13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends.
13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
13 This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends.
13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.
13 There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends.
8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
8 But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.
(Read Romans 5:6-11)
Christ died for sinners; not only such as were useless, but such as were guilty and hateful; such that their everlasting destruction would be to the glory of God's justice. Christ died to save us, not in our sins, but from our sins; and we were yet sinners when he died for us. Nay, the carnal mind is not only an enemy to God, but enmity itself, Zechariah 11:8. And that for such as these Christ should die, is a mystery; no other such an instance of love is known, so that it may well be the employment of eternity to adore and wonder at it. Again; what idea had the apostle when he supposed the case of some one dying for a righteous man? And yet he only put it as a thing that might be. Was it not the undergoing this suffering, that the person intended to be benefitted might be released therefrom? But from what are believers in Christ released by his death? Not from bodily death; for that they all do and must endure. The evil, from which the deliverance could be effected only in this astonishing manner, must be more dreadful than natural death. There is no evil, to which the argument can be applied, except that which the apostle actually affirms, sin, and wrath, the punishment of sin, determined by the unerring justice of God. And if, by Divine grace, they were thus brought to repent, and to believe in Christ, and thus were justified by the price of his bloodshedding, and by faith in that atonement, much more through Him who died for them and rose again, would they be kept from falling under the power of sin and Satan, or departing finally from him. The living Lord of all, will complete the purpose of his dying love, by saving all true believers to the uttermost. Having such a pledge of salvation in the love of God through Christ, the apostle declared that believers not only rejoiced in the hope of heaven, and even in their tribulations for Christ's sake, but they gloried in God also, as their unchangeable Friend and all-sufficient Portion, through Christ only.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on John 15:13
Commentary on John 15:9-17
(Read John 15:9-17)
Those whom God loves as a Father, may despise the hatred of all the world. As the Father loved Christ, who was most worthy, so he loved his disciples, who were unworthy. All that love the Saviour should continue in their love to him, and take all occasions to show it. The joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment, but the joy of those who abide in Christ's love is a continual feast. They are to show their love to him by keeping his commandments. If the same power that first shed abroad the love of Christ's in our hearts, did not keep us in that love, we should not long abide in it. Christ's love to us should direct us to love each other. He speaks as about to give many things in charge, yet names this only; it includes many duties.