Chapter XIV (1)

Ch. 14:1-31. THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY--THE DIVINE IMMANENCE.--THE PROMISE OF THE COMFORTER: INVISIBLE, INDWELLING, ABIDING.--THE CONDITION OF THE PROMISE: THE OBEDIENCE OF LOVE.--THE RESULT: A FRUITFUL, SPIRITUAL LIFE, COMFORT, INSTRUCTION, PEACE, JOY, LOVE.

PRELIMINARY NOTE.--The 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th chapters of John are the Holy of Holies of the Bible. Christ is about to depart from his disciples; the cloud of the coming trouble casts its shadow on their hearts; he sees clearly, they feel vaguely the impending tragedy. They are to behold their Master spit upon, abused, execrated; they are to see him suffering the tortures of a lingering death upon the cross; they are to be utterly unable to interfere for his succor or even for his relief; they are to see all the hopes which they had built on him extinguished in his death. It is that he may prepare them for this experience, that he may prepare his disciples throughout all time (ch. 17:20) for similar experiences of world-sorrow (ch. 16:33), and that he may point out to them and to the church universal the source of their hope, their peace, their joy, and their life--moral and spiritual--that he speaks to the twelve, and through them to his discipleship in all ages, in these chapters, and finally offers for them and for us that prayer which we may well accept as the disclosure of his eternal intercession for his followers. The discourse is sympathetic, not philosophical or critical; it is addressed to sympathetic friends, not to a cold or critical audience; and it is to be interpreted rather by the sympathies and the spiritual experience than by a philosophical analysis. It sets forth the source of all comfort, strength, guidance and spiritual well-being in the truth of the direct personal presence of a seemingly absent but really present, a seemingly slain but really living, a seemingly defeated but really victorious Lord and Master. This truth appears and reappears in various forms in these chapters, like the theme in a sublime symphony. Now it is plainly stated, “I will come to you” (ch. 14:18); now it is interpreted by a metaphor, “Ye are the vine, I am the branches” (ch. 15:5); now it is a promise of the Spirit’s presence, now of Christ’s, now of the Father’s (ch. 14:16, 18, 21, 23); now the disciples are bid to turn their thoughts toward this spiritual presence, this Divine Immanence, for their own sake (ch. 16:7), now they are appealed to by the love they bear the Master (ch. 14:28). The conditions of this personal experience of the unseen spiritual presence of their God and Saviour is declared to be obedience in the daily life to the law of love (ch. 14:21, 23; 15:10); the result is declared to be a constant growth in the knowledge of divine truth (ch. 14:26; 16:12, 13); a sacred peace and joy (ch. 14:27; 15:11); a supernatural strength in sorrow (16:20-22). These truths are not logically arranged; the structure of the discourse is not that of a sermon, but that of a confidential conversation, in which in different forms the same essential truth is repeated and re-repeated, because the heart is so full that a single utterance does not suffice, and the truth is so transcendent that no logical statement is adequate. After the conversation is closed and the disciples rise to depart, Christ recurs to the theme in a new form, and continues the discourse, while the disciples wait standing for a new signal to go out (ch. 14:31; ch. 15, Prel. Note); and, finally, when for a second time he draws his discourse to a close, he re-embodies the same consolatory and inspiring truth in a prayer, breathing the aspiration that the reward and secret and source of his own power may be given to his disciples, sent into the world to complete the mission which he has but inaugurated (ch. 17:18). Thus these chapters of John contain a disclosure of the very heart of Christianity, the personal knowledge of a living God by direct communion with him, as a teacher, a comforter, an inspirer, the one and only true source of faith, hope, love. The commentator must point out the connection of the verses and the meaning of the words; his work must be in a measure critical and cold; but only the devout heart, which knows by experience that love of Christ which passes the knowledge of the intellect, can interpret the spiritual meaning of the truth, since the condition of understanding it is not a critical knowledge of words or an intellectual apprehension of theology, but a love for Christ that keeps Christ’s words, that recognizes Christ’s mission to be also the mission of the Christian, and that abides in Christ in the spirit that it may follow Christ in the life. Without this spirit the student in vain addresses himself to the study of this “wisdom of God in a mystery,” hidden except to the soul to whom God hath revealed it by his Spirit (1 Cor. 2:7-10).

1 Let[542] not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God,
believe[543] also in me.

[542] verse 27; Isa. 43:1, 2; 2 Thess. 2:2.

[543] Isa. 12:2, 3; Ephes. 1:12, 13; 1 Pet. 1:21.

2 In my Father’s house are many mansions: if _it were_ not
_so_, I would have told you. I go[544] to prepare a place
for you.

[544] Heb. 6:20; 9:8, 24; Rev. 21:2.

3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will[545] come
again, and receive you unto myself: that[546] where I am,
_there_ ye may be also.

[545] Heb. 9:28.

[546] ch. 12:26; 17:24; 1 Thess. 4:17.

=1-3. Let not your heart be troubled.= In this hour of unparalleled sorrow, with Gethsemane, the betrayal, the denial, the mock trials and the crucifixion full in view, Christ thinks not of himself, but of his disciples. He does not seek comfort, but imparts it. We may well imagine a momentary silence after the prophecy of the preceding verses. The disappointment of the Judaic expectation of temporal and political deliverance, the prophecy of treason, the sudden and unexpected departure of Judas, the prophecy of Peter’s denial, and of the abandonment of their Lord by the other disciples, have all tended to sober and sadden them.--=Ye have faith in God, have faith also in me.= The forms of the indicative and the imperative are the same (πιστεύετε). Some critics read both verbs indicative, _Ye have faith in God, ye have faith also in me_; some both imperative; treating both as an exhortation, _Have faith in God; have faith also in me_; and some, as our English version, which makes the statement of the first clause the ground of the exhortation of the second clause, _Ye have faith in God, have faith also in me_. Either rendering is grammatically legitimate; the latter seems to me preferable. As Jews they had faith in the one only true and living God; a faith which, in the experience of patriarchs and prophets, trial and trouble had not been able to shake (Hab. 3:17, 18). Christ urges them to a like faith in him, a faith strong enough to survive the brief though terrible separation of death. Theism is the foundation of Christianity; faith in one only living and true God precedes and prepares the way for faith in Christ his Son, the living and true way to the Father. To believe in him is not to believe anything about him, nor merely to trust in him, but to have such a spiritual apprehension of his character, that when he is crucified the disciples shall not lose their confidence in him as the Messiah. He warns them against that doubt which augmented and intensified their distress when they saw him whom they had trusted should have redeemed Israel put to an open shame and a cruel death (Luke 24:21). They were trusting in themselves. Peter’s declaration, “I will lay down my life for thy sake,” expressed the common confidence of all (Mark 14:31). Christ first demolished this false confidence, then seeks to build up a new and better confidence in himself.--=In my Father’s house are many dwelling-places.= The phrase “my Father’s house” is generally regarded as a circumlocution for heaven; Christ’s declaration as tantamount to the general statement that in heaven there is room enough for them all (_Alford_, _Meyer_, etc.); and in support of this view such O. T. passages as Ps. 23:13, 14; Isaiah 63:15, are quoted, which refer to the heavens as God’s habitation. I would rather regard the universe as God’s house according to the spirit of Isaiah 66:1, “Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool,” and the declaration that in it are many dwelling-places, as a new light thrown upon the abode of the dead who die in Christ Jesus. The ancients regarded Hades, or the abode of the dead, a deep and dark abode in the under-world, fastened with gates and bars, a ghostly abode, a prison-house of the disembodied (Job 10:21, 22; 11:8; Ps. 88:6; 89:48; Eccles. 9:4; Isa. 5:14; 14:9-20, 38:10; Ezek. 31:17; 32:21). The O. T. thought of death and the abode of the dead was hardly more hopeful than that of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Homer makes the dead Achilles declare:

“I would be
A laborer on earth and serve for hire
Some man of mean estate, who makes scant cheer,
Rather than reign over all who have gone down
To death.”

Parallel to this, in some respects more gloomy, were the ancient Hebrews’ thoughts of Hades. Dying was bidding farewell to God. “Wilt thou show wonders to the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise thee? * * * Shall thy righteousness be known in the land of forgetfulness?” (Ps. 88:10-12). “In death there is no remembrance of thee” (Ps. 6:5). Comp. Isaiah, ch. 38, and Job, ch. 14. The hope of better things is but an occasional gleam in a night of great darkness and almost despair. See Job 10:21, 22; Ps. 89:45-49; Eccles. 9:4; Isaiah 5:14, 15; 14:9-20; Ezek. 31:16, 17; and especially Isaiah, ch. 38, and Job, ch. 14. In contrast with this gloomy view of death is that of the N. T., the germ of which is afforded by Christ’s declaration here, which may be paraphrased thus: “The earth is not the only abode of God’s children; in my Father’s house (the universe) are many dwelling-places for them; and I, in leaving you, am not going to the dark abode of the voiceless dead, but to prepare for you a place, and to return again to take you to myself, that you may witness and share the glory which I have with the Father.” Out of this declaration grows, as a fruitful tree out of a seed, the whole of the discourse contained in this and the two following chapters. Out of it grows, too, the Christian’s conception of and experience in death. See for example 2 Cor. 5:1-4. It should be added that the word _house_ (οἰκία) is never used in the N. T. as a designation of heaven, but with the analogous word (οἷκος) _household_, is used of the world (John 8:35), the temple (John 2:16), and the whole kingdom of God (Heb. 3:2-6); so that N. T. usage confirms the interpretation here given. The word rendered _mansions_ (μονή) occurs nowhere else in the N. T., but is derived from a verb (μένω) signifying to _abide_, and here unquestionably indicates not a _mansion_, but simply a permanent dwelling-place. This was indeed the original meaning of the English word mansion (Fr. _maison_).--=If not, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?= The reference is to some previous statement not preserved in our Gospels. The argument is this: I could not have assured you, as I have done, that I am going to prepare a place for you, if the place of the dead were the dark abode which you have imagined it to be. This, which is the interpretation of the French translation, seems to me, notwithstanding the objection of the modern writers (_Meyer_, _Godet_, _Tholuck_, etc.), better than the construction of our English version, though either is grammatically admissible. If we take the other construction, the connection is as Godet gives it: “If our separation was to be an eternal one, I would have forewarned you; I would not have waited for this last moment to declare it unto you.”--=And if I go and prepare a place for you.= The implication of this entire passage is not merely “heaven large enough for all,” but a heaven with various provisions for various natures. In the Father’s house is not merely a large mansion, but _many_ mansions; and there is prepared a place not merely for all but for _you_, a personal preparation in glory _for_ each child as by grace _in_ each child; a room, a house for each nature adapted to its needs. But how does Christ _prepare_ a place for us? To that question revelation makes no answer. We can only say that redemption did not end with Christ’s death, that he is still carrying on his work of redeeming love for us as well as in us. In every death of a friend he lays up treasure in heaven for us; those that have gone before and entered into their rest, and await our coming, are a part of this divine preparation. The sorrow here is a part of the preparation of unmeasured joy hereafter.--=I will come again and receive you unto myself.= In order to understand this, we must bear in mind what Stier well calls the perspective of prophecy. “The coming again of the Lord is not one single act--as his resurrection, or the descent of the Spirit, or his second personal advent, or the final coming in judgment--but the combination of all these, the result of which shall be his taking his people to himself to be where he is. This coming is begun (ver. 18) in his resurrection; carried on (ver. 23) in the spiritual life (see also ch. 16:22, etc.), the making them ready for the place prepared; further advanced when each by death is fetched away to be with him (Phil. 1:23); fully completed at His coming in glory when they shall be forever with Him (1 Thess. 4:17) in the perfected resurrection state.”--(_Alford._)--=That.= _In order that_ (ἵνα). The going, the preparing, the returning are all for the sake of them, his disciples.--=Where I am there ye may be also.= Death is no longer “farewell to God;” it is going home to be forever with the Lord (ch. 17:24; Phil. 1:23; 1 Thess. 4:17).

4 And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.

5 Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou
goest; and how can we know the way?

=4, 5. And whither I go= (ye know and) =the way ye know=. There is some doubt as to the reading; most critics (_Meyer_, _Alford_, _Tischendorf_, _Lachmann_) either omit or doubt the words I put in brackets. But their omission obscures without changing the sense; the meaning is undoubtedly that conveyed by our Received Version. While in form a statement, it is in fact an inquiry; its object is to provoke questioning, as it does from Thomas. Whither he goes is to the Father (ch. 20:17); the way he goes is the way of death and resurrection, already foretold them (Matt. 16:21; 17:22, 23; 20:17-19).--=Thomas saith unto him, We know not=, etc. On the character of Thomas, see ch. 20:26. The few indications of his character afforded by the Gospels (John 11:16; 20:24-29) show him to have possessed an affectionate but unimaginative nature, desiring much, hoping little, and easily given to despair. Such a nature takes nothing for granted; it wants every statement explained, nothing left to the imagination, nothing to the interpretation of the future. “The heavenly _whither_, however distinctly Jesus had already designated it, Thomas did not yet know clearly how to combine with his circle of Messianic ideas; but he desired to arrive at clearness.”--(_Meyer._)

6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the[547] way, and the
truth,[548] and the life:[549] no[550] man cometh unto the
Father, but by me.

[547] ch. 10:9; Isa. 35:8, 9; Heb. 10:19, 20.

[548] ch. 1:17; 15:1.

[549] ch. 1:4; 11:25.

[550] Acts 4:12.

7 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also:
and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.

=6, 7. Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life.= This is not directly responsive to the implied question of Thomas. That is theoretical; this is practical. The disciples desire to understand the way by which Christ is to depart, and the place to which he is going; Christ’s answer points out the way in and by which the disciple can follow his Lord and be with him where he is. There is here, therefore, not merely a play upon the word “way,” though Christ uses it in one sense in ver. 4 and in a different sense in ver. 6; but the same word is used to turn the thoughts of the inquirer from a purely theoretical question about Christ to a practical truth concerning himself. It was always the habit of Christ to answer questions in theoretical theology by directions helpful to the spiritual life (see ver. 22-24; ch. 3:4-6; 4:19-24). The phrase, _I am the way, the truth, and the life_, may be interpreted, according to Lightfoot, as a Hebraism equivalent to the true and living way; but it is better to take the two latter phrases as explanations of the former. Christ is the way unto the Father, not because he points out the way, but because he is the truth concerning the Father, and possesses in himself the divine life, and has power to impart it to us. He does not merely reveal the truth; he _is_ the truth; the truth incarnated in a living form; the truth of God, whom he manifests to the world (Matt. 11:27; John 1:1, 2, 14; 10:30; Phil. 2:6; Col. 2:9; Heb. 1:13), and the truth of life, which he illustrates more forcibly by his example than by his words, so that all his precepts are summed up in the one command, “Follow me.” He is the life, having life in himself (ch. 5:26), imparting it to others (ch. 10:10), and so giving them power to become sons of God (ch. 1:12) by the possession of that divine life without which no man can ever see God (ch. 3:3; Heb. 12:14). To come to the Father by Christ as the way is not, then, merely to accept him as an inspired teacher respecting the Father, nor merely as an atoning sacrifice, whose blood cleanses away the sins which intervene between the soul and the Father (Heb. 10:20); it is to be conformed to him as to the truth, and to be made partaker of his life (Phil. 3:8-14).--=No one cometh to the Father but by me.= He now says “to the Father,” not to the Father’s house, because, as Godet well says, “It is not in heaven that we are to find God, but in God that we are to find heaven.” By _me_ is equivalent to, by me as the way, the truth, and the life. This does not necessarily require a knowledge of, still less a correct theological opinion concerning Christ. The conception of God’s character may be really derived from Christ’s teaching, the life may be conformed to Christ’s example, and the soul may be partaker of his spirit, and yet the individual may be unconscious of the source from which he has derived his knowledge of God, his ideal of life, and his inspiration. This declaration is inclusive rather than exclusive; it is equivalent to that of ch. 1:9 (see note there), “That was the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” All spiritual life comes through Christ, but not necessarily through a clear and correct knowledge about Christ.--=If ye had known me ye should have known my Father also.= Comp. ch. 8:19. The practical lesson for us clearly is that the way to come to a true spiritual knowledge of the Father is by a study of the life and character of Christ, and above all by a sympathetic and personal spiritual acquaintance with him. His disciples had not known Christ. They had up to this time believed in him as a temporal Messiah. Of a Messiah crucified, the power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation to Gentile as well as Jew (1 Cor. 1:24), they had known nothing, and hence of God as their Father and their Friend they knew nothing.--=From henceforth ye have known him and have seen him.= From this time. He refers to what he has already disclosed of the divine nature, in the washing of the disciples’ feet, in the prophecy of his own betrayal and death, and in what he is about to tell them of the spiritual presence of himself and the Father, through the Holy Spirit, in their hearts. From the time of this disclosure it will indeed be their own fault if they fail to comprehend, at least in some measure, “the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ (and so the love of the Father revealed in and through Christ), which passeth knowledge” (Ephes 3:18, 19).

8 Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father and it
sufficeth us.

9 Jesus saith unto him. Have I been so long time with you,
and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he[551] that hath
seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou _then_,
Shew us the Father?

[551] Col. 1:15.

=8, 9. Philip saith unto him, Shew us the Father and it sufficeth us.= On Philip’s life and character, see Vol. I, p. 149. Compare the request of Moses (Exod. 33:18). Philip has in mind the O. T. appearances of God; he wants such a manifestation of the Deity, _a seeing_ of God. “One such sight of God would set at rest all these fears, and give him perfect confidence.”--(_Alford._) He wants to walk by sight, and not by faith. He expresses the universal longing of humanity for a vision of the unknown. This request furnishes the text on which the following discourse is founded. Christ replies that the unknown Father is manifested to the world in his Son (ver. 9-11), and in the spiritual life, the inward experience, of those that love him and keep his commandments (ver. 15-21); he points out the way to secure this inward experience, namely, by loving the Son and keeping his commandments (ver. 22-26); he declares that this indwelling of the Father in the soul of the believer brings abundant peace (ver. 27-31); it is more than a vision, it is an abiding, by which the life of God flows into the soul of man, making it partaker of the divine nature and fruitful in works of divine love (ch. 15:1-8); this love, patterned after and imbibed from Christ, extends to the world that hates both the Lord and his disciples (ch. 15:9-27); this love, born and kept alive by the indwelling of the unseen Father, is the illuminator, the instructor, and the inspirer of him who possesses it, and gives him assurance of the divine love and intimacy of spiritual communion with the divine Being (ch. 16). See, further, Prel. Note. There is a real connection in this discourse, though not that of an oration; the unity is spiritual rather than intellectual; but it all circles about a single central truth, the provision which divine love has made for satisfying the soul-hunger for a vision of the unseen and invisible God. In a sense Philip is right, though the _sight_, if the sight of a spirit was possible, would not satisfy; but we see God only as we become like him, and we shall be satisfied when we awake in his likeness and so see him as he is (Ps. 17:15; 1 John 1:2).--=Have I been so much time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?= Not merely the length of time is indicated; it had been but about three years, probably a little less; but during that three years he had been constantly with his disciples; they had eaten, slept, journeyed, lived together; the companionship was most intimate, the opportunity for familiar acquaintance perfect.--=He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?= There is a physical and there is a spiritual sight. The disciples had known Jesus after the flesh; but Christ according to the spirit they did not know till after the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. To admire the Son of man is one thing; to receive the Spirit of God manifested in and through him is quite different. He that has a spiritual discernment of Christ will recognize the spiritual character of the unknown Father, the truth, mercy, love of God, shining in and through the Son. There is and can be no physical vision of God; he is a spirit, and is to be spiritually known, to be worshipped in spirit as well as in truth (ch. 4:24). The language of Christ here, and indeed throughout this whole discourse, is utterly inconsistent with the conception of him as a mere human or superhuman _ambassador_ of God. He represents not merely the divine government, but the divine Being. The Father is so in him that whoever looks within the tabernacle beholds the glory as of the only begotten of the Father (ch. 1:14). He is the manifestation in the flesh, not of the divine government, but of God (1 Tim. 3:16). It is impossible to refer this answer to the mere union in sympathy and purpose of Jesus with God. “No Christian, even if perfected, could say, ‘He that has seen me has seen Christ.’ How much less, then, could a Jew, though perfect, have said, ‘He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.’”--(_Godet._)

10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the
Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not
of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the
works.

11 Believe me that I _am_ in the Father, and the Father in
me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.

=10, 11. Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?= God is in everything which he has made; the All and in All (Jer. 23:24; 1 Cor. 15:28). We also are intended to be temples in which he is to dwell (Ps. 91:1; Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 3:16; 2 Tim. 1:14). But sin, which has been admitted to dwell in us (Rom. 7:17), has driven out the Spirit of God, so that the temple is destroyed by defilement (1 Cor. 3:17, marg.); it ceases to be the temple of God. He dwells no longer in it. In Christ Jesus there was no sin; in Christ Jesus, therefore, dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 2:9); and it is by union with him, and a new life received in and by and from him, that the fullness of the divine indwelling is to be at length restored to all that are his (ch. 17:21-23; Ephes. 3:17).--=The words that I speak to you I speak not of myself.= _From myself_ (ἀπ’ ἐμαυτοῦ). _From_ signifies the fountain or source; the source of Christ’s authority is not in himself, but in the Father, who dwells in and speaks through him. See ch. 5:19, note.--=But the Father, he who abides in me, he doeth the works.= Some read, _doeth his own works_. So Tischendorf and Meyer. The Received reading is preferable, but the meaning is much the same. Whether we read, He that dwelleth in me doeth his own works (ποιεῖ τὰ ἔργα ἀυτοῦ), or, He that dwelleth in me, he it is who doeth the works (αὐτὸς ποιεῖ τὰ ἔργα), the emphasis is equally put upon the Father as the One who, abiding in the Son, does all things through him. The _works_ are here, not merely the miracles, but the whole range of beneficent action of the Son, including certainly the miracles, but those only as a part of the whole service of love. This word _work_ (ἔργον) is rarely, I think never, used in the N. T. as equivalent to _miracle_ (σημεῖον).--=Have faith in me, that I am in the Father.= Beware of understanding this as equivalent to, Believe me, on my mere personal assurance; this is apparently the interpretation of our English version, and is sustained by even so eminent an authority as Meyer. It is grammatically possible; but it neither accords with Jesus’ use of the word _believe_ (πιστεύω), which he habitually uses to signify a spiritual apprehension, not merely an intellectual opinion; nor with the spirit of this discourse, which, beginning with ver. 1, is throughout addressed, not to the formation of correct opinions, but to the building up of a right spiritual apprehension of Christ, and through him of the eternal Father. The meaning is, _Have faith in me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me_; _i. e._, Look beneath the surface, the flesh; behold in the inward grace, manifesting itself in the outward speech and action, the lineaments of the divine character; so have faith in me as one in whom the Father dwells, and through whom the Father is made manifest. But if this spiritual sense is lacking, then--=Through= (_by reason of_, διά) =the works themselves believe=. Μοι is omitted by Godet, Meyer, Lachmann, and Tischendorf, on the authority of the Sinaitic, Cambridge, and Vatican manuscripts. Christ places his own character in the front rank, as the principal evidence of the divine origin and authority of Christianity. He is his own best witness. But, for those who cannot discern the divinity of his life and character, he appeals to the works wrought by him and by the religion of which he is the founder, and which was more powerful after his death than during his life. The evidence from the miracles, and from the whole miraculous history of Christianity, is secondary to the evidence from the character and person of Christ himself.

12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He[552] that believeth on
me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater
_works_ than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.

[552] Matt. 21:21.

=12. Verily, verily, I say unto you, * * * greater works than these shall he do; because I go to my Father.= If by _works_ was meant merely miracles, this declaration would be difficult of interpretation; for none of Christ’s disciples have ever wrought greater miracles than the Master, nor is it easy to conceive of a greater miracle than the resurrection of the dead. But if by _works_ was meant Christ’s whole life of beneficent activity, then this promise has been abundantly fulfilled. For Christ worked in a very narrow sphere, both of time and place; for three years, in a province no larger than the State of Vermont. More souls were converted at Peter’s preaching on the day of Pentecost than during the whole of Christ’s personal ministry. At Christ’s death the whole number of Christian converts does not seem to have exceeded five hundred, and Christianity was utterly unknown outside of Palestine. At John Wesley’s death Methodism had spread over Great Britain, the Continent of Europe, the United States, and the West Indies, and its communion embraced over eighty thousand members. Whitefield, Wesley, Spurgeon, Moody preached during their lives to immensely greater numbers than Christ ever personally taught; and probably many Christian physicians have healed more sick than Christ ever healed. Thus in _extent_ the disciples have already done greater works than their Master. And this for the reason here assigned, namely, because he has gone to the Father; and because of that going the Comforter has come to bless the labors of the disciples with a wider and more powerful divine influence than could, in the nature of the case, proceed from God incarnate in a single human life (ch. 16:7). But we have no right to say that this promise does not await even further fulfillment. When the fullness of time shall have come, and God dwells in all his children in the fullness foreseen in ch. 17:21, there may be in them a power over nature of which modern science gives possibly a foreshadowing, and which will be, in its effects, much greater than that which Christ exercised over it, because they that exercise it will have the whole earth as their inheritance. Only thus can I understand such promises as that here and in Mark 11:23, etc.

13 And[553] whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I
do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

[553] 1 John 5:14.

14 If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do _it_.

=13, 14. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do.= For analogous promises of answers to prayer, see Exod. 22:27; Deut. 4:29; Ps. 34:15; 37:4, 5; Jer. 29:12, 13; Joel 2:32; Matt. 7:7, 8; Mark 11:24; John 15:16; 16:23; James 1:5; 1 John 3:22; 5:14, 15. A comparison of these passages shows clearly that God does not give an unconditional promise of affirmative answer to every prayer. This would be to place omnipotence at the command of ignorance and selfishness; it would be a curse, not a blessing. The condition here is embodied in the words, _In my name_; the promise is only to those petitions asked in the name of _Jesus Christ_. To ask in the name of Christ is not to introduce his name into the petition, as in the familiar phrase, For Christ’s sake; nor is it merely to approach the Father through the mediatorship of Jesus; this, but much more than this, is included. “In the name” of any one, as used in the N. T., generally, if not always, signifies representing him, standing in his stead, fulfilling his purposes, manifesting his will, and imbued with and showing forth his life and glory. With John it always has this signification. Thus, “The works that I do in my Father’s name” (ch. 10:25) is equivalent to, The works that I do in my Father’s stead, for him and by his power and authority; “Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord” (ch. 12:13) is equivalent to, That cometh as the representative and manifestation of the Lord; “The Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name” (ch. 14:26) is equivalent to, The Holy Ghost who comes to represent me, and teach the truths concerning me, and implant and keep alive my life in the souls of my disciples; “I kept them in thy name” is equivalent to, I, as one with thee (ch. 10:29, 30), have kept them within the circle of thine influence, because within mine own, which is thine. Comp. Acts 3:6; 4:7; Phil. 2:10; Col. 3:17, and notes. Here, then, the declaration is that whatsoever we ask, speaking for Christ, seeking his will, representing him and his interests, and his kingdom, not merely our own special and personal interests (Phil. 2:21), will be granted. So in Matt. 6:9 (see note there) the Lord makes the petition, “Hallowed be thy name,” the portico to every prayer--so teaching us that in every prayer the desire for the glory of God should be supreme. So again in Rom. 8:26 the apostle represents us taught both how and for what to pray by the Spirit of Christ within us. But every prayer thus offered in the name of Christ and with a supreme allegiance to him, representing his kingdom and imbued by his spirit, will be in character, like his prayer at Gethsemane. It will carry with it the petition, “Not my will but thine be done,” and thus, as Meyer says, “The _denial_ of the petition is the _fulfillment_ of the prayer, only in another way.” See 2 Cor. 12:8, 9.--=That the Father may be glorified in the Son.= When the church is a true representative of Christ, filled with his spirit, manifesting his character and life, so that it prays in his name, in his name casts out devils (Luke 10:17), and in his name suffers, filling up what is behind of the Lord’s affliction (Col. 1:24), and doing all in his stead, as his representative, and because imbued with his spirit, then the Father is glorified in the Son, because he is glorified in humanity, whom he hath redeemed; for then the glorified and redeemed church is the body of Christ (Ephes. 1:23), the visible manifestation of his invisible presence, his perpetual incarnation.--=If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it.= The promise is specific; a promise not merely to provide generally for the wants of the disciples, but to hear and answer their specific requests. Comp. Matt. 7:9, 10. Observe, too, the language, _I will do it_, and compare the phraseology here with that of the analogous promise in ch. 16:23, “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, _he_ will give it you.” What inspired prophet or angelic messenger could make such a promise? “This _I_ already indicates the glory” (_Bengel_), the glory of him who is _one_ with the Father.

15 If[554] ye love me, keep my commandments.

[554] ver. 21, 23; ch. 15:10, 14; 1 John 5:3.

16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you
another Comforter,[555] that he may abide with you for ever;

[555] ch. 15:26.

17 _Even_ the Spirit of truth; whom[556] the world cannot
receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but
ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and[557] shall be in
you.

[556] 1 Cor. 2:14.

[557] Rom. 8:9; 1 John 2:27.

=15-17. If ye love me keep my commandments.= The object of the Gospel is the inspiration of love, not mere obedience; but obedience is the test because the manifestation of love. The N. T. recognizes no other test of love to Christ than compliance in the daily life with his will. See for striking illustration of this, ch. 21:15-17.--=And I will pray the Father.= The poverty of the English language has prevented our translators from producing in the English Bible the distinction between three Greek verbs, which bear different significations, but are all indiscriminately translated by the word _pray_. These are _to request_ (προσεύχομαι), _to ask_ (ἐρωτάω), and _to entreat_ (αἰτέω). Christ is said in the N. T. _to request_ the Father (Matt. 14:23; 26:36; Mark 1:35, etc.), and _to ask_ of the Father (ch. 16:26; 17:9; 15:20), but never _to entreat_ the Father. Here the second of these words is used. “Our Lord never uses _entreat_ (_aitein_, _aitesthai_, αἰτεῖν or αἰτεῖσθαι) of Himself in respect of that which he seeks on behalf of his disciples from God; for his is not the _petition_ of the creature to the Creator, but the request of the Son to the Father. The consciousness of his equal dignity, of his potent and prevailing intercession, speaks out in this, that as often as he asks or declares that he will ask, anything of the Father, it is always _requesting_ or _inquiring_ (_erotas_, _erotaso_, ἐρωτάω, ἐρωτήσω), that is, as upon equal terms, never _entreating_ (_aiteo_, _aiteso_, αἰτέω or αἰτήσω).”--(_Trench._) See further ch. 16:23, 24, note.--=And he shall give you another Paraclete.= The original word, inadequately rendered in our English version by the word _Comforter_, is simply untranslateable. It is composed of two Greek words (παρά καλέω), _to call to one’s side_, and signifies one who is called to aid another. And this etymological signification of the word indicates the office of the Holy Spirit in his relations to us; he is our present help in every time of need, the one with whom we walk, our Consoler, our Strength, our Guide, our Peace-giver, our ever present God. The word _Comforter_ must then be taken in its etymological and old English sense, as one who gives not mere consolation, but strength (_con fortis_). He is here called another Comforter; yet a little below, Christ seemingly identifies him both with the Father and with himself, in the declaration “I will manifest myself to him (ver. 21), and we” (_i. e._, the Father and I,) “will make our abode with him” (ver. 23). In the Comforter Christ himself is ever present with his church (Matt. 28:20), for the Comforter is one with Christ as both are one with the Father, so that the presence of one is the presence of all (Rom. 8:9, 10; Gal. 2:20; 4:6). We know too little of the interior nature of the Deity to be able to draw any clear distinction between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. We only know that as God in the Father is manifested to us as providing for us, and in the Son as making atonement for us, so in the Spirit he is manifested by being spiritually ever present with us. The mystery of their diversity in unity defies philosophical analysis. But Christ is speaking to the experience, not to the intellect; and to the spiritual experience the father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, the Provider, the Atoning Saviour and the Indwelling Spirit, God in nature, in the flesh, and in our own souls, are one.--=That he may abide with you forever.= In contrast with the Son, who came but for a time, and because he was God _manifest in the flesh_, could abide only with a few and only for a limited period. To long for the laws of the O. T., or even for the visible presence of the limited and earthly manifestation of God afforded by the N. T., is to desire to go back from the broader, deeper, fuller manifestation, to one narrower and more limited. To be governed by precedents or rules of the past is to ignore the perpetually abiding presence of the Comforter, the promised guide into all truth. Of his office Christ speaks more fully in ver. 26 and ch. 16:7-15.--=The Spirit of Truth.= So called, (1) because it is by giving a spiritual knowledge of the truth that he ministers to those that receive him. The Comforter strengthens, guides, liberates, Sanctifies by the truth (ch. 8:32; 16:13; 17:17, 19; 1 Cor. 2:4; 1 Thess. 1:5). (2) Because his ministry is perfectly true without any admixture of error. All teaching that is ministered through human language, even that of Christ and the apostles, is subject to the errors and the misapprehensions of the human medium through which it passes. The instruction of the Spirit, ministered directly to our spirits, though still liable to be misapprehended and perverted by us, is not subject to error in the interpretation. It is perfect truth; all other teaching is truth with alloy, from which we must separate it, as best we may.--=Whom the world cannot receive.= To be literally understood. _Cannot_ is not here equivalent to _will not_. He that is of the world, living unto it, making it his end, cannot receive spiritual truth or spiritual influences. His mind is blinded by the god of this world (Isa. 6:9, 10; 2 Cor. 4:4). The declaration here is analogous to that of Christ in John 3:3, “Except a man be born again he cannot _see_ the kingdom of God,” and to that of Paul in 1 Cor. 2:14, “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them; because they are spiritually discerned.”--=Because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him.= There is no visible manifestation of the Comforter; he is not and cannot be discerned by the senses as Christ could be and during his life was, by the manifestation of his miraculous power; and the unspiritual has no inward consciousness of his presence, no spiritual experience of his comfort, strength, or guidance. Hence, since the Comforter is not discernible by the outward sense, and the unspiritual have never had developed within them the inward sense of faith, they cannot receive him. In contrast with the world in this respect is the disciple of Christ, in whom the spiritual life has been awakened in the new birth.--=But ye know him because he abides with you, and shall be in you.= There is no hint here that the disciples can _see_ the Comforter any more than the world. This should have prevented Godet’s misapprehension of this passage, that “before receiving they must have _seen_ and known the Spirit.” To see (θεωρέω) is to recognize with the senses, or to recognize intellectually by deductions from what is perceived by the senses. Neither by sight, nor by deduction from sight can the Comforter be known. He is known only by those with and in whom, as a conscious Presence, he abides. Some texts read _is in you_ instead of _shall be in you_. The future is the preferable reading, and the antithesis between the first and last clauses of the verse indicates a progressive development in the spiritual life. The Comforter was even then _with_ the disciples, though they were not yet ready to receive him; he was _in_ them, inspiring and moulding their life and character, after the day of Pentecost. So he is ever with the church and the individual Christian; but he is _in_ the church and _in_ the Christian only when they wait and watch for his appearing, as the apostles waited and watched before the day of Pentecost.

18 I will not leave you comfortless: I[558] will come to
you.

[558] ver. 3:28.

19 Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more: but
ye see me: because[559] I live, ye shall live also.

[559] Heb. 7:25.

20 At that day ye shall know that I _am_ in my Father, and
ye in me, and I in you.

=18-20. I will not leave you orphans.= This, which is the marginal reading, exactly renders the original. Our English version, _I will not leave you comfortless_, though made sacred by many an association, deprives the promise of the singular significance involved in the original. An orphan is not a person without parents, but one who is separated from his parents by death; memory looks back to them, hope looks forward to them, but they are not personally present. Christ declares that he will not thus leave his disciples. Their Saviour shall be more than a memory, more than a hope; he will be their personal present God.--=I will come to you.= He refers here not to his reappearance in the resurrection, for that was followed by his disappearance in the ascension, so that if on this the disciples alone depended they were left more than ever before in orphanage. Nor did he then make his abode with the disciples; he vouchsafed them only brief and transient appearances of himself. He does not refer to his second coming; for the world, as well as his own disciples, will then see him (Rev. 1:7; 6:15-17). He refers to that spiritual manifestation which he makes of himself, and of the Father through him, by the gift and indwelling of the Holy Spirit, whom the Father sends in his name. This is clear from vers. 19, 20, 23, 26, etc.--=Yet a little while and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me, because I am living and ye shall live also.= According to the punctuation of our English version there is here a double promise, first that the disciples shall again see their Lord, secondly that they shall share his life. According to the punctuation which I have adopted, the second promise is implied rather than asserted, and is made the basis of the first. Either is grammatically possible; the second rendering is preferable, because the whole of Christ’s teaching here refers not to the life of the disciple, but to the manifestation to him of his Lord, and because thus the two clauses of the sentence are brought into close connection. The soul’s perception of the personal presence of Christ is then dependent upon sharing his spiritual life; and this is abundantly taught, both here and elsewhere. We are changed into the image of Christ by beholding him (2 Cor. 3:18), and we behold him by conforming to his image (2 Pet. 1:5-9). The promise is one of spiritual sight, dependent upon spiritual life. Since the world does not and cannot see him (ver. 17), arguments based on visible phenomena to prove the reality of that which is a spiritual experience are always in vain. Hence the futility of the ordinary methods of arguing with skeptics. They are endeavors to prove to the blind; whereas the blind must first _see_, then learn.--=At that day ye shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in me and I in you.= _That day_ was in the history of the church the day of Pentecost, when the Spirit was first revealed with power to the entire body of believers. But each believing soul has also its Pentecost, when it first learns the meaning of Christ’s promises in this chapter. This is to it _that day_, the one great day of its existence. It is not said that the disciple will understand _how_ the Father, the Son, and the disciples are in one another, but he will know it _as a fact_; the unity of the Father and the Son, and the indwelling of both in the believer, will become a part of his experience. This experience, promised here, is expressed as a realized fact by Paul in Gal. 2:20: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

21 He[560] that hath my commandments, 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.

[560] ver. 15, 23.

=21.= Having given expression to the mystical truth of the spiritual manifestation of their Lord to the believers, Christ next states the conditions under which it is realized. These are not _external_; this spiritual revelation is not made dependent upon retiring from the world and living a life of asceticism and artificial self-denial. They are not _intellectual_; this revelation and indwelling of Christ is not made dependent upon the creed of the disciple. They are _moral_; practical obedience to the words of Christ assures spiritual enjoyment of his presence and companionship.--=He that hath my commandments and keepeth them.= These clauses are not to be read as repetitions of the same idea, made for the sake of emphasis. To _have_ is not the same as to _keep_. He hath Christ’s commandments _not_ who has a knowledge of them, so that the promise is conditional upon a certain degree of Christian education, but who has a _spiritual apprehension of them_, who appreciates their spirit. Since all of Christ’s commands are comprised in the one direction “Follow me,” the first condition of receiving this spiritual manifestation of Christ as a real and living Presence in the daily life, is a spiritual appreciation of his life and character as they are disclosed in the N. T., and therewith a like appreciation of the precepts, principles, and spirit of the life which he has inculcated. He _keeps_ Christ’s commandments who carefully guards them in his daily life, regarding them as a possession which he is in danger of losing. See Matt. 19:17, note.--=That one is he that loveth me.= The evidence of love which Christ recognizes is not profession, or ceremonial, or emotional experience, or intellectual opinion, but spiritual appreciation of his precepts and practical obedience to them. The good Samaritan is a more acceptable lover than the priest or the Levite.--=He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him.= Every disciple may thus become a “beloved disciple.” For the love here spoken of is not that love of compassion which the Father and the Son have for the whole world (ch. 3:16), even while it was dead in trespasses and sins (Ephes. 2:4, 5), but the love of spiritual fellowship and personal friendship (ch. 15:14, 15; Gal. 4:7). “There is between these two feelings the same difference as between a man’s compassion for his guilty and unhappy neighbors and the affection of a father for his child or of a husband for his wife.”--(_Godet._) Christ is here speaking not of the condition on which men may become his disciples; he is instructing his disciples, is pointing out the condition on which each one of them may come into a higher spiritual experience of their Master’s love and spiritual presence. This is indicated not only by the context and general character of the discourse, but also by the peculiar language here, _That one it is who loveth me_. _That one_ (ἐκεῖνος) indicates an exceptional individual, one among many, who, by his course, becomes the special friend of Jesus.