In his own words (part 7)
So why did Jesus tell his disciples in John 15:12, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you”?
Two reasons: first of all, to fulfill his promise back in John 14:12 that “anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.” And what he’d been doing was loving his disciples, John 15:9: “As my Father has loved me, so have I loved you.” His disciples, therefore, could now love as Jesus loved.
And why was that important? For the second reason, which was to bring glory to the Father, just as Jesus had done, by making the Father’s love visible. Jesus had made his Father’s love visible by loving his disciples in the same way his Father had loved him. The disciples could now make the Father’s love visible by loving each other in the same way Jesus had loved them.
So there’s a sequence here: first the Father’s love for Jesus. Jesus then loves his disciples like his Father loved him. The disciples then love each other like Jesus had loved them. And so the Father’s love would spread.
The disciples loving each other, therefore, was the next crucial stage in the Father’s love being made visible on this planet. And the key to that happening was Jesus’ statement in the last part of John 15:12, that the disciples love each other “as I have loved you.”
Jesus focused his disciples’ attention on his love for them. He really did love them too, as John relates in John 13:1 – “Having loved his own who were in the world, Jesus now showed them the full extent of his love.” More than anything, therefore, Jesus wanted his disciples to know he loved them and always would. That was the starting point for them.
It was for Jesus too, because this was exactly what his Father had done for him, when Jesus heard the words, “This is my Son, whom I love” back in Matthew 3:17. At the very start of Jesus’ ministry, therefore, the most important thing that would ground him and prepare him for whatever happened next, was knowing he was loved. The Father did that for him, so it’s no surprise that Jesus did the same for his disciples, which explains why Jesus told them to “remain in my love” in John 15:9…(continues Wednesday)
