hath loved Me, so have I loved you. Abide ye in My love.'

II. Now note, secondly, the obedience by which we continue in
Christ's love.

The analogy, on which He has already touched, is still continued. 'If
ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love; even as I have
kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love.' Note that
Christ here claims for Himself absolute and unbroken conformity with
the Father's will, and consequent uninterrupted and complete
communion with the Father's love. It is the utterance of a nature
conscious of no sin, of a humanity that never knew one instant's film
of separation, howsoever thin, howsoever brief, between Him and the
Father. No more tremendous words were ever spoken than these quiet
ones in which Jesus Christ declares that never, all His life long,
had there been the smallest deflection or want of conformity between
the Father's will and _His_ desires and doings, and that never had
there been one grain of dust, as it were, between the two polished
plates which adhered so closely in inseparable union of harmony and
love.

And then notice, still further, how Christ here, with His
consciousness of perfect obedience and communion, intercepts _our_
obedience and diverts it to Himself. He does not say, 'Obey God as I
have done, and He will love you'; but He says, 'Obey _Me_ as I obey
God, and _I_ will love you.' Who is this that thus comes between the
child's heart and the Father's? Does He come _between_ when He stands
thus? or does He rather lead us up to the Father, and to a share in
His own filial obedience?