Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
No greater love exists than giving one's own life for one's friends. Jesus Himself showed that love by dying on the cross to save those who were perishing so they might have eternal life. He even went beyond that measure, giving His life not only for friends but for enemies. He commands His followers to love one another with that same self-sacrificing love, which is the testimony that they are His disciples. Those who do whatever He commands are His friends, continuing in His love and bringing forth lasting fruit.
Setting in Farewell Discourse
The words were spoken in the upper chamber to the eleven disciples alone after Judas had left, when Christ looked upon them with divine love and tenderest sympathy and was about to tell them of His approaching separation from them. They belong to His farewell words and instruction given just before He was separated from the disciples, among His last words before His crucifixion near the close of His earthly ministry. They were spoken shortly before He was handed over to persecutors, with betrayal, scourging, and a cruel death before Him, and His approaching death itself expresses that supreme love for His disciples.
Although that cruel death was before Him, His thoughts were not on Himself but on comforting them and preparing them for their future work, and His words to them were full of hope and meant to bring comfort, courage, consolation, and strength of faith to endure without failing when severely tried. He knew every phase of experience and every conflict they would meet, was grieved that they must pass through manifold afflictions, trials, temptations, and opposition from the world, and prepared them for that time of trial and great temptation to lose faith. God made every provision through faith in Jesus Christ that they should not fail nor be discouraged in the dark, troubled future He knew must come, and Jesus mingled bright, hopeful lines with the dark by setting before them the hopeful part of the future.
The verse is part of John 13-17, and with John 14-16 it plainly outlines God's will, gives the philosophy of genuine missionary work, and contains the divine antidote for the sin of the whole world by which believers are made one with Christ in this present life to be one with Him throughout eternity. With the rest of those chapters it is full of encouragement and hope, so simple that even children may understand, imparting courage to stand fast in the most trying hour and bringing strength and assurance to the true believer as long as time shall last. With John 14, 16, and 17, John 15 is of highest value for every soul consecrating life to the service of God, needed by all who claim to be Christians and to be presented in every home as instruction from God about receiving Christ's grace. It is to be believed in every verse and lived out, studied carefully and practiced, and understood with new enlightenment through the influence of God's Spirit, calling for conversion and reconversion in those who minister in word and doctrine.
The disciples did not understand the full meaning of the command to love as Christ loved, and the new part of that commandment, until after His sufferings, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, when that love was revealed and they began to grasp what the love of God comprehended. Only after the resurrection did those upper-chamber words begin to be fully understood, and afterward they brought comfort and hope in discouragement and trial. Peter's claim that he would lay down his life for Jesus touched the same subject of willingness to die for another, but he soon denied Jesus three times. Before speaking of His separation, Christ pointed to the great object of His mission which He kept ever before Him, and His joy that all His humiliation and suffering would glorify the Father's name.
Meaning of Greatest Love
No greater, higher, or more unsurpassed love exists than for a person to lay down his life for his friends, and this is the greatest love any person can show. This supreme self-sacrifice is Christ's own love, given as the command, pattern, model, and measure for loving one another as He has loved, yet few who claim to be Christians obey it, while those who do whatever He commands are His friends. That greatest love is self-giving, self-sacrificing, broad, full, pure, disinterested, heavenly love flowing from a renewed heart to others and to the fallen and needy throughout the world. It is not selfish, changeable, dependent on praise, or self-seeking, and it does not center upon one favorite or two or express itself in lovesick attitudes, lovesick words, special preferences, and special affection for one or two. Without this heavenly principle even good intentions and extreme acts of generosity are nothing, and no one can be like Christ, for it loves others because they belong to Christ who purchased them.
This love goes beyond loving a neighbor as oneself, for the full meaning of loving as Christ loved was revealed only when His death showed the high, unselfish character of heavenly love. Jesus went even beyond the measure stated in the verse, for He gave His life not only for friends but for enemies, and His death at Calvary made salvation available to all sinful people as love without parallel. His death on the cross and on Calvary demonstrated and revealed the full extent, character, and measure of that unselfish love for His disciples. That love cannot be measured, but it is known in that He offered Himself as a living sacrifice in humiliation and suffering, paying the price of salvation.
Such self-giving love shown by Christ calls people away from self-justification toward a softened and subdued spirit shaped by His love.
Christ's Death for Friends
Greater love is fulfilled in Christ laying down His life for His friends and disciples, dying on the cross of Calvary to save those who were perishing so that they might have eternal life in God's kingdom. He suffered so that people might have eternal life, was crucified so each might enter God's city, and as He was about to give His life He called His disciples His friends.
In that sacrifice He laid aside His glory, riches, and crown, came in the garb of humanity and took the form of a servant so that His humanity might meet humanity, and endured humiliation, suffering, and death on the cross. He took human nature to join divine power with human weakness, humbling Himself to lift humanity, and He pledged His life while men were yet in sin. He gave His life and shed His own blood as ransom and purchase price, by which He purchased His people.
By that whole sacrifice He brings sinners to God, frees them from sin, and cleanses them from all iniquity by His blood, so that a whole salvation can be claimed by faith. He gave the human family another trial to form such characters that God can safely call them sons and daughters, members of the royal family, children of the heavenly King. That same sacrifice made it possible for people to keep God's commandments, and through His humbling of Himself He shares His blessings, honor, and glory with believers.
As Substitute and Surety He met the perfect standard of obedience, and His death as an offering for sin exalted the law and made it honorable rather than abolishing or weakening it. His death paid the ransom for all who accept Him as personal Saviour, and calls people to turn from sin, be converted, and work together with God.
There is love for the sinner but hatred for the sin, so He does not leave His tempted ones with eyes nearly blind to their own imperfections, but rebukes and chastens those He loves to bring them to see themselves, repent, and be healed. As Redeemer His greater love reaches toward tempted, deceived, perverse, almost destroyed souls with mercy and compassion, taking the poor deluded soul by the hand, surrounding with favorable influence, refusing to leave alone when ruin threatens, receiving and helping heavenward without waiting for evidence of transformation, since the Holy Spirit alone molds experience after the divine similitude. As faithful Friend He bears their sins and griefs, shares their sorrows, knows their weaknesses, and serves as refuge and shield.
Jesus' love in giving His life to save those He loves surpasses the love of father, mother, sister, brother, or friend. That gift is reason for gratitude and for dwelling on His character, studying His life, and seeking to imitate His sinless example.
Command to Love One Another
Christ gives a decided, positive command that His followers love one another as He has loved them, taking His own self-sacrificing love as the command, pattern, measure, model, and standard. The greatest love is shown when a person lays down life for friends, and that supreme example of self-sacrifice is the ground and definition of the love commanded toward one another. Those who do whatever He commands are His friends.
The command requires doers who obey it in practice, yet few who claim to be Christians obey it and its keeping is far above present practice. Obedience is to be fulfilled through the Holy Spirit of love, and when obeyed it makes believers one as Christ is in the Father and the Father in Him, with glorious result. He no longer calls such obedient ones servants but friends, because He has made known to them all He heard from the Father, having chosen and ordained them to go and bring forth lasting fruit so that the Father will give whatever they ask in His name.
They are to love one another because they love Jesus and because others belong to Christ, who purchased them with His blood, His sinless life and sacrifice. That purchase is the Father's gift of His only begotten Son, to be claimed by faith with unreserved surrender, letting Christ's will become the will and molding words, deeds, and character into the divine likeness. His death on the cross revealed the high, unselfish character of the love commanded, which is not selfish, changeable, or dependent on praise.
That love is the testimony by which all will know they are His disciples, that Christ is formed within as the hope of glory, and that they belong to Christ. Keeping God's commandments is its evidence, meaning to love God supremely and neighbor as self, which fulfills the law, while mere profession of keeping them proves nothing without love to God and love to neighbor lived after that pattern. Its meaning is practical and complete: perceive God's love because He laid down His life, lay down lives for the brethren, give this world's goods to a brother in need rather than shutting up compassion, and love not in word or tongue but in deed and in truth until mind, soul, and strength harmonize with the divine life.
Friendship Through Obedience and Fruit
Those who do whatever Christ commands are His friends, and obedience to His commands is the evidence of friendship with God, leaving churches and individuals without excuse. Few who claim to be Christians obey His command and pattern to love one another as He has loved them with the greatest love that lays down life for friends, yet the terms are simple and clear and are to be practiced in daily life. That love is not love of self nor love for the highest place, and obedience to it requires God's Holy Spirit of love, resulting in believers becoming one as Christ is in the Father and the Father in Him. It rests on Christ's sacrifice and sinless life by which He purchased sinners as the Father's gift of His only begotten Son, to be claimed by faith with unreserved surrender, letting Christ's will become the will and molding words, deeds and character into the divine likeness.
He no longer calls obedient disciples servants who do not know what their lord does, but friends to whom He has made known all things He heard from the Father. Those loved and chosen by Him are chosen and ordained to go and bring forth lasting fruit that remains, so that the Father will give whatever they ask in His name. Faithful obedience makes believers one with Christ and proves discipleship, and the command requires doers, for its keeping is far above present practice. Through this close friendship believers represent Christ's character to those around and speak words of hope and faith to sinners, thus bearing fruit to the glory of God, through which the world can see that humanity may lay hold of divinity and receive strength to overcome.
Continuing in His love, the same love with which the Father loved Him, comes by keeping His commandments as He kept His Father's commandments. Abiding in Him as branches abide in the vine, without whom nothing can be done, enables bearing much fruit that glorifies the Father and proves discipleship. Abiding in Him and His words abiding brings receiving whatever is asked, and having His joy remain full with a full joy that can come only from Christ. With it come His strength, upholding hand and efficiency giving vantage ground, peace and deliverance from temptation, with implicit trust in God bringing new light in darkness, guidance of the Holy Spirit into all truth, and gladness expressed in countenance, life and character. True branches have a living, vital connection with Christ, unlike spurious branches, and believers must abide in Him and live for the good of others.
That close friendship and familiar intercourse is a connection all need to enter though it is often neglected, in which temptation will come but need not be yielded to. Faithful servants who do their best for their Master are promoted to positions of trust and admitted to familiar intercourse with their Leader and to speak freely to God. The one who talks most familiarly with his divine Leader gains the most exalted conception of His greatness and is most obedient to His commands, consulting the will of his divine Friend about all actions, continually asking if this is His will and way, constantly looking to Jesus and lifting the heart to God in every perplexity and uncertainty. The character then bears witness that the Saviour has entered the life to direct all and pervade all, with confidence in Him as strength.
Meeting these conditions is the substance of God's covenant with His people, upon which God fulfills His promises to those who prove true and faithful. Christ laid down His life to give the human family another trial to form such characters that God can safely call them sons and daughters, members of the royal family, children of the heavenly King. Heart obedience held firm to the end brings blessing, with full joy remaining in the obedient, and Christ Himself is filled with joy when souls turn from darkness to light and from error to truth. Refusal to comply with Christ's conditions in John 15-17, which instruction from God about receiving Christ's grace is needed by all who claim to be Christians and is to be presented in every home, leaves people unworthy to stand among His people when He comes in glory.
The verse reveals with power how much grace is available and how little of it is grasped. Christ loves people not because they are perfect but because through Him they can be sanctified through the truth and obey the truth, calling believers to be laborers together with Jesus Christ in God to glorify God. God sent Jesus to make it possible for humanity to grasp divinity so that divinity could lift humanity to become one with Jesus Christ and to oneness with God. This oneness is a privilege to be claimed by taking hold of the divine nature and becoming partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust, and not coming up to this standard resists the influence of His Holy Spirit and the work being done by Christ.
Living Out Sacrificial Love
In appreciation of Christ's great sacrifice, the greatest love is to follow His pattern by sacrificing one's own life in service so that others may be blessed, helped, strengthened, and grow in Christ. Selfishness is to be purged from character, selfish pleasures given up, and self-denial practiced to help others grow in holiness and save them from harm, showing love for Jesus rather than for pleasure and the world. This self-giving love is a principle to be cultivated and practiced together with keeping His commandments, shown not only in words but in actions that lead others toward Christ and obedience to God, and making His love visible in one's own life. Such self-sacrificing love, ready to sacrifice for another's good, is the test of discipleship and the evidence that Christ lives within.
Those who receive Him are ready to sacrifice all for their Redeemer, putting His honor and glory before everything else. His sacrifice to save is so great that any sacrifice made in following duty is small by comparison, yet it should inspire doing one's best for Him. His example calls His followers to love one another and to live in unity as His friends in obedience to His commands. That unity requires refusing to draw apart, putting pride at the feet of Christ, and putting away pettishness, envy, jealousy, evil surmising, strife, malice, and hatred, so as to reveal Christ's character and bear the good fruit by which all know Christians. As distinct branches of the true Vine drawing all sustenance from one Source, workers are to do their God-given work in perfect unity and love as workers together with God, bearing fruit to His glory without erasing each distinct work.
That fruitfulness requires daily emptying the heart of self and of hereditary and cultivated tendencies to wrong, depending wholly on Christ, wearing His yoke and receiving His Spirit, and revealing love, patience, forbearance, meekness, and lowliness in thoughts, words, and acts. Christian character shaped by this pattern is shown in words and actions that help others, serve them, and help save souls through obedience to God's Word. Co-laboring with Jesus to bring people to the truth bears first-order fruit and calls for conversion and entering a covenant with God by sacrifice. What God entrusts is to be used to serve and bless the needy rather than to seek wealth, status, or self-exaltation, laboring and speaking of His beauty at every opportunity and neglecting no duty to share the truth and bring others to Him.
Toward an erring brother this love means willingness even to lay down life to save him from error and danger to his soul. One made willing by Christ's redeeming sacrifice to give life to save others can approach the one who has done wrong tenderly and reach his heart, rather than driving him away by censure. It lays down self by working as a co-worker with Christ, sacrificing personal feelings, ideas, and dignity to help others, taking back one who has been an adversary and caused hurt, accepting confession, heeding pleading for another trial, opening the door and welcoming the straying sheep without closing the door of hope, and acting as Christ would act in the same place. Christ revealed in character has transforming power, and His word works through such a person as a quiet, persuasive influence to renew others.
In the home the light and impressions God gives parents for guiding children must be shared without delay, with Christ's teaching to His disciples shaping household conduct. The call is to enter a covenant with God to begin living this Christlike love at home as learners dependent on His help and grace. Fathers and mothers must never fall into a scolding line, which gains nothing, but must bring children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and teach them the love, nurture, and knowledge of Jesus Christ, presenting this instruction in every home. Christ's rule is not that of a taskmaster, and His loving self-sacrifice is the pattern for a husband's tender, loving care of his wife.
This love governs daily life by watching the tone of thoughts, watching words spoken, and watching unto prayer, walking humbly with God without relying on personal merit and hiding life in Christ after His example. Since Jesus suffered to save those who were perishing for eternal life, His followers are to be willing to suffer for Him rather than sin against God or shrink from the cost of faithfulness. They are to be brave soldiers for Him to save their souls from ruin, obeying God over man when keeping the Lord's Sabbath is at stake even at the cost of discord, blame, and misery from a husband's displeasure and tyranny. Christ accompanies those who work with Him for victory, so His workers are never alone in that work.
The lesson of the chapter is to be read, believed to mean just what it says, obeyed, practiced in daily life, and lived out before fellow ministers and fellow workers after conversion. Its vital lesson is that followers must remain distinct from the world, live in obedience, receive and live out His teaching in character and conduct, believe in Him to receive everlasting life, and acknowledge the truth in godliness and holiness. Love for one another calls for pressing together and sparing nothing while living for God, willing even to lay down lives for each other. Willingness to lay down life to save souls marks the warm-hearted, self-denying, self-sacrificing members of the church militant, which is not yet the church triumphant. Though the church also contains unconverted, cold, proud, haughty, un-Christlike, and inconsistent members through lack of abiding in Christ, their presence gives no reason to associate with them or to become accusers of the brethren, for tares grow together with the wheat. More fully understanding the supreme measure and importance of Christ's self-sacrificing willingness to give His life for the world keeps disciples from alienation and strife.
No greater love exists than giving one's own life for one's friends. Jesus Himself showed that love by dying on the cross to save those who were perishing so they might have eternal life. He even went beyond that measure, giving His life not only for friends but for enemies. He commands His followers to love one another with that same self-sacrificing love, which is the testimony that they are His disciples. Those who do whatever He commands are His friends, continuing in His love and bringing forth lasting fruit.
Setting in Farewell Discourse
The words were spoken in the upper chamber to the eleven disciples alone after Judas had left, when Christ looked upon them with divine love and tenderest sympathy and was about to tell them of His approaching separation from them. They belong to His farewell words and instruction given just before He was separated from the disciples, among His last words before His crucifixion near the close of His earthly ministry. They were spoken shortly before He was handed over to persecutors, with betrayal, scourging, and a cruel death before Him, and His approaching death itself expresses that supreme love for His disciples.
Although that cruel death was before Him, His thoughts were not on Himself but on comforting them and preparing them for their future work, and His words to them were full of hope and meant to bring comfort, courage, consolation, and strength of faith to endure without failing when severely tried. He knew every phase of experience and every conflict they would meet, was grieved that they must pass through manifold afflictions, trials, temptations, and opposition from the world, and prepared them for that time of trial and great temptation to lose faith. God made every provision through faith in Jesus Christ that they should not fail nor be discouraged in the dark, troubled future He knew must come, and Jesus mingled bright, hopeful lines with the dark by setting before them the hopeful part of the future.
The verse is part of John 13-17, and with John 14-16 it plainly outlines God's will, gives the philosophy of genuine missionary work, and contains the divine antidote for the sin of the whole world by which believers are made one with Christ in this present life to be one with Him throughout eternity. With the rest of those chapters it is full of encouragement and hope, so simple that even children may understand, imparting courage to stand fast in the most trying hour and bringing strength and assurance to the true believer as long as time shall last. With John 14, 16, and 17, John 15 is of highest value for every soul consecrating life to the service of God, needed by all who claim to be Christians and to be presented in every home as instruction from God about receiving Christ's grace. It is to be believed in every verse and lived out, studied carefully and practiced, and understood with new enlightenment through the influence of God's Spirit, calling for conversion and reconversion in those who minister in word and doctrine.
The disciples did not understand the full meaning of the command to love as Christ loved, and the new part of that commandment, until after His sufferings, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, when that love was revealed and they began to grasp what the love of God comprehended. Only after the resurrection did those upper-chamber words begin to be fully understood, and afterward they brought comfort and hope in discouragement and trial. Peter's claim that he would lay down his life for Jesus touched the same subject of willingness to die for another, but he soon denied Jesus three times. Before speaking of His separation, Christ pointed to the great object of His mission which He kept ever before Him, and His joy that all His humiliation and suffering would glorify the Father's name.
Meaning of Greatest Love
No greater, higher, or more unsurpassed love exists than for a person to lay down his life for his friends, and this is the greatest love any person can show. This supreme self-sacrifice is Christ's own love, given as the command, pattern, model, and measure for loving one another as He has loved, yet few who claim to be Christians obey it, while those who do whatever He commands are His friends. That greatest love is self-giving, self-sacrificing, broad, full, pure, disinterested, heavenly love flowing from a renewed heart to others and to the fallen and needy throughout the world. It is not selfish, changeable, dependent on praise, or self-seeking, and it does not center upon one favorite or two or express itself in lovesick attitudes, lovesick words, special preferences, and special affection for one or two. Without this heavenly principle even good intentions and extreme acts of generosity are nothing, and no one can be like Christ, for it loves others because they belong to Christ who purchased them.
This love goes beyond loving a neighbor as oneself, for the full meaning of loving as Christ loved was revealed only when His death showed the high, unselfish character of heavenly love. Jesus went even beyond the measure stated in the verse, for He gave His life not only for friends but for enemies, and His death at Calvary made salvation available to all sinful people as love without parallel. His death on the cross and on Calvary demonstrated and revealed the full extent, character, and measure of that unselfish love for His disciples. That love cannot be measured, but it is known in that He offered Himself as a living sacrifice in humiliation and suffering, paying the price of salvation.
Such self-giving love shown by Christ calls people away from self-justification toward a softened and subdued spirit shaped by His love.
Christ's Death for Friends
Greater love is fulfilled in Christ laying down His life for His friends and disciples, dying on the cross of Calvary to save those who were perishing so that they might have eternal life in God's kingdom. He suffered so that people might have eternal life, was crucified so each might enter God's city, and as He was about to give His life He called His disciples His friends.
In that sacrifice He laid aside His glory, riches, and crown, came in the garb of humanity and took the form of a servant so that His humanity might meet humanity, and endured humiliation, suffering, and death on the cross. He took human nature to join divine power with human weakness, humbling Himself to lift humanity, and He pledged His life while men were yet in sin. He gave His life and shed His own blood as ransom and purchase price, by which He purchased His people.
By that whole sacrifice He brings sinners to God, frees them from sin, and cleanses them from all iniquity by His blood, so that a whole salvation can be claimed by faith. He gave the human family another trial to form such characters that God can safely call them sons and daughters, members of the royal family, children of the heavenly King. That same sacrifice made it possible for people to keep God's commandments, and through His humbling of Himself He shares His blessings, honor, and glory with believers.
As Substitute and Surety He met the perfect standard of obedience, and His death as an offering for sin exalted the law and made it honorable rather than abolishing or weakening it. His death paid the ransom for all who accept Him as personal Saviour, and calls people to turn from sin, be converted, and work together with God.
There is love for the sinner but hatred for the sin, so He does not leave His tempted ones with eyes nearly blind to their own imperfections, but rebukes and chastens those He loves to bring them to see themselves, repent, and be healed. As Redeemer His greater love reaches toward tempted, deceived, perverse, almost destroyed souls with mercy and compassion, taking the poor deluded soul by the hand, surrounding with favorable influence, refusing to leave alone when ruin threatens, receiving and helping heavenward without waiting for evidence of transformation, since the Holy Spirit alone molds experience after the divine similitude. As faithful Friend He bears their sins and griefs, shares their sorrows, knows their weaknesses, and serves as refuge and shield.
Jesus' love in giving His life to save those He loves surpasses the love of father, mother, sister, brother, or friend. That gift is reason for gratitude and for dwelling on His character, studying His life, and seeking to imitate His sinless example.
Command to Love One Another
Christ gives a decided, positive command that His followers love one another as He has loved them, taking His own self-sacrificing love as the command, pattern, measure, model, and standard. The greatest love is shown when a person lays down life for friends, and that supreme example of self-sacrifice is the ground and definition of the love commanded toward one another. Those who do whatever He commands are His friends.
The command requires doers who obey it in practice, yet few who claim to be Christians obey it and its keeping is far above present practice. Obedience is to be fulfilled through the Holy Spirit of love, and when obeyed it makes believers one as Christ is in the Father and the Father in Him, with glorious result. He no longer calls such obedient ones servants but friends, because He has made known to them all He heard from the Father, having chosen and ordained them to go and bring forth lasting fruit so that the Father will give whatever they ask in His name.
They are to love one another because they love Jesus and because others belong to Christ, who purchased them with His blood, His sinless life and sacrifice. That purchase is the Father's gift of His only begotten Son, to be claimed by faith with unreserved surrender, letting Christ's will become the will and molding words, deeds, and character into the divine likeness. His death on the cross revealed the high, unselfish character of the love commanded, which is not selfish, changeable, or dependent on praise.
That love is the testimony by which all will know they are His disciples, that Christ is formed within as the hope of glory, and that they belong to Christ. Keeping God's commandments is its evidence, meaning to love God supremely and neighbor as self, which fulfills the law, while mere profession of keeping them proves nothing without love to God and love to neighbor lived after that pattern. Its meaning is practical and complete: perceive God's love because He laid down His life, lay down lives for the brethren, give this world's goods to a brother in need rather than shutting up compassion, and love not in word or tongue but in deed and in truth until mind, soul, and strength harmonize with the divine life.
Friendship Through Obedience and Fruit
Those who do whatever Christ commands are His friends, and obedience to His commands is the evidence of friendship with God, leaving churches and individuals without excuse. Few who claim to be Christians obey His command and pattern to love one another as He has loved them with the greatest love that lays down life for friends, yet the terms are simple and clear and are to be practiced in daily life. That love is not love of self nor love for the highest place, and obedience to it requires God's Holy Spirit of love, resulting in believers becoming one as Christ is in the Father and the Father in Him. It rests on Christ's sacrifice and sinless life by which He purchased sinners as the Father's gift of His only begotten Son, to be claimed by faith with unreserved surrender, letting Christ's will become the will and molding words, deeds and character into the divine likeness.
He no longer calls obedient disciples servants who do not know what their lord does, but friends to whom He has made known all things He heard from the Father. Those loved and chosen by Him are chosen and ordained to go and bring forth lasting fruit that remains, so that the Father will give whatever they ask in His name. Faithful obedience makes believers one with Christ and proves discipleship, and the command requires doers, for its keeping is far above present practice. Through this close friendship believers represent Christ's character to those around and speak words of hope and faith to sinners, thus bearing fruit to the glory of God, through which the world can see that humanity may lay hold of divinity and receive strength to overcome.
Continuing in His love, the same love with which the Father loved Him, comes by keeping His commandments as He kept His Father's commandments. Abiding in Him as branches abide in the vine, without whom nothing can be done, enables bearing much fruit that glorifies the Father and proves discipleship. Abiding in Him and His words abiding brings receiving whatever is asked, and having His joy remain full with a full joy that can come only from Christ. With it come His strength, upholding hand and efficiency giving vantage ground, peace and deliverance from temptation, with implicit trust in God bringing new light in darkness, guidance of the Holy Spirit into all truth, and gladness expressed in countenance, life and character. True branches have a living, vital connection with Christ, unlike spurious branches, and believers must abide in Him and live for the good of others.
That close friendship and familiar intercourse is a connection all need to enter though it is often neglected, in which temptation will come but need not be yielded to. Faithful servants who do their best for their Master are promoted to positions of trust and admitted to familiar intercourse with their Leader and to speak freely to God. The one who talks most familiarly with his divine Leader gains the most exalted conception of His greatness and is most obedient to His commands, consulting the will of his divine Friend about all actions, continually asking if this is His will and way, constantly looking to Jesus and lifting the heart to God in every perplexity and uncertainty. The character then bears witness that the Saviour has entered the life to direct all and pervade all, with confidence in Him as strength.
Meeting these conditions is the substance of God's covenant with His people, upon which God fulfills His promises to those who prove true and faithful. Christ laid down His life to give the human family another trial to form such characters that God can safely call them sons and daughters, members of the royal family, children of the heavenly King. Heart obedience held firm to the end brings blessing, with full joy remaining in the obedient, and Christ Himself is filled with joy when souls turn from darkness to light and from error to truth. Refusal to comply with Christ's conditions in John 15-17, which instruction from God about receiving Christ's grace is needed by all who claim to be Christians and is to be presented in every home, leaves people unworthy to stand among His people when He comes in glory.
The verse reveals with power how much grace is available and how little of it is grasped. Christ loves people not because they are perfect but because through Him they can be sanctified through the truth and obey the truth, calling believers to be laborers together with Jesus Christ in God to glorify God. God sent Jesus to make it possible for humanity to grasp divinity so that divinity could lift humanity to become one with Jesus Christ and to oneness with God. This oneness is a privilege to be claimed by taking hold of the divine nature and becoming partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust, and not coming up to this standard resists the influence of His Holy Spirit and the work being done by Christ.
Living Out Sacrificial Love
In appreciation of Christ's great sacrifice, the greatest love is to follow His pattern by sacrificing one's own life in service so that others may be blessed, helped, strengthened, and grow in Christ. Selfishness is to be purged from character, selfish pleasures given up, and self-denial practiced to help others grow in holiness and save them from harm, showing love for Jesus rather than for pleasure and the world. This self-giving love is a principle to be cultivated and practiced together with keeping His commandments, shown not only in words but in actions that lead others toward Christ and obedience to God, and making His love visible in one's own life. Such self-sacrificing love, ready to sacrifice for another's good, is the test of discipleship and the evidence that Christ lives within.
Those who receive Him are ready to sacrifice all for their Redeemer, putting His honor and glory before everything else. His sacrifice to save is so great that any sacrifice made in following duty is small by comparison, yet it should inspire doing one's best for Him. His example calls His followers to love one another and to live in unity as His friends in obedience to His commands. That unity requires refusing to draw apart, putting pride at the feet of Christ, and putting away pettishness, envy, jealousy, evil surmising, strife, malice, and hatred, so as to reveal Christ's character and bear the good fruit by which all know Christians. As distinct branches of the true Vine drawing all sustenance from one Source, workers are to do their God-given work in perfect unity and love as workers together with God, bearing fruit to His glory without erasing each distinct work.
That fruitfulness requires daily emptying the heart of self and of hereditary and cultivated tendencies to wrong, depending wholly on Christ, wearing His yoke and receiving His Spirit, and revealing love, patience, forbearance, meekness, and lowliness in thoughts, words, and acts. Christian character shaped by this pattern is shown in words and actions that help others, serve them, and help save souls through obedience to God's Word. Co-laboring with Jesus to bring people to the truth bears first-order fruit and calls for conversion and entering a covenant with God by sacrifice. What God entrusts is to be used to serve and bless the needy rather than to seek wealth, status, or self-exaltation, laboring and speaking of His beauty at every opportunity and neglecting no duty to share the truth and bring others to Him.
Toward an erring brother this love means willingness even to lay down life to save him from error and danger to his soul. One made willing by Christ's redeeming sacrifice to give life to save others can approach the one who has done wrong tenderly and reach his heart, rather than driving him away by censure. It lays down self by working as a co-worker with Christ, sacrificing personal feelings, ideas, and dignity to help others, taking back one who has been an adversary and caused hurt, accepting confession, heeding pleading for another trial, opening the door and welcoming the straying sheep without closing the door of hope, and acting as Christ would act in the same place. Christ revealed in character has transforming power, and His word works through such a person as a quiet, persuasive influence to renew others.
In the home the light and impressions God gives parents for guiding children must be shared without delay, with Christ's teaching to His disciples shaping household conduct. The call is to enter a covenant with God to begin living this Christlike love at home as learners dependent on His help and grace. Fathers and mothers must never fall into a scolding line, which gains nothing, but must bring children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and teach them the love, nurture, and knowledge of Jesus Christ, presenting this instruction in every home. Christ's rule is not that of a taskmaster, and His loving self-sacrifice is the pattern for a husband's tender, loving care of his wife.
This love governs daily life by watching the tone of thoughts, watching words spoken, and watching unto prayer, walking humbly with God without relying on personal merit and hiding life in Christ after His example. Since Jesus suffered to save those who were perishing for eternal life, His followers are to be willing to suffer for Him rather than sin against God or shrink from the cost of faithfulness. They are to be brave soldiers for Him to save their souls from ruin, obeying God over man when keeping the Lord's Sabbath is at stake even at the cost of discord, blame, and misery from a husband's displeasure and tyranny. Christ accompanies those who work with Him for victory, so His workers are never alone in that work.
The lesson of the chapter is to be read, believed to mean just what it says, obeyed, practiced in daily life, and lived out before fellow ministers and fellow workers after conversion. Its vital lesson is that followers must remain distinct from the world, live in obedience, receive and live out His teaching in character and conduct, believe in Him to receive everlasting life, and acknowledge the truth in godliness and holiness. Love for one another calls for pressing together and sparing nothing while living for God, willing even to lay down lives for each other. Willingness to lay down life to save souls marks the warm-hearted, self-denying, self-sacrificing members of the church militant, which is not yet the church triumphant. Though the church also contains unconverted, cold, proud, haughty, un-Christlike, and inconsistent members through lack of abiding in Christ, their presence gives no reason to associate with them or to become accusers of the brethren, for tares grow together with the wheat. More fully understanding the supreme measure and importance of Christ's self-sacrificing willingness to give His life for the world keeps disciples from alienation and strife.