By Diane Caston
John 14:1. 14 “Let not your heart be troubled
In this section of scripture that were studying this Fall, the Apostle John alone, of the gospel writers, gives us this extensive window into the night before Jesus was crucified. This is a very familiar passage. One of many favorites, but this night was a very disturbing time for His disciples.
Jesus had told them several times in the past that His time had not yet come. He had also tried to warn them what was ahead, referring to His own death in Matt. 16:21, 17:22 and 20:17, but they couldn’t fully comprehend what He was telling them. So now, the disciples had more reason to be troubled. They were finally absorbing, over the last few days, what Jesus had said to them. Many times in the past He had said His time was not yet, but now He was saying His time was here. Now He is telling them that His time had come.
Jn 13:1 “Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come…
Matt 26:18 And He said, “Go into the city to a certain man, and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, “My time is at hand; I will keep the Passover at your house with My disciples.” ’ ”
They were also just discovering that one of them was a traitor and would betray Him, and that He was going away, but He tells them to not be troubled. Imagine the disillusionment, the disappointment, the shame, the grief, the confusion. He wasn’t going to rise up against Rome? He wasn’t going to save them from their poverty? He was going away? Where? This was definitely a troubling time! But Jesus tells them to not be troubled, or in other words to set their hearts at ease.
“He takes no delight in the doubt and disquietude of his people. When he saw that because of what he had said to them sorrow had filled the hearts of his apostles, he pleaded with them in great love, and besought them to be comforted.” (Spurgeon)
14 “Let not your heart be troubled;
This is not a suggestion or a feel-good advice. You know like when you tell your friend not to worry; everything will be alright. This was something Jesus told them to do. It was imperative!
The power to do this was in the rest of the command: you believe in God, believe also in Me. They were to believe in God, believe firmly in Jesus, put their trust in the Father and in Him. This was a radical call to trust the Father and Jesus the same, and a radical promise that if they did, they would have peace and comfort for their troubled hearts. If they focused on the Father and on Jesus they would have the power through them to trust and have faith. This is the answer to all our trials and difficulties; trust in the Lord. Trust His will for your life; look to Him for understanding, even when nothing makes sense. Only by trusting our Father can we turn away from circumstances and have faith to trust in God.
Jesus gives them hope.
2In 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.
“His disciples felt His departure like a torture. And it was then that He consoled them with such simple and glorious speech that all Christendom is the debtor to their agony.” (Morrison)
They were not to think of Him as having ceased to be when they could not see Him. He had only gone to another abiding-place to prepare for their coming; and moreover, He would come back to receive them.” (Morgan)
The reasons for, and solutions to, calming a troubled heart is the hope of a future reunion in the Father’s house. In my Father’s house are many dwelling places. Jesus spoke with complete confidence about Heaven as His Father’s house. He didn’t wonder; He knew, and there was room enough for everyone there. He saw what they could not see, multitudes from every tribe, nation and tongue around the throne praising God. He lifts their vision to this place above – not on what would be happening the next few days, but to what was ahead, to the future reward. He was going away to prepare a place for them and for us!
We are a work in progress here on earth. He is conforming us to His image. In the meantime, He is preparing an inheritance for us.
1 Peter 1:3-4 …Blessed by the God and Father or our Lord Jesus Christ, according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.
He goes to prepare a place. Love prepares a welcome. Jesus goes to prepare a place for us, to get it all ready, to make it just so, because He loves us. You know how it is when you have company over. The house has to be clean, the food made specially. It’s an occasion! That is what Jesus is doing now.
“I go” speaks of planning. He wasn’t taken to the cross; He went willingly to the cross.
Everything there in heaven will be everything we have ever longed for. It is not an ethereal place. It’s a real place. The former things will not be remembered there; the tears and pain will be gone. We will have the mental capacity to understand the things of God, to know people, thousands upon thousands of them by name. It will be the perfect place for you; the perfect “home”, all that “home” portrays to you, a safe place, a warm place, where you love and are loved eternally. The entire focus of heaven is Jesus. He makes all of this possible. Heaven is heaven, because Jesus is there.
I have memories of a project we did as a surprise for our pastor’s wife. We made a large quilt for her. The time sitting around the quilt frame, quilting, fellowshipping, and praying while the children played and ran around us always made me think of how heaven will be. Together with the ones we love, occupied in some service, with Jesus at the center. He gives us glimpes of our future home to encourage out hearts.
He is coming again to receive us. He is not sending angels. He is coming Himself to receive us. I knew this verse a long time before I realized it could be refering to the Rapture. This is not the second coming when He comes to the earth again, and He is not talking about our personal resurrection, because He is coming to get us. He is not coming to the earth to get us, but coming in the air to get us, and take us to our heavenly home, when the time is fulfilled. A great gathering is being prepared, that where He is, we will be also!!
Many trials and difficulties may be ahead for us on this earth, but the way to not be troubled is to trust what Jesus said as true, and set your mind on the heavenly home Jesus is preparing for you.
“This was a very precious promise to the early Church, and Paul may well be echoing it when he informs the Thessalonians ‘by the word of the Lord’ that Jesus will descend from heaven and gather believers unto Himself to be with Him forever in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 ).” (Tasker)
4And where I go you know, and the way you know. ”Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?”Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
It is difficult to interpret it without seeing the Father and the Son as in some sense one. These are words which no mere man has a right to use.” (Morris)
Now Thomas gets a bad rap in scripture for being a critical thinker! Doubting Thomas they called him, but aren’t you glad he said what most of them probably thought? Thomas did us a favor by asking Jesus to clarify the confusion. Because he did, we have the declaration that the only way to eternal life and our heavenly home that awaits us, is through Jesus Christ. He is The Way, The Truth, and The Life. You can make up any other way by whatever false god you want to, but that doesn’t change the truth. It is all about Him and none of us would even exist, saved or not, apart from Him.
“Without the way there is no going; without the truth there is no knowing; without the life there is no living. I am the way which thou must follow; the truth in which thou must believe; the life for which thou must hope.” (a’ Kempis, cited by Bruce)
“If this seems offensively exclusive, let it be borne in mind that the one who makes this claim is the incarnate Word, the revealer of the Father.” (Bruce)
7 “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”
No man comes to the Father; no man can realize who the Father is apart from Jesus. This is why He is the only way. This is how they could call God, Father, not just the invisible eternal God. They had never thought of God this way. He had many names in the Old Testament, but Father was not one of them. They thought of God that as He was revealed in the Old Testament through fire and the cloud. The One who came to Mount Sinai and gave the law. He did many mighty miracles and spoke through Moses and angels but was never known as a Father. Through Jesus, they could call Him Father, to truly know Him as a Father who has a house and has given birth to children and has a family and an inheritance for them. Jesus is that perfect representation of the Father. If they have seen Jesus; they have seen the Father.
Jn 1:18 No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
2 Cor. 5:19 God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself
Vs. 8 Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” 9Jesus 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. 11Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.
“Thus we notice how they speak to him with a natural, easy familiarity; and he talks to them in full sympathy with their weakness, teaching them little by little as they are able to learn. They ask just such questions as a boy might ask of his father. Often, they show their ignorance, but never do they seem timid in his presence, or ashamed to let him see how shallow and hard of understanding they are.” (Spurgeon)
Could any creature say these words? Do they not evidently imply that Christ declared himself to his disciples to be the everlasting God?” (Clarke)
Jesus chides Philip’s seeking an explanation to how He and the Father are One. They should have been able to see and understand this from being with Him. They were close to Jesus, but still didn’t understand Him. The same can be true for us today. We can often be so blind to the things the Lord is trying to show us. Seeing Jesus in action was seeing the Father. This further dismisses the idea of the Old Testament view of the judgmental, vengeful, cruel God vs. Jesus the nicer, gentler, kinder God in the New Testament.
Ex 34:5-7 Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. 6And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, 7 keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty. This is the same God revealed in Jesus Christ!
He who has seen Jesus has seen the Father. Could anyone else say this? Could a good teacher, a prophet, a holy man? No one could say this except God Himself in human form. Jesus repeatedly told his disciples that He didn’t speak on His own authority. He spoke out of constant dependance on His Father.
And if they didn’t believe His words, look at the works. Who could do those miraculous works apart from God? The works were proof that He and the Father were the same.
12 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.
These last few verses are to reassure these troubled disciples. His work would continue here on earth.
Guzik says, “Instead of this being the end and thinking the work is over, and we all got fired! No, they didn’t get fired. They got promoted and promoted to greater things!”
Again, He repeats the words from verse 1, “He who believes in Me”. He encourages them again to trust in, rely on, cling to Him in faith, and if they would do this, the works Jesus did, they would do also! Jesus expects those who believe to carry on His work to an even greater extent. The ‘works’ would still be His works, but carried out by the disciples with the Holy Spirit working in them. Greater works, not more sensational, but greater in magnitude. They could reach more people than Jesus would have been able to.
Through the book of Acts that we studied recently, we saw many miracles of healing, but we saw many more miracles of conversions. Because Jesus went to His Father the Holy Spirit was able to come and His work would be massively expanded. We will learn more about that next week.
Vs. 13-14 And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.
Finally, some people really take this verse out of context. This is not some kind of credit card from heaven. Ask anything in my name, and I will do it. Many a teacher has erred and lead many to disillusioned faith through these words. Name it and claim it, or blab it and grab it. Could we really think we could ask for things selfishly and receive them? Could we pray revenge on our enemies? These things that we ask, it implies in the verse are things that will glorify the Father, through the Son. And if we follow Him closely that would always be our goal, right?
Chapter 15:7 clarifies 7 “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, youwill ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.”
To ask ‘in His name’ or do anything ‘in His name’ argues a unity of mind with His, a unity of aim and of motive.” (Trench)
This should be the supreme objective of all that we do.
So let not your heart be troubled! Believe in God the Father and the Son, and you can live in peace in all situations!