ACC ~ John 15 v12 - 17

OVERVIEW:

God reveals himself in our charity, as we love one another as God has loved us (CYPRIAN). This is why we should hold on to his commandment of love (BASIL). When we love one another, we love God and, in effect, keep all that he has commanded (AUGUSTINE), since love encompasses all the other commandments (EPHREM). It is love of God that motivates us to love one another as God’s love is intertwined with our own (CHRYSOSTOM). When you love your enemy as Christ did, you may even make a friend (GREGORY THE GREAT) as Christ did when he died for them (AUGUSTINE). This is all the more reason to cultivate the virtue of love in tranquil times so that it will be unconquerable in times of disorder (GREGORY THE GREAT).

Friends obey what Christ commands while enemies disobey (CLEMENT). We are called to move beyond being simply servants to being friends and sons of God (CASSIAN). As such, we serve freely (IRENAEUS), rather than out of fear (AUGUSTINE). Wisdom bursts the bonds of fear, rising up to love (GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS). Christ having made us into his friends gives his friends the crown of glory (AUGUSTINE). But with great dignity comes great responsibility (GREGORY THE GREAT). Jesus is spelling out how true friends act toward one another, with all that friendship entails (AMBROSE). Because he is the creator of all, Jesus speaks about the future with his disciples as though it were already the past (AUGUSTINE). Since we did not choose God but were instead chosen by him, he shows that we are his friends by grace (GREGORY THE GREAT, AUGUSTINE). It is our glory not that we followed him but rather that, in following the Son of God, we are glorified by him (IRENAEUS). Christ’s presence with us ensures that the fruit we produce is abiding fruit (CHRYSOSTOM), and it is to our benefit to work for that fruit that endures (GREGORY THE GREAT). The Father wants us to entreat him through his Son, and it is the Son’s desire that we entreat the Father (AMBROSE) as we help others obtain blessing by our prayers of faith (CYRIL). Jesus’ repeated call for love is really a call to demonstrate all the concrete things that love is (AUGUSTINE).

15:12 | Loving One Another As Jesus Loved Us

GOD REVEALS HIMSELF IN CHARITY

CYPRIAN: Discord cannot attain to the kingdom of heaven. The one who has done violence to the love of Christ by faithless dissension will not attain to the reward of Christ, who said, “This is my commandment, that you love one another.” Whoever does not have charity does not have God. THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH 14. [1]

[1] ANF 5:426**.

HOLD TO THE COMMANDMENT OF LOVE

BASIL THE GREAT: Do we fail to love according to the commandment of the Lord? Then we lose the distinctive mark imprinted on us. Are we puffed up till almost bursting with empty pride and arrogance? Then we fall into the inevitable condemnation of the devil. LETTER 56. [1]

[1] NPNF 2 8:158-59.

IS LOVE THE ONLY COMMANDMENT?

AUGUSTINE: But when he said in this way here, “This is my commandment,” as if there were no other, what are we to think? Is, then, the commandment about that love with which we love one another his only one? Is there not another that is still greater, that we should love God? Or did God in truth give to us such a commandment about love alone that we have no need of searching for others? There are three things at least that the apostle commends when he says, “But now abide faith, hope, charity, these three. But the greatest of these is charity.” [1] And although in charity, that is, in love, the two commandments are contained, yet it is here declared to be the greatest, not the only one. Accordingly, what a host of commandments are given to us about faith, what a multitude about hope! Who is there that could collect them together or suffice to number them? But let us ponder the words of the same apostle: “Love is the fulfillment of the law.” [2] And so, where there is love, what can be lacking? And where it is not, what is there that can possibly be profitable? The devil believes [3] but does not love: no one loves who does not believe. One may, indeed, hope for pardon who does not love, but he hopes in vain. But no one can despair who loves. Therefore, where there is love, there will necessarily be faith and hope. And where there is the love of our neighbor, there also will necessarily be the love of God. For one that does not love God, how does he love his neighbor as himself, seeing that he does not even love himself? Such a person is both impious and iniquitous. And he who loves iniquity clearly does not love but hates his own soul. [4] Let us, therefore, hold fast to this precept of the Lord, to love one another, and then we will be doing all else that is commanded, for we have all else contained in this. TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 83.3. [5]

[1] 1 Cor 13:13.

[2] Rom 13:10.

[3] Jas 2:19.

[4] See Ps 11:5 (10:5 LXX, 10:6 Vg).

[5] NPNF 1 7:349*; CCL 36:535-36.

LOVE ENCOMPASSES THE OTHER COMMANDMENTS

EPHREM THE SYRIAN: “This is my commandment.” Have you then only one precept? This is sufficient, even if it is unique and so great. Nevertheless he also said, “Do not kill,” [1] because the one who loves does not kill. He said, “Do not steal,” [2] because the one who loves does even more—he gives. He said, “Do not lie,” [3] for the one who loves speaks the truth, against falsehood. “I give you a new commandment.” [4] If you have not understood what “This is my commandment” means, let the apostle be summoned as interpreter and say, “The goal of his commandment is love.” [5] What is its binding force? It is that of which [the Lord] spoke, “Whatever you want others to do to you, you should do also.” [6] “Love one another” in accordance with this measure, “as I have loved you.” That is not possible, for you are our Lord who loves your servants. But we who are equals, how can we love one another as you have loved us? Nevertheless, he has said it. … His love is that he has called us his friends. If we were to give our life for you, would our love be equal to yours? … How then can what he said be explained, “As I have loved you”? “Let us die for each other,” he said. As for us, we do not even want to live for one another! “If I, who am your Lord and God, die for you, how much more should you die for one another.” COMMENTARY ON TATIAN’S DIATESSARON 19.13. [7]

[1] Mt 19:18.

[2] Mt 19:18.

[3] Mt 19:18.

[4] Jn 13:34.

[5] 1 Tim 1:5.

[6] Mt 7:12.

[7] ECTD 288. See also Gregory the Great Forty Gospel Homilies 27 (CS 123:212).

GOD’S LOVE INTERTWINED WITH OUR OWN

CHRYSOSTOM: “Love one another as I have loved you.” Do you see that the love of God is intertwined with our own and connected like a sort of chain? Thus, it sometimes says that there are two commandments, sometimes only one. For it is not possible that the one who has taken hold of the first should not possess the second also. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 77.1. [1]

[1] NPNF 1 14:282*; PG 59:415.

15:13 | A Friend’s Greatest Love

LOVE YOUR ENEMY AND MAKE A FRIEND

GREGORY THE GREAT: The unique, the highest proof of love is this, to love the person who is against us. This is why Truth himself bore the suffering of the cross and yet bestowed his love on his persecutors, saying, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” [1] Why should we wonder that his living disciples loved their enemies, when their dying master loved his? He expressed the depth of his love when he said, “No one has greater love that this, than that he lay down his life for his friends.” The Lord had come to die even for his enemies, and yet he said he would lay down his life for his friends to show us that when we are able to win over our enemies by loving them, even our persecutors are our friends. FORTY GOSPEL HOMILIES 27. [2]

[1] Lk 23:34.

[2] CS 123:213; PL 76:1205-6.

CHRIST DIED FOR US, THE UNGODLY

AUGUSTINE: But “greater love has no one than this, that he should lay down his life for his friends.” No one, you think? Absolutely no one. It is true; Christ said it. Let us question the apostle, and let him answer us: “Christ,” he says, “died for the ungodly.” And again he says, “While we were enemies, we were reconciled with God through the death of his Son.” [1] So there you are. In Christ we do find greater love, seeing that he gave up his life not for his friends but for his enemies. How great must be God’s love for humanity and what extraordinary affection, so to love even sinners that he would die for love of them! “For God emphasizes his love toward us”—they are the apostle’s words—“because while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” [2] SERMON 215.5. [3]

[1] Rom 5:6, 10.

[2] Rom 5:8.

[3] WSA 3 6:163; RB 68:22.

GIVE UP POSSESSIONS, THEN YOURSELF

GREGORY THE GREAT: Cultivate the virtue of love in tranquil times by showing mercy, so that it will be unconquerable in times of disorder. Learn first to give up your possessions for almighty God, and then yourself. FORTY GOSPEL HOMILIES 27. [1]

[1] CS 123:214*; PL 76:1206.

15:14 | You Are My Friends If You Do What I Command You

FRIENDS OBEY, ENEMIES DISOBEY

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: 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. STROMATEIS 4.13. [1]

[1] ANF 2:426.

MOVING FROM “SERVANT” TO “FRIEND” TO “SON

” JOHN CASSIAN: “The one who fears is not yet perfect in love.” [1] And again, though it is a grand thing to serve God, and it is said, “Serve the Lord in fear,” and “It is a great thing for you to be called my servant,” and “Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when he comes, shall find working,” [2] yet it is said to the apostles, “I no longer call you servants, for the servant does not know what his Lord does. But I call you friends, for everything I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” And once more, “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” You see then that there are different stages of perfection and that we are called by the Lord from high things to still higher in such a way that he who has become blessed and perfect in the fear of God—going, as it is written, “from strength to strength” [3] and from one perfection to another, that is, mounting with an eager soul from fear to hope—is summoned in the end to that still more blessed stage, which is love. And whoever has been “a faithful and wise servant” [4] will pass to the companionship of friendship and to the adoption of sons. CONFERENCE 2.11.12. [5]

[1] 1 Jn 4:18.

[2] ESUS IS INFORMED THAT LAZARUS IS SICK | JOHN 11:1-5

[3] Ps 84:7 (83:8 LXX).

[4] Mt 24:45.

[5] NPNF 2 11:420*.

15:15 | No Longer Servants, but Friends

FRIENDS FREELY SERVE

IRENAEUS: Inasmuch as all natural commandments are common to both Christians and Jews, the Jews indeed had the beginning and origin of the commandments, but [those commandments] received their growth and completion in us. For to yield assent to God, and to follow his Word, and to love him above all and one’s neighbor as one’s self (now people are neighbors to one another), and to abstain from every evil deed, and all other things of a similar nature that are common to both [covenants]—all of this reveals one and the same God. But this is our Lord, the Word of God, who in the first instance certainly drew slaves to God, but afterward he set those free who were subject to him, as he himself declares to his disciples, “I will not now call you servants, for the servant does not know what his lord does. But I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from my Father I have made known.” For when he says, “I will not now call you servants,” he indicates in the most marked manner that it was he who originally appointed for men and women that bondage with respect to God through the law and then afterward conferred on them freedom. And, in that he says, “For the servant does not know what his lord does,” he points out, by means of his own advent, the ignorance of a people in a servile condition. But when he terms his disciples “the friends of God,” he plainly declares himself to be the Word of God whom Abraham also followed voluntarily and under no compulsion [1] because of the noble nature of his faith—and who thus became “the friend of God.” [2] AGAINST HERESIES 4.13.4. [3]

[1] Lat sine vinculis.

[2] Jas 2:23.

[3] ANF 1:478**; SC 100:534-36.

TWO KINDS OF SERVANTS

AUGUSTINE: Just as there are two kinds of fear that produce two classes of fearers, so there are two kinds of servitude that produce two classes of servants. There is a fear that perfect love casts out, [1] and there is another fear, which is virtuous [2] and endures forever. [3] … In that fear that love casts out, servitude also needs to be cast out along with it. For both were joined together by the apostle, that is, the servitude and the fear, when he said, “For you have not received the spirit of servitude again to fear.” [4] … Since, therefore, he has given us power to become the children of God, [5] let us not be servants but children, so that, in some wonderful and indescribable but real way, we may as servants have the power not to be servants. Let us be servants, indeed, with that virtuous fear that distinguishes the servant that enters into the joy of his lord, [6] but not servants with the fear that has to be cast out and that characterizes one who does not abide in the house forever. [7] TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 85.3. [8]

[1] See 1 Jn 4:18.

[2] Lat castus, which might also be translated as “pure.”

[3] See Ps 19:9 (18:10 LXX, Vg).

[4] Rom 8:15.

[5] See Jn 1:12.

[6] See Mt 25:21.

[7] See Jn 8:35.

[8] NPNF 1 7:351-52*; CCL 36:539-40.

WISDOM BURSTS BONDS OF FEAR

GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and, so to say, its first swathing band. But, when wisdom bursts the bonds of fear and rises up to love, it makes us friends of God and children instead of slaves. ON THE GREAT ATHANASIUS, ORATION 21.6. [1]

[1] NPNF 2 7:271.

HE MADE YOU INTO HIS FRIENDS

AUGUSTINE: He made human beings into his friends. Won’t he be making them angels? “I no longer call you slaves, but friends.” It was to people still carrying flesh, still subject to death, still living this poor fragile life that he said that. “I no longer call you slaves, but friends.” And what is he going to give friends? What he manifested in himself as he rose again. They shall be crowned and transfigured into heavenly glory and shall be equal to the angels of God. SERMON 45.10. [1]

[1] WSA 3 2:259; CCL 41:526.

GREAT DIGNITY, GREAT RESPONSIBILITY

GREGORY THE GREAT: How great is our Creator’s mercy! We were unworthy servants, and he calls us friends. How great is our human value, that we should be friends of God! You have heard your glorious dignity—now listen to what the struggle costs: “If you do whatever I command you.” FORTY GOSPEL HOMILIES 27. [1]

[1] CS 123:214*; PL 76:1206.

HOW FRIENDS ACT TOWARD ONE ANOTHER

AMBROSE: God himself made us friends instead of servants. … He gave us a pattern of friendship to follow. We are to fulfill the wish of a friend, to unfold to him our secrets that we hold in our own hearts, and are not to disregard his confidences. Let us show him our heart, and he will open his to us. … A friend, then, if he is a true one, hides nothing. He pours forth his soul as the Lord Jesus poured forth the mysteries of his Father. DUTIES OF THE CLERGY 3.22.135. [1]

[1] NPNF 2 10:89**.

PAST PERFECT

AUGUSTINE: How are we to understand that [Jesus] made known to the disciples all that he had heard from the Father when there are many things that he did not say because he knows that they cannot bear them now? Doubtless, what he is yet to do, he says that he has done as the same Being who has made those things which are yet to be. [1] For he says by the prophet, “They pierced my hands and my feet,” [2] and not, “They will yet pierce.” He speaks as though it were in the past and yet predicting what was still in the future. So also in the passage before us he declares that he has made known to the disciples all that he knows he will yet make known in that fullness of knowledge about which the apostle says, “But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.” [3] For in the same place he adds, “Now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now as through a glass in a mystery, but then face to face.” [4] TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 86.1. [5]

[1] See Is 45:11.

[2] Ps 22:16 (21:17 LXX, Vg).

[3] 1 Cor 13:10.

[4] 1 Cor 13:12.

[5] NPNF 1 7:352-53*; CCL 36:541. See also Sermon 27.5 (WSA 3 2:106).

15:16a | You Did Not Choose Me, but I Chose You

FRIEND OF GOD BY GRACE

GREGORY THE GREAT: But let one who has attained the dignity of being called a friend of God observe that the gifts he perceives in himself are beyond him. Let him attribute nothing to his own merits so that he becomes an enemy. The Lord adds, “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you and appointed you to go and bring forth fruit. I have appointed you for grace. I have planted you to go willingly and bring forth fruit by your works.” FORTY GOSPEL HOMILIES 27. [1]

[1] CS 123:216; PL 76:1207.

TRULY AMAZING GRACE

AUGUSTINE: “You did not choose me, but I chose you.” That is amazing grace! … For what were we before Christ had chosen us besides being wicked and lost? We did not believe in him, so as to be chosen by him. For if he chose those who already believed, then he was [in effect] chosen himself prior to his choosing [them]. … This passage refutes the vain opinion of those who say that we were chosen before the foundation of the world [1] because God foreknew that we should be good, not that he himself would make us good. For if he had chosen us because he foreknew that we should be good, he would have foreknown also that we should first choose him. For without choosing him we cannot be good, unless indeed someone can be called good who has not chosen good. What then has he chosen in those who are not good? … You cannot say, I am chosen because I believed. For if you believed in him, you had already chosen him. Nor can you say, Before I believed I did good works and therefore was chosen. For what good work is there before faith when the apostle says, “Whatever is not of faith is sin”? [2] What is there for us to say, then, but that we were wicked and were chosen, that by the grace of having been chosen we might become good? TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 86.2. [3]

[1] Eph 1:4.

[2] Rom 14:23.

[3] NPNF 1 7:353**; CCL 36:542.

OUR GLORY IS TO SERVE

IRENAEUS: As much as God lacks nothing, so much do we stand in need of fellowship with God. For this is the glory of humanity: to continue and remain permanently in God’s service. This is also why the Lord said to his disciples, “You did not choose me, but I chose you,” indicating that they did not glorify him when they followed him but that, in following the Son of God, they were glorified by him. AGAINST HERESIES 4.14.1. [1]

[1] ANF 1:478*; SC 100:540.

15:16b | Abiding Fruit that Entreats the Father

CHRIST’S PRESENCE ENSURES ABIDING FRUIT

CHRYSOSTOM: Now if your fruit remains, much more shall you. For I have not only loved you, [he says], but I have given you the greatest benefits by extending your branches through the entire world. Do you see in how many ways he shows his love? He shows his love by telling them secrets, by having in the first instance run to meet their friendship, by granting them the greatest blessings, by suffering for them what then he suffered. After this, he shows that he also remains continually with those who shall bring forth fruit. For it is needful to enjoy his help and so to bear fruit. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 77.1. [1]

[1] NPNF 1 14:282**; PG 59:415.

WORK FOR FRUIT THAT ENDURES

GREGORY THE GREAT: I have appointed you for grace. I have planted you to go willingly and bring forth fruit by your works. I have said that you should go willingly, since to will to do something is already to go in your heart. Then he adds the quality their fruit is to have: “And your fruit is to endure.” Everything we labor for in this present world scarcely lasts until death. Death intervenes and cuts off the fruit of our labor. But what we do for eternal life remains even after death. It begins to appear only when the fruits of our physical labors cease to be visible. The reward of the one begins when the other is ended. Let one who recognizes that he now bears eternal fruit within his soul think little of the temporal fruits of his labors. Let us work for the fruit that endures; let us work for the fruit that begins at death since death destroys all others. FORTY GOSPEL HOMILIES 27. [1]

[1] CS 123:216*; PL 76:1207.

FATHER AND SON BOTH ENTREATED

AMBROSE: Let us then with faithful spirit and devout mind call on Jesus our Lord. Let us believe that he is God, to the end that whatever we ask of the Father, we may obtain in his name. For the Father’s will is that he be entreated through the Son. The Son’s will is that the Father be entreated. ON THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 1.2.12. [1]

[1] NPNF 2 10:203*.

HELP OTHERS OBTAIN THE BLESSING OF THE BELIEVER’S PRAYER

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: Since therefore you follow in the path of my words and ministry and have the mind that my true disciples should have, it follows that you should not, by your own delay, throw obstacles in the way of someone who of his own will seeks the faith and is self-called to a life of piety. Rather, you should attach yourselves as guides to those who are still ignorant and wandering and bring the gospel of salvation to those who do not yet want to learn it and eagerly encourage them to attain to the true knowledge of God, even though the mind of your hearers may be hardened into disobedience. In other words, bring them more in line with your own condition so they will advance and return to fruit bearing in God by gradually growing in what is better for them. Then they too can have fruit that always remains and is preserved, and they can also have that most desirable object of prayer—the bestowal of whatever they wish, if only they “ask in my name.” COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 10.2. [1]

[1] LF 48:409**.

15:17 | Love One Another

LOVE IS THE FRUIT WE ARE TO BEAR

AUGUSTINE: This [love] is our fruit about which he said, “I have chosen you, that you should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain.” And what he added, “That whatever you shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you,” he will certainly give us if we love one another, seeing that this is the very thing he has also given us in choosing us when we had no fruit, because we had not chosen him. He appointed us that we should bring forth fruit—that is, that we should love one another—a fruit that we cannot have apart from him, just as the branches can do nothing apart from the vine.

Our fruit, therefore, is charity, which the apostle explains to be “out of a pure heart, and a good conscience and sincere faith.” [1] When we love one another, we love God. For it would be with no true love that we loved one another, if we did not love God. For everyone loves his neighbor as himself if he loves God. And if he does not love God, he does not love himself. For on these two commandments of love hang all the law and the prophets: [2] this is our fruit. And it is in reference, therefore, to such fruit that he gives us this commandment when he says, “These things I command you, that you love one another.” In the same way also the apostle Paul, when wishing to commend the fruit of the Spirit in opposition to the deeds of the flesh, posited this as his principle, saying, “The fruit of the Spirit is love.” And then, as if springing from and bound up in this principle, he wove the others together, which are “joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.” [3]

For who can truly rejoice who does not love the good as the source of his joy? Who can have true peace, if he does not have it with one whom he truly loves? Who can be long-enduring through persevering continually in good, except through fervent love? Who can be kind, if he does not love the person he is helping? Who can be good, if he is not made so by loving? Who can be sound in the faith without that faith that works by love? Whose meekness can be beneficial in character, if not regulated by love? And who will abstain from that which is debasing, if he does not love that which dignifies? Appropriately, therefore, the good Master frequently commends love as the only thing needing to be commended. Without love, everything else that is good is no help, and you cannot have love without bringing with it all those other good things that make a person truly good. TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 87.1. [4]

[1] 1 Tim 1:5.

[2] See Mt 22:40.

[3] Gal 5:22.

[4] NPNF 1 7:354-55*; CCL 36:543-44.