This is my commandment, That you love one another, as I have loved you.
All Commentaries on John 15:12 Go To John 15
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
Where then love is, what can be wanting? Where it is not, what can profit? But this love is distinguished from men’s love to each other as men, by adding, As I have loved you. To what end did Christ love us, but that we should reign with Him? Let us therefore so love one another, as that our love be different from that of other men; who do not love one another, to the end that God may be loved, because they do not really love at all. They who love one another for the sake of having God within them, they truly love one another.
Having said, This is My commandment: that you love one another, even as I have loved you (1 Jn 3);it follows, as John said in his Epistle, that as Christ laid down His life for us, so we should laydown our lives for the brethren. This the martyrs have done with ardent love And therefore in commemorating them at Christ’s table, we do not pray for them, as we do for others, but werather pray that we may follow their steps. For they have shown the same love for their brother, that has been shown them at the Lord’s table.
From one and the same love, we love God and our neighbor, but God for His own sake, our neighbor 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 neighbor, Scripture often unites them into one precept. For if a man love God, it follows s that he does what God commands, and if so, that he loves his neighbor, God having commanded this. Wherefore He proceeds: You are My friends, if you do whatsoever I command you.
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, forthe servant knows not what his Lord does. Shall we therefore cease to be servants, as soon asever we are good servants? And is not a good and tried servant sometimes entrusted with his master's secrets, still remaining a servant? 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 casts out; which also has in it a servitude, which will be cast out together with the fear. And there is another, apure fear, which remains forever. It is the former state of servitude, which our Lord refers to, when He says, Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knows not what his Lord does; not the state of that servant to whom it is said, Well done, you good servant, enter you into the joy of your Lord (Matt 25:21), but of him of whom it was said below, The servant abides not in the house for ever, but the Son abides ever. Forasmuch then as God has given us power to become the sons of God, so that in a wonderful way, we are servants, and yet not servants, we know that it is the Lord who does this. This that servant is ignorant of, who knows not what his Lord does, and when he does any good thing, is exalted in his own conceit, as if he himself did it, and not his Lord; and boasts of himself, not of his Lord.
But how did He make known to His disciples all things that He had heard from the Father, when He forebore saying many things, because He knew they as yet could not bear them? He made all things known toHis disciples, i.e., He knew that He should make them known to them in that fullness of which the Apostle said, Then we shall know, even as we are known (1 Cor 13:12). For as we look for the death of the flesh, and the salvation of the soul, so should we look for that knowledge of all things, which the Only-Begotten heard from the Father.
Ineffable grace! For what were we before Christ had chosen us, but wicked, and lost? We did not believe in Him, so as to be chosen by Him: for had He chosen us believing, He would have chosen us choosing. This passage refutes the vain opinion of those who say that we were chosen before the foundation of the world, because God foreknew that we should be good, not that He Himself would make us good. For had He 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 he can be called good, who has not chosen good. What then has He chosen in them who are not good? you can not say, I am chosen because I believed; for had you believed in Him, you had 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? What is there for us to say then, but that we were wicked, and were chosen, that by the grace of the chosen we might become good? .
They are chosen then before the foundation of the world, according to that predestination by which God foreknew His future acts. They are chosen out of the world by that call whereby God fulfills what He has predestined: whom He did predestine, them He also called (Rom 8:30).
Observe, Hedoes not choose the good; but those, whom He has chosen, He makes good: And I have ordained you that you should go, and bring forth fruit. This is the fruit which He meant, when He said, Without Me you can do nothing. He Himself is the way in which He has set us to go.
Love then is one fruit, now existing in desire only, not yet in fullness. Yet even with this desire whatever weask in the name of the Only-Begotten Son, the Father gives us: That whatsoever you shall ask the Father in My name, He may give it you. We ask in the Savior’s name, whatever we ask, that will be profitable to our salvation.
