John 15:16 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Ye have not chosen me,— "You have not, as principals in this affair, adopted me as your associate; but I, the great author of the gospel, have adopted you as my associates, to share with me in the honour and happiness of giving a new dispensation of grace to the world. For I have ordained you my apostles, that you should go out into the world, fraught with the doctrines of salvation; by the preaching of which you shall produce a general reformation and renovation, both in the opinions, hearts, and manners of the heathens, greatly to the glory of God, inasmuch as the Christian religion, thus planted by you, shall remain to all ages. Further, I have clothed you with the dignity of my apostles, that whatsoever miracle you shall ask of my Father, or whatsoever petition you shall put up in my name, for the confirmation of your doctrine, or for the success of it, the consideration of your character, and the end for which you ask it, may induce him to grant it." See on John 15:7. What our Lord says, that He ordained them, that they should go and bring forth fruit, was a security to them, that they should be preserved from immediate danger, and that their life should be guarded by his providence, till very important services had been accomplished by their means. When he adds, that your fruit should remain, he may allude, agreeably to the preceding parable, to the custom of keeping rich and generous wines a great many years; so that, in some cases, (which was especially applicable to the sweet eastern wines,) they might prove a cordial to those, who were unborn when the grapes were produced. In this view, there is a beautiful propriety in the representation, which we hope will be particularly felt by those who are truly zealous for the salvation of immortal souls, when these reviving Chapter s are r