John 15:9-11

“ As the Father has loved me, I also have loved you; abide in my love. 10. If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love, as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love. 11. I have spoken this to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be fulfilled. ”

It is the love of Jesus which has formed the bond between Him and ourselves. In this love has the stream of the divine love burst forth on the earth; first, the love of the Father for Jesus, of which He gave Him the assurance at the baptism, and which is that with which He loved Him before His incarnation (John 17:24); then, the love of Jesus for His own, which is of the same nature as that of God for Him (καθώς, not ὥσπερ).

The initiative in these two cases comes from the more exalted being. What then is the condition to the end that the relation may be maintained and strengthened? It is simply necessary that the inferior being should accept this love and respond to it. He has not to awaken it; he has only to abide under its beams. But in order to this, he must not force it to turn away from him; and this is what he will do by unfaithfulness and disobedience. Jesus calls attention to the fact that He does not here impose on the believer with reference to Himself any other condition than that to which He has Himself submitted with reference to the Father. His life was an act of permanent submission to the divine injunctions; without this submission, he would have ceased instantly to be the object of the satisfied love of the Father (John 8:29, John 10:17).

Such is also the position of the believer with regard to the love of Christ. The expression my love can designate here only the love of Jesus for His own; comp. the words: As I have loved you, and the whole development in John 15:13-16. The Lord uses with reference to Himself the verbs in the past because He has reached the end of His earthly life. The second clause of John 15:9: and I have loved you, does not depend on καθώς, as: “As my Father has loved me and as I have loved you.” For the principal verb, which would, in that case, be: abide, is not in any logical relation to the first clause of John 15:9: as my Father has loved me. The meaning is: “And I also, I have loved you; continue therefore the objects of this love.”

And how so? By faithfulness to His injunctions like to that which He Himself testifies with reference to the will of the Father (John 15:10).

In demanding this of them Jesus is assured by His own experience that He is not imposing on them a burden, but rather is revealing to them the secret of perfect joy (John 15:11). It is this constant rejoicing in the love of the Father in the path of obedience which has constituted His own joy here on earth; and this joy will be reproduced in His disciples in the same path. It is then, indeed, His joy into which He initiates them and to the possession of which He invites them in these words: “ I have said this to you in order that...” My joy cannot therefore here signify: the joy which I will produce in you (Calvin); or the joy which I feel on your account (Augustine); or the joy which you feel on my account (Euthymius). The question is of the joy with which He Himself rejoices in feeling Himself to be the object of the Father's love. Comp. the analogous expression my peace, John 14:27.

Thus through obedience their joy will increase even to fulness. For every act of fidelity will draw closer the bond between Jesus and themselves, as every moment in the life of Jesus drew closer the bond between Him and His Father. And to feel oneself included with the Son in the Father's love is not this perfect joy? The reading ᾖ seems preferable to μείνῃ. The notion of being is sufficient; that of abiding would be superfluous; comp. John 17:26.