Jesus’ encouragement before His departure (John 14:1-14)
By Rev. Katherine Liu Bruce
Christian Arts Ministries: Biblical precepts
& Gospel music; pastoral ministry & counseling
Do not let your heart be troubled. Trust in God; trust
also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms if it were not so, I would have
told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare
a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may
be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going. (John14:1-4)
Thomas said to
him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
(v.5) Jesus answered, “I am
the way, and the truth and the life.” No one comes to the Father except through
me.
If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do
know him and have seen him.” (John14:6-7)
Jesus answered, “Don’t you know me Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father?”(v.9) don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. (v.10). Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. (v.11) I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things then these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name and I will do it. (vv.12-14)
In view of His departure from
them, Christ gave the disciples (in this chapter) specific encouragements.
These include the provision in the Father’s house (v.2), the promise to return
(v.3), the prospect of doing greater works (v.12), the promise of answered prayer
(v.14), the coming of the Holy Spirit (v.16), and the legacy of peace (v.27).
My father’s house refers to the temple, the body of Christ, as
God’s dwelling place. First the body of Christ was only His individual body,
but through Christ’s death and resurrection, the body of Christ has increased
to be His corporate Body, which is the church, including all His believers, who
have been regenerated through His resurrection (1Pet.1:3). In Christ’s
resurrection the church is the Body of Christ, which is the house of God
(1Tim.3:15;1Pet2:5; Heb.3:6), God’s habitation (Eph.2:21-22), God’s temple
(Cor.3:16-17).
Verse 3 If I go…I will come back proves that the Lord’s going (through His death and resurrection)
was His coming (to His disciples –vv.18,28). He came in the flesh (1:14) and
was among His disciples, but He could not enter into them while He was in the
flesh. He had to take the further step of passing through death and
resurrection in order to be transfigured from the flesh into the Spirit that He
might come into the disciples and dwell in them, as revealed in vv.17-20. After
His resurrection He did come to breathe Himself as the Holy Spirit into the disciples. (20:19-22).
The
Lord’s intention in this chapter was to bring man into God for the building of
His dwelling place. But between man and God there were many obstacles, such as
sin, sins, death, the world, the flesh, the self, the old man, and Satan. For
the Lord to bring man into God, He had to solve all these problems. Therefore,
He had to go to the cross to accomplish redemption that He might open the way
and make a standing for man, that man
might enter into God. This standing in God, being enlarged, becomes the
standing in the Body of Christ. Anyone who does not have a standing, a place,
in God does not have a place in the Body of Christ, which is God’s dwelling
place. Hence, the Lord’s going in order to accomplish redemption was to prepare
a place in His body for the disciples.
The Lord is in the Father
(vv.10-11) He wanted His disciples also to be in the Father, as revealed in
17:21. Through His death and resurrection He brought His disciples into
Himself. Since He is in the Father, they are in the Father by being in Him.
Hence, where He is, the disciples are also.
Ø The
Triune God dispensing Himself into the believers- the Father embodied in the
Son seen among the believers (John 14:5-14)
Verse 6 the way for man to enter into God is
the Lord Himself. Since
the way is a living person, the place to which the Lord brings man must also be
a person, God the Father Himself. The Lord Himself is the living way by which
man is brought into God the Father, the living place. The way needs the
reality, and the reality needs the life. The Lord Himself is the life to us.
This life brings us the reality, and the reality becomes the way by which we
enter into the enjoyment of God the Father.
Verse 7 this
chapter unveils the way God dispenses Himself into man. In the dispensing of
Himself into us, God is triune. He is one, yet He is three, the Father, the
Son, and the Spirit. The Son is the embodiment and expression of the Father
(vv.7-11), and the Spirit is the reality and realization of the Son (vv.17-20).
In the Son (the Son is even called the Father
–Isa.9:6) the Father is expressed and seen, and as the Spirit (2Cor.3:17) the
Son is revealed and realized. The Father in the Son is expressed among the
believers, and the Son as the Spirit is realized in the believers. God the
Father is hidden, God the Son is manifested among men, and God the Spirit
enters into man to be his life, his life supply, and his everything. Hence,
this Triune God –the Father in the Son and the Son as the Spirit-dispenses
Himself into us to be our portion that we may enjoy Him as our everything in
His divine trinity.
Verse 12 the Lord came from the Father to bring God into man through His
incarnation. Here, He is going to the Father to bring man into God through His
death and resurrection.
Verse 13 to be in the Lord’s name here and in v.14 means to be one with the Lord, to live by the Lord, and to let the Lord live in us. The Lord came and did things in the Father’s name (5:43; 10:25), meaning that He was one with the Father (10:30), that He lived because of the Father (6:57), and that the Father worked in Him (v.10). In the Gospels the Lord as the expression of the Father did things in the Father’s name. In the Acts the disciples as the expression of the Lord did even greater things (v.12) in the Lord’s name.
Bibliography,
Lee, Witness. The New Testament (R.V.) Anaheim,
CA: Living Stream Ministry, 1985.
Ryrie, Charles C. The Ryrie Study Bible (NIV). Chicago,
IL: The Moody Bible Institute, 1986.
Roberts, Oral. Holy Bible (KJV) Tulsa, OK:
Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association, Inc. 1981.
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