'If ye love Me, keep My commandments.'—JOHN xiv, 15.
As we have seen in former sermons, the keyword of the preceding context
is 'Believe!' and that word passes now into 'Love.' The order here is
the order of experience. There is first the believing gaze upon the
Christ as He is revealed—the image of the invisible God. That kindles
love, and prompts to obedience.
There is another very beautiful and subtle link of connection between
these words and the preceding. Our Lord has just been saying,
'Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do.' Is the parallel
wholly accidental or fanciful between the Lord who does as the servant
asks and the servant who is to do as the Lord commands? On both sides
there is love delighting to be set in motion by a message from the
other side. On the one part there is love supreme which commands and
delights to be asked, on the other part there is love dependent, which
asks and delights to be commanded; and though the gulf between the two
is great, and the difference between Christ's law and our petitions is
infinite, yet there is an analogy.
I pause on these words, though they are introduced here only as the
basis of the great promise which follows, because they open out into
such wide fields. They contain the all-sufficient law of Christian
conduct. They contain the one motive adequate to bring that law into
realisation. They disclose the very roots of Christian morality, and
part of the secret of Christ's unique power and influence amongst men.
They come with a message of encouragement to all souls despairing of
being able to do that which they would, and of freedom to all men
burdened with a crowd of minute and external regulations. 'If ye love
Me, keep My commandments'—there are three points to be dwelt upon
here—namely, the all-sufficient ideal or guide of life, the
all-powerful motive which Christ brings to bear, and the all-subduing
gaze of faith by which that motive is brought into action.