Chapters 12-17 of the Gospel of St. John contain some of the most personal and intimate words that Jesus spoke to His disciples in all the gospel accounts. The setting of these words is deeply moving. The image of Jesus, in the upper room with his disciples, on the very night of his betrayal, evokes a strong impression of the emotions that must have filled the room: Jesus’ own emotions, knowing what was about to happen; the disciples emotions, hearing Him say that one of them would betray Him and that he was soon to leave them. These all add to the impact of the words which He spoke to them. What is more, because Jesus was trying to encourage His disciples, the chapters contain many famous deeds and sayings of Jesus that bring comfort to us today, such things as the foot-washing passage, the assurances of Jesus’ love, His promise of the Spirit, and, like a great crescendo in a musical piece, His priestly prayer in chapter 17.
It is true that, some of the things Jesus said that night pertained especially to the future apostles. But we must not think they do not also apply to us. We often find the Lord using language which sets forth principles of a nature that would apply to all the Church. He speaks of blessings to come to anyone who would believe in Him and love Him. It is evident throughout the passage that Jesus addresses the Christian life in general and we should listen to what He said to His disciples as personal words to us as well, that is, as much as the rest of Scripture will allow.
Indeed, I intend to show you how it is that one of the things Jesus emphasizes in this passage is something that was long found in the Old Testament, and one of the most important things God has ever said to His people about how they are to live. It certainly must apply to us today.
Three times, in our Gospel reading today, Jesus spoke of the relationship between our loving God and our keeping His commandments. If you will recall, the passage began with the words, "If ye love me, keep my commandments". This statement is a command. There was no doubting the disciples love for Jesus; it was the reason for their sorrow that night. But Jesus tells them that, if they really do love Him, as they seem to, then what He wants them to do is keep His commands. That’s how He wants to see love for Him directed. It is not enough to have feelings of love for Jesus, for love is not mere feelings anyway. We are to recognize that love for Him brings us into a relationship with Him that requires us to keep His commands. As the apostle John would later say himself in his first letter, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments” (5:3). There is no such thing as a disobedient love for God.
Having given his disciples this instruction about love for Him, he then proceeds to tell them about how the Comforter would be sent to them, that he was leaving, and how they would have life in Him. He then brings back the subject of love and obedience, but this time, instead of a command about their love and obedience, he gives them a definition. Who is the person that loves Jesus? Answer: "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me." Again, it’s pretty simple: you cannot have love and disobedience. This time, however, Jesus adds something else to his statement about love and obedience – a wonderful promise: "and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." Does your heart not long to know you are loved by God? What a blessing that is. But look, Jesus not only assures the love of God for us, but He says that he will manifest himself to us. What does he mean? It sounds wonderful, but how would he manifest himself? The disciples wondered about that saying as well.
In answer to their question, Jesus goes on to make his third statement about love and obedience by speaking of a principle. He started out with a command, he then gave a definition, and now it’s a principle: "If a man love me, he will keep my words." In other words, those who love me go on to keep my commands – that’s just the way it is, and we understand that. He really seems to want to get this across to them. Before he answers their question, he repeats it. Then, answering their question about His manifesting Himself, he adds: "and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." What an amazing thing for him to say! Does not the idea of God loving you and abiding with you – making his home with you – sound like the most wonderful thing ever? If there ever was anything too good to be true, it is this – but here we have it. It goes right along with what Jesus is saying about the Spirit. The Spirit is God Himself, and He is sent to us to be with us and even in us, so that Paul could say that our very bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. God abides with us by His Spirit. That is how Jesus manifests himself to us. He does so in a spiritual manner. He gives to our hearts the knowledge of Himself by His Spirit. He is real to us, and we learn things about him, and we love him, though we cannot see him, because of the manifestation of Jesus to the eyes of our faith by the Holy Spirit.
Now that we have seen Jesus giving his disciples a command, and a definition, and a principle, all related to how we are to understand what real love for him is about, let us briefly take care to understand the conditionality of the blessings he promises that go along with this love and obedience. They are indeed conditional. We must not make the mistake, in our zeal for the free grace of God toward us in Christ, of throwing out our responsibility for the blessings we have in the Christian life when God puts that responsibility with us. Of course, if we obey, it is by His gracious power we do so, but He has given us a will to use and if we will not use it, we will forfeit the enjoyment of His presence, as he promises here in this passage. God is not going to spoil his children, giving them things for which they are not thankful or for which they do not, in a sense, deserve. It is possible to have times in our lives, as Christians, when we are not loving and obeying as we ought, and the Holy Spirit, in response to our decisions, does not manifest Jesus to us, as He is wont, and we lose our joy in Him. This is just what we deserve and we need it to make us realize our folly. That is not the same thing as losing our salvation all together. However, anyone who persists, in spite of the wooing of the Spirit, to walk in a path of disobedience to Christ’s commands can hardly assure themselves that they are on the narrow road to heaven.
We can find many illustrations and instructions about the conditionality of some of the blessings God gives his children throughout Scripture. But I said that I would show you that these things Jesus says about love and obedience have applied to the people of God throughout history, and to do so, I point us to Deuteronomy 6. The LORD says to His people Israel:
1: Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the LORD your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it: 2: That thou mightest fear the LORD thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son's son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged. 4: Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: 5: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. 6: And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: 17: Ye shall diligently keep the commandments of the LORD your God, and his testimonies, and his statutes, which he hath commanded thee. 18: And thou shalt do that which is right and good in the sight of the LORD: that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest go in and possess the good land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers….
Do you see how, in this passage, love for God is combined with obedience to His commandments? This command to connect obedience with love, this definition of who His people really are, this principle of how true love for God works, is something that He has always set before His people. It is something He has always been after in all His saving acts toward us. It is something that He has longed for us to understand and live by. In chapter 5, verse 29, God says, in heart-wrenching words, 29: "O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever!" Do you hear his loving heart, and his longing that his people would love and obey him?
But think again. What was the setting for these words to Moses? We find God has the whole people of Israel in the wilderness at the foot of Mt. Sinai. He is publicly, in great signs and wonders, making his covenant with them. In all the various commands and instructions they received, this is the most important of all: love and obey me. We sometimes feel like the Christian life can be a bit complicated. How much more it would be if we also had to keep all the laws the Jews had to keep! But it is not so. The kernel of it all is love for God and keeping his commands. That’s it. If they themselves did that, they would have been doing the main thing God wanted.
Now, let your imagination bring you through the centuries from Mt. Sinai to the upper room in Jerusalem. Do we not hear Jesus telling his disciples the same thing Moses heard on Mt. Sinai? What is happening?
Where did we get the Lord’s Supper from? The upper room. What did Jesus say it was about? It was about the New Covenant he was making with his people in fulfillment of the words of the Old Testament prophets. As Jehovah made his covenant with Israel on Sinai and told them to love him and obey him, so – get this – Jehovah is making his covenant with the New Testament people of God and telling them to do the same. He’s the same God longing for the same thing. But now there is a huge difference. This time it is going to work better than it did before. Instead of animal sacrifices, the Son of God would pour out His own blood for us, and, instead of the Spirit being given only to a few, he would be given to all God’s people, from the least to the greatest. Now, if ever it was going to happen in history, God’s people ought to be willing and able to love him and obey him after all Jesus did for them.
The Christian life is not complicated. This is what God wants. He wants a loving and obedient people.
But if all that was not enough, we end with the last words of Jesus in our reading today. Talk about motivation, hear his words again: But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Jesus is saying that He is going to the Cross and rising from the dead and sending the Comforter because He loves God and keeps His commandments. Jehovah always longed for the love and obedience of his people, for their own good. They wouldn’t’ give it. So what does he do? The Son of God becomes the incarnate Son of God; he becomes Jesus of Nazareth. He comes to earth and shows us how it is done. And having done so, in his own death, resurrection, and ascension, he paves the way for us to simply follow Him.
Dear ones, we live many years after Jesus spoke and did these things. The Spirit has been poured upon us as He promised. He is with us today, ready to manifest Jesus to us. Do you not see him in the reading of these words from St. John? Do you not see the heart God has for you? Do you not see the pain with which Jesus has bought you and given you new life that you may sup with him, as he is present by his Spirit, at this table this morning; that you may grow in love and obedience to your Heavenly Father? What glorious things do we celebrate! Let us do so with a true love for God – a love that leaves the table, in the strength of the grace God has given, to please him in the keeping of his commandments. Whatever we lose, we gain more. We gain the unspeakable: God will abide with us."Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift."--2 Corinthians 9:15. Amen.
It is true that, some of the things Jesus said that night pertained especially to the future apostles. But we must not think they do not also apply to us. We often find the Lord using language which sets forth principles of a nature that would apply to all the Church. He speaks of blessings to come to anyone who would believe in Him and love Him. It is evident throughout the passage that Jesus addresses the Christian life in general and we should listen to what He said to His disciples as personal words to us as well, that is, as much as the rest of Scripture will allow.
Indeed, I intend to show you how it is that one of the things Jesus emphasizes in this passage is something that was long found in the Old Testament, and one of the most important things God has ever said to His people about how they are to live. It certainly must apply to us today.
Three times, in our Gospel reading today, Jesus spoke of the relationship between our loving God and our keeping His commandments. If you will recall, the passage began with the words, "If ye love me, keep my commandments". This statement is a command. There was no doubting the disciples love for Jesus; it was the reason for their sorrow that night. But Jesus tells them that, if they really do love Him, as they seem to, then what He wants them to do is keep His commands. That’s how He wants to see love for Him directed. It is not enough to have feelings of love for Jesus, for love is not mere feelings anyway. We are to recognize that love for Him brings us into a relationship with Him that requires us to keep His commands. As the apostle John would later say himself in his first letter, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments” (5:3). There is no such thing as a disobedient love for God.
Having given his disciples this instruction about love for Him, he then proceeds to tell them about how the Comforter would be sent to them, that he was leaving, and how they would have life in Him. He then brings back the subject of love and obedience, but this time, instead of a command about their love and obedience, he gives them a definition. Who is the person that loves Jesus? Answer: "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me." Again, it’s pretty simple: you cannot have love and disobedience. This time, however, Jesus adds something else to his statement about love and obedience – a wonderful promise: "and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." Does your heart not long to know you are loved by God? What a blessing that is. But look, Jesus not only assures the love of God for us, but He says that he will manifest himself to us. What does he mean? It sounds wonderful, but how would he manifest himself? The disciples wondered about that saying as well.
In answer to their question, Jesus goes on to make his third statement about love and obedience by speaking of a principle. He started out with a command, he then gave a definition, and now it’s a principle: "If a man love me, he will keep my words." In other words, those who love me go on to keep my commands – that’s just the way it is, and we understand that. He really seems to want to get this across to them. Before he answers their question, he repeats it. Then, answering their question about His manifesting Himself, he adds: "and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." What an amazing thing for him to say! Does not the idea of God loving you and abiding with you – making his home with you – sound like the most wonderful thing ever? If there ever was anything too good to be true, it is this – but here we have it. It goes right along with what Jesus is saying about the Spirit. The Spirit is God Himself, and He is sent to us to be with us and even in us, so that Paul could say that our very bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. God abides with us by His Spirit. That is how Jesus manifests himself to us. He does so in a spiritual manner. He gives to our hearts the knowledge of Himself by His Spirit. He is real to us, and we learn things about him, and we love him, though we cannot see him, because of the manifestation of Jesus to the eyes of our faith by the Holy Spirit.
Now that we have seen Jesus giving his disciples a command, and a definition, and a principle, all related to how we are to understand what real love for him is about, let us briefly take care to understand the conditionality of the blessings he promises that go along with this love and obedience. They are indeed conditional. We must not make the mistake, in our zeal for the free grace of God toward us in Christ, of throwing out our responsibility for the blessings we have in the Christian life when God puts that responsibility with us. Of course, if we obey, it is by His gracious power we do so, but He has given us a will to use and if we will not use it, we will forfeit the enjoyment of His presence, as he promises here in this passage. God is not going to spoil his children, giving them things for which they are not thankful or for which they do not, in a sense, deserve. It is possible to have times in our lives, as Christians, when we are not loving and obeying as we ought, and the Holy Spirit, in response to our decisions, does not manifest Jesus to us, as He is wont, and we lose our joy in Him. This is just what we deserve and we need it to make us realize our folly. That is not the same thing as losing our salvation all together. However, anyone who persists, in spite of the wooing of the Spirit, to walk in a path of disobedience to Christ’s commands can hardly assure themselves that they are on the narrow road to heaven.
We can find many illustrations and instructions about the conditionality of some of the blessings God gives his children throughout Scripture. But I said that I would show you that these things Jesus says about love and obedience have applied to the people of God throughout history, and to do so, I point us to Deuteronomy 6. The LORD says to His people Israel:
1: Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the LORD your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it: 2: That thou mightest fear the LORD thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son's son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged. 4: Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: 5: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. 6: And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: 17: Ye shall diligently keep the commandments of the LORD your God, and his testimonies, and his statutes, which he hath commanded thee. 18: And thou shalt do that which is right and good in the sight of the LORD: that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest go in and possess the good land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers….
Do you see how, in this passage, love for God is combined with obedience to His commandments? This command to connect obedience with love, this definition of who His people really are, this principle of how true love for God works, is something that He has always set before His people. It is something He has always been after in all His saving acts toward us. It is something that He has longed for us to understand and live by. In chapter 5, verse 29, God says, in heart-wrenching words, 29: "O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever!" Do you hear his loving heart, and his longing that his people would love and obey him?
But think again. What was the setting for these words to Moses? We find God has the whole people of Israel in the wilderness at the foot of Mt. Sinai. He is publicly, in great signs and wonders, making his covenant with them. In all the various commands and instructions they received, this is the most important of all: love and obey me. We sometimes feel like the Christian life can be a bit complicated. How much more it would be if we also had to keep all the laws the Jews had to keep! But it is not so. The kernel of it all is love for God and keeping his commands. That’s it. If they themselves did that, they would have been doing the main thing God wanted.
Now, let your imagination bring you through the centuries from Mt. Sinai to the upper room in Jerusalem. Do we not hear Jesus telling his disciples the same thing Moses heard on Mt. Sinai? What is happening?
Where did we get the Lord’s Supper from? The upper room. What did Jesus say it was about? It was about the New Covenant he was making with his people in fulfillment of the words of the Old Testament prophets. As Jehovah made his covenant with Israel on Sinai and told them to love him and obey him, so – get this – Jehovah is making his covenant with the New Testament people of God and telling them to do the same. He’s the same God longing for the same thing. But now there is a huge difference. This time it is going to work better than it did before. Instead of animal sacrifices, the Son of God would pour out His own blood for us, and, instead of the Spirit being given only to a few, he would be given to all God’s people, from the least to the greatest. Now, if ever it was going to happen in history, God’s people ought to be willing and able to love him and obey him after all Jesus did for them.
The Christian life is not complicated. This is what God wants. He wants a loving and obedient people.
But if all that was not enough, we end with the last words of Jesus in our reading today. Talk about motivation, hear his words again: But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Jesus is saying that He is going to the Cross and rising from the dead and sending the Comforter because He loves God and keeps His commandments. Jehovah always longed for the love and obedience of his people, for their own good. They wouldn’t’ give it. So what does he do? The Son of God becomes the incarnate Son of God; he becomes Jesus of Nazareth. He comes to earth and shows us how it is done. And having done so, in his own death, resurrection, and ascension, he paves the way for us to simply follow Him.
Dear ones, we live many years after Jesus spoke and did these things. The Spirit has been poured upon us as He promised. He is with us today, ready to manifest Jesus to us. Do you not see him in the reading of these words from St. John? Do you not see the heart God has for you? Do you not see the pain with which Jesus has bought you and given you new life that you may sup with him, as he is present by his Spirit, at this table this morning; that you may grow in love and obedience to your Heavenly Father? What glorious things do we celebrate! Let us do so with a true love for God – a love that leaves the table, in the strength of the grace God has given, to please him in the keeping of his commandments. Whatever we lose, we gain more. We gain the unspeakable: God will abide with us."Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift."--2 Corinthians 9:15. Amen.
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