John 15:9

Even as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you: abide ye in my love.

Regarding the strange use of the perfect tense here, Westcott noted that:

It is simpler to regard the tense as chosen with regard to a work now looked upon as completed, according to the usage which is not infrequent in these discourses. The love of Christ, as it were, is looked upon as the atmosphere in which the disciple lives.[5]

Abide ye in my love ... again presupposes the ability of the believer either to abide, or not abide, depending upon his own will, and not upon any capricious election from all eternity. Westcott stressed that "This enjoyment depends upon the human side upon the will of man, for it can be made the subject of a command."[6]

[5] B. F. Westcott, The Gospel according to St. John (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1971), p. 219.

[6] Ibid.