John Calvin Commentary 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." — John 15:10 (ASV)

If you keep my commandments. He points out to us the method of perseverance: to follow where He calls. For, as Paul says, They who are in Christ walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit (Romans 8:1).

For these two things are continually united: faith, which perceives the undeserved love of Christ toward us, and a good conscience and newness of life. And, indeed, Christ does not reconcile believers to the Father so that they may indulge in wickedness without reserve and without punishment, but so that, governing them by His Spirit, He may keep them under the authority and dominion of His Father. Hence it follows that the love of Christ is rejected by those who do not prove, by true obedience, that they are His disciples.

If anyone objects that, in that case, the security of our salvation depends on ourselves, I reply that it is wrong to give such a meaning to Christ’s words. For the obedience which believers render to Him is not the reason He continues His love toward us, but is rather the effect of His love. For from where does it come that they answer their calling, if not because they are led by the Spirit of adoption, out of free grace?

But again, it may be thought that the condition imposed on us is too difficult: that we should keep the commandments of Christ, which contain the absolute perfection of righteousness—a perfection far exceeding our capacity—for from this it would follow that the love of Christ will be useless if we are not endowed with angelic purity.

The answer is easy. When Christ speaks of the desire of living a good and holy life, He does not exclude what is the chief article of His doctrine: namely, that which alludes to righteousness being freely imputed. As a result of this, through a free pardon, our duties—which in themselves deserved to be rejected as imperfect and unholy—are acceptable to God.

Believers, therefore, are reckoned as keeping the commandments of Christ when they apply their earnest attention to them, though they are far distant from the object at which they aim. For they are delivered from that rigorous sentence of the law: Cursed be he that hath not confirmed all the words of this law to do them (Deuteronomy 27:26).

As I also have kept my Father’s commandments. As we have been elected in Christ, so in Him the image of our calling is exhibited to us in a lively manner. Therefore, He justly presents Himself to us as a pattern, which all the godly ought to imitate.

“In Me,” He says, “is brightly displayed the resemblance of those things which I demand from you; for you see how sincerely I am devoted to obedience to My Father, and how I persevere in this course. My Father, too, has loved Me, not for a moment or for a short time, but His love toward Me is constant.”

This conformity between the Head and the members ought always to be placed before our eyes, not only so that believers may form themselves after the example of Christ, but also so that they may entertain a confident hope that His Spirit will every day form them anew to be better and better, so that they may walk to the end in newness of life.