Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 15:14
Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
14. Ye are my friends ] ‘Ye’ is emphatic: ‘and when I say “friends,” I mean you.’ This shews that ‘friends’ was used simply because He was speaking to the Apostles.
whatsoever I command you ] Better, the things which I am commanding you.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Joh 15:14-17
Ye are My friends if ye do whatsoever I command you
Christs friends
Notice
I.
WHAT CHRISTS FRIENDS DO FOR HIM (Joh 15:16). In the former verse, friends means chiefly those whom He loved. Here it means mainly those who love Him.
1. He lingers on the idea, as if He would meet the doubts arising from the sense of unworthiness, and from some dim perception of how He towers above them. How wonderful that stooping love of His is! Every form of human love Christ lays His hand upon. He that doeth the will of My Father, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother. That which is even sacreder, the purest and most complete union that humanity is capable of, receives a new sweetness when we think of the Bride, the Lambs wife. And, passing from that Holy of Holies out into this outer court, He lays His hand on that more common and familiar, and yet precious and sacred, thing, the bond of friendship. The Prince makes a friend of the beggar.
2. This friendship lasts today. The pecularity of Christianity is the strong personal tie which binds men to this Man that died nineteen hundred years ago. We look back into the wastes of antiquity: the mighty names rise there that we reverence; there are great teachers from whom we have learned, and to whom we are grateful. But what a gulf there is between us and the best and noblest of them! But here is a dead Man, who today is the object of passionate attachment, and a love deeper than life to millions of people, and will be till the end of time.
3. There are no limitations in that friendship, no misconstructions in that heart, no alienation possible, no change to be feared. There is absolute rest for us there. Why should I be solitary if Jesus Christ is my Friend? Why should I fear if He walks by my side? Why should anything be burdensome if He lays it upon me, and helps me to bear it? What is there in life that cannot be faced and borne–aye, and conquered–if we have Him, as we all may have Him, for the Friend and the Home of our hearts?
4. But notice the condition, If ye do what I command you. Note the singular blending of friendship and command, involving on our parts absolute submission and closest friendship. For this is the relationship between love and obedience, in regard to Jesus Christ, that the love is the parent of the obedience, and the obedience is the guard and the guarantee of the love.
II. WHAT CHRIST DOES FOR HIS FRIENDS (Joh 15:15) The slave may see what his lord does, but he does not know his purpose in his acts. Theirs not to reason why, If the servant is in his masters confidence he is more than a servant. But, says Christ, I have called you friends; and He calls them so before in act, and and He points to all His past relationship, and especially to the heart outpourings of the upper room, as the proof.
1. Jesus Christ, then, recognizes the obligation of absolute frankness, and He will tell His friends everything that He can. When He tells them what He can the voice of the Father speaks through the Son.
2. Of course, to Christs frankness there are limits. He will not pour out His treasures into vessels that will spill them. And though here he speaks as if His communion was perfect, we are to remember that it was necessarily conditioned by the power of reception on the part of the hearers.
3. That frank speech is continued today. By the light which He sheds on the Word, by many a suggestion through human lips, by many a blessed thought rising quietly within our hearts, and bearing the token that it comes from a sacreder source than our poor, blundering minds, He still speaks to us, His friends.
4. Ought not that thought of the utter frankness of Jesus make us for one thing very patient of the gaps that are left in His communications and in our knowledge? There are so many things that we should like to know. He holds all in His hand. Why does He thus open one finger instead of the whole palm? Because He loves. A friend exercises the right of reticence as well as the prerogative of speech. Trust Me! I tell you all that is good for you to receive.
5. And that frankness may well teach us the obligation of keeping our ears open and our hearts prepared to receive the speech that comes from Him. Many a message from your Lord flits past you like the idle wind through an archway, because you are not listening for His voice. If we silenced passion, ambition, selfishness, worldliness, if we took less of our religion out of books and from other people, and were more accustomed to dwell in the secret place of the Most High, and to say, Speak, Friend, for Thy friend heareth, we should more often understand how real today is the voice of Christ to them that love Him.
III. HOW CHRISTS FRIENDS COME TO BE SO AND WHY THEY ARE SO (Joh 15:16)
1. In all the cases of friendship between Christ and men, the origination and initiation come from Him. We love Him because He first loved us. The apostle said, I was apprehended of Christ. It is because He lays His seeking and drawing hand upon us, that we ever come to love Him. His choice of us precedes our choice of Him. The Shepherd always comes to seek the sheep that is lost. We come to be His friends: because, when we were enemies, He loved us, and gave Himself for us, and ever since has been sending out the messengers of His love to draw us to His heart.
2. And the purpose is two fold
(1) It respects service or fruit. That we may go. There is deep pathos and meaning in that word. He had been telling them that He was going; now He says them, You are to go! We part here. My road lies upward; yours runs onward. Go into all the world. That ye may bring forth fruit. Keeping His commandments does not explain the whole process by which we do the things that are pleasing in His sight. We must also take this other metaphor of the bearing of fruit. There must be the effort; for men do not grow Christlike in character as the vine grows its grapes, but there must be, regulated and disciplined by the effort, the inward life, for no mere outward obedience and tinkering at duties and commandments will produce the fruit that Christ desires and rejoices to have. That your fruit should remain. There is nothing that corrupts faster than fruit. There is only one kind of fruit that is permanent, incorruptible. The only lifes activity that outlasts life and the world is the activity of the men that obey Christ.
(2) It respects the satisfying of our desires, that whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name He may give it you. Make your desires Christs, and Christs yours, and you will be satisfied.
IV. THE MUTUAL FRIENDSHIP OF CHRISTS FRIENDS (Joh 15:17) This whole context is enclosed within a golden circlet by that commandment which appears in Joh 15:12, and reappears here at the close, thus shutting off this portion from the rest of the discourse. Friends of a friend should themselves be friends. We care for the lifeless things that a dear Friend has cared for. And here are living men and women, in all diversities of character and circumstances, but with this stamped upon them all–Christs friends, lovers of and loved by Him. And how can we be indifferent to those to whom Christ is not indifferent? We are knit together by that bond. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The friends of Jesus
There is no title surely that excels in dignity that which was worn by Abraham, who was called The friend of God. Lord Brooke was so delighted with the friendship of Sir Philip Sydney that he ordered to be engraved upon his tomb nothing but this, Here lies the friend of Sir Philip Sydney. There is beauty in such a feeling, but yet it is a small matter compared with being able to say, Here lives a friend of Christ.
I. Note–WHAT OBEDIENCE CHRIST REQUESTS FROM THOSE WHO CALL THEMSELVES HIS FRIENDS. It must be
1. Active. If ye do. Some think it is quite sufficient if they avoid what He forbids.. Abstinence from evil is a great part of righteousness, but it is not enough for friendship. It would be a poor friendship which only said, I am your friend, and to prove it, I dont insult you, I dont rob you, I dont speak evil of you. Surely there must be more positive evidence to certify friendship. In that memorable twenty-fifth of Matthew nothing is said about negative virtues; but positive actions are cited and dwelt upon in detail. Fine words, again, are mere wind, and go for nothing if not backed up with substantial deeds. Friendship cannot live on windy talk, it needs the bread of matter of fact.
2. Continuous. He does not say, If you sometimes do–if you do it on Sundays, in your place of worship; no, we are to abide in Him, and keep His statutes even unto the end.
3. Universal. Whatsoever. No sooner is anything discovered to be the subject of a command than the man who is a true friend of Christ says, I will do it, and he does it. He does not pick and choose which precept he will keep and which he will neglect. The smallest command of Christ may often be the most important. Here is the proof of your love. Will you do the smaller thing for Jesus as well as the more weighty matter? The reality of your subjection to your Lord and Master may hinge upon seemingly insignificant points. A servant might place the breakfast on the table, and feel that she had done her duty, but if her mistress told her to place the salt at the corner, and she did not, she would be asked the cause of her neglect. Suppose she replied, I placed the breakfast before you, but a little salt was too trifling a matter for me to be troubled about. Her mistress might answer, But I told you to be sure and put out the salt cellar. Mind you do so tomorrow.
4. To Christ Himself. Put the emphasis on the I. We are told to do these things because Jesus commands them. Does not the royal person of our Lord cast a very strong light upon the necessity of obedience?
5. Out of a friendly spirit. Obedience to Christ as if we were forced to do it under pains and penalties would be of no worth as a proof of friendship. He speaks not of slaves, but of friends.
II. THOSE WHO DO NOT OBEY HIM ARE NO FRIENDS OF HIS. A man who does not obey Christ
1. Does not give the Saviour His proper place, and this is an unfriendly deed. If I have a friend I am very careful that, if he has honour anywhere, he shall certainly have due respect from me.
2. Is not of one mind with Christ. Can two walk together except they be agreed? Christ is for holiness, this man is for sin.
3. He may be a very high and loud professor, and for that reason be all the more an enemy of the Cross. Through the inconsistent conduct of our Lords professed friends, His cause is more hindered than by anything else.
4. A disobedient friend would be a great dishonour to Christ. A man is known by the company he keeps.
III. THOSE WHO BEST OBEY CHRIST ARE ON THE BEST OF TERMS WITH HIM.
1. You cannot walk in holy converse with Christ unless you keep His commandments.
2. Some Christians will never get into full fellowship with Christ because they neglect to study His word and search out what His will is. Half the Christian people in the world are content to ask, What is the rule of our Church? That is not the question: the point is, What is the rule of Christ? Some plead, My father and mother before me did so. I sympathize in a measure with that feeling; but yet in spiritual things we are to call no man father, but make the Lord Jesus our Master and Exemplar. Take your light directly from the sun. Let holy Scripture be your unquestioned rule of faith and practice.
3. Under all the crosses, and losses, and trials of life, there is no comfort more desirable than the confidence that you have aimed at doing your Lords will. Losses borne in the defence of the right and true are gains. Jesus is never nearer His friends than when they bravely bear shame for His sake.
IV. THE MOST FRIENDLY ACTION A MAN CAN DO FOR JESUS IS TO OBEY HIM.
1. Rich men have thought to do the most friendly act towards Christ by building a church, or founding almshouses or schools. If they are believers, and have done this thing as an act of obedience to Christs law of stewardship, they have well done, and the more of such munificence the better, but where splendid benefactions are given out of ostentation, or from the idea that some merit will be gained by the consecration of a large amount of wealth, the whole business is unacceptable. Jesus asks not lavish expenditure, but ourselves. To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.
2. Others have imagined that they could show their friendliness to Christ by self-mortification. Jesus Christ has not demanded this as the gauge of friendship. He says, Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you, but He does not command you to starve, or to wear sackcloth, or to shut yourselves up in a cell, pride invents these things, but grace teaches obedience.
3. Certain persons have thought it would be the noblest form of holy service to enter into brotherhoods and sisterhoods. But assuredly in the
New Testament you shall find no foreshadowing of Franciscans and Dominicans. All godly women were sisters of mercy, and all Christlike men were of the society of Jesus, but of monastic and conventual vows we read nothing.
4. Some think it a very friendly act towards Christ to attend many religious services in a consecrated building. They are at matins, and vespers, and feasts and fasts without number. Ye are Christs friends, if ye do whatsoever He commands ye: that is a better test than early communion or daily mass.
5. It comes to this, that we must steadily, carefully, persistently, cheerfully, do the will of God from the heart in daily life, from the first waking moment till our eyes are closed. Say concerning everything, What would Jesus have me do about this? What is the teaching of Christ as to this? (C. H.Spurgeon.)
A Christian–Christs friend
If we are friends of Christ
I. WE SHALL BE FREQUENTLY THINKING OF HIM. His image will be often in our minds. Almost all remarkable occurrences, at least, will suggest Him, in one way or another, to our hearts. In common life you could scarcely be regarded as being a warm-hearted friend of that man, of whom there had not been a single thought in your mind during the course of the day. And, yet, are there not a few in our churches who, from one Sabbath to another, have their thoughts wandering in every direction but toward Christ.
II. WE SHALL SEEK HIS COMPANY, and embrace opportunities of meeting with Him. When, and where do we find Him?
1. In the reading of the Word.
2. In prayer.
3. At the prayer meeting.
4. At His own house, amid the ordinances of the Sabbath.
5. In His sacraments. How easy, then, is the application of the test?
III. WE SHALL READ WITH INTEREST THE LETTERS HE SENDS US AND DELIGHT IN CORRESPONDING WITH HIM IN RETURN. On being asked, When you heard from an attached friend? were you to reply, Some days ago, but! have not yet found leisure to open and read it–what would be the inference? Well, is not the New Testament literally an epistle which Christ has sent us? And ought not a Sabbaths sermon to be waited on expectantly as containing some message from Him? And is not the return of correspondence on our part exemplified specially by prayer? How, then, do our professions of friendship for Him stand this test?
IV. WE SHALL HAVE RECOURSE TO HIM FOR SYMPATHY AND HELP IN SEASONS OF AFFLICTION. Friendship is often manifested and proved better by applying for aid than by bestowing it. If you have two friends of whom you cannot at present tell who is the more endeared to your heart–watch, when some Evil may befall you, and see whose image presents itself first to your mind. In applying these principles for the determination of the question of your friendship for Christ, observe, that there are two classes of evils, for deliverance from which you need friendly help.
1. Your sinfulness, with its two-fold evil of guilt and servitude. To whom, then, do you apply for deliverance? Now Jesus is the Friend of Sinners; and that, too, in the sense of His being the only Mediator between God and man; and in the sense of His taking the penitent by the hand, and leading him up to the throne of grace. Can that, then, be a friend of Christ, who, as He stands, inviting the guilty to come unto Him, passes Him by.
2. There are your temporal wants, difficulties and distresses. How many, who ween of themselves that they are good friends of Christ, have yet much of the lesson to learn of giving Him the dependence of their hearts, without exception or reserve!
V. WE SHALL BE THE FRIENDS OF HIS FRIENDS.
1. We will take a friendly interest in them, for His sake. I should feel there was a want of entireness in the friendship of that man who treated with negligence even the dog in which he saw I delighted.
2. For their own sakes, as bearing a resemblance to Him, and possessed of properties which we admire in Himself.
VI. WE WILL BE FRIENDS OF HIS CAUSE–interested in the welfare of His Church: will grieve for its losses; rejoice for its gains; plead for it, spend for it, work for it, and, if need be, suffer for it.
VII. WE SHALL NOT BE ASHAMED TO CONFESS HIM (Rom 5:5). There is nothing by which friendship, in common life, is better manifested, than by avowing yourself a friend of your friend. But
1. Friendship for Christ does not require that we be always obtruding on our company professions of love for Him, and His claims on their embracement of His cause.
2. When challenged and accused for your declared or suspected faith in Christ, by either the magistrate or the mob, though it might imperil your life to confess Him, it would imperil your salvation more to deny Him.
3. There are manners, customs, and fashions of the world which are inimical to Christs honour and interests, compliance with which His friends will refuse and resist.
VIII. WE SHALL BE SCRUPULOUS IN OBEYING HIS COMMANDMENTS. (W. Anderson, LL. D.)
The friendship between Christ and the believer
I. YOUR FRIENDSHIP IS SOUGHT BY JESUS CHRIST. That He might win it, He declares His own friendship. No matter how meanly you think of yourselves, there is One who seeks your friendship. Think who this One is. In His presence Socrates and Plato pale. The greatness of Alexander, of Hannibal, of Caesar, of Napoleon, of Washington is feeble indeed in comparison with His.
II. THE GROUND UPON WHICH THIS FRIENDSHIP CAN BE BUILT UP.
1. By mutual confidence. This is a law of friendship. To strengthen their confidence He reveals the secrets of His heart to His disciples. He makes confidants of them.
2. By gratitude. Christ says, All is thine. We answer back, All that we have is Thine.
III. THE FORMS OF THIS FRIENDSHIP.
1. Intercourse. We do not desire to be separated from our friends, but to be near them.
2. Remembrance. The human heart craves to be remembered. Is not this the meaning of tokens, even of the writing on gravestones? Friendship ministers to this want. It is met in the friendship of Christ. We are told that we are in His thoughts, that our very names are written on His hands. Is there anything more touching than Christs desire to be remembered by His disciples after He would be gone? At our communion seasons we comply with this desire of Christ.
3. Desire to please. Hence, if our friends are below us we sink to their level. If Christ is our friend, we rise to Him, and become more and more like Him. Hence, not anything tends to such purity of life as love for Christ.
4. Mutual care. Christ cares for us, for our interests, protects us, and we care for His interests. If, as a scientist, I am set for the defence of the law of gravitation, I arrange my arguments and endeavour to convince the understanding. But when our friend is attacked then it is that the lip quivers and the blood boils. When Christianity is assailed it is more to us than the assailing of a system of principles; the interests of our dearest Friend are involved, and we are ready to make any sacrifice, even to the laying down of our lives, in their defence.
IV. THE PROOF OF THIS FRIENDSHIP. Friendship does not spring from obedience, but obedience from friendship. What should we think of an admiral who would say, I will take advantage of the fact that the President of the United States is my friend and will disregard his commands? That would be unspeakably mean. The Christian does not presume on the friendship of Christ. That friendship holds him but the firmer to what is right. Note some of the characteristics of Christian obedience. It is
1. Active and positive. The best way to meet the importunities to do wrong is to be fully occupied. I have a great work to do. Why should I come down?
2. Cheerful. The Christian has the friendship of the most powerful and beat Being in the universe; why should he not be cheerful in his obedience to that One? What parent would wish to see his child surly in his obedience?
3. Without reserve: whatsoever. I know no earthly friend to whom I would say, I will do whatsoever you command me. (John Hall, D. D.)
Believers Christs friends
I. WHAT THIS PRIVILEGE IS IN THE GENERAL.
1. The friends of Christ, whereas naturally they were in a state of enmity with God, are now in a state of peace with Christ, and God through Christ Eph 2:14).
2. Whereas they had divided interests as to heaven, now there is an unity of interests betwixt Christ and them (1Jn 1:3).
II. HOW THIS FRIENDSHIP IS MADE UP.
1. The first spring and source of it is everlasting free love (Jer 31:3).
2. The plot for compassing it was laid from eternity between the Father and the Son (Tit 1:2).
3. The foundation of it was laid in the blood of Christ, in the fulness of time Gal 4:4-5).
4. It was moved to them in the gospel (2Co 5:20).
5. They are won to it by His own Spirit (Isa 44:3; Isa 44:5).
6. By faith they go into the friendship with Him (Eph 3:17).
7. The friendship is sealed by the sacraments, particularly that of His body and blood. It was an ancient custom to confirm a covenant of friendship with a feast (Gen 31:54; Joh 15:13).
III. WHAT A PRIVILEGE THIS IS! Men nor angels cannot fully express the value of it, for it is of infinite value (1Co 2:9).
1. It is an honourable friendship. Their Friend is the Prince of the kings of the earth; and through Him God is their friend.
2. It is a beneficial friendship. The friendship of many in the world is no more but an empty name. But Christs friendship, the benefits of it who can tell?
3. It is an intimate friendship. There is no such close and intimate friendship betwixt any relations on earth (1Co 6:17).
4. It is an universal friendship, of universal influence. There is no friendship in the world but it is limited. But from the greatest to the least of the concerns of His friends, Christ interests Himself.
5. It is a sure and lasting friendship. The friendships in the world are very uncertain (Job 19:14; Psa 38:11). But Christs friendship never dies Joh 13:1; Isa 49:14-16).
IV. IMPROVEMENT. See
1. The wonderful condescension of heaven. We are rebels against God naturally, but may become friends through Christ.
2. They that are Christs are most happy.
3. Jesus Christ is the best and most generous of masters. He makes all His servants friends.
4. Friendless persons, who have none to regard them, may best bestow themselves and get a friend, that will be better to them than all the world.
5. Let sinners seek this friendship.
6. Ye that profess to be the friends of Christ, walk worthy of your privilege. (T. Boston, D. D.)
Christs friends, doers of all His commands
I. INQUIRE INTO THIS CHARACTER OF THE FRIENDS OF CHRIST.
1. The friends of Christ are doers of His commands. They are all His servants (Luk 6:46). Christ is their Lord and Lawgiver, and they do His commandments (Rev 22:14).
(1) Their lusts are not their domineering lords, to whom they yield themselves to obey (Rom 6:18; Rom 6:14; Gal 5:24).
(2) The course of the world is not their rule (Eph 2:2).
(3) But as they look for salvation by Him, it is the business of their life, to please, serve, and glorify Him, to walk worthy of the Lord, unto all pleasing (Col 1:10). There are two works seriously plied by all Christs friends.
(a) salvation work, that they may be saved from sin and wrath, and set beyond hazard of eternal ruin. This is done by faith.
(b) Their generation work (Act 13:36; 1Pe 2:9). This is done by obedience. In the former they look for their own safety, and in the latter for the honour of their Saviour.
2. The friends of Christ are doers of His commands, because they are His commands (Col 3:17).
(1) Out of respect to His authority (Psa 119:4; Heb 11:8).
(2) Out of love to Him (Heb 6:10).
(3) As sons redeemed by His blood, not as bondservants working for their own redemption; to please their Benefactor, not to render themselves accepted by their own obedience (Rom 8:15; Col 1:10).
(4) With heart and good-will (Eph 6:7; Isa 64:5).
3. The friends of Christ are doers of His commands universally and without exception (Psa 119:6). They are universal
(1) In their desire to do all His commands, saying, as (Psa 119:5).
(2) In respect of their endeavour (Php 1:13-14).
(3) In respect of their willingness to know all that Christ commands, that they may do it (Psa 139:23). The reasons why Christs friends are universal in their obedience, are
(a) Because the grace of God inclines them to do what Christ commands, because He commands it (Psa 119:4). The law of Christ is a chain of many links, and he that truly draws one to Him, draws all.
(b) Because the whole law is written on their hearts in regeneration, and not scraps of it here and there (Heb 8:10).
(c) Because Christ hath the chief room in their hearts beyond all competitors (Luk 14:26).
(d) Because He is jealous, and the least command of His that is slighted is displeasing to Him (Mat 5:19).
(e) Because their hearts are reconciled to the whole law, and every part of it (Psa 119:128).
II. WHY THIS IS MADE THE TRYING AND DISTINGUISHING CHARACTER OF THE FRIENDS OF CHRIST.
1. Because this hits the point in which the sincere and hypocrites differ.
2. Because the reality of friendship to Christ does without controversy appear here. Show your faith by your works. Love not in word only but in deed.
3. Because where Christs friendship to a person takes effect, it certainly has this effect (Eph 5:25-26; Tit 2:14).
4. Because though the free grace of God tends to holiness (Tit 2:11-12), yet there is a disposition in the children of men to turn it to licentiousness (Jud 1:4). Therefore the apostle cautions the Galations Gal 5:13).
III. USES.
1. Of information. This shows us
(1) What the life of a Christian is. It is a life of doing whatsoever Christ commands. And so it is
(a) An active not an idle life (Php 2:12; Rev 14:13).
(b) A well doing life (1Ti 1:5).
(c) A watchful life (1Co 16:13).
(d) A resolute life (Eph 6:15).
(2) The doctrine of free grace gives no encouragement to looseness of life: for there is no separating of faith and holiness. If ye be Christs friends by faith, ye will be His faithful and tender servants in obedience.
2. Of exhortation. Show yourselves Christs friends by doing whatsoever He commands you. And do ye what Christ commands you, if you would show yourselves His friends.
(1) In a time of general apostasy and blacksliding from the ways of God Gen 6:9).
(2) Even when it must be your temporal loss (Heb 11:35).
(3) When His hand is lying heavy on you by crosses and afflictions (Job 1:9-10).
(4) When sin comes with a seen advantage in its hand, as in the case of Heb 11:24-26).
(5) When the sin that most easily besets you comes in competition with your obedience to the commands of Christ (Psa 18:23).
(6) When there is nothing to keep you back from sin, but pure regard to the command of Christ.
IV. MOTIVES.
1. Because all His commands are those of an absolute Lord, to whom we owe obedience in all things (Exo 20:2).
2. All His commands are just, righteous, and reasonable (Psa 119:128).
3. We are all of us under covenant engagements to do whatsoever He commands us. We have all avouched Him for our Lord (Luk 6:46).
4. Christ has been the best friend ever mankind had (Joh 15:13; Rom 5:8)
5. It is necessary to evidence your sincerity (Psa 119:6).
6. The glorious privilege of those who do whatsoever Christ commands them. (T. Boston, D. D.)
Implicit obedience
At Federal Hill, Baltimore, Colonel Warren gave orders to his guards that only officers in uniform were to be admitted to camp. One bright morning General Dix, who commanded the troops guarding the city, walked over from Fort McHenry in undress. Attempting to pass the line of sentries in company with an aide, the old general was amused at finding a musket barring his passage, while the aide, with his glittering shoulder straps, was permitted to enter. Why do you stop me, my man? inquired the general, quietly. My orders are to admit only officers in uniform, was the reply. But dont you see that this is General Dix? exclaimed the aide, angrily. Well, between you and me, major, said the sentry, his eyes twinkling with amusement, I see very well who it is; but if General I)ix wants to gets to get into this camp he had better go back and put on his uniform. You are quite right, sentry, remarked the general. Ill go back and get my coat. The incident increased his admiration for the entire command. (H. O. Mackey.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Our Lord presseth obedience to his commandments as a means, and indeed the only means, by which we can declare our love to Christ; and also useth a new argument to press their obedience, from his assuming them into the state and dignity of his friends.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
14. Ye are my friends, if ye dowhatsoever I command youhold yourselves in absolute subjectionto Me.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Ye are my friends,…. This is an application of the foregoing passage, and more, clearly explains it. The character of “friends”, is applied to the disciples of Christ; and belongs, not only to his apostles, but to all that love him, believe in him, and obey him; to whom he has showed himself friendly, by laying down his life for them: for this clearly shows, that Christ had respect in the former words, to his own laying down his life for his people, in consequence of his great love to them; whereby he has made them friends, and who appear to be so by their cheerful obedience to him:
if ye do whatsoever I command you; not that their doing of the commandments of Christ interested them in his favour; or made them his friends; or was the reason and motive of his laying down his life for them, and showing himself in such a friendly manner to them: but the sense is, that by observing his commands from a principle of love, they would make it appear that they were his friends, being influenced by his grace, and constrained by a sense of his love in dying for them, to act such a part.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
If ye do ( ). Condition of third class with and the present active subjunctive, “if ye keep on doing,” not just spasmodic obedience. Just a different way of saying what is in verse 10. Obedience to Christ’s commands is a prerequisite to discipleship and fellowship (spiritual friendship with Christ). He repeats it in the Great Commission (Mt 28:20, , I commanded) with the very word used here (, I command).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
I command [] . Of several words for command in the New Testament, this one is always used of giving a specific injunction or precept. The kindred noun, ejntolh, means an order, a charge, a precept and hence is used of a separate precept of the law as distinguished from the law as a whole [] . See Mt 22:36, 38. It is, however, sometimes used of the whole body of the moral precepts of Christianity. See on 13 34. The sense of specific commands here falls in with the reading of the Rec. Text, osa, whatsoever, literally, as many things as.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Ye are my friends,” (humeis philoi mou este) “You all are (exist as) my friends,” that is, friends to or toward me, even after I am gone, for a “friend loveth at all times,” Pro 17:17. And Solomon added, “a brother is born for adversity,” and Jesus was not ashamed to call these “brethren,” Heb 2:11; Joh 20:17.
2) “If ye do whatsoever I command you.” (ean poiete ho ego entellomai humin) “if you all do what I command you to do,” or purpose the doing of the things I have told and will further tell you all to do, as a church fellowship, and as individual disciples, Joh 20:21. The doing of what He has said is an outward token of an inward friendship with and toward Him, Jas 1:22, Eph 2:10; 1Co 15:58.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
14. You are my friends. He does not mean that we obtain so great an honor by our own merit, but only reminds them of the condition on which he receives us into favor, and deigns to reckon us among his friends; as he said a little before,
If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, (Joh 15:10.)
For the grace of God our Savior hath appeared, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly, and righteously, and piously, in this world, (Tit 2:11.)
But ungodly men, who, through wicked contempt of the Gospel, want only oppose Christ, renounce his friendship.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
THE FORTUNE OF CHRISTS FRIENDS
Joh 15:14.
XENOPHON relates that Cyrus gave one of his favorites a golden cup and another a kiss. Whereupon Artabazus, the cup receiver, complained that his was a poor gift as compared with the kiss that Chryanthus had received.
It is related that Lord Brookes ordered put upon his tombstone, Here lies the friend of Sir Philip Sydney. In such high esteem had he held Sir Philip Sydneys friendship. But I think we must all admit that Mr. Spurgeon was right when he said that Brookes honor was small compared with his honor, of whom people say, Here lives a friend of Jesus Christ. That is the greatest of all earthly fortunes, and those who have yielded themselves to Christ come into that fortune according to the teachings of our text.
Two things are suggested by this text and the related teachings of the Word.
CHRISTS FRIENDS ARE CHRISTS FOLLOWERS
The whole verse reads, Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you (Joh 15:14).
Those who would be friends, then, must acknowledge Him as leader. Whatsoever I command you.
In that wonderful 55th chapter of Isaiah, one of the great Gospel chapters of the Old Testament, the Prophet speaking of the Saviour to come, said, voicing Gods covenant, Behold, I have given Him for a Witness to the people, a Leader and a Commander to the people (Isa 55:4). And again, you will remember, it was written of Jesus, Unto Him shall the gathering of the people be.
The best leaders of Gods people have been those whom God has anointed for leadership, such as Moses, Joshua, Joseph, Eli, Samuel, and David. But no one of them was ever anointed a leader as was Jesus Christ, whose very name is the Anointed One. And no man has ever yet admitted His leadership, and has implicitly obeyed His commands without coming into blessing in consequence. And, no man can refuse that leadership without coming under the curse thereof. In the parable of the pounds, you will recall that there were certain citizens who hated the nobleman and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this Man to reign over us. When he had received his kingdom and returned, the nobleman called his servants and reproved or commended them according as they had employed or neglected the pounds, and concluded the parable by saying, But those Mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before Me (Luk 19:27). And, with all deference to the opinions of people who refused Jesus Christ, the Word of God seems to teach that such opposition to Christs leadership will bring destruction. If that judgment seems harsh, just remember the truth to which we have consented, No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other (Mat 6:24). In other words, we are either the friends of Christ or Christs enemies, for the Master Himself hath said, He that is not with Me is against Me; and he that gathereth not with Me scattereth abroad (Mat 12:30).
It is also true that the friends of Jesus Christ must be familiar with His will. Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I have commanded you. R. F. Horton, who is regarded as among the friendly critics of the Word of God, in his volume, Verbum Dei, described a minister with whom he was familiar, as a man thoroughly earnest and devout, and consequently exercising a wide influence over certain minds, but who, in his advocacy of truth, was violent, unjust, and ill-mannered. He says that, upon inquiry, he discovered this man had for years conscientiously refrained from reading any book besides the Bible, and Horton thinks that in consequence, he had fallen out of touch with the times in which he lived, and while earnest and devout, had become a false prophet through an over study of the Word of God, and an understudy of the world in which he lived.
But if Dr. Horton knew such a man, few other folks ever knew him. In all the years of my life, I have not met a sane man who has gone wrong in consequence of an over study of Gods Word, but every day I meet a dozen men who are doing Gods will poorly because they are poorly familiar with what Gods will is. They have time for the morning and evening newspaper. They find time to review the leading magazines, and they burn the midnight oil to finish the latest book of fiction. But Gods Book, which is filled with the Divine commands, has its pages poorly perused, and so they stumble in consequence. The hardest questions that are put to me by people that have turned skeptical and are stumbling along, are questions that often indicate an almost unthinkable ignorance of what God has written into His Word.
What would be the result for a private soldier if he gave no attention to what his captain said? And what would be the result to the commissioned officer, fighting on a strange shore, if he neglected the maps and directions which had come to him from the headquarters; or the results to the vessels, freighted with human life, if they sailed the high seas without chart or compass? Paul never wrote a saner thing than when to Timothy he said, Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth (2Ti 2:15).
Christs friends also will execute His commands. Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I have commanded you. The test of faithfulness to Jesus Christ is at the point of fulfilling His Word. Dr. Basil Manly, in an address which he delivered before the students in one of our Eastern theological seminaries, told how, after one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, a remnant of a regiment was seen standing upon a little knoll, around which the conflict had waged most fiercely. A Southern officer rode up to them and said, Where is your Colonel? There he lies, they said, pointing to his prostrate form. And where is your Captain? There he lies, they said, as they pointed to young Poindexter, the son of our Baptist minister. And what are you doing here? he inquired. Lifting the hand again to the dead form of this brave officer, they said. He told us to just hold this point, and we are doing just what he said. Beautiful loyalty! And when we remember that our Captain and Leader fell upon the field of battle and died in His endeavor to save a lost world, we must also remember that there is nothing that His friends can do which proves their loyalty to Him more clearly than just to obey His commands.
We sing,
Upon the Western plain,There conies the signal strain,Of loyalty, loyalty,Loyalty to Christ.
Its music rolls along,The hills take up the song Of loyalty, loyalty,Yes, loyalty to Christ.
Oh, hear, ye brave, the sound,That moves the earth around,Tis loyalty, loyalty,Yes, loyalty to Christ.
Arise to dare and do,Ring out the watchword true,Of loyalty, loyalty,Yes, loyalty to Christ.
And we do well to sing it for it is a fact of revelation, Blessed are they that do His commandments. Jesus, as if to show what positive stress He would lay upon this truth, once said to a company of people about Him, Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is My brother.
The second truth is this:
TO HIS FRIENDS, CHRIST IS FAITHFUL
Long ago Solomon wrote, prophesying our Christ to come, and he said of Him, There is a Friend that sticketh closer than a brother. Now, there are two or three traits of friendship that every true brother discovers that are at once beautiful and blessed. And Christ who sticketh closer than a brother exhibits all of these traits in the most marked degree.
In affection, He is unchangeable. Mr. Spurgeon on one occasion, speaking of the Star of Jacob, said, Our Lord is comparable to a star in that He is a pattern of constancy. Ten thousand changes have been wrought since the world began, but the stars have not changed; there they remain, and there they will remain til, like a vesture, God shall roll up creation. It is very delightful to recollect that the same star which you looked at last night was viewed by Abraham perhaps with some of the self-same thoughts. And when we have gone and another generation will have followed us, those who come after will look to the selfsame star. It makes but little difference how long one lives or generations last, the stars of heaven change not. And, wherever on this wide world you may go, they are still visible, and no matter what clouds or sunshine come into your life, the stars shine on. You might lose a hundred friends, but when you walk abroad at night, the star that decks the brow of evening when you were but an infant is still looking down upon you with a kindly eye. And Jesus Christ, who is the Star of Jacob, is the same yesterday, today, and forever in His affection for us. Other friends may come and go; He remains our friend. Satan may come in to estrange some friends and compel us to lose the loved ones, but the more Satan rages against us, the more steadfastly Christ will stand by us. Mr. Spurgeon quotes Lavater as saying, The qualities of your friends will be the qualities of your enemies cold friends, cold enemies; half friends, half enemies ; fervid enemies, warm friends. Knowing this to be a truth, says Spurgeon, I have often congratulated myself when my enemies have spoken fiercely against me. Well, I have thought, my friends love me hard and fast. And it is true, also, that the louder Satan roars, the more proof one has of Christs love. And I would just as soon expect this night to go and see the stars smitten from the heavens as to discover that my friend Jesus Christ has lost His love for me. There is a beautiful thing written into Joh 13:1. It relates to Christs approaching crucifixion: Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end. And, as He, in His earth life, loved His own unto the end, so in His resurrected life, Eternity alone will be able to measure His love.
Christs faithfulness to His friends is shown in His active assistance. It is a feature of a brothers love that He helps those who share in his blood in their hour of need.
Savage, after a somewhat bitter experience, wrote,
Youll find the friendship of the world a show!Mere outward show! Tis like the harlots tears,The statesmans promise, or false patriots zeal,Full of fair seeming, but delusion all.
But Solomon wrote, A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity (Pro 17:17). It was because Jesus Christ was a Friend who loveth at all times and a Brother for adversitys hour that Paul wrote to the Hebrews,
We have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
Let us, therefore, come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Heb 4:15-16).
And yet another respect in which Christ shows His faithfulness as a friend is His salutary influence. After all, that is the truest test of friendship. Does the man with whom you have been associated does the woman whom you have taken into your hearts confidence, do you good? The answer to that question determines the faithfulness of friendship. I dont care what beauty one may have; I dont care what brilliance he may exhibit; I dont care how exhilarating his presence; unless you are better for having spent an hour with him, he is not the best friend.
Henry Drummond says, Men are all mosaics of other men. There was a savor of David about Jonathan, and a savor of Jonathan about David. Jean Valjean in the masterpiece of Victor Hugo, is Bishop Bienvenu risen from the dead. Metempsychosis is a fact! George Elliots message to the world was that men and women make men and women * *. There are some men and some women in whose company we are always at our best. While with them we cannot think mean thoughts or speak ungenerous words. Their mere presence is elevation, purification, sanctity. All the best stops in our nature are drawn out by their intercourse and we find a music in our souls that was never there before * *. If to live with men diluted to the millionth degree with the virtue of the highest, can exalt and purify the nature, what bounds can be set to the influence of Christ? * * Francis of Assissi must have made one gentle Savonarola strong. But to have lived with Christ must have made one like Christthat is to say, a Christian. The people who watched the early disciples said of them this significant thing, They have been with Jesus and have learned of Him. How blessed then that Jesus is able to be with us and befriend us, and by His very association, sanctify us, until the people of the present, studying our methods and sounding our motives, looking upon our service and hearing our speech, shall be compelled to say of us, They have been with Christ!
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
(14) Ye are my friends . . .Stress is to be laid upon the pronoun, Ye are My friends . . . Ye are those of whom I have just spoken, and for whom I am about to give the greatest proof of love.
If ye do whatsoever I command you.Better, the things which I am commanding you, (Comp. Joh. 14:21; Joh. 14:23.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
14. My friends, if ye do He affords them a scope for becoming in action his friends. He condescends to raise them into the most intimate companionship with himself.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Joh 15:14 . “ For his friends ,” Jesus had just said. There was a presumption implied in this, that He also would die for His friends (Euth. Zigabenus briefly and correctly points out the sequence of thought by supplying at the end of Joh 15:13 : ). And who are these? The disciples ( ), if they do what He commands them.
The conception of the is that of the loving confidential companionship with Himself, to which Christ has raised them; see Joh 15:15 . Later on, He designates them even as His brothers , Joh 20:17 .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
Ver. 14. If ye do whatsoever, &c. ] In desire and endeavour lifting at the latch, though ye cannot open the door, and looking to both the magnalia great matters and minutuia small matters of the law Boni Catholici sunt (saith Augustine) qui et fidem integram sequuntur, et bonos mores. Good Christians are those who follow a sound faith and good habits. And they are written in the book of life (saith Bernard) that do what they can, though they cannot do what they should. Qui quod possunt, faciunt, etsi quod debent, non possunt.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Joh 15:14 . Then comes the application: . “Ye are my friends, if ye do what I command you.” You may expect of me this greatest demonstration of love, and therefore every minor demonstration of it which your circumstances may require, “if ye do,” etc. This condition was added not to chill and daunt, but to encourage: when you find how much suffering the completion of my work entails upon you, assure yourselves of my love. It is copartnery in work that will give you assurance that you are my friends.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
John
CHRIST’S FRIENDS
Joh 15:14 – Joh 15:17
A wonderful word has just dropped from the Master’s lips, when He spoke of laying down His life for His friends. He lingers on it as if the idea conveyed was too great and sweet to be taken in at once, and with soothing reiteration He assures the little group that they, even they, are His friends.
I have ventured to take these four verses for consideration now, although each of them, and each clause of them, might afford ample material for a discourse, because they have one common theme. They are a description of what Christ’s friends are to Him, of what He is to them, and of what they should be to one another. So they are a little picture, in the sweetest form, of the reality, the blessedness, the obligations, of friendship with Christ.
I. Notice what Christ’s friends do for Him.
He lingers, as I said, on the idea itself. As if He would meet the doubts arising from the sense of unworthiness, and from some dim perception of how He towers above them, and their limitations, He reiterates, ‘Wonderful as it is, you poor men, half-intelligent lovers of Mine, you are My friends, beloved of Me, and loving Me, if ye do whatsoever I command you.’
How wonderful that stooping love of His is, which condescends to array itself in the garments of ours! Every form of human love Christ lays His hand upon, and claims that He Himself exercises it in a transcendent degree. ‘He that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven, the same is My brother and sister and mother.’ That which is even sacreder, the purest and most complete union that humanity is capable of-that, too, He consecrates; for even it, sacred as it is, is capable of a higher consecration, and, sweet as it is, receives a new sweetness when we think of ‘the Bride, the Lamb’s wife,’ and remember the parables in which He speaks of the Marriage Supper of the Great King, and sets forth Himself as the Husband of humanity. And passing from that Holy of Holies out into this outer court, He lays His hand, too, on that more common and familiar, and yet precious and sacred, thing-the bond of friendship. The Prince makes a friend of the beggar.
Even if we do not think more loftily of Jesus Christ than do those who regard Him simply as the perfection of humanity, is it not beautiful and wonderful that He should look with such eyes of beaming love on that handful of poor, ignorant fishermen, who knew Him so dimly, and say: ‘I pass by all the wise and the mighty, all the lofty and noble, and My heart clings to you poor, insignificant people?’ He stoops to make them His friends, and there are none so low but that they may be His.
This friendship lasts to-day. A peculiarity of Christianity is the strong personal tie of real love and intimacy which will bind men, to the end of time, to this Man that died nineteen hundred years ago. We look back into the wastes of antiquity: mighty names rise there that we reverence; there are great teachers from whom we have learned, and to whom, after a fashion, we are grateful. But what a gulf there is between us and the best and noblest of them! But here is a dead Man, who to-day is the Object of passionate attachment and a love deeper than life to millions of people, and will be till the end of time. There is nothing in the whole history of the world in the least like that strange bond which ties you and me to the Saviour, and the paradox of the Apostle remains a unique fact in the experience of humanity: ‘Jesus Christ, whom, having not seen, ye love.’ We stretch out our hands across the waste, silent centuries, and there, amidst the mists of oblivion, thickening round all other figures in the past, we touch the warm, throbbing heart of our Friend, who lives for ever, and for ever is near us. We here, nearly two millenniums after the words fell on the nightly air on the road to Gethsemane, have them coming direct to our hearts. A perpetual bond unites men with Christ to-day; and for us, as really as in that long-past Paschal night, is it true, ‘Ye are My friends.’
There are no limitations in that friendship, no misconstructions in that heart, no alienation possible, no change to be feared. There is absolute rest for us there. Why should I be solitary if Jesus Christ is my Friend? Why should I fear if He walks by my side? Why should anything be burdensome if He lays it upon me and helps me to bear it? What is there in life that cannot be faced and borne-aye, and conquered,-if we have Him, as we all may have Him, for the Friend and the Home of our hearts?
But notice the condition, ‘If ye do what I command you.’ Note the singular blending of friendship and command, involving on our parts the cultivation of the two things which are not incompatible, absolute submission and closest friendship. He commands though He is Friend; though He commands He is Friend. The conditions that He lays down are the same which have already occupied our attention in former sermons of this series, and so may be touched very lightly. ‘Ye are My friends if ye do the things which I command you,’ may either correspond with His former saying, ‘If a Man love Me he will keep My commandments,’ or with His later one, which immediately precedes our text, ‘If ye keep My commandments ye shall abide in My love.’ For this is the relationship between love and obedience, in regard to Jesus Christ, that the love is the parent of the obedience, and the obedience is the guard and guarantee of the love. They who love will obey, they who obey will strengthen love by acting according to its dictates, and will be in a condition to feel and realise more the warmth of the rays that stream down upon them, and to send back more fully answering obedience from their hearts. Not in mere emotion, not in mere verbal expression, not in mere selfish realising of the blessings of His friendship, and not in mere mechanical, external acts of conformity, but in the flowing down and melting of the hard and obstinate iron will, at the warmth of His great love, is our love made perfect. The obedience, which is the child and the preserver of love, is something far deeper than the mere outward conformity with externally apprehended commandments. To submit is the expression of love, and love is deepened by submission.
II. Secondly, note what Christ does for His friends.
Jesus Christ, then, recognises the obligation of absolute frankness, and He will tell His friends everything that He can. When He tells them what He can, the voice of the Father speaks through the Son. Every one of Christ’s friends stands nearer to God than did Moses at the door of the Tabernacle, when the wondering camp beheld him face to face with the blaze of the Shekinah glory, and dimly heard the thunderous utterances of God as He spake to him ‘as a man speaks to his friend.’ That was surface-speech compared with the divine depth and fullness of the communications which Jesus Christ deems Himself bound, and assumes Himself able, to make to them who love Him and whom He loves.
Of course to Christ’s frankness there are limits. He will not pour out His treasures into vessels that will spill them; and as He Himself says in the subsequent part of this great discourse, ‘I have many things to say unto you, but you are not able to carry them now.’ His last word was, ‘I have declared Thy name unto My brethren, and will declare it.’ And though here He speaks as if His communication was perfect, we are to remember that it was necessarily conditioned by the power of reception on the part of the hearers, and that there was much yet to be revealed of what God had whispered to Him, ere these men, that clustered round Him, could understand the message.
That frank speech is continued to-day. Jesus Christ recognises the obligation that binds Him to impart to each of us all that each of us is in our inmost spirits capable of receiving. By the light which He sheds on the Word, by many a suggestion through human lips, by many a blessed thought rising quietly within our hearts, and bearing the token that it comes from a sacreder source than our poor, blundering minds, He still speaks to us, His friends.
Ought not that thought of the utter frankness of Jesus make us, for one thing, very patient, intellectually and spiritually, of the gaps that are left in His communications and in our knowledge? There are so many things that we sometimes think we should like to know, things about that dark future where some of our hearts live so constantly, things about the depths of His nature and the divine character, things about the relation between God’s love and God’s righteousness, things about the meaning of all this dreadful mystery in which we grope our way. These and a hundred other questionings suggest to us that it would have been so easy for Him to have lifted a little corner of the veil, and let a little more of the light shine out. He holds all in His hand. Why does He thus open one finger instead of the whole palm? Because He loves. A friend exercises the right of reticence as well as the prerogative of speech. And for all the gaps that are left, let us bow quietly and believe that if it had been better for us He would have spoken. ‘If it were not so I would have told you.’ ‘Trust Me! I tell you all that it is good for you to receive.’
And that frankness may well teach us another lesson, viz., the obligation of keeping our ears open and our hearts prepared to receive the speech that does come from Him. Ah, brother! many a message from your Lord flits past you, like the idle wind through an archway, because you are not listening for His voice. If we kept down the noise of that ‘household jar within’; if we silenced passion, ambition, selfishness, worldliness; if we withdrew ourselves, as we ought to do, from the Babel of this world, and ‘hid ourselves in His pavilion from the strife of tongues’; if we took less of our religion out of books and from other people, and were more accustomed to ‘dwell in the secret place of the Most High,’ and to say, ‘Speak, Friend! for Thy friend heareth,’ we should more often understand how real to-day is the voice of Christ to them that love Him.
‘Such rebounds the inward ear
Catches often from afar;
Listen, prize them, hold them dear,
For of God-of God-they are.’
III. Thirdly, notice how Christ’s friends come to be so, and why they are so.
‘Ye have not chosen,’ etc. Joh 15:16.
Our Lord refers here, no doubt, primarily to the little group of the Apostles; the choice and ordaining as well as ‘the fruit that abides,’ point, in the first place, to their apostolic office, and to the results of their apostolic labours. But we must widen out the words a great deal beyond that reference.
In all the cases of friendship between Christ and men, the origination and initiation come from Him. ‘We love Him because He first loved us.’ He has told us how, in His divine alchemy, He changes by the shedding of His blood our enmity into friendship. In the previous verse He has said, ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’ And as I remarked in my last sermon, the friends here are the same as ‘the enemies’ for whom, the Apostle tells us that Christ laid down His life. Since He has thus by the blood of the Cross changed men’s enmity into friendship, it is true universally that the amity between us and Christ comes entirely from Him.
But there is more than that in the words. I do not suppose that any man, whatever his theological notions and standpoint may be, who has felt the love of Christ in his own heart in however feeble a measure, but will say, as the Apostle said, ‘I was apprehended of Christ.’ It is because He lays His seeking and drawing hand upon us that we ever come to love Him, and it is true that His choice of us precedes our choice of Him, and that the Shepherd always comes to seek the sheep that is lost in the wilderness.
This, then, is how we come to be His friends; because, when we were enemies, He loved us, and gave Himself for us, and ever since has been sending out the ambassadors and the messengers of His love-or, rather, the rays and beams of it, which are parts of Himself-to draw us to His heart. And the purpose which all this forthgoing of Christ’s initial and originating friendship has had in view, is set forth in words which I can only touch in the lightest possible manner. The intention is twofold. First, it respects service or fruit. ‘That ye may go’; there is deep pathos and meaning in that word. He had been telling them that He was going; now He says to them, ‘You are to go. We part here. My road lies upward; yours runs onward. Go into all the world.’ He gives them a quasi -independent position; He declares the necessity of separation; He declares also the reality of union in the midst of the separation; He sends them out on their course with His benediction, as He does us . Wheresoever we go in obedience to His will, we carry the consciousness of His friendship.
‘That ye may bring forth fruit’-He goes back for a moment to the sweet emblem with which this chapter begins, and recurs to the imagery of the vine and the fruit. ‘Keeping His commandments’ does not explain the whole process by which we do the things that are pleasing in His sight. We must also take this other metaphor of the bearing of fruit. Neither an effortless, instinctive bringing forth from the renewed nature and the Christlike disposition, nor a painful and strenuous effort at obedience to His law, describe the whole realities of Christian service. There must be the effort, for men do not grow Christlike in character as the vine grows its grapes; but there must also be, regulated and disciplined by the effort, the inward life, for no mere outward obedience and tinkering at duties and commandments will produce the fruit that Christ desires and rejoices to have. First comes unity of life with Him; and then effort. Take care of modern teachings that do not recognise these two as both essential to the complete ideal of Christian service-the spontaneous fruit-bearing, and the strenuous effort after obedience.
‘That your fruit should remain’; nothing corrupts faster than fruit. There is only one kind of fruit that is permanent, incorruptible. The only life’s activity that outlasts life and the world is the activity of the men who obey Christ.
The other half of the issues of this friendship is the satisfying of our desires, ‘That whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name He may give it you.’ We have already had substantially the same promise in previous parts of this discourse, and therefore I may deal with it very lightly. How comes it that it is certain that Christ’s friends, living close to Him and bearing fruit, will get what they want? Because what they want will be ‘in His name’-that is to say, in accordance with His disposition and will. Make your desires Christ’s, and Christ’s yours, and you will be satisfied.
IV. And now, lastly, for one moment, note the mutual friendship of Christ’s friends.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
whatsoever. The texts read “the things which”.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Joh 15:14. , whatsoever things) not merely some things.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Joh 15:14
Joh 15:14
Ye are my friends,-That they might know whether they came within the bounds of his love, he tells them who are his friends.
if ye do the things which I command you.-Jesus loved the whole world and shed his blood for it, but only they who accepted the benefits of his death by doing his will appropriated that love and received the benefits from it. Those who obeyed were his friends and so only his friends received and appropriated the benefits of his love. While he loved his enemies and provided for their happiness, they could enjoy it only by keeping his commandments. [Again he brings out the oft-repeated divinely appointed test of relationship to Christ-obedience to his command. We ought not to overlook this constantly repeated lesson.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
my: Joh 14:15, Joh 14:28, 2Ch 20:7, Son 5:1, Isa 41:8, Mat 12:50, Luk 12:4, Jam 2:23
if: Joh 2:5, Joh 13:17, Joh 14:21, 1Jo 5:3
Reciprocal: Gen 6:22 – General Exo 7:6 – General Exo 12:50 – as the Lord Exo 17:10 – Joshua Exo 33:11 – his friend Lev 18:4 – General Lev 18:26 – keep Num 9:5 – according Deu 4:1 – unto the statutes Deu 5:10 – love me Deu 5:29 – keep all Deu 11:32 – General Deu 12:28 – General Deu 27:1 – Keep all Deu 28:1 – to do all Jdg 6:27 – and did Jdg 13:14 – all that I Rth 3:6 – and did 1Sa 9:27 – Bid the servant 2Sa 15:15 – Behold 2Sa 22:23 – For all 1Ki 4:5 – the king’s 1Ki 13:9 – For 1Ki 17:5 – did according 2Ki 18:6 – kept 1Ch 14:16 – did as God 2Ch 6:16 – keep Neh 10:29 – to observe Psa 106:3 – Blessed Psa 119:6 – I have Psa 119:48 – unto thy Pro 7:2 – Keep Pro 17:17 – General Pro 18:24 – there Son 1:9 – O my Jer 13:2 – according Jer 18:3 – I went Jer 32:23 – they have Eze 12:7 – I did so Eze 18:11 – that Mat 1:24 – did Mat 7:24 – whosoever Mat 11:1 – commanding Mat 21:6 – and did Mat 26:19 – the disciples Mar 14:13 – Go Luk 5:5 – nevertheless Luk 8:21 – My mother Luk 15:6 – his 1Co 7:19 – but 2Co 5:16 – know we no Phi 4:9 – do 1Jo 2:3 – if we 2Jo 1:6 – this is love
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
4
Jesus did not ask his disciples to give up their lives in the physical sense as he was required to do. Of course, if the enemy should bring bodily persecution upon them, they should be willing to die rather than betray their devotion to Him. But that would be a result of their services, and not a deliberate part of it according to their own arrangement. What Jesus meant was that the true followers of Him would devote their lives to his service. That is why he said what he did in this verse about showing their friendship for Him. They were to be regarded as his friends IF they did whatever he commanded of them. Hence if a man specializes on being a “Friend” of Jesus religiously, yet at the same time refuse to obey the commands of the Lord (one of which is to be baptized), such a man is making a false claim and is not a true friend of Jesus.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Joh 15:14. Ye are my friends, if ye do that which I command you. We have here no second motive to the exercise of brotherly love, based upon the obedience which the friends of Jesus are bound to render to Him. The emphatic Ye shows clearly that Jesus would impress upon them with peculiar force that they were His friends. We must accordingly interpret in a manner similar to that applied at chap. Joh 14:15. The words describe a condition or state: Ye are my friends for whom in love I lay down My life, and ye continue such in being led by the power of My love to lay down your lives for one another. This is your new and glorious state, for.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Here Christ invites his people to obedience, by the honourable title of friends: Ye are my friends.
1. Actively, you will declare and manifest yourselves to be my friends.-
2. Passively, I will declare myself to be your friend.
Learn hence, 1. How condescending is the love of Christ, in calling his servants by the name of friends.
2. How glorious is the believer’s relation to Christ, in being one of his friends.
3. How grateful is obedience to Christ, seeing it dignifies the practisers of it with the title of his friends.
4. Our conformity to Christ consists not so much in imitation of what he did, as in obedience to what he prescribed. Some actions of Christ are inimitable, but all his commands are obeyable.
5. That nothing short of an humble, uniform, cheerful, and constant, obedience to the commands of Christ, will evidence the truth of our relation to him, and the sincerity of our friendship with him: Then only are ye my friends, when ye do whatsoever I command you.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Vv. 14, 15. You are my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you. 15. I call you no longer servants, because the servant knows not what his master does; but I have named you friends, because I have made known to you all things which I have heard from my Father.
In Joh 15:14, the emphasis is, not on the condition: If you do,…but on the affirmation: You are my friends; Jesus means: It is not without reason that I have just said: for his friends (Joh 15:13), for this is indeed the relation which I have formed with you and which will be maintained if you show yourselves obedient and faithful. What more touching than a master who, finding a servant really faithful, gives him in the house the rank and title of friend!
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
"Friend" is another relative term such as "abiding" or "fellowship." A person can be a casual friend, a close friend, or an intimate friend depending on his or her love and loyalty. Likewise all believers are God’s friends in one sense, but abiding believers are His friends on a deeper level because they seek to obey Him consistently (cf. Psa 25:14).
A good servant (Gr. doulos, lit. slave) also obeys his master. What then is the difference between a servant of God and an intimate friend of God? Jesus proved to His disciples that they were His friends as well as His servants but pointing out that a master shares his plans with his friends but not with his slaves. He had told them what was coming thereby treating them as His friends. Abraham and Moses, the only Old Testament characters whom God called His friends, also received revelations of God’s plans from Him (cf. Gen 18:17; Exo 33:11; 2Ch 20:7; Isa 41:8; Jas 2:23). Jesus also referred to Lazarus as "our friend" (Joh 11:11).
Slaves customarily receive orders but no explanations or reasons for their orders. One of the differences between friends and slaves is the degree of intimacy they share with the Master. Jesus raised His disciples from the level of tools to being partners with Him in His work (cf. 2Co 5:20 to 2Co 6:1).
Jesus said that He no longer called His disciples slaves implying that He had done so in the past. One of the common titles God used for the prophets in the Old Testament was "my servants the prophets" (e.g., Jer 7:25; Jer 25:4; Jer 29:19; et al.). In former times God had not revealed His mind fully to His people (cf. 1Pe 1:10-12). However with the coming of Jesus He revealed His plans as to friends rather than as to servants. This is another indication that Jesus viewed His Incarnation as the culmination of divine revelation. The revelation that Jesus gave through the apostles following His ascension was a continuation of that revelation (cf. Act 1:1-2).