What does it mean to love Jesus?

and glory of Jesus is unique. There is no one like Him. As we sometimes sing "We love Thee for the glorious worth which in Thyself we see". But is our love so great for Jesus that we can say to Him as Hiram said about David "my Lord". True love will be seen in us when we acknowledge that the Lord Jesus has supreme authority over us, and we do the things He tells us to do. "If ye love Me, keep My commandments" (John 14:15). True love for the Lord Jesus will be seen in the way we use whatever possession we have. Hiram used his servants and his goods to supply David with a palace. Our true love will be seen in the way we love the Lord's people, the way we use our homes, the way we use our time and the way we use ourselves for Him. In this context it is not our speaking that is important, it is our doing. To sum up, it means that to have a constant love like Hiram's for David, we must have a worshipful, obedient and practical love for our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Hiram was always a lover of David. Among all David's lovers he stands out as the best. May we all covet to be Hiramites.

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.

But there is meanwhile, and especially connected with Christ being in us, not yet government of the earth by Christ reigning righteously and in power, but moral government of our souls in obedience, which assumes a twofold shape. "He that hath My commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me; but he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him" (verse 21). To the superficial mind of man it may seem strange that our Lord should speak of having His commandments, not only keeping them, as a proof of loving Him; but it is profoundly true. The wicked, the disobedient, the careless, do not understand, but the wise, even those whose wisdom ends not, though it begins, with the fear of the Lord. The single eye is full of light. The desire to do His will finds and knows what it is. Thus the loving heart has and keeps His commandments; and, loving Him, draws down His Father's love, Who honours the Son and will not be exalted at His expense. Obedience springing from love is thus the condition of the disciples, which ensures the love of Jesus and the manifestation of Himself to us here below.

After that, the Lord establishes, as in all this part of the Gospel, man's responsibility, here that of the Christian, "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me" (v. 21). This supposes that we pay attention to what the Lord says: one listens to the voice of divine wisdom, as a child who seeks to please its parents, or a wife her husband, observing the words of the parents or the husband, without even their having the form of a commandment, and knowing what they wish. Thus the Christian attends to the words of Jesus; he is familiar with that which the Lord wills, and desires to do His will. This is the proof of true affection. Now, he who is thus attached in heart to Christ, and obeys Him, shall be loved of the Father, and Christ will come, and will manifest Himself to him. The manifestation of which He speaks here is a manifestation of Himself, and from Him, to the soul which He causes to realise His presence and makes him sensible of it. This is what Jude does not understand; he does not perceive how Jesus could be manifested to His own, without being manifested to the world (v. 22). Alas! it is just what too many Christians do not understand. Jude, too, was only thinking of some outward manifestation, of which the world could necessarily take knowledge; but the Lord was speaking of a manifestation such as we have just shewn, adding still something more permanent; that is, that if any one loved Jesus, he would keep, not only His commandments, but His words, so that the Father would love him, and that the Father and Son would come, and make their abode in him (v. 24).

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.

Those who love the Lord Jesus find delight in all that He has spoken and surely desire to know and to do His will. Of this the Lord said in John 14:21, "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me". When we think of who the Lord Jesus is, and what He has done for us, there is surely responsive affection in our hearts to Him, and the evidence of that love is our seeking to know what He desires us to be and to do for Him. His desires are expressed in His commandments, and these the true disciple values and seeks to do. The Lord then tells of the blessing that comes to those who value and do His commandments, "he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him".

We love Him then because He first loved us. And can it be that we shall not seek to express it? But do any ask, How can we know what would suit Him now? Ah! love finds it out, because it studies its object, as Mary did, sitting at the feet of Jesus. Thus she gained the instinctive intelligence with which she acted. Thus the Lord says, "He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me." The possession of intelligence of the mind and will of the Lord is the first-fruit and proof of love. And love needs to be guided by the intelligence it thus gains in order to express itself acceptably to the Lord. Mary of Magdala needed it when she conceived the thought of carrying away the dead body of the Lord. To what end? But she loved Him, and this detained her in the place where she acquired the intelligence in the richest way. Then again, love has its own way of expressing itself, that no mere intelligence could imitate, the Word indicating generally that obedience is that way. (1 John 5:3; John 14:21, 23; John 15:14.) But into how many innumerable details the principle enters, love finding its joyful liberty only in carrying out His will under His eye, into every particular of the life, love giving its peculiar character and acceptance to the obedience.

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.]

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.”

And then again, if the Lord spoke to her, He speaks here, beloved friends, no less to us. "When they had nothing to pay, He frankly forgave them both," is a word as definite as can be for any soul who is consciously in that condition. To all beggared and bankrupt souls, consciously that, the good news is here proclaimed of a forgiveness for them as clear, as free, as definite, as heart can desire. If your soul only says to Him, "Lord, I have nothing to pay," then you shall know the grace of a giving God. Without presumption, without pretension to be anything, without having to look into yourself to find anything, except sin and misery, you may, nay, you are called upon to appropriate to yourself a forgiveness which God has pronounced yours. The Gospel does not expect to find ready-made saints: it makes them. It is preached not to saints, but to sinners, and the first thing is to receive it as such, — God's good news, declaring the character of God, bringing His love into your souls to produce love again to Him. All commandment-keeping comes as the result of this: If ye love me, keep my commandments." "Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering." All such things are fruits of the Gospel; and therefore the Gospel is first of all to be received, in order to them.