynote for all who receive the Light of life, whose love is not love of self or love for the highest place but meekness and lowliness of heart. It also gives joy to Christ Himself when souls turn from darkness to light and from error to truth and confess their new faith, being given another trial to form such characters as can safely be called sons and daughters, members of the royal family, children of the heavenly King.
Doctrinal Meaning for Believers
Friendship with Christ belongs to those who obey His commands, and that obedience is part of abiding in Him and marks a true, living connection with Him in contrast to a spurious or merely superficial connection. Being His friend is joined to doing what He commands, and this obedience grows from abiding in Him and bears fruit that reflects His character, including self-denial, patience, meekness, love, and service that helps save others. Obedience, abiding, and bearing fruit are evidence of discipleship and of Christ's love living in a person, with fruit including self-denial, patience, love, and work to save others. Friendship with Jesus depends on doing all He commands, and obedience is the evidence of conversion and of genuine love for Him, not mere feeling of attachment but willing obedience as a strong, fixed principle revealed in word and action. God's commands regulate the human heart, and the true beauty of the soul is found in obedience to His will, with lives of obedience lived because of love for Jesus, esteeming every precept He has given as right as Enoch was a friend of God and walked with God.
Those who so obey have the guarantee of Christ's presence with them always even to the end of the world, while disobedience even in a very small matter forfeits blessing, as Adam and Eve's disobedience lost Eden. Christ gives His friendship to those who obey His commands, not because they were perfect but because through Him they can be sanctified through the truth and obey the truth. The verse means a greater power of grace is offered than is grasped, Christ states the terms plainly as they are, and His friends become laborers together with Jesus Christ in God to glorify God. Friendship with Christ is sanctification through cheerful performance of daily duties in perfect obedience, and failure to cooperate with Him in redemption is a loss eternity cannot supply.
Bearing much fruit glorifies the Father and marks discipleship, and continuing in Christ's love as the Father loved Christ means keeping His commandments and abiding in His love even as Christ kept His Father's commandments and abides in His love. Christ's love is not love of self or love for the highest place, but His meekness and lowliness of heart, expressed in loving one another and in the greatest love of laying down life for friends. His command is to love one another as He has loved them, and that love includes being willing to sacrifice for another's good, giving evidence of discipleship and helping represent Christ. Keeping His commands means not yielding when tempted, representing the character of Christ to those around, speaking words of hope and faith to sinners, and thus bearing fruit to the glory of God.
Everyone who is truly His friend does His works, for a vital connection with Christ leads to a witness for Him, and unsanctified traits of character are out of keeping with that friendship. Keeping Christ's commandments keeps believers abiding in His love just as Christ kept His Father's commandments and abides in His love, giving full and abiding joy. Those who show implicit trust in God through such obedience receive new light in darkness, guidance of the Holy Spirit into all truth, full joy remaining in them, and power that makes itself a place, with the joy of the Lord within expressed in the countenance and in the life and character, for rejoicing is the keynote for all who receive the Light of life.
Christ Himself defines who His friends are by obedience to whatever He commands, and His commandments mean keeping the commandments of God, loving God supremely and neighbor as self, and loving one another, which is the fulfilling of the law. Doing them keeps believers abiding in His love as He kept His Father's commandments, and brings the joy of obedience which He alone can give from His treasurehouse of precious gifts. Their obedience is submission to God's law, whose principles they must practice, and this is their only safety and enables Christian life to act as salt in the world. Obedience to God's law is the believer's safety and enables Christians to be a wholesome, saving influence in the world, for obedience means abiding in His love by keeping His commandments, including His command to love one another as He loved His disciples with self-giving love even to laying down life for others.
Obedience to God's law is the test of perfect love for Christ, and the purpose of His sacrifice is to bring people back to loyalty to God and a life of obedience. The Father welcomes Christ's friends as His own, for Christ bore the law's penalty so sinners could repent and believe, and He credits His righteousness to the repentant believer, who thereby becomes God's friend. Faith in Christ does not make God's law void but establishes the law and produces obedience, for to have faith in Jesus is to follow His commands and walk as He walked. Christ died to provide remission of past sins and grace and help to keep God's commandments, and knowing Him as friend leads to leaving wrong habits with gratitude and love filling the heart.
The verse plainly outlines God's will for those who minister in word and doctrine and for all acquainted with present truth who do genuine missionary work, and God means just what He says in it. It is the privilege and duty of ministers to believe every word of it and to live it out before their fellow ministers, which requires conversion and renunciation of self. Christ counts His ministers as His friends when they do whatever He commands, and His will is plainly outlined in John 13-17 to be believed just as spoken, watched unto in prayer, stood for faithfully, and lived out before fellow ministers. Doing what He commands means each one doing his God-given work as workers together with God in perfect unity and love, bearing fruit to the glory of God as distinct branches drawing all sustenance from Christ the true Vine.
It requires daily emptying the heart of self and of hereditary and cultivated tendencies to wrong, depending wholly on Christ, being cleansed and prepared to receive the Holy Spirit, putting away supposed wisdom, wearing Christ's yoke, and learning His meekness and lowliness to find rest and peace more precious than gold. His words set conditions for receiving His grace and belonging among His people when He comes in glory, and those who refuse to comply will be unready to meet Him. The verse states the requirements of God for being His friends, and those requirements are deep and solemn. It gives plain and decided testimony of man's duty to God and to fellow men, so churches and individuals are without excuse if they miss the way, make mistakes, follow human devising, and lose their souls. The command is applied as an obligation to love others, warn them, and work to bring souls to the truth, and each person can know whether they obey it.
Living Out Friendship Daily
Doing whatever He commands means each one doing his own God-given work as workers together with God in perfect unity and love, as distinct branches drawing all sustenance from Christ the true Vine and bearing fruit to the glory of God. It requires daily emptying the heart of self and of hereditary and cultivated tendencies to wrong, depending wholly on Christ, being cleansed and prepared to receive the Holy Spirit, putting away supposed wisdom, wearing His yoke and learning His meekness and lowliness to find rest and peace more precious than gold. Friendship is joined to obedience expressed in a life that practices the Word and represents Christ in character and conduct, practicing the truth as He did, with faith working through love and purifying the soul in loving, tender conduct that glorifies Him. It means conscientiously practicing the lessons He gave and fearing to offend Him by disobedience, doing all possible to save a soul by opening the door of hope and welcoming back one who confesses and pleads for another trial even without evidence of marked change, acting as Christ Himself would act. The command lays obligation on each person to love others, warn them, and work to bring souls to the truth, and each can know whether he obeys it. Being on His side and working with Him to the best of ability to overcome the temptations of the enemy, His friends labor unitedly and heartily for victory at every step, and He reveals Himself to them so they are never alone.
For parents and children this obedience means loving one another while parents require obedience, and parents can insist on obedience without scolding or driving love from the heart. The conditional word calls parents to promptly share with their children the impressions and light God has given for managing them. Fathers and mothers are never to get into a scolding line in the home because scolding gains nothing, but are to bring children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord by teaching them the love and nurture and knowledge of Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus is the best friend, and children become His friends by loving, fearing, and obeying Him, while mothers have the duty to train them and mold their characters to give their young hearts to God. That training is by daily instruction about the precious Saviour and His love, teaching self-denial and to love, fear, and obey the Lord.
In daily life obedience without exception forbids working evil to a brother's interest in business connected with God's cause under excuse of helping some other line of God's work, because advancing one work by hindering brethren from the work the Lord gave them for truth and righteousness is service gained by robbery and not accepted by the Lord. It includes seeking God's counsel in prayer and acting wisely without extremes, as in considering Sunday observance. Depending on the Lord enables His friends to do what they should without murmuring or disputing, living out the principles taught in God's Word and willing to do His expressed will. His word abiding in them is shown by actions that do not use gifts for self-exaltation or measure others by wealth, but follow His example in serving and helping the poor, needy, and distressed, in harmony with His mission and showing the character that can be trusted with heaven's eternal riches. This love draws the surrendered soul into harmony with God and unity with Christ.
Keeping His commands means not yielding when tempted, representing the character of Christ to those around, and speaking words of hope and faith to sinners, thus bearing fruit to His glory. His friends are to reveal Him to the world, showing that humanity can lay hold of divinity and overcome through His strength. Their mutual love in abiding in His love and loving one another as He loved them is to be a testimony to the world that they are His disciples and that Christ is formed within them. Following His commands means refusing the world's sinful ways, which brings the same persecution He faced, and overcoming the world as He did with Him as example. Obedience and self-giving love even to laying down life, not dramatic bodily displays or claims of spiritual power, show His character, and walking humbly with God in obedience brings safety amid danger and the unity and spiritual power of His prayer.
Such obedience brings the blessing that always comes from obedience, with His promises fulfilled day by day. Keeping His commandments because it is His requirement, following the best light and becoming peculiar from the world, brings joy rather than bondage and gives privilege to claim His blessing and lay the whole burden on Him by faith in His whole sacrifice, suffering, death to bring sinners to God, and cleansing blood that frees from sin for whole salvation. His rule brings peace, joy, and the fruits of love into the heart, making it His temple and throne, and trusting the faithful Creator with the keeping of the soul makes present cares and anxieties seem light. Implicit trust through obedience in loving one another with His meekness and lowliness rather than love of self or of the highest place brings new light in darkness, guidance of the Holy Spirit into all truth, full joy remaining within expressed in countenance, life, and character, and power that makes itself a place. Walking in the direction of His words as those for whom He was about to lay down His life leads to eternal life, entering through the gates into the city where there is no more death, no more sin, no more temptation and no devil, seeing the King in His beauty with right to the tree of life in beauty of character, which will come in only a little while when earth's history is closed.