Calvary Road Baptist Church
“CHRIST DECLARES THE MINISTRY OF THE WORD”
John 15.3
You may recall that I have repeatedly referred to John chapters 14–17 as the greatest conversation recorded in God’s Word. I remind you that chapters 14–16 are the record of the conversation between the Lord Jesus Christ and His remaining apostles as they walked from the Upper Room toward the Garden of Gethsemane the night before our Lord’s crucifixion. John chapter 17 records the Lord Jesus Christ’s high priestly intercessory prayer to God the Father somewhere along the way.
In the message I brought from John 15.1, I made mention that verses 1-17 comprise an allegory in which the Lord Jesus Christ lays the groundwork for their subsequent compliance with the new commandment He issued to them in John 13.34:
“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.”
Also, previously, I explained to you how this directive could be a new commandment given to them. After all, we find the requirement to love your neighbor as yourself previously in Scripture, in both the Old Testament and the New Testament.[1] Therefore, how could this be rightly labeled a new commandment?
The commandment to love one another is correctly recognized as a new commandment only when it is understood that the Lord Jesus Christ was issuing the commandment, not to Christianity as a whole, or all those in the family of God, but for the first time to the Church of Jesus Christ. While the commandment to love one another is not a commandment that is new to the household of faith, it is a commandment that is new to the Church of Jesus Christ, which the Savior brought into existence during His earthly ministry, and obviously before the Day of Pentecost.[2]
Having disclosed to His remaining apostles this new commandment to love one another before they left the Upper Room, I pointed out to you that the primary intent of this allegory we find in John 15.1–17 is these men’s compliance with that crucial command to the Church. So important is the command that members of the Church love each other that the directive is repeated twice in the 17 verses comprising the allegory we are currently examining. We will find the commandment in verse 12,
“This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you,”
and, also, in verse 17:
“These things I command you, that ye love one another.”
Consider what we have staring us in the face. Over just a few minutes, first inside the Upper Room, and now twice very soon after departing from the Upper Room, those men were directed by the soon to be crucified Savior to love one another. After all, they are the Church, Christ’s “little flock.”[3]
Do I need to remind you that the Lord Jesus Christ had a lot on His mind at that time? He was engaged in an ongoing invisible spiritual struggle with Satan, He was anticipating the most agonizing physical struggle any human being had ever faced, He was determined to take our sins upon Himself and to suffer for them (the Just for the unjust), and He would for the first time throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity be separated from His heavenly Father. How could such matters not weigh heavily on Him?
With all these things on His plate, and having just dismissed His betrayer, Judas Iscariot, He nevertheless thought it was essential to direct His men to love one another. And He did not set this commandment before them one time. He issued this command three times, with two of those times occurring in this allegory. Do you think the mention of this directive three times in the space of a couple of minutes, with two of those times being in the space of less than a minute, should have impressed upon those men its importance to the Savior? Do you think the mention of this command three times over such a short span should also impress you and me about the importance of it to us, to the cause of Christ, to the local Church where we worship and serve, and to both the Savior and our heavenly Father?
We Christians, especially those of us who are members of the same Church, frequently undervalue the importance of our expressions of love for one another. To bring it home to you and me, let me relate to you a true story that I have told you before. It concerns a little boy on his way to Church on a Sunday morning in Chicago, Illinois, in the late 1800s, leaning into Chicago’s famous bitter cold winds blowing in from Lake Erie. Sunday after Sunday, one winter, the pastor of a church in Chicago had observed the little street urchin walking past the front door of his church. One day the pastor asked the little boy where he was going. The little guy said, “I’m going to Mr. Moody’s church.” The pastor said, “Mr. Moody’s church is a long way from here. Why are you going so far to attend that church rather than attending church here?” In response to his question, the little boy said, “There they know how to love of a fella.”
Love was one of the significant components of Mr. Moody’s ministry, not only in Chicago but wherever he preached the Gospel. Love should be one of the finest elements of our Church’s ministry, and it is a pitiable shame whenever it is not. That said, preliminary to love being a characteristic that is observed and experienced by visitors to our Church, love must be the characteristic that is displayed by our Church members toward each other, and by blood-washed, and blood-bought believers toward each other.
Rather than spending a great deal of time explaining why we should love each other, the theology of it all, the practicality of it all, and the gratification of it all, it should satisfy us at this point to recognize how profoundly important our love for one another was to the Lord Jesus Christ on His way to the cross. If it was so important to Him that His men love each other that He mentioned it three times before He began praying to God the Father, how negligent are we if we fail to recognize the importance of loving each other? And then actually loving one another?
As I tackle John 15.1–17, my working hypothesis has been that there are essential things contained in verses 1–11 and verses 13–16 that are crucial to implementing the new commandment to love one another found in verses 12 and 17. My treatment of John 15.1 addressed the Lord Jesus Christ’s description of Himself as the True Vine and His characterization of His heavenly Father as the Husbandman. Those two descriptions are essential to understanding the relationships between the Savior and His disciples, and between the Father and His children, that along with other things can result in Christ’s own complying with His directive that His followers love one another.
In John 15.2, we are presented with the Savior’s expansion and elaboration of His Father’s activity as the Husbandman in this allegory. Toward branches that bear no fruit, referring to unsaved individuals, the Savior described the Husbandman’s activity as one of removal. Toward branches that bear fruit, referring to saved individuals, the Savior described the Husbandman’s activity as one of pruning as preparation for the branch to bear more fruit in the future.
We now come to the text for today’s message, John 15.3. Please turn to that verse. Once you have found the passage, I invite you to stand for the reading of God’s Word:
“Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.”
I bring two things to your attention on our way to an examination of our text. First, a remark about interpreting the Word of God. Then, a remark about two doctrines taught in the Bible concerning this matter of one’s soul salvation.
Those of you who are familiar with my preaching ministry will almost certainly recall an occasion when I said, “Context rules.” I bring this to your attention to remind you that not only is there no such thing as one word having only one meaning, but also to remind you that no phrase or statement found in the Bible is properly understood except as it relates to the rest of the Word of God’s message.
An illustration of this is the word “bad,” as it used to be used by young people. Sometimes the word “bad” was used to refer to something morally wrong, unpleasant, or destructive. However, you will recall that the word “bad” was also very frequently used as a reference to that which was thought to be cool, hip, sophisticated, or socially meritorious. Thus, the word “bad” could mean one thing, or it could mean the very opposite. Therefore, how does one come to understand the meaning of the word “bad” when it is used in conversation or a written text? The key to understanding the word “bad,” and every other word, is the context in which the word is used by the speaker or by the author.
The very same principle applies when seeking to understand any word, phrase, statement, or sentence that is found in the Bible. How the word, phrase, statement, or sentence is used is crucial to understanding the intended meaning. This principle is illustrated in Second Peter 1.20:
“Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.”
Although in this verse the Apostle Peter is speaking to prophecies found in the Word of God, with one-fourth of the Word of God being prophetical at the time it was written, the principle that is illustrated applies to every topic, every subject, every doctrine, and every passage found in the Word of God.[4] This is a crucial characteristic found in the practice of everyone who embraces orthodox Christianity and is notably absent from the interpretive practices of such cults as Mormonism, Seventh-Day Adventism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other pseudo-Christian cults.
As we examine John 15.3, though we are limited by time in this gathered worship service, our consideration of the meaning of this verse should draw conclusions that are consistent with the rest of God’s Word. And, thus, it ought also to be with every passage of Scripture that we read, study, and preach. That is the first thing I wanted to bring to your attention.
The second thing I wanted to bring to your attention are two theological issues related to salvation as that topic is dealt with throughout the Bible. The two issues are justification and sanctification. There are a number of other issues related to the Bible’s teaching about salvation. There is election, predestination, glorification, and other such matters. But I will briefly address these two related matters, justification and sanctification.
If you are familiar with the Protestant Reformation, you likely have heard of Martin Luther. Martin Luther was not the Black civil rights leader of the 1950s and 60s who was assassinated by James Earl Ray. That was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a Baptist pastor who lived in Atlanta, Georgia. I refer to the German Augustinian monk who lived five centuries before. Martin Luther, the German Protestant reformer, was concerned about how a sinner gets right with God.
In his praying to God for spiritual insight, and his study of Scripture, Martin Luther discovered that the Roman Catholic scholar, Augustine, who had lived more than a thousand years earlier, made an egregious error related to his understanding of justification. Because Augustine had not studied Greek, he was confused about the meaning of the Greek word dikaiá½¹w. Augustine erroneously thought dikaiow referred to God, making someone righteous. He was unaware the Greeks never used the word in that sense, not one time. They always used the word dikaiá½¹w to refer to declaring someone righteous.[5]
The Protestant Reformation was the spiritual, religious, social, and political upheaval in Europe that resulted from the rediscovery of the Bible truth that through faith in Christ a sinner is pronounced righteous in the sight of God, and is given (the Bible word is imputed) the righteousness of Christ. Understand, then, that a sinner a moment before he trusts Christ as his Savior is, by experience, the same sinner a moment after he trusts Christ as his Savior, with only his standing before God being different.
A now justified by faith in Christ sinner is in no way a better person than he was when he was an unjustified sinner who had not trusted Christ. Justification by faith in Christ is appropriately understood to be an alteration of a sinner’s standing before God, not his practice or his experience. That being so, what is it that changes the new Christian’s practice and experience? That, my friend, is where sanctification comes in.
When I say that justification is not experienced, I mean that when a sinner is justified by faith in Jesus Christ, he does not see, smell, hear, feel, or taste anything having to do with the alteration of his standing before God. In that sense, justification is not something that anyone experiences. It is real. It has eternal consequences. But it is a spiritual event that is beyond the detection of the five physical senses.
Let us say that you are a Christian. Now that you have the standing before God as an adopted child, now that the miracle of regeneration via the new birth has been wrought, how does it come to be that you now behave differently, that you begin to, more and more, conduct yourself like a Christian, and your lifestyle begins to reflect well on your Christian testimony? That, my friend, is where sanctification comes in.
Although nothing about justification is perceived through the five senses of any sinner, there is much about sanctification that comes to be perceived through the five senses of a sinner who has trusted Christ. Allow me a short version explanation. There are several features of sanctification, but not every feature of sanctification is experienced or detected by your five senses.
The word sanctification comes from the Latin word sanctus, that is synonymous with the Greek word for “holy” and “saint,” hagios. For my purposes today, allow me to address this matter of sanctification as it relates to the three time frames of a Christian’s life, past, present, and future. In the past, the person who is now a Christian was made holy in Christ. This was not an experienced event in that no one who trusts Christ becomes aware through his senses that this has occurred. We learn of this from the Bible.
When you trusted Christ as your Savior, and your standing before God was altered by what is referred to as justification, you were also made holy in Christ by being set aside for His use. You thereby became a saint. You were washed clean of all your sins in the blood of Christ, and God both forgave and forgot all your sins.[6] You did not feel your sins being washed clean in the blood of Christ, but you learned that glorious truth from the Bible. Neither do you feel that God remembers your sins no more, but learned that, too, from God’s Word.
That was then. This is now. That aspect of sanctification that initially occurs is an event the Christian does not experience. It certainly happens. The Bible declares that it happens. But no believer perceives that it occurs using the five senses. At this stage of the Christian’s life, in your Christian present, a significant portion of God’s work to conform you into the image of Christ, to actually transform you into a more spiritual example of God’s saving grace in Christ, is an aspect of sanctification that is experienced. You do feel much of it.
I read Second Peter 1.5-8, which is the Apostle Peter’s description of the ongoing and experienced process of sanctification in the believer’s life:
5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Of course, sinless perfection is never attained during any Christian’s lifetime here on earth but must await the believer’s delivery into the presence of God and the glorified state. I assert this based on the Apostle Paul’s comment in Philippians 3.12:
“Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.”
Allow me to recapitulate: Our text is located in the Gospel according to John, is part of the greatest conversation found in the Bible, and is a verse found in the allegory of John 15.1–17. I have reviewed that a proper understanding of our text will not divorce the meaning of any passage from what the rest of the Bible teaches, and that while justification is never experienced via the five senses, a believer’s ongoing sanctification is at least partly experienced by the five senses.
How are we to understand our text in light of these matters I have mentioned to you? What do the words of this verse mean?
“Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.”
I want to conclude this message from God’s Word with three summary comments about Christ’s remaining eleven apostles:
First, THEIR PRESENT SITUATION
What can be said about these men’s present situation? How would we describe their relationship with God and their relationship with Jesus Christ? I don’t think anyone would dispute that the Lord Jesus Christ’s remaining apostles were men who were justified in the sight of God.[7] They had already come to faith in Jesus Christ, with the imputed righteousness of Christ based upon the sacrifice He was about to make on the cross of Calvary. Almost all of John chapter 14 is devoted to encouraging those believers to continue in their belief. The verse before us speaks more to the issue of sanctification than it does justification. Justification has to do with legal standing before God and the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. Sanctification has much to do with cleansing, and we see that the Lord did say to those men, “Now are ye clean.” It is interesting to note that the word in verse 2, “purgeth,” kathaá½·roo, is the verb form of the word “clean,” kathará½¹s, in verse 3. And sanctification does have to do with cleansing.
Thus, as it presently stands, those men are justified in the sight of God through their faith in Christ. As well, they are presently cleansed from all their sins, which could only occur in the lives of those who have trusted Christ and had their sins forgiven. As the Lord Jesus Christ speaks to them, they had been cleansed, verse 3, and have been assured by the Lord Jesus Christ of future pruning by the husbandman, verse 2. Thus, verse 3 assures us that they have already been initially sanctified, while verse 2 assures us of their ongoing sanctification as described in Second Peter 1.5–8. Insofar as their present situation, then, the Lord Jesus Christ is here giving them assurance of their salvation by stating their spiritual condition. They are clean.
Next, THEIR PAST EXPERIENCE
When I use the word experience, be mindful that I am referring only to that which is comprehended using the five senses. There are two ways in which the child of God knows something has happened to him or her. I know something happened to me as a result of signals to my five senses, meaning I saw it, heard it, smelled it, tasted it, or touched it. I also know something happened to me if the Bible tells me that it happened to me. When I trusted Jesus Christ as my Savior, I was justified. That is what happened to me. But I do not know that it happened to me because I saw it, heard it, tasted it, smelled it, or touched it. I know that it happened to me because the Bible teaches me that it happened to me. Therefore, when I talk to you about the past experiences of these men, I am not referring to their justification, or their initial sanctification. Those two things were not seen by them, heard by them, tasted by them, smelled by them, or touched by them. Those two things were in no way perceived. What does the Lord Jesus Christ tell us in this verse, then, about those men’s experiences?
What we know, what the Savior told those men, was “through the word which I have spoken unto you.” What do the Savior’s words tell those men about their experiences? What information had they acquired using their five senses? Had they seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or touched to learn or gather information? Interestingly, though those men had spent the last three years watching the Lord Jesus Christ perform miracle after miracle, reference was not here made to what they had seen. Instead, the Lord Jesus Christ chose to comment about the word which He had spoken to them. This suggests the profoundly important role the Word of God plays in not only a person’s justification and initial sanctification but also the believer’s growth in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, what we term progressive sanctification. Yes, faith comes by hearing the Word of God, Romans 10.17, so that a sinner comes to saving faith in Christ. Yes, a sinner is begotten with “the word of truth,” James 1.18. And, yes, the Spirit of God gives a spiritually dead sinner faith to believe, Second Corinthians 4.13. But so does faith play a crucial role in the believer’s growth and maturity after he has become a Christian, with Second Peter 1.5 explaining the foundational support that only a vibrant faith can provide for a Christian’s spiritual growth and development:
“And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue”
and knowledge and temperance and patience and godliness and brotherly kindness and charity, which is love.
Though the apostles did not experience justification or initial sanctification, meaning that they did not perceive those things through their senses, vital to their spiritual welfare and benefit was what they did experience. They did experience the teaching of the Word of God. They experienced the Savior’s instructional ministry. And for anyone to have a present right relationship with God and the Savior, something like that must have happened to them. This is why the preaching of God’s Word is so important. This is why the teaching of God’s Word is so vital. The one thing that can get into you through your five senses that will be useful to God blessing you spiritually is the Word of God. Whether you read it, or hear it, to ingest it into your mind results in Bible truth being where God can then use it to affect and influence you spiritually, either by saving your wretched soul, or by transforming your life as an already saved Christian. That is what the Savior pointed out to those men. Their past experience, which led to their present good standing with God, and the Savior was their exposure to the Word of God; their Lord had ministered to them.
Finally, THEIR POTENTIAL COMPLIANCE
Have you kept in mind what this is all about? Have you held on to the purpose of this 17 verse allegory? The point of it all is verse 12. The end of it all is also verse 17. The point of it all is for them to love one another. The point of it all is for us to love one another.
To be sure, over the next few hours, events will unfold that will leave these men completely knotted up for the next 3½ days. More teaching will be done in the rest of chapter 15, and also in chapter 16. Of course, there will be the Lord’s high priestly intercessory prayer in John 17. But by the time they got to the Garden of Gethsemane, these men would be drowsy and would pay little attention to the Lord’s urging of them to stay awake and pray that they enter not into temptation.
Once Judas Iscariot brought the soldiers to take the Savior into custody, these remaining apostles would be almost entirely without usefulness until they learned of their Savior’s resurrection from the dead. And, worse than useless, remember that Simon Peter would show himself to be the coward by denying his Lord three times before the cock crowed.
That said, it is the long view that our Lord is taking with His men. It is the long view that our Lord takes when dealing with you and me. The immediate need, of course, is your conversion. If you are not justified by faith in Christ, of course, all is lost. You will have no future eternity that is not consumed by the flames of eternal torment in the lake of fire. But once you are justified, and that is accompanied by your initial sanctification (your cleansing), God’s plan is for you to grow spiritually, with the most significant feature of that growth being your love for one another.
How important it was for the Savior that His men love one another. Three times in a couple of minutes and twice in the span of moments, He reiterates the importance of them loving one another. And He said so on His way to the cross. The importance of Christians loving one another is indisputable.
Do you love me?
To this point in our Lord’s allegory, there are three issues related to your willingness and your ability to love me, and my ability to love you.
First, do you grasp the Savior of your soul as the True Vine, the source of spiritual life for you? That is verse 1.
Second, do you perceive the significance of God the Father as the Husbandman, verse 1, and His activity of both removing the unfruitful and pruning the fruitful branches? God the Father deals with each of us.
Third, there is the ministry of the Word that God uses not only to beget the Christian, but also to cleanse the Christian.
If you do not love me, if you hold a grudge against me for some real or perceived slight, offense, or wrong that I have done that disturbed or hurt you, so that you do not love me, you are the one with the problem. Not me. You have a misconception of the Savior, a misconception of the Father, or a misconception related to the Word of God, and possibly all three. The cause of you not loving another Christian is on you.
Remember, this allegory has to do with you loving me, with the Christian loving someone else who is a Christian. And the Lord was not dealing with the person who is the object of a Christian’s love, but with the Christians, He commands to love.
Therefore, it is not on me to be worthy of your love. I am an admitted sinner in need of great grace. I am flawed. But since I am a child of God, a blood-bought disciple of Christ, the responsibility for you loving me is yours and not mine.
Do you have matters to deal with, issues to address, forgiveness to be sought, or doctrines to be learned?
My recommendation is that you do not delay.
__________
[1] Leviticus 19.8; James 2.8
[2] Matthew 10.1-4; 1 Corinthians 12.28; John S. Waldrip, The Church of Jesus Christ: 28 Truths Every Christian Ought To Learn, (Monrovia, CA: Classical Baptist Press, 2019), pages 23-31.
[3] Luke 12.32
[4] Paul Lee Tan, The Interpretation Of Prophecy, (Winona Lake, Indiana: BMH Books, 1974), page 25.
[5] David R. Anderson, Free Grace Soteriology, (Grace Theology Press, Revised Edition edited by James S. Reitman, 2012), page 96.
[6] 1 Corinthians 6.11; Ephesians 1.7; Hebrews 9.14; 1 Peter 1.19; 1 John 1.7; 2.2; Revelation 1.5; Hebrews 8.12; 10.17
[7] Romans 5.1
Would you like to contact Dr. Waldrip about this sermon? Please contact him by clicking on the link below. Please do not change the subject within your email message. Thank you.
Pastor@CalvaryRoadBaptist.Church