John 15:15

“Friends” who may expect all the good offices of their Friend, not “slaves,” is the character in which alone you can carry on my work: οὐκέτι ὑμᾶς λέγω δούλους … ὑμῖν. The designation “slave” is no longer (οὐκέτι) appropriate, cf. John 13:16 and James 1:1; Philippians 1:1, etc. It is not appropriate, because ὁ δοῦλος οὐκ οἶδε τί ποιεῖ αὐτοῦ ὁ κύριος “the slave knows not what his lord is doing,” he receives his allotted task but is not made acquainted with the ends his master wishes to serve by his toil (“servus tractatur ut ὄργανον ”. Bengel). He is animated by no sympathy with his master's purpose nor by any personal interest in what he is doing. Therefore “friends” is the appropriate designation, ὑμᾶς δὲ εἴρηκα φίλους, “but I have called you friends”. Schoettgen quotes from Jalkut Rubeni, 164, “Deus Israelitas prae nimio amore primo vocat servos, deinde filios, Deuteronomy 14:1 ”. Other remarkable passages on God's calling the Israelites “friends” are also cited by him in loc. For the peculiar use of εἴρηκα, cf. John 10:35 and 1 Corinthians 12:3; and for parallels in the classics, see Rose's Parkhurst's Lexicon. ὅτι πάντα ἃ ἤκουσα παρὰ τοῦ πατρός μου, ἐγνώρισα ὑμῖν. Jesus had opened to them the mind of the Father in sending Him to the world, and as this purpose of the Father had commended itself to Jesus, and fired Him with the desire to fulfil it, so does He expect that the disciples will intelligently enter into His purposes, make them their own, and spend themselves on their fulfilment.