Reflection on John 14:15-31

This passage in John 14 continues Jesus' great "Farewell Discourse" where He gives His most passionate and important instructions about love and the Holy Spirit. The last sentence in this part is what Jesus said to His disciples, "Come now; let us leave." So we know that Jesus taught this part of Scripture to His disciples right before they left the Last Supper room. This little detail made the scene alive to us.

The disciples first heard Him saying, "If you love me, you will obey what I command." The proof of love is not what we say about it, it is how we live it out. Love confirms the authenticity of Jesus! Love also confirms the authenticity of Jesus' followers. Obedience is the real test and verification of genuine love. Our obedience cannot make us more justified since our justification secured in Christ alone. But our obedience as a believer does make us more like our Savior. This should be our motivation for obedience.

To encourage the disciples, Jesus later added, "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him." Jesus repeated that His true followers are the ones who listen and obey His commands. Only those true followers are able to feel and accept the love offered by the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit. Only the true followers can love the Father and the Son by demonstrating their obedience to the Word, through the help of the Holy Spirit. No one would be able to have and keep Jesus' commands without the help of the Holy Spirit. To have and keep Jesus' commands means we must never twist, contradict, or water down what is in the Scripture to make our life easier, nor are we ever to insert anything that is not there to deceive ourselves or others. Jesus' concrete promise that He will love us and show Himself to us should be our motivation to obey Him.

Then the disciples heard Jesus' precious promise to them. Jesus promised, "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither see Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you." The word "Counselor" means someone called alongside to help and strengthen or advocate. The very Spirit of God and His truth is the Authority who guides us to the revelation and understanding of His Truth and discernment from the false teaching.  The "Counselor" would soon be sent by the Father to undertake for the disciples as their Advocate, be their strength and support in weakness, be their counselor in difficulties, be their consoler in sadness, fear and affliction. "The Spirit of truth" would come to instruct and teach the inner and deeper meaning of Jesus' words, which the disciples could not understand until Jesus died, rose and returned to heaven. The Spirit of truth always reveals Himself through the unchanging truth of the Scripture which is "breathed out" through the Spirit of truth. Jesus confirmed later, "All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you." The Holy Spirit inspires and preserves the Word of Jesus that as then transcribed by His chosen writers to what we have in the Gospels. The Holy Spirit also teaches us, helps us understand, memorize, explain, and elaborate on God's Word. The Holy Spirit makes the Scripture alive and personally meaningful to us amid our wide range of circumstances. Our memory may be naturally good or terrible. When the Holy Spirit lives in our heart and we yield to His control, He will bring to our mind what Jesus has spoken to us in His Word, only if we take His Word as our daily bread by reading and rereading the Word. On the other hand, apart from the work of the Spirit of the truth, no one accepts the logic of God's revelation. Intelligence alone is insufficient for understanding the Word.

As His followers, we all agree it is the best if our Lord Jesus Christ would be present with us in this life. Imagine that He will walk, talk and share our joy and sorrow with us, or share our daily meals and memorable events with us. Could anything be better than this? I want to tell all the believers including myself to stop imagining since we don't need to. We need to grasp the spiritual reality. The Lord is present with us in this life all the time once we accept Jesus as our Savior. The Father does send the Holy Spirit to live with us and in us forever as "the exact representation" of our Lord Jesus Christ. Through the Holy Spirit, Jesus is always with us and in us forever. The Holy Spirit is another divine person, not an impersonal force. The Holy Spirit is "another like Jesus", not an "it" or an influence or a power, but a Person. We can control or manipulate a force or influence, but we can never truly control or manipulate a person, definitely not a glorious divine Person who desires to have more of us, including our obedience, love, thoughts and rights. We should never think of the Holy Spirit as a quantity or a thing that we could get more of it by techniques. We should listen and obey Him as He is the third Person of the Triune God. We need to try our best to build better and better relationship with Him. This is the true meaning of being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Jesus tells us, "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." Jesus always keeps His words by giving us the Holy Spirit to be with us and in us the moment we open our hearts to accept Him as our Savior and Redeemer. He comes to us in the Person of the Holy Spirit. With the Holy Spirit with us and in us, we are never comfortless and helpless orphans who have little rights. The Holy Spirit makes sure we get all the comfort, help and rights.

Jesus already said, "The world cannot accept" the Holy Spirit. Then He told His disciples more about the world by adding, "Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live." The world cannot accept Jesus because it chooses to reject Him, so the world will never see Him any more after Jesus was crucified and buried. After Jesus' resurrection, He appeared to His disciples, not to unbelievers who were the world. His disciples would soon see the resurrected Christ. Since Jesus defeated death and lives, all His believers defeated death and live. But the ones who refused to accept Christ by the end will have no chance to really see Him or know Him as the Savior. To His believers, Jesus said, "On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you." Which day is "that day" when the believers can understand or comprehend the closest relationship between the Father, the Son and them? There are three possible and common explanations of the timing of these great promises: Jesus' resurrection which is only a few days away; the Holy Spirit's coming seven weeks later; and Jesus' return at the close of history. But I personally think the timing "that day" has a personal significance. For me, "that day" is the day I personally started to grasp the astonishing truth: Jesus is in His Father, and believers are in Him, and He in them; and I am in Him, and He in me. Do you have your personal "that day" when you start to realize that you are in Jesus who is in His Father and in you? 

I have to admit that I haven't fully understood the concept of Trinity or Triune God. But I accept that the Father is fully God, the Son is fully God, and the Spirit is fully God. God is One and He exists eternally as three distinct persons, each fully and equally God, work together as One in all things with one will to create, redeem, sustain and accomplish the great purpose for the world.

During the Last Supper, Jesus' disciples John, Peter, Thomas and Philip all asked Him questions. Now another disciple Judas (not Judas Iscariot) asked Jesus this question, "Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?" This Judas grasped Jesus' last words about manifesting Himself to certain people. He also rightly understood that our Lord contemplates no public showing of Himself. That disappointed Judas and maybe other disciples as well. It was only a day or two ago that Jesus seemed to have begun to do what they had always wanted Him to do, manifest Himself to the world as He rode into Jerusalem with the shouting crowd. It might be possible that Judas was only expressing his honest hearty desire that the glory of Jesus Christ might not be confined to a few only, but that the whole world might see it. To Judas and the other disciples, it seemed much better the world sees the glory of Jesus instead of the modesty of Jesus. 

Jesus answered Judas, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching." Jesus explained that His Father and He can only manifest to the ones who love and obey Jesus' teaching. And more than Manifesting to them, the Father and the Son will come to them and make Their home with them. The image is as God dwelt in His Temple so He now dwells in believers' hearts and minds. On the contrary, for those who have rejected the love of God which is revealed in the Son, the Son has closed the channels of communion with God. So God cannot manifest to them because there is in them nothing which can be receptive of the manifestation of God's divine presence. God's love and manifestation can only be felt or seen by the ones who love and obey Jesus. For the people who don't look for real truth or the real God, God' love and desire for them remains. God desires for them to see Him and His love in His true believers because the world does not know God or His ways and He must be displayed in believers for others to see as He was presented by Christ for all to see. Jesus confirmed, "These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me." 

Sensing how perplexed and troubled His disciples were, Jesus paused to give them peace and assurance. He said, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." The peace Jesus leaves with the believers is not just another brand of peace, but this is His peace. He gives the gift of His own peace, the state of His own inner being.  Since we have His peace, we are backed up by the power and wisdom of God. This promise is for those who trust Jesus and depend on Him. Peace can be had, but the choice has to be made. When trouble, anxiety or fearful forebodings threaten to overwhelm us, turn to Him. Choose to confess our fear and ask for His help in trusting Him.

At Last, Jesus repeated, "You heard me saying, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.' If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I." While on earth, Jesus referred Himself as the Son of Man, He emphasized Himself as a fully man to show every man's dependency on God who is infinitely greater. In addition, when Jesus departed and was exalted with the Father in heaven, the Person of His Spirit could be with and in all believers without being limited by time and space. When Jesus was on earth as a man, He was limited by physical and time boundaries. In this sense, it is far more wonderful to have the Holy Spirit with and in believers to advance the Kingdom of God. Jesus wanted His disciples later to remember and understand everything He taught them by saying, "I told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe." And Jesus warned them, "I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me." Prince of this world is a name of Satan. He leads his vast subordinates and demons who carry out his orders and who are in conflict with God and Truth. But the prince of this world had no power over Jesus' sinless humanity. Once we accept Jesus as our Savior, He offered His sinless humanity as our invisible armor or robe to defend the enemy's arrows. Satan and his helpers can influence and entice us, but have no hold on us because of what Christ does for us. Jesus knew His enemies were ready to take Him to be crucified. The Prince of Life was about to engage in deadly battle with the prince of this world. Our Lord Jesus, the Prince of Life chose to allow the prince of this world to come to battle with Him because "the world must learn that" He loves "the Father and that" He does "exactly what His Father has commanded Him". Our Lord and Savior has won the battle as the believers' representative. He wins because He loves us and obeys His Father.