You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
Read Chapter 15
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Ye have not chosen Me, &c. S. Augustine, both on this passage and elsewhere (lib1 , c17 , de Predest. Sanct.) understands by this choosing the predestination of God: I have predestinated you, and chosen you, without any merits of yours, to glory. But this does not agree rightly with the words, ye have not chosen Me. For neither could the Apostles choose Christ to heavenly glory, nor does Christ here seem to have wished to reveal His predestination to the Apostles. For this He Himself is wont to attribute to the Father. For to the Father providence is attributed, a part of which is predestination.
More literally the meaning Isaiah , Ye did not first choose Me for your Master and Lord, but I first chose and called you, and by My vocation and grace I made you My friends, disciples, and Apostles. So S. Cyril, Chrysostom, and others. Wherefore S. Chrysostom thinks that Christ is here still dwelling upon the parable of the vine and its branches. The meaning then will be, As the husbandman c...
His aim is neither to depress His holy disciples by words too grievous, being aware, as God, of the great tendency of human reason to weakness, nor again does He permit them by immoderate assurances to fall into a state of backsliding, for this is indeed a disease and a serious one. But forming a mean between these two from a mixture of both, He fitly leads them into a safe path, and works in them a knowledge of the more stable state and of the complete uncertainty of that which is removed from it.
When therefore, then, he has abundantly comforted them with the words of consolation, and with respect to those things at which they would be likely to be cast down, persuading them in turn to rejoice, He again incites them by His injunctions to diligence to a confident courage; persuading them to change their minds and rather to rejoice at those things at which they had not without reason been dismayed, and charges them to display the utmost zeal, and put into practice an overflowing mea...
O ineffable grace! For what were we, before Christ chose us, but wretched and abandoned creatures? Such we were; but now we are chosen, in order that we may become good by the grace of Him that hath chosen us. (St. Augustine, tract. 86. in Joan.)
For this is the glory of man, to continue and remain permanently in God's service. Wherefore also did the Lord say to His disciples, "Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you; "
That is, I ran upon your friendship. And He stayed not here, but,
I set you, He says, (that is, I planted you,) that you should go, (He still uses the metaphor of the vine,) that is, that you should extend yourselves; and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.
Now if your fruit remain, much more shall you. For I have not only loved you, He says, but have done you the greatest benefits, by extending your branches through all the world. Do you see in how many ways He shows His love? By telling them things secret, 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 aid, and so to bear fruit.
That whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in My Name, He may give it you.
Yet it is the part of the person asked to do the thing asked; but if the Father is aske...
