NOTES for Joh 15:8-27

When speaking to His disciples about the Kingdom, Jesus constantly calls them to love one another (vv. 9-12, 17). This is unsurprising if we recall that Christianity is nothing other than life in the Kingdom, and therefore life in love. Love, of course, is not the Kingdom's only characteristic. The life of the Kingdom is also the breath of God that permeates it and those manifestations of God's power that accompany Jesus everywhere during His earthly ministry. Yet in our still not fully transformed world, the love characteristic of those who bear the Kingdom seems to be its clearest testimony.

Power, for example, is well known to the untransformed world. Indeed, in a world lying in evil there is sometimes even too much of it. Power can sometimes make people submit, but it cannot make them love. Relationships imposed by force, and therefore involuntary, are unsuitable for the Kingdom. Power in the fallen world will hardly be perceived as an alternative to the existing order. The same could be said of spiritual phenomena in themselves, for the fallen world too knows a peculiar kind of spirituality. The spiritual phenomena characteristic of fallen nature differ qualitatively in essence from the spiritual influences that proceed from the Kingdom, of course, but outwardly they can sometimes look alike, and to someone who sees only the outward appearance the difference may be imperceptible. Thus spirituality in itself does not necessarily mean that an alternative to the laws of this world has appeared.

For such an alternative to appear, everyone must be able not only to see clearly that Christ's disciples and followers possess a certain spirituality, but also to discern what it is. In this respect the witness of the love permeating every relationship in the Kingdom is the best, because mutual love visibly demonstrates to the world precisely what it does not have and what it lacks so greatly. Unlike power and spirituality as such, love can therefore become the alternative to the existing world order that the world both longs for and fears. It fears this alternative because, from the standpoint of the laws of our still untransformed world, relationships of love really are contrary to nature. Both nature and society, which has not moved so very far beyond it, follow different principles, relying on power, advantage, and efficiency.

It is no surprise that those who want to live differently in this world become a foreign body within it (vv. 18-19). But some are prepared at least to try to find an alternative, and so those who live by the laws of the Kingdom will face not only persecution. There will also be people ready to listen to their testimony and follow their path (v. 20). Nevertheless, Christ's disciples and followers should apparently neither try to escape persecution nor hope for their preaching to achieve mass success, for, in Jesus' words, “the servant is not greater than his lord.” Only the testimony is fundamentally important. Everyone decides for himself how to respond to it.

How piercing are the words about the love that lays down “one’s life for one’s friends”... My own response to these words is bewilderment and the realization that this is impossible by human strength, and therefore the recognition that I myself do not love... How greatly must one love in order to die for others? We have only one example before us, the foremost and most important for each of us: Jesus Christ. How greatly He loves every one of us, since He went to death for our sake! And not merely to death, but to torment beyond all bounds, though He was without sin and without guilt. Here lies the most important thing: to look at Him, understanding that only He can love in this way and share this love with those who believe in Him; to rejoice in our salvation, which came through the Lord and His sacrifice, rather than grieve because we ourselves cannot love like this. Then, in us as in many others, He will be able to do something worthy of His name. This is how, for example, He acted through Maximilian Kolbe and Mother Maria, who were in concentration camps and took the place in gas chambers of those who had been condemned to death.

Speaking of love as a new commandment, Jesus first of all requires every Christian to be ready to “lay down his life for his friends.” Usually this is understood as readiness to give up one’s life for friends. Yet the corresponding Greek verb means not “give up,” but precisely “lay down,” “place” — and not “instead of,” but precisely “for the sake of,” “on behalf of” friends. Obviously, this is not about self-sacrifice, or at least not only about it; rather, we should speak of the relationships that bind together people who live by the love with which Jesus loved each person. But what is this love of His, the love of the Kingdom? How does it differ from the love that people knew long before His coming into the world?

First of all, in this: human love has never been complete. It remained only an intention, a relationship, and in this sense it was a spiritual reality. But the environment within which relationships of love existed was natural, psychic: in the fallen state, after all, the human being remained primarily a natural being, and the psyche too is nature, only of a special kind.

Jesus, however, speaks of the love of the Kingdom, that Kingdom where the very environment of communion is not natural but spiritual. There love can be manifested in absolute fullness: in the Kingdom, the relationships and the environment fully correspond to one another. But a person’s life in the Kingdom cannot belong to that person alone.

Jesus Himself explains this simply: whoever wants to keep his life for himself loses it, but whoever gives it to Him and makes it part of the life of His Kingdom preserves it. And preserves it in a fullness that cannot be found in the fallen world. But if this is true of the life of the Kingdom as a whole, it is just as true when the matter concerns the relationship of the inhabitants of the Kingdom to one another: they too never belong only to themselves; their life never is and never can be something isolated, as the life of a person in the untransfigured world can be.

Of course, in the Kingdom too each person lives his own life, not someone else’s. But if the boundaries of this life in the fallen world are often closed to any interaction, in the Kingdom they are always open. There this is safe: since the life of each person is determined by God’s breath, no one abuses this openness as sometimes happens in the fallen world.

And with such openness the possibilities become immense: if necessary, each person can at any moment even completely yield his own living space to another, should the need arise. No unsolvable tasks remain for the inhabitants of the Kingdom, for there are no barriers between them either. And therefore there are no barriers for God’s breath, which unites them. Each person lives a full life, belonging at the same time both to himself and to everyone who wants to share in that fullness and take part in it.

This is the kind of life the Savior commands His disciples to live. In essence, it is Christianity itself.

The Father’s love for the Son is manifested in their inseparable unity, and the Lord invites us to abide in the same love. Are we ready for such love — not even to love in this way ourselves, since it is clear that we are not ready for that, but to receive it from Christ? Receiving love cannot be passive; it demands efforts in response, but do we always respond actively to Christ’s love? Yet even when He receives no response, He continues to love us.

He called the disciples not servants but friends, and not only those who were beside Him, but all whom He called to follow Him. He wants to raise us to a height that is difficult to reach without Him; our heads already begin to spin before the ascent has even started.

But if we are not servants to Him, then we must not be servants to one another either. Yet we want to rule, and so it is hard to accept His gift; we feel compelled to repeat after the disciple: “depart from me, for I am a sinful man.” Christ can, in fact, withdraw if we persistently beg Him to do so; He does not impose Himself by force. But He comes as a liberator, and whoever rejects Him of their own will remains a slave to sin.

In essence, two paths lie before us: to follow Christ, listening to His Word, or to turn away from Him. Jesus calls us, knocks at the doors of our hearts (see Rev. 3:20), and asks: "Abide in My love" (John 15:9). He already loves us, regardless of who we are and how we behave, what we do, whether bad or good. Nothing will separate us from His love (see Rom. 8:35-39).

But even though Love is near, it can be rejected. It can go unseen or be despised, ignored as if it were nothing. But it is there, and it is eternal. That is why the Lord calls us to abide in this love, so that He can give us life, the strength to live, and finally eternity itself - Love itself. Entering into this Love, each of us not only answers the Love of the One who created him, but also enters Eternity, taking part in the work of his own salvation.

In this passage the Lord reveals to the disciples the essence of the commandment He leaves them. And the measure of love to which He calls them turns out to be equal to death. "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends" - such is this measure. Jesus calls us to forget ourselves, not to think about our own comfort or advantage, "not to seek our own," to give rather than demand. To die to ourselves and rise for our friends - this is the new commandment.

We know that Christ Himself loved us in this highest measure, giving His life on the Cross. And as we try to love our neighbors, we gradually enter this mystery of divine love. Freely fulfilling this covenant, we cease to be slaves and become His friends, those who "know what the master is doing" and truly understand what Jesus "heard from the Father."

Today's text, of course, first of all draws attention to the new commandment that Christ gives us as the only one necessary for life. But today I would like to note the line that Jesus builds in literally a few words and that contains the whole history of the relationship between man and God. I do not call you servants; I call you friends. And the measure of love for friends becomes the death of God for the life of human beings.

Reading the Gospel of John straight through, one constantly wants to pick up the pace and avoid thinking about the literal meaning of the words Jesus speaks, because their simplicity leaves no path for retreat. We are given the possibility of choice, but this choice lies between the words "yes" and "no." And by choosing "yes," faith in God's love for each person, His death and resurrection, in only three days we will hear at the empty tomb Jesus say to Mary Magdalene: "...go to My brothers". Thus, having passed through death, God became our brother.

The passage from Christ's Last Discourse with the disciples that we read today reveals to us how the Lord Himself looks at the disciples. The point is that He, in fact, likens them to Himself. The world first hated Christ, and then His disciples. They do not belong to the world. People kept Christ's word, and they will also keep the disciples' word. Finally, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, and the disciples will bear witness to Jesus.

And the Lord says all this while explaining the commandment: "Love one another." This means that likeness to God and adoption as sons, for that is exactly what is being discussed, do not flow from some special superhuman merits of these Galilean fishermen, but from the fact that they will fulfill this commandment. Therefore Christ's words also apply to all who follow Christ's disciples in the Church, which He Himself founded precisely through these disciples.

Jesus builds His conversation with the disciples on a contrast: I give you a commandment to love one another because the world hates you. In the world there is hatred; among you there is love.

Two questions immediately arise here. First, can the disciples' love overpower the world's hatred, if the world is always larger and the disciples themselves do not really know how to love? And second, it is clear that the situation is not so polarized at all: in the world that does not believe in Christ, love is always present (for people cannot live entirely without love), and among Christians love, to put it mildly, is not the most frequent guest either.

As for the first question, one can only note that the matter is not the disciples' own love, but the mercy of the Father; and who is stronger - God or the world's evil - is a question addressed to the very depth of our being, since it has no "external" answer. As for polarization, the matter is apparently not a division into "believers and unbelievers" (it is unclear how to divide them), but the opposition between Christ and "the world" within each person again.

And again words of consolation are heard... Not only consolation, however, but also the Lord's mercy and love, which every person needs so much. Jesus is already suffering as He encounters alienation and rejection from those around Him. And what should those who follow Him expect? Yes, the growth of the Church, the joy of the Gentiles, and other grace (see, for example, Acts 4:33, 6:7, 13:48), but along with that, rejection as well.

This is said not so that we become fixated on struggle, but so that the virgins have oil in their lamps (see Matt 25:1-13). And in today's passage the Lord says that the situation in which Christians are persecuted is natural, because He Himself is persecuted. The world remains the world, and in it there will always be people who oppose His word.

Yet in these same lines we see amazing support and encouragement. After all, if you are not received, then you share His lot, and that means you are His.

Jesus says: a servant is not greater than his master. The conclusion seems perfectly obvious: if Jesus was persecuted, why should His disciples not be persecuted? What is not obvious is something else. He says that a servant is not greater than his master—and continues: “If they kept My word, they will keep yours also.” It follows that, by the master’s mercy, the servant also receives His privilege: to speak with authority. In what situation can the disciples’ word be “with authority,” like the Teacher’s word? The answer is simple: when it is the same word—or, more precisely, the same Word who became flesh and dwelt among us. When it is He Himself who speaks and acts through them.

Speaking about the inevitability of the persecutions awaiting Christians, Jesus at the same time clearly defines their cause. His words make it clear that these persecutions cannot be called religious, just as Christianity cannot be called a religion. After all, Jesus says nothing about any new religion. He speaks about a new life. About the life of the Kingdom that He brought into the world. And about the fact that this new life is incompatible with the life of the world in its present state. If the matter were religion, conflict perhaps could have been avoided.

Every religion usually has some measure of adaptability. All religions, in one way or another and to some degree, have adapted and still adapt to the demands of this world, and religions that have grown on Christian soil are no exception. But no one has ever managed to adapt the life of the Kingdom to the life of this world. Not in any form of this world: not secular, not religious. It is no accident that Judaism, which became the religious environment and, to a certain degree, the religious form in which the early Christian Church existed, did not accept Christianity.

What in Judaism went beyond the strictly religious framework - the tradition of living Revelation, the teaching about the inner Torah and the living Torah - was accepted and assimilated by Christianity, though some of it was later lost. But Judaism as a religion never became an organic part of Christian life. And the issue here is not newly converted Gentiles, but the fact that Christianity as new life did not fit within any religious framework. Not even within the framework that was part of the soil that had grown it. And the religiosity that grew on the soil of historical Christianity also proved too narrow for Christian life.

It is no accident that Christian history has so often seen cases when Christian righteous people, or saints as they are called in some churches, who sought the fullness of the life of the Kingdom and found it, were persecuted precisely by religious people and religious authorities, now Christian ones. Religion is part of this world, and when it meets the Kingdom and its life, that feature of religion will inevitably show itself. That is why Jesus speaks about the inevitability of persecutions. Until the end of time. Until the full triumph of the Kingdom. And until the full transformation of the very nature of this world.

Christ does not promise those who follow Him the conveniences of life or earthly prosperity. We are clearly warned: if someone wants to see Christianity as a way to solve accumulated problems and a means of achieving comfort, he has come to the wrong door. And the Lord does not refuse us help at all: when solving these problems is necessary, He is ready to respond to our petitions and gives us the right and the opportunity to reap earthly fruits as well. But by placing not God Himself at the center of attention, but His gifts, we turn away from Him, perhaps unintentionally, without thinking about it, but this does not change the essence of the matter.

If we choose Christ, we must be ready to face opposition. The call to carry one's cross, addressed to each of the disciples, flows from a clear vision of the reality of evil ruling in the world. One can evade this call if one wishes; however, then we will inevitably be defeated by evil. Evil often looks attractive and tempting, but its weight, unlike the weight of the cross, will both crush us and press us into the mud.

We are also warned that many of the persecutors will be sure they are serving God, but Christ clearly said of such people that they have known neither the Father nor the Son. The persecutors themselves will not agree with such a reproach and in response will begin to refer to their own theological knowledge. But knowledge of ideas about God is still not knowledge of God Himself, and here the warning applies to all of us: persecutors are not the only ones at risk of making such a substitution. As history shows, the persecuted, when circumstances changed, also became persecutors more than once...

Everything in our world is interconnected: every event inevitably brings something else after it, and we cannot always say what that will be. For example, a smile to a neighbor can lift his spirits, or even help him understand that joy and love exist and restore his desire to live. The infamous oil spilled by Annushka can become the cause of death... Everything is connected, and the consequences can be very serious. This places on us the duty to be extremely attentive in our relationships with the world and with those around us, understanding that only Love always brings good in its wake.

In today's reading from the Gospel of John, Jesus also speaks about the connection of everything that happens. He proclaims the testimony of the Spirit of Truth, the Comforter sent to us (see John 15:26). And the Spirit of the Lord, who comes to fill the hearts of those who believe in Him, is a gift from God. The words "And you also will bear witness" (John 15:27) tell us that our work follows the gift: using it for service to God and passing the Spirit on to others, as the Apostles did. If we do not share what God gives us, what we have appropriated will simply perish, like a flower tightly clutched in the hand. Therefore, if something is given from above, it must be used, because nothing is given for no reason.

The vineyard, the vine — ancient Old Testament symbols of Israel (Isa. 5:1-7; Ps. 79:9). Jesus Himself also uses these images in His parables (Matt. 20:1-16; 21:28-46). And now, speaking with His disciples alone, He reveals to them the mystery of their new calling — gathered around Him for the messianic meal, they join themselves to the true vine, to the One who is the real Chosen One, forming a new people. Their belonging to the true religion, the true people — to everything claimed by all the "orthodox," "patriots," and "true believers" — is now determined not by nationality, not by confession, not by any orientation, but only by whether they "abide" in Jesus, live His life, and bear His fruit...

Before going to His death, Jesus speaks the most important words to His disciples. He reveals the very essence of what it means to be His disciple. Each of us is called to be a branch on the vine, and therefore to be directly connected with Christ and nourished by life-giving sap, as happens in a plant. If a flower is cut from its stem, however beautiful it may be, it will inevitably wither. In the same way, a person who has lost his connection with God loses life and is unable to bear fruit.

There are many indications in the Gospel that this connection with the Lord is realized through His Word. Here Jesus once again addresses the apostles and all of us, saying that “the words that abide in you” are a necessary condition for fruit to appear and for the whole branch to remain alive. If this condition is met, even the most incredible things become possible; then, “ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”

Speaking of the word by which He cleansed His disciples, Jesus again bears witness to Himself as the living Torah. It was precisely about the words of the Torah in those days that people said they cleanse a person. The point, of course, was not to memorize the text of the Pentateuch and repeat it in the hope that the repetition itself would free the one repeating it from all sins. Although among Jews there were many people in those days, as there are today, who truly knew the Pentateuch by heart.

But the point was not to memorize the Pentateuch, but to let God's commandment change one's life. First the inner life, and then the outer one. The commandment was seen not simply as some legal or even moral norm, but as the direct revelation of God's will. As God's intention addressed to a person. It had to be accepted as such, and one's own life had to be built in accordance with it. One had to bring one's human intentions into agreement with God's. In those days this was called the inner Torah. The very one that cleansed a person. Because it truly became the living word of God, which could cleanse. And Jesus speaks of the cleansing power of His words. By this He affirms that every word of His is the word of God. But cleansing through the word alone proves insufficient. One must also preserve essential unity with Christ; otherwise full life in the Kingdom is impossible. Essential unity means the kind in which one lives one life with Him.

Like shoots on a grapevine: normal life for them is possible only as long as they remain united with that vine. Yet participation alone is not enough; that same life must also continue in the shoot itself. Dry shoots, like dry branches on trees, are not needed; they are only a burden for the tree or for the vine. It is not enough to be near Jesus and share in His life, not enough to experience the breath of the Kingdom as reality. One must also become a vessel and bearer of this life and this breath.

Of course, both the breath of the Kingdom that surrounds a person and the encounter with Christ change him, and neither passes without a trace. But if after all this the person does not change inwardly and does not himself become, in Paul's words, a "temple of the Holy Spirit," a place where the Spirit abides, then one can say that all the encounters came to nothing and the whole experience was wasted. This is why the Christian needs the inner Torah: so that what is received in encounters with Christ and in the experience of the Kingdom does not run out of his soul like water through a sieve. Only in this twofold unity of the Law (the inner Torah) and grace is the life of the Kingdom possible: not episodic and accidental, but full.

Speaking of the word by which He has cleansed His disciples, Jesus again bears witness to Himself as the living Torah. After all, it was precisely the words of the Torah that people in those days said cleansed a person. Of course, this did not mean memorizing the text of the Pentateuch and repeating it in the hope that the repetition itself would free the one repeating it from all sins. Although there were many people in those days, as indeed there are today, who really did know the Pentateuch by heart among the Jews.

But the point was not to memorize the Pentateuch by heart, but to allow God's commandment to change one's life. First inwardly, and then outwardly as well. The commandment was viewed not simply as some legal or even moral norm, but as a direct revelation of God's will. As God's intention directed toward the human being. It had to be accepted as such, and one's own life had to be built in accordance with it. One's human intentions had to be brought into accord with God's. In those days this was called the inner Torah. The very Torah that cleansed a person. Because it truly became the living word of God, which could cleanse. And Jesus speaks of the cleansing power of His words. Thereby He affirms that every word of His is the word of God. But cleansing through the word alone proves insufficient. One must also preserve an essential unity with Christ; otherwise full life in the Kingdom is impossible. Essential means the kind of unity in which one lives one life with Him.

Like shoots on a grapevine: normal life is possible for them only as long as they remain united with that vine. Yet participation alone is not enough: the same life must also continue in the shoot itself. Dry shoots, like dry branches on trees, are not needed; they are only a burden for the tree or for the vine. It is not enough to be near Jesus and share in His life, not enough to experience the breath of the Kingdom as reality; one must also become oneself a vessel and bearer of this life and this breath.

Of course, the breath of the Kingdom that blows over a person changes him, and a meeting with Christ does not pass without leaving a trace. But if after all this a person does not change inwardly, does not become, in Paul's words, a "temple of the Holy Spirit," a place where the Spirit dwells, then one can say that all the meetings were in vain and the whole experience was wasted. The inner Torah is necessary for a Christian precisely so that what is received in meetings with Christ and in the experience of the Kingdom does not leak out of his soul like water through a sieve. Only in this twofold unity of the Law, the inner Torah, and grace is the life of the Kingdom possible: not episodic and accidental, but full.

Before going to His death, Jesus speaks the most important words to His disciples. He reveals the very essence of what it means to be His disciple. Each of us is called to be a branch on the vine, and therefore to be directly connected with Christ and nourished by life-giving sap, as happens in a plant. If a flower is cut from its stem, however beautiful it may be, it will inevitably wither. In the same way, a person who has lost his connection with God loses life and is unable to bear fruit.

There are many indications in the Gospel that this connection with the Lord is realized through His Word. Here Jesus once again addresses the apostles and all of us, saying that “the words that abide in you” are a necessary condition for fruit to appear and for the whole branch to remain alive. If this condition is met, even the most incredible things become possible; then, “ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”

Today's reading lets us see the foundation of what is, properly speaking, called Christianity. Jesus tells His disciples: I am the vine, and My Father is the vinedresser (v. 1). The image of the vineyard was already a symbol of the messianic Kingdom among the ancient prophets. And by calling Himself the vine, Jesus bears witness to Himself as the spiritual core of this Kingdom. This is not about some new religion of the Kingdom founded by Jesus. The vine is not a teaching and not a religion, but Jesus Himself. He is the One who brought the Kingdom into the world, and if it can exist, it is only because He will continue to remain its center and support. Jesus carries in Himself the fullness of God, and therefore also the fullness of the Kingdom, which is inseparable from His Person. In philosophical language, this is an ontological unity; it cannot be destroyed. And the Father truly is the vinedresser, for it is His power that gives life to the Kingdom, and Jesus reveals His fullness to the world (John 14:8-11).

Christianity, then, is life in the Kingdom, life inseparable from the life of Jesus Himself, who compares His disciples to the branches of the vine (vv. 4-5). This, properly speaking, is Christianity in the Gospel sense of the word: living one life with Christ in His Kingdom. As we can see, one can speak of Christianity only when the life of Christ's followers is as inseparable from the life of the Savior as the life of the Savior Himself is inseparable from the life of the Father. The unity of the Kingdom is determined not by a shared teaching, religion, or morality, but by a shared life.

And life depends on the sincerity and trust of the relationship between Jesus and those who seek the Kingdom. That is why, as we can see, those entering it need the cleansing by the word that Jesus mentions when He tells the disciples about the Kingdom (v. 3). To be a Christian means, properly speaking, to live the life of the Kingdom. All the other elements of Christian tradition are needed only for this "cleansing by the word"; they are only the means needed so that the words Jesus once spoke may sound again and again, becoming a guide for new generations seeking the Kingdom.

There can be no other Christianity by definition: Jesus Himself points to Himself with complete clarity as the only foundation of the Kingdom, and therefore of the Church. Any alternative is, in the Savior's language, the alternative of a "withered branch," doomed to destruction (vv. 4-6).

And this is no surprise: in the untransformed world that lies in evil, there is nothing that can give life to the person seeking the Kingdom. The world is vast, but there is only one Source of life in it. Whether to accept Him or reject Him is something each person decides.

We are called to abide in the vine because, when separated from it, the branches are cut off from the source of life and quickly wither. The branches are free to break away, but they themselves will gain nothing from it. None of the branches grafted into this vine can remain fruitless. The Gardener calls us to bear fruit precisely because He constantly prunes the branches and enables them to do so—each branch according to its own measure, and there is no need to be troubled that each has a different measure. But if we refuse to bear fruit and intend to settle comfortably on the vine without making any effort, we will fall away from it. We are warned that in that case we will be cast out and wither. In fact, we will begin withering even before visibly separating from the vine, for a branch that has not completely broken off but is separating inwardly already deprives itself of life-giving sap.

It is no accident that fallen vine branches are used as a symbol of spiritual barrenness. Once cut off, their weakness when dry makes them unsuitable for use in objects such as baskets or fences. Even as fuel they are inferior to other branches: they burn quickly and give little heat...

Every branch that bears fruit, the Father prunes so that it may bear more fruit. Jesus says that the disciples have already been cleansed through the word He preached, and now the task is to abide in Him.

Something within us constantly strives for independence, and this is normal, since God created us free. But when we begin seeking freedom from Him, sooner or later we receive it, and then it turns out that without the Living Vine we perish and dry up.

Most often, however, we exist like a cracked branch that still appears connected to the vine and receives nourishment from it, but the connection is weak and there is not enough sap. It depends on our choice whether it breaks off completely or is grafted back into the vine.