If ye love me, keep my commandments.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And I will beg the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever,
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see him nor know him; but ye know him, for he abides with you, and shall be in you.
Jesus has just promised another Helper, and here He gives Him a name: the Spirit of truth. Two questions follow — why can the world not receive Him, and what is the difference between the Spirit being with the disciples and in them?
The title links the Helper to what the Lord had just said about Himself — truth set before us in Christ, then truth put inside us:
The Comforter is also the Spirit of truth. Truth, together with grace, "came through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17), and He is the truth, as we have just seen, set before us outside ourselves. The Spirit of truth is now to come, living in the saints, and so bringing truth inside them.
The Lord does not say the world will not receive Him. He says it cannot:
It is not that the world does not receive Him; it cannot receive Him. He is not put before the world as a testimony to accept or refuse. He brings the world the testimony of a heavenly Christ — the One they rejected, for all the Father's grace. The world has no capacity to receive Him. It only receives what it sees and knows, and it neither sees nor knows Him whom the Father has sent.
There is a plain reason behind that. The Son came in human flesh; the Spirit never did:
The Spirit of truth! Could I expect a world of falsehood to receive Him? No… The Holy Spirit never came in a human body. What the world sees it is prepared to believe. What it does not see it refuses to believe… He was not put before the world as an object for it to receive.
The Lord never says the disciples see the Spirit. He says they know Him:
Men of the world are not born of God, so they are bound entirely to the material world. It does not say that we see Him, but it does say we "know Him." Something is already in our souls that is the Spirit's own work, and as He makes His home in our hearts as the Comforter, we are conscious that He is there — we "know Him."
The verse ends with two promises, not one:
Here it is a special possession of the Spirit. His personal presence is something only the Christian has… It is the privilege of the believer here below, and of no one else: "for he dwells with you and will be in you." The Spirit does not just give them a passing taste of blessing; He dwells with them. And more than that: He does not only dwell with them — "He will be in them." There is this double truth: the dwelling with, and also the being in.
Both halves came true on one day — Pentecost, when the Spirit came — and each has its own line of teaching in the letters that follow:
This was fulfilled at Pentecost. In Acts 2:2 we first find that the Spirit "filled the entire house" — that is, He came to be with them. Then "they were all filled with the Holy Spirit" (v. 4). The first we find in 1 Cor. 3:16-17 and 2 Cor. 6:16: "you are God's temple" — one temple, not many. The second in 1 Cor. 6:19: "your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you."
Commentators differ over "He dwells with you." A common reading takes it of Christ Himself, already with them as He spoke. One writer calls that a mistake:
I have not the least doubt that the interpretation of John 14:17, though very common, is a mere blunder. "Dwells" is the same word as "abide" in verse 16. Christ the Comforter would not "abide" with them as He then was, nor was He "with" them. The other Comforter would abide "with" them, and "be in" them.
The promise waited on two things: the work of redemption finished, and Christ glorified at God's right hand:
The Spirit could not come until Jesus was gone… Redemption had to be accomplished, and Christ had to be glorified as man at God's right hand, before God could give such a gift to the saints. The work is done, Jesus has gone, and the Comforter is here… How much real unbelief there is about the personal presence of the Divine Spirit! Many today pray for His outpouring, or for a fresh baptism, while others fear He will leave them because of their shortcomings and failures. But He is to be with us for ever, and the righteous basis for that is the sacrifice of Christ.
- Named — He is the Spirit of truth: Christ is the truth before us, and the Spirit brings that truth inside us.
- Refused — the world cannot receive Him. It has no capacity for Him, it lives by what it sees, and He never came as an object for it to look at.
- Known — believers are never said to see Him, only to know Him. His work in the soul makes us conscious that He is here.
- With — He filled the house at Pentecost: the saints together are God's temple.
- In — then He filled each one: your own body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and, resting on the sacrifice of Christ, He stays for ever.
I will not leave you orphans, I am coming to you.
Jesus is about to leave His disciples. He knows how His going will feel to them — like children who lose the one person nobody can replace. His answer is a promise, not advice. He will not leave them desolate, because He Himself is coming to them.
The force of the verse lies in the picture Jesus chose. One writer starts with the disciples who first heard it, then draws out why kindness from others could never be enough:
The Lord spoke these words to His bewildered and sorrowful disciples, and they had a very special meaning for them: they were to see Him alive from the dead. They did see Him; they looked with wonder on His wounded hands and side. But they are also good and true words for us... Think about the words, "I will not leave you as orphans." This is what they mean: I will not leave you desolate, forlorn, lonely, and uncared for. It is all that and more. Others may care for an orphan, and care very tenderly, but the heart cries out for the love of relationship. "I want my mother" is the cry that breaks from the heart of the bereaved child. I will not leave you crying out like that for Me, said the Lord, I will come to you.
The same writer turns the word into a description of what we are in ourselves, apart from Christ:
An orphan is one who is without a protector or guide, without help or resource... we are orphans, defenceless and destitute, if we do not have the Lord. Well, to a company of nobodies such as we are, the Lord says, "I will come to you." And then we have everything, and we glory in the Lord.
Earlier in the chapter Jesus promised to come again and receive His own to Himself. Verse 18 sits in a different setting. He has just spoken of the coming of the Holy Spirit. Several writers read the two promises as distinct:
In John 14:3 we have the Lord coming again in person to take His own to be with Himself. In verse 18 we have His spiritual coming to us now. Before that second promise, and to prepare for it, He tells of the coming of the Holy Spirit (verse 16).
One writer names which coming is meant, and how far it stood from what the disciples were hoping for:
But the Lord said, "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." He does not mean here His future coming, but the gift of the Spirit. So He would comfort them while He was away... Nothing could be further from what they thought and expected of the Messiah of Israel, seen by every eye.
This question is old, and writers have never all answered it the same way. Kelly lists them:
Tholuck, Meyer, Luthardt, Godet, Plummer and Charles also take this "coming" as the Holy Spirit. Zahn, following Augustine, understands it as the coming spoken of in verse 3. Ewald and Weiss take it here of the Lord's appearance to His disciples after His resurrection.
Another writer reads the promise as covering three stages:
He would not leave them as orphans, but would come to them: first in person after He rose, then in spirit, and at last in person from heaven. Their eternal life would depend on nothing but its flowing from Him. Could they be joined to Him any more closely?
Kelly ties the promise to the life the Lord Himself lives:
"I will not," He says with emphasis, "leave you as orphans" (that is, by leaving them); "I will come to you"... Community of nature is taught here... "Because I live, you also will live." Nothing can be more intimate than this.
One writer reads the promise as made to the gathered company, and names what opens the door to Him:
Christ comes to the company of those on earth who have shut the door on the first man — that is, on themselves. "I will not leave you [the company] as orphans; I will come to you." (John 14:18.) He comes to that company whenever He can, and whenever they make room for Him in this way.
Another writer sets that beside a later promise, made to the believer standing alone:
Earlier the Lord had promised His presence to His own together... now the promise is to the individual believer. So often down the centuries, and in these last days, devoted saints of God have found themselves isolated and alone because of their faithfulness to Christ. If others desert them, or if they cannot meet with other believers, they can still have the companionship of Christ.
- Orphaned. The word means desolate and unprotected. That is what we are in ourselves — no guide, no help, no resource.
- Not abandoned. Kindness from others cannot answer an orphan's cry. Only the One the heart cries for can, and He promises to come.
- How He comes. Most writers tie the promise to the gift of the Spirit. Others read it of His appearances after the resurrection, or of His return in verse 3. On this, commentators differ.
- What He brings. Not just comfort while He is away, but shared life: because He lives, His own live.
- Where He comes. To the gathered company that makes room for Him, and to the believer left standing alone.
Yet a little and the world sees me no longer; but ye see me; because I live ye also shall live.
Jesus is hours from the cross. He tells His disciples that a short time will end the world's view of Him for good — but not theirs. The promise turns on a single word: because. Their life is not an independent possession but a consequence of His.
The "little while" marks the end of Christ's public showing to the world. One writer notes how this has held since the crucifixion:
When He was drawing near to the cross of Calvary, He said to His disciples, "Yet a little while, and the world sees Me no more; but you see Me." And it is true: since He was taken down from the cross, no worldly eye has rested on Him. His mission to the earth then closed.
Behind that closure lies a decision. The world had already made its judgment of Him:
He is going to the Father's house. The world and the Father are in direct opposition… They saw no beauty in Him that they should desire Him. And when the world rejected Him, He went up to sit at the Father's right hand. The accepted One of the Father was the rejected One of the world.
"But you will see me" cannot mean ordinary eyesight, since the disciples were about to lose that too. What takes its place is better, not worse:
Soon the world would see Him no more. His relations with the world came to an end, except as Lord of all. His relations with His own did not. They would see Him, not yet with their natural eyes, but by faith, as the Spirit revealed Him. That sight is far clearer and better than the sight their natural eyes had given them.
What faith sees is not the Christ of the past. It is the Man who has entered glory:
In the little while the Lord speaks of here, the world only saw Him in rejection and dishonour. But after that little while He entered into His glory. There His loved ones gaze on Him with the deepest pleasure and joy. And this is because the Lord could add, "Because I live, you shall live also." Living in His life, we can look into heaven. We see what is invisible to those whom the Son of God has not made alive.
The link between His living and ours is not just a comparison. It is a shared nature:
"I will not," He says with emphasis, "leave you orphans" — that is, by His departure from them. "I will come to you."… Is the Holy Spirit not forming us into a body, uniting the believer to Christ as the head? There is more than this. What is taught here is a shared nature, not the unity of the body that we find in Paul's letters. "Because I live, you shall live also." Nothing can be more intimate than this.
The life in view comes from the other side of the grave. One writer links it to the breath of the risen Christ:
The Son of God, having life in Himself, now comes with it to His saints. He breathes on them now, as long ago He breathed into man's nostrils (Gen. 2). Only this was the breath of the last Adam, the life-giving Spirit. He had a life to give, a life won from the power of death. That life was therefore beyond death's furthest reach.
If the life is His, its security is His too. One writer pushes that reasoning to its limit:
When we are made alive, the life is not looked at as being in us. Christ says, "Because I live, you shall live also." So this life cannot change. If Christ's life can in any way be cancelled or set aside, then the life in us can be too, and not otherwise. If Christ can die, so can we; but if death no longer has dominion over Him, neither has it over us.
For a believer full of fear, the same logic silences doubt:
My life is bound up in His. I have said it before, and I say it again: it will be time for me to have doubts and fears when I find that Christ has them.
Safety is not the whole of it. The same verse describes an ongoing dependence:
"Because I live you shall live also" is not only security. It takes in all His present service for us, so that we may hang upon Him moment by moment.
- Because — everything in the verse hangs on this word. They live because He lives. Their life is never a separate supply held in themselves.
- Departure — the world's last sight of Christ was the cross. No worldly eye has seen Him since, and His relations with the world are closed.
- Sight — believers still see Him, by faith and through the Spirit. That sight is clearer than natural eyes ever gave. It rests on Him where He now is, in glory.
- Certainty — the life cannot change, because its source cannot change. Those joined to Him could die only if Christ could die.
- Dependence — this shared life is not a stored deposit but a daily hanging on Him, sustained by all He is doing for us now.
In that day ye shall know that I [am] in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me; but he that loves me shall be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him.
It is the night before the cross, and Jesus is alone with His disciples. He gives them a test they can apply to themselves and a promise that is hard to take in: love shows itself in obedience, and obedience opens the door for Christ to show Himself to a person while the world sees nothing.
The Lord names two things, not one. You must have His commandments before you can keep them. And having them is itself grace.
"He that has my commandments, and keeps them, that is the person who loves me." So two things mark him out: having them, and keeping them. The world will say, How can we keep them if we do not have them? But the believer knows it is grace to have them. Grace finds them out by God's revelation. And when desire finds them by the grace of God, he treasures them with delight in that grace.
It can look odd that simply having His commandments should count as proof of love. But the wish to obey is what finds out what to obey.
To a shallow mind it may seem strange that our Lord speaks of having His commandments, and not only keeping them, as a proof of loving Him. But it is deeply true. The wicked, the disobedient, the careless, do not understand... The single eye is full of light. The desire to do His will finds and knows what it is. So the loving heart has and keeps His commandments. And in loving Him, it draws down His Father's love, for the Father honours the Son and will not be exalted at His expense.
The Lord had already put it the other way round. The two statements answer each other.
The Lord has already said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." Now He says, "Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me." As has been truly said, the first presented love as the spring of obedience; the second presents obedience as the proof of love. Every expression of the Father's mind was a commandment to Christ. In the same way, every expression of the mind of Christ is a command to the one who loves Him.
This obedience is not a rulebook. It listens for wishes.
One listens to the voice of divine wisdom, like a child who wants to please its parents, or a wife her husband. They notice the words of the parent or the husband, even when those words are not given as commands, and they know what they wish. So the Christian pays attention to the words of Jesus; he is familiar with what the Lord wills, and desires to do His will. This is the proof of true affection.
The love promised here is not the love that rescues a sinner. It is a Father's response to a child who is walking well.
This is not, "We love Him because He first loved us" — that is the work of grace. Here it is, "If a man loves Me, my Father will love him." This is God dealing with children. The question is not whether they are children, but whether they are obedient children... A parent does not scourge his child when it is doing well, nor is he pleased with it when it is doing ill.
Yet nothing here makes salvation something we earn.
They are saved by pure unconditional grace. But once saved, their blessing and their enjoyment of spiritual blessing depend on their walk, on obedience to the Word. They do not obey in order to be saved... Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ has brought them to God, and their blessing during their stay in this world depends on their submission to the mind and will of God.
The next verse records the confusion of one disciple, Jude. How could Jesus show Himself to them and not to the world?
When He speaks here of manifesting Himself, He means a showing of Himself, and from Him, to the soul. He makes the soul realise His presence and feel it. Jude does not understand this. He does not see how Jesus could show Himself to His own without showing Himself to the world. Sadly, it is just what too many Christians do not understand.
God loves every one of His children. But not every child enjoys the same nearness. The difference lies in the walk.
He loves all His children perfectly. But the one who follows the Lord most closely will enjoy the largest showing of that love. The Lord loved Peter as much as John, yet only John laid his head on the Saviour's breast... It was equally open to Peter; but Peter's own condition of soul was what kept him from enjoying it.
- Have — having His commandments is itself grace. The heart that wants His will is the heart that finds it.
- Keep — love is the spring of obedience, and obedience is the proof of love; the two verify each other.
- Loved — the Father's love here is His response to obedient children, not the love that first saved us.
- Manifest — Christ makes a soul aware of His presence, while the world sees nothing.
- Measure — the love is equal to all His own; the enjoyment of it is not. John leaned on His breast, and that place was open to Peter too.
Judas, not the Iscariote, says to him, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself to us and not to the world?
Jesus had just promised to show Himself to the one who loves and obeys Him. One of His twelve disciples stumbled over it at once. Judas expected the Messiah to take His kingdom in public. How could He appear to a few followers while the world saw nothing?
John names the questioner and keeps him clear of the betrayer. Commentators say this disciple appears elsewhere in the Gospels under another name, and that Scripture records little else about him.
Another disciple breaks in here — Judas, called Thaddaeus in Matthew 10:3 and in Mark 3:18. This Gospel carefully sets him apart from the traitor Iscariot. This is his only recorded remark.
Judas was not slow-witted; he simply expected something else. He hoped for a visible kingdom, and a private showing did not fit that hope. Writers say the same mistake repeats today.
Judas has Jewish thoughts and Jewish hopes in his mind, and these words baffle him. He does not realise the change that was coming. He still holds to the idea of a visible kingdom about to be set up. So he cannot understand how this can be if the Lord does not show Himself to the world. His own brothers had a similar thought when they said, "Show yourself to the world" (John 7:4). The same ignorance is still with us. Many true Christians do not grasp the calling of the church, or the character of the day we live in. In various ways they still say to the Lord, "Show yourself to the world."
Judas was trying to hold two of Jesus' sayings together, and they would not fit. One writer says his question is the one we all want answered.
He voices the question we all long to have answered. ... Here the Lord had brought together two ideas that seem to clash: "the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me," and again, "I will manifest Myself to him." How can He be hidden from the world and yet show Himself to the individual? ... Love in the heart for the Son of God produces obedience to His commandments. Where obedience to the Lord's revealed will grows out of love for Him, He discloses Himself — His glories, His offices, His graces.
The mistake lay in what Judas pictured. He assumed any showing of Christ must be one the eye could catch. To him, seeing Christ and seeing Him in public were the same thing.
Judas (not Iscariot) did not understand this. He saw no further than a bodily showing of Christ, the kind the world could also see. So Jesus adds that the Father would love the truly obedient disciples, and that the Father and He Himself would come and make their home with him. Here He speaks in a wider and more spiritual way of His word, not just of His commandments. So where there is obedience, He and the Father live in us. We wait for the day when we shall go and live with Jesus in the Father's presence.
Christ will still show Himself to the world one day. One writer weighs the obedience of that day against obedience now.
One day the Messiah will show Himself to the world. That will be when the world-kingdom of our Lord and of His Anointed has come. Then many will offer a pretended obedience, held in check by the display of His power and glory. Obedience now, while He is absent, faces a harder test, and is precious to Him because it is real.
In His reply Jesus moves from keeping His commandments to keeping His word. Commentators say the change asks for a different depth of obedience.
Where obedience is only skin-deep, and self-will or worldliness goes unjudged, a commandment is always needed to enforce it. So people ask, "Must I do this? Is there any harm in that?" To such people the Lord's will is only a matter of command. There are commandments, and they express His authority; they are not burdensome. But there is more. Where the heart loves Him deeply, His word is enough to show His will to the one who loves Christ. Even in natural life a parent's look will do it.
- Asked — The questioner is Judas, also called Thaddaeus, not the betrayer. This is his only recorded word.
- Assumed — He expected a bodily, public showing of Christ — the visible kingdom he had hoped for.
- Answered — Jesus points instead to an inward showing. The Father and the Son make their home with the one who obeys.
- Advanced — The reply moves from commandments to word: from "must I?" to a love that reads His will without a command.
- Awaited — The public display will come. Obedience given while He is absent is real, and precious to Him.
Jesus answered and said to him, If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him.
Judas — not Iscariot — had just asked why the Lord would show Himself to His followers and not to the world. This verse is His answer, and it ties three things together: love for Christ, keeping His word, and the Father and the Son coming to live with the one who loves.
The disciples had only known Christ in bodily presence. His answer points to another kind of presence.
He could not understand how the Lord would show Himself to them, and not to the world. They had of course never known a spiritual presence of Christ apart from a bodily one. The Lord answers him... He joins the Father with Himself. So it was plain, and Judas no doubt understood it, that He was speaking of showing Himself in spirit, and not in bodily presence.
Here the Lord asks for keeping His word, not only His commandments. One writer marks the difference:
The word differs from the commandments of Christ in one way only: it is the full revelation of His mind, while the commandments have to do with details — for instance, the often-repeated one, that we love one another. There is not a commandment for everything. But His word covers the whole range of life, and it leaves no room for the subtle plea of self-will that His will is not revealed.
One writer tells a story:
A loving mother goes out from her house one morning. Before she goes, she calls her daughter and names several jobs to do while she is out, and several more that she herself will do when she gets back. When she comes back, she finds her child has been obedient and has done what she was told. But when she turns to do the things she meant to do herself, she finds them all done. She says to her daughter, "I did not tell you to do these things." "No," replies the child, "but I thought you would be pleased if I did them." She has kept her mother's words... Keep My commandments, says the Lord, and I will pay you a visit; keep My word, and My Father and I will make our abode with you.
This verse names a love that is not where salvation starts:
It is not sovereign grace which first loves the poor sinner: here the Father loves the soul which shows its affection for the Saviour in keeping His words. It is fatherly government, the satisfaction of the Father's heart because the Son is honoured and obeyed.
The promise carries a condition:
See how large a blessing depends on our keeping His Word. Never overlook this: the love of the Father in this passage, and the Father and the Son coming to make their abode with us, are entirely conditional.
The Lord does not say "I". He speaks in the plural, and one writer counts that plural wider still.
One loving and obedient heart becomes the abode of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The shrine of the Trinity is in the heart of one who loves the Lord.
The word translated "home" here is the same word used in verse 2, which older translations render "mansions."
"We will take a mansion in his heart." It is a wonderful thing to say, "He has a mansion for me up there." But it is far more wonderful to think that He will come down and take a mansion for Jesus and the Father in our hearts!... The Father and the Son doing what? Visiting? No, but dwelling.
One writer sets the two homes in order:
Note the position of believers: until we make our home in the Father's house, He makes His home in us.
The promise names no rank, no setting and no advantage — only love and a treasured word.
Christ has gone to prepare an abode for you in the Father's house. So you prepare an abode in your house for the Father and the Son, as you love the Lord and treasure His word. It may be an attic up the stairs, with only a few sticks for furniture and not many comforts in this world. But there your Father and your Saviour will abide with you.
- Love starts it. It begins with affection for Christ, not with duty. Obedience is the evidence, not the cause.
- Word widens it. Commandments cover details. His word is the full revelation of His mind, and it leaves self-will no excuse.
- The Father joins it. His love here is His satisfaction in seeing His Son honoured. It is His dealing with a child, not grace first reaching a sinner.
- "We" enlarges it. Father and Son together — and by the Spirit — so that one obedient heart becomes their dwelling.
- Home crowns it. The word is the same as "mansions" in verse 2: until we go home to Him, He makes His home in us — dwelling, not visiting.
He that loves me not does not keep my words; and the word which ye hear is not mine, but [that] of the Father who has sent me.
On the evening before the cross, Jesus promised a home with the Father and the Son to anyone who loves Him and keeps His word. This verse turns that promise over, shows its other side, and traces His words back to the Father.
The verse works as a mirror. What a person does with the sayings of Jesus reveals what that person feels about Him.
His sayings, which carry His word to us, become the test of our love. They lead us to the word of the Father who sent Him. If we disregard them, we prove our claims of love for Him empty and insincere.
Commentators differ on who this half of the verse describes. Some say it marks off the unbeliever. Others read it as spoken to His own followers.
One who does not love Him does not keep His words (v. 24): he is not a believer.
The word of the Lord in verse 24 is clear, "Whoever does not love Me"; He is speaking to the Christian company, not to the world.
The chapter moves from His commandments, to His word, and then to His words. The shift raises the standard, not lowers it.
Now that He is absent, obedience must be tested more, and it is precious to Him because it is real. It should also grow, since it comes from life in the Spirit, as we come to know His will better. So it deepens from His commandments to His word. His commandments were not a burden; we treasure His word because we love Him.
Why "words" here, and not "word"? A heart that does not love never takes in the whole mind of Christ. It leaves the separate sayings unheeded.
The contrast is short and simple: "Whoever does not love Me does not keep My words." He does not say "word" here. "Word" means His mind as taught, given to a willing heart and ear, which takes His mind as a whole. But here the words are not kept. They are not taken as commandments either. The Lord does not press them as commandments here. His words are ignored.
Then comes the reason the stakes are so high. Jesus does not speak as a man offering His own opinions.
The Son passed on the Father's word with nothing mixed in, in all its purity, in the words He received from the Father. Accepting or refusing those words decided a person's attitude to the Father and to the Son.
That is why refusing His sayings is never a small thing.
He was not merely sent to speak for the Father. While the words were His, they were the Father's; and if they were His, they were the Father's. So there is real responsibility, and the mark of sin, in rejecting Him and not seeing the Father in Him.
Because every word He spoke came from the Father, nobody can plead that the claim on them was unclear.
Yet the word spoken by the Lord was not merely His own, but the Father's, this being another insistence on the fact that He was in no detail of His ministry independent of the Father: no one therefore has a valid excuse for not loving Him.
Why is this word worth keeping? Because of what His words hold.
His word — the word He says is not His own but the Father's — is the revelation of the Father and of the Son... When the Lord Jesus spoke those wonderful words revealing the Father's Name, they were not mere words such as we might speak; and the truth of the Father and the Son are not mere doctrines to be learned mentally and talked about, as we might talk about some science. These words revealed living Persons, and when you have got the words, you have got the Persons.
- Test — What you do with His sayings tests your love for Him; ignoring them proves the claim of love empty.
- Deepening — The call rises from commandments to word. His commandments were no burden, and we keep His word because we love Him.
- Source — The word He spoke was the Father's, passed on pure, with nothing mixed in.
- Weight — To reject His words is to miss the Father in Him. That is no small mistake; it is the mark of sin.
- Reward — Keep His word and you gain more than doctrine. His words reveal living Persons: have the words, and you have the Father and the Son.
These things I have said to you, abiding with you;
Here the Lord marks off all He has taught in the upper room as words spoken while He was still with His disciples. That raises the question the next verse answers: who will teach them once He is gone?
Why say it then, and not later? One writer points to the moment, and to the love behind the words.
These things He said while He was with them — the right time. It was bound up with His own personal love to them, and with His Person, for in His Person these things were now centred. Faith saw in Him the centre of their truth and the love that made them ours. They were displayed in the order of glory after His resurrection, but that did not make them less dear as known in Him. They always centred in His Person. We knew we had them all.
Verse 25 says "these things"; the next verse says "all things." One writer explains what set the limit.
Here the great work of the Spirit is to engage us with Christ Himself... First the Lord tells the Eleven, "He shall teach you all things." The "all things" of verse 26 are in contrast to "these things" of verse 25. The Lord had spoken of certain things, but other things belonged to the glory of Christ. The eleven disciples could not grasp them at that moment. Their limited spiritual capacity limited what the Lord could tell them. When the Spirit came, their spiritual understanding would be enlarged. Then the Spirit could communicate "all things" connected with Christ in the glory.
What He held back was not held back for ever. The Spirit would come from the very place the Lord was going.
While the Saviour was on earth He could not unfold to the disciples all that was in the Father's counsels. Verse 25 implies this, and John 16:12 states it plainly. But when the Comforter arrived He would not be under restraint. He comes from the supreme height to which Jesus has ascended. He knows all the glory and all the love of that bright home, the Father's house. He would teach us all things. Dear saint of God, what education is indeed open to us, and what a Teacher!
Another writer sees heavenly things sketched here in seed form, waiting for their full unfolding.
So heavenly things were indicated by our Lord Himself in seed form, and His death and resurrection were shown to be the basis of their introduction. "These things," He said, "being yet present" (John 14:25), but when the Holy Spirit had come He would teach them "all things," as the next verse says.
(Older translations render the phrase "being yet present with you" or "while abiding with you"; the ESV has "while I am still with you.")
His teaching belonged to the days of His presence. So how did those words reach us? Not through human memory.
In John 14 our Lord outlines for us the ministry of the Spirit of truth: "He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you." This would have particular reference to the Gospels. We are not left to the fallible memory of men. No — we have the infallible Spirit of truth to direct the disciples even in these matters.
The new Teacher is a Divine Person, not a lesser stand-in. Notice also who sends Him: the Father, not the Son asking as in verse 16.
The same Holy Spirit anointed Christ and remained in Him while He ministered here below. How blessed that this Spirit was to teach the disciples all things, and to give them back all the words of Jesus! And so it was fulfilled, and more, as suited a Divine Person who chose to serve in love, sent by the Father in the name of the Son. Here it is not the Son requesting the Father and the Father giving, as in verse 16. Here the Father sends, in the name of the Son, the One who could and would teach all things, and also recall all that Jesus said to them. So room is left, not only for His reviving in their memory all the instructions of Christ, but also for His own unlimited teaching.
Losing His visible company sounds like pure loss. The disciples' own history says otherwise.
See how important the coming and indwelling of the Spirit was. Our Lord tells His disciples that it was expedient, advantageous, for Him to go away, so that the Spirit might come. If He had not said it, who could have imagined a greater privilege than personal contact and company with the Lord Himself? Before Pentecost the disciples had partial, earthly ideas. Compare them with the same men after the Spirit came down, and we see how true our Lord's words were.
- Presence. He spoke "these things" while He was still with them, and they centre in His Person and in His love for His own.
- Limit. He said only what they could take in. The limit lay in their capacity, not in what He had to give.
- Sending. The Father sends the Spirit in the Son's name. That leaves room for recalling Christ's words, and for teaching without limit.
- Recall. The Gospels do not rest on fallible human memory but on the Spirit who brings all His words back.
- Advance. His going was gain: "these things" said on earth became "all things" taught from the glory He entered.
but the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, *he* shall teach you all things, and will bring to your remembrance all the things which I have said to you.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
I leave peace with you; I give *my* peace to you not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it fear.
Jesus speaks these words to His own before the cross — and He speaks of leaving them something. The verse holds two gifts, not one. The difference between them shapes how a Christian meets trouble.
The first half of the verse looks back to what the cross would do. Commentators point out that "leave" and "give" are not saying the same thing twice:
It helps to compare the different sides of peace. In John 14:27 the Lord makes a difference between peace left to us and peace given to us. "Peace I leave with you" is peace with God about every question of sin. He made it by the blood of His cross. He brought the news of it on the evening of the day He rose, when He stood among His own and greeted them with "Peace be with you." … It was the precious legacy of His death. … It is peace of conscience. He could not speak of it as His. He never needed it. We did. So He made it and left it to us.
The second gift is something He can call His own, because He had it every day of His life on earth. It was not a peace from easy circumstances, but from unbroken nearness to His Father:
Apart from the cross and the anticipation of the cross, the heart of Jesus was always with God. He felt everything in love, yet nothing distracted Him or weakened His communion with His Father. Perfect obedience and confidence kept a peace in Him. That peace flowed from His walk with God, and from communion with His Father that never failed. … The difficulties He met only gave a chance to show divine life in the heart of a man. They showed the peace that came from knowing He was always with God.
The world's giving always means parting with something. Christ's giving does not work that way — what He hands over He still holds:
He Who gives it did not give it away. He had it no less because we were to receive it. Like everything else He gives, we enjoy it whole, in its own divine fullness. Everyone who shares in it adds to it instead of taking from it.
There is a second contrast as well. The world can hand out help while keeping the receiver at arm's length:
The world stands at the doors of its grand houses and hands out gifts to the poor and distressed who gather at its gates. But those same poor never enter the homes the good things come from. No one welcomes them into the comfort and warmth of those houses. They stay outside — strangers. Our Lord does not give His peace to us that way, and we could not know it that way. He opens the door of His dwelling to us and says, "Come and see." And His dwelling is at His Father's side — the infinite, unchanging love of His Father's heart.
This peace does not depend on what happens around us. So it changes where God stands when trouble comes:
This peace means holding such quiet that nothing else disturbs us. … The soul, so satisfied with its own peace, wants nothing else. It knows God, and finds nothing to disturb it in God or outside of God. This peace will keep God between the trouble and us, instead of the trouble coming between us and God. That is our danger, and that is the remedy.
If the peace itself cannot fail, the loss must be on our side. Writers trace it to a will that is still arguing with God:
The effect for them would be peace in the heart, just as the legacy of His death was peace in the conscience. They would have the peace He Himself enjoyed — the result of that unbroken communion in which He walked with God. For us, a restless will is what disturbs this. It means a struggle against His will. And every gain we make in that direction leaves the soul unsatisfied. If we want only His will, the outcome is not in doubt. … and so we find the true cure for fear.
The closing words are not advice to feel braver. They rest on knowing the Father's love:
Let us not stand at a distance, full of dark doubts. Let us not nurse our sorrows and fears as though the Father had forgotten us or was angry with us. Let us take the children's place. Let us rest in the Father's love and enjoy that peace beyond measure. Let not our hearts be troubled, nor let them be afraid, even though trouble in the world is what we are given.
- Peace made. The peace He leaves is the legacy of His death — every question of sin settled at the cross, so the conscience has rest.
- Peace given. The peace He gives is His own. It carried Him through every difficulty, because His communion with His Father never broke.
- Peace shared. The world parts with what it gives, and keeps you outside. He brings you inside and loses nothing.
- Peace kept. It holds God between us and the trouble, rather than letting the trouble come between us and God.
- Peace disturbed. Nothing outside can spoil it; a restless will can. Wanting His will is the cure for fear.
Ye have heard that I have said unto you, I go away and I am coming to you. If ye loved me ye would rejoice that I go to the Father, for [my] Father is greater than I.
Jesus is about to leave His disciples, and their hearts are heavy. He tells them that love would have made them glad instead. Then He says something that has puzzled readers ever since: how can the Son call the Father greater than Himself?
First the Lord settles their fear about themselves. He is not leaving them for good.
"You have heard how I said, I go away, and come again to you." This removed their uneasiness as to themselves. It was not disappointment or death, but going to return.
Their grief was natural. But they measured the moment by their own loss, not His gain.
If you think of yourselves, it is quite natural that you should be troubled. But if you could think of Me, it would have been your joy to think that I leave this world of sorrow and suffering to go to the Father. I take up My glory again and enter again the land of holiness and peace, where all My rights are recognised. So the Lord places Himself near us, and He wants us to think of His happiness.
He asks for more than sympathy. His people are joined to Him so closely that His happiness becomes theirs.
He says, as it were: "I have brought you into such perfect association with Myself. I have set you down in a place of such complete fullness in Myself. So I count on you sharing My joy. I give you to be partakers with Me in My joy." What is that? To forget your own sorrow in My joy!
That makes the verse a test of where our hearts rest.
Is it ever enough for you that Christ is happy? Does your heart ever rest in this thought: the One who has done and suffered everything for you has entered His rest?
The wording sounds like a denial of their love. It is a question about its measure.
He says to His disciples, in the most touching and appealing way, "If you loved Me, you would rejoice, because I said, I go to the Father." That is: if you loved Me enough. There was no question of their loving Him; but did they love Him enough to rejoice because He said, I go to the Father?
The ESV reads "the Father is greater than I" here; other translations read "My Father," the wording these writers quote. The line has tripped up many readers.
The last words of this verse, "My Father is greater than I," have been made an occasion of stumbling to some. But here it is the Word made flesh who is speaking, and He speaks in His condition as the lowly Man on earth. So in position or station the Father was greater than He, while as to being and nature He and the Father were one.
His own choice of words elsewhere in this Gospel marks out both halves.
It is plainly evident that Jesus must have been speaking as a Man when He said, "MY Father is greater than I." ... For when He spoke of Himself as the Son, one with the Father, He did not then say "My Father." Speaking as God the Son, He told those who listened, "I and THE Father are one." So there is no contradiction between John 14:28 and 10:30. Each Scripture glows with divine beauty, one revealing Him to us as Man and the other as God.
Because He speaks as Man, His going carries a value far beyond that moment.
Whatever His essential and personal glory, He never forgets that He is man on earth. As such He calls on them to rejoice in His going to the Father... It was no small thing that man in His Person should enter into glory like this... The Lord would have the Christian rejoice in the second Man, who has gone up even now into the paradise of God. He is the sure pledge that we will follow Him there when He comes back again for us.
And He does not go there only for His own sake.
He would leave this scene of trouble and opposition. He would be with His Father in the untroubled peace and rest that surrounds the throne above. Yet He would not go just to rest for Himself. He would care for His own, and ask the Father on their behalf — His Father, who was greater than He, the Son.
- Departure — His going is not death and not abandonment. He goes away and comes again, and that settles their fear.
- Direction — He goes to the Father, out of a world of suffering into peace. There He asks the Father on their behalf.
- Degree — "If you loved Me" is not a denial of their love but a question of whether it was enough to rejoice in His gain.
- Distinction — He says "My Father is greater than I" as Man. It speaks of station, not nature. Set beside "I and the Father are one," it shows Him as both God and Man.
- Delight — the aim of it all is that His people share His joy. The One who suffered everything for them has entered His rest.
And now I have told you before it comes to pass, that when it shall have come to pass ye may believe.
The Lord is close to the end of His last talk with His disciples. He tells them He is going away before it happens, so that when it comes, the event will build their faith instead of breaking it.
What He told them in advance was that He was going to the Father. One writer says a word given beforehand was itself evidence that His word was true, and that testimony like this aims at one thing: believing in Jesus and His glory.
"And now I have told you before it takes place"; that is, this great truth about His going away and all the rest, to His Father. This testimony given in advance was evidence of truth. Compare Isaiah 41:22-23; and earlier, chapter 13:19. Everything, whatever the gift, turns back to this: believing in Jesus and His glory. This is God's great purpose, and a great purpose of testimony given beforehand… In the same way, all seeming sorrows end up confirming faith; things that seem to discredit Him end up proving how true and strong our hope in the Lord is… He tells the disciples beforehand, as something owed to them, so that their faith would not be shaken; this is the blessing that comes with being close to Him. The world learned it only when it had already happened.
His going away was only for a time. One writer adds that love, thinking of Him and not itself, could even be glad about it — and that the warning came first so their faith would hold.
Also, if the Lord was going away, it would only be for a time, because He was coming again. In the meantime, unselfish love would rejoice that His path of suffering was over, and that He was going to the Father. He warns them clearly, ahead of time, about His departure, so that when it took place their faith would not be shaken.
His going away left the disciples better off, not worse. One writer lists the gains, and puts the advance warning among them.
The Lord's going away does not make us worse off but better off (He leaves us His peace, prays the Father to send us a permanent comforter to teach us, He dwells with us and prepares the place for us). Surely, they should not be troubled (v.1,27) and He prepared them for what was to come to strengthen their faith (v.29; compare 13:19).
So what were they to believe? One writer answers: a Man has entered the glory of God, and He is now what faith rests on.
It was no small thing that man, in His Person, should enter into glory like this… The Lord would have the Christian rejoice in the second Man, who has already gone up into the paradise of God. He is the sure pledge that we will follow Him there when He comes back for us. That is why He draws attention all the more strongly not only to the fact, but to His mention of it before it happened, so that when it did happen they would believe. He Himself in glory is the living object of faith, and this carries deep and fruitful consequences for us.
One writer says this one verse throws light on the whole chapter. Nothing the Lord had promised had happened yet, so faith, not sight, would have to take hold of it.
The Lord's words in verse 29 shed great light on everything in this chapter. The things He had been speaking about had not yet happened, because first He had to accomplish His work of redemption. Once He had done that, they would happen, and He was telling them now so that in the coming days they might believe. In saying this the Lord again indicated that our day is one in which faith is all-important. Israel's day was marked by things you could see and touch, but everything He had just spoken about must be grasped by faith and not sight. Both the peace and the joy reach our hearts by faith.
- Told first. He said He was going to the Father before it happened. A word given in advance and then fulfilled proves the speaker true.
- Shock absorbed. He warned His own first, so the loss would not break their faith. The world met the same event only after it had happened.
- Loss reversed. His departure leaves them better off, not worse — peace left with them, a Comforter sent, a place prepared.
- Object given. The event revealed a Man in glory. He is the pledge that His own will follow Him there, and He is the living object of faith.
- Sight exchanged. Israel's day ran on things you could see and touch. Now everything comes by faith, and peace and joy reach the heart the same way.