John 15:16, commentary and pictures

Christ first moves toward fallen people and selects them out of love and grace, not because they first turned to Him. He appoints all who believe to go and produce lasting results that glorify the Father and show they belong to Him. That lasting result is active witness and unselfish service that turns others to Christ, done in vital union with Him as branch to vine. The appointment is joined to the command to love one another as He loved and to obey His word, which makes them His friends and binds them in unity. Joined to that fruit-bearing work is the assurance that the Father will grant whatever is asked in Jesus' name, meaning in His mind and Spirit with living faith.

Setting and Wording

Jesus spoke these words when alone with the eleven after Judas had left the upper chamber and before telling of His approaching separation, first turning their thoughts to the great object of His mission which He kept ever before Him and to His joy that all His humiliation and suffering would glorify the Father's name. They belong to His words of comfort, counsel, and prayer to His disciples in the upper chamber before His death and separation, spoken near the close of His earthly ministry as a cruel death lay before Him. They were not fully understood until after the resurrection, but they stayed with the disciples in later disappointment and trial and have brought comfort, peace, and hope to believers across generations.

He spoke them knowing the trials that would come to His church through unconverted believers. They are words full of encouragement and hope, and studying them imparts courage to stand fast in the most trying hour and brings strength and assurance to the true believer as long as time shall last. They were given to prepare and strengthen the disciples for the coming trials, temptations, and difficulties they would meet in the world, reminding them of His love as they carry out their work. He tells them what lies ahead so that trial will not lead to discouragement or doubt, and with John 14, 16 and 17 they are of highest value for every soul consecrating life to God's service.

The verse belongs to His teaching about the true vine and its branches, which presents the believer's relation to Christ as that of a branch to the vine. Every person can be such a branch. A true branch has a living, vital connection with Christ, unlike a spurious branch that lacks that union, so abiding in Christ is necessary. Through that picture believers must receive Christ's life and let His teaching shape their practical lives, with genuine faith shown in words, character, and obedience leading to eternal life. In that appointment He chooses and ordains His disciples to go, bear lasting fruit, and ask the Father in His name trusting the Father will give what they ask.

Branches are united by connection to the true Vine. Their unity preserves individuality, for branches draw life from the same source and Spirit and remain in fellowship and love without becoming identical or uniform.

Christ Chooses First

Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you means Christ takes the first step and makes the first movement toward fallen people. Man would not and could not make the first movement toward Christ, but the Redeemer moved toward fallen man in love, lifted up on the cross to draw all, touching the heart by grace so the soul responds in gratitude. A person's approach to Him is only a response to His drawing, by the cords of His love, and left alone without Him the person would perish.

His choice rests on His prior love and grace, which begin working in the heart before people turn to Him. That choosing is joined to His love that lays down life for friends, shown when He offered Himself as a living sacrifice in humiliation and suffering to pay the price of salvation.

Jesus' choice is unmistakable evidence of His love and a reason to trust Him and not waver between hope and fear nor fluctuate between hope and fear. As Chief Shepherd He knows every one of His sheep, weighs every burden, is acquainted with all infirmities, and pours out His tenderest sympathy upon them. He wants their confidence, and this choosing is the privilege of His sheep.

Christ chooses first, paying an infinite price for redemption, yet each person must personally choose Him in return. That return choice is to choose Christ as first, last, and best through self-renunciation, faith, and obedience, letting Him rule the heart. It enters a close, dependent union with Christ, a relation of utter dependence, in which humanity lays hold of divinity.

Like branches joined to the living vine, followers bear His fruit from personal, continuing communion with Him, not from one another. Self is crucified and Christ lives in the heart by faith, lifting humanity to oneness with God. Those who take Him at His word share the divine nature, escaping the world's corruption that is in the world through lust.

This lasting union requires a changed heart, submission to God's will, and detachment from sin and worldly idols. It is guarded and preserved through continual effort, earnest prayer, resistance to sin and to self, overcoming of self, and Christ's preserving power. Merely agreeing while remaining attached to the world leaves the heart disobedient, and the influence of His Holy Spirit to bring to the standard He makes possible must not be resisted by failing to come up to it.

Being chosen was signified in baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The three powers of heaven are pledged to keep believers as they remain united to Christ, the vine.

The choosing is a call to return to Him from backsliding and to be a laborer together with God, exercising sanctified talents and influence to win souls to Christ. Those so chosen have a Saviour on their side and are never alone, for He reveals Himself to them as they work for heaven, laboring unitedly and heartily with Him to the best of their ability to overcome the temptations of the enemy and gain victory at every step. This work looks to eternal life, to seeing the King in His beauty, to gaining beauty of character for themselves and their children, and to entering through the gates into the city where there is no more death, no more sin, no more temptation, no devil and no Lucifer, with right to the tree of life, for the history of this earth will soon close.

Ordained to Bear Fruit

“I have ordained you” means Christ Himself chooses and appoints His followers to go and bring forth fruit, and that their fruit should remain, so that calling and lasting fruit come from Christ and not from human direction, joined to the promise that whatsoever is asked of the Father in His name will be given. Fruitfulness depends on abiding in Christ and having His words abide in them, through whom alone they can bear fruit, and pruning removes what hinders a branch so it can bear more fruit. Followers are to give themselves in service so that others may be blessed, helped, and strengthened to grow in Him, with fruitful service and prayer bound to that abiding relationship.

This fruit glorifies the Father and marks them as Christ’s disciples, for bearing much fruit in vital union with Christ as a branch with the living Vine is the Father’s good pleasure. Keeping His commandments gives the privilege to claim His blessing and rich salvation by faith, laying the whole burden upon Jesus Christ and claiming a whole salvation because Jesus died as a whole sacrifice. Their fruit must differ from the world’s and give evidence that their life is hidden with Christ in God, that Christ dwells in their hearts by faith, and that they are trees planted by the Lord. It is valuable work like Christ’s, not mere profession of faith or work that comes to nothing.

Lasting fruit consists in faithful witness that continues Christ’s work for God’s glory, for being entrusted with God’s truth as witnesses to the Father’s acknowledgment of Jesus as the Son of God, they were to carry the message of salvation to the world so people could believe in Christ, through faithful witness to what they had seen and heard. That witness includes proclaiming the risen and ascended Saviour and that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, a message that can reclaim people from disobedience and apostasy. Those He calls may include former opposers, even those who had been involved in rejecting and plotting against Him, whom by grace He pardons, changes, entrusts with service and positions of trust, restores to favor with divine power, and sends to proclaim repentance toward God and faith in Christ and to offer pardon to others who turn from sin to God.

Bearing fruit means active soul-winning that cannot be silent and cannot do as little as is commonly done on the Master’s side, but watches and prays, loses no opportunity to speak a word for Christ or give a paper or tract, warns neighbors, friends, and unbelievers with all might, and labors for souls brought to knowledge of the truth. It welcomes a confessing, pleading wanderer who has been an adversary back to the fold and connects that person again with His work, trusting God to teach the way, while daily placing self in God’s hands, committing the soul as to a faithful Creator, and asking for blessing and the Spirit’s presence to mold character after the divine similitude. Faithful efforts through medical missionary work and literature can gather precious, enduring fruit in conversion of souls, and realizing the force of this ordination redeems lost time and neglect of this most solemn obligation, for to let things go on in silence and inaction leaves believers in danger of perishing with the wicked.

The fruit-gathering image means workers should expect fruit and be ready to care for what they gather, rather than come merely for recreation without expecting results. When meetings leave nearly all the people going back, different laborers alongside with different ideas and manners can help the interest produce fruit that remains. Fruit includes unselfish service that continues Christ’s mission to help the needy and distressed, using gifts to bless others rather than to exalt self, revealing His words through unselfish service. Actions and character show whether they can be trusted with heaven’s riches, and working earnestly for others’ salvation rather than living for self, yoked with Christ to work with God and carry out His plans so life reveals received grace, is the response of those who received pardoning love and God’s undeserved gift, not a means to earn salvation.

Fruit is to be borne wherever they are, including homes and cities, by encouraging godliness, representing Christ in words and character, and refusing to speak passionately. For fathers and mothers this means never getting into a scolding line because scolding gains nothing in the home, but bringing children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord by teaching them the love and nurture and knowledge of Jesus Christ. Controlling an ugly temper is not to be accepted helplessly as a hardship but met by asking the Lord for patience, and children should acknowledge when they have displeased the Lord and their parents and ask the Lord to forgive them. Appointed work succeeds only through divine power joined with human effort: God supplies efficiency and power and requires much fruit, while workers must do their part, seek that power, use provided means, search hearts for hindrances, bear Christ’s cross, and resist the world’s cares and deceitfulness of riches which choke the word and make unfruitful. This requires daily emptying the heart of self and dependence wholly upon Christ to receive His Spirit, as distinct branches drawing all sustenance from one Source to produce the best quality fruit in perfect unity and love.

Such fruitful obedience brings blessing and full joy found only in Christ, with His joy remaining in them and their joy full, practiced daily in heart and purpose with confidence firm to the end. It brings joy to Christ’s heart as He beholds them believing with the heart and confessing unto salvation, by which newly come believers turning from darkness to light and from error to truth are strengthened and blessed and made happy by the love of God. He spoke because He would have believers joyful, not in bondage, but loving one another as He loved them, and if God gave His Son He will with Him freely give all things.

Love Obedience Unity

The appointment to go and bear enduring fruit is joined to a definite, positive command to love one another with the unselfish love Christ Himself showed, even to laying down life for friends. That love was understood more fully after His death on the cross, when He offered Himself as a living sacrifice in humiliation and suffering to pay the price of salvation. Followers love others not for praise or personal benefit but because they belong to Christ who gave His life for them. This charge to do the highest missionary work by earnestly doing His words belongs together with the promise that whatever is asked of the Father in His name will be given.

That love is the lasting fruit itself, practiced daily in heart and purpose with confidence held firm to the end. It is shown by love to God and neighbor, by willingness to make sacrifices for others' good, and by representing Him well. Merely professing to keep God's commandments is no evidence of keeping them. Such Christlike love binds believers together and marks them to the world as His disciples, while strife and division contradict the calling and make witness ineffective.

Those who do whatever He commands are His friends and not servants, because He makes known to them all He heard from the Father. That friendship is conditional on doing what He commands. This obedient, fruitful friendship brings blessing and full joy found only in Christ, with the Father's will made known and with newly believing hearts strengthened, blessed and made happy as with heart they believe and with mouth confess unto salvation. Contemplating His character and being ruled and taught by Him brings a fresh experience of love for Him.

Obedience requires the Holy Spirit of love and means keeping His commandments and living by the principles of God's Word and His requirements. It is the Bible's test for those privileged with light. Connection to Him is shown by such obedience, continuing in His love as He kept His Father's commandments. Through Jesus Christ this obedience binds believers together in faith.

Christ's love for those who obey His commandments is unchangeable and unparalleled. His authority is not that of a taskmaster but is exercised with wisdom and love, requiring only what brings good. He treats followers as friends and commands them to love one another. He sustains His undershepherds as they serve, so their work endures through trial by directing people to Christ the source of power rather than to human agents.

When the command is kept it makes believers one with Christ and one with each other, binding hearts together, increasing affection for fellow light-bearers, and reflecting His holy character in meekness and gentleness. This choosing binds them to Christ and to one another in love, uprooting selfishness, unfaithfulness, strife, division and stubborn independence. Lived in practical life, this instruction leads to unity with Christ and one another, while dissension and self-seeking bring weakness. It is part of God's will for His people and a remedy for dissension.

John 15 gives spiritual strength, and those claiming to believe on Jesus Christ must gain an understanding of it and reveal its teachings in daily life. The chapter is an important lesson to be read and obeyed. Its lesson calls for obedience to Christ and warns against letting the world govern aims and loyalty.

Christ chose His followers out of the world, so their strength and identity rest in being chosen and their life and values stand apart from the world. Because they do not belong to the world, the world hates them as it hated Christ. This calling sets them apart and may bring hatred and persecution for His name, and He does not promise an easy path. He tells what lies ahead so trial will not lead to discouragement or doubt, for they will not face it alone, since the Comforter will testify and they will bear witness, and they may ask the Father in Christ's name for what they need to fulfill their calling.

The verse belongs to the expression of God's will for His people in John's Gospel. It is connected with Christ's work of making believers one with Him in this life and throughout eternity. It is part of Christ's lesson on love, obedience, friendship with Him and the disciples' mission, presented as part of the highest education for teachers who should learn His lessons and teach by example, and for students preparing for service to God and eternal life in faithful Christian service that bears lasting fruit.

Answered Prayer Promise

The closing promise joins answered prayer to the appointment to bear lasting fruit, assuring that the Father grants whatever is asked in Christ's name, and these words bring comfort and assurance to be received and believed. To pray in Jesus' name is to pray in His mind and Spirit, believing His promises, relying on His grace, and doing His works, praying with faith, waiting with faith, and receiving with faith, trusting with living faith rather than acting in unbelief or halfheartedness. It is the pledged Word of God to be taken literally, believed verse by verse, laid before God, claimed in simplicity of perfect trust with the words of taking Him at His word, watched unto in prayer, and lived out before fellow ministers and others, and by believing every word followers honor Him and meet His expectation in loving one another.

It is the promise of Christ who calls His followers friends, to be specially marked and met with thanksgiving with heart and soul and voice, and the disciples later cherished it and prayed to the Father in Jesus' name. He would not forsake them but serves as Advocate before the Father at His right hand, presenting petitions made in His name. The promise is verified in a church that works earnestly for souls, prays, believes, seeks God daily, and feeds on the Bread of life and drinks the water of life, receiving mercy and grace, and those who take Christ at His word receive joy and share the divine nature, escaping the world's corruption.

It applies to bodily affliction and sickness, which is for God's glory, to be met by holding fast the promises, pressing the petition to heaven's court, and believing the sick will be healed and the Lord's name magnified, with faith resting not so much in the blessing as in God in the promise and the thus saith the Lord, an irresistible force mightier than all the powers of Satan, giving light and strength and help, while Jesus lives to intercede and does not leave His own comfortless. It applies to asking for strength, clear understanding, eyesight and thought, and the Holy Spirit for acceptable service, and to seeking growth in grace and religious experience by beholding with enlightened minds Christ's glory full of grace and truth. It means faith prays for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and the church that has had light must wake from heavy slumber and earnestly seek the promised impartation, cutting away every needless hindrance, and then the Spirit will flow in rich currents bringing all other blessings in its train including fruit that remains.

It encourages prayer for those sent to do God's work with confidence that Jesus can equip them, and assures workers facing afflictions as Christ did that they may ask trusting He will give, for they do not depend on human strength alone, since heaven helps those working in harmony with His instruction and angels often preserve them from harm. The promise calls for faith, and lack of faith leads to reliance on drugs, while faith in Jesus and living by health-reform principles are connected with hope of being kept well, and trusting Him as Eternal Ruler and faithful Creator makes present cares and anxieties seem light. Its citation connects the calling with trust in God and pressing forward beyond past failures, and complying with its conditions shows how people may receive Christ's grace and be ready to belong to His people when He comes in glory.

Mission to All Believers

That ye should go means every enlightened soul in vital union with Christ as a branch with the living Vine must go and work, stepping out from large churches to search out the cause they knew not and enter unworked places. Their work is to make salvation known and bear lasting fruit by carrying the light of truth to those in spiritual darkness throughout the world, helping people turn from Satan's deceptions to Christ, their only hope and personal Saviour, and this bearing of much fruit glorifies the Father. Christ chooses and appoints all who believe in His name, not ministers alone, to be His children and to communicate His grace to those around them by representing Him, going out, and bearing lasting fruit. Those who have received His grace are to answer His love with personal effort and service, for every church member is called to this work, and God helps and strengthens those who seek to do it.

Every true believer is a true, living missionary in a living, working church, even without ordination by ministers, trading on given talents and shining as the world's light before men. This highest missionary work is earnestly doing His words and going to bring forth fruit that remains, joined to His command that they love one another, with the promise that whatever they ask of the Father in His name will be given. It is denying self, lifting the cross and carrying Christ's burdens, practicing the truth received, being sanctified through the truth for willing service, and being transformed by grace to sympathy, tenderness and love to work in the same lines as Christ worked. It places a weighty responsibility on every soul to do the utmost of God-given ability to communicate the light received, requiring consecration of the entire man to His sacred work as laborers together with God sent forth as His representatives to represent the character of God as He in a higher sense was appointed to come into the world.

Christ Himself has chosen and ordained His ministers and undershepherds to go and bring forth fruit that remains to the glory of God, and He sustains them as they serve through trial. Their work bears through trial by directing people to Christ, the source of all power, rather than to depend on human agents or leaders. Because ministers received their work from Jesus Christ, disparaging them opposes Christ. To each God has given work, not all the same line of work, but all are to be workers together with God in perfect unity and love as distinct branches drawing all sustenance from one Source, the parent stock Christ Jesus, to produce the best quality of fruit.

Each worker has a task in his own portion of the great moral vineyard, supporting shared responsibility and humble service rather than giving one person authority over all or assuming anyone's wisdom is beyond error. This requires daily emptying the heart of self and dependence wholly upon Christ to receive His Spirit, and cherishing one another in love in their work. Divine choosing is a direct appointment, for God orders His own work and gives wisdom and understanding to His representative men in every field and distant land. Therefore workers in far distant lands are not to wait for word from any great center or Battle Creek, nor for human authorization, nor have everything center in one place with all questions referred to a few finite men in one locality, but are to follow Christ who gives His messages and orders directly to His servants in regions beyond. Their calling and lasting fruit come from Christ, not from human direction. Workers should also share and prayerfully consider their plans rather than trust in supposed wisdom or greatness, since neglecting this counsel can lead them to stumble.

Noble-minded men and women who join in extending Christ's kingdom by saving souls are added to the number of those chosen for this work. Men and women added to this company are called to help extend His kingdom by carrying the message to fields where it is needed, and their fruit is the work and people gained for Christ. The verse states God's will for those who minister in word and doctrine, calling ministers acquainted with present truth to be converted and to understand genuine missionary work. It is the privilege of ministers to believe every part of it, since God means exactly what He says, and to live it out before fellow ministers. It gives duties specified by Christ as Substitute and Surety that must be carefully studied and earnestly practiced by all who honor God and Jesus Christ whom He sent, for neglect cannot be afforded, and doing them bears divine credentials to the world that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

The light of this discipleship teaching is to be received in the heart and shared with others, so that people may come to the truth. This fruit is soul-winning work done by watching and praying and losing no opportunity to speak a word for Christ or to give a paper or tract, flowing from Christ coming to seek and save the lost, with His love for souls filling the sincere worker. Those chosen have love for souls for whom Christ died, will not sit in idleness without responsibility, but will burn and shine and communicate the grace and love manifested to them, while all who are connected with God labor to help sinners who have strayed and all workers keep perfect unity together in God's great moral vineyard. Bearing fruit means practicing the lessons of John 15, obeying His words rather than offending Him, opening the door of hope and welcoming a confessing, pleading wanderer who has been an adversary back to the fold and connecting that person again with His work, trusting God to teach the way. It calls for daily placing oneself in the hands of God, committing the soul to God as a faithful Creator, and asking for blessing and for the Holy Spirit to be present through the day to mold and fashion character after the divine similitude.

Those so chosen have a Saviour on their side and are never alone, for the Lord reveals Himself to them as they work for heaven, laboring unitedly and heartily with Him to the best of their ability to overcome the temptations of the enemy and bring forth fruit with victory at every step. This work looks to eternal life, to seeing the King in His beauty, to gaining beauty of character for themselves and their children, and to entering through the gates into the city where there is no more death, no more sin, no more temptation, no devil and no Lucifer, and having right to the tree of life, for the history of this earth will soon close. Those chosen for medical missionary service are to regard Him as their chief instructor and continually recognize Him as their teacher.