NOTES for Joh 15:8-27
8 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. |
9 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. |
10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. |
11 These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. |
12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. |
13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. |
14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. |
15 Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. |
16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. |
17 These things I command you, that ye love one another. |
18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. |
19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. |
20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. |
21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me. |
22 If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. |
23 He that hateth me hateth my Father also. |
24 If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. |
25 But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause. |
26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: |
27 And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning. |
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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.
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