John 15:7-10, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; so shall you be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you: continue in my love. If you keep my commandments you shall abide in my love.”
When Jesus said, “If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments,” it should be clear the Father’s commandments are not Jesus’ commandments (Jn.15:10). Jesus expresses a clear difference between Himself and His Father here. He reveals the utter devotion He has to His Father and explains the utter devotion He expects of His disciples. In saying, “If you keep my commandments,” Jesus is drawing a distinction, a dissimilarity, a contrast, between His commandments and His Father’s commandments. Jesus kept His Father’s commandments so we don’t have to but we are going to have to keep Jesus’ commandments if we are to abide in Jesus. We are not talking about old covenant commandments. It would be silly of Jesus to say we must abide in Him and then also say we must keep His Father’s commandments. Jesus could have just as easily used the word, “our,” but He didn’t. To abide in Jesus is to be free of the Father’s commandments.
Jesus goes on in John 15:10 to say, “Even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things have I written to you that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do what I command you.”
I was meditating on these verses today and rearranged them in my mind and came up with this.
“If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believes on me, the works that I do shall he do also and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to the Father. And whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you shall ask anything in my name, I will do it. If you love me, keep my commandments.”
Curiously, or perhaps coincidentally, when we keep the first commandment Jesus issued, words flow out of our mouths and again, Jesus used the word, “keep,” as opposed to the word, “obey,” signifying a continual obedience. Then, “to believe on,” is King James translation, but whether you believe on or believe in, both ways you will saturate yourself with Jesus and the first commandment of Jesus is a commandment to saturate. Moreover, Jesus uses the plural of the word, “words,” while the singular is used to speak of the written Word. The written Word is a singular person but the gift of tongues is plural and Jesus said the Holy Spirit would testify of Him when He came. Therefore, the gift of tongues is Jesus' words. Jesus seems to be saying the new covenant is entered by the keeping of His first commandment and all the promises of the new covenant are dependent on the keeping of the first commandment. The words of Jesus abide in us through the gift of tongues.
To love Jesus is to keep Jesus’ commandments and to keep Jesus’ commandments is to abide in Jesus. To abide in Jesus is to be afforded a place of honor whereby every prayer you pray is answered and those so abided are invited to ask for the works of Jesus and greater works. Jesus promises whatever we ask for will be granted that the Father may be glorified in the Son. Again, He reiterates, “If you love me, keep my commandments,” as if to say, all of this depends on the keeping of His commandments.
Three times Jesus says "Ask whatever you want to and I will do it," as if to drive this point home. If we add in the promise of duplicating His works and greater works we can make that four. It is as if He is enticing the keeping as a man might dangle a carrot in front of a donkey to entice the forward motion of the donkey. Later on Paul makes the point that every point should be made three times in order to be valid. Jesus offers four.
Can anybody say, “Pray without ceasing?”
If this is correct; if receiving the blessings of the new covenant are dependent on an almost continual keeping of Jesus’ first commandment it would certainly explain why most Christians have not walked in a position with God where whatever they ask is granted. Moreover, it does explain why the prayers of Smith Wigglesworth were answered as they were, as well as Maria Woods-Worth Etter and others, who put the gift of tongues first in their life.
It is not easy to go from a position of controlling the gift of tongues to being controlled by the gift of tongues however. Mankind has always desired and maintained control. The struggle is to make, and keep, Jesus as Lord and according to Romans 10:9-10, that is where salvation is gained. The problem is, the Lord Jesus Christ is manifest today in the earth as the gift of tongues.
You see, when Jesus walked the earth in His ministry Jesus was representing His Father, only nobody recognized the Father when they saw Jesus. The same dynamic is present today. When people witness the actions of the Holy Spirit they are witnessing the actions of Jesus because Jesus said, “When He, the Spirit of truth has come, He will testify of me.” Only Christians don’t recognize Jesus when they see the Holy Spirit; they recognize the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father,” but He was in no wise saying they are both the same. “If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” The Father’s commandments are obviously not Jesus’ commandments and vice versa. Therefore, they are two different persons. In fact, if you are trying to keep the Father’s commandments; you are not keeping Jesus’ commandments.
Christians are faced with a dilemma. They don’t recognize Jesus when they see Him and don’t know how to find His commandments. They search the four gospels, thinking they are learning of Jesus, and in actuality, they are learning of the Father. If the two were one, it would be a moot point, but they are clearly not one and if believers cannot distinguish between the Father and the Son they have no hope of eternal life.
We know Jesus perfectly kept His Father’s commandments; He said so. We know believers are called to baptize themselves into Jesus’ death by faith and if they are so baptized, there is no need for them to keep the Father’s commandments, Jesus already having done so. The only thing left is for believers to keep Jesus’ commandments. So ask yourself these questions: “How many people do you know who can distinguish between the commandments the Father issued and the commandments Jesus issued?” How many people do you know who keep Jesus’ commandments?” And, “How many people do you know who daily take up a call to saturate themselves with Jesus?”
If we must keep Jesus’ commandments in order to experience the life of God on this earth, no wonder most Christians don’t!
If keeping Jesus’ commandments is the prerequisite, then we need to understand where to find Jesus’ commandments and, “What does, “keeping,” look like.” Jesus told us He kept His Father’s commandments. Therefore His Father’s commandments are the commandments of the law because it was the old covenant law that was in force when Jesus lived on the earth. This much is without question. Moreover, new covenant commandments will look very different from old covenant commandments because of Jesus’ death for sin on the cross. The new covenant does not address righteousness, righteousness having been gained by faith in Jesus’ death on the cross.
In order for Jesus to keep His Father’s commandments, He could not issue His own. Any commandments Jesus would have issued would have necessarily been confrontational and insubordination against His Father even if Jesus’ commandments complemented His Father’s. It would have indicated the Father’s covenant with the Jews was incomplete and imperfect. If Jesus did author commandments, and He said He would, they would necessarily be issued after Jesus had kept His Father’s commandments. This would be after His death on the cross. So the question then is, “Did Jesus issue any commandments after His death on the cross?”
As it turns out, just before His ascension, Jesus gather’s His disciples about Him and commands them to not leave Jerusalem but wait for a baptism with the Spirit. Now, the question is, “Is this a commandment of Jesus, why or why not?” Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments,” so there is no requirement to keep Jesus’ commandments; they are completely voluntary. However, in order to reach the place where God honors all your requests, you must keep Jesus’ commandments, which means you must first be able to recognize Jesus’ commandments.
Jesus actually issues three commandments. The first, and therefore most important, is to receive a baptism with the Holy Spirit. This commandment bears no resemblance to the old covenant commandments. In truth, a baptism with the Spirit was not even possible under the old covenant. In Acts 1:8, Jesus promised the disciples power to witness of His resurrection with the baptism with the Spirit. No such promise was ever issued by God to mankind. In the gospels, Jesus makes a point of the fifth commandment being the first commandment with promise.
Now, while I can’t explain what the significance of a commandment with a promise is, I know there is one. And the first commandment of the new covenant being the commandment with promise holds special significance. It certainly appears the power to witness is the ability to work the works of Jesus and do greater works promised to those who believe on Jesus. This signifies it is not a belief in His death that is required to work Jesus’ works but a belief in His resurrection; a belief that causes obedience to new covenant commandments.
And the second commandment Jesus issued just before His ascension was to preach this gospel in ever widening circles until the whole world was covered with this gospel. The power to witness of Jesus’ resurrection was to be the impetus for preaching this gospel. Again, in Galatians 3:5, Paul asked the Galatians, “He that ministered the Spirit to you and worked miracles among you, did he do it by works of the law or the hearing of faith?”
These are two gospels. The one gospel is the gospel of the old covenant, which states Christians, must continue to keep the Ten Commandments in order to realize salvation. The other gospel states that righteousness is not gained by the keeping of commandments but by an action of faith; a faith that justifies the unrighteous. Jesus already kept the Ten Commandments, as well as the whole of the old covenant law and those who baptize themselves into Jesus’ death by faith are free from the law, having Jesus’ complete keeping of the law imputed to them by faith. Having received righteousness by faith, this second gospel also states Christians live by faith in the promise of power to witness whereby the gift of tongues flows from the mouth. This is what Paul calls the hearing of faith. It is faith in the promise that causes the gift of tongues to flow. BY this action we actually hear our faith expressed. The modern Church, for the most part, preaches the first gospel and does not recognize or observe Jesus’ commandments. This was Paul’s argument to the Galatians. Having started a walk with God by faith through no works of your own, how can you expect to complete it by keeping commandments (works)?
Paul’s gospel is a gospel of two faiths; one that conveys righteousness and another that conveys eternal life. “The just shall live by faith.” Jesus’ perfect keeping of the law is imputed to those who believe in His death under penalty of sin but Jesus had to keep His Father’s covenant before He could establish His own. The purpose of the new covenant is not righteousness; the purpose of the new covenant is to glorify the Father, to show forth the glory, majesty, love, and compassion of the Father through various miracles and miraculous works. The power to witness of the resurrection of Jesus is the works and greater works of Jesus and is only accessed through the keeping of Jesus’ commandments.
The phrase, “The just shall live by faith,” is apropos. The just are those justified through faith in Jesus’ death but the just receive everlasting life through faith, faith in a promise of power to witness of the resurrection. Faith in the promise causes obedience of the commandment whereby the gift of tongues flows on a continual basis and the believer is continually saturated with Jesus.
The final commandment was to disciple the converts. If Jesus had to fulfill His Father’s commandments before He issued His own, then these three commandments alone comprise the whole of Jesus’ commandments. While it is true Jesus issued a new commandment to love one another to His disciples prior to His death, Jesus’ new commandment is just as easily seen as an interpretation of the second of the Ten Commandments, to love one another. If Jesus perfectly kept His Father’s commandments and lost souls baptize themselves into Jesus’ death by faith, then they receive His perfect keeping and are not responsible for keeping the new commandment.
Now, Jesus said, “If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love,” so the keeping of Jesus’ commandments is mirrored by how Jesus kept His Father’s commandments. This explains how Jesus’ commandments should be kept.
However, if we consider that the Ten Commandments are largely commandments forbidding certain behavior and Jesus’ commandments are commandments to engage in certain behavior the similarity is tempered by the difference. Still, it should be clear a one-time obedience is not what is required. The Ten Commandments in and of themselves required a constant vigilance to both engage in certain behavior and keep from engaging in other behavior and then there were other laws that required the same vigilance to perform.
The first and most important commandment of Jesus is a commandment to wait for a baptism with the Spirit but the word, “wait,” suggests it will take some time to be baptized and the word, baptize, means, to saturate. Furthermore, on the day of Pentecost when that first baptism occurred, it is clear the baptism occurred over an extended period of time. The believers didn’t just start to speak with other tongues; they preached whole sermons in tongues, telling of the wonderful work(s) of God. As the gift of tongues flowed out of their mouths they were saturated with Jesus. If we are commanded to saturate ourselves with the Holy Spirit it will obviously take an unknown amount of time to reach that goal and to stay saturated will take a continual obedience. The gift of tongues then becomes the vehicle through which saturation occurs and vigilance becomes the method of keeping.
Now, going back to Jesus’ new commandment, it takes time for saturation to occur and if we lay our lives down for our friends as Jesus did for us, we have that time to give to reach the point of saturation each and every day. Saturation is a moving target, however, and we learn how to judge when we reach the point of saturation by experience. It is called fellowship. Jesus said, “When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will testify of me.” So the whole time we are saturating ourselves with the Spirit He is testifying of Jesus. We only have to learn to recognize Jesus.
Now, Jesus said to break one commandment of the law was to transgress the whole of the law. I don’t know if the same principal applies to the new covenant or not but I do know the only way to receive power to witness is to keep the commandment that promises it. The Church, or at least various parts of it, has been trying to access this power for years now to no avail. They have kept every commandment in the book except the one that counts and performed every act of love imaginable and I suspect a hap-hazard keeping of the one commandment that counts will produce the same results. Nothing.
The old covenant was made with the Jews and every child born to a Jew was responsible for keeping it but the new covenant is a completely voluntary covenant. Whether or not you keep it and with what degree of faithfulness is really up to you. Jesus places no compulsion on any soul. Yet the new covenant stands open to all. Jesus’ commandments are not grievous or hard to keep but they require commitment and time. If we are willing to lay our lives down for our friends all the power and authority of heaven is available to us and we can wield it like as if we were God, Himself. Jesus said, “Whatever you ask, I will do it,” but we must be keepers of His commandments.
One last thing: the keeping doesn’t have to be done all at once. Saturation can occur over time as small increments of time are carved out to keep the commandment. Paul said, “Pray without ceasing.” While the Church has debated for millennium what this phrase means and whether it is possible to do, it does indicate continuous prayer as opposed to one long block of prayer. As long as saturation is achieved, the covenant has been kept. When the sun arises however, it is a new day and the test of your love for Jesus starts all over.
We might consider the last commandment of the law, “But this law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night that you may observe to do all that is written therein.” The word, “meditate,” means to mutter but if “this law shall not depart out of your mouth,” you cannot mutter it. The wording of this commandment is somewhat confusing unless you consider that the muttering is supposed to be constant. Then it becomes clear that there should not be a time when the law is not departing out of the mouth. In other words, there should be no ceasing of the words departing your mouth.
While this is an impossible commandment to keep, as all the law is designed to be, it does indicate the extreme passion required to keep the law. Coincidentally, the word, “wait,” found in Acts 1:4 is an ancient Greek word, meaning extreme passion and it takes an extreme passion for Jesus to cause one to pray in tongues every spare moment. Some call this extreme passion love. This may very well be where Paul found the phrase, “Pray without ceasing.”
During His earthly ministry Jesus healed ten lepers. He performed this miracle by asking them to show themselves to the priest in accordance with the law’s requirement for purification. As the ten went to the priest they were healed of the leprosy but only one of the ten returned to Jesus to give thanks. The other nine went on their merry way. They had things to do and people to see and business to take care of.
Jesus encourages believers to keep His commandments, not once, not twice, but multiple times. He delineates His commandments from His Father’s and explains that He has kept His Father’s commandments. He states, “Just like I kept my Father’s commandments, you should keep my commandments.” He explains that in order to abide “in Him” or “in Christ” we must keep His commandments. Yet, most Christians ignore Jesus’ instruction. It’s not that they don’t love Jesus; it’s just that they love themselves more.