What did Jesus say about keeping the commandments?

"His commandments" are not the tables of the law, but the various communications by which the Lord has shewn the perfection of His divine Person. The words, the precepts, and commandments which emanated from His mouth, were the expression of the life manifested by Him here below, and they become the light which now directs that life in us. The law says, "This do and thou shalt live." On this 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. What He was upon earth directs His life in us. His commandments are based upon the life which He has given us.

But the Lord adds a great deal more, and of the deepest moment. "If ye love Me, keep (or ye will keep) My commandments276; and I will request† the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete, that He may be with you for ever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it beholdeth Him not, nor knoweth Him; but ye know Him, because He abideth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you orphans, I am coming unto you. Yet a little, and the world beholdeth Me no more; but ye behold Me: because I live, ye also shall live " (verses 15-19). The way to show their affection and devotedness to their Master would be by obedience; for, whatever His grace, He does not disguise from them His authority. To obey His commandments, then, would prove their love far better than zeal in work or in sorrow for His absence; for His absence, however serious in itself, is turned by God's goodness and wisdom to better blessings and deeper ways for the saints, even as it furnishes the occasion for bringing out the hidden counsels of God to His own infinite glory in Christ. Their place was to obey His commandments, as they loved Him; whilst He would pray the Father, Who would send them another,277a a Paraclete or Advocate, as He Himself had been, One who would undertake and carry through their cause, as a Roman patron of old did for his clients or a modern solicitor does now in his little measure. "Comforter"‡ seems too narrow a word, and separates the Spirit unduly from our Lord, Who could hardly be so styled in 1 John 2:1, where Paraclete is applied to His action on high, as here to the Holy Ghost's on earth. BL, etc. (ℵ, 33, 69pm, τηρήσητε) τηρήσετε, "ye will keep." So W. and H. [Weiss and Blass] edit. [Syrsin has " keep."] † It is of interest, and even of importance, to mark the distinctness of ἐρωτάω, as used of Christ with the Father, and αἰτέω of the disciples. Scripture nowhere predicates of Him the last or supplicatory expression, save in Martha's mouth [11:22], whose faith, though real, was low. Christ uses ἐπ. in speaking to the Father, as the disciples use αἰτ. to Him, and both words to Christ. The word ἐπ. is also employed in the sense of "interrogating," or "questioning."277 ‡ Philologically it is hard, not to say impossible, to conceive the Greek term meaning "Comforter." Its structure and usage alike point to one "called to aid," as a cognate but different form signifies a comforter. This a Paraclete may well be; but He is far more, and summoned for every difficulty and need. So is the Paraclete, and in an infinite way, as a Divine Person. To comfort is but a small part of His functions. "Advocate" might do, as in 1 John 2:1. [See, further, "Exposition of the Epistles," p. 56 ff.]

He first of all tries their hearts as to their response: “If ye love Me, keep My commandments.” He is surely saying, “Am I dear to your hearts as your Lord? Then hold very dear what I say to you!”

The Lord then speaks of the way to the Father — Himself — and of the manner in which we treat that which flows from His lips. "If ye love me, keep my commandments." The way in which the coming of the Comforter is connected with this is noticeable, and I believe there is a great moral lesson here, viz., that unless there is love for the Lord, and His behests, we shall not get the enjoyment of that, which He speaks of in this chapter. Be that as it may, observe the order, "If ye love me, keep my commandments, and I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever." The Lord had been their Comforter while here, and now He was going away. In John's first epistle we read, "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (1 John 2:1). Now the word there rendered "advocate" is the same word that is translated "Comforter," twice in the fourteenth of John, once in the fifteenth, and once in the sixteenth. Only five times in Scripture do we find the word; on four occasions applied to the Holy Ghost, viewed as come to earth, and once to the Lord Himself, when in glory. We have therefore, you see, in that sense, two Comforters, and yet the word Comforter can never fully express what the Greek word parakletos means. There is indeed the sense of an Advocate, as given in John's epistle, "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." The Lord Jesus occupies this character, as well as that of a Priest. As a Priest He maintains His people before God. As an Advocate He pleads with the Father, for the erring child that has turned aside. As a priest He maintains the believer, if in weakness here, in consistency with the place, that the value of His blood has set him in, before God. His advocacy, however, is with the Father, on behalf of, and of course only realised by, those who are God's children, and has to do with the restoration of communion, when it has been interrupted by any allowance of the flesh.

Love and obedience are the great qualifications for entrance into these deeper experiences. Already the Lord has said, "If ye love Me, keep My commandments," now He says, "He that has My commandments and keeps them, he is it that loves Me." It has been truly said that the former presented love as the spring of obedience, the latter obedience as the proof of love. Every expression of the Father's mind was a commandment to Christ, and in the same way every expression of the mind of Christ is a command to the one that loves Him. The one that loves Christ shall be loved of the Father and of Christ. Such an one would be made conscious in a special way of the love of divine Persons. To such the Lord would manifest Himself.

There are two necessary prerequisites on the part of His own. It was not sufficient that they be troubled in heart, let them prove their love for their departing Lord. "If ye love Me, keep My commandments." Obedience is ever the proof of love. "To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams."

(V. 15). It is not a little striking the way the Lord introduces the great theme of the coming of the Holy Spirit. He says, "If ye love Me keep My commandments." In the course of the Gospel of John we have heard again and again of the Lord's love to the disciples, now for the first time we hear of the disciples' love to the Lord. The gift of the Spirit is thus connected with a company of people who love and obey the Lord. For such a company the Lord delights to pray to the Father to give the Comforter. Moreover do not these words indicate that the experiences enjoyed in the power of the Spirit can only be known by one who is living a life of love and obedience to the Lord?

Here, beloved Christian reader, lies the grand motive-spring of all Christian obedience. Life is the ground; love the spring. “If ye love Me, keep My commandments.” And again, “He that has My commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves Me; and he that loves Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him and will manifest Myself to him.” How precious! Who can adequately set forth the blessedness of this manifestation of Christ to the obedient heart? Should we not earnestly long to know more of it? Can we expect it if we are living in the habitual neglect of His holy commandments? It is “he that has My commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves Me.”

He that hath My commandments and treasures them up, keeps them, not obeys them merely. It is a privilege to have a directing word from the Lord — it is commandment, injunction, the steppingstone to put my foot on as I go along. Very precious that word "keepeth," that is what the word is here, it involves distinct obedience. You never treasure up a word from anyone if you do not obey it. The love remains after the opportunity has passed for meeting His mind. "He that loveth Me shall be loved of my Father." You and I ought to be able to say, I love the Lord, and to say it to Himself — not in the coarse way many boast of their love to Him, without seeing what His love has been to them. "We love Him because He first loved us." Peter, when the Lord speaks to him — Peter says first, "I love, yes, I love." Then he says, "Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee." He takes Him on the ground of His divine glory, and the Lord cannot deny that He has given warmth to Peter's heart. Peter could therefore say it, and say it boldly. It is different — the consciousness of love to Christ when in the secret of God's presence, and when in the world. When in the world I say, "They do not know His word, I do; they have no regard for Christ, I have, and am dependent upon Him." The Holy Ghost is given to us (Rom. 5), proved by our obedience to the known will of God, enabling me to find out the things the Lord would have me to do, and behind which the word stands. I am one of His body, and have to do these things expressive of my obedience to Him.

He is then concerned to pray to bring full blessing of the knowledge of their real place, His real place for them to them, when by the Comforter they saw His glory. They knew that He was in the Father, but at the same time they knew that they were in Him. For thus seeing Him by the Spirit they knew their identity with Him; and He was in them, by virtue of which they saw all these things, "for he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit." There was the peculiar order (as we have seen) of the dispensation in which they stood, seeing, not as they did or ought to have done, the Father in Him, but their present (revealed to them as ever true) portion, Him (whom they loved) in the Father. But this necessarily involved their being in Him. Otherwise they would not have seen Him at all, for the world saw Him no more. And how was this sealed and known? He was in them. This was their position. For there is a break in the matter here again; that is, from verses 15 to 20 inclusive; and there are two parts: "If ye love me, keep my commandments." There is the consequence set first. Then Jesus' "I will ask." Now, we are sanctified to obedience, but then the Spirit by which we are so is grieved when it is not so in the love of Jesus; and therefore, though it be there, it is as though it was not there. Hence the Comforter was their portion, and there for their portion; for being quickened they are sanctified, quickened, to obedience, and Jesus asks the Father for them as members of His body - one Spirit. So it is, but not being practically obedient they have little of the joy or comfort of it, they walk comparatively speaking in darkness, as though they were really orphans when they are not; for He doth abide with them for ever. It is the Church's position, if there be any Church at all, I mean vitally, which there must be, or the Lord has failed. It is the Lord's word, necessarily He shall abide with you "for ever." Being given, it is given to them who do believe. The consequence of this was they would know, they would not be ignorant, and they would know more than now by virtue of this indwelling Spirit. Jesus in the Father, they in Him, and He in them; they would know this in and by this union and indwelling in corporation to Him so glorified, and that far from dead. Such was the union: because He lived, they would live, and by this life, the Comforter being present, know the union.

250 The Lord having spoken of the presence of the Comforter (this was the gift to the believers, and Jesus coming to them in His union with them, as Christ, filled with His Spirit), He now goes on to speak of His manifestation and abiding, that is, by virtue of the union of the Father with Him (as objectively His with the Father), the abiding of the Father and the Son with them. This was the portion of the informed believer (chanochs, taught in the house). "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, that is the person who loves me." Thus he is distinguished: having them, and keeping them. The world will say, How keep them, if we have not them? But the saint knows it is grace to have them, that it is grace finds them out by the revelation of God, that (found with desire through the grace of God) they are treasured with delight in that grace; that the discernment of grace finds them. How came John to be leaning on the bosom of Jesus? How, further, Paul to say, "The things which I speak are the commandments of the Lord"? Whence the judgment of the spiritual as to the Lord's mind? However, it is he that has and keeps them.