If You Love Me You Will Keep My Commandments – What Does John 14:15 Mean?

Imagine you badly sprain your ankle. You go to your healthcare provider and are told to do one thing: rest. “Put your feet up for a few days and you’ll be as good as gold.”

But for some inexplicable reason, you decide your sore ankle needs more aggressive treatment. You go for a ten-mile run, but that only makes things worse. You climb 1000 stairs and go on a 40-mile hike. You try cross-country skiing and rope skipping. But no matter what you do, your foot gets more sore. In the end, you decide it’s a lost cause. “It’s not improving. I’d better amputate.”

Madness, right?

Yet this is how it is for people who read the words of Jesus through a lens of works instead of grace. Instead of growing in the grace of God and reigning in life, they wreck themselves by pursuing mindless activity. Instead of resting in Christ, they’re going on spiritual ultramarathons with heavy baggage and busted ankles.

Take this verse, for example:

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. (John 14:15)

This instruction from the Lord, if heeded, will lead to rest, fruitfulness, and an abundant life. But many people misread it and the result is exhaustion and misery. There are two parts to this verse. Let’s start with the “my commandments” bit.

What are the commands of Jesus?

This is an easy question because Jesus tells us in the previous chapter and then he tells us again in the following chapter:

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you… (John 13:34)
This is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. (John 15:12)

Note that Jesus’ commandment is a new commandment. Which means it is not to be confused with the old command to love your neighbor. That command comes from the Law of Moses and is sometimes referred to as the royal law. It’s a good law, but the royal law and the law of Christ are not the same thing:

• Royal Law: love your neighbor
• Law of Christ: love one another as I have loved you

It is imperative that you understand the difference. The old law is from the old covenant; the new command is from the new covenant. One comes with penalties; the other comes with power. One is burdensome and ministers condemnation; the other is easy and releases life.

(Jesus himself quoted the royal law on occasion, but only when speaking to people who lived under the law. We live under the new covenant of grace.)

The command of Jesus – “love others as I have loved you” – is not a difficult command. He provides the love, we receive it, and out of the overflow we are able to love others as he loves us.

This brings us to the first bit.

If you love me…

People who are confused about the covenants tend to read this verse backwards. They think, “I have to love God lest I be judged a lawbreaker.” Like the runner with the sore ankle, they do the opposite of what they are told and end up broken and exhausted.

The old covenant was full of conditional statements: If ___ then ___. But the new covenant is full of promises, such as this one: If you know the love of God, you will be able to love others with the love you have received from the Lord.

Do you see? It’s not about what you will do for Jesus, but what he will do for you and through you. Just look at how many times the Lord makes promises in the surrounding verses:

Whatever you ask in my name, that will I do (John 14:13)
If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it (John 14:14)
I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper (John 14:16)

Do you see? The commands he wants you to keep he will keep for you and through you if you would just let him.

Dr. Jesus does not want you to run; he wants you to rest. He does not want you to give; he wants you to receive.

The love you need, he will supply. And when you receive from the overwhelming abundance of his love, you won’t be able to help but share his love with others.

This is what makes new life new.

New life is not trying to do a better version of the old life. New life is not trying at all. It is trusting the indwelling Spirit of Christ to live his life in you and through you.

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If you like this, here are more articles about the commands of the New Testament:

• How to read the commands of the New Testament
• What are the commands of Jesus?
• Is “Love your neighbor” part of the new covenant?
• Are the Gentiles under the law?
• “Doers of the law will be justified” (Romans 2:13)?

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