Obedience, it’s better than it sounds

Obedience. It is not a word I particularly like. If I’m honest, it makes me squirm a little bit. But I’ve been challenged recently to re-think some of my assumptions about this uncomfortable word.

I taught out of John 15 recently. The danger of teaching is that sometimes God wants to teach you something. John 15 is a famous passage where Jesus declares himself the “true vine” and his followers are the branches, those who “remain” in him. Eleven times in 17 verses Jesus uses the world “remain” – “remain in me” is his repeated call. Central to the life of those who follow Jesus is that they remain in him.

All well and good. But what does it mean to remain? What does it look like?

I have been tempted in the past to think of “remaining” almost experientially – remaining in Jesus is to feel connected to Jesus, like he’s some type of electrical socket. But this isn’t what Jesus has in mind, at least not in John 15.

“If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love.”

Remaining in Jesus is about being obedient to Jesus.

If I am honest, I was hoping for something more. But as I unpacked John 15, I came to realise many of my assumptions about obedience were wrong.

First of all, we need to notice what exactly the “commands” we are asked to obey are about. In verse 12, Jesus says: “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” So remaining in Jesus is about obedience to Jesus’ commands, and Jesus summarises his commands as loving other people. I’m not always good at it, but I can live with it.

But there’s more.

Jesus is careful to make it clear that the type of obedience he wants isn’t slavery. It’s friendship.

You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business.

We are to be obedient, but in a way that issues out of our deep love and friendship with God. We know God’s plans, and God wants us to participate with him as he unfolds them.

And this obedience leads to joy. “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” Obedience leads to joy, and not just any joy, but Jesus’ own joy in us.

And this is where things get really interesting.

Let’s read 9-10 again. “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my command, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.”

I think what Jesus is suggesting in this passage, is that in some way our identity as the people of God, incorporated into the true vine, involves being incorporated into the very Trinitarian life of God.

We in our relationship with God echo the relationships God has within himself. We don’t become God, but are invited into the intimate community of Father, Son and Spirit. 

In vs 20, Jesus says “No servant is greater than his master.” Jesus, all the way through John’s gospel, has constantly spoken of his enduring obedience to the Father. “I only do what the Father tells me” he reminds us over and over.

In vs 10 of John 15 he asks us to be like him in his obedience. In the life of the Trinity the Son is obedient to the Father who sent him. The Father in turn gives all to his son. The Holy Spirit brings glory to the son by making known what the Son knows. There is a relationship of eternal outpouring and exchange in the life of God.

The life of God is the life of a community. I think the command to obedience is actually an invitation into the very life of God. If Jesus himself is loved by the Father for his obedience, then so are we when we participate in the life of God. It makes no sense to want to be with God, if we don’t want to be like God in obedience. This is why abiding in Jesus involves obedience.

This may be sounding a bit too close to “works righteousness” for some, but Jesus is careful to head off this charge.

¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last.

The paradox of discipleship is this: it is something done by Christ once and for all; but something we need to continually reaffirm. We need to make the continued decision to abide in Jesus, but God the gardener will sustain us in this abiding, sending his spirit to help.

Jesus’ words in verse 16 above, give us a clue to the final aspect of our obedience that John 15 is trying to stress. Our obedience has a purpose. So that we bear fruit.

⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing….⁸ This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

Our obedience, it turns out, is one of the ways God is putting the world right. It isn’t about moralism and following rules for the sake of following rules. It is about the bigger of story of what God is doing in the world. And we see this most fully when we consider the image of the “true vine”.

In the OT, the vine is a common symbol for Israel, the people of God. See for example Psalm 80; Hosea 10:1-2; Jeremiah 2:21; Isaiah 5:1-7.

What is interesting is that whenever historic Israel is referred to as a vine in the Old Testament, it is their failure to produce fruit that is highlighted. It is their failure to produce in their corporate life justice, righteousness and faithfulness (see Isaiah 5:1-7 especially). The very things God created them for. Israel was called to be the nation that displayed in their life together what God’s kingdom is like. This is God’s longing for the “vine” he planted.

So it is significant that Jesus calls himself the “true vine”.

Jesus is saying he is the one to whom Israel always pointed. He is what Israel was always called to be. The true vine.  He is the one that bears fruit. That is, he fulfills the historical-redemptive mission of Israel to bring justice and righteousness into the world. Those who “remain” in Jesus are also meant to bear such fruit.

Fruitfulness is the purpose of the remaining.

Our remaining in Jesus, our obedience, is tied into God’s historical mission to put things right in the world. Our love for one another, is part of how God is redeeming the world. It is part of how the life of God is on display.

Obedience, it turns out, is better than it sounds.