Jesus answered and said to him, If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him.
Judas — not Iscariot — had just asked why the Lord would show Himself to His followers and not to the world. This verse is His answer, and it ties three things together: love for Christ, keeping His word, and the Father and the Son coming to live with the one who loves.
The disciples had only known Christ in bodily presence. His answer points to another kind of presence.
He could not understand how the Lord would show Himself to them, and not to the world. They had of course never known a spiritual presence of Christ apart from a bodily one. The Lord answers him... He joins the Father with Himself. So it was plain, and Judas no doubt understood it, that He was speaking of showing Himself in spirit, and not in bodily presence.
Here the Lord asks for keeping His word, not only His commandments. One writer marks the difference:
The word differs from the commandments of Christ in one way only: it is the full revelation of His mind, while the commandments have to do with details — for instance, the often-repeated one, that we love one another. There is not a commandment for everything. But His word covers the whole range of life, and it leaves no room for the subtle plea of self-will that His will is not revealed.
One writer tells a story:
A loving mother goes out from her house one morning. Before she goes, she calls her daughter and names several jobs to do while she is out, and several more that she herself will do when she gets back. When she comes back, she finds her child has been obedient and has done what she was told. But when she turns to do the things she meant to do herself, she finds them all done. She says to her daughter, "I did not tell you to do these things." "No," replies the child, "but I thought you would be pleased if I did them." She has kept her mother's words... Keep My commandments, says the Lord, and I will pay you a visit; keep My word, and My Father and I will make our abode with you.
This verse names a love that is not where salvation starts:
It is not sovereign grace which first loves the poor sinner: here the Father loves the soul which shows its affection for the Saviour in keeping His words. It is fatherly government, the satisfaction of the Father's heart because the Son is honoured and obeyed.
The promise carries a condition:
See how large a blessing depends on our keeping His Word. Never overlook this: the love of the Father in this passage, and the Father and the Son coming to make their abode with us, are entirely conditional.
The Lord does not say "I". He speaks in the plural, and one writer counts that plural wider still.
One loving and obedient heart becomes the abode of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The shrine of the Trinity is in the heart of one who loves the Lord.
The word translated "home" here is the same word used in verse 2, which older translations render "mansions."
"We will take a mansion in his heart." It is a wonderful thing to say, "He has a mansion for me up there." But it is far more wonderful to think that He will come down and take a mansion for Jesus and the Father in our hearts!... The Father and the Son doing what? Visiting? No, but dwelling.
One writer sets the two homes in order:
Note the position of believers: until we make our home in the Father's house, He makes His home in us.
The promise names no rank, no setting and no advantage — only love and a treasured word.
Christ has gone to prepare an abode for you in the Father's house. So you prepare an abode in your house for the Father and the Son, as you love the Lord and treasure His word. It may be an attic up the stairs, with only a few sticks for furniture and not many comforts in this world. But there your Father and your Saviour will abide with you.
- Love starts it. It begins with affection for Christ, not with duty. Obedience is the evidence, not the cause.
- Word widens it. Commandments cover details. His word is the full revelation of His mind, and it leaves self-will no excuse.
- The Father joins it. His love here is His satisfaction in seeing His Son honoured. It is His dealing with a child, not grace first reaching a sinner.
- "We" enlarges it. Father and Son together — and by the Spirit — so that one obedient heart becomes their dwelling.
- Home crowns it. The word is the same as "mansions" in verse 2: until we go home to Him, He makes His home in us — dwelling, not visiting.
He that loves me not does not keep my words; and the word which ye hear is not mine, but [that] of the Father who has sent me.
On the evening before the cross, Jesus promised a home with the Father and the Son to anyone who loves Him and keeps His word. This verse turns that promise over, shows its other side, and traces His words back to the Father.
The verse works as a mirror. What a person does with the sayings of Jesus reveals what that person feels about Him.
His sayings, which carry His word to us, become the test of our love. They lead us to the word of the Father who sent Him. If we disregard them, we prove our claims of love for Him empty and insincere.
Commentators differ on who this half of the verse describes. Some say it marks off the unbeliever. Others read it as spoken to His own followers.
One who does not love Him does not keep His words (v. 24): he is not a believer.
The word of the Lord in verse 24 is clear, "Whoever does not love Me"; He is speaking to the Christian company, not to the world.
The chapter moves from His commandments, to His word, and then to His words. The shift raises the standard, not lowers it.
Now that He is absent, obedience must be tested more, and it is precious to Him because it is real. It should also grow, since it comes from life in the Spirit, as we come to know His will better. So it deepens from His commandments to His word. His commandments were not a burden; we treasure His word because we love Him.
Why "words" here, and not "word"? A heart that does not love never takes in the whole mind of Christ. It leaves the separate sayings unheeded.
The contrast is short and simple: "Whoever does not love Me does not keep My words." He does not say "word" here. "Word" means His mind as taught, given to a willing heart and ear, which takes His mind as a whole. But here the words are not kept. They are not taken as commandments either. The Lord does not press them as commandments here. His words are ignored.
Then comes the reason the stakes are so high. Jesus does not speak as a man offering His own opinions.
The Son passed on the Father's word with nothing mixed in, in all its purity, in the words He received from the Father. Accepting or refusing those words decided a person's attitude to the Father and to the Son.
That is why refusing His sayings is never a small thing.
He was not merely sent to speak for the Father. While the words were His, they were the Father's; and if they were His, they were the Father's. So there is real responsibility, and the mark of sin, in rejecting Him and not seeing the Father in Him.
Because every word He spoke came from the Father, nobody can plead that the claim on them was unclear.
Yet the word spoken by the Lord was not merely His own, but the Father's, this being another insistence on the fact that He was in no detail of His ministry independent of the Father: no one therefore has a valid excuse for not loving Him.
Why is this word worth keeping? Because of what His words hold.
His word — the word He says is not His own but the Father's — is the revelation of the Father and of the Son... When the Lord Jesus spoke those wonderful words revealing the Father's Name, they were not mere words such as we might speak; and the truth of the Father and the Son are not mere doctrines to be learned mentally and talked about, as we might talk about some science. These words revealed living Persons, and when you have got the words, you have got the Persons.
- Test — What you do with His sayings tests your love for Him; ignoring them proves the claim of love empty.
- Deepening — The call rises from commandments to word. His commandments were no burden, and we keep His word because we love Him.
- Source — The word He spoke was the Father's, passed on pure, with nothing mixed in.
- Weight — To reject His words is to miss the Father in Him. That is no small mistake; it is the mark of sin.
- Reward — Keep His word and you gain more than doctrine. His words reveal living Persons: have the words, and you have the Father and the Son.