John 15:15

John 15:15. No longer do I call you servants, because the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth; but I have called you friends, because all things that I heard from my Father I made known unto you. At chap. John 13:16 Jesus had spoken of them as ‘servants;' and (so closely connected with one another are the Chapter s which we are considering) we can hardly doubt that it is this very passage that He has now primarily in view. Then they had to learn the lesson of the foot-washing: now it is learned; and, animated by a self-sacrificing love like His, they are no longer ‘servants' but ‘friends.' In one sense, indeed, they would be always ‘servants' (comp. John 15:20), and in the other writings of the New Testament we see that even some of those now listening, as well as Paul, delighted to appropriate to themselves the title (2 Peter 1:1; Revelation 1:1; Romans 1:1, etc.); but that is not their only relationship to their Lord. Nor are the two relationships inconsistent with one another. Rather may we say that the livelier our sense of the privilege of friendship the deeper will be our humility, and that the more truly we feel Jesus to be our ‘Lord and Master' the more shall we be prepared to enter into the fulness of the privilege bestowed by Him. The evidence of this their state (or privilege) is given in the remainder of the verse. Jesus had kept nothing back from them of all that He their Lord was to ‘do;' He had revealed to them all the will of God, in so far as it related to H is Own mission and theirs for the salvation of men. This was what He ‘heard' from the Father, wits whose will His will was in such perfect unison that what He heard He did (comp. chap. John 5:30); and now, in the familiarity, the confidence, the fondness, of friendship He makes it known to them.