John 15:15

Vv. 15 serves to prove the reality of this position of friends which He has given them. He has shown an unbounded confidence in them by initiating them unreservedly into the communications which His Father made to Him with relation to the great work in which He had called them to labor with Him. The master employs his slave without explaining to him what he intends to do. Jesus has communicated to them the whole thought of God with regard to the salvation in which they are to co-operate. No doubt there remain yet many things to teach them (John 16:12).

But, if He has not yet revealed these to them, it is not from a want of confidence and love; it is in order to spare their weakness and because only another can discharge this task. It has been objected to this οὐκέτι (“I no longer call you”), that the address my friends is found in Luke 12:4, much earlier than the present moment; as if the tendency to make them His friends had not existed in Him from the beginning, and must not have manifested itself already on certain occasions! It has also been objected that the apostles continue to call themselves servants of Jesus Christ; as if, although it pleases the master to make the servant his friend, the latter were not so much the more bound to remind himself and others of his natural condition!