3 27 2016 “Keeping Commandments and Resurrection Promises” John 14:15-21
In John 14, Jesus is giving His disciples teaching and encouragement right before He goes to the cross. Last week we examined two things which happen when Jesus returned to the Father: Believers would have a wider influence in bringing the Gospel to the world and they would pray in the name of Jesus so that the Father would be glorified in the Son (they would pray in accordance to the will of God and His Kingdom purposes.)
We look at John 14:15-21 today: "If you love Me, keep My commandments. 16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper (or Comforter), that He may abide with you forever-- 17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. 19 "A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. 20 At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. 21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him."
Love and Obedience
Jesus continues to speak exclusively to His disciples; “His disciples” include all those who believe in Jesus alone for forgiveness and salvation, and those who believe in Jesus’ self-revelation and declaration concerning Himself. Verse 15 taught us that there is an uncompromising connection between loving Jesus and obeying the things that He teaches. He is saying: "If you love Me, THEN YOU WILL keep My commandments.” If a person loves Jesus, then that love will be shown in keeping the teachings, of Jesus. Love for Jesus is far more than a sentimental feeling or emotion. Love FOR Jesus is shown in purposeful devotion and willful obedience TO Jesus.
The Promise of the Holy Spirit
Jesus addresses such believers in verses 16-17: “And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper (or Comforter), that He may abide with you forever-- 17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.”
Jesus will ask the Father to send “another Comforter or Helper”. “Helper” is probably the best translation in this context for the word “parakletos” since the Greek word means “one called alongside to help.” A “parakletos” also included “one who pleads another's cause before a judge, a counsel for defense, legal assistant, an advocate, an intercessor.” During His earthly days, Jesus walked alongside His disciples and now in His absence, as their advocate at the right hand of the Father, “another Helper” is promised and given to believers until Jesus’ second coming at the end of the age.
Jesus’ statement shows that the Son is distinct from the Father in person and at the same time one with the Father. His request is for “another” Comforter. When Jesus leaves, Jesus’ request to the Father is that He would send another of the same kind of Helper who would be “THE SPIRIT (“pneuma) of TRUTH, God’s representative of Jesus to those who believe in Him. His character and essence are TRUTH and you immediately remember Jesus’ declaration in verse 6: “I am the way, the truth and the life.” The Spirit of Truth would bear strict testimony to that of Jesus and it stands to reason that conversion is dependent upon the action of the Holy Spirit to change hearts and lives through the Truth of the Gospel.
The “world” cannot receive the Spirit of Truth because it is unable in its natural power to discern or to experientially know the Spirit of Truth. The spirit of the World stands in opposition and in rebellion to God and His Christ: Although the world was created good, it now stands under God’s judgment and in need of redemption. If the world did perceive the Spirit of Truth, it would cease to be the world. The world is materialistic and willingly skeptical to the truth and nature of Jesus, the Word incarnate, God’s self-revelation, and are blind to the Spirit of Truth…therefore they cannot receive Him.
The believers, on the other hand, know the Spirit of Truth because the Spirit has come to believers as the indwelling presence of Jesus. To the disciples, the very presence of Jesus in the flesh presently stayed with them, but when Jesus would return to Heaven, the Spirit of the Son, the Spirit of Jesus would remain with them. He would come as another Helper or “Paraclete”, walking beside them, or better yet, remaining within them.
And so Jesus reassures them and us in verse 18: “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” The Greek word for “orphans” is “orphanos”. The King James version translates that word “comfortless” but the other time it is used in James 1:27 they translate it “fatherless”, which is the better translation. To be “orphanos” means to be without parents, or fatherless, and in the case of the disciples, after Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension, they would be without their Master. However, Jesus promises that believers will not be left without their Master but that another Helper like the Jesus would come, namely, the indwelling Holy Spirit.
The Promise of Resurrection
Jesus continues in verse 19: "A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also.” Obviously only a short time remains and Jesus will be physically removed from His ministry in the World. When He would be placed in the tomb He certainly would be hidden from the world, but when He was alive, the world never saw Him for who He was spiritually and essentially, but the reality for His disciples is far different. His followers WILL see Jesus.
Not only will they see Jesus physically, but they will understand fully Jesus’ purpose and mission having been accomplished. They will understand spiritually that Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life as promised at the grave of Lazarus. They would understand Him as the Light. They would understand that He indeed is the Bread from Heaven who feeds them eternally.
“Because I live, you will live also.” Jesus gives the very basis and grounds upon which believers have the future claim for eternal life. Because Jesus lives, we also will live. When we believe “into” the Lord Jesus (saving faith according to John) we receive all that He promises. His resurrection guarantees the resurrection of all who believe and follow Him. Paul later demonstrated this fact in 1 Corinthians 15:20, which is the greatest chapter in the Bible on the resurrection: “But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” Hallelujah! Christ is risen from the dead and so I too will rise from the dead!
In Colossians 1:18 Paul also explained: “And He (Jesus) is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.”
Back in John 1:4, John had announced under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit: “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” Jesus is the creator and originator of all life. Life is in the Son.
Jesus Himself announced in John 11:25-26: "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. 26 And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?" His resurrection faces humanity with the same question: Do you believe this?
This new life in Christ is possible as a consequence of His resurrection and is at once mediated by the coming of the Spirit as a pledge of the future life in the Kingdom of God at the resurrection. Look at 2 Corinthians 1:20-22: “For all the promises of God in Him (Christ) are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us. 21 Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, 22 who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.” Paul brings the understanding of the Trinity together perfectly in these verses and makes an ideal segue way into our next verses in John 14:20-21.
Knowing the Completeness and Unity of the Trinity
“20 At (or in) that day (that is, after the crucifixion and resurrection and with the coming of the Holy Spirit) you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. 21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him."
One turning point in the lives of the disciples would no doubt be after the resurrection of Jesus and His appearance to them, after all, how many people do you know who have predicted their own death AND resurrection…and then rise from the dead?!?! As Paul would later say in 1 Cor. 15:16-19: “For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. 17 And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile (vain or useless); you are still in your sins! 18 Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.”
The resurrection changed everything for the disciples…and for all believers. Our faith is alive because Jesus is alive. Is there any other so-called religion who has a Savior who arose from the dead? None. In His resurrection Jesus solidified all of His self-declarations AND our justification by faith.
Look at Romans 4 with me, starting at verse 13:
”For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. Verse 21: “and being fully convinced that what He (God) had promised He was also able to perform. 22 And therefore "it was accounted to him (Abraham) for righteousness." 23 Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him (put on his account), 24 but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, 25 who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.” We KNOW we have been justified, declared not guilty, “paid in full”,(Gr. Tetelestai- “It is Finished”) on account of Jesus’ Death AND resurrection. If He did not rise from the dead, His death would have been in vain. But Hallelujah, HE IS RISEN just as He said He would!
The other turning point would be after Jesus’ ascension back into Heaven (which He also predicted and accomplished), and then the DESCENDING of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The receiving of the Holy Spirit enabled the disciples AND ALL WHO BELIEVE in the Lord Jesus to experientially know the Oneness of the Father and the Son and the relationship of being IN CHRIST and having Christ IN US by His Spirit.
Having Christ in us by the Holy Spirit DOES NOT make us Divine. God will always be the Creator and we will be the creation, even in our resurrected bodies. God and Man are separate. What is described in the words “and you in Me, and I in you” is that of relationship. Although the Father and Son can indwell human beings by the Spirit of God, we don’t indwell God. We have a relationship with the Father, through the Son, made active by the Holy Spirit. We experience and know this: we know the positional reality of union with Christ. (The letter to the Ephesians mentions this reality, being “in Christ” or “in Him” a dozen times in that short letter.) Jesus “comes to us” not just in the Flesh, but in the Spirit.
It is this Spirit that empowers us according to verse 21: “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him." It is not that keeping Jesus’ commandments initiates the love of Christ or His Father but rather it is by Jesus and the Father that an initiation of relationship with human beings occurs. He seeks and saves the lost but the ongoing relationship between Jesus and His followers is CHARACTERIZED by obedience, which is the mark of true love; it is in this relationship that Jesus makes himself known to those whom He saves. So the Resurrection and Gift of the Holy Spirit demonstrates the unity of the Trinity and empowers believers to love and obey God in experiential relationship. Hallelujah! What a Savior. Praise the Father, praise the Son, Praise the Spirit, three in One. Amen
Text notes and References:
Vs. 15: Love FOR Jesus is shown in willful obedience TO Jesus.
Vs.16-18: Another Helper is promised to walk alongside (Parakletos); He would be another of the same kind, the Spirit of Christ, who would dwell within believers.
Vs. 19: Jesus clearly gives the promise His resurrection and that of believers. (1 Cor15:20, Col 1:18, John 1:4, 11: 25-26, 2 Cor 1:20-22)
Vs. 20-21: The Resurrection and Gift of the Holy Spirit demonstrates the unity of the Trinity and empowers believers to love and obey God in experiential relationship.( 1 Cor. 15:16-19, Rom 4:13,21-25)
