John 14: 1 - 11
Q & A Time
1 “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I AM, there you may be also. 4 And where I go you know, and the way you know.” 5 Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. 7 “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.” 8 Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. 11 Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.
Have you ever in a conversation not been able to move on from a previous statement? You know when someone said something and it got you thinking. Even though the person continued to talk you were still stuck on sticking remark. Let me explain it more by what we have just studied. In the final verses of chapter 13 our Lord Jesus had made a remark to the Jews that He was going away and that they could not be able to find Him.
“33 Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come,’ so now I say to you. 34 A new Commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Our Lord stated that where He was going they could not come. Then as we have read He went on to give them a new Commandment. However, Peter wasn’t listening. He was still stuck on what the Lord had said about going away.
“36 Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, where are You going?” Jesus answered him, “Where I am going you cannot follow Me now, but you shall follow Me afterward.
The disciples loved the Lord. How would you feel if someone you loved dearly just up and says that he is going to have to go away and that you cannot come with him? Sometime in an unknown future though he will contact you and you will be able to be together again.
The Lord Jesus was very much aware of the way that lay ahead both for Himself and for His disciples. The way of trial by His fellow-countrymen followed by the cross lay heavily on His mind, as Gethsemane will reveal, but what His disciples would have to face in the future was also prominent in His thinking. He was aware that His disciples, who had faithfully followed Him and trusted Him, now fully relied on Him. He was their world. Yet, partly because of what had just occurred in respect of the possibility of betrayal, He knew that they were puzzled and bewildered, and He knew that they would soon be even more puzzled and bewildered in the face of what was to come. They had just learned that one from among themselves would betray Him and that even Peter would deny Him. And He was aware that shortly they were suddenly to be left on their own in the most trying of circumstances.
We must never underestimate the confusion and stress that the disciples would have to face. For three or more years they had followed our Lord Jesus and had learned from Him, and they had trusted Him fully and had been confident of His success as the One Who had come from God. They had been sure that through Him God was working out His purpose. Their whole certainty lay in His presence and in an earthly future that they saw lying before them. Thus when He was arrested and led off to what they knew was almost certain death it was inevitable that all their hopes and expectations would collapse. What had to them seemed a total impossibility would have taken place. It would seem to them that even God had been thwarted. No wonder their faith would collapse. And yet it was these very men who were soon to find themselves responsible for going out and presenting God’s truth to the world.
So The Lord Jesus knew at this moment that it was important that their confidence was fixed in the right place, and that they should recognize the great power that was at their disposal. Indeed that they should recognize that they would have as their helper and guide the God of all truth. Thus even while He was facing His own torment of soul He did not think of Himself. His thoughts were for them, and He now set out to lay the foundation for their future.
He takes the time to give them the confidence that their eternal future is secure. Such a certainty would undergird any problems that might arise in the future, and enable them to face whatever came with equanimity. Certainty as to their destiny would go a long way to bolstering their faith in times of trouble.
1 “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.
Conscious of their troubled thoughts and hearts He set out to encourage them. And He did it by pointing out what He would be doing for them in the future. Let them not be afraid. They must not waver in their confidence. They not only have to hold to their belief in God, they have to hold to their belief in Him. This indeed is to be their rock and their confidence, that, whatever happens, they continue to recognize in Him the One Who has come from the Father, the One Who reveals the Father, the One Who brings men to the Father, the Expected One. That is where their confidence must now lie.
Whether the verb is indicative (‘you believe’) or imperative (‘have confidence!’) matters little. Either translation of the word is strictly correct, but the meaning is the same. It is an encouragement not only to maintain their confidence in God, but also to have the same confidence in the Son of God Jesus Christ. It is a claim to equality with God.
2 In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I AM, there you may be also.
It is their confidence in Him that can also result in their confidence in their future, because, as He explains, He is going to His Father’s house, and there is ample room for them there too. They can be sure that He, when He goes, will Himself prepare a place for them. There, in His Father’s family home, there will always be a welcome for them. Their destiny is sure. So whatever happens now they can be confident for the future.
He knew that this confidence would be necessary because He knew that in the future they would be rejected, tortured, beaten, and even martyred. It was therefore necessary for them to have the assurance in their hearts that all would be well.
Nor were they to think that they were being left to look to someone else, for He stresses, “I am returning (for you)”. The emphasis here is not so much on the second coming as on the fact that He will come back for them. He will return and take them to His Father’s home, where they will share the joy of His presence, being ‘face to face’ with Him. These both refer to His welcoming arms to those of His own that die, and to His second coming when He comes for His own (1 Thessalonians 4.14-17). For the Christian hope is a dual hope, a certainty if death comes, and yet a longing rather for His coming. But either way they should be looking forward to His return in glory in order to finalize God’s purposes and to receive them into His presence.
Here is the significance of our Lord’s departure back to Heaven. He wants them not only to be sure that they have a home to go to, but also to enjoy a confidence in the successful culmination of God’s purposes, and a certainty that He will continually have their interests at heart. Thus His going will not mean that He is deserting them. Nor will it mean that He has been helplessly forced to leave them. It will rather mean that He is going in order to personally look after their interests and the eternal future for His own.
4 And where I go you know, and the way you know.” 5 Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?”
Someone may be thinking, ‘what now Thomas?’ The last time we heard Thomas say something it was recorded by our Precious Holy Spirit for posterity. Back in chapter 11 we learn about our Lord Jesus bringing Lazarus back from the dead. Prior to all this happening when the Lord was far away with the disciples He told them that it was time to return to the Jerusalem area. One disciple commented that that might not be such a good idea since they all knew that the religious leaders were planning to kill our Lord Jesus. Thomas out of the clear view speaks up that he was ready to go back to Jerusalem also and be ready to die also - really Thomas? By the way Tom who was in the group fleeing for his life when the priests and soldiers came and arrested our Lord Jesus in the Garden?
Then of course we all know his famous words after our Lord arose from the dead – “I will not believe unless…”
I have heard that many of the people in the bible were given their names and often times matched their personalities or the way they behaved. I guess my parents without knowing were fulfilling prophecy by naming me Thomas also. Like the biblical Thomas on many occasions I spoke out when in fact I should have remained silent. I think a lot of times I was stirred by emotions and responded without giving everything some serious thought.
One thing I have learned and this would be possibly good for you as well is that we should never mix our words with our mood because we'll have many options to change our mood but we will never get any option to replace our spoken words.
We had just heard Peter speak up about wanting to accompany the Lord where He said He was going. The Lord said that he could not come with Him now. So, our brother Thomas now hears our Precious Lord say that they all know where He Is going.
In a way Thomas now speaks up for all. Their minds up to this point have been set on an earthly Kingdom, and they are taking time to adjust. ‘Hey Lord Peter just said that we do not know where you are going and now you say that we do? If we do not know where You are going how can we know what way to go with You?’
We too may feel sometimes that we do not know where He has gone. Heaven may seem a strange place. But as He has just explained, what is important is that we know He is there and awaits us, and that we know Him as the Way there.
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. 7 “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”
Our Lord Jesus then explained more fully what He meant. This fact must not be under-emphasized. It is indicating that He is ‘The Way’. He is the Way to the Father because through His offering of Himself He has opened up access to the Father, both as a result of His cleansing us and making us holy, and as a result of Him clothing us in His righteousness. It is through Him alone that we can be reconciled to God.
He Is also the Way in that He has brought us truth and life. He Is thus saying the Way. First of all He Is The One Who has fully revealed truth both through His being, and through His life and His teaching, and secondly as The One Who imparts eternal life through His Spirit. In other words He Is the way because full response to Him, His words, His self-revelation, His offering of eternal life through Himself as the source of that life, Is the way to the Father. All who thus receive Him become the children of God and are born of God. Indeed we may take it further. He Is The Way because once we are in Him we will be carried by Him to our new home.
We all need to notice here our Lord Jesus’ claim to absolute uniqueness. It has been well said that He does not say, ‘I am one of many ways, I am an aspect of truth, I am a phase of life’. He tells us that He is uniquely THE way, the only way; He is uniquely THE truth, the fullness of truth; He is THE life, the source of life. All is centered in Him. He Is pivotal. In the end it is He alone Who can make essentially real in us what truth is and Who can impart life to us. Others can be pointers and signposts. But they must point to Him. He is the final goal. Others can show the way, can impart truth, and can point to life outside of themselves. But He Is the way to which they point, the truth imparted is summed up in Himself, He Is the life to be received. All the emphasis is on Him.
That is why no one can come to the Father except through Him, for it is through what He Is, and what He will do, that men are able to be forgiven, are enabled to be enlightened, and can receive eternal life. He Is the complete and total solution. All other great teachers point away from themselves, aware of their own inadequacy. He points to Himself as the One Who Is fully adequate. In this statement was a claim to a uniqueness that reveals true Godhood. To any but God such claims would have been both blasphemous and ridiculous.
The Old Testament believers came to God through the way He revealed, through sacrifices. But these sacrifices looked forward to what was to come. It was because of the Lamb of God Jesus Christ would come and offer Himself as a sacrifice that God could ‘pass over things done aforetime’ as the book of Romans 3.25 teaches.
The question our Lord Jesus wants His disciples to think and answer Him is, ‘have they fully known Him?’ Let them now recognize Who He really Is. He Is the One Who has fully revealed the Father in such a way that to have known Him is to have fully known Father God.
He Is saying that as ‘the only Son of the Father’, that is as the only One of the same substance and essence as the Father, He Is the only One Who reveals what God essentially Is. ‘He Is the outshining of His glory and the exact representation of His substance’. In consequence they not only know the Father through Him, but have actually seen the Father in Him in such a way as to describe it as having actually seen the Father. Through knowing Him they have known the Father in His essential Being.
Do you think that now the disciples all understand our Lord’s message? Is everything clear for us also? So picture our Lord’s reaction when He sees Philip’s hand go up.
8 Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.”
Philip did not quite understand what our Lord Jesus meant by their having seen the Father in Him. Like some today he thought that our Lord Jesus was simply referring to a kind of general ‘seeing of the Father’ by analogy. But he wanted something more. He wanted actually to see God. He wanted some wonderful revelation of God, some theophany, some manifestation of deity. This would have been the perfect time for Peter, James, and John to speak up and let the other disciples in on their eyewitness to our Lord’s transfiguration on the Mount. That definitely would have created a lively dialogue between them all.
9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.
Our Lord Jesus doesn’t wait for any support from anyone who had seen His Glory up close and personal. He corrects this false impression and in doing so makes clear that to have seen Him is genuinely to have seen God. He points out that He Is not just talking about them gaining a general impression of the Father from Him, but that they have actually seen the Father at work because the Father and Jesus are one in essence and being. That was why to have seen Him at work was to have actually seen the Father at work.
It was taking the disciples a long time to recognize the truth before their eyes, and we should not be surprised. They have thought of Him as ‘Teacher and Lord’, the great prophet and teacher, the supreme man of God, even the Messiah, although in a puzzling way. But the full truth had not yet dawned, and now they were faced with it with all the covers taken off. No wonder it was taking them time to grasp it.
And yet, like us, they should have known. Philip is rightly rebuked, even though gently. Our Lord Jesus is disappointed. He has been speaking God’s own actual words, He has been revealing God through His life, and has been revealing the uniqueness of His relationship with the Father to such an extent that the Father is being seen at work in Him. Have they not seen His life? Have they not listened to what He has said? Who else could have done the works that He has done but God Himself? These works were clearly uniquely the work of God.
11 Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.
Our Great King and Master now longs that the disciples may look at Him and consider His life and recognize His uniqueness as the One Who Is totally unified as One with the Father. He wants them to recognize that He fully and actually represents the Father distinctively and completely, and that because They are in such unity that when One acts the Other is acting.
Please take note of His comment in verse 11. If the disciples are not quite there yet, let them rather contemplate His works and let His works speak for Him - For while that is not finally sufficient, it is a beginning. What is important is that they should step over the line from thinking and saying, ‘Master’, to saying and understanding the significance of the words and as we should also - ‘My Lord and My God’.
