February 7, 2016 John 13:36-14:15
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Jesus continues the last extended discourse before His arrest. The disciples continue to try to understand what He is telling them (just as we do). In particular, three of His followers question Him, and He responds to each of them.
The Lord has just told His small remaining band of followers that He would be going away (John 13:33). Peter (usually the first one to speak as we have seen often) has the first question. Even though Jesus has some other important words about a “new commandment” to love each other (v. 34-35), Peter didn’t seem to get past the anxiety he felt about Jesus leaving: “Lord, where are you going?” (v. 36). Jesus (gently we imagine) corrects Peter’s bravado about laying down his life. Our discussion group noted the irony of Peter’s boasting: Jesus was soon to lay down His life for Peter.
If His tone was gentle, His words were still devastating: “You will deny Me” (John 13:38). Imagine what Peter must have been thinking and feeling if he believed Jesus’ words. Imagine the shock of the other disciples at the thought of one of their strongest coworkers turning against their Leader. (Consider yesterday’s Super Bowl. What if the day before the game Coach Gary Kubiak told Peyton Manning, in front of the whole team, that Peyton would throw the game, purposely losing?)
Whatever Peter felt, Jesus followed His shocking prediction with words of comfort. The unfortunate location of this particular chapter division threatens to obscure the next statement Jesus makes to Peter and the rest of the disciples: “Do not let your hearts be troubled” (John 14:1). The disciples should have hope and confidence in the overwhelming events that were soon to engulf them. The reason was the promise of “My Father’s house.” No matter what happens, even with Peter’s unfaithfulness, there is a place for all of them, “many dwelling places” (v. 2). One of the questions at the beginning of our discussion related to that statement. Exactly what is a dwelling place? And why is that the focus of the reassurance Jesus offers? Our discussion returned to that question later, as described below.
Peter’s question (“Lord, where are you going?”) led to another question, this time by Thomas. Thomas may not have been as impetuous as Peter in his responses to Jesus, but we have seen a bit of that side of him. Earlier (John 11:1-8) the disciples had talked about the danger of visiting the ailing Lazarus because Bethany was so close to the hostile Jews in Jerusalem. Thomas was the disciple who seemed to end the debate: “Let us also go, so that we may die with Him” (John 11:16). Now Thomas speaks up again, perhaps rephrasing or trying to clarify Peter’s question: “Lord, we do not know the where you are going, how do we know the way?” (John 14:5). The answer Jesus gives is one of the most familiar verses expressing the unique means of salvation He offers: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (John 14:6). Thomas, like Peter, is thinking geographically. Jesus is responding theologically. The way is not a road or a map but a Person.
The way is a Person, and so is the destination. Jesus expands His answer to Thomas. The Father is the destination that is accessed only through the Son. Once again, Jesus answers the disciples’ misdirected questions by directing them back to His Father. Our group discussed the relational center of Jesus’ teaching, that His relationship with the Father and His mission on behalf of the Father were His constant themes. What the disciples were slow to grasp (as we often are) is that the priority Jesus had for them was also that same relationship, sharing in His fellowship with the Father.
The response to Thomas continues with Jesus associating Himself with the Father: “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also” (v. 7). Since He kept answering their questions with references to the Father, Philip may have been beginning to catch on when He asked Jesus to show them the Father (v. 8). Jesus is the perfect representation of God (Hebrews 1:3) with the expression of God’s glory in His face (2 Corinthians 4:6). The disciples asking for Him to show them the Father had to be a disappointment to the fully-human rabbi they had been following for three years. Perhaps a bit of sadness was in Jesus voice when He responded, “Have I been so long with you and yet you have not come to know Me?” (v. 9). Jesus desired that their relationship with Him would enable them to anticipate the eternal relationship with the Father. Once more He attempts to describe the eternal relationship He has with the Father (v. 9b, 10). The perfect relationality of “I am in the Father and the Father is in Me” was probably no easier for the eleven disciples to understand than it is for us. We have the benefit of the rest of the written New Testament (the Hebrews and Corinthian verses mentioned above), as well as millennia of church history, such as the Nicene Creed, “God of God; Light of Light; Very God of Very God; begotten, not made; being of one substance with the Father.” We do our best to understand that relationship.
When Jesus said He is the truth (v. 6), this relational reality is a central part of what He was expressing. He told the disciples to believe that truth (v. 11). But He also made it clear that a perfect understanding of the Trinity is not necessary for genuine faith: “otherwise believe because of the works themselves” (v. 11b). Belief in the relationship between Jesus and the Father is a core part of what Jesus taught and what He expects His followers to believe and to emulate in their unity (John 17). To know Jesus as deeply as possible means to understand and appreciate (as much as we can) the relationship that was most important to Him. Too often well-meaning Christians ignore or dismiss the doctrine of the Trinity as too complicated, or as an incomprehensible mystery, or as a theological detail with no practical application. Certainly nothing about the infinite Creator God is fully comprehensible by finite fallen creatures. But we do our best. We can strive to understand as much as God will show us (and what He has shown us in Scripture). After the study of the Gospel of John and other passages about the relationships between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, a good next step would be John Owen’s Communion With God.[1] Owen (a 17th-century Puritan) wrote about our distinct fellowship we can have with each Person of the Trinity.
Jesus answered the questions from all three of the disciples with His emphasis on the Father. That relational theme brought our discussion back to one of the original questions: What are the “dwelling places” Jesus mentioned in His words of comfort to Peter and the others (John 14:2)? Several comments included thoughts about dwelling places, such as “home” or “a place where we belong” or “where we can be who we are.” The dwelling places Jesus promises are not individual, isolated residences. Just as mentioned before, the disciples may have been thinking geographically, but Jesus was responding theologically. The dwelling places He had in mind are where we can experience the joyful relationship He has shared with the Father for all eternity. That anticipation is a source of joy even now, or as one group member expressed, “the anticipation is the joy.” C. S. Lewis said as much in his spiritual autobiography, Surprised by Joy. He referred to a sense of longing that cannot be fully satisfied by anything in this world. He described “the longing for Joy, or rather the longing which was Joy.”[2]
In an earlier passage we discussed Jesus’ clear understanding, “knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God” (John 13:3). The knowledge of His imminent return to the Father was “the joy set before Him” that enabled Him to endure the cross (Hebrews 12:2). This is our motivation for doing our best to understand the Trinity. The goal is not to develop impressive theological outlines or win debates with Jehovah’s Witnesses at our door. Those may be beneficial side effects. But the deepest motivation for studying and reading and talking about the Triune God is to know Him better, to begin to experience the joy Jesus had in His relationship with the Father. To understand the mission of Jesus and to honor His teaching we are called to “believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me.” The more we know of that relational reality, the more we will know Jesus, and the Father He glorified, and the Spirit who reveals them to us.
[1] John Owen, R.J.K.Law, ed., Communion With God (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1991).
[2] C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1955), 175, emphasis his.