Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to John · About this commentary
No Longer Servants but Friends
John 15:9-17
9 Even as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. Remain in my love. · WEB
The measure of the love is named, and the relationship is renamed on the night before it is proved.
"Even as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. Remain in my love" John 15:9.
The measure is given first and it has no ceiling. The love between Father and Son, which this book has described since its prologue, is the standard for the love they are being told to stay inside.
And love is something to be remained in, which is an odd thing to say about an emotion and a natural thing to say about a place.
"If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love" John 15:10.
The pattern is his own, which is what keeps obedience from sounding like a condition of acceptance. He is not describing how to earn love but how to stay in it, and he describes himself doing exactly that.
"I have spoken these things to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be made full" John 15:11.
Joy is named as the purpose of the whole discourse, which is startling given the hour. It is his joy being transferred, not a joy manufactured by them — and made full means filled to the top rather than merely present.
"This is my commandment, that you love one another, even as I have loved you" John 15:12.
The new commandment from the supper John 13:34, repeated, and this time the measure is about to be defined.
"Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends" John 15:13.
The sentence is quoted at war memorials and it is being said by a man who will do it within eighteen hours, for the people listening. It is not a general maxim about heroism; it is a statement of what he is about to do, offered as the definition of the standard he has just set.
And it names the ceiling of love as a death. Nothing beyond that is possible.
"You are my friends if you do whatever I command you" John 15:14.
The conditional sounds transactional and is not, once verse fifteen is read. What is being described is the shape a friendship with him takes, not the price of admission to it.
"No longer do I call you servants, for the servant doesn't know what his lord does. But I have called you friends, for everything that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you" John 15:15.
The reclassification is enormous and the reason given is information. A slave is told what to do; a friend is told why. What has changed their status is that he has explained himself — which is what the last three chapters have been.
The title also has a history. Abraham is called the friend of God Isaiah 41:8 James 2:23, and it was not a common thing to be called.
"You didn't choose me, but I chose you and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain" John 15:16.
The correction is worth registering, because in that world a student chose his rabbi. The initiative is taken out of their hands entirely, and it is put there to remove any thought that friendship of this kind was arranged by them.
And the appointment has a direction: go. The vine's staying and the apostle's going are the same chapter, which is the answer to anyone who reads abiding as passivity.
"I command these things to you, that you may love one another" John 15:17. The paragraph ends where it began, and the next verse is about being hated.
settled What this mark means