21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me, and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him, and will disclose Myself to him. 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, "Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us, and not to the world? 23 Jesus answered and said to Him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him. 24 He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father's who sent Me.
Time: John most likely wrote between A.D. 85 and 90. John's purpose in writing was, "that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name (John 20:31)."
What the Lord is Saying: Ever since John 13:31 I have seen Jesus talking about (1) Believe, (2) Pray, (3) Love or Obey, (4) He (Holy Spirit) will help. Now I don't believe obey is necessary for salvation as I think consistently I see Jesus speaking about believing in Him and through that trust in Him alone a person will have eternal life. The idea of Him being living water is He lives in us and works through us. I believe the Bible teaches salvation by grace throughout the entire book. Others talk about ages and that God saves in different ways at different periods of time, but I think our scripture is consistent that only God saves. God definitely wants people that are obedient to Him but this is not a condition for our salvation ever but always a confirmation. And let's face it, life is better for us when we are obedient.
In Verse 21, Jesus remarks our need to keep the commandments. Again, keeping commandments like He says, "he it is who loves Me." We love him and so we keep His commandments. But verse 21 at first is a interesting progressing -- "Keep commandments - Show your love for Jesus - if loved by Jesus you are loved by the Father - and Jesus will love you - and will disclose Himself to you." So here is this idea keeping commandments has a result of Jesus loving us.
Now we have another disciple asking Jesus questions. Interesting - Peter, Thomas, Philip, and now Judas. I find it interesting that John is providing all of these different disciples with their questions. Judas wonders in verse 23 about the words that Jesus mentioned of disclosing Himself. I must admit, if I were there, I would probably be asking the same thing. "Disclosing seems like an interesting word."
Jesus responds by repeating somewhat the words of verse 21 but adding a word, "Abode." The idea seems to be love Him and do His commandments and Father/Jesus will set up an abode with that person. Conversely, if you don't love Him you don't keep His words.
It seems the onus on these words is our love for the Father. That seems to be the focus here - that we need to focus on our love for God rather than thinking it is a tit for tat: I do this, he does that.
But when we do the commands - God's love is guaranteed and this love is both from the Father and the Son. Obedience does not result only in God's acceptance, but God and His Son's acceptance. Again, as Jesus has stated many other times, the Son and the Father are together in their mission. Prior to being obedient to the commands is the giving of the Spirit of God, so that in our obedience we have the Spirit in us. The Spirit is working in us and through us and this is our obedience as we surrender to Him.
The disclosing of Jesus to us perhaps is an allusion to the relationship between our obedience and His operation in us. Our obedience intensifies our relationship with Him. We will know Him more as we obey Him more.
Summary: Disciples are to love Jesus and in the process, Jesus will disclose Himself to us, the Father and the Son, growing in closeness to God.
Promise: If we are not seeking to grow in conformity to Christ, we should not expect to grow in the deeper things of God.
Prayer: Lord God, you are great and wonderful and thank you for the privilege of knowing You better as we grow in Your word and You. How awesome that you reveal yourself to us.
Note: If you are interested in other studies/devotions, check out my index of Bible Study's.
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