John 15:9-17

9 "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because servants do not know their master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.



Dig Deeper

Growing up, I didn’t know too much about religions outside of Christianity. From time to time you might catch a glimpse of another religion on the news or something, but when I was a kid, other religions weren’t paid attention to the way they are now. The most you might ever hear about another religion was in geography class when we studied out some region of the world and briefly looked at their religious beliefs. That’s not the case now. Everywhere you look other religions are being offered, talked about and even praised. The American media seems to respect every religion except Christianity. This is especially true, perhaps, with Islam. It is the talk of the town in America these days. The other day I even heard a news commentator suggest that it is silly that Muslims and Christians cannot agree on things because, at their core, they’re basically the same religion. If we could just get rid of the silly little things on the surface, said this commentator, we would find that we serve the same God.

Although that sounds all trendy and wonderful and is increasingly becoming the mainstream view in America, even by many who claim to be Christians, it is absolutely incorrect. Nowhere in the Bible are the differences between a religion like Islam and a life and relationship like Christianity more apparent than in a passage like this one. In Islam and most other religions, humans do god’s bidding and serve him for his benefits. Christianity stands alone as a reality that does not call on people to sacrifice their sons for the sake or benefit of the God, but instead points out that God sent His son to die for our sake and benefit. That is the full extent of his love as John told us in 13:1. Jesus came to man to display and express the fullest extent of God’s love. That love will be on full display on the Cross, but Jesus doesn’t just stop there. He doesn’t just want us to see the full extent of God’s love, he wants us to experience it, to embrace it, and to share it with others.

Jesus has just finished telling his disciples that he is the Israel, the vine of God, and that the only way for them to please God and be numbered among His people is to enter into the vine, the life of Christ. Without faith in Christ’s life no one can please God (cf. Heb. 11:6). What Jesus explained to them, though, is that above all, being in Christ will enable them to do God’s will and keep the commands of Jesus. "Love" is the key word in all of this. That’s what it all boils down to. Christ has been motivated, sent, and sustained by the love that the Father has eternally given to him. In the same way that the Father has loved him, Jesus has loved his followers. The proper response to Jesus’ love is to remain in his love. That might seem a bit odd, as it might seem like the logical response to the love of Christ is to love him back or even to love others. Jesus will get to that in a moment, but first he makes clear that we must remain in his love. That is how we will be enabled to please God, to love Jesus, and to love anyone else at all with the kind of love that Jesus is referring to. If, Jesus says, we keep his commands, then we will remain in his love.

The big question becomes, then, what are the commands? How can we follow these commands and remain in his love? Following these commands and remaining in Christ’s love must be of great importance because Jesus says this will make their joy complete. That was a big statement in a Jewish culture who believed that only in the age to come would joy be complete. It simply couldn’t be complete in this age, they argued, because of the ever-present prospects of death and the worries of life. Yet, Jesus promises that adherence to his commands and the resolve to remain in his love will bring the complete joy of the age to come in someone’s life in the present age. In verse 12, Jesus finally answers how to keep his commands. It is the same thing that he urged his followers to in 13:34-35. They must love each other, with the qualifier that this love is the kind of love with which he loved them. The way to remain in the love of the Messiah and keep his commands is through the self-giving love that we experience and give in the Christian community. Thus a cycle is created in which keeping Jesus’ commands leads us to love one another which causes us to remain in his love, and it is his love that will allow us to keep his commands.

What is so stunning about Jesus’ words, though is that he is not asking us to do anything that he has not done. It is one thing to ask someone to do something for you that is challenging and difficult, but it is a much simpler request if you have already done it for them. Jesus is asking his disciples to lay down their lives for others but only because he is about to do that in the ultimate sense for all of us. This is what sets Jesus apart as the one true God, the King, from all other pretenders to the throne. No other god has so fully done what he asks of his followers.

Jesus has laid down his life for his friends and asks us to go and likewise. If we do what Jesus commands, that is to remain in his love by offering the love that he has shown us to others, then we are indeed his friends. It’s not as if Jesus is saying that doing what he commands is a condition of his friendship, although that is true in a sense. More accurately, though, he is saying that doing what he commands, laying down our life for him and for others, is a sure sign that we are his friends. It is our badge of identification. Faith in his life and the self-denying love that come with remaining in his life are the signs that will show the world who we are and to whom we belong. The servant or slave was simply a tool of the master, doing what he was told. That in a sense is what people under the Old Covenant necessarily were. Not so with those who have entered into the life of Christ. A friend knows what his friends wants and shares in the relationship as a willing participant. Jesus keeps nothing back from his disciples. He has shared everything and revealed all to those who believe in his life.

As Jesus continues, in verse 16, he reminds them that their relationship was not like the standard teacher-disciple relationship in the Jewish world. In that scenario, the potential disciple would go and request that the rabbi teach them and then hope to be accepted by the rabbi. That was not the case with them. They did not have to prove their worth or earn their position. They are Jesus disciples, and more than that, his friends because he chose them, he called them. He demonstrates that they are his friends in the fact that he hasn’t assigned them some menial tasks to do but has allowed each of his disciples to share in his work, the work of the Father.

He has, in fact, appointed us to bear fruit, but not temporary fruit, fruit that will last. Some have surmised that the fruit to which Jesus speaks is evangelistic fruit, but as in the previous passage, that simply does not fit the overall context. The fruit that they will bear is the same fruit from the previous passage. Being fruitful is upholding the Covenant. They will do God’s will and spread his love. Jesus is calling them to go into the world and bear the fruit of self-giving love in a Christian community. As Jesus promised in 13:34-35, this kind of love will stand out and be a marker to the world as to the identity of Jesus’ true disciples. So, in that sense, bearing the Spirit enabled fruit of doing God’s will through self-sacrificial love will attract others and will be evangelistic, but the fruit is not overtly referring to evangelism.

The difference may seem small but is actually vital. One can be quite driven to evangelism because we see it as the fruit which we are called to bear without being motivated by the genuine love of God or having much authentic love for others. In those cases, lost souls get reduced to numbers as we become obsessed with earning God’s approval and showing that we really are his friends by bearing more and more "fruit." This puts all of the onus and responsibility on us and can dangerously suck any authentic love out of what we are doing. Becoming bigger and bigger becomes our all-consuming idol. The proper understanding that the fruit that Jesus refers to is ultimately love. Love that is best seen and manifested in our self-sacrificing for the sake of others, is quite important. Then we realize that this love comes from God and is manifested by Him in our lives. Our goal becomes to share in His love and spread it to those within the body of Christ. This kind of genuine godly love will naturally draw those who earnestly seek God and true, genuine godly growth will happen. Properly understanding Jesus’ command to love each other as the fruit that we will bear keeps the focus on God rather than us and serves to keep the community of Christ focused properly on remaining in his love rather than bowing to the altar of numerical growth.



Devotional Thought

Jesus said that his primary command, the way to do the will of God, was to have the same kind of love for other believers that he showed to all of us. What about that is most challenging to you? What is most encouraging?