Dr. Robert P. Martin
The Loving Exhortation (John 15:9)
“Abide in my love”
It is important that we begin our consideration of these words by noting what they do not mean. When Jesus says in the next verse, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love” (15:10), he is not saying, “You must do certain things in order to enter into my love.” He loved us before the world began. This love stands behind our predestination to the adoption as sons (cf., Eph. 1:4-5). Also, Jesus is not saying that we must do certain things in order to warrant his ongoing love for us, i.e., things apart from which his love for us will diminish or perhaps cease altogether. Having loved us with an eternal love, having committed himself to do everything that is necessary to our ultimately being glorified with him, nothing will be able to separate us from the love of Christ (cf., Rom. 8:28-39).
The words “abide in my love” (15:9) are a further development of Jesus’ earlier entreaty that we abide in him (15:4). Here our Lord makes a vital point concerning the experience of abiding in him. In our abiding in vital fellowship with Christ, in a living union in which we receive from him those things needed to bear the fruits of righteousness and effective service (this is the primary purpose of abiding in Christ), we also are abiding in a connection with him that keeps us in the place where his greatest blessing comes to us spiritually (this is a secondary but exceedingly important purpose of abiding in Christ). Abiding in close fellowship with the life-giving vine, we are brought into the sphere of an intimate relationship in which Christ’s Father-like love for us nourishes and encourages us with the special blessings of his fellowship with his own. This is but to say that by abiding in Christ, we abide in his love, and there (in that favored relation and place) we find not only fruitfulness in godliness but also the peculiar blessings of godliness–one of which we will consider when we come to verse 11.
The Appointed Means (15:10)
“If you keep My commandments, you will abide in my love,
just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love”
How does a Christian abide in the love of Christ? Is it simply the case that once union with Christ has been secured by faith that the full blessings of that living union flow automatically from the vine? Is there not in fact a means by which this is designed to take place, i.e., so that there is much more than simply saying, “I have believed on Christ, and therefore I am abiding in him and in his love”? The answer is yes. As we saw above, abiding in Christ is a dynamic experience. The same is true of abiding in Christ’s love. The Lord Jesus here says that the way that we are to abide in his love, i.e., in the place of the Son’s fullest blessing of his disciples, is the same way that he abides in his Father’s love, i.e., in the place of the Father’s fullest blessing of his Son. “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love” (15:10). Clearly Jesus wants us to see that our keeping his commandments is the way appointed by God for our abiding in his love, i.e., in the place where his fullest blessing comes upon us.
The challenge presented by this text is that we should reciprocate in our relation to Christ in the same way that he has responded to his Father’s love toward him. The Father loved the Son and expressed his love for him in an active and appropriate way. The Son responded to his Father’s love in the way that was appropriate to his filial place in the relationship, i.e., by obeying his Father’s commandments, thus keeping himself in the place where his Father could bless him in the greatest way possible, with special tokens of his love and favor. If the Son had not been in submission to his Father (a submission that manifested itself in obeying his Father’s commandments), it would have been inappropriate (even irresponsible) for the Father to bless him in these special ways. To bless him apart from genuine submission would have sent the message to the Son that insubordination and disregard for his Father’s will were acceptable behavior, and that the Father cared so little for these things that he would bless his Son even when these things were missing in their relationship.
Christ is our example. Christ loves his disciples and has expressed his love for us in active and appropriate ways. Indeed, he has fulfilled his responsibility to us even to the laying down of his life for us, that we may be saved. We in turn are called to respond to Christ’s love (and to the proofs of his love found in the things that he has done for us) in a way appropriate to our place in our relationship with him, i.e., by obeying his commandments. In order to fulfill our responsibility to our Teacher-Master,1 this kind of response is indispensable. And when we conduct ourselves in this way, we discover that we are in the place where we experience his greatest blessing. In the center of his will as he has revealed it in his word, we find ourselves in the place where we receive special tokens of his approval of our filial love and submissive behavior.
Does not our relationship with our children, as well as our relationship to our parents, confirm that what Jesus says here is right? As parents, we expect that our children will submit to us and obey our commands. We give them special tokens of our favor when they do so and we withhold these special tokens when they do not do so. When they are disobedient, we still love them and care for them, but we do not reward them for bad attitudes and unrighteous behavior. Is not the place for our children to experience the fullest blessings of the parent-child relationship precisely in the place where they are submitting to our parental authority and doing the things that we have taught them to do? And, as children, is it not right that our parents (who are wiser than we are and whose commands represent much more mature purposes than the goals that we have for ourselves) require that we submit to them and obey them before they bless us in extraordinary ways? Surely we see the wisdom of the relation that Christ describes between ourselves and himself.
Earlier, when we considered our Lord’s words at John 14:15-18, I used the expression “moral condition” in describing the relation of our love for Christ, our obedience to his commandments, and his blessing of us. Here the same expression applies. Jesus occupies a parental position in relation to his disciples, in a way like the parental posture that his Father has in relation to him, and in some important ways like the relation that we have with our children. The Father loves the Son, the Son loves his “little children,” we love our children. Nothing can change our affection for them; however, the granting of the blessings of the parent-child relationship in its fullest expressions hangs on a “moral condition,” i.e., on our children’s submitting to us and obeying our commandments. If they are obedient to us, honoring us in the way that is right for persons under our authority, we are disposed to show our delight in them by means of the fullest possible expressions of blessing. If they disobey, however, though we love them nonetheless (so that our love for them is not diminished), we are disposed to diminish or withhold certain blessings that might otherwise be theirs (as well as to use appropriate chastisements), so that the love of sin and rebellion may be driven from their hearts. Our goal is their correction so that they will have godly attitudes and pursue holy purposes. All of the instructions that the Bible gives concerning child training assume these things. Now, is it strange to you that Christ regards and deals with his “little children” in this way? Keeping his commandments is the way appointed for abiding in his love, in the place of his fullest blessing. Disobedience causes him to diminish or withhold from you blessings that might otherwise be yours, so that the love of sin may be driven from your heart. His concern in training you as his child is not your immediate comfort but your godly conformity to his goals for you and his instructions to you.
Jesus has kept his Father’s word and so abides in his love. And there, in the place in which he is the object of his Father’s approval (a fatherly approval that, because of the Son’s submission, may express itself in an unrestrained way), he possesses the blessings of that relationship in all of their fullness. Viewed from the Son’s perspective and experience of that place of greatest blessing, here he expresses that reality in a singular expression–“my joy.” This brings us then to our final point.
The Promised Blessing (15:11)
“These things I have spoken to you,
that my joy may remain in you,
and that your joy may be full”
When we come to ver. 11, we see that the parallel is complete: (1) The Father loves the Son; the Son loves his children. This is the fountainhead of all our blessings. (2) The Son obeys the Father, and so abides in his love. We obey Christ and so abide in his love. This is the moral condition necessary to our abiding in his love, i.e., in the place of his greatest blessing. (3) The blessing that Christ enjoys in his relation to his Father–“my joy.” The blessing that his obedient children enjoy–his joy becoming our joy and abiding in us in fullness.
Opening up verse 11 requires several things: a proper, biblical definition of “joy,” at least some sense of what Jesus meant by the expression “my joy,” and some understanding of what it means that Jesus’ joy remains in us, in an experience that he describes as our joy being “full.”
Notes:
1.The teacher (master)-disciple relationship very much is like the father-son relationship. This accounts for our Lord’s addressing his disciples on this occasion as “my little children” (John 13:33).
Published with permission of the author. All rights reserved.