What does it mean to let not your heart be troubled in John 14:1?

These words came out of the Lord's own mouth and have comforted multitudes, but we must know to whom they were spoken and whether we have a right to lay claim to them. The Lord was not speaking to self-sufficient and haughty men, He did speak to such sometimes but He did not say to them, "Let not your heart be troubled," to them He spake words of denunciation and solemn warning, scathing words, that would have thrown them into the greatest trouble of heart if they had had any consciences at all. Nor was He speaking to notorious sinners who had grown weary of the lives they were living. His words to them were compassionate words and full of tender pity, for He came to call them to repentance, but He did not say to them "Let not your heart be troubled." He was speaking to men who in the previous chapter are called "His own," those whom He loved and would never cease to love. They were representative men, they represented all His own down through the centuries to this very day, and we gathered here this night belong to that favoured company. We may be feeble and fickle and some of us very young in the faith, but if we can say, "The Son of God loved me, and gave Himself for me," we are "His own," He loves us and will never cease to love us. "Having loved His own which were in the world He loves them to the end." Then we can claim these words; they were spoken for us; to us He says, "Let not your heart be troubled."

These disciples of the Lord were troubled because He was going away. They had had no trouble while He was with them. "Lacked ye anything?" He had asked, and they had answered, "Nothing." But He was going away and what would they do without Him? His answer to their unspoken fear was, "Let not your heart be troubled." There would be no trouble for any of His own if He were here. "Disease and death and demon fled from His presence, and great peace had they who kept His company, but He is not here and He said in view of His going away, "in the world ye shall have tribulation," and is not tribulation trouble? His answer is "Let not your heart be troubled." That is His word to every one of us. Do any of us think that He would have said that to us if He were not able to keep us from troubling? Did He ever mock a needy soul with vain words? We may be sure that He would never have uttered the words if He were not able at all times and in every circumstance to keep us from troubling. "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because He trusted in Thee." "In the world ye shall have tribulation but in Me peace." Then He proceeded to give the basis for this untroubled confidence. "Ye believe in God, believe also in Me" and in those words He declared His Deity and set Himself before us as the object of our faith and trust even as God is. God is invisible but real, He would be invisible but as real to faith as God is. Those disciples were well acquainted with Old Testament history. They had read of Abraham and Moses and David and Daniel and the three Hebrew youths. They knew that these men had trusted in God and were not confounded, He had not failed any of them when they cried to Him, at all times He was their shield and exceeding great reward. Well, said the Lord, all that God was to His trusting people in ancient days, I will be to you. Have the centuries that have passed weakened His strength and diminished His interest in His own? has He grown weary of them and their troubles? Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? "Ye believe in God, believe also in Me." Having loved His own which were in the world, He loves them to the end. "Let not your heart be troubled."

As I have said, among many deeply-precious lessons which this portion teaches us, there are three points which especially demand our attention. Firstly, our Lord's earnest desire, that during this period of His absence from us, we should be in the habit of looking to Him about everything, and to expect all we need from Him. He was going to the Father. Though away from us as to personal presence, there would be no change in His love or His care. Nor would His power be less; for He was going to the position of all power in heaven and in earth. He therefore first of all makes a particular request before leaving them; it was this, that they would exercise faith in Him, and not allow their hearts to be troubled. How exquisitely tender this is! What loving concern and interest it manifests! Did the precious Saviour say, You will not have trouble? No. Quite the contrary. He said, "In the world ye shall have tribulation;" but twice in this chapter He entreats us not to let our hearts be troubled. How is it possible that my heart should not be troubled, some may say? Jesus supplies the answer. As Jews they had known what it was to believe in God, to trust God; but now they were also to trust Him, exercise faith in Him. "Believe also in me." How simple and efficacious is this preventative of heart-trouble! Do we know its blessedness, beloved, in our own soul experiences? Do we so cast all our care upon Him, who careth for us, as to keep our troubles as it were at arms' length, so as not to get under them? How sweet and salutary is this counsel! This trust in Him is something more than believing on the Lord Jesus for salvation; for it is because we are His own, and objects of His everlasting love and care, that we are enjoined to roll every burden upon His Almighty arm, and leave it there. "Believe also in me." How blessed, then, the thought, that the Lord Jesus, though now in glory, far above all principality and power, desires that in this present trying scene our eyes may be looking to Him, and casting every trouble into His arms of love, so that our poor hearts may be free to love and serve Him, and not be oppressed by grief; but instead of this, as we afterwards read, that His peace in all its calm unruffled sweetness may be ours. I repeat, how loving is our Lord's counsel, and how marvellous His care for our present comfort and blessing in Himself!

In a pre-eminent way this great discourse breathes comfort and consolation for troubled hearts. It commences with that sweet word, "Let not your heart be troubled," and, as it draws to its close, again we hear these words, "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." Yet it was hardly the troubles of the daily life of which the Lord was speaking, however much they may be lightened by these tender words. It was the special trouble of hearts about to lose the One whose infinite love had won their affections. A little later the Lord will say "Now I go My way … because I have said these things to you sorrow has filled your heart." It was the trouble of hearts that had been so attracted to Christ that they were satisfied in His presence, and sorrowful in His absence. To be left in an evil world, from which Christ is absent, is a sore trial to the heart that loves Him.

"Let not your heart be troubled." There was much to trouble — the discovery of a false professor (Judas), as well as the failure of a true disciple (Peter); and above all His own absence, for He had not yet spoken a word about the Comforter. How similar to our present condition, except that we now have the Comforter! "Let not your heart be troubled." Trouble may be all around; let it stay there. Keep it out of your heart. "Ye believe in God" though you have not seen Him — you have His presence (witness the Psalms), "believe also in Me." Amid the trouble, He is on your side. I will be also. And the blessed Lord is more occupied with them in His absence from this scene than whilst here — "It is expedient for you that I go away."

The answer to our question is not far to seek. The Lord said to them, "Let not you heart be troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in Me." But did they not believe in Him? They did, but this is not faith for soul's salvation, it is something more than that. He was not only their Pattern, He was also to be their Resource. They were to have Him as their inexhaustible and all-sufficient resource for the carrying out of God's purpose in their lives in the world. He is that for us. He says: "Believe also in Me." In that short sentence He presents Himself in the fullness and power of His Deity. All that ever God had been to men in olden days — to Abraham, Moses, David, Daniel — He would be to them, and will be to us. We do not see Him with our mortal eyes, but faith sees Him, and all that He is is at the disposal of our faith, He is indispensable, all-sufficient. "Believe also in ME."

Attention to the connection of the two exhortations will show their force and application. At the close of chap. 13 we find that, after the Lord had spoken of His being glorified as Son of Man in virtue of His glorifying God on the cross, He revealed to His disciples that He was about to depart from them. It was in view of their being thus left in the world that He sought to bind their hearts together in the imperishable bonds of divine love, and to teach them that the exhibition of mutual love would be their most efficacious testimony. (vv. 34, 35.) Lastly, He set aside all that man is in himself by declaring the impending denial of Himself by Peter. Truly everything was lost here for the disciples, and they might well be depressed and sorrowful at the prospect. The Lord knew their state of soul, and the first verse of chap. 14 is addressed to it. Their heart was troubled, but He supplied the antidote in presenting Himself as the object of faith in the Father's house after He should have departed. Nothing was left for them here, and this enabled Him to disclose to them the Father's house, and Himself as preparing a place for them, and waiting to return to fetch them, and to have them there with Himself for ever. Having demonstrated the character of the world by His presence in it, He opens out to their view the new world, the Father's house, in which He Himself would be the centre of all the glory, as the place to which they henceforward belonged. In verse 27 He announces that He leaves peace with them, peace in their relationships with God, which would be established in virtue of His death and resurrection. (See John 20:19.) Still further, He adds, "My peace I give unto you," opening out the possibility of their entering upon the possession of that perfect peace which He Himself ever enjoyed, while here, in His unclouded communion with the Father. It is this which forms the basis of the exhortation - "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." In the enjoyment of this peace (compare Colossians 3:15, reading, "the peace of Christ") there would be no room for inward anxiety or apprehension, for heart sorrows, for fear of outward dangers or hostility. Provision is thus made both for the inner and the outer life, but all in connection with Himself, and with what He gives.

In order fully to understand the meaning of this scripture, and the circumstance for which this feast, to which Jesus went up, is a type, we must, in the first place, see the way in which He is presented to us in Scripture - at present as an absent Lord. Under an anticipated sense of this absence we find Him comforting His disciples, "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me"; consequent upon that discourse with His disciples, wherein He says, "Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterwards." And when Peter under a dread of that absence, exclaimed, "Lord, why, cannot I follow thee now?" Jesus says, "Let not your heart be troubled." You shall not enjoy My bodily presence, it is true; but, though absent, believe in Me. Ye believe in God without seeing Him; now believe also in Me: though I go away from you, I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man takes from you. Here, then, is now the position of the believer. Jesus has gone, and the believer stands in the apprehension of His absence; his desires are tending toward an absent Lord. He feels his joy still incomplete, because his Beloved is not present; and he is looking for and hastening towards the time when He is to be revealed, and we shall "see him as he is." But he knows at present he is not where Christ is; he is in a usurped world, where Satan is setting up his kingdom, whose subjects are described as saying, "I sit as queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow." Here is nothing of the consciousness of the Lord's absence as felt by the church - no cry for deliverance - no cry for the Lord to come; no such thing as saying, "In this [body] we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven."

The discourse (V. 1) opens with the tender and touching words "Let not your heart be troubled." Who but the Lord could have uttered such gracious words at such a solemn moment. The Lord had just foretold the thrice repeated denial of Peter, and just as the premonition of the denial is preceded by that gracious word, "Thou shalt follow Me afterwards," so it is followed by these touching words, "Let not your heart be troubled." With the treachery of Judas and the denial of Peter before them, the disciples might well be troubled. Yet, says the Lord, "Let not your heart be troubled."

He brings out the most complete sentence on Peter, and put the flesh entirely aside: "Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake?" No wonder, He was offering Himself; He was about to suffer. He had that upon His soul at the time, and Peter puts in, "Well, I am the man that will lay down my life for you." He cannot but express incredulity. "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice;" then instantly He goes on, "Let not your heart be troubled." What He had in His bosom at that time, with regard to Peter and John and the rest, could not be repressed, could not be stopped by the rude interruption of a man, saying, "I will lay down my life for you." The man did not know what he was about; the Lord understood it all. The state of Peter's soul could not take these thoughts in, Peter did not like such thoughts. But the Lord goes on, "Let not your heart be troubled. Everything is failing here; the kingdom going, Israel is denying its Messiah, but you are associated in my heart with the Father, and that is the ground on which I am acting."

And see how He counts upon the disciples' love and consequent sorrow; for He has no sooner broken it to them in gentle words, that only "yet a little while" (John 13:33) He can be with them, than He adds, "Let not your heart be troubled." Precious fruit of His own love, that wherever it is known detaches hearts from the world without Him by attaching them to Himself. Yes, He whom they had known, and loved, and followed on earth in such precious intimacy, was about to return to the Father, and they would now no longer know Him after the flesh; yet He was only going to take the same place as the unseen God, where He would be still known by faith, "Ye believe in God, believe also in me," and in all the deeper revelations of the glory of His Person that would result from that place; so that He will even prove that it is expedient for them that He goes away. And as we shall see, these deeper revelations of Himself will form the very staple of the comfort ministered to us in His words. Where else could comfort be found for hearts that have known Him ever so feebly? All joy is treasured up for us in the knowledge of Christ. There can be no different joy, but only deeper measures of the same joy; and this is just what He brings us into by going away.