Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                   Chapter Fifteen

                                                                                                                                              Verses 26-27

Jesus returned to preaching to His disciples about the Comforter that He would send to them. The Spirit of Christ still inhabits His true Church made up of all believers saved by grace. Believers saved by grace are in all denominations. Some deceived believers may be in the cults. Jesus taught that His Spirit would cause some of His Apostles to remember much of what He had taught them, and His Spirit would inspire them to write the New Testament. John 14:26.

Jesus taught that only the Holy Spirit could preach His gospel. John 16:8-9. Only the Holy Spirit possesses the necessary power to preach His gospel. Jesus taught His disciples, and His Church, that the Holy Spirit would cause every believer to be a witness for Him. Acts 1:8. But just as Jesus was Lord and Master of His disciples, the Holy Spirit is the Lord and Master of His Church. No believer should witness for Christ, and no preacher should ever preach the gospel unless instructed and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Believers should never decide on their own to witness for Christ. John 15:5. When believers witness on their own, it often becomes ineffective, and it may even drive some unbelievers further from faith in Christ. Every believer should pray and seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit as to when they should witness for Him. Souls are won to faith in Christ only at particular times and places as appointed by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit desires that the Church work together as a team. I Corinthians 12:1-31. The Holy Spirit decides how every believer should fit into His Church. The Holy Spirit may require one particular believer's only witness in his entire life to be his baptism in water, and yet, the Holy Spirit may appoint another believer to be an evangelist who preaches and wins thousands to Christ.

The Church, being comprised of weak humans, cannot possess the power within them to preach the gospel to the whole world. But the Almighty Holy Spirit certainly has the necessary power to preach the gospel to every human until God removes Him from the world prior to the Tribulation period. Colossians 1:23; II Thessalonians 2:7-8. But even during the Tribulation, God will not allow His gospel to go unpreached. God will send an angel to preach His gospel during the Tribulation that will last for seven years. Revelation 14:6-7.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                   Chapter Fifteen

                                                                                                                                              Verses 23-25

Jesus then informed His disciples that those who hated Him also hated His Father. Jesus' enemies who sought to kill Him actually hated the God whom they claimed to love.

Jesus had severely rebuked the Pharisees and the Sadducees because they had to a large extent replaced God's Law with their own invented laws that they used to excuse their sins, and they thought of themselves as having made themselves righteous and good when they actually needed to humble themselves to God and repent of their self-righteousness and their oppression of their people. The prideful Pharisees and Sadducees were in the first stages of those who desire to replace the true and living God with their own invented religion that they worship as their god. Humans often make a religion their god. Jesus had reminded them that for a long time they had been guilty of murdering the true prophets of God in order to protect their invented religion. The Sadducees, who were materialists, simply ignored the spiritual teachings of the Old Testament. The Pharisees actually sought to replace the true and merciful God of the Old Testament with their own invented religion that they thought would make them righteous and good. Matthew 23:1-36; Luke 18:9-14.

Jesus taught His disciples that if He had not come to perform the miracles that could only have come from God, and if He had not claimed to His enemies that He was God in human form, then they would have had no sin. The root of all evil is the "love of money." I Timothy 6:10. More people worship money than any other god. This phrase symbolically means that all sins are basically the desire to get rid of God so that one can become one's own god by the means of one's religion or by one's own power to live by one's own immoral code. If Jesus had not come to save all of His living humans by the sacrifice of Himself in their place, then humanity would not have had the opportunity to attempt to murder God. Jesus could not have charged them with having any sins. God would have overlooked their inevitable sins, but their sins would nevertheless still cause them to retain an eternal spiritual death which the Devil had injected into their inner beings. The Devil would still have an eternal claim on their lives. Jesus came to earth to break the Devils claim on all of God's living humans that He creates and loves and to cleanse and forgive them of all their sins that cause spiritual death. Hebrews 2:5-18; I John 3:8; John 5:28-29; Acts 24:15; Revelation 21:5. If Jesus had not come to earth to save humanity, then the Devil would have exercised his right to claim the souls and spirits of all living humans and keep them within the regions of death forever. The Devil would have destroyed a part of God's creation forever. But God can never lose anything He has ever created, and His Almighty Love can never fail. Ecclesiastes 3:14; I Corinthians 13:8.

Jesus reminded His disciples that there were Old Testament prophecies that Jesus' enemies would hate both Him and His Father for no good reason. Psalm 35:19; Psalm 69:4. Prideful rebellion against God happens to be a vain and empty reason to desire to murder Him. This prideful sin and evil within all humans nailed Jesus to the cross. Acts 4:25-28. But Jesus took away all of that prideful sin and evil through His death, burial, and resurrection. John 12:31-32; I John 3:8; I Corinthians 15:1-4; Revelation 5:11-14.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                  Chapter Fifteen

                                                                                                                                               Verse 22 continued

All humans who come to realize that they are deliberate sinners by the conviction of the Holy Spirit when they hear or read the Word of God come under a more severe judgment of God if they reject His salvation by grace. God's judgment comes upon all sinners because as soon as a person realizes by the conviction of their conscience that they have done something wrong, then they immediately acquire spiritual death. But to the same extent that God's judgment comes upon all sinners, the righteousness of One gives the free gift to all humans. The free gift is God's salvation of which He has two forms. God's higher form of salvation is by His grace. God's lesser form of salvation happens when Jesus appears to all of His living humans confined to the regions of death and causes them all to repent and believe in the Lamb of God of their own free will. Revelation 5:11-14. Faith and love that are freely given can only be real because it cannot be programmed. God's Almighty Love and Intellect gives Him the exact knowledge He needs to devise a plan that will save all humans from sin and spiritual death. Romans 5:12-21. God can never lose anything He has ever created, and His Almighty Love can never fail. Ecclesiastes 3:14; I Corinthians 13:8.

When the Law came which is the Word of God, sin abounded because humans became more responsible to repent of their sins because the Word gave them a greater awareness of their sins and evil. But when the entire Word of God came, which was the addition of the New Testament, then grace became more powerful than sin and spiritual death because humans learned about the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ that can save them from sin and spiritual death while still alive in the flesh. But Jesus came to sacrifice Himself to purge all sin, evil, and spiritual death from His entire creation, and rise from the dead victorious over the Devil and all evil. John 12:31-32; I John 3:8; Hebrews 2:9-15; Revelation 1:17-18; I Timothy 6:13; I Timothy 4:10; Revelation 21:5. No verse in the entire Bible (KJB) teaches that if any person rejects the grace of God until their physical death, that person will remain in a burning Hell forever. God will save all living humans from sin and spiritual death either by His higher form of salvation by His grace or by His lesser form of salvation when He appears to all living humans confined to the regions of death and causes them all to repent and believe in Him of their own free will. Romans 5:18-19; John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14; I Corinthians 3:11-15; Philippians 2:9-11; Genesis 8:20-21; Revelation 21:5.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                   Chapter Fifteen

                                                                                                                                              Verse 22 continued

The Holy Spirit works through the spoken and written Word of God to bring clear conviction to the hearts of sinners that they need to repent of their sins and evil and put their trust in Christ to save them. When Jesus came and preached the Word of God, He used the Holy Spirit to bring conviction to His hearers of their need for repentance and faith in Him. Jesus also authorized the writing of the New Testament so that the written Word of God could be finished so that it could be preached and read so that its convicting power could save lost sinners. Acts 2:37-41; John 14:26.

God has revealed His Word in other ways. God reveals His Word in His creations, but that revelation does not cause the Holy Spirit to bring conviction of sin to unbelievers. Psalm 19:1-6. The first spiritual humans knew that God exists because of His creations, but over time, that sinful pride which causes humans to desire to be independent of God compelled humans to invent their own gods who allowed them to have their own immoral code. Romans 1:18-32.

When God created man in His image, He gave humans a conscience to tell them right from wrong. But the conscience of humans is weak. I Corinthians 8:6-7,10,12. Humans can rationalize their conscience. But humans cannot easily rationalize their spirit when they hear or read the Word of God that tells them they are sinners in need of a Savior. Humans can convince themselves that they have to do wrong in some cases in order to achieve a necessary goal. Only the Holy Spirit can use the power of God's spoken or written Word to bring clear conviction to human consciousness that they are sinners in need of a Savior. John 8:9.

God does not hold humans responsible for their sins and evil who have never heard or read His Word. God knows that they have a weak conscience and that their spiritual deaths within them inevitably causes them to sin. They cannot deliberately sin, like Adam did, because the spiritual death within them compels them to sin. Romans 5:12-14; Acts 17:29-30.

The Bible (KJB) clearly teaches that three different regions of death exist. Revelation 20:13. God created Hell because that happens to be His burning wrath against evil and spiritual death. Deuteronomy 32:22. God also created the Sea into which He casts the separated sins and evil of humans saved by grace, and into which He also casts those sinners who have never heard or read the Word of God because He does not hold them accountable for their sins. But God also cannot accept the spiritual death within them. Micah 7:19. God may have accidentally created the Bottomless Pit because when He created reality out of nothing, He left a non-existent void behind from which emerges all evil that has a negative power that tries to destroy reality. This negative power happens to be less than nothing. Job 10:21-22; Isaiah 40:17; Isaiah 45:7. The Old Testament consistently describes sin and evil as being vanity; that is, emptiness and pride. God probably casts into a burning Hell only those humans who deliberately practice evil and who have heard or read the Word of God. God requires sinners saved by grace to daily repent of their sins because they know the Word of God. I John 1:9.

If God has representations of His spiritual creations in His material world, then the earth and sky could represent the beauties of Heaven. The oceans could represent the spiritual Sea. Volcanoes could represent the burning Hell. God could also have a representation of the Bottomless Pit in the Black Holes in space. Black Holes completely absorb all material reality including light itself. The bottom of a Black Hole can only be an absolute nothingness similar to the Bottomless Pit.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                  Chapter Fifteen

                                                                                                                                              Verse 22

Jesus' teaching in this verse happens to be most difficult to understand. But one can always speculate.

When Jesus said that He came to speak to the unbelievers, He had to have meant that He spoke God's Word. The Holy Spirit gives the spoken and written Word of God great power to bring conviction to the hearts of unbelievers that they are sinners who have offended God and that they need Christ to save them from eternal spiritual death. Romans 10:17. When Jesus taught that if He had not come to speak God's Word to them "they had not had sin," He could not have meant that they would have no sin at all because in the next phrase He said that "now they have no cloak for their sin." Jesus could not have contradicted Himself. Jesus had to have meant by saying "they had not had sin," that without the spoken and written Word of God, they could never gain a clear consciousness of their sin. The Jews had the Word of God but in their attempts to prove their own righteousness, they ignored that part of the Word of God that informed them that they had all sinned against Him. Psalm 51:4-5.

Sin causes spiritual death, and spiritual death causes sin. Romans 5:12. When all humans inherited a weakness for sin from Adam because of free will, that gave the Devil the ability to inject spiritual death into all humans who knowingly sin. Romans5:12-13. For this reason, little children who die go to Heaven because they have not reached an age where they can know that they have sinned. Matthew 19:13-15. Until a person knowingly sins, the Devil cannot inject spiritual death into them. The conscience that God gives to every living human He creates tells them when they have sinned, but if they do not have the Word of God to tell them they have sinned against God, He does not hold their sin against them. Acts 17:29-30. Nevertheless, as soon as a person realizes that they have sinned, the Devil injects spiritual death into them. Romans 5:12-14.

Innocence holds the power to annul sin and spiritual death with it. Jesus proved that in His death, burial, and resurrection. Acts 2:25-31. If Adam had only called on God for help when he learned that Eve had sinned, God could have annulled Eve's sin because she was still innocent even after the Devil had deceived her. She was like a little child. I Timothy 2:14. Eve did not knowingly sin until she gave the forbidden fruit to Adam because she knew it would corrupt him.

Pride happens to be the worst sin that humans can commit because pride is the satanic idea that humans can get rid of God and create their own moral code and their own heaven on earth. Followers of Nietzche and Marx have especially devoted themselves to this type of sin which is also deliberately evil. Evil attaches itself to all sin, but there can be some good in sin as when Adam sacrificed himself to fall to Eve's level so that he could love her and try to protect her. Romans 5:14. But when Adam deliberately sinned because he knew he had disobeyed God' Word, he committed an evil act of rebellion against God because of his pride. Sin and evil can be cleansed and forgiven by God when a person repents and believes in Christ because He bore the sins and evil of all mankind on His cross. I John 2:2. But spiritual death itself, which is totally evil, can never be cleansed and forgiven by God because it never repents. Matthew 12:31-32. Christ will cleanse and forgive living humans saved by His grace with His blood and water He shed on the cross, and He will annul their spiritual deaths. John 5:24. Christ will also use His fiery wrath against evil to cleanse and forgive the rest of living humanity because they will all repent and believe in Him as the Lamb of God of their own free will when He appears to them in a great worship service near the end of the world. Revelation 5:11-14; I Corinthians 3:11-15; Leviticus 5:7-10; Genesis 8:20-21; II Peter 3:9-13. Christ took away the spiritual deaths of all humans when He died on the cross, and He will cast the separated, spiritual deaths of all living humans into the eternal lake of fire in His final judgment. Revelation 20:11-15; Hebrews 2:9-18. In other words, in Christ's final judgment, he will purge all sin, evil, and spiritual death from His entire creation so that He can recreate it all to be wholly righteous. Revelation 21:5; II Peter 3:9-13.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                  Chapter Fifteen

                                                                                                                                              Verses 18-21

Jesus turned from preaching about the mission of His Church, and He began to preach about the relationship of His Church to the world. Jesus informed His disciples, and His Church, that the unbelievers of the world would hate His Church to the same extent that they hated Him. Jesus informed His disciples, and His Church, that they were no longer a part of the world. He had called them out of the world to spiritually inhabit the Kingdom of God. The Church happens to be the Kingdom of God in the world, and the world knows it. The unbelievers of the world can readily see that believers saved by grace are a peculiar people, and they do not like that. I Peter 2:7-10.

Jesus prophesied that the unbelievers of the world would persecute His Church just as they persecuted Him. Jesus' prophecy has certainly come true. The unbelievers of the world have caused His Church to suffer, but not even close to the suffering that Jesus endured on the cross. But Jesus has given His Church a cross to endure so that His Father could give His believers even greater rewards in Heaven. Matthew 16:24; Matthew 5:10-12. Many unbelievers have been brought under the conviction of the Holy Spirit and have been saved by grace when they observed the faithful and patient endurance of persecution by the believers in Christ's Church. Acts 7:58-60; I Corinthians 15:9-10.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                   Chapter Fifteen

                                                                                                                                              Verses 15-17 continued

Jesus then commissioned His entire Church to produce its fruit by which He meant that His Church should preach the gospel to win others to salvation by His grace. Jesus also commissioned His Church to teach the Word of God and baptize in water in order to sanctify those who believe. Matthew 28:18-20. But only the Holy Spirit can bring conviction to sinners who hear or read the gospel that they need to repent and accept Christ as their Savior. John 16:7-11. Preachers never save souls. Only the Holy Spirit, who appoints the preachers to preach, can save by God's grace. But where preachers never preach, the Holy Spirit appoints Himself to bring every human under the conviction that they need a Savior. Colossians 1:23. But because of limitations in their spirits and understanding, those humans who become saved by the direct witness of the Holy Spirit do not become fully sanctified or fully understand who their Savior is until the Church comes to teach them the Word of God and baptize them in water to become members of a local church. Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 9:1-19.

Jesus also taught His disciples, and His Church, that whatever they asked their Father for in His name, He will give them whatever that ask for. Some unbelievers have charged that the Word of God cannot be true because sometimes God does not give believers what they ask for in Jesus' name. But these unbelievers forget that an eternal God provides eternal answers to the prayers of His saints. When saints pray for others to be saved, God saves them all either by His grace or in a great worship service near the end of the world. John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14. When saints pray for others to be healed, God heals everyone in eternity. God does not answer prayers not prayed according to His Will. But God will give an eternal answer to every prayer that His saints pray according to His Will.

Jesus again commanded that His saints must love each other. The Church of Christ cannot be the light of the world that Jesus commissioned it to be unless His saints love each other as a witness to the world of their faith in Christ. The Church must demonstrate to the world what the power of God's Love can do. John 13:34-35; Matthew 5:14.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                 Chapter Fifteen

                                                                                                                                              Verses 15-17

Jesus turned from preaching to His disciples as individual believers, and He began to preach to them as a collective body; that is, His Church. Jesus considers all of His true believers in all of His churches to be His friends. Jesus has a personal relationship with every true believer in all of His churches just as He did with His disciples. Jesus makes His friendship different for every individual believer because He has a different plan for each of their lives, and yet, Jesus expects His churches to work together as a team to produce its fruit which are new converts. I Corinthians 12:4-31. Jesus informed His disciples, and His Church, that He had given them His Father's Word by which He meant that the New Testament would be written and the final Bible (KJB) would be completed.

When Jesus told His disciples, and His Church, that they had not chosen Him but He had chosen them, He did not mean that He had predestined some humans to be saved by grace and all others to be lost. God never loses anything He has ever created. Ecclesiastes 3:14. When God ran His plan for His creation through His Mind as to how He would order the history of the human race, He knew that every human would inevitably choose to sin because of the influence of spiritual death that the Devil would inject into their inner beings, but He also knew that every human would also choose to do some good works that He had given them to do because of His image that He had created in them. Acts 15:18.

When God created humans in His image and gave them free will, He knew that free will had a weakness in it that could cause humans to fall into sin which would cause them to become subject to the Devil who would inject spiritual death into them which would inevitably cause them to sin. Genesis 2:16-17. But God also knew that they might overcome that weakness in them and choose to eat of the Tree of Life which would mean that they would choose complete devotion to God and eternal life. Genesis 2:9. But as God saw His plan develop in His Mind, He saw that Adam and Eve would succumb to the weakness within them and choose to sin. Spiritual death cannot come from God. It can only come from the Devil. But in His plan, God also knew that He had the Almighty Power and the Almighty Love necessary to sacrifice Himself in the place of all humans to forever purge all spiritual death and the sin that causes it from the entire human race. John 12:47-48; John 12:31-32; I John 3:8. Since Christ came to utterly destroy all of the evil works of Satan and Satan himself, then He must also utterly destroy the spiritual death and sin in every human. Revelation 20:10; Hebrews 2:9-15. God knew that if He displayed His great Love and compassion for humanity endangered by eternal death in His sacrifice and victory for them, then the faith that He had put into every one of them when He created them in His image would cause them all to choose to repent and believe in Him as the Lamb of God so that He could save them all, some by His grace and all others in a great worship service near the end of the world. John 5:24; John 1:29; John 12:31-32; Revelation 5:11-14. In other words, God overcame and eliminated the weakness in free will by the use of free will itself, and thereby, He proved that His Almighty Love can never fail. Ecclesiastes 3:14; I Corinthians 13:8.

As God ran His plan through His Mind, He noticed that there were some humans who were capable of choosing to return to faith in Him while they were still alive in the flesh in the world. God chose to save these types of humans by His grace and give them the righteousness of His own Son so that He could accept them into Heaven to be with Him forever. God knew that He could use these humans saved by grace to influence others to become saved by grace. So humans saved by grace became very special to God. John 17:24; II Corinthians 5:21. God chose to give His salvation by grace to every human who repented and believed while still alive in the flesh. John 6:37. But no matter how much any human repented and believed, they could not be saved by grace until God chose to save them. In other words, humans can in no way save themselves. Humans can only be saved by grace when God chooses to extend His salvation to them when He sees their repentance and faith. This is what Jesus meant when He told His disciples that they had not chosen Him, but He had chosen them.

As God ran His plan through His Mind, He could also see that there were many humans who were incapable of becoming saved by His grace. So God had His gospel preached to drive these types of humans away from pretending to accept salvation by grace so that they would not effect a bad influence on His true believers. Isaiah 6:6-10; John 6:60-66. Even so, the Devil sends many heretics and troublemakers into God's true churches in the Devil's attempt to ruin them.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                   Chapter Fifteen

                                                                                                                                              Verses 9-14 continued

Jesus then taught His disciples that when He gives His Spirit to them, He will give them spiritual joy as well as spiritual peace. John 14:27. Because of this joy and peace, believers will know that they possess His Spirit, especially when they worship Him. I John 3:23-24. Unbelievers often claim that these feelings of joy and peace are just engendered emotions, but God often allows His believers saved by grace to know that they have Christ's Spirit without any emotion. Except for those moments when the Holy Spirit causes backsliders to feel that they are in the wrong place doing the wrong things, backsliders do not feel the presence of the Holy Spirit within them most of the time. They are not abiding in fellowship with Jesus. Psalm 51:9-12. But they will feel that joy and peace again when they repent and return to conscious faith in Christ. Believers who closely follow the Lord and obey His commandments will abide in His Love because they will continually feel the presence of His Spirit within them. I John 3:23-24.

Jesus reiterated His commandment that His believers should love each other and to the same extent that He loves them. Jesus then informed His disciples that the greatest love that any person can show happens when that person sacrifices his own life to save the lives of his friends. Jesus also meant that He was about to sacrifice His own life to save their lives forever. Jesus then informed His disciples that He considers only those who keep His commandments to be His friends. Yet, Jesus called Judas Iscariot His friend when Judas came with a mob to arrest Jesus. Matthew 26:50. One would think that if Jesus could call Judas Iscariot His friend, then Christ must consider all living humans to be His friends for whom He laid down His life. But if a person must keep Christ's commandments to be His friend, then God must have a plan to return all living humans that He creates and loves to faith in Him and love for Him. John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                    Chapter Fifteen

                                                                                                                                               Verses 9-14

In verse nine, Jesus turned from preaching about His disciples relationship with the world, and He began to preach about their mission to the world. He also began to teach about His personal relationship with His disciples through the presence of the Holy Spirit within their inner beings. Jesus taught His disciples, and His Church, that to the same extent that His Father loved Him, He loved His disciples. Such a truth is awesome beyond words!

Jesus gave four commandments to His disciples and His Church: that they should love God with all their heart, soul, and mind, and their neighbor as themselves; believe in Him as their Savior, and love each other. Matthew 22:36-40; John 6:28-29; John 13:34. Humans who practice Jesus' commandments will no longer need the Ten Commandments because of the love that God puts into their hearts. Romans 13:8-10. The Ten Commandments were given to inform unbelievers that they are sinners in need of God's salvation by grace. Galatians 3:22-25. Believers saved by grace should still study the entire Word of God, including the Ten Commandments, because that information happens to be a part of the preaching of the gospel. II Timothy 3:16-17.

Jesus taught His disciples, and His Church, that His disciples had to keep His commandments in order "to abide in my love." This statement does not mean that Jesus stops loving backsliders and lost sinners. Jesus meant that His believers who closely follow Him and keep His commandments will often feel the presence of His Spirit within them, especially when they worship Him. Jesus further informed His disciples that He abides in His Father's Love because He has kept His Father's commandments. Jesus meant by this statement that He had become the perfect and innocent sacrifice to take away the sins and evil of mankind because Jesus would rise from the dead victorious over all sin and evil, and all the works of the Devil, because the Devil had no claim on Him as the Devil had on sinful humans. The Devil would not be able to hold His innocent Spirit in Hell. Jesus also meant that when He gives His Spirit to His believers saved by grace, He gives them His own perfect righteousness which will provide them with an acceptance by God to Heaven that they could never attain on their own. II Corinthians 5:21; Romans 8:14-17.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                   Chapter Fifteen

                                                                                                                                               Verses 6-8 continued

When God saves by His grace, He forever thoroughly cleanses the souls and spirits of His believers with the blood Christ shed on the cross, and He recreates their souls and spirits in such a way that the fleshly sins that they will commit will no longer be able to infect their souls and spirits. II Corinthians 5:17; I John 3:9. God allows His saints to retain their fleshly natures which will cause them to commit sins, but those sins will remain only in their fleshly natures. Romans 7:15-25. God will also thoroughly cleanse His saints fleshly sins with the water Jesus shed on the cross as they daily repent of them. John 13:1-15; I John 1:9. The Holy Spirit has the power to transform the blood and water that Christ shed on the cross into spiritual blood and water. I John 5:5-8.

Why does God allow His saints to retain their fleshly natures which will cause them to sin? One can only speculate. Perhaps, if God transformed and recreated the fleshly natures of His saints when they believed and were "born again," then their earthly bodies would have to immediately die, and God would recreate their flesh to be spiritual flesh which would allow them to be able to change from flesh to spirit and back again as they willed. The sight of such supernatural people in the world would so traumatize unbelievers that they would be forced to believe in God. God does not want anyone to be forced to believe in Him. Forced love cannot be real love. God desires that every living human return to love for Him of their own free will which will prove the eternal value of real love. Perhaps, God also desires to prove that sin, evil, and the Devil can never utterly destroy His Church anymore that it can destroy any of God's creations. Matthew 16:18.

The Church is God's creation, and the Devil desires to utterly destroy any creation of God. The Devil sends troublemakers, and heretics and apostates into God's churches in order to ruin them. The Devil sometimes succeeds in ruining some churches. Nevertheless, Christ knows exactly who His saints are, and He will cause all of His saints eventually to repent of all of their fleshly sins either daily or at the Rapture of the Church. Christ will prove that sin and evil cannot destroy His Church and His saints love for Him. God possesses all power over sin, evil, and the Devil. Revelation 1:17-18. Jesus suffered tremendous pain and suffering on the cross caused by sin and evil, but being Almighty God, He could handle it even though His Father could not help Him. Matthew 27:46. But even though Christ saves His saints forever because He eliminated even their backslidden sins, His believers should pray every day that Christ will keep them out of sin because their sins grieve the Holy Spirit, increases Christ's suffering on the cross, and causes God to have to punish them to correct them. Ephesians 4:30; Hebrews 12:2; Hebrews 12:3-13; Ephesians 5:25-27; John 10:27-30; I John 3:8.

Jesus taught that His Father will be glorified when His Church bears "much fruit." God will be glorified because despite the sin that infects His Church, Christ's disciples will succeed in preaching the gospel to the world and winning many lost sinners to faith in Christ and salvation by grace. God intends to supply great rewards to His disciples in Heaven for their obedience to Him while in the world. Matthew 28:18-20; Luke 6:35.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                  Chapter Fifteen

                                                                                                                                              Verses 6-8 continued

 Jesus taught in the King James Bible, which is the inerrant and infallible Word of God, that He can raise back to life those who believe in Him after their physical deaths. John 11:25. The doctrine that God cannot, or will not, save unbelievers after their physical deaths seems to be a doctrine that physical death limits the Almighty Power and the Almighty Love of God. God's Almighty Power and Love cannot be limited by anything. Nothing is impossible with God. Luke 1:37. If physical death limits God's Power, how could Jesus have ever raised anyone from the dead? John 11:43-44. God never limits His Almighty Power. In fact, God can use even the absolute nothingness of an eternal lake of fire to trap evil forever within its bounds so that evil can never infect His recreation of Heaven and earth again. II Peter 9:9-13.

No verse in the entire Bible (KJB) teaches that God cannot, or will not, save unbelievers after their physical deaths. But many passages in the Bible teach that God will eventually save from eternal death every living human that He has ever created and loves either by His shed blood and water on the cross or with His fiery wrath against evil. The Old Testament sin offering symbolized God's salvation by His grace, and the burnt offering symbolized God's salvation of the rest of all living humans by the use of His fiery wrath against evil. Genesis 3:8-21; Genesis 8:20-21; Leviticus 5:7-10; Psalm 75:3; Isaiah 66:18-24; Matthew 13:36-43; Luke 3:6; Luke 20:38; John 5:28-29; John 11:25; Romans 8:18-23; I Corinthians 15:20-28; I Corinthians 3:11-15; Colossians 1:15-23; I Timothy 4:10; II Timothy 4:1; John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14; II Peter 3:9-13; Revelation 21:1-5. These name only some of these scriptures. The logic of Revelation 21:5 seems to be inescapable. God will make all things new. God created all things. Revelation 4:11. Since God created all things, then He created all living humans. Genesis 1:27. Therefore, God must recreate all living humans. Revelation 21:1-5.

Only Jesus' disciples abide in Him. Only His believers saved by grace who read His Word and adhere to its teachings, attend a true church, repent every day of their sins and pray for the Holy Spirit to keep them out of sin, and live as a witness to others of their faith, are His disciples. Backsliders temporarily move away from abiding in Christ. Peter became a temporary backslider when he denied that he knew the Lord, but he repented. Luke 22:61-62. Christ has promised that He will present His Church to God as being absolutely pure and glorious. Ephesians 5:25-27. This promise can only mean that in the Rapture of the Church, Christ will recover all backsliders and cause them all to repent and return to abiding in Him. II Timothy 2:12-13. Christ may have to consign some backsliders to a temporary torment to correct them until they repent, but all of His backslidden saints will repent and return to full faith in Him because Christ will thoroughly cleanse and recover His entire Church when He Raptures it. Matthew 18:32-35. Christ taught that He cannot lose a single one of His believers. John 10:26-30.

God possesses Almighty Power and Intellect. He knows exactly how to cause all living humans, sooner or later, to repent and return of their own free will to the faith that He put into them when He created them in His image. Genesis 1:27; Genesis 1:31; John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14. God will forever save by His grace those who believe in His Son while still alive in the flesh, and He will provide a lesser form of salvation for all living humans temporarily consigned to the regions of death when He appears to them in a great worship service near the end of the world. John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                  Chapter Fifteen

                                                                                                                                              Verses 6-8

Jesus spoke about those humans who turn  themselves over to practice evil. These types of persons put themselves outside of God's created branches. These are the atheists, materialists, and cruel criminals of the world. They wither inside because they rarely feel God's presence in their lives. When they face the judgment of Christ when they die, He will usually cast their souls and spirits into a burning Hell. Hebrews 9:27. But Christ did not say they would be in Hell forever.

About the only verses in the entire Bible (KJB) on which one can base the doctrine that living humans remain in a burning Hell forever occurs in Mark 9:43-48. Jesus did teach that the fires of Hell burn forever, but He also taught that only the "worms" of living humans would be in that eternal fire. When Jesus spoke about their "worms," He had to have referred to Isaiah's prophecy about the final resurrection. Isaiah 66:18-24. Isaiah prophesied that in this general resurrection, God will raise all living humans from the dead, cause them all to go to Jerusalem to worship Him, and they will be able to look back at their dead carcasses and see their "worms" in an everlasting fire. In order for this prophecy to be true, these "worms,' which symbolize man's evil, spiritual deaths, had to have been separated from their living, recreated bodies by God's use of His fiery wrath against evil. Just before the final resurrection, God will use His fiery wrath to dissolve every repentant human system confined to the regions of death in order to melt them down to separate His living nature from these humans that He created and loves for Him to recreate from their dead spiritual natures that He will cast into the eternal lake of fire. I Corinthians 3:11-15; II Peter 3:9-13; Psalm 75:3; Revelation 5:11-14; Revelation 20:5. In Revelation 20:11-15, God clearly states that He will cast only dead humans into the eternal lake of fire, not living humans. All living humans that God created in His image are forever alive to God. Genesis 1:27; Genesis 3:20-21; Luke 20:38.

In the very next verse, Jesus taught that "every one shall be salted with fire." Mark 9:50. In other words, Jesus taught that every living human will be either sanctified by fire or preserved by God's use of His fiery wrath against evil. Humans saved by grace will be sanctified by God's fire when filled with the Holy Spirit, and all living humans not saved by grace will be forever preserved by God's fire. Acts 2:1-4; Genesis 8:20-21; I Corinthians 3:11-15. In this verse, Jesus referred to God's establishment of the Old Testament burnt offering to symbolize His use of His fiery wrath against evil to save all living humans confined to the regions of death when He will cause them all to repent and believe in Him as their Savior just prior to His final judgment. Genesis 8:20-21; Revelation 5:11-14. At that time, Christ will use His fiery wrath against evil to dissolve their systems in order to save their repentant, living natures and to cast their dead, unrepentant natures into the lake of fire. Matthew 12:31-32; I Corinthians 3:11-15; II Peter 3:9-13; Psalm 75:3. I Corinthians 3:15 cannot refer to humans saved by grace because they are not saved by fire. They may be sanctified by fire when filled with the Holy Spirit, but not saved by fire. Humans saved by grace are saved only by being washed in the shed blood and water that flowed from Jesus' body on the cross. I John 5:7-8.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                   Chapter Fifteen

                                                                                                                                              Verses 1-5 continued

When Jesus spoke about every branch in Him, He meant every human He had ever created because the grapevine symbolizes His creation of the entire human race. When Jesus spoke about the branches that bear fruit that He will purge so that they bring forth more fruit, He symbolized all living humans whom He will save by His grace. When Jesus used the word "purge," He meant that He will both sanctify and discipline His believers saved by grace to make them more like Himself so that they can produce even more fruit. The branches that do not bear fruit symbolizes all humans who do not become saved by grace. These humans can and will do good works that God gave them to do, but their good works do not have the quality of God's creations because they only produce temporary, earthly effects. Only believers saved by grace can do good works that have an everlasting effect like those of God's. In other words, believers saved by grace can do the same kinds of good works that Jesus Himself did. John 14:12. God will take away all humans not saved by grace because their good works cannot produce an everlasting effect. Nevertheless, God will cause them all to repent and believe in the Lamb of their own free will, recreate them, reward them for their good works, and give them an eternal life on His new, recreated earth. Revelation 5:11-14; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 21:1-5; Revelation 22:11-12.

When Jesus told His disciples that He had cleansed them with His spoken Word, He meant the eternal Word of God. God speaks His Word in many ways. God has spoken His Word in His creations. Psalm 19:1-4. Jesus happens to be the Living Word of God. Hebrews 10:19-20. God also has His written Word. II Timothy 3:16-17. The spoken and written Word of God carries the shed blood and water of Christ to believers who become saved by grace. The Holy Spirit inhabits eternity. This means the Holy Spirit can extend Christ's shed blood and water into humanity's past and future to cleanse and forgive all humans who become saved by grace. Matthew 24:35.

Only God holds the Almighty Power to save living humans from sin and evil. God never saves the dead natures of humans because that happens to be spiritual death injected into them by the Devil that never repents. Matthew 12:31-32. But Christ will utterly destroy the Devil and all of his evil works. John 12:31-32; I John 3:8.

The branches that symbolize humans not saved by grace cannot bear everlasting fruit. These are the branches of the grapevine that have no fruit on them. Only the branches that symbolize humans saved by grace can deliver the sap, that symbolizes the Holy Spirit, to produce everlasting fruit which symbolizes others who become saved by grace. But humans saved by grace can only deliver the message of the gospel. Only the Holy Spirit has the power to flow through the branches like sap to deliver the shed blood and water of Christ to the believers who become saved by God's grace.

But only believers saved by grace who are true and faithful to Christ can be used by the Holy Spirit to produce everlasting fruit. Unfaithful backsliders cannot produce any everlasting fruit, and they will receive few rewards in Heaven.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                   Chapter Fifteen

                                                                                                                                              Verses 1-5 continued

When God created Adam and Eve, He knew that the free will that He had given them had a weakness in it that could cause them to sin. God also knew that Satan was in the world to lie to Eve and tempt her to disobey God. God also knew that Eve could cause Adam to choose to disobey God as well. But behind it all, God had a good plan that no matter how much sin and evil the Devil could inflict on humans, and no matter how ruinous and destructive the Devil could be, he would never be able to utterly destroy the good image of Himself that God would put into every human He would ever create. Genesis 1:27; Genesis 1:31. God also knew that when Adam and Eve sinned, the Devil would be able to inject spiritual death into their inner beings that would make all living humans unable to avoid committing sins and evil. Genesis 2:17.

God cursed the Devil and the ground from which all demonic evil comes, but He did not curse Adam and Eve. Genesis 3:1-21. In fact, God promised Adam and Eve that He would "put enmity" between the Devil and the woman, and between the Devil's seed, which is spiritual death, and the woman's seed, which is the living image of God in every human. From that time, every human would experience a conflict between his good and living nature and his evil nature within him.

God also promised the woman that He would use a particular seed from only her to utterly crush and destroy the Devil and all of his evil works. The Devil would be able to injure her special seed, which meant He would sacrifice Himself to be able to crush the Devil, but her special seed would recover from His injury and continue to live. Genesis 3:15. God also promised Eve that He would make her "the mother of all living," and since God can only create that which is eternal and since He can never lose anything He has ever created, then He must recover and recreate all living humans infected by sins and evil. Genesis 3:20; Ecclesiastes 3:14; Psalm 111:7-8; Luke 20:38. In other words, God promised to send a Savior to humanity who would sacrifice Himself to purge all sin, evil, and spiritual death, all of which are the works of the Devil, from all of His living humans and cause them all, sooner or later, to return to faith in Him and love for Him of their own free will. John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14. Jesus came to the world to utterly destroy the Devil and all of his evil works, not living humans. John 12:31-32; I John 3:8. God has proven, and will prove again, that the weakness in free will that He gave to Adam and Eve can never utterly destroy their good systems, or the good systems of every human that He creates because He will use that same free will to cause all living humans to return to faith in His Almighty Love and return to love for Him. John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14.

God gave free will as a loving gift to Lucifer to be used in good ways. God cannot be responsible for the evil that Lucifer chose to do. Nevertheless, God feels guilty because in all innocence and good will, He indirectly caused evil to enter into His creations. Isaiah 45:7. But since God is Almighty and Omniscient and His Love can never fail, He knew exactly how to purge all sin and evil from all of His creations and recreate it all to be righteous by the use of His gift of free will to humanity, despite the weakness in it. John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14; John 5:28-29; II Peter 3:9-13; Revelation 21:5; Revelation 22:11-12; I Corinthians 13:8.

In other words, God holds an infinite knowledge that He has used to devise a plan to eliminate the weakness in free will that causes humans to sin and acquire spiritual death by taking all that sin, evil, and spiritual death on Himself and purging all evil and all spiritual death from all living humans by the loving sacrifice of Himself. John 12:31-32; I John 3:8. God has the Love and power necessary to cause all humans, sooner or later, to return to faith in Him as their Lamb of God and love for Him of their own free will when they learn about His Love for them in His sacrifice for them. John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                    Chapter Fifteen

                                                                                                                                              Verses 1-5

Jesus compared Himself to a grapevine that bears copious amounts of good and edible fruit. Jesus taught that He creates the fruit on the vine, and His Father empowers His creations. Jesus used this grapevine to symbolize His creation of the world and especially of humanity.

God creates every human to be good; that is, to produce only good works. God can never lose anything He has ever created. Ecclesiastes 3:14. God loves every human that He ever creates and that Love can never fail. I Corinthians 13:8.

God is Omniscient, but He is also innocent. Habakkuk 1:13. God can only use His free will to choose to create good systems. When God gave free will to His special creation called Lucifer, God did not know that he could use that free will to choose to rebel against God and become evil. God knew nothing about evil when He gave free will to Lucifer, but that does not mean that God is not Omniscient. God possesses an infinite set of good ideas that He can use to create an infinite set of good systems. Good systems happen to be the only positive systems. Only positive creations can possess reality. Evil cannot be real, and yet, it possesses some kind of negative power. The Old Testament consistently refers to sin and evil as being vanity; that is, pride and emptiness. The negative power of evil happens to be anti-knowledge and anti-creative since it only seeks to destroy all that is good. In a sense, evil equals absolute nothingness, but it only assumes real power in its attempts to destroy creativity. Evil seeks to reduce all creativity to absolute nothingness, including creativity and knowledge. All this means God is Omniscient in creativity and reality, but He knew nothing about evil, which is anti-knowledge, until Lucifer's rebellion.

God created a free will system outside of His own free will to be solely a creative system, but He discovered that outside of His subjective Being, it could be misused to choose to do evil. The fact that Lucifer could persuade some of God's angels to also rebel against God demonstrated that doubt about the Almighty Power of God's Love to protect His creations had entered into His creations. But God knew exactly how to create a system, using humanity and His own ability to become a human, to thoroughly purge all sin and evil and the Devil himself from all of His creations so that He could cleanse it all and recreate it all. II Peter 3:9-13; Romans 8:18-23; I Corinthians 15:20-28; Colossians 1:15-23; Matthew 13:36-43; Revelation 21:1-5; John 5:28-29; John 12:31-32; I John 3:8; Revelation 22:11-12.