Jesus says, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”
Love is always the first and the last and beginning and ending in the teaching of Jesus. The life of Jesus was started because he came from heaven by love and he lived the life of love and returned to heaven because of love. This Lord of love says, “”If you love me, you will obey what I command.”
Notice how love and keeping of the commandments go together. The person who loves will keep the commandments, not as a means of acquiring merit or deserving a reward or winning affection, but because that is the way the one who loves us so much and who we love so much wants us to live.[1]
Keeping of the commandments is in one word ‘obedience.’ To John there is only one test of love, and that test is obedience.[2] If you genuinely love, no matter how the circumstances may you be placed, how great a hardship may be coming, you will obey to the will of your beloved. If you truly love, because of nothing else but love you will silently obey despite all things. Therefore, obedience is the only test of love.
Jesus is the one who overcame this test of love. Even as he was driven to the dreadful death, he still obeyed until the end because he genuinely loved God.
The term, obedience is too foreign to us today. We confess that we love God and want to be loved by God, but we are reluctant to obey his will. We sing hymn of praises, but we do not contemplate the way of obedience.
The truth of the love of Christ is proclaimed very simply. “If you love me, keep my commands” (v. 15).
Obeying someone is never an easy task. The Lord who knows our weakness does not leave us to pull through the thorny path alone but promises to send the ‘Counselor’ for us.
The Counselor originated from parakletos, which is translated in English as advocate, helper (NRSV), comforter (KJV), or counselor (NIV; RSV). It has the meaning of helper, encourager, comforter, etc. It refers to the spirit of the truth, the Holy Spirit. When Jesus closed his earthly ministry and returned to the Father, the Holy Spirit was sent to the disciples, came to reside with them and be with them.
So what Jesus is saying is: “I am setting you a hard task, and I am sending you out on an engagement very difficult. But I am going to send you someone, the parakletos, who will guide you what to do and who will make you able to do it. The Holy Spirit will bring you truth and will make you able to cope with the battle for the truth.”[3] The Lord of love has given us the Holy Spirit as a gift and leads our footsteps even today.
[1] Morris, Reflections on the Gospel of John, 502.
[2] Barclay, The Gospel of John, 193.
[3] Barclay, The Gospel of John, 195.
