John 15:14
in John 15You are My friends if you do what I command you.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Ye are my friends, if ye do the things which I command you.
KJV
Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
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This verse in John 15
Commentary
22 notes on this verseOUR Lord Jesus Christ is beyond all comparison the best of friends—a friend in need, a friend indeed. "Friend!" said Socrates, "there is no friend!" But Socrates did not know our Lord Jesus, or he would have added, "except the Savior." In the heart of our Lord Jesus there burns such friendship towards us that all other forms of it are as dim candles to the sun. "Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend."
This site's exposition
You are My friends if you do what I command you
on John 15:14-15
Friendship here runs through obedience, and they are His friends as they do what He commands. A servant works without knowing his master's purpose, and these men are told everything the Son learned from the Father. Disclosure measures the new standing.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers5 voices
Now sinners are called enemies of God—enemies, that is, of the commands that they do not obey, just as those who obey become friends. The latter are named so from their fellowship; the former from their estrangement, which is freely chosen. For there is neither enmity nor sin without the enemy and the sinner.
When the Lord Jesus had commended the love which He manifested toward us in dying for us, and had said, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends," He added, "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you." What great condescension! when one cannot even be a good servant unless he do his lord's commandments; the very means, which only prove men to be good servants, He wished to be those whereby His friends should be known. But the condescension, as I have termed it, is this, that the Lord condescends to call those His friends whom He knows to be His servants. For, to let us know that it is the duty of servants to yield obedience to their master's commands, He actually in another place reproaches those who are servants, by saying, "And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say?" Accordingly, when ye say Lord, prove what you say by doing my commandments. Is it not to the obedient servant that He is yet one day to say, "Well done, thou good servant; because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord"? One, therefore, who is a good servant, can be both servant and friend.
(viii. de Trin. c. viii) From one and the same love, we love God and our neighbour; but God for His own sake, our neighbour for God's. So that, there being two precepts of love, on which hang all the Law and the Prophets, to love God, and to love our neighbour, Scripture often unites them into one precept. For if a man love God, it follows that he does what God commands, and if so, that he loves his neighbour, God having commanded this. Wherefore He proceeds: Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. (Tract. lxxxv. 2) Great condescension! Though to keep his Lord's commandments, is only what a good servant is obliged to do, yet, if they do so, He calls them His friends. The good servant is both the servant, and the friend. But how is this? He tells us: Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth. Shall we therefore cease to be servants, as soon as ever we are good servants? And is not a good and tried servant sometimes entrusted with his master's secrets, still remaining a servant? (c. 3.). We must understand then that there are two kinds of servitude, as there are two kinds of fear. There is a fear which perfect love casteth out; which also hath in it a servitude, which will be cast out together with the fear. And there is another, a pure (castus) fear, which remaineth for ever. It is the former state of servitude, which our Lord refers to, when He says, Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth; not the state of that servant to whom it is said, Well done, thou good servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord: (Matt. 25:21) but of him of whom it was said below, The servant abideth not in the house for ever, but the Son abideth ever. […]
There is then no reason, dearest brother, for any one to think that the custom of certain persons is to be followed, who have thought in thee past that water alone should be offered in the cup of the Lord. For we must inquire whom they themselves have followed. For if in the sacrifice which Christ offered none is to be followed but Christ, assuredly it behoves us to obey and do that which Christ did, and what He commanded to be done, since He Himself says in the Gospel, "If ye do whatsoever I command you, henceforth I call you not servants, but friends." And that Christ alone ought to be heard, the Father also testifies from heaven, saying, "This is my well-beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him." Wherefore, if Christ alone must be heard, we ought not to give heed to what another before us may have I thought was to be done, but what Christ, who is before all, first did. Neither is it becoming to follow the practice of man, but the truth of God; since God speaks by Isaiah the prophet, and says, "In vain do they worship me, teaching the commandments and doctrines of men." And again the Lord in the Gospel repeals this same saying, and says, "Ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition." Moreover, in another place He establishes it, saying, "Whosoever shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven." But if we may not break even the least of the Lord's commandments, how much rather is it forbidden to infringe such important ones, so great, so pertaining to the very sacrament of our Lord's passion and our own redemption, or to change it by human tradition into anything else than what was divinely appointed! […]
"Ye are My friends-henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth. Ye are My friends, for all things which I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you." How then saith He, "I have many things to tell you, but ye cannot bear them now"? By the "all" and the "hearing" He showeth nothing else, but that He uttered nothing alien, but only what was of the Father. And since to speak of secrets appears to be the strongest proof of friendship, "ye have," He saith, "been deemed worthy even of this communion." When however He saith "all," He meaneth, "whatever things it was fit that they should hear." Then He putteth also another sure proof of friendship, no common one.
15 more voices on this verse
The Church Fathers1 voice
A commentator
Cyril of AlexandriaCommentary on the Gospel of John, Book 10 · Written before 444.
proposed
In contrast to the terrors which will sometimes assail those inclined towards obedience and love of virtue He has set the gain of their love towards Him, in order that by the consolations ensuing from this, and by their aiming at what is greater, that which is burdensome may disappear and that which sometimes seems to cause pain sink into insignificance. Sweet is their labour to those who love God, since indeed theirs is a near and rich reward.
The Medieval Church5 voices
2010 Above, our Lord urged us to love our neighbor, based on his example. Here, Christ shows his disciples the benefit conferred upon them which obliges them to imitate him, which is, that he has embraced them in his love. First, he mentions a sign …
He constantly introduces the subject of love, and by these many discourses shows us that the commandment of love is more important than the others and requires great diligence. He also presents the greatest proof of His love.
You are my friends. Here secondly he exhorts to mutual love from the perspective of divine friendship; whence he offers his friendship to those who keep his commandments, so that according to the Lord's precept they may love one another: on account of which he …
(xxvii. Moral.) A friend is as it were a keeper of the soul. He who keeps God's commandments, is rightly called His friend.
There follows: "You are my friends." O how great is the mercy of our Creator! We are not worthy to be servants, and we are called friends. How great is the dignity of men to be friends of God! But you have heard the glory of this dignity; hear also the labor of the struggle: "If you do what I command you." "You are my friends, if you do what I command you." As if He were saying openly: You rejoice at the height; consider by what labors one arrives at the height. Surely when the sons of Zebedee, through the intervention of their mother, sought that one should sit at the right hand of God and the other at the left, they heard: "Can you drink the cup that I am about to drink?" They were already seeking the place of exaltation; the Truth calls them back to the way by which they might come to exaltation. As if it were said: The place of exaltation already delights you, but first let the way of labor exercise you. Through the cup one reaches majesty. If your mind desires what pleases, first drink what causes pain. Thus, thus through the bitter cup of affliction one arrives at the joy of salvation.
The Puritans and the Awakening4 voices
Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you - On this condition, not otherwise. A thunderbolt for Antinomianism! Who then dares assert that God's love does not at all depend on man's works?
Ye are my friends,.... This is an application of the foregoing passage, and more, clearly explains it.
"If you approve yourselves by your obedience my disciples indeed, you are my friends, and shall be treated as friends." Note, The followers of Christ are the friends of Christ, and he is graciously pleased to call and account them so.
Secondly, It is universal obedience to Christ that is the only acceptable obedience; to obey him in every thing that he commands us, not excepting, much less excepting against, any command. Concerning the disciples' love one to another, enjoined as an evidence of their love to Christ, and a grateful return for his love to them.
The Nineteenth Century5 voices
A commentator
J.C. Ryle1816–1900
Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: John (lightly modernized text, Grace Gems edition) (1869)
proposed
Three weighty points demand our attention in this passage. On each of these the language of our Lord Jesus Christ is full of striking instruction. We should observe first, how our Lord speaks of the grace of brotherly love. He returns to it a second time, though He has already spoken of it in the former part of His discourse. He would have us know that we can never think too highly of love, attach too much weight to it, labor too much to practice it.
A commentator
J.C. Ryle1816–1900
Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: John (lightly modernized text, Grace Gems edition) (1869)
proposed
Three weighty points demand our attention in this passage. On each of these the language of our Lord Jesus Christ is full of striking instruction. We should observe first, how our Lord speaks of the grace of brotherly love. He returns to it a second time, though He has already spoken of it in the former part of His discourse. He would have us know that we can never think too highly of love, attach too much weight to it, labor too much to practice it. Truths which our Master thinks it needful to enforce on us by repetition, must needs be of first-class importance. He commands us to love one another. "This is my commandment." It is a positive duty laid on our consciences to practice this grace. We have no more right to neglect it than any of the ten precepts given on Mount Sinai. He supplies the highest standard of love—"Love one another as I have loved you." No lower measure must content us. The weakest, the lowest, the most ignorant, the most defective disciple, is not to be despised. All are to be loved with an active, self-denying, self-sacrificing love. He that cannot do this, or will not try to do it, is disobeying the command of his Master. A precept like this should stir up in us great searchings of heart. It condemns the selfish, ill-natured, jealous, ill-tempered spirit of many professing Christians, with a sweeping condemnation. Sound views of doctrine, and knowledge of controversy, will avail us nothing at last, if we have known nothing of love. Without charity we may pass muster very well as Churchmen. But without charity we are no better, says Paul, than "sounding brass and tinkling cymbal." (1 Cor. 13:1.) Where there is no Christlike love, there is no grace, no work of the Spirit, and no reality in our religion. Blessed are those who do not forget Christ's commandment! They are those who shall have right to the tree of life, and enter the celestial city.
OUR Lord Jesus Christ is beyond all comparison the best of friends—a friend in need, a friend indeed. "Friend!" said Socrates, "there is no friend!" But Socrates did not know our Lord Jesus, or he would have added, "except the Savior." In the heart of our Lord Jesus there burns such friendship towards us that all other forms of it are as dim candles to the sun. "Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend." An ordinary man has gone as far as he can when he has died for his friend and yet he would have died anyway, so that in dying for his friend he does but pay, somewhat beforehand, a debt which must inevitably be discharged a little further on. With Christ there was no necessity to die at all and this, therefore, places His love and His friendship by itself. He died who needed not to die and died in agony when He might have lived in Glory—never did man give such proof of friendship as this! Let the friendship of our Lord to us stand as the model of our friendship to Him. It cannot be so in all respects because our situations and conditions are different. His must always be the love of the greater to the less, the love of the Benefactor to one in need, the love of the Redeemer to those who are bought with a price but, setting those points aside, the whole tone and spirit of our Lord's friendship are such that the more closely we can imitate it the better. Such friendship as His should be reflected in a friendship most hearty and self-sacrificing on our part. Our Lord does not, I think, in this text speak to us about His being our friend, but about our being His friends. He is "the friend of sinners," but sinners are not His friends till their hearts are changed. "You are My friends if you do whatever I command you"—we are not His friends till then. His love to us is entirely of Himself, but friendship needs something from us.
A commentator
Charles Spurgeon1834–1892
The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 3437: “Friendship's Guide” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition) · Written before 1892.
proposed
IT is very easy to understand how Jesus Christ is our Friend. Did ever anyone deserve the name so well? Who can prove his friendship as Jesus proved it by laying down His life for those He calls His friends? But it is a mark of wonderful condescension on His part that He should call us His friends and it confers upon us the highest conceivable honor that such a Lord as He is, so infinitely superior to us, should condescend to enter into terms of friendship with us.
A commentator
Charles Spurgeon1834–1892
The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 3437: “Friendship's Guide” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition) · Written before 1892.
proposed
IT is very easy to understand how Jesus Christ is our Friend. Did ever anyone deserve the name so well? Who can prove his friendship as Jesus proved it by laying down His life for those He calls His friends? But it is a mark of wonderful condescension on His part that He should call us His friends and it confers upon us the highest conceivable honor that such a Lord as He is, so infinitely superior to us, should condescend to enter into terms of friendship with us. My Friend, O Jesus, You are, for You have redeemed my soul from death and Hell—but that I should be Your friend—nothing but Your loving, condescending tenderness could ever have conceived of this! If you do put such a title as this upon me, teach me how I may act in conformity with it. Beloved, there is a mutual friendship between Christ and the Believer. There cannot be friendship if it is all on one side. There is bounty, there is kindness and there may be some gratitude in return, but friendship is a reciprocal thing. In its fullest sense, it is between two, and the one heart must be as the other heart, or else there is no friendship. Now every Believer is a friend to Jesus, and Jesus is a Friend to him. They are friends because they have a mutual love for each other. The Believer does not love His Lord as much as Jesus loves him, for his heart is little compared with Jesus' heart. But when the Believer is in a right state, he loves Jesus with all his heart, soul and strength. He feels that there is none in the world that can have a place in his affections at all comparable with his Lord and Master. He can say— "My Jesus I love You: I know You are mine, For You, all the follies of sin I resign." And if Jesus loves us, we also love Him. Friendship has in it a mutual delight. Two friends value each other. Now the delight of Jesus is with the sons of men.
The words behind it
10 Greek wordsEvery Greek word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Greek | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ὑμεῖς | humeis | You yourselves | G4771 → | 2973 times |
| φίλοι | philoi | friends | G5384 → | 27 times |
| μού | mou | of Mine | G3165 → | 1936 times |
| ἐστε | este | are | G1510 → | 2333 times |
| ἐὰν | ean | if | G1437 → | 352 times |
| ποιῆτε | poiete | you shall do | G4160 → | 569 times |
| ἃ | ha | what things | G3739 → | 1405 times |
| ἐγὼ | ego | I myself | G1473 → | 839 times |
| ἐντέλλομαι | entellomai | command | G1781 → | 14 times |
| ὑμῖν. | humin | you. | G4771 → | 2973 times |
ὑμεῖςYou yourselves
humeisG4771 →2973 times
φίλοιfriends
philoiG5384 →27 times
μούof Mine
mouG3165 →1936 times
ἐστεare
esteG1510 →2333 times
ἐὰνif
eanG1437 →352 times
ποιῆτεyou shall do
poieteG4160 →569 times
ἃwhat things
haG3739 →1405 times
ἐγὼI myself
egoG1473 →839 times
ἐντέλλομαιcommand
entellomaiG1781 →14 times
ὑμῖν.you.
huminG4771 →2973 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
John 14:15If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
it leads to
- 2 John 1:6
And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the very commandment you have heard from the beginning, that you must walk in love.
Reached by 3 separate paths from here.
- John 14:21–24
Whoever has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me. The one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and reveal Myself to him.”
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- 1 John 2:3–5
By this we can be sure that we have come to know Him: if we keep His commandments.
- 1 John 5:2–3
By this we know that we love the children of God: when we love God and keep His commandments.
- John 15:10–14
If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and remain in His love.
- 2 John 1:6
Through
John 14:21Whoever has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me. The one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and reveal Myself to him.”
it leads to
- John 14:15
If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- 1 John 5:3
For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome,
- 1 John 2:5
But if anyone keeps His word, the love of God has been truly perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him:
- John 14:15
Where this verse is studied
About John
This page draws on 18 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Augustine of Hippo, Tractates on John 85; Augustine of Hippo, Catena Aurea by Aquinas; Bonaventure, Commentary on John, Chapter 15; Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 1552: “The Friends Of Jesus” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition); Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 3437: “Friendship's Guide” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition); Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata Book 4; Cyprian, Epistle LXII; Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of John, Book 10; Gregory the Dialogist, Catena Aurea by Aquinas; Gregory the Dialogist, Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 27; J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: John (lightly modernized text, Grace Gems edition); John Calvin, Commentary on the Gospel according to John; John Chrysostom, Homily on the Gospel of John 77; John Gill, Exposition of the New Testament (1746-1748); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible; Theophylact of Ohrid, Commentary on John and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on John.