<p>15:15- see on Jn. 16:12.</p><p><em>No longer do I call you servants. For the servant does not know what his lord does; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you</em>- As noted on :13, the uniquely &quot;greater love&quot; shown by the Lord was that He died for us when we were still enemies (Rom. 5:10); but He <em>called us</em> His friends. His intense hopefulness in our response accompanies all our efforts to invite others to accept His love and consciously befriend Him who so befriended them. The &quot;no longer&quot; suggests that in His death on the cross, they will see the final revelation of God, the quintessential declaration of all that He had heard from the Father, made known to them. There is no hint here that He now is going to declare the future to them. Now they were going to understand what their Lord and friend had done; for the Comforter was to open their understanding to the things of the cross, to the meaning of it all. This explains how things were going to change in their understanding, from being servants just obedient for the sake of it to a Master they respect and obey but do not really understand, to friends who now have been shown the innermost essence of their Master. As noted on 16:13, the Comforter was to make known to them the things which were coming, the things of His death on the cross. He would show them plainly of the Father, in His death on the cross and the Comforter unpacking that death to them (16:25). Or as Paul puts it, the gift of the Spirit opens our eyes to understand the depth and height of our Lord's love for us (Eph. 1:18; 3:18,19). And His love was declared in essence in the death of the cross.</p><p>Friendship is exactly the language God uses about Abraham- because He was His &quot;friend&quot;, He showed Abraham what He was going to do (Gen. 18:17-19). But the things to be done here refer to the cross (see on 16:13). To the Lord&rsquo;s first hearers, a slave was defined by his or her obedience to the master&rsquo;s commands. The Lord says that His followers are His friends, who do His commandments- but they&rsquo;re not slaves. He seems to be saying that they were indeed His slaves- but a new kind of slave, a slave who whilst being obedient to the Master, was also His personal friend. It&rsquo;s lovely how the Lord speaks of such well known ideas like slavery, and shows how in the humdrum of ordinary life, He gives an altogether higher value to them. See on Jn. 10:28.</p><p>He has just reminded them that they call Him Lord, and rightly so, and therefore His washing of their feet was what they must do (Jn. 13:13). Earlier, He had rebuked them for calling Him &ldquo;Lord&rdquo; but not <em>doing</em> what He said (Lk. 6:46- this is in a speech directed at the disciples- Lk. 6:20,27.40). And yet He told others that His disciples <em>did</em> His word (Lk. 8:21). He was so positive about them to others, even though they did not <em>do</em> the consequences of calling Him Lord e.g. washing each other&rsquo;s feet- instead, they argued who was to be the greatest. Perhaps when the Lord says that He will no longer relate to them as a Lord, with them as His servants, but rather simply as their friend, He is tacitly recognizing their failure, and preparing Himself to die for them as their friend rather than as their Master. And yet, as the Divine economy worked it all out, it was exactly through that death that they exalted Him as Lord and Master as they should have done previously.&nbsp;</p>