Joh 15:7 If you live in Me [abide vitally united to Me] and My words remain in you and continue to live in your hearts, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.
Joh 15:8 When you bear (produce) much fruit, My Father is honored and glorified, and you show and prove yourselves to be true followers of Mine.
Joh 15:9 I have loved you, [just] as the Father has loved Me; abide in My love [continue in His love with Me].
Joh 15:10 If you keep My commandments [if you continue to obey My instructions], you will abide in My love and live on in it, just as I have obeyed My Father's commandments and live on in His love.
Joh 15:11 I have told you these things, that My joy and delight may be in you, and that your joy and gladness may be of full measure and complete and overflowing.
Joh 15:12 This is My commandment: that you love one another [just] as I have loved you.
John 15:7-12
In this verse he returns once more on the principle of union with himself, and of what will come out of it. The disciples may be sorely distressed at this possible doom, for whatever may be the lot of those who do not obey the gospel and are ignorant of the Law of God, the curse here uttered fails heavily upon those who have been once enlightened, etc., and have apostatized (Heb 6:4-6). The anxiety of the apostles ]s grievous, and they desire deliverance from this doom. And our Lord next unfolds the principle of prayer which laid such hold on the mind of the Apostle John: If ye abide in me (and then, instead of adding, "And I abide in you," he says); and my words abide in you; i.e. if my teaching so abide with you as to control your thoughts and ideas, remain in you as your guide and inspiration, then ask £ whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done to you. A timid interpretation of this promise limits the "whatsoever" to deeds of service in the kingdom of God, and fears, with Augustine, to trust the sanctified will of the believer. But in such harmony with Christ as these words supply, all the conditions of acceptable prayer are present. The believer in Christ, full of his words, evermore consciously realizing union with Christ, charged with the thoughts, burning with the purposes, filled with words of Jesus, will have no will that is not in harmony with the Divine will. Then faith is possible in the fulfillment of his own desire, and prayer becomes a prophecy and pledge of the answer. The apostle, after many years of pondering and of putting these principles into practice, confirms the truth of them (1Jn 5:14-16). This is the true philosophy of prayer. The psalmist had gone a long way in the same direction (Psa 37:4, "Delight thyself in the Lord; and he shall give thee thy heart’s desire").
Joh 15:8
Here the Lord shows what he knows will be and must be the dominant desire of the man who abides in himself, in whom his own word abides. Such a man will seek, yearn, ask, that he should bear much fruit. This prayer will be heard, and in this sublime synthesis between Christ and his disciples, says Christ, was my Father glorified. "In the fruitfulness of the vine is the glory of the husbandman," and in the answer of your prayers, and the regulation of all your desires, so ye shall become my disciples. £ "Discipleship" is a very large word, never altogether realized. Just as faith leads to faith, and love to love, and light to light, so does discipleship to discipleship. As Bengel says, discipleship is the fundamentum et fastigium of Christianity. On earth the vine reveals itself in the branches, and thus conceals itself behind them. "This explains why the diffusion of spiritual life makes such slow progress in the world—the vine effects nothing but by means of the branches, and these so often paralyze instead of promoting the action of the vine" (Godet). If the other text be maintained, Herein was my Father glorified, so that ye might bear much fruit, and that ye may become my disciples, the "herein" points back to the previous verse, and then the contemplated result of the arrangement, rather than the purpose of the glory, is the matter referred to.
Joh 15:9
Two ways of explaining this verse: Even as—inasmuch as—the Father hath loved me, and as I have loved you, abide in my love; i.e., as Grotius has put it, the first clause suggesting accordance with the mystery of the Trinity, and the second the mystery of redemption: "So do ye continue, or so do ye abide, in the amplitude of this double love which is mine, dwell in it as in a holy atmosphere, breathe it and live by it." But there is another and more satisfactory way of translating the passage: Even as the Father loved me, I also loved you; a fact of stupendous interest and transcendent claim. Heaven had opened over the incarnate Word, and other ears as well as his own had heard the Father say, "Thou art my beloved Son," etc. The Lord was conscious of being the Object of this infinite love before the foundation of the world (Joh 17:24), and of reciprocating and responding to it; and this love of the Father to him on his assumption of his mediatorial functions was the well-spring of his obedience unto death and after it (see Joh 10:17, note). Now, if the κἀγὼ is to be translated as above, Christ declares that even as the Father has loved him, he has’ loved his disciples. Again and again he has emphasized this love to them (Joh 13:34), but here he asserts a loftier claim, viz. that his love to them corresponds with the eternal Father’s love to himself. The one great fact is the ground on which he commands them to abide in his love. This is obviously a more explicit and more intelligible form of the commandment to abide in him. With Olshausen and Westcott, "The love that is mine "is not the love to Christ, nor the love of Christ exclusively, but a blending of the active and passive idea in "the love that is mine"—in the "love" lavished upon me from eternity, and to which I have eternally responded, which I have made known to you and expended on you and received back again from you. Abide in that love that is mine.
Joh 15:10
If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love. This is the method and secret, the stimulus and proof, of abiding in the love of Christ. This is not exactly the converse (Westcott) of "If ye love me, keep my commandments." Doubtless there is a love which dictates obedience to the loved One’s will. Our Lord here avers, however, something further, viz. that obedience issues in a higher love. The obedience here described is the outcome of love, but the power is thus gained to continue, dwell, in the Divine love, to abide, that is, in the full enjoyment and fullness of my Divine love to you. This is obvious from the confirmatory clause: Even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. The Lord kept the Father’s commandment always, doing those things which please him, offering up his precious life, laying it down that he might take it again; and the consequence is that he then and there knew that he was filled with all the fullness of the Divine love. The very impressive line of thought pervades this passage, that what the Father was to him, that he would prove to his disciples. What the love of God was to the Christ, the love of Christ was to his disciples.
Joh 15:11
These things I have spoken, and am still speaking, to you (perfect, not aorist) with this purpose, that the joy that is mine may be in you. This is variously explained. Augustine, "My joyfulness concerning you," which is scarcely the burden of the previous verses; Grotius, "Your delight in me," which would be somewhat tautologous; Calvin and De Wette, "The joyfulness capable of being produced in you by me, might be in you." But the words are more simply explained by Lange, Meyer, Lucke, Westcott, Alford, and Moulton, as the communication to his disciples of his own absolute and personal joy. "The joy that is mine," like "the peace which is mine," is graciously bestowed. A joy was set before him, the joy of perfect self-sacrifice, which gave to his present acts an intensity and fullness of bliss. It was this, in its motives and character and supernatural sweetness, which would be in them. If they receive his life into them, it will convey not only his peace, but that peace uprising and bursting into joy; and he adds, in order that your joy may be fulfilled, i.e. perfected, reach its highest expression, its fullness of contents and entire sufficiency for all needs. 1Jn 1:1-4 is the best commentary on this last clause. The Old Testament prophets had often spoken of Jehovah’s joy in his people, comparing it to the bridegroom’s joy, and the bride’s (Isa 62:5; Zep 3:17). This entire idea is linked with 1Jn 1:10; where the keeping of his commandments, from motives of love, will enable the disciples to "abide in his love." He now passes the whole law of the second table into the light of his joy and the power of his example.
Joh 15:12
This is my commandment, that ye love one another, even as I loved you. This (Joh 13:34) was given as a "new commandment;" now he gathers the many commandments into one, as though all were included in it (1Jn 3:16). This thought is further vindicated by an endeavor to explain in what sense and way he was loving them.
What is Divine Healing
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