As the Father has loved me, I also have loved you abide in my love.
Jesus turns here from fruit-bearing to the love that fruit grows in. He gives that love one measure — the Father's love for Him — and then tells His disciples to stay in it.
How much does Christ love His own? He does not answer with a size. He answers with a standard.
He gives us, as the only measure of the love with which He loves us, the Father's love for Himself, His well-beloved Son. We may well say, "it surpasses knowledge." And His love never changes. It is "the same yesterday" — when He first set His heart upon us, dead in our sins — "today, and forever." Our understanding of it may change, but His love never can.
When Jesus said this, He was living a life of obedience on earth. That matters for which love He means.
This is not just the eternal love of the Father to the Son. It is divine love to one walking in this world, whose word was, "I always do the things that are pleasing to him." This love took up the disciples as they walked down here. He could put them in the same relation to Himself that He was in to His Father.
That detail shapes what we can expect. This love walks with a person through hardship.
This was a love that entered into all the sorrows of His path, all the hostility He had to meet, and the sufferings He had to endure. In the same way, Christ loves us with a love that enters into all our trials. It feels for us in perfect sympathy in all our sorrows. In our case it also bears with us in all our failures, and restores our souls when we have wandered far from Him. Whatever we have to meet, we can count on a love that never changes and will continue to the end.
"Abide" is a command, and a command can sound like a price we must pay for the love. Commentators read it the other way round.
The love of Christ rests on the way of obedience, and shines along the path of His commandments. Keeping His commandments does not create the love, any more than walking in sunny places creates the sunshine. So the call is not to seek or earn or gain the love. It is to remain in it, by continuing in the state and life to which alone it belongs.
So what does staying in it look like day by day?
If there is in us a spirit of simple obedience to Him, we abide in His love. If we do a thing because He said it, we abide in His love.
Earlier in the chapter the call was to abide in Christ. Here the wording changes.
When He had said "abide in Me," life is more prominent — that is, to depend on Him for the life by which to bear fruit. But to abide in His love emphasises that love as the dwelling of the soul. It is the warm, precious comfort of communion with One who delights in the fellowship of His own.
The next verse ties abiding to keeping His commandments. The reason given is not that love is withdrawn from the disobedient, but that a guilty heart cannot rest in it.
If we walk in disobedience we have a condemning heart, and we grieve the Holy Spirit. Then our own failures fill our minds instead of the love of Christ. But if we walk in obedience, we keep our closeness to Him, and our confidence in Him remains unbroken.
There is a plain test of whether we are living in this love. A person can keep clear of evil and still go dry.
A man may be very dry in his soul, unlovely and unloving, and yet be a separate man... Think of a Christian who becomes fault-finding, critical of others, and harsh in his judgments. He sets up his own opinions — or perhaps his own conscience — as a standard for others. One thing is certain: he has not been breathing the atmosphere of love that keeps the soul fresh and makes us patient and kind.
- Measure — Christ measures His love for us by the Father's love for Him. It surpasses knowledge. Our grasp of it can change; His love cannot.
- Manner — This is the love that rested on Jesus as He walked here. So it enters our trials, bears with our failures, and restores us.
- Dwelling — "Abide in Me" speaks of drawing life. "Abide in My love" makes that love the home of the soul, the place of communion with Him.
- Sunshine — Obedience does not create the love, any more than walking in sunny places creates the sunshine. It keeps us where the love shines.
- Freshness — Out of that atmosphere a soul turns dry, harsh and critical. In it, the soul stays fresh, patient and kind.
If ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.
Jesus has just told His disciples to remain in His love, and now He shows how, pointing to His own life as the pattern. Does obedience earn Christ's love, or does it do something else?
The command is not to get the love but to stay in it. Hamilton Smith quotes words he approves:
The love of Christ rests on the way of obedience, and shines along the path of His commandments. Keeping His commandments does not create the love, any more than walking in sunny places creates the sunshine. So we are not told to seek or earn or gain the love. We are told to remain in it by continuing in the state and life to which alone it belongs.
So which side can change? One writer notes what the verse does not say:
So far as we walk in a way that pleases Him, we abide in Christ's love, and the heart is always going out to Him. It does not say His love abides, for that never changes.
The word "commandments" here does not point back to the law. It covers the whole body of what Christ said and was:
"His commandments" are not the tables of the law, but the various communications by which the Lord has shown the perfection of His divine Person. The words, the precepts, and commandments that came from His mouth were the expression of the life He lived here on earth. They now become the light that directs that life in us. The law says, "Do this, and you will live." On that footing no one has obeyed. But Christ, who was the life, obeyed. Being in Christ through grace we inherit this position. We receive from Him a life freely given, which places us and leads us in the path of obedience. Christ who obeyed is our life.
So none of His words can be skipped: "I must take in every word, or I may have something wrong in my mind by leaving out" (J. N. Darby).
The second half of the verse points to Christ's own experience. The love He speaks of is not the love the Father had for the Son in eternity, but the love that surrounded Him as a man walking a path of obedience:
It is not here simply the eternal love of the Father to the Son. It is divine love to One walking in this world, whose word was, "I always do the things that are pleasing to him." This same love took up the disciples as they walked here on earth. He could put them in the same relation to Himself that He was in to His Father... He gives Himself as our example: "just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love." I need not say how He remained in it! ... If there is in us a spirit of simple obedience to Him, we abide in His love. If we do a thing because He said it, we abide in His love.
What happens when a believer walks the other way? The love does not stop, but the enjoyment of it does:
If we walk in disobedience we have a condemning heart, and this grieves the Holy Spirit. So we are taken up with our own failures and not with the love of Christ. But if we walk in obedience, we stay close to Him, and our confidence in Him remains unbroken. An obedient child lives close to his father in happiness, and enjoys the love that belongs to a son with his father. A disobedient child still knows his father loves him. But he does not enjoy that closeness, which is the privilege of every obedient child.
Carelessness and obedience lead to two different outcomes:
The result is this. Where there is carelessness in one who belongs to Christ, in a living branch of the vine, the Father as the gardener prunes him in judgment. Where habitual obedience is found, there is habitual enjoyment of Christ's love.
Christ knew that enjoyment first — "His full enjoyment of the Father's love which He found in keeping His commandments" (The Christian's Friend).
- Sunshine, not wages. Obedience never creates Christ's love; it walks you into the sunlit place where that love shines.
- Love fixed, enjoyment variable. The verse never says His love abides on condition — it says we abide. What changes is our side, never His.
- Commandments, not tablets. These are Christ's own words and life. They are not a law code that offers life in return for performance.
- His path, then ours. He kept the Father's commandments as a man in this world and stayed in that love. He walks the road first, then calls us onto it.
- Ending in joy. Steady obedience means steady enjoyment of His love — the same enjoyment of the Father's love that He knew Himself.