John 16:27

For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(27) For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me.—Comp. Notes on John 14:21; John 14:23. The introduction of the thought again here reminds us that, although in the fulness of the higher spiritual life there is communion between the Father and the human spirit, because the Father Himself ever loveth the heart which can receive His love, this power to receive the love of the Father is itself the result of loving the Son, who has revealed Him. Our Lord is leading them to the fuller truths of spiritual communion with God, and even tells them that this will be independent of mediation; but the very words which tell them that it will be independent of mediation, tell them that all depends upon His own mediation and the manifestation of the love of God in His own person.

And have believed that I came out from God.—The reading is uncertain. Several of the better MSS. read, “. . . that I came forth from the Father.” (Comp. the first words of the next verse and John 13:3.) The perfect tenses represent their love and faith as completed, and continuing in the present. It is striking that the order of the words makes faith’ follow love. This order may be chosen to mark emphatically the connection between the Father’s love for the disciples and their love for the Son; but it also suggests that their convictions were the result of having their hearts opened by love so that they received the truth.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

16:23-27 Asking of the Father shows a sense of spiritual wants, and a desire of spiritual blessings, with conviction that they are to be had from God only. Asking in Christ's name, is acknowledging our unworthiness to receive any favours from God, and shows full dependence upon Christ as the Lord our Righteousness. Our Lord had hitherto spoken in short and weighty sentences, or in parables, the import of which the disciples did not fully understand, but after his resurrection he intended plainly to teach them such things as related to the Father and the way to him, through his intercession. And the frequency with which our Lord enforces offering up petitions in his name, shows that the great end of the mediation of Christ is to impress us with a deep sense of our sinfulness, and of the merit and power of his death, whereby we have access to God. And let us ever remember, that to address the Father in the name of Christ, or to address the Son as God dwelling in human nature, and reconciling the world to himself, are the same, as the Father and Son are one.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

See John 14:21, John 14:23.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

27. For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me—This love of theirs is that which is called forth by God's eternal love in the gift of His Son mirrored in the hearts of those who believe, and resting on His dear Son.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

I need not tell you (to beget in you a confidence that your prayers should be heard) that I will pray to the Father for you; for my Father himself hath such a love for you, that you may from thence alone conclude that he will hear you. And though my Father’s love to you be an everlasting love, which hath no cause in the creature; yet as to the manifestations of my Father’s love, they are further drawn forth by the love which he seeth you bear to me, and by your receiving me, who am the Messiah, and came forth from God, to perform the work of man’s redemption.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For the Father himself loveth you,.... The Father loved them as well, and as much as the Son did, and of himself too, without any merit or motive in them: he loved them from everlasting, and had given proofs of it in time, in the gift of his Son to them, and for them; and in calling them by his grace; and therefore being thus strongly affected to them, they might depend upon a ready and speedy answer from him, as might be best for his glory, and their good.

Because ye have loved me; not that their love to Christ was the cause of the Father's love to them; but, on the contrary, the Father's love to them was the cause of their love to Christ; and therefore as the cause is known by its effect, they might be assured of the Father's love to them by their love to Christ; for if the Father had not loved them, they had never loved God, nor Christ; but since they did love Christ, it was a clear case the Father loved them: and this their love is joined with faith;

and have believed that I came out from God; being sent by him, and am no impostor, but the true Messiah that was to come: faith in Christ, and love to him, go together; where the one is, there is the other; faith works by love; they are both the gifts of God's grace, and the fruits and effects of his everlasting love; and those who are possessed of them may be firmly persuaded of their interest therein.

Geneva Study Bible

For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

27. himself] Without My intercession.

loveth you] On the difference between the two Greek verbs for ‘love’ see on John 11:5. It is the more emotional word that is used here in both cases. At first sight it appears the less appropriate to express God’s love for the disciples: but the point is that it is a Father’s love, it flows spontaneously from a natural relationship as distinct from discriminating friendship.

because ye have loved me] Both pronouns are emphatic and are next one another in the Greek, pointing to the closeness of the relationship; because ye Me have loved. Note the ‘because;’ it is their love for Christ which wins the Father’s love (John 14:21; John 14:23).

have loved … have believed] Both perfects signify what has been and still continues. No argument can be drawn from the order of the verbs as to love preceding faith: ‘have loved’ naturally comes first on account of ‘loveth’ immediately preceding. ‘Love begets love’ is true both between man and man and between God and man. ‘Faith begets faith’ cannot have any meaning between God and man.

from God] The better reading is, from the Father (see on John 1:6, John 15:26). It was specially because they recognised Him as the Son sent from the Father, and not merely as a Prophet sent from God (John 1:6), that they won the Father’s love.

Bengel's Gnomen

John 16:27. Αὐτὸς, Himself) of His own accord.—φιλεῖ ὑμᾶς, loveth you) and therefore hearkens to you.—ὅτι, because) This gives the reason why the Father loves and hears them.—πεφιλήκατε, καὶ πεπιστεύκατε) ye have taken hold of (embraced) Me with love and faith. Love is both posterior and prior to faith. For they mutually sustain each other. Nay, faith itself imbibes love and the embracing of the heavenly gift. In this passage love is put first, in order that these words may the better answer to one another, viz. loveth, ye have loved. Ye believe that I came out from God. These words the Lord puts into the mouth of the disciples, in order that there may be echoed back by them the words, We believe that Thou earnest forth from God, in John 16:30.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 27. - For the Father himself loveth you (φιλεῖ), with love of a fatherly affection, such as mine to you, because ye have loved me (the perfect preterit, in the sense of the realized past in the present which shall then be), and have believed that I came forth from the side of (παρὰ) the Father. In their belief of this transcendent fact is the hope of the world. It was wrought in them by the strengthening pulses of a deepening love, and to this love God himself responds with a personal tender affection that encourages boundless prayer. The disciple and lover of Jesus, having Jesus in the heart, united to him by living faith, will find in Christ that there is a perpetual pledge of reciprocal love between the Father and himself. Christ will not (ἐρωτᾶν) ask the Father, because his entire position as Mediator establishes a continual appeal, is a perpetual ἔντευξις, a continuous drawing near and appeal to God on our account, a pledge and guarantee of our own fellowship with and access to the Father. Our English word "intercession," though apparently corresponding with the Latin and with the Greek word, does not now represent its original meaning. That meaning is by no means equivalent to the hind of prayer which is here excluded (Trench, 'Syn. N.T.,' § 51.). John 16:27

Vincent's Word Studies

Loveth (φιλεῖ)

As sons, with the love of natural affection. See on John 5:20. The same verb in the following clause, of the love of the disciples for Christ.

From God

Some editors read, from the Father. Παρά, from beside.