John 15:14

Joh_15:14-17

Ye are My friends if ye do whatsoever I command you

Christs friends

Notice

I.

WHAT CHRISTS FRIENDS DO FOR HIM (Joh_15:16). In the former verse, friends means chiefly those whom He loved. Here it means mainly those who love Him.

1. He lingers on the idea, as if He would meet the doubts arising from the sense of unworthiness, and from some dim perception of how He towers above them. How wonderful that stooping love of His is! Every form of human love Christ lays His hand upon. He that doeth the will of My Father, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother. That which is even sacreder, the purest and most complete union that humanity is capable of, receives a new sweetness when we think of the Bride, the Lambs wife. And, passing from that Holy of Holies out into this outer court, He lays His hand on that more common and familiar, and yet precious and sacred, thing, the bond of friendship. The Prince makes a friend of the beggar.

2. This friendship lasts today. The pecularity of Christianity is the strong personal tie which binds men to this Man that died nineteen hundred years ago. We look back into the wastes of antiquity: the mighty names rise there that we reverence; there are great teachers from whom we have learned, and to whom we are grateful. But what a gulf there is between us and the best and noblest of them! But here is a dead Man, who today is the object of passionate attachment, and a love deeper than life to millions of people, and will be till the end of time.

3. There are no limitations in that friendship, no misconstructions in that heart, no alienation possible, no change to be feared. There is absolute rest for us there. Why should I be solitary if Jesus Christ is my Friend? Why should I fear if He walks by my side? Why should anything be burdensome if He lays it upon me, and helps me to bear it? What is there in life that cannot be faced and borne--aye, and conquered--if we have Him, as we all may have Him, for the Friend and the Home of our hearts?

4. But notice the condition, If ye do what I command you. Note the singular blending of friendship and command, involving on our parts absolute submission and closest friendship. For this is the relationship between love and obedience, in regard to Jesus Christ, that the love is the parent of the obedience, and the obedience is the guard and the guarantee of the love.

II. WHAT CHRIST DOES FOR HIS FRIENDS (Joh_15:15) The slave may see what his lord does, but he does not know his purpose in his acts. Theirs not to reason why, If the servant is in his masters confidence he is more than a servant. But, says Christ, I have called you friends; and He calls them so before in act, and and He points to all His past relationship, and especially to the heart outpourings of the upper room, as the proof.

1. Jesus Christ, then, recognizes the obligation of absolute frankness, and He will tell His friends everything that He can. When He tells them what He can the voice of the Father speaks through the Son.

2. Of course, to Christs frankness there are limits. He will not pour out His treasures into vessels that will spill them. And though here he speaks as if His communion was perfect, we are to remember that it was necessarily conditioned by the power of reception on the part of the hearers.

3. That frank speech is continued today. By the light which He sheds on the Word, by many a suggestion through human lips, by many a blessed thought rising quietly within our hearts, and bearing the token that it comes from a sacreder source than our poor, blundering minds, He still speaks to us, His friends.

4. Ought not that thought of the utter frankness of Jesus make us for one thing very patient of the gaps that are left in His communications and in our knowledge? There are so many things that we should like to know. He holds all in His hand. Why does He thus open one finger instead of the whole palm? Because He loves. A friend exercises the right of reticence as well as the prerogative of speech. Trust Me! I tell you all that is good for you to receive.

5. And that frankness may well teach us the obligation of keeping our ears open and our hearts prepared to receive the speech that comes from Him. Many a message from your Lord flits past you like the idle wind through an archway, because you are not listening for His voice. If we silenced passion, ambition, selfishness, worldliness, if we took less of our religion out of books and from other people, and were more accustomed to dwell in the secret place of the Most High, and to say, Speak, Friend, for Thy friend heareth, we should more often understand how real today is the voice of Christ to them that love Him.

III. HOW CHRISTS FRIENDS COME TO BE SO AND WHY THEY ARE SO (Joh_15:16)

1. In all the cases of friendship between Christ and men, the origination and initiation come from Him. We love Him because He first loved us. The apostle said, I was apprehended of Christ. It is because He lays His seeking and drawing hand upon us, that we ever come to love Him. His choice of us precedes our choice of Him. The Shepherd always comes to seek the sheep that is lost. We come to be His friends: because, when we were enemies, He loved us, and gave Himself for us, and ever since has been sending out the messengers of His love to draw us to His heart.

2. And the purpose is two fold

(1) It respects service or fruit. That we may go. There is deep pathos and meaning in that word. He had been telling them that He was going; now He says them, You are to go! We part here. My road lies upward; yours runs onward. Go into all the world. That ye may bring forth fruit. Keeping His commandments does not explain the whole process by which we do the things that are pleasing in His sight. We must also take this other metaphor of the bearing of fruit. There must be the effort; for men do not grow Christlike in character as the vine grows its grapes, but there must be, regulated and disciplined by the effort, the inward life, for no mere outward obedience and tinkering at duties and commandments will produce the fruit that Christ desires and rejoices to have. That your fruit should remain. There is nothing that corrupts faster than fruit. There is only one kind of fruit that is permanent, incorruptible. The only lifes activity that outlasts life and the world is the activity of the men that obey Christ.

(2) It respects the satisfying of our desires, that whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name He may give it you. Make your desires Christs, and Christs yours, and you will be satisfied.

IV. THE MUTUAL FRIENDSHIP OF CHRISTS FRIENDS (Joh_15:17) This whole context is enclosed within a golden circlet by that commandment which appears in Joh_15:12, and reappears here at the close, thus shutting off this portion from the rest of the discourse. Friends of a friend should themselves be friends. We care for the lifeless things that a dear Friend has cared for. And here are living men and women, in all diversities of character and circumstances, but with this stamped upon them all--Christs friends, lovers of and loved by Him. And how can we be indifferent to those to whom Christ is not indifferent? We are knit together by that bond. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The friends of Jesus

There is no title surely that excels in dignity that which was worn by Abraham, who was called The friend of God. Lord Brooke was so delighted with the friendship of Sir Philip Sydney that he ordered to be engraved upon his tomb nothing but this, Here lies the friend of Sir Philip Sydney. There is beauty in such a feeling, but yet it is a small matter compared with being able to say, Here lives a friend of Christ.

I. Note--WHAT OBEDIENCE CHRIST REQUESTS FROM THOSE WHO CALL THEMSELVES HIS FRIENDS. It must be

1. Active. If ye do. Some think it is quite sufficient if they avoid what He forbids.. Abstinence from evil is a great part of righteousness, but it is not enough for friendship. It would be a poor friendship which only said, I am your friend, and to prove it, I dont insult you, I dont rob you, I dont speak evil of you. Surely there must be more positive evidence to certify friendship. In that memorable twenty-fifth of Matthew nothing is said about negative virtues; but positive actions are cited and dwelt upon in detail. Fine words, again, are mere wind, and go for nothing if not backed up with substantial deeds. Friendship cannot live on windy talk, it needs the bread of matter of fact.

2. Continuous. He does not say, If you sometimes do--if you do it on Sundays, in your place of worship; no, we are to abide in Him, and keep His statutes even unto the end.

3. Universal. Whatsoever. No sooner is anything discovered to be the subject of a command than the man who is a true friend of Christ says, I will do it, and he does it. He does not pick and choose which precept he will keep and which he will neglect. The smallest command of Christ may often be the most important. Here is the proof of your love. Will you do the smaller thing for Jesus as well as the more weighty matter? The reality of your subjection to your Lord and Master may hinge upon seemingly insignificant points. A servant might place the breakfast on the table, and feel that she had done her duty, but if her mistress told her to place the salt at the corner, and she did not, she would be asked the cause of her neglect. Suppose she replied, I placed the breakfast before you, but a little salt was too trifling a matter for me to be troubled about. Her mistress might answer, But I told you to be sure and put out the salt cellar. Mind you do so tomorrow.

4. To Christ Himself. Put the emphasis on the I. We are told to do these things because Jesus commands them. Does not the royal person of our Lord cast a very strong light upon the necessity of obedience?

5. Out of a friendly spirit. Obedience to Christ as if we were forced to do it under pains and penalties would be of no worth as a proof of friendship. He speaks not of slaves, but of friends.

II. THOSE WHO DO NOT OBEY HIM ARE NO FRIENDS OF HIS. A man who does not obey Christ

1. Does not give the Saviour His proper place, and this is an unfriendly deed. If I have a friend I am very careful that, if he has honour anywhere, he shall certainly have due respect from me.

2. Is not of one mind with Christ. Can two walk together except they be agreed? Christ is for holiness, this man is for sin.

3. He may be a very high and loud professor, and for that reason be all the more an enemy of the Cross. Through the inconsistent conduct of our Lords professed friends, His cause is more hindered than by anything else.

4. A disobedient friend would be a great dishonour to Christ. A man is known by the company he keeps.

III. THOSE WHO BEST OBEY CHRIST ARE ON THE BEST OF TERMS WITH HIM.

1. You cannot walk in holy converse with Christ unless you keep His commandments.

2. Some Christians will never get into full fellowship with Christ because they neglect to study His word and search out what His will is. Half the Christian people in the world are content to ask, What is the rule of our Church? That is not the question: the point is, What is the rule of Christ? Some plead, My father and mother before me did so. I sympathize in a measure with that feeling; but yet in spiritual things we are to call no man father, but make the Lord Jesus our Master and Exemplar. Take your light directly from the sun. Let holy Scripture be your unquestioned rule of faith and practice.

3. Under all the crosses, and losses, and trials of life, there is no comfort more desirable than the confidence that you have aimed at doing your Lords will. Losses borne in the defence of the right and true are gains. Jesus is never nearer His friends than when they bravely bear shame for His sake.

IV. THE MOST FRIENDLY ACTION A MAN CAN DO FOR JESUS IS TO OBEY HIM.

1. Rich men have thought to do the most friendly act towards Christ by building a church, or founding almshouses or schools. If they are believers, and have done this thing as an act of obedience to Christs law of stewardship, they have well done, and the more of such munificence the better, but where splendid benefactions are given out of ostentation, or from the idea that some merit will be gained by the consecration of a large amount of wealth, the whole business is unacceptable. Jesus asks not lavish expenditure, but ourselves. To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.

2. Others have imagined that they could show their friendliness to Christ by self-mortification. Jesus Christ has not demanded this as the gauge of friendship. He says, Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you, but He does not command you to starve, or to wear sackcloth, or to shut yourselves up in a cell, pride invents these things, but grace teaches obedience.

3. Certain persons have thought it would be the noblest form of holy service to enter into brotherhoods and sisterhoods. But assuredly in the

New Testament you shall find no foreshadowing of Franciscans and Dominicans. All godly women were sisters of mercy, and all Christlike men were of the society of Jesus, but of monastic and conventual vows we read nothing.

4. Some think it a very friendly act towards Christ to attend many religious services in a consecrated building. They are at matins, and vespers, and feasts and fasts without number. Ye are Christs friends, if ye do whatsoever He commands ye: that is a better test than early communion or daily mass.

5. It comes to this, that we must steadily, carefully, persistently, cheerfully, do the will of God from the heart in daily life, from the first waking moment till our eyes are closed. Say concerning everything, What would Jesus have me do about this? What is the teaching of Christ as to this? (C. H.Spurgeon.)

A Christian--Christs friend

If we are friends of Christ

I. WE SHALL BE FREQUENTLY THINKING OF HIM. His image will be often in our minds. Almost all remarkable occurrences, at least, will suggest Him, in one way or another, to our hearts. In common life you could scarcely be regarded as being a warm-hearted friend of that man, of whom there had not been a single thought in your mind during the course of the day. And, yet, are there not a few in our churches who, from one Sabbath to another, have their thoughts wandering in every direction but toward Christ.

II. WE SHALL SEEK HIS COMPANY, and embrace opportunities of meeting with Him. When, and where do we find Him?

1. In the reading of the Word.

2. In prayer.

3. At the prayer meeting.

4. At His own house, amid the ordinances of the Sabbath.

5. In His sacraments. How easy, then, is the application of the test?

III. WE SHALL READ WITH INTEREST THE LETTERS HE SENDS US AND DELIGHT IN CORRESPONDING WITH HIM IN RETURN. On being asked, When you heard from an attached friend? were you to reply, Some days ago, but! have not yet found leisure to open and read it--what would be the inference? Well, is not the New Testament literally an epistle which Christ has sent us? And ought not a Sabbaths sermon to be waited on expectantly as containing some message from Him? And is not the return of correspondence on our part exemplified specially by prayer? How, then, do our professions of friendship for Him stand this test?

IV. WE SHALL HAVE RECOURSE TO HIM FOR SYMPATHY AND HELP IN SEASONS OF AFFLICTION. Friendship is often manifested and proved better by applying for aid than by bestowing it. If you have two friends of whom you cannot at present tell who is the more endeared to your heart--watch, when some Evil may befall you, and see whose image presents itself first to your mind. In applying these principles for the determination of the question of your friendship for Christ, observe, that there are two classes of evils, for deliverance from which you need friendly help.

1. Your sinfulness, with its two-fold evil of guilt and servitude. To whom, then, do you apply for deliverance? Now Jesus is the Friend of Sinners; and that, too, in the sense of His being the only Mediator between God and man; and in the sense of His taking the penitent by the hand, and leading him up to the throne of grace. Can that, then, be a friend of Christ, who, as He stands, inviting the guilty to come unto Him, passes Him by.

2. There are your temporal wants, difficulties and distresses. How many, who ween of themselves that they are good friends of Christ, have yet much of the lesson to learn of giving Him the dependence of their hearts, without exception or reserve!

V. WE SHALL BE THE FRIENDS OF HIS FRIENDS.

1. We will take a friendly interest in them, for His sake. I should feel there was a want of entireness in the friendship of that man who treated with negligence even the dog in which he saw I delighted.

2. For their own sakes, as bearing a resemblance to Him, and possessed of properties which we admire in Himself.

VI. WE WILL BE FRIENDS OF HIS CAUSE--interested in the welfare of His Church: will grieve for its losses; rejoice for its gains; plead for it, spend for it, work for it, and, if need be, suffer for it.

VII. WE SHALL NOT BE ASHAMED TO CONFESS HIM (Rom_5:5). There is nothing by which friendship, in common life, is better manifested, than by avowing yourself a friend of your friend. But

1. Friendship for Christ does not require that we be always obtruding on our company professions of love for Him, and His claims on their embracement of His cause.

2. When challenged and accused for your declared or suspected faith in Christ, by either the magistrate or the mob, though it might imperil your life to confess Him, it would imperil your salvation more to deny Him.

3. There are manners, customs, and fashions of the world which are inimical to Christs honour and interests, compliance with which His friends will refuse and resist.

VIII. WE SHALL BE SCRUPULOUS IN OBEYING HIS COMMANDMENTS. (W. Anderson, LL. D.)

The friendship between Christ and the believer

I. YOUR FRIENDSHIP IS SOUGHT BY JESUS CHRIST. That He might win it, He declares His own friendship. No matter how meanly you think of yourselves, there is One who seeks your friendship. Think who this One is. In His presence Socrates and Plato pale. The greatness of Alexander, of Hannibal, of Caesar, of Napoleon, of Washington is feeble indeed in comparison with His.

II. THE GROUND UPON WHICH THIS FRIENDSHIP CAN BE BUILT UP.

1. By mutual confidence. This is a law of friendship. To strengthen their confidence He reveals the secrets of His heart to His disciples. He makes confidants of them.

2. By gratitude. Christ says, All is thine. We answer back, All that we have is Thine.

III. THE FORMS OF THIS FRIENDSHIP.

1. Intercourse. We do not desire to be separated from our friends, but to be near them.

2. Remembrance. The human heart craves to be remembered. Is not this the meaning of tokens, even of the writing on gravestones? Friendship ministers to this want. It is met in the friendship of Christ. We are told that we are in His thoughts, that our very names are written on His hands. Is there anything more touching than Christs desire to be remembered by His disciples after He would be gone? At our communion seasons we comply with this desire of Christ.

3. Desire to please. Hence, if our friends are below us we sink to their level. If Christ is our friend, we rise to Him, and become more and more like Him. Hence, not anything tends to such purity of life as love for Christ.

4. Mutual care. Christ cares for us, for our interests, protects us, and we care for His interests. If, as a scientist, I am set for the defence of the law of gravitation, I arrange my arguments and endeavour to convince the understanding. But when our friend is attacked then it is that the lip quivers and the blood boils. When Christianity is assailed it is more to us than the assailing of a system of principles; the interests of our dearest Friend are involved, and we are ready to make any sacrifice, even to the laying down of our lives, in their defence.

IV. THE PROOF OF THIS FRIENDSHIP. Friendship does not spring from obedience, but obedience from friendship. What should we think of an admiral who would say, I will take advantage of the fact that the President of the United States is my friend and will disregard his commands? That would be unspeakably mean. The Christian does not presume on the friendship of Christ. That friendship holds him but the firmer to what is right. Note some of the characteristics of Christian obedience. It is

1. Active and positive. The best way to meet the importunities to do wrong is to be fully occupied. I have a great work to do. Why should I come down?

2. Cheerful. The Christian has the friendship of the most powerful and beat Being in the universe; why should he not be cheerful in his obedience to that One? What parent would wish to see his child surly in his obedience?

3. Without reserve: whatsoever. I know no earthly friend to whom I would say, I will do whatsoever you command me. (John Hall, D. D.)

Believers Christs friends

I. WHAT THIS PRIVILEGE IS IN THE GENERAL.

1. The friends of Christ, whereas naturally they were in a state of enmity with God, are now in a state of peace with Christ, and God through Christ Eph_2:14).

2. Whereas they had divided interests as to heaven, now there is an unity of interests betwixt Christ and them (1Jn_1:3).

II. HOW THIS FRIENDSHIP IS MADE UP.

1. The first spring and source of it is everlasting free love (Jer_31:3).

2. The plot for compassing it was laid from eternity between the Father and the Son (Tit_1:2).

3. The foundation of it was laid in the blood of Christ, in the fulness of time Gal_4:4-5).

4. It was moved to them in the gospel (2Co_5:20).

5. They are won to it by His own Spirit (Isa_44:3; Isa_44:5).

6. By faith they go into the friendship with Him (Eph_3:17).

7. The friendship is sealed by the sacraments, particularly that of His body and blood. It was an ancient custom to confirm a covenant of friendship with a feast (Gen_31:54; Joh_15:13).

III. WHAT A PRIVILEGE THIS IS! Men nor angels cannot fully express the value of it, for it is of infinite value (1Co_2:9).

1. It is an honourable friendship. Their Friend is the Prince of the kings of the earth; and through Him God is their friend.

2. It is a beneficial friendship. The friendship of many in the world is no more but an empty name. But Christs friendship, the benefits of it who can tell?

3. It is an intimate friendship. There is no such close and intimate friendship betwixt any relations on earth (1Co_6:17).

4. It is an universal friendship, of universal influence. There is no friendship in the world but it is limited. But from the greatest to the least of the concerns of His friends, Christ interests Himself.

5. It is a sure and lasting friendship. The friendships in the world are very uncertain (Job_19:14; Psa_38:11). But Christs friendship never dies Joh_13:1; Isa_49:14-16).

IV. IMPROVEMENT. See

1. The wonderful condescension of heaven. We are rebels against God naturally, but may become friends through Christ.

2. They that are Christs are most happy.

3. Jesus Christ is the best and most generous of masters. He makes all His servants friends.

4. Friendless persons, who have none to regard them, may best bestow themselves and get a friend, that will be better to them than all the world.

5. Let sinners seek this friendship.

6. Ye that profess to be the friends of Christ, walk worthy of your privilege. (T. Boston, D. D.)

Christs friends, doers of all His commands

I. INQUIRE INTO THIS CHARACTER OF THE FRIENDS OF CHRIST.

1. The friends of Christ are doers of His commands. They are all His servants (Luk_6:46). Christ is their Lord and Lawgiver, and they do His commandments (Rev_22:14).

(1) Their lusts are not their domineering lords, to whom they yield themselves to obey (Rom_6:18; Rom_6:14; Gal_5:24).

(2) The course of the world is not their rule (Eph_2:2).

(3) But as they look for salvation by Him, it is the business of their life, to please, serve, and glorify Him, to walk worthy of the Lord, unto all pleasing (Col_1:10). There are two works seriously plied by all Christs friends.

(a) salvation work, that they may be saved from sin and wrath, and set beyond hazard of eternal ruin. This is done by faith.

(b) Their generation work (Act_13:36; 1Pe_2:9). This is done by obedience. In the former they look for their own safety, and in the latter for the honour of their Saviour.

2. The friends of Christ are doers of His commands, because they are His commands (Col_3:17).

(1) Out of respect to His authority (Psa_119:4; Heb_11:8).

(2) Out of love to Him (Heb_6:10).

(3) As sons redeemed by His blood, not as bondservants working for their own redemption; to please their Benefactor, not to render themselves accepted by their own obedience (Rom_8:15; Col_1:10).

(4) With heart and good-will (Eph_6:7; Isa_64:5).

3. The friends of Christ are doers of His commands universally and without exception (Psa_119:6). They are universal

(1) In their desire to do all His commands, saying, as (Psa_119:5).

(2) In respect of their endeavour (Php_1:13-14).

(3) In respect of their willingness to know all that Christ commands, that they may do it (Psa_139:23). The reasons why Christs friends are universal in their obedience, are

(a) Because the grace of God inclines them to do what Christ commands, because He commands it (Psa_119:4). The law of Christ is a chain of many links, and he that truly draws one to Him, draws all.

(b) Because the whole law is written on their hearts in regeneration, and not scraps of it here and there (Heb_8:10).

(c) Because Christ hath the chief room in their hearts beyond all competitors (Luk_14:26).

(d) Because He is jealous, and the least command of His that is slighted is displeasing to Him (Mat_5:19).

(e) Because their hearts are reconciled to the whole law, and every part of it (Psa_119:128).

II. WHY THIS IS MADE THE TRYING AND DISTINGUISHING CHARACTER OF THE FRIENDS OF CHRIST.

1. Because this hits the point in which the sincere and hypocrites differ.

2. Because the reality of friendship to Christ does without controversy appear here. Show your faith by your works. Love not in word only but in deed.

3. Because where Christs friendship to a person takes effect, it certainly has this effect (Eph_5:25-26; Tit_2:14).

4. Because though the free grace of God tends to holiness (Tit_2:11-12), yet there is a disposition in the children of men to turn it to licentiousness (Jud_1:4). Therefore the apostle cautions the Galations Gal_5:13).

III. USES.

1. Of information. This shows us

(1) What the life of a Christian is. It is a life of doing whatsoever Christ commands. And so it is

(a) An active not an idle life (Php_2:12; Rev_14:13).

(b) A well doing life (1Ti_1:5).

(c) A watchful life (1Co_16:13).

(d) A resolute life (Eph_6:15).

(2) The doctrine of free grace gives no encouragement to looseness of life: for there is no separating of faith and holiness. If ye be Christs friends by faith, ye will be His faithful and tender servants in obedience.

2. Of exhortation. Show yourselves Christs friends by doing whatsoever He commands you. And do ye what Christ commands you, if you would show yourselves His friends.

(1) In a time of general apostasy and blacksliding from the ways of God Gen_6:9).

(2) Even when it must be your temporal loss (Heb_11:35).

(3) When His hand is lying heavy on you by crosses and afflictions (Job_1:9-10).

(4) When sin comes with a seen advantage in its hand, as in the case of Heb_11:24-26).

(5) When the sin that most easily besets you comes in competition with your obedience to the commands of Christ (Psa_18:23).

(6) When there is nothing to keep you back from sin, but pure regard to the command of Christ.

IV. MOTIVES.

1. Because all His commands are those of an absolute Lord, to whom we owe obedience in all things (Exo_20:2).

2. All His commands are just, righteous, and reasonable (Psa_119:128).

3. We are all of us under covenant engagements to do whatsoever He commands us. We have all avouched Him for our Lord (Luk_6:46).

4. Christ has been the best friend ever mankind had (Joh_15:13; Rom_5:8)

5. It is necessary to evidence your sincerity (Psa_119:6).

6. The glorious privilege of those who do whatsoever Christ commands them. (T. Boston, D. D.)

Implicit obedience

At Federal Hill, Baltimore, Colonel Warren gave orders to his guards that only officers in uniform were to be admitted to camp. One bright morning General Dix, who commanded the troops guarding the city, walked over from Fort McHenry in undress. Attempting to pass the line of sentries in company with an aide, the old general was amused at finding a musket barring his passage, while the aide, with his glittering shoulder straps, was permitted to enter. Why do you stop me, my man? inquired the general, quietly. My orders are to admit only officers in uniform, was the reply. But dont you see that this is General Dix? exclaimed the aide, angrily. Well, between you and me, major, said the sentry, his eyes twinkling with amusement, I see very well who it is; but if General I)ix wants to gets to get into this camp he had better go back and put on his uniform. You are quite right, sentry, remarked the general. Ill go back and get my coat. The incident increased his admiration for the entire command. (H. O. Mackey.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John

CHRIST’S FRIENDS

Joh 15:14 - Joh 15:17.

A wonderful word has just dropped from the Master’s lips, when He spoke of laying down His life for His friends. He lingers on it as if the idea conveyed was too great and sweet to be taken in at once, and with soothing reiteration He assures the little group that they, even they, are His friends.

I have ventured to take these four verses for consideration now, although each of them, and each clause of them, might afford ample material for a discourse, because they have one common theme. They are a description of what Christ’s friends are to Him, of what He is to them, and of what they should be to one another. So they are a little picture, in the sweetest form, of the reality, the blessedness, the obligations, of friendship with Christ.

I. Notice what Christ’s friends do for Him.

‘Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.’ In the former verse, ‘friends’ means chiefly those whom He loved. Here it means mainly those who love Him. They love Him because He loves them, of course; and the two sides of the one thought cannot be parted. But still in this verse the idea of friendship to Christ is looked at from the human side, and He tells His disciples that they are His lovers as well as beloved of Him, on condition of their doing whatsoever He commands them.

He lingers, as I said, on the idea itself. As if He would meet the doubts arising from the sense of unworthiness, and from some dim perception of how He towers above them, and their limitations, He reiterates, ‘Wonderful as it is, you poor men, half-intelligent lovers of Mine, you are My friends, beloved of Me, and loving Me, if ye do whatsoever I command you.’

How wonderful that stooping love of His is, which condescends to array itself in the garments of ours! Every form of human love Christ lays His hand upon, and claims that He Himself exercises it in a transcendent degree. ‘He that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven, the same is My brother and sister and mother.’ That which is even sacreder, the purest and most complete union that humanity is capable of-that, too, He consecrates; for even it, sacred as it is, is capable of a higher consecration, and, sweet as it is, receives a new sweetness when we think of ‘the Bride, the Lamb’s wife,’ and remember the parables in which He speaks of the Marriage Supper of the Great King, and sets forth Himself as the Husband of humanity. And passing from that Holy of Holies out into this outer court, He lays His hand, too, on that more common and familiar, and yet precious and sacred, thing-the bond of friendship. The Prince makes a friend of the beggar.

Even if we do not think more loftily of Jesus Christ than do those who regard Him simply as the perfection of humanity, is it not beautiful and wonderful that He should look with such eyes of beaming love on that handful of poor, ignorant fishermen, who knew Him so dimly, and say: ‘I pass by all the wise and the mighty, all the lofty and noble, and My heart clings to you poor, insignificant people?’ He stoops to make them His friends, and there are none so low but that they may be His.

This friendship lasts to-day. A peculiarity of Christianity is the strong personal tie of real love and intimacy which will bind men, to the end of time, to this Man that died nineteen hundred years ago. We look back into the wastes of antiquity: mighty names rise there that we reverence; there are great teachers from whom we have learned, and to whom, after a fashion, we are grateful. But what a gulf there is between us and the best and noblest of them! But here is a dead Man, who to-day is the Object of passionate attachment and a love deeper than life to millions of people, and will be till the end of time. There is nothing in the whole history of the world in the least like that strange bond which ties you and me to the Saviour, and the paradox of the Apostle remains a unique fact in the experience of humanity: ‘Jesus Christ, whom, having not seen, ye love.’ We stretch out our hands across the waste, silent centuries, and there, amidst the mists of oblivion, thickening round all other figures in the past, we touch the warm, throbbing heart of our Friend, who lives for ever, and for ever is near us. We here, nearly two millenniums after the words fell on the nightly air on the road to Gethsemane, have them coming direct to our hearts. A perpetual bond unites men with Christ to-day; and for us, as really as in that long-past Paschal night, is it true, ‘Ye are My friends.’

There are no limitations in that friendship, no misconstructions in that heart, no alienation possible, no change to be feared. There is absolute rest for us there. Why should I be solitary if Jesus Christ is my Friend? Why should I fear if He walks by my side? Why should anything be burdensome if He lays it upon me and helps me to bear it? What is there in life that cannot be faced and borne-aye, and conquered,-if we have Him, as we all may have Him, for the Friend and the Home of our hearts?

But notice the condition, ‘If ye do what I command you.’ Note the singular blending of friendship and command, involving on our parts the cultivation of the two things which are not incompatible, absolute submission and closest friendship. He commands though He is Friend; though He commands He is Friend. The conditions that He lays down are the same which have already occupied our attention in former sermons of this series, and so may be touched very lightly. ‘Ye are My friends if ye do the things which I command you,’ may either correspond with His former saying, ‘If a Man love Me he will keep My commandments,’ or with His later one, which immediately precedes our text, ‘If ye keep My commandments ye shall abide in My love.’ For this is the relationship between love and obedience, in regard to Jesus Christ, that the love is the parent of the obedience, and the obedience is the guard and guarantee of the love. They who love will obey, they who obey will strengthen love by acting according to its dictates, and will be in a condition to feel and realise more the warmth of the rays that stream down upon them, and to send back more fully answering obedience from their hearts. Not in mere emotion, not in mere verbal expression, not in mere selfish realising of the blessings of His friendship, and not in mere mechanical, external acts of conformity, but in the flowing down and melting of the hard and obstinate iron will, at the warmth of His great love, is our love made perfect. The obedience, which is the child and the preserver of love, is something far deeper than the mere outward conformity with externally apprehended commandments. To submit is the expression of love, and love is deepened by submission.

II. Secondly, note what Christ does for His friends.

‘Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth.’ The slave may see what his lord does, but he does not know his purpose in his acts-’Theirs not to reason why.’ In so far as the relation of master and servant goes, and still more in that of owner and slave, there is simple command on the one side and unintelligent obedience on the other. The command needs no explanation, and if the servant is in his master’s confidence he is more than a servant. But, says Christ, ‘I have called you friends’; and He had called them so before He now named them so. He had called them so in act, and He points to all His past relationship, and especially to the heart-outpourings of the Upper Room, as the proof that He had called them His friends, in the fact that whatsoever He had heard of the Father He had made known to them.

Jesus Christ, then, recognises the obligation of absolute frankness, and He will tell His friends everything that He can. When He tells them what He can, the voice of the Father speaks through the Son. Every one of Christ’s friends stands nearer to God than did Moses at the door of the Tabernacle, when the wondering camp beheld him face to face with the blaze of the Shekinah glory, and dimly heard the thunderous utterances of God as He spake to him ‘as a man speaks to his friend.’ That was surface-speech compared with the divine depth and fullness of the communications which Jesus Christ deems Himself bound, and assumes Himself able, to make to them who love Him and whom He loves.

Of course to Christ’s frankness there are limits. He will not pour out His treasures into vessels that will spill them; and as He Himself says in the subsequent part of this great discourse, ‘I have many things to say unto you, but you are not able to carry them now.’ His last word was, ‘I have declared Thy name unto My brethren, and will declare it.’ And though here He speaks as if His communication was perfect, we are to remember that it was necessarily conditioned by the power of reception on the part of the hearers, and that there was much yet to be revealed of what God had whispered to Him, ere these men, that clustered round Him, could understand the message.

That frank speech is continued to-day. Jesus Christ recognises the obligation that binds Him to impart to each of us all that each of us is in our inmost spirits capable of receiving. By the light which He sheds on the Word, by many a suggestion through human lips, by many a blessed thought rising quietly within our hearts, and bearing the token that it comes from a sacreder source than our poor, blundering minds, He still speaks to us, His friends.

Ought not that thought of the utter frankness of Jesus make us, for one thing, very patient, intellectually and spiritually, of the gaps that are left in His communications and in our knowledge? There are so many things that we sometimes think we should like to know, things about that dark future where some of our hearts live so constantly, things about the depths of His nature and the divine character, things about the relation between God’s love and God’s righteousness, things about the meaning of all this dreadful mystery in which we grope our way. These and a hundred other questionings suggest to us that it would have been so easy for Him to have lifted a little corner of the veil, and let a little more of the light shine out. He holds all in His hand. Why does He thus open one finger instead of the whole palm? Because He loves. A friend exercises the right of reticence as well as the prerogative of speech. And for all the gaps that are left, let us bow quietly and believe that if it had been better for us He would have spoken. ‘If it were not so I would have told you.’ ‘Trust Me! I tell you all that it is good for you to receive.’

And that frankness may well teach us another lesson, viz., the obligation of keeping our ears open and our hearts prepared to receive the speech that does come from Him. Ah, brother! many a message from your Lord flits past you, like the idle wind through an archway, because you are not listening for His voice. If we kept down the noise of that ‘household jar within’; if we silenced passion, ambition, selfishness, worldliness; if we withdrew ourselves, as we ought to do, from the Babel of this world, and ‘hid ourselves in His pavilion from the strife of tongues’; if we took less of our religion out of books and from other people, and were more accustomed to ‘dwell in the secret place of the Most High,’ and to say, ‘Speak, Friend! for Thy friend heareth,’ we should more often understand how real to-day is the voice of Christ to them that love Him.

‘Such rebounds the inward ear

Catches often from afar;

Listen, prize them, hold them dear,

For of God-of God-they are.’

III. Thirdly, notice how Christ’s friends come to be so, and why they are so.

‘Ye have not chosen,’ etc. {Joh 15:16}.

Our Lord refers here, no doubt, primarily to the little group of the Apostles; the choice and ordaining as well as ‘the fruit that abides,’ point, in the first place, to their apostolic office, and to the results of their apostolic labours. But we must widen out the words a great deal beyond that reference.

In all the cases of friendship between Christ and men, the origination and initiation come from Him. ‘We love Him because He first loved us.’ He has told us how, in His divine alchemy, He changes by the shedding of His blood our enmity into friendship. In the previous verse He has said, ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’ And as I remarked in my last sermon, the friends here are the same as ‘the enemies’ for whom, the Apostle tells us that Christ laid down His life. Since He has thus by the blood of the Cross changed men’s enmity into friendship, it is true universally that the amity between us and Christ comes entirely from Him.

But there is more than that in the words. I do not suppose that any man, whatever his theological notions and standpoint may be, who has felt the love of Christ in his own heart in however feeble a measure, but will say, as the Apostle said, ‘I was apprehended of Christ.’ It is because He lays His seeking and drawing hand upon us that we ever come to love Him, and it is true that His choice of us precedes our choice of Him, and that the Shepherd always comes to seek the sheep that is lost in the wilderness.

This, then, is how we come to be His friends; because, when we were enemies, He loved us, and gave Himself for us, and ever since has been sending out the ambassadors and the messengers of His love-or, rather, the rays and beams of it, which are parts of Himself-to draw us to His heart. And the purpose which all this forthgoing of Christ’s initial and originating friendship has had in view, is set forth in words which I can only touch in the lightest possible manner. The intention is twofold. First, it respects service or fruit. ‘That ye may go’; there is deep pathos and meaning in that word. He had been telling them that He was going; now He says to them, ‘You are to go. We part here. My road lies upward; yours runs onward. Go into all the world.’ He gives them a quasi-independent position; He declares the necessity of separation; He declares also the reality of union in the midst of the separation; He sends them out on their course with His benediction, as He does us. Wheresoever we go in obedience to His will, we carry the consciousness of His friendship.

‘That ye may bring forth fruit’-He goes back for a moment to the sweet emblem with which this chapter begins, and recurs to the imagery of the vine and the fruit. ‘Keeping His commandments’ does not explain the whole process by which we do the things that are pleasing in His sight. We must also take this other metaphor of the bearing of fruit. Neither an effortless, instinctive bringing forth from the renewed nature and the Christlike disposition, nor a painful and strenuous effort at obedience to His law, describe the whole realities of Christian service. There must be the effort, for men do not grow Christlike in character as the vine grows its grapes; but there must also be, regulated and disciplined by the effort, the inward life, for no mere outward obedience and tinkering at duties and commandments will produce the fruit that Christ desires and rejoices to have. First comes unity of life with Him; and then effort. Take care of modern teachings that do not recognise these two as both essential to the complete ideal of Christian service-the spontaneous fruit-bearing, and the strenuous effort after obedience.

‘That your fruit should remain’; nothing corrupts faster than fruit. There is only one kind of fruit that is permanent, incorruptible. The only life’s activity that outlasts life and the world is the activity of the men who obey Christ.

The other half of the issues of this friendship is the satisfying of our desires, ‘That whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name He may give it you.’ We have already had substantially the same promise in previous parts of this discourse, and therefore I may deal with it very lightly. How comes it that it is certain that Christ’s friends, living close to Him and bearing fruit, will get what they want? Because what they want will be ‘in His name’-that is to say, in accordance with His disposition and will. Make your desires Christ’s, and Christ’s yours, and you will be satisfied.

IV. And now, lastly, for one moment, note the mutual friendship of Christ’s friends.

We have frequently had to consider that point-the relation of the friends of Christ to each other. ‘These things I command you, that ye love one another.’ This whole context is, as it were, enclosed within a golden circlet by that commandment which appeared in a former verse, at the beginning of it, ‘This is My commandment, that ye love one another,’ and reappears here at the close, thus shutting off this portion from the rest of the discourse. Friends of a friend should themselves be friends. We care for the lifeless things that a dear friend has cared for; books, articles of use of various sorts. If these have been of interest to him, they are treasures and precious evermore to us. And here are living men and women, in all diversities of character and circumstances, but with this stamped upon them all-Christ’s friends, lovers of and loved by Him. And how can we be indifferent to those to whom Christ is not indifferent? We are knit together by that bond. We are but poor friends of that Master unless we feel that all which is dear to Him is dear to us. Let us feel the electric thrill which ought to pass through the whole linked circle, and let us beware that we slip not our hands from the grasp of the neighbour on either side, lest, parted from them, we should be isolated from Him, and lose some of the love which we fail to transmit.

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

15:14-16 Both Abraham and Moses were called friends of God (Exod 33:11; 2 Chr 20:7; Isa 41:8; Jas 2:23). This is the highest relationship possible between God and a person. Jesus chooses his friends (John 15:16), who demonstrate their friendship by obeying him.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Joh 15:14. Ὅσα, whatsoever things) not merely some things.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh_15:14. For his friends, Jesus had just said. There was a presumption implied in this, that He also would die for His friends (Euth. Zigabenus briefly and correctly points out the sequence of thought by supplying at the end of Joh_15:13 : καθὼς ἐγὼ ποιῶ νῦν). And who are these? The disciples (ὑμεῖς), if they do what He commands them.

The conception of the φίλοι is that of the loving confidential companionship with Himself, to which Christ has raised them; see Joh_15:15. Later on, He designates them even as His brothers, Joh_20:17.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh 15:14 . Then comes the application: ὑμεῖς … ὑμῖν . “Ye are my friends, if ye do what I command you.” You may expect of me this greatest demonstration of love, and therefore every minor demonstration of it which your circumstances may require, “if ye do,” etc. This condition was added not to chill and daunt, but to encourage: when you find how much suffering the completion of my work entails upon you, assure yourselves of my love. It is copartnery in work that will give you assurance that you are my friends.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vv. 14, 15. “You are my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you. 15. I call you no longer servants, because the servant knows not what his master does; but I have named you friends, because I have made known to you all things which I have heard from my Father.”

In Joh 15:14, the emphasis is, not on the condition: If you do,...but on the affirmation: You are my friends; Jesus means: “It is not without reason that I have just said: for his friends (Joh 15:13), for this is indeed the relation which I have formed with you and which will be maintained if you show yourselves obedient and faithful.” What more touching than a master who, finding a servant really faithful, gives him in the house the rank and title of friend!

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you--hold yourselves in absolute subjection to Me.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

14. You are my friends. He does not mean that we obtain so great an honor by our own merit, but only reminds them of the condition on which he receives us into favor, and deigns to reckon us among his friends; as he said a little before,

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, (John 15:10.)

For the grace of God our Savior hath appeared, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly, and righteously, and piously, in this world, (Titus 2:11.)

But ungodly men, who, through wicked contempt of the Gospel, want only oppose Christ, renounce his friendship.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(14) Ye are my friends . . .—Stress is to be laid upon the pronoun, “Ye are My friends . . .” “Ye are those of whom I have just spoken, and for whom I am about to give the greatest proof of love.”

If ye do whatsoever I command you.—Better, the things which I am commanding you, (Comp. Joh_14:21; Joh_14:23.)

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

14. Ye are my friends] ‘Ye’ is emphatic: ‘and when I say “friends,” I mean you.’ This shews that ‘friends’ was used simply because He was speaking to the Apostles.

whatsoever I command you] Better, the things which I am commanding you.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Henceforth I call you not servants,.... As they and the rest of the people of God had been, under the legal dispensation; for though they were children, yet differed nothing from servants; and were very much influenced and impressed with a servile spirit, a spirit of bondage unto fear, being kept under tutors and governors by a severe discipline; but now Christ being come in the flesh, and being about to lay down his life, and make reconciliation for them, henceforward he would not use, treat, or account them as servants:

for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth; designs to do, or is about to do; he is not made privy to all his counsels and purposes; these are only opened to him as necessity requires; which was pretty much the case of the Old Testament church, who, comparatively speaking, were used as servants; and had not the knowledge of the mysteries of grace, and of the counsels of God, as they are now laid open under the Gospel dispensation:

but I have called you friends; that is, accounted, reckoned of them, used them as his friends and familiar acquaintance; whom he told all his mind unto, and would go on to treat them as such; by leading them more and more, as they were able to bear it, into the designs of his grace, and the doctrines of his Gospel: just as Abraham was called the friend of God, and proved to be so, by his not concealing from him the thing he was about to do:

for all things I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you; not all that he knew as the omniscient God, for there was no necessity that all such things should be made known to them; but all things which he had delivered to him as man and Mediator, by his Father, respecting the salvation of men; all things which he himself was to do and suffer, in order to obtain eternal redemption; and the whole of the Gospel, as to the essential and substantial parts of it, they were to preach; for otherwise, there were some things which as yet they were not able to bear, and were reserved to another time, to be made known unto them by his Spirit.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.

Ver. 14. If ye do whatsoever, &c.] In desire and endeavour lifting at the latch, though ye cannot open the door, and looking to both the magnalia great matters and minutuia small matters of the law Boni Catholici sunt (saith Augustine) qui et fidem integram sequuntur, et bonos mores. Good Christians are those who follow a sound faith and good habits. And they are written in the book of life (saith Bernard) that do what they can, though they cannot do what they should. Qui quod possunt, faciunt, etsi quod debent, non possunt.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

You are my friends. A wonderful condescension, says St. Augustine, in our blessed Redeemer, who was God as well as man, to call such poor and sinful creatures, his friends; who, when we have done all we can, and ought, are still but unprofitable servants. I have called you my friends, because I have made known to you, &c. We can only understand these words, as St. John Chrysostom takes notice, of all things which they were capable of understanding, or which it was proper to communicate to them; for, as Christ tells them in the next chapter (ver. 12.) I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Our Lord presseth obedience to his commandments as a means, and indeed the only means, by which we can declare our love to Christ; and also useth a new argument to press their obedience, from his assuming them into the state and dignity of his friends.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

14. My friends, if ye do—He affords them a scope for becoming in action his friends. He condescends to raise them into the most intimate companionship with himself.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you just because I command you. So the natural conclusion will be, "I am showing you the highest possible fruit of my friendship I am laying down my life for you. This is how I have loved you; therefore after this manner you are to love one another". (1Jn_3:16 Eph_5:1, Eph_5:2) Our Lord then explains more and more to them how they can and do claim this glorious designation.

(1) They will vindicate the position for themselves if they are absolutely trustful and obedient.

(2) But they can have a new and nobler proof.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you - On this condition, not otherwise. A thunderbolt for Antinomianism! Who then dares assert that God's love does not at all depend on man's works?

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Here Christ invites his people to obedience, by the honourable title of friends: Ye are my friends.

1. Actively, you will declare and manifest yourselves to be my friends.-

2. Passively, I will declare myself to be your friend.

Learn hence, 1. How condescending is the love of Christ, in calling his servants by the name of friends.

2. How glorious is the believer’s relation to Christ, in being one of his friends.

3. How grateful is obedience to Christ, seeing it dignifies the practisers of it with the title of his friends.

4. Our conformity to Christ consists not so much in imitation of what he did, as in obedience to what he prescribed. Some actions of Christ are inimitable, but all his commands are obeyable.

5. That nothing short of an humble, uniform, cheerful, and constant, obedience to the commands of Christ, will evidence the truth of our relation to him, and the sincerity of our friendship with him: Then only are ye my friends, when ye do whatsoever I command you.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

everything that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you

"I have told you everything my Father told me"

my Father

Here "Father" is an important title for God. (See: Translating Son and Father)

translationWords

command

servant

lord

God the Father

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

14. ὑμεῖς φίλοι. Ὑμεῖς is emphatic: ‘and when I say “friends” I mean you.’ This shews that ‘friends’ was used simply because He was speaking to Apostles.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

14. ὑμεῖς φίλοι μού ἐστε κτλ. This is another way of expressing what has already been said in v. 10. Those who abide in Christ’s ἀγάπη are His φίλοι: see on 21:15 for ἀγαπᾶν and φιλεῖν.

ἃ ἐγὼ ἐντέλλομαι ὑμῖν. According to Mat 28:20, this was also to be the burden of the apostles’ preaching: διδάσκοντες αὐτοὺς τηρεῖν πάντα ὅσα ἐνετειλάμην ὑμῖν.

ἅ. So אDL fam. 13. B has ὅ, and AΓΔΘ have ὅσα.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

I command [εντελλομαι] . Of several words for command in the New Testament, this one is always used of giving a specific injunction or precept. The kindred noun, ejntolh, means an order, a charge, a precept and hence is used of a separate precept of the law as distinguished from the law as a whole [νομος] . See Mt 22:36, 38. It is, however, sometimes used of the whole body of the moral precepts of Christianity. See on 13 34. The sense of specific commands here falls in with the reading of the Rec. Text, osa, whatsoever, literally, as many things as.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.