God loves His virtue and will love His virtue within the believer who develops it. John 14:21-23Title: God loves His virtue and will love His virtue within the believer who develops it. John 14:21-23
John 14:21"He who has My commandments and keeps them [continued PVTD without distraction], 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."
/ “loves Me” – present active participle of agapaw[agapao] = a mental attitude love of the Lord and His word. A love for Jesus Christ is a love of His word.\
Any person can say they love Jesus a million times over, but what is your attitude towards His word? And I mean the entire word and not just your favorite subjects.
Verse 21 clearly that to love the Lord is to love His word.
The key to understanding the mention of the Father’s love in verse 21 is the preposition hupo.
/ shall be loved “of” my Father = preposition u(po[hupo] = a place beneath, underneath, or below. This is in reference to the Father’s authority.\
/ “loved by My Father” = [literally]“loved under the authority of My Father” – the Father loves the virtues developed under submission to His plan, as Jesus Christ did flawlessly.\
/God first loved us and then through doctrine we learn of Him and reciprocate His love. Under that submission to the authority of His word and His plan there is now something more within you that is the object of His love – genuine humility.\
The Father’s love towards you will not grow or recede, but what can grow within your soul are additional objects of God’s love. If I love my child unconditionally then my love towards them does not depend on their production or lack of. However, if I see my child submit to my will, it is the humility that I see within them that I love.
/God loves virtue. When He sees that virtue in you, it is the virtue He loves. He cannot love your person any more than He did at the moment of salvation when you were imputed with His righteousness.\
The virtues of God are attacked in this world. Therefore you will be attacked. God does not initiate suffering, but rather He allows it. This is the permissive will of God. If it is divine discipline for failure to reside in His plan He allows circumstances to cause you to undergo suffering. However, if it is undeserved suffering or suffering for blessing, then He removes certain protections so that you have an opportunity to apply the doctrines you have learned for accelerated spiritual growth and the development of virtue.
John 15:18 "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.
John 15:19"If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
John 15:20"Remember the word that I said to you, 'A slave is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also.
John 15:21"But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me.
Remember, the Lord laid aside the independent use of His deity and lived as a man under the plan of the Father. This plan has been given to us and it includes suffering for blessing.
/Heb 5:8 Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. \
/Maximum virtue is developed when under undeserved suffering we continue to submit ourselves under the plan from the Father. \
Phil 2:3 Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself;
Phil 2:4 do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.
Phil 2:5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,
Phil 2:6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,
Phil 2:7 but emptied Himself [kenosis], taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.
The Lord did not empty Himself of deity. Where is deity going to go since it is omnipresent?
From His virgin birth and onward for all eternity He is forever the God-Man. He has two natures in one Person forever. He is not half God and half man, nor does His deity spill over to His humanity or vice versa, that would destroy each nature.
/Hypostatic Union: He is true humanity and undiminished deity in one person forever.\
/ “emptied” – kenow[kenoo] = Jesus Christ laid aside the independent use of His deity during the first Advent. Doctrine of Kenosis.\
/2 Cor 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich. \
Phil 2:8And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Phil 2:9Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,
Did the Father love the Son more because He humbled Himself? It was impossible for the Father to love Him more. The Father loved the virtue of genuine humility and rewarded it. He will do the same for you if you continue in grace and knowledge.
Phil 2:10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth,
Phil 2:11and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Go back to:
John 14:21"He who has My commandments and keeps [guards] them [continued PVTD without distraction], 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."
“I will love Him,” again agapao is used for the mental attitude love of Christ towards you and His love toward the virtue of genuine humility.
We get a beautiful snap-shot in this verse of the CA no longer being a time of adherence to the Mosaic Law, but a time of divine relationship and social life with God. This is Christianity.
Why do we see that in this verse?
He first loved us. We learned of Him. We loved Him because we guarded that word. The Father and the Son loved the genuine. humility within us.
/The believer guards the word which belongs to Him, by which he loves Christ, and the Father and Christ love the virtue in the believer, so there is relationship or fellowship or social life with God in time.\
Christianity is social life with God. Since the Trinity is invisible we can only establish this relationship through consistent intake of pertinent doctrine. This relationship must take precedence over relationship with people.
Next we have the fourth question from the disciples in the upper room during the Passover meal. This question is from Judas also known as Thaddeus.
This question is in direct response to what the Lord said in verse 21, which completed the Lord’s answer to Philip’s question.
John 14:8 Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us [we’ll be satisfied]."
John 14:9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how do you say, 'Show us the Father'?
John 14:18 "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
John 14:19"After a little while the world will behold Me no more; but you will behold Me; because I live, you shall live also.
John 14:20"In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.
John 14:21"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."
John 14:22Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, "Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us, and not to the world?" |