In John 15:8, Jesus says to his disciples, “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples” – which was hugely important to Jesus because if they were truly his disciples the “fruit” they produced would bring glory to his Father, which was exactly the fruit Jesus had dedicated his own life to (17:4).
So what kind of fruit in their lives would do that? Jesus answered that in John 13:34 when he told his disciples, “A new commandment I give you: Love each other like I’ve loved you,” because, verse 35, “this is how you’ll be recognized as my disciples.” So the fruit that would identify them as truly his disciples would be their obvious love for each other.
But a very special kind of love it would be, because as Jesus explained in verse 34, they were to love each other like Jesus had loved them. And that was a very special love too, because Jesus goes on to say in John 15:9, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.”
So Jesus takes his disciples right back to the Father’s love as the starting point, because that was the love Jesus had loved them with. So if his disciples loved each other like he’d loved them, they too would be bringing glory to the Father, since it was the Father’s love they’d be revealing. But how would they know it was the Father’s love?
It helps that Jesus dropped two clues in how the Father loved him – the first one in John 3:35 when he said, “The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands,” and the second in John 5:20, “the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.” Put together they create a picture of the Father’s love in his total openness with Jesus, sharing everything about himself and his plans with him.
Jesus then loved his disciples the same way: he was totally open with them too, “for everything I learned from my Father I have made known to you” (15:15), and “I too will love you and show myself to you” (14:21). So, just as the Father had made everything known about himself to Jesus, Jesus in turn “made known to his disciples” everything about himself (16:14-15). So both the Father and Jesus expressed their love in the same way.
All of which formed the basis for the fruit that the disciples would now produce in bringing glory to the Father – the fruit being their “Love for each other”….(next blog)
Buck To Basics 