15:13,14
Just consider how amazing this verse is, Jesus calls His disciples friends. The One through whom all things were created calls His disciples friends. In the OT Abraham and Moses are called friends by God. There is a dual danger in considering our relationship with Jesus. One danger is to consider Him as our “buddy”, underplaying the fact that He is Lord, but the opposite danger is just as serious. Jesus laid His life down for us, and He states clearly here that we must be prepared to lay down our lives for each other. D A Carson points out that while the Bible says that Abraham and Moses, and here the disciples (and by implication us) are His friends, it never refers to God as our friend.
Then we are reminded yet again of the importance of obedience. Jesus is our friend if we do what He commands, so we need to keep in mind the nature of the friendship.
15:15
This verse expands on the nature of the friendship relationship. He calls us friends because He reveals all of the Father’s plans to us. Now before we go further, this verse is yet another reminder of the dangers of interpreting a verse in isolation. Being servants of Christ is an important part of our relationship with Him. In Luke’s gospel (Luke 17:10) Jesus speaks about our attitude, and Paul repeatedly refers to himself as a servant. We look at scripture as a whole, not as a series of isolated verses. Jesus brings us into the knowledge of God, we become partners with Him.
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