THE INDWELLING OF THE FATHER AND THE SON.
John 14:21-24.
* Back in John 14:15, we saw how closely our love and our obedience are bound together: “If ye love Me, keep my commandments.”
In John 14:21, Jesus develops this thought. It is not the mere ‘having’ of His commandments that demonstrates our love to Him, but the ‘KEEPING’ of them. As John says elsewhere, ‘Hereby do we know that we know Him: if we keep His commandments’ (cf. 1 John 2:3).
Jesus continues in John 14:21, “and He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love Him, and will manifest myself to him.” This does not mean that we earn the love of God by our works: the Father has already demonstrated His love to us by sending His Son to die for us, and Jesus has demonstrated His love by fulfilling that task.
However, what Jesus is referring to here is a special manifestation of Himself to those who prove their love by their life. To quote John again, ‘But whoso keepeth His word, in him verily is the love of God PERFECTED’ (cf. 1 John 2:5). You have to live it to know it!
*John 14:22-24. What follows comes by way of response to the question of Judas (not Iscariot), “Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?” (John 14:22).
Typical of the disciples and many of their Jewish contemporaries, this Judas seems to be expecting the Messiah to be a Maccabean type leader who will raise an army to vanquish the Romans from the Promised Land. This notion Jesus always resisted (e.g. John 6:15). The Lord’s own understanding of His exaltation was of a different order, and it included a Cross (cf. John 12:32).
Jesus’ answer is that the manifestation of His Messiah-ship is of a much more personal nature. He will not manifest Himself to everyone, but only to those who love Him and keep His “word” (John 14:23a).
Jesus says of those who love Him and keep His word that “My Father will love” them (John 14:23b).
Jesus is talking here of a particular delight that the Father has in those who have ‘known and believed the love that God has for us’ (1 John 4:16a). The result is a Spiritual abiding of the Father and the Son with such a person (John 14:23c; cf. 1 John 4:16b).
Those who do not love the Lord do not keep His words (John 14:24a; cf. John 8:42). Yet the word that Jesus speaks is the word of the Father who sent Him (John 14:24b; cf. John 7:16; John 5:38). So do WE believe it (cf. John 14:10)?
