9 "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.”
If you want to know how Jesus loves you, then you really need to understand how God the Father loves God the Son. That is the way Jesus loves us. The Father’s love for Jesus didn’t start when Jesus was conceived, born, baptized, or on the mount of transfiguration. Because the Son is eternal, the Father’s love for the Son is eternal. Because God doesn’t change, then his love for the Son didn’t change when the Son became incarnate in Jesus. It was established before time began, before the foundations of the word (John 17:24).
John 1:18 describes that love as the one “who is in the bosom of the Father” (NKJV). That is a description that denotes a close loving relationship just as one who is loved lays his or her head on the lover’s chest. The way a child will do the same thing when held by a loving father or mother. The love the Father has for the Son is intimate and personal.
The Father loves the Son so much that he has given everything to him (John 3:35). Nothing is withheld from Jesus. Whatever belongs to the Father belongs to the Son. There is complete trust that the Son will hold and take care of these things with the same care that the Father does. This kind of love trusts the loved completely.
When Jesus started his ministry and was baptized, the Father spoke and said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt 3:17 ESV). Beloved is a form of the word agape and it means just what it says, beloved or dear. Jesus is the Father’s darling. Even before Jesus started his ministry, the Father express his pleasure in him. The Father repeats this on the mount of transfiguration (Matt 17:5).
This is the way the Father and Jesus loves his chosen ones. He loves us from the foundation of the world as shown by the fact that he has prepared a kingdom for us before the foundation of the world (Matt 25:34) and chose us before the foundations of the world (Eph 1:4).
We are dearly loved because his love for us is an intimate knowledge of us just as is his love for Jesus. That love is described in Romans 8:29 where he says, “Those whom he foreknew” (ESV). That foreknowledge is the same kind of knowledge that is used in the Old Testament to describe the intimate relationship of a man and a woman. It is the relationship expressed in the Son being in the bosom of the Father.
He loves us because he has given everything to us that he has given to Jesus. “In him we have obtained an inheritance” (Eph 1:11 ESV). This “inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade — [is] kept in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:4 NIV). What belongs to Jesus belongs to us as an inheritance because “he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ” (Eph 1:5 NIV). Think about that. He is giving all this because this love trusts his loved ones completely.
If the Father takes pleasure in Jesus as a demonstration of his love, then he must also take pleasure in us as his loved ones. This is expressed in Ps 149:4 where he says, “For the Lord takes pleasure in his people” (ESV) and Zeph 3:17, “He will take great delight in you” (NIV).
There can be no question that God loves his people and therefore Jesus loves us as well. But, are there any conditions to God’s love? I hear it and so do you, “God’s love is unconditional. There is nothing you can do to make him love you more and there is nothing you can do to make him love you less.” If this is true, then why does Jesus tell us to remain in his love? Why does he say “If you obey my commands?” That certainly sounds like there is a condition to remaining in God’s love. Jesus makes it clear that he has obeyed the Father’s commands and it certainly looks like that is why he remains in the Father’s love.
Think about it in this way, God loved the Son, long before Jesus came to earth. He loved the Son before there was any obedience to his commands. So this unconditional love God has for his elect is established before we obey any commands, before we turn to Jesus for salvation. Just like faith must produce works, so is our obedience to God a product of our love. In other words, a person who doesn’t obey Jesus is simply demonstrating that there was no love in the first place and there was no faith as well. If we know Jesus and we are his elect, we will obey and remain in his love for there can be no other outcome.
11 “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”
If we didn’t have the assurance that God loves us and that we will remain in his love, how could we have Jesus’ joy in us and have a complete joy? We wouldn’t. We would be a wreck wondering if a slight sin, which is not obeying Jesus’ command, would take us out of his love.
By the way, what is Jesus’ joy? It is described in Psalm 16:11, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (ESV). Jesus has just told his disciples that he is the way to the Father. It is at the Father’s right hand and in his presence where his joy is found. What more could we have than to have that same joy? But it comes not in this life. For it is also said about Jesus, “Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:2 ESV). Again, we find that Jesus’ joy is to sit in the presence of God the Father. We find joy knowing we will also be in his presence.
This may be a good test for each of us. Do we desire and look forward to the joy of being in the presence of the Father? Too many people are so enamored with this world that when push comes to shove, they really don’t want to leave this life. The cares of this world, the desires to achieve some goal or see some loved ones accomplish something outweigh the desire to be with the Lord. When that happens, it becomes obvious that even good things can become idols.
12 “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”
We get back to obeying Jesus’ commands as he reveals one of his commands. Make no mistake though, this is not his only command. This does not negate the command to love God above all things. When it comes to loving each other with the same sacrificial love Jesus has for us, I can only say that we all fail. Yes, there are some people who have lost their lives to help other, especially during wartime. However, when we look at the love of Jesus, it is evident that his love continues every day, twenty-four hours a day. While we may even be called upon to lay down our lives for someone, it isn’t for the multitude of God’s chosen. We don’t take upon ourselves the wrath of God for the sake of others. Our love can’t be greater than Jesus’.
John rephrases Jesus command twice in 1 John.
20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. (1 John 4:20-21 ESV).
16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17 But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. (1 John 3:16-18 ESV)
Obeying Jesus’ command to love each other is clearly demonstrated in actions. We may not be called to lay down our lives, but we are certainly called to show our love by taking care of each other. Words don’t always reveal whether we truly love each other. There must be actions and those actions can’t be done from the wrong motives.
14 “You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”
After all of Jesus’ comments about loving us and seeing how great it is, it seems like being called a friend of God is a downgrade. But the comparison here is the relationship between a servant, and we are all his servants, and a friend. We can all love a servant, an employee, or even a son without telling them all our business. So this doesn’t negate or cheapen Jesus’ love for us. It does expand on our relationship with him.
Again, we must ask the question, what is Jesus’ business. His business was to live a perfect life then die for our sins. That is why he came. He has been telling his disciples this all along. Yet in the next chapter we will see they still don’t get it. Even after his resurrection, they didn’t get it when they asked if Jesus would restore the kingdom to Israel (Acts 1:6). This reminds me that even though we know the grand scheme of God’s business, we seldom know the details. “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deut 29:29 ESV). What God has revealed to us through the Bible is all we need to live a godly life and be his friend.
16 “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit — fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 17 This is my command: Love each other.”
What a wonderful affirmation that salvation is not based on anything we do. We can’t choose God until he first chooses us. Jesus is a thoroughly Monergistic theologian. There is nothing in his words that would indicate that we must do something in order to be saved. What we do after Jesus chooses us is what many people think saves them. They will say things like, “I decided to follow Jesus.” That is a very true statement but the only way a person can decide to follow Jesus is after Jesus chooses him. Make sure you understand that not only does Jesus choose us, but he gives us the will and desire to follow him. It would be unthinkable for a person who has been chosen to then say they don’t want to follow Jesus. If they say that, then it only establishes the fact that they haven’t yet been chosen.
Since we are chosen, we will want to do what Jesus wants. That is part of being chosen. Our nature is changed, and we desire to go and bear fruit. In Chapter 2 of Ephesians, Paul goes into some detail about how we only had a desire to follow Satan until God makes us alive in Jesus Christ. Then he explains the fruit, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Eph 2:10 ESV). We don’t make a choice for Jesus until God gives us the desire and then we start doing the things God had planned for us even before he made us alive in Jesus. This is the real meaning of Monergism. God does it and we give him the glory.
Based on this, what will we ask for in Jesus’ name. We will ask for the things that will enable us to bear fruit. This is not a blank check to do whatever we want that is not in God’s will for us. This is the ideal result of our salvation. And it goes back to our obeying Jesus’ command to love each other. Do we always do this? No, unfortunately, we don’t and therefore, the Father doesn’t answer those prayers by giving us what we want. We can be assured that when we are doing the works that he has prepared for us and we are bearing that fruit, he is giving us what we ask.
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