John 15:9-11

— 9 “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. 10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. 11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.

insists on five things concerning the nature of the intimacy between Jesus and the believer.

The intimacy between Jesus Christ and the believer is an intimacy paralleled in some respects by the intimacy between Jesus and his Father

There are three common elements:

1. As Jesus is the object of the Father’s love, so the believer is the object of Jesus’ love.

This is explicitly stated in the text: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you” (15:9a).

If in the first verse of this Gospel we read that the Word was God,

we read in the same verse that the Word was with God; and

the peculiar expression used means the Word was in the presence of God.

From all eternity past this was so; and for all that “time” the Father loved the Son.

John assumes this when he tells us that God is love ().

A God who has always lived in solitary seclusion cannot realistically be described as a loving God;

but a God who exists as one God in three Persons may indeed be exercising profound love.

Jesus makes explicit that the Father loved him before the creation of the world (17:24).

Then think of what God is with His Son whom He’s always loved:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son …” (3:16).

Paul similarly assumes the eternal love of the Father for the Son when he argues,

“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” ().

God has already given His best gift, His most cherished gift; and that gift is the Son He loves.

That love wasn’t just existent in His preincarnate state.

Twice John’s Gospel tells us that the Father loves the Son (3:35; 5:20); and both times the context shows that it is Jesus Christ the incarnate Son who is in view.

According to the synoptic Gospels, Jesus began his public ministry when he was baptized by John the Baptist,

only to hear the silence of heaven broken by the Father’s public declaration,

“You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” ( and parallels).

The transfiguration brought another public testimony of the Father’s love:

“This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!” ( and parallels).

And now we read Jesus’ utterly amazing words, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you” (15:9a).

This is an astonishing love, for there is nothing in us that could give cause for it.

We are sinners. Jesus is holy.

We have rebelled against God. Nevertheless, Jesus loves us.

The steps of the expression of his love are these. To begin with, he loved us with an electing love. A love that chose us.

This is the stage of love revealed in in relation to Israel:

“For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you …” (vv. 6–8).

He loved you because he loved you. That is the heart and full substance of it.

Next, the Lord became a man like us, so great was his love for us. It is written of love in marriage,

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” ().

Thus did the eternal Son.

He left his Father’s home in heaven to come to earth to woo and wed his bride, the church. He redeemed her.

The incarnation is Jesus becoming like us so that we might become like Him.

Finally, having elected us in love and become like us in a human form, Jesus died for us.

Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” ().

That is true, and the greatest example of it is the death of Jesus himself.

Think of His actions as proof of His love for those who follow Christ. As far as He goes, there was no necessity upon Him to die as there is us.

If others died for us, would just bay the debt of their sin natures earlier than expected.

But there was no claim on the life of Christ because of sin He committed.

He also died amid horrible circumstances of pain, and shame, and desertion, which made that death peculiarly bitter.

This is love, that He would die as a felon between two thieves, utterly friendless, the object of ridicule, all while bearing our own sins in His own body.

We have already discovered that the Son loves the Father, and that our salvation springs from Jesus’ desire to please his Father (14:30, 31);

but to be told as well that Jesus loves us with the same love by which the Father loves Him is astounding.

There is a touch of eternity built into such love. Small wonder Jesus says, a few verses on, “You did not choose me, but I chose you …” (15:16).

In some sense, then, the Son is the mediator of the Father’s love to us; but we must not think that the Father himself fails to love us.

Quite the contrary: in the High Priestly prayer, Jesus says to his Father,

“You sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (17:23).

Nevertheless, for Jesus to say, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you” (15:9a),

prompts us to reflect and marvel at the thought that believers enjoy something

of the intimacy with Jesus that Jesus enjoys with his Father.

The Father is the gardener who cherishes the vine; the vine cherishes the branches.

Not that the gardener has no regard for the branches and focuses all attention exclusively on the vine;

but the branches have no place in the garden and in the gardener’s affection

unless they are nurtured by the vine.

It is in this sense that the Son is the mediator of the Father’s love.

2. As Jesus remains in his Father’s love by means of obedience, so the believer must remain in Jesus’ love by means of obedience.

(v9b)“Now abide [remain] in my love,” Jesus insists. “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. (15:9b–10).

Although Jesus is the object of his Father’s love,

he does not for this reason rest on His success and bask in the love He enjoys,

while being oblivious to the responsibilities

which the enjoyment of another’s love brings.

Jesus’ submission is the model for believers.

What an example the Scriptures set before us: even the Son of God learned obedience through suffering.

Here is no isolated deity who cannot be touched with the feeling of our temptations.

Jesus knows what it is to obey commands.

For this reason his injunction carries with it not only the authority of the Godhead,

but the authority of personal experience:

“If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love” (15:10).

Earlier, Jesus taught, “If you love me, you will obey what I command” (14:15):

the reality of the disciples’ profound love is to be proved by their obedience.

But now the disciples’ obedience is not presented as the evidence of their love, but as the means for remaining in Jesus’ love.

— If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love...

Are we tired of this emphasis by now, this emphasis upon Christ’s commands?

I suspect that we are; but if we are, the fault is in us and not the commands.

For, as John says in his first epistle, “His commands are not burdensome” ().

“His commands are not burdensome” ().

Jesus said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” ().

Then what is wrong? I suspect that what is wrong with us is

that we are not really as anxious to do Christ’s commands

as we would like to think we are; thus,

the emphasis upon obedience exposes our halfhearted commitment to the will of Christ

and so gives birth to feelings of true guilt.

What happens to us is precisely what happened to Peter when, following the resurrection,

the Lord was recommissioning him to service.

Peter had denied the Lord three times in the presence of the servants and soldiers in the courtyard of the high priest.

So Christ recommissioned him with a threefold pattern. He asked him, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”

Peter was aware of his recent failure, but he did love Jesus.

So he replied in what I believe to be an air of genuine humility, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”

After a short time Jesus asked Peter again, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter replied that he did.

Again Christ gave the commission, “Feed my sheep.”

Finally the Lord asked Peter the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”

This time we are told, “Peter was grieved because he asked him a third time, ‘Do you love me?’ And he said to him, ‘Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.’ ” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep” ().

Jesus said, “Feed my sheep” ().

Why was Peter grieved?

He was grieved because the third repetition reminded him of his threefold denial and hence awakened grief and true guilt for what he had done.

Also, the questioning had suggested that perhaps, just perhaps, Peter’s first enthusiastic answer,

“Yes, Lord, you know that I love you,” maybe could not be taken at quite its face value.

Peter was always prone to blurt something out, but did he really mean it?

Did he mean it enough to take a servant’s role in caring for Christ’s sheep?

Did he mean it enough to continue to fulfill this or any other command of Christ until his life’s end?

What do we find Peter doing in the book of Acts? Demonstrating his love for Christ in obedience, as Peter preaches the Word of God and feeds Christ’s sheep!

But here and now, Peter, like us, did not enjoy being reminded of his weakness.

We need to be reminded anyway. That is the point of the repetition in John’s gospel.

“If you love me, obey my commands” (14:15).

“Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me” (14:21).

“If anyone loves me, he will obey my teachings” (14:23).

“If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love” (15:10).

“You are my friends if you do what I command you” (15:14).

The point is obvious. We must keep Christ’s commands

if we are to be Christ’s disciples and grow in His love.

Let us note one thing further.

It is true that we are reminded to obey all that Jesus has given us by way of instruction.

But even as he tells us this, Jesus points out that he is asking of us no more than he has already asked and given of himself.

“Just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love” is his comparison (15:10).

We can be encouraged by this, knowing that the One who instructs us has himself

set the pattern and will give us strength to do as He requires.

But the full force of Jesus’ teaching in must burn its message on our minds:

as Jesus remains in his Father’s love by means of obedience,

so the believer must remain in Jesus’ love by means of obedience.

That is what it means to remain in the vine; that is what intimacy with Jesus entails.

Failure at this point calls in question the validity of our commitment to Jesus Christ.

3. As Jesus’ supreme joy is in this relationship of obedience to the Father, so the Christian’s supreme joy lies in his relationship of obedience to the Son.

— “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.

This raises Jesus’ obedience to his Father to a new and lofty plane.

Jesus delights to do his Father’s will; His joy depends on pleasing His Father.

So profound and unwavering is His love for the Father that what He wants most is to please Him;

and to please the Father gives the Son the deepest joy and satisfaction.

Jesus recognizes this is true of Himself; and He wants this, His joy, to be shared by His followers.

They will drink deeply of His joy if they imitate His obedience.

The joy Jesus promises is therefore not merely some cheap glow which depends on outward circumstances.

It is the profound delight of the godly person who “delights in the law of the Lord” (), the awe-inspiring gladness of wholehearted obedience.

Every Christian who has traveled any distance on his pilgrimage knows this to be so.

His deepest joy springs from periods in his life when he obeys Christ with unreserved commitment.

When some difficult decision with complex moral implications pushes itself upon him, and

he rejects various trails of temptation in favor of

an unqualified adherence to the highest path for Jesus’ sake,

then he experiences joy that leaves him speechless.

Jesus experienced the joy of a completely fruitful life because he was obedient to his Father; and

He desires that His followers share to the greatest extent

that same fruitful joy by being utterly obedient to Him.

This is the third way in which the intimacy between Jesus Christ and the believer parallels the intimacy between Jesus and his Father.

So with these thoughts before you as disciples, who make disciples

As Jesus is the object of the Father’s love, so the believer is the object of Jesus’ love. (v9a)

As Jesus remains in His Father’s love by means of obedience, so the believer must remian in Jesus’ love by means of obedience. (v.9b-10)

As Jesus’ supreme joy is in this relationship of obedience to the Father, so the Christian’s supreme joy lies in His relationship of obedience to the Son. (v11)

Then one parallel we haven’t talked about as we compare the Father and the Son’s intimacy with the believer’s intimacy with Christ is this:

— So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”

In all four gospel’s, the Great Commission is given. Here’s John’s version.

We are a sent people, as Christ was!