John 14:18-31 Bible Teaching

John 14.end
December 14th 2014
Milk
Welcome all – near or far.

Next week in terms of a special Christmas celebration . . . we have gone to a lot of trouble and consideration to ensure there will not be one.

If you want to go to church and celebrate the Birth of the Lord please skip CAMPUS next week and attend one of the many churches which will certainly cover the story of that day with fanfare extraordinaire.

We will be continuing our verse by verse through John and will actually be introducing John 15.

Right now why don’t we pray, hear the word of God set to music, and after a few minutes of silent reflection come back to Jesus words to His disciples in John 14 beginning at verse 22.

PRAY

Okay we left off last week with Jesus telling the disciples that they were going to receive the Holy Spirit and He added (in verse 20)

“At that day (the day they would receive the Holy Breath that they shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.”

And we talked all about the Holy Spirit and how we are either worked on our parameter by His influences or He moves in by faith in Christ Jesus and begins to direct our lives.

Jesus has brought the subject of the Holy Spirit up in conjunction with the fact that He has also told the eleven that He was going away.

Because of this He has promised to send them the Spirit of Truth which would teach them and comfort them and by and through such actions Jesus has plainly said that He would be with them.

Woven right into this discussion is the topic of love.

I mean as much as He has been describing to them the Holy Spirit and His functions Jesus has talked about love.

Prefacing this chapter He washed their feet as an act of love.

And then right after He suddenly says to them in John 13:34:

“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.”

In the next verse He adds:

“By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”

At that point Peter asked Jesus where He was going and Jesus told him he couldn’t come with Him.

It caused Peter to ask: “Why can’t I follow you now? I’ll give my life for you Lord to which the Lord let Peter know that he was going to deny Him three times in very short order.

Chapter 14 opens with Jesus telling the eleven not to be troubled (at His departure).

This lead Thomas to question Jesus and Jesus taught them about His relationship to the Father.

Now remember in chapter 13 Jesus said to them:

“A new commandment I give you – to love one another.”

Then again, all of a sudden (it seems) Jesus says (at verse 15)

“If ye love me, keep my commandments.”

Somewhere in this setting Jesus felt the need to remind them about His command to love, and that this would be THE indication that they loved Him.

We mentioned that (maybe) they were upset at His departure, maybe they were telling Him that they loved Him, and this caused Jesus to reiterate:

“If you love me then keep the commandments I have given you (which was “to love each other.”)

“A new commandment I give you” – love each other.
“I am leaving” – love each other.
“If you love me” – love each other.

And right after saying this He begins to speak of the function and presence of the Holy Breath, saying:

“If you LOVE me keep my commandments AND . . . I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever.”

We see a tie to Him sending the comforter and them loving each other.

A constant tie to the presence of the Holy Spirit and love . . . present and expressed.

AGAIN . . . our last verse last week had Jesus say:

“At that day (when they received the comforter, He says) ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.”

AND ONCE AGAIN JESUS ADDS IN OUR FIRST VERSE FOR TODAY:

21 He that hath my commandments (which is to love), and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

Did you notice how often the word love is mentioned in verse 21?

Four. There is only one other verse in scripture that mentions love four times – its in Luke and it is presented as a question.

Here in John 14:21 love, love, love, love – Agapeo in the Greek is mentioned four times in this single verse alone.

The only book in the Bible that mentions love more (than how often it is mentioned here between John 14:21 and John 15:17 is 1st John – which is all about love.

But what is interesting about these passages that we are reading today is that they are where Jesus introduces and describes the Holy Spirit.

He has promised that He would asked the Father to send for this hagias pneuma in to the world to be with them but all through the narrative He reiterates that there must be love present, love abiding, love evident for each other because they love Him first.

I mean listen to the connection again between verses 20-21:

“At that day” (He says, at that day when they would receive the comforter, He says) “ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.
He that hath my commandments (which is to love), and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”

What is going on here?

I see a few things that are going on.

First, Jesus is getting ready to leave them for the cross, death, resurrection and ascension.

All that He is going to do by and through facing these things will reconcile the world to God by atoning for all sin once and for all.

No longer is sin categorized and responded to as an eye for an eye.

No longer does sin keep us out of heaven because He paid for all sin.

It is faithlessness now that keeps a person out of heaven (LISTEN NOW) and faith is best manifested by those who love not only because it is His New Commandment but because it is the fruit of the Spirit with which He sent to teach and comfort us.

This is they tie between the Holy Spirit and love – when the Holy Spirit is present LOVE is in abundance.

When love is not in abundance, the Holy Spirit is absent or lacking or is being ignored.

Here’s the overall picture that I believe (and I could be wrong) but here’s the overall picture I think needs to be seen:

Jesus is leaving His eleven in this world but He is attempting to get them to operate in the Spirit while here – and this ALWAYS means in agape love – nothing more or nothing less.

And while they or we (as believers) are here we have been gifted with the Holy Spirit which I believe literally allows us to exist spiritually in heaven (or with God) instead of just out of our flesh.

In teaching that He was going away and that He was going to reveal Himself to them but not to the world Judas not Iscariot asked a question. So let’s read to the end of the chapter as Jesus is asked a third question by a third rarely mentioned apostle, Judas not Iscariot who asks::

22 “Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?”
23 Jesus answered and said unto him, “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
24 He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.

So let’s cover verses 22-24 before wrapping up the chapter all together.

So (verse 22) Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?

First of all this apostle is perhaps the most confusing apostle of all because he has all sorts of names in scripture.

Here he is called Judas but in Matthew 10:3 he is called Labeeus whose surname is Thaddeus.

He is the brother of James the son of Alpheus and is the author of Jude.

Why Jude? He was also called Judas (not Iscariot) which is Jude for short. In any case He asks Jesus a question.

“Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?”

I think it is probably a very reasonable question, right?

Some Bible teachers say that that Judas was thinking Jesus was saying that He was going to show Himself to them after His resurrection and he wondered how that was possible to do but keep Himself hidden from the rest of the world. I don’t think so.

Jesus has said to them in verse 19:

“Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me,”

That seeing is “The-Oreo’ in the Greek and means discern Him – the world will not discern Him but they would.

This confused “Judas-Labbeus-brother of James-Jude-Thaddeus,” so he straight up asks the Lord to explain how He was going to accomplish this.

And Jesus replies with a straight up answer.

Now we know in the context of everything we have read that Jesus was saying that He was going to manifest Himself to them through the Holy Spirit.

And AGAIN – in the context of talking about this Holy Spirit Jesus ties him or it to “Love,” saying:

“If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”

Lord, how will you show yourself to us and not the world?

“If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”

This, Jesus, says, is how I will manifest myself to you and not the world.

We first love the Lord Jesus. And as a result we will (not must but will, with our love for Him proper) love each other.

And with this love abounding (so to speak) Jesus says,

“my Father will love him (the person) and we will come to him and make our abode with him.”

So much to say about this verse but I will reign myself in.

But why don’t we read a few other translations for clarification.

(RSV) Jesus answered him, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

(TCNT) “Whoever loves me,” Jesus answered,” will lay my Message to heart; and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.

Tied entirely to the answer Jesus gives to Jude is AGAIN love.

Love – first for the Son (in the Greek “if a person keeps on loving me”) he will naturally (keep my commandment) and love others” and then He says something that is really quizzical to me.

He says “and my Father will love him.”

I thought God loves all of His creations – this sounds like His love is produced by our loving Jesus and others.

It would be easy to read this passage this way but I would suggest this would be a mistake.

With John later telling us that “God is love,” and that “God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son . . .” I think we can say that God loves all creations.

But He doesn’t come and make His abode with them by virtue of the Holy Spirit does He?

No.

This is what Jesus is saying:

“If a man continues to love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him AND we will come to him and make our home with him.”

So it’s not that the Father doesn’t love others but He does not make His home with everyone except those who

“Continue in their love for His Son.”
And therefore “continue to love others.”

And when this is the case the Father and Son, by virtue of the Holy Spirit, make their home with us, giving us relationship, peace, comfort and a taste of heaven . . . here on earth.

John gives wider insight to this notion later in his epistles, saying in 1st John 2:24:

“Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father.”

When this is the case Christian’s turn from the perspectives of the world and all of its operations and begins to rejoice in the perfection of God and of Christ.

They are born-again, given new life in and through the Spirit which brings the Father and the Son into their heart home when the fire of God abides.

Prior to what Jesus is describing this happens, in other words prior to te indwelling of the Holy Spirit, every single person is alienated from God – no matter how good they appear, how rational, or reasonable or refined they may be – they are NOT housing God – and therefore cannot fathom what it is like to have Him present.

Ephesians 2:12 speaks of this state, saying:

“That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.”

Ephesians 4:18 “Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.”

Paul said to King Agrippa that he was sent to the Gentiles . . .

(Acts 26:18) To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.

Colossian 1:21-22 says:

“And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled, in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight.”

Rebirth is represented as God returning to the body and soul of Man after departing from the first Man Adam.

Of course made possible by Christ and actuated by the Holy Spirit of Life.

There is purpose in it.

Listen to 2nd Corinthians 5:17-19 which says:

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;
19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.”

I’m not going to break these passages down but when you have a moment re-read them – 2nd Corinthians 5:17-19 and read about God’s Ministry of Reconciliation.

Amazing.

I will say relative to our discussion that where Paul says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things passed away, behold all things are become new” we can boil that whole statement down to saying that when this is seen in it best light we could say “all things become LOVE.”

After the fall human kind became self-serving. Self-interested. I mean from the very moment after the Fall we have Adam pointing a finger at both God and his help-mate.

“The Woman THOU gavest me . . .” right?

With the Old man everything is “me,” everything is about “my best interest,” everything is seen under the light of self.

When a person becomes a NEW CREATURE in CHRIST such old things pass away and they become new.

This is the work of the Holy Spirit through Christ. By grace through faith God moves in by the Holy Spirit – the Father and the Son, Jesus says here – and they make their abode with us – a home. A permanent home.

And we are fully equipped to love by and through the influence of God from that moment on.

God does not move in incrementally. Jesus does not sort of save us – depending on our righteousness.

We are saved and by and through – LISTEN – His SELFLESS LOVE of utter sacrifice.

The problem is our flesh gets in the way of our realizing how present and gifted we have been in Christ.

As babes in Christ we don’t even realize it – we are typically so overwhelmed with our new houseguests and the lights and security they bring to our existences.

But in time we begin to notice the old man rearing up to try and usurp the influence of God within us.

And so we learn that valuable lesson – feed the spirit and the spirit’s strength will overwhelm the flesh.

Feed the flesh and the flesh will have the power to out maneuver the Spirit.

But again, what the flesh is killing in us is that love that Jesus keeps speaking about.

That is the new commandment – to love. Anything we do of the flesh is counter to such love because agape love is a product of the Holy Spirit derived and enhanced and fortified by our faith and reliance on Jesus.

In the very next chapter Jesus, who has been doing all the teaching here, is going to launch into an illustration for these men.

He has been talking about sending the Holy Spirit but every time he talks about it he cannot help but speak of love too.

“I’m going to send the Spirit and if you love me, you will love others as I’ve commanded. And my Father will love you and will make a home with you.”

It’s all predicated on FIRST loving Jesus.

This is made clear in the next chapter where Jesus teaches them to abide in Him as a branch abides in a vine.

But the whole point in His teaching is to illustrate the importance of us producing fruit – which are ALWAYS fruits of love.

So when Jesus says:

“If a man continues to love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him AND we will come to him and make our home with him.”

Listen – the whole purpose of Jesus coming was that God so loved the world. The whole point of Him then sending the Holy Spirit is to help us to resonate and relate and learn to live in such love.

By the Father and the Son making their abode with us we learn to live in the love here that will ultimately become our environment there.

And by this love – FIRST for Jesus and then as a result for others – God will reconcile all things to Himself.

He will have victory and the victory will be by and through love.

Nothing of the flesh. All of it by the Spirit which bears the fruit of love.

Jesus reiterates perhaps the most important point in His words to these men, saying in verse 24:

24 He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.

“Abide in me” (because you love me) and you will keep my commands to love others – you will bear fruit – this is the message He is going to launch into in the next chapter.

Then He adds (again) “and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.”

So let’s read the rest of the chapter and see if we can wrap it up.

At verse 25 Jesus says:

25 These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you.
26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
28 Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.
29 And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe.
30 Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.
31 But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence.

So in the verse prior Jesus tells them that He is speaking the words that the Father gives Him. Then (at verse 25) He reminds them that He has been talking to them and saying the things that the Father has for them BECAUSE He has been with them here on earth.

So He says:

25 These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you.

Remember, He has been telling them that He is going to leave. This has been the foundational context of all He has said because they have been troubled by His promised departure. So He tells them in verses 24 and 25:

“I’ve been saying what the Father has given me while I have been with you hear on earth” (now read verse 26)

26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

“I’ve been sharing things with you that the Father has given me to share, He says, but the comforter (the paraklete) which IS the Hagias Pneuma whom the Father will send in my name . . .”

“He shall teach you all things and bring ALL things to your remembrance WHATSOEVER I HAVE SAID UNTO YOU.”

I’ve been present with you but the holy spirit which I am going to ask the father to send to you, He will teach you all things and bring everything to your memory that I have said.

It was this promise that allows us to trust that when the apostles wrote the gospels and other epistles years later they were “Theos-pneumosed” (God breathed) or what we would say, “inspired.”

Now, the important thing about this promise that Jesus was making to them was they had been taught by the Lord while He was present on earth but AT THAT TIME they did not understand most of what He was saying.

All we have to do is read chapter 14 and the statements these apostles make and we can see that this is true.

But, Jesus says to them,

26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

So while they were still babes in Christ, not filled with the Holy Spirit and uncertain of all that was expected and awaiting them, Jesus here promises them that the Holy Spirit is coming to teach them all things and to bring to their remembrance the things He has said to them.

So, in summary, The apostles were afraid to be left alone and to have Jesus go away.

In response He makes several promises to them – promises that include He and the Father making their home with them, promises that He was going to ask the Father to send the paraklete or comforter, which He says is the Spirit of Truth.

And even though He has been with them this comforter will teach them all things, and bring all things to their remembrance whatsoever He has taught them.

And then He gives them a reassuring blessing, of sorts, one that was popular in the day, saying:

27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. (and then reassuring them as He was about to leave them He says) “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

As I said this was a common benediction that existed among the Jews at that time (as it is found in other secular writings . . . and it’s an invocation of blessings of peace and happiness.

I think it means a whole lot more to these men due to the circumstances in which it was given and the fact that the Prince of Peace Himself was bestowing it upon them.

All the way back in Isaiah Jesus is prophesied “as the prince of Peace” when Isaiah wrote (in Isaiah 9:6):

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”

But His arrival as the Prince of Peace was spoken of even earlier than Isaiah.

In Genesis, when Jacob was bestowing blessings on his sons, he said this when he got to Judah.

Genesis 49 verse 8 says:

Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father’s children shall bow down before thee.

Then verse 10 says:

10 The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.

Who or what is this Shiloh that Jacob speaks of coming through Judah.

First of all its capitalized and therefore we know it is a personal pronoun. And second of all Shiloh is a Hebrew term for . . .tranquility.

The Messiah of Tranquility. The Prince of Peace.

Notice that He tells them that He is leaving them His peace . . . “Peace I leave with you . . . MY peace I give unto you.”

“Not as the world gives give I this peace unto you.”

The peace the world gives is first and foremost temporary – like any quiet moment it will be infiltrated at some point by anxiety or annoyances.

Secondly, the peace the world gives is often a masking peace – like the peace and tranquility that comes with a nice glass of wine. It will fade . . . unless it is repeated.

Finally but paradoxically the pleasures or fame or wealth we might seek often winds up increasing the cares or anxieties rather than creating the peace we hope for.

But here’s the deal – the peace and tranquility that Jesus brings is peace won by His overcoming sin and death.

In Him is certainty. And in certainty there is peace, in abiding love cares and anxieties are lost, in total victory concerns are abated.

This is how He is the Prince of Peace.

He adds:

28 Ye have heard how I said unto you, “I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.

I don’t think when Jesus says, “If ye loved me,” He is inferring that they don’t.

I think they are professing their love for Him and in the face of these professions He is telling them, “Well if you love me you will have this view or that view of things – like my going away, for instance.

If you really love me you would rejoice over the fact that I said I am going to my Father.

“Because,” Jesus points out, “the Father is greater than I.”

Now, I have used this passage to suggest that in His flesh the Father is superior to Jesus because Jesus is limited or confined to human flesh.

I am certain that Jesus is telling these men that they ought to rejoice over where He is going because the Father is in a far better situation, a far better circumstance, a greater place than He.

Jesus is in flesh – the Father, who He is going to, is dwelling in realms of light and fire which are far greater.

It’s sort of like a man who is dying here on earth saying to his family, “Don’t feel bad about me. I’m going to a place that is wonderful and far greater than what I am leaving behind.”

In this sense the Father is greater than Jesus – which is why He was able to say this.

But we can’t forget other passages – like John 10:30 where Jesus also says:

“I and my Father are one.”

Taking all of this in we have to see that Jesus is speaking of the Father being greater than He relationally – meaning, in relation to His surroundings and His fleshly physical state – “So don’t be sad. If you love me you will rejoice because I am going to the Father and He exists in places relative to me far greater.”

Jesus wraps the chapter up saying:

29 And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe.

I have explained all this before it happens so that you will (AGAIN) believe that I am who I have claimed to be.

Then he says:

30 Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.

Jesus is about to earn the title Prince of Peace. And part of that will come by His defeating the Prince of this World who apparently Jesus discerned as heading His way.

So he says to the eleven, “the hour of my death draws in upon me (It would occur the next day) and so I will not be doing much more talking with you.

Apparently Satan came bearing some rather radical power having won the title deed of this earth back in the Garden of Eden.

It was a power he laid claim to when he tempted Jesus in the wilderness and Jesus didn’t argue with him.

Now Jesus says that Satan is headed His direction and we know from the narrative that He will put Jesus through some insufferable ordeals in the very near future.

We know that after tempting Jesus in the wilderness that Luke 4:13 says:

“And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.”

Well now he was headed back and Jesus knew it. So He tells the eleven that He would not be doing much talking with them in very short order because of it, but, Jesus adds (in the King James)

“and he has nothing in me,” which means, “but he has no place in me, no power over me, nothing in common with me.”

And He adds our last verse for the chapter:

31 But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence.

But so the world will always know that I love the Father I will do those things He has told me to do. So arise, let’s go.

Before going to meet Satan head on in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus will teach a number of other lessons – one being a parable about Him as the vine and believers as the branches.

We’ll cover this next week.

Q and A
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