In that day ye shall know that I [am] in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me; but he that loves me shall be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him.
It is the night before the cross, and Jesus is alone with His disciples. He gives them a test they can apply to themselves and a promise that is hard to take in: love shows itself in obedience, and obedience opens the door for Christ to show Himself to a person while the world sees nothing.
The Lord names two things, not one. You must have His commandments before you can keep them. And having them is itself grace.
"He that has my commandments, and keeps them, that is the person who loves me." So two things mark him out: having them, and keeping them. The world will say, How can we keep them if we do not have them? But the believer knows it is grace to have them. Grace finds them out by God's revelation. And when desire finds them by the grace of God, he treasures them with delight in that grace.
It can look odd that simply having His commandments should count as proof of love. But the wish to obey is what finds out what to obey.
To a shallow mind it may seem strange that our Lord speaks of having His commandments, and not only keeping them, as a proof of loving Him. But it is deeply true. The wicked, the disobedient, the careless, do not understand... The single eye is full of light. The desire to do His will finds and knows what it is. So the loving heart has and keeps His commandments. And in loving Him, it draws down His Father's love, for the Father honours the Son and will not be exalted at His expense.
The Lord had already put it the other way round. The two statements answer each other.
The Lord has already said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." Now He says, "Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me." As has been truly said, the first presented love as the spring of obedience; the second presents obedience as the proof of love. Every expression of the Father's mind was a commandment to Christ. In the same way, every expression of the mind of Christ is a command to the one who loves Him.
This obedience is not a rulebook. It listens for wishes.
One listens to the voice of divine wisdom, like a child who wants to please its parents, or a wife her husband. They notice the words of the parent or the husband, even when those words are not given as commands, and they know what they wish. So the Christian pays attention to the words of Jesus; he is familiar with what the Lord wills, and desires to do His will. This is the proof of true affection.
The love promised here is not the love that rescues a sinner. It is a Father's response to a child who is walking well.
This is not, "We love Him because He first loved us" — that is the work of grace. Here it is, "If a man loves Me, my Father will love him." This is God dealing with children. The question is not whether they are children, but whether they are obedient children... A parent does not scourge his child when it is doing well, nor is he pleased with it when it is doing ill.
Yet nothing here makes salvation something we earn.
They are saved by pure unconditional grace. But once saved, their blessing and their enjoyment of spiritual blessing depend on their walk, on obedience to the Word. They do not obey in order to be saved... Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ has brought them to God, and their blessing during their stay in this world depends on their submission to the mind and will of God.
The next verse records the confusion of one disciple, Jude. How could Jesus show Himself to them and not to the world?
When He speaks here of manifesting Himself, He means a showing of Himself, and from Him, to the soul. He makes the soul realise His presence and feel it. Jude does not understand this. He does not see how Jesus could show Himself to His own without showing Himself to the world. Sadly, it is just what too many Christians do not understand.
God loves every one of His children. But not every child enjoys the same nearness. The difference lies in the walk.
He loves all His children perfectly. But the one who follows the Lord most closely will enjoy the largest showing of that love. The Lord loved Peter as much as John, yet only John laid his head on the Saviour's breast... It was equally open to Peter; but Peter's own condition of soul was what kept him from enjoying it.
- Have — having His commandments is itself grace. The heart that wants His will is the heart that finds it.
- Keep — love is the spring of obedience, and obedience is the proof of love; the two verify each other.
- Loved — the Father's love here is His response to obedient children, not the love that first saved us.
- Manifest — Christ makes a soul aware of His presence, while the world sees nothing.
- Measure — the love is equal to all His own; the enjoyment of it is not. John leaned on His breast, and that place was open to Peter too.