John 15:10

If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(10) If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love.—Comp. John 14:21; John 14:24. keeping of His commandments is the outward proof of love towards Him; so that the love of the human heart towards Christ, which itself flows from Christ’s love to us (see Note on previous verse), becomes the condition of abiding in that love. While we cherish love for Him, our hearts are abiding in that state which can receive His love for us.

Even as I have kept my Father’s commandments . . .—Comp. Note on John 15:9 and reference there. This is again an appeal to His perfect sinlessness, and willing subordination as Son to the Father. We should notice also that the keeping of the commandments is not an arbitrary condition imposed upon human love; but a necessary result of love itself, and therefore as true in the relation of the Son to the Father as it is in our relation to Him. Because the Son loved the Father, therefore He kept His commandments, and in this love He abode in the Father’s love. Because we love God we necessarily keep His commandments, and in this love is the receptive power which constitutes abiding in the divine love.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

15:9-17 Those whom God loves as a Father, may despise the hatred of all the world. As the Father loved Christ, who was most worthy, so he loved his disciples, who were unworthy. All that love the Saviour should continue in their love to him, and take all occasions to show it. The joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment, but the joy of those who abide in Christ's love is a continual feast. They are to show their love to him by keeping his commandments. If the same power that first shed abroad the love of Christ's in our hearts, did not keep us in that love, we should not long abide in it. Christ's love to us should direct us to love each other. He speaks as about to give many things in charge, yet names this only; it includes many duties.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

See John 14:23-24.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

10. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love—the obedient spirit of true discipleship cherishing and attracting the continuance and increase of Christ's love; and this, He adds, was the secret even of His own abiding in His Father's love!

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Abiding in Christ’s love, in this verse, may be interpreted as before; either actively, you shall continue your love to me, according to what we had, John 14:15; obedience to the commandments of Christ being the only way to show and declare the truth of our love to Christ. Or else passively, you shall keep yourselves in my favour, I will love you. Thus I abide in my Father’s love; I do not show love to my Father by my words and expressions only, nor by performance of some ceremonial ritual services, which he hath required; but by fulfilling his whole will and counsel, by yielding an obedience to him in all things. I love you as my Father loveth me; and you must abide in my love by the same ways and means that I abide in my Father’s love. The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

If ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in my love,.... Not that their continuance in the heart's love and affection of Christ depended upon their observation of his commands; for as the keeping of them is not the cause or reason of the saints having an interest in the love of Christ, so it is not the cause or reason of their abiding in it; but to such that observe the commandments of Christ he will continue to make further discoveries of his love, and let them see more clearly and largely what a value he has for them, and how much he loves them: or the sense is, that by keeping the commandments of Christ, his disciples and followers show that they love him, and continue in their affection to him:

even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. The commandments of the Father kept by Christ were not only the precepts of the moral law, and the rites of the ceremonial one, which he strictly observed; but the preaching of the Gospel, and submitting to the ordinances of it, doing of miracles, and laying down his life for his people; in performing which, as his Father testified his approbation of them, and how strongly he was affected to him, what an abiding he had in his love; so Christ hereby showed his constant and continued love to his Father; and which was done by him, that the world, as well as his disciples, might know how much he loved him; see John 14:31.

Geneva Study Bible

If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Expositor's Greek Testament

John 15:10. That possibility is defeated, ἐὰν τὰς ἐντολάς μου τηρήσητε. To encourage them in keeping His commandments He reminds them that He also has been subject to the same conditions, and by keeping the Father’s commandments has remained in His love.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

10. If ye keep] See on John 14:15; John 14:21; John 14:24. To keep His commandments not only proves our love for Him but secures His love for us.

I have kept my Father’s commandments] This being in a subordinate sentence the tremendous import of it is liable to pass unnoticed. Looking back over a life of thirty years Jesus says, ‘I have kept the Father’s commandments.’ Would the best man that ever lived, if only a man, dare to make such a statement? See on John 14:30.

Bengel's Gnomen

John 15:10. Τετήρηκα, I have kept) even up to the moment of My departure from the world: 1 John 4:17, “Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.” As He was when He went out of the world, so He is always.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 10. - If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love. This is the method and secret, the stimulus and proof, of abiding in the love of Christ. This is not exactly the converse (Westcott) of "If ye love me, keep my commandments." Doubtless there is a love which dictates obedience to the loved One's will. Our Lord here avers, however, something further, viz. that obedience issues in a higher love. The obedience here described is the outcome of love, but the power is thus gained to continue, dwell, in the Divine love, to abide, that is, in the full enjoyment and fullness of my Divine love to you. This is obvious from the confirmatory clause: Even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. The Lord kept the Father's commandment always, doing those things which please him, offering up his precious life, laying it down that he might take it again; and the consequence is that he then and there knew that he was filled with all the fullness of the Divine love. The very impressive line of thought pervades this passage, that what the Father was to him, that he would prove to his disciples. What the love of God was to the Christ, the love of Christ was to his disciples. John 15:10