Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 14:23
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.
23. Judas ] Excluding the genealogies of Christ we have six persons of this name in the N.T.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
23. Jesus answered ] The answer is given, as so often in our Lord’s replies, not directly, but by repeating and developing the statement which elicited the question. Comp. Joh 3:5-8, Joh 4:14, Joh 6:44-51; Joh 6:53-58, &c. The condition of receiving the revelation is loving obedience; those who have it not cannot receive it. This shews that the revelation cannot be universal, cannot be shared by those who hate and disobey (Joh 15:18).
my words ] Rather, My word; the Gospel in its entirety.
we will come ] For the use of the plural comp. Joh 10:30.
abode ] See on Joh 14:2. The thought of God dwelling among His people was familiar to every Jew (Exo 25:8; Exo 29:45; Zec 2:10; &c.). This is a thought far beyond that, God dwelling in the heart of the individual; and later Jewish philosophy had attained to this also. But the united indwelling of the Father and the Son by means of the Spirit is purely Christian.
In these two verses (23, 24) the changes ‘words’ ‘sayings’ ‘word’ give a wrong impression: they should run ‘word’ ‘words’ ‘word.’ In the Greek we have the same substantive, twice n the singular and once in the plural.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Will keep my words – See Joh 14:15.
We will come to him – We will come to him with the manifestation of pardon, peace of conscience, and joy in the Holy Spirit. It means that God will manifest himself to the soul as a Father and Friend; that Jesus will manifest himself as a Saviour; that is, that there will be shed abroad in the heart just views and proper feelings toward God and Christ. The Christian will rejoice in the perfections of God and of Christ, and will delight to contemplate the glories of a present Saviour. The condition of a sinner is represented as one who has gone astray from God, and from whom God has withdrawn, Psa 58:3; Pro 28:10; Eze 14:11. He is alienated from God, Eph 2:12; Isa 1:4; Eph 4:18; Col 1:21. Religion is represented as God returning to the soul, and manifesting himself as reconciled through Jesus Christ, 2Co 5:18; Col 1:21.
Make our abode – This is a figurative expression implying that God and Christ would manifest themselves in no temporary way, but that it would be the privilege of Christians to enjoy their presence continually. They would take up their residence in the heart as their dwelling-place, as a temple fit for their abode. See 1Co 3:16; Ye are the temple of God; 1Co 6:19; Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost; 2Co 6:16; Ye are the temple of the living God. This does not mean that there is any personal union between Christians and God – that there is any special indwelling of the essence of God in us for God is essentially present in all places in the same way; but it is a figurative mode of speaking, denoting that the Christian is under the influence of God; that he rejoices in his presence, and that he has the views, the feelings, the joys which God produces in a redeemed soul, and with which he is pleased.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 23. If a man] Not only my present disciples, but all those who shall believe on me through their word, or that of their successors:
Love me] Receive me as his Saviour, and get the love of God shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost:
He will keep my words] Observe all my sayings, and have his affections and conduct regulated by my Spirit and doctrine:
My Father will love him] Call him his child; support, defend, and preserve him as such.
And we will come unto him] God the Father, through his Son, will continue to pour out his choicest blessings upon his head and upon his heart:
And make our abode with him.] Will make his heart our temple, where God, the Father, Son, and Spirit, shall rest, receive homage, and dwell to eternity. Thus will I manifest myself to the believing, loving, obedient disciple, and not to the world, who will not receive the Spirit of the truth.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
If any man love Christ, he will keep Christs words; that is, he will study and endeavour to keep the commandments of Christ; for if nothing evidenced a true love to Christ but a perfect obedience to his will, none could comfort himself from his obedience, or conclude his love to Christ from it; but he that loveth Christ, will make it his business to be obedient to him in those things first he hath commanded, and are within his power.
And my Father will love him; and my Father will manifest his love to him in further dispensations of his grace; for it cannot be understood of Gods eternal love, nor yet of his love in justification and regeneration; for till the man or woman be justified and regenerated, he will never study and endeavour obedience to the will of God. This love of God is the cause, not the effect of our obedience; but love in this verse must be expounded by manifesting in the former verse; and this is certain, that the manifestations of Divine love to our souls depend upon our walking with God. This is also meant by God the Father and Christs coming to those that love him, and keep his commandments; viz. a coming in the sweet influences of Divine grace, suited to the souls various necessities: nay, our Lord promises, not only his and his Fathers coming to, but their making an abode with such as love him, and keep his commandments. Here the abiding of the First and Second Person in the Trinity with believers; the abiding of the Third Person with them is also promised, Joh 14:16; which all make that presence of God with them, so often promised to them in holy writ. Thus our Saviour answereth one part of what Judas said, How is it that thou wilt manifest thyself to us? Because, saith our Saviour, you love me, and keep my words: for though no love, no works of ours, foreseen or seen, be the cause of eternal love, or the first grace; yet it is so much a cause of further grace, especially in the sensible manifestations of it, that no soul must expect it that doth not love Christ, and keep his words. He also further gives them a reason, as to the second thing he asked, why he did not manifest himself to the world?
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
23. we will come and make our abodewith himAstonishing statement! In the Father’s “coming”He “refers to the revelation of Him as a Father to thesoul, which does not take place till the Spirit comes into the heart,teaching it to cry, Abba, Father” [OLSHAUSEN].The “abode” means a permanent, eternal stay! (CompareLev 26:11; Lev 26:12;Eze 37:26; Eze 37:27;2Co 6:16; and contrast Jer14:8).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Jesus answered and said unto him,…. This answer is returned, and these words are spoken, for the further confirmation and explanation of what was before said:
if a man love me, he will keep my words; by his “words” are meant not his doctrines, but his ordinances; the same with his commandments, Joh 14:21, which he has said, ordered, and commanded to be observed, and which are observed by such who truly love him, and that from a principle of love to him, and with a view to his glory: and for the encouragement of such persons as before, he says,
and my Father will love him: which is to be understood not of the love of the Father, as in his own heart, which is not taken up in time, but was in him from all eternity; nor of the first discovery of it to his people, but of greater manifestations of it to them, and a quicker sense of it in their hearts, and also of some other effects of it, to be enjoyed by them in an higher manner; such as larger measures of grace, more communion with him here, and eternal honour and glory hereafter:
and we will come unto him: I who am now going away, and my Father to whom I am going, and the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, I have promised to pray for: hence a proof of a plurality of persons in the Godhead, of a trinity of persons, of there being neither more nor fewer than three; since neither more nor less can be collected from the context; and of their distinct personality, or it could not be said with any propriety, “we” each of us “will come unto him”; not locally and visibly, but spiritually, by affording our gracious and comfortable presence, the continuance of which is promised next:
and make our abode with him; which denotes habitation; for the saints are the dwelling places or temples of the living God, Father, Son, and Spirit; and the constancy and perpetuity of their residence in them, not as a wayfaring man, but always, though this may not be always discerned by believers; and is a wonderful instance of the grace and condescension of God to dwell on earth with sinful men; and a far greater one it is, than if the most mighty potentate on earth should take up his abode in a poor despicable cottage with the meanest of his subjects.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
If a man love me ( ). Condition of third class with and present active subjunctive, “if one keep on loving me.” That is key to the spiritual manifestation ().
We will come (). Future middle of and first person plural (the Father and I), not at the judgment, but here and now.
And make our abode with him ( ‘ ). See verse 2 for the word (dwelling, abiding place). If the Holy Spirit “abides” (, verse 17) in you, that heart becomes a temple () of the Holy Spirit (1Co 3:16f.), and so a fit dwelling place for the Father and the Son, a glorious and uplifting reality.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
My word [ ] . The entire gospel message, as distinguished from its separate parts or commandments.
We will come. Compare Joh 10:30; Rev 3:20.
Abode [] . See on ver. 2. Compare 1Jo 2:24; 1Jo 5:15.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Jesus answered and said unto him,” (apekrithe lesous kai eipen auto) “Jesus answered and said directly to him,” to this Judas, also known as Lebbaeus, and brother of James whose surname was Thaddaeus, Mat 10:3; Luk 6:16.
2) “If a man love me, he will keep my words:- (ean tis agapa me ton logon mou teresei) “If anyone loves me he will keep or guard my words,” in word and in deed, Joh 15:12; Joh 15:17; Joh 14:5. A thing you all, my followers, my church do, but the world does not; True disciples, servants, and friends of Jesus are to be “doers of the word,” followers of their Lord, Joh 14:15; Joh 15:14; Jas 1:22; Eph 2:10.
3) “And my Father will love him.” (kai ho pater mou agapesei auton) “And my Father will love him,” personally, as stated Joh 14:21; Joh 3:16; 1Ti 3:16.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
23. And my Father will love him. We have already explained that the love of God to us is not placed in the second rank, as if it came after our piety as the cause of that love, but that believers may be fully convinced that the obedience which they render to the Gospel is pleasing to God, and that they may continually expect from him fresh additions of gifts.
And we will come to him who loveth me; that is, he will feel that the grace of God dwelleth in him, and will every day receive additions to the gifts of God. He therefore speaks, not of that eternal love with which he loved us, before we were born, and even before the world was created, but since the time when he seals it on our hearts by making us partakers of his adoption. Nor does he even mean the first illumination, but those degrees of faith by which believers must continually advance, according to that saying,
Whosoever hath it shall be given to him, (Mat 13:12.)
The Papists; therefore are wrong in inferring from this passage that there are two kinds of love with which we love God. They falsely maintain that we naturally love God, before he regenerates us by his Spirit, and even that by this preparation we merit the grace of regeneration; as if Scripture did not everywhere teach, and as if experience also did not loudly proclaim, that we are altogether alienated from God, and that we are infected and filled with hatred of him, until he change our hearts. We must therefore keep in view the design of Christ, that he and the Father will come, to confirm believers, in uninterrupted confidence in his grace.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(23) If a man love me, he will keep my words.Our Lord repeats the condition necessary on the part of man in order that the manifestation of God to him may be possible. This is an answer to the question of Judas, the world in its unbelief and rejection of Christs words, and without the spirit of love, could not receive this manifestation.
We will come unto him, and make our abode with him.For the plural, comp. Note on Joh. 10:30. For the word abode, comp. Note on Joh. 14:2. The thought of God as dwelling in the sanctuary and among the people was familiar to the disciples from the Old Testament Scriptures (see, e.g., Exo. 25:8; Exo. 29:45; Lev. 26:11-12; Eze. 37:26), and the thought of the spiritual temple in the heart of man was not unknown to contemporary writers. Philo has a remarkable parallel in his treatise, De Cherubim, p. 124, Since therefore He (God) thus invisibly enters into the region of the soul, let us prepare that place, in the best way the case admits of, to be an abode worthy of God; for if we do not, He, without our being aware of it, will quit us and migrate to some other habitation which shall appear to Him to be more excellently provided (Bohns ed., vol. i., p. 199. See the whole of chap. 29). Schttgen, in his note, quotes from a Rabbinical writer who says, Blessed is the man who strives daily to make himself approved unto God, and prepares himself to receive the divine guest. (Comp. 1Co. 3:16; 1Co. 6:19; and Rev. 3:20.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
23. If Upon this mighty if it depends whether Christ manifests himself as our Saviour or not.
My Father we him The Father, Son, and Spirit, will in spirit come into union with the believer’s spirit. And can any one imagine that the believer will be forever unconscious of his spiritual guests, and incapable of realizing the actuality of their communion? On the contrary, Jesus says of the Spirit, Joh 14:17, Ye know him; and of his own spirit, Joh 14:19, Ye see me; and declares, Joh 14:21, I will manifest myself. All this affirms that the believer may enjoy a conscious communion with Christ and God.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Jesus answered and said to him, “If a man loves me he will hold firmly to and obey (keep) my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. The one who does not love me, does not hold firmly to and obey my words. And the word which you hear is not mine but His who went me”.
As so often (compare Act 1:6-7) Jesus does not directly answer the question. He did not want them to become tied up in theological disputation. Rather He points away from the question to the future experience that is to be theirs. Let them recognise that the coming of the Kingly Rule of God is not to be revealed by outward show but by inward and personal response. It is something which is among them and within them (Luk 17:21). It is revealed in the obedience of men who love Him to His word and teaching.
‘If a man loves me.’ Again this expands beyond the Apostles as the use of ‘a man’ demonstrates. The use of the singular ‘my word’ covers the whole of Jesus’ teaching, both theological and ethical. The man who loves Him will hold firmly to what he has learned from Jesus, absorbing it and letting it be fulfilled through his life. So Jesus is telling Judas, and the others, that His Messiahship is not with outward show but is a deeply personal and spiritual thing. It has been promoted through His life and teaching.
As a result those who promote it will not do so with flashing swords, but with obedient love and sound teaching. As a man responds obediently to the Jesus whom he loves, so will he enjoy the love of the Father, and the continuing presence with him of the Father and the Son. ‘We will come to him and make our home with him.’ The word ‘home’ is the same as that for ‘resting place’ in Joh 14:2. While we live on earth His resting place will be with us who are true believers. When we rise to Heaven our resting place will be with Him. In both cases it is a permanent resting place, not a temporary residence. Note how it is made clear that the coming of the Holy Spirit involves the dwelling of Father and Son within them. One cannot come without the other.
However there are those who will not hold firmly to His words and obey them, whatever their profession might be (‘why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do the things that I say?’ – Luk 6:46), and this will be proof that they do not love Him. We should thus note how important our obedience is as evidence that we are truly His. We are saved by faith but it is by our fruits that we will be known. Faith that does not produce fruits is not saving faith (compare Joh 2:23-25). Then Jesus stresses again that His word is not only His but also the Father’s word, emphasising its eternal importance, and underlining that He and His Father speak as One.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Joh 14:23-24 . Jesus repeats and that was sufficient for the removal of such a misunderstanding substantially, yet now at once placing love as the principal matter in the immediate foreground, the condition to which His self-revelation, Joh 14:22 , is attached, by more closely defining it according to its divine and blessed manner of existence; and shows from this, and from the antithesis added in Joh 14:24 , that the this which hates Him and is disobedient to Him is quite incapable of receiving that self-revelation. The more precise explanation, . . . , is intended to make this very incapacity still more distinctly and deeply felt. At the foundation of the expression lies the theocratic idea, realized in this spiritual fellowship, of the dwelling of God amongst His people (Exo 25:8 ; Exo 29:45 ; Lev 26:11-12 ; Eze 37:26 ff.), with which also the later representation of the dwelling of the Shekinah with the pious (Danz in Meuschen, N. T. ex Talm. ill . p. 701 ff.) is connected. This representation, however, is not to be assumed here, since Jesus means an invisible presence. In the plural of communion , is the clear expression of the divine-human consciousness, Joh 10:30 .
On the genuinely Greek expression , see Kypke, I. p. 404. The Middle (see critical notes): we will make to ourselves .
] The unio mystica , into which God and Christ enter with man by means of the Paraclete, [155] is presented in the sensuous form of the taking up an abode with Him (comp. Joh 14:17 ; Joh 14:25 ), i.e. in His dwelling (comp. Joh 1:40 , Act 21:8 , et al. ), under His roof. They come, like wanderers from their heavenly home (Joh 14:2 ), and lodge with Him , “will be daily His guests, yea, house and table companions,” Luther.
The , discourses , are the individual parts of the collective , and the are the preceptive parts of the same, and form, therefore, a more special conception than the .
, . . .] and from this you may infer how unfitted such a man is to experience that visitation the word which ye hear (now, still!), etc. Comp. Joh 7:16 , Joh 8:28 , Joh 12:49-50 , Joh 3:34 . He therefore rejects God Himself. The second person ( ) is individualizing (not to be limited to what was said in Joh 14:23-24 , as Godet takes it), and makes the expression at the close of this portion of the address more lively.
[155] Not: “in the divine elevation above space and time” (Weiss, Lehrbegr. p. 276), which introduces here a speculative idea which is very remote from the meaning.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
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.
Ver. 23. Jesus answered and said unto him ] Our Saviour, passing by that frivolous question, proceedeth in his discourse. Some follies are best confuted by silence. One having made a long and idle discourse before Aristotle, concluded it thus: I doubt I have been too tedious unto you, Sir Philosopher, with my many words. In good sooth, said Aristotle, you have not been tedious to me, for I gave no heed to anything you said. (Plutarch, de Garrulitate.)
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
23, 24. ] These verses contain the answer to the question in both its parts: , because love to Christ, leading to the keeping of His word, is the necessary condition of the indwelling and manifestation in man of the Father and the Son; , because want of love to Christ, leading to neglect of His words, necessarily excludes from communion with the Father and the Son, and the Spirit, who reveals the Son in man. “The addition . . . makes this incapacity still plainer and more deeply felt.” Meyer. For ( , and hence you may infer what I am setting forth) the word which ye hear (and which the world = ), is not Mine, but the Father’s ( not , ‘ non tam quam ’). On the gracious and wonderful promise of Joh 14:23 , see Rom 8:15 .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Joh 14:23 . To this Jesus replies . The answer explains that the manifestation, being spiritual, must be individual and to those spiritually prepared. “It contemplates not a public discovery of power, but a sort of domestic visitation of love.” Bernard, , “to him we will come”; Jesus without scruple unites Himself with the Father. , a classical expression see Thuc., i. 131, . “We will make our abode with him, will be daily his guests, yea, house and table companions.” Luther in Meyer, is here used in a sense different from that of Joh 14:2 , where it means a place to abide in.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
answered, &c. See note on Deu 1:41 and App-122.
a man = any one. Greek. tis. App-123.
words = word (singular) Greek. logos: i.e. the commandments of verses: Joh 14:15, Joh 14:21.
abode. Same word as “mansions”, in Joh 14:2.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
23, 24.] These verses contain the answer to the question in both its parts:-, because love to Christ, leading to the keeping of His word, is the necessary condition of the indwelling and manifestation in man of the Father and the Son;- , because want of love to Christ, leading to neglect of His words, necessarily excludes from communion with the Father and the Son, and the Spirit, who reveals the Son in man. The addition . . . makes this incapacity still plainer and more deeply felt. Meyer. For (, and hence you may infer what I am setting forth) the word which ye hear (and which the world = ),-is not Mine, but the Fathers (not, non tam quam). On the gracious and wonderful promise of Joh 14:23, see Rom 8:15.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Joh 14:23. , My word) [Not as Engl. Vers., words]. The word is represented as one (Singular) in this verse, in reference to believers, who keep it whole: in Joh 14:24 ( ) more words than one (Plural) are mentioned, in reference to unbelievers, who rend them in sunder: keepeth not My words. Comp. ch. Joh 15:12, note [This is My commandment ( ), That ye love one another. He had previously used the Plural, commandments. All of them are comprised in the one, love]; and 1Jn 2:4-5, He that keepeth not His commandments (Plur.), etc.; but whoso keepeth His word (Sing.), etc.-, he will keep) Keeping His commandments is put before love in Joh 14:21, He that hath My commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: now love is put before keeping His word. Love, in a certain respect, and that a primary one, goes before keeping of the commandments; see Joh 14:15, If ye love Me, keep My commandments; but in a certain respect it also follows, since by keeping of the commandments love the more in proportion increases, and acquires new vigour. Therefore to keep His word is a middle term between the love towards Jesus Christ, and the love of the Father towards him who loves Jesus Christ.-, We will come) I and the Father. The Singular number , I will manifest, advances onward to the Plural, we will come.-, abode) See the correlative to this in Joh 14:2, , mansions.[352] Comp. Rev 3:20, at the end, I will come into him, and sup with him, and he with Me.- , We will make our lasting abode [mansion]) Either the architect or the inhabitant is said to make an abode (mansion): but in this place it is restricted to the inhabitants (the indwelling Father and Son). This is a very sublime view. It is therefore cut short at Joh 14:25.
[352] He now makes His mansion (lasting abode) with believers: and they hereafter shall have their mansions with Him: ver. 2, 23.-E. and T.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Joh 14:23
Joh 14:23
Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my word:-Jesus declares that the rule he had laid down, or the test given, applied not only to his immediate disciples, but it was one that applied to all men. If any one loves him, he must believe in him as the Son of God, infinite in wisdom, goodness, and power, and one who so believes and loves him will keep his words. All pretenses to believe in him, and trust him, while refusing to keep his words, are false and misleading.
and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.-This abode will be through the Holy Spirit as their representative. In whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit. (Eph 2:22). The Spirit as the representative of God dwells in his church.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Where He Delights to Dwell
If a man love me, he will keep my word: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.Joh 14:23.
1. The Judas, in reply to whose question our Lord spoke these words, held but a low place among the Apostles. In all the lists he is one of the last of the groups of four into which they are divided, and which were evidently arranged according to their spiritual nearness to the Master. His question is exactly one which a listener, with some dim, confused glimmer of Christs meaning, might be expected to ask. He grasps at His last words about manifesting Himself to certain persons; he rightly feels that he and his brethren possess the qualification of love. He rightly understands that our Lord contemplates no public showing of Himself, and that disappoints him. It was only a day or two ago that Jesus seemed to them to have begun to do what they had always wanted Him to domanifest Himself to the world. And now, as he thinks, something unknown to them must have happened in order to make Him change His course, and go back to the old plan of a secret communication. And so he says, Lord! what has come to pass to induce you to abandon and falter upon the course on which we entered when you rode into Jerusalem with the shouting crowd?
Notice how, in His reply, our Lord subtly and significantly alters the form of the statement which He has already made. He had formerly said, If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments, but now He casts it into a purely impersonal form, and says, If a man, anybody, not you only, but anybodyif a man love me, he, anybody, will keep my word. And why the change? Probably in order to strike full and square against that complacent assumption of Judas that it was to us and not to the world that the showing was to take place. Our Lord, by the studiously impersonal form into which He casts the promise, proclaims its universality, and says to His ignorant questioner, Do not suppose that you Apostles have the monopoly. You may not even have a share in My self-manifestation. Anybody may have it. And there is no world, as you suppose, to which I do not show Myself. Anybody may have the vision if he observes the conditions.
2. He will keep my word. That is more than a commandment, is it not? It includes all His sayings, and it includes them all as in one vital unity and organic whole. We are not to go picking and choosing among them; they are one. And it includes this other thought, that every word of Christ, be it revelation of the deep things of God, or be it a promise of the great shower of blessings which, out of His full hand, He will drop upon our heads, enshrines within itself a commandment. He utters no revelations simply that we may know. He utters no comforting words simply that our sore hearts may be healed. In all His utterances there is a practical bearing; and every word of His teaching, every word of His sweet, whispered assurances of love and favour to the waiting heart, has in it the imperativeness of His manifested will, has a direct bearing upon duty. All His words are gathered into one word, and all the variety of His sayings is, in their unity, the law of our lives.
Here we have laid down for all time in precise language the condition of Divine manifestation, and the realization of Divine and quickening power as the reward of fulfilling that condition.
I
The Condition is Loving Obedience
He that longs for more satisfying knowledge of spiritual realities, he that thirsts for certainty and to see God as if face to face, must expect no sudden or magical revelation, but must be content with the true spiritual education which proceeds by loving and living. To the disciples the method might seem slow; to us also it often seems slow; but it is the method which nature requires. Our knowledge of God and our belief that in Christ we have a hold of ultimate truth and are living among eternal verities, grow with our love and service for Christ. It may take us a lifetimeit will take us a lifetimeto learn to love Him as we ought; but others have learned and we also may learn, and there is no possible experience so precious to us.
Obedience is the very pulse of spiritual life.1 [Note: Rainy, Life, i. 131.]
This universe is governed by laws. At the bottom of everything here there is a law. Things are in this way and not that; we call that a law or condition. All departments have their own laws. By submission to them, you make them your own. Obey the laws of the body: such laws as say, Be temperate and chaste; or of the mind: such laws as say, Fix the attention; strengthen by exercise; and then their prizes are yourshealth, strength, pliability of muscle, tenaciousness of memory, nimbleness of imagination, etc. Obey the laws of your spiritual being, and it has its prizes too. For instance, the condition or law of a peaceful life is submission to the law of meekness: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. The condition of the beatific vision is a pure heart and life: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. To the impure, God is simply invisible. The condition annexed to a sense of Gods presencein other words, that without which a sense of Gods presence cannot beis obedience to the laws of love: If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. The condition of spiritual wisdom and certainty in truth is obedience to the will of God, surrender of private will.2 [Note: F. W. Robertson, Sermons, ii. 101.]
1. The source of true obedience is love.Love and obedience have always been the condition on which the enjoyment of the Divine Presence depended. The sum of the Ten Commandments is, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and strength and mind, and thy neighbour as thyself. And these words, of course, mean the same thing. They take us back, like the commandments, to His Fathers authority, and they bring into force all those declarations of the Old Testament in which the keeping of the commandments is laid down as the condition of fellowship. If ye walk in my statutes I will be your God, and ye shall be my people. Now it is love, and now it is obedience, that is named as the condition of union and communion with the Most High. The reason is at once apparent. True obedience can spring only from love. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. Love is the hidden fountain; obedience is the visible stream. In its truest and highest forms Christianity is a religion of principles. It works from the centre outwards to the circumference. Its language is not Do this, and Forbear from that, but Love, and thou fulfillest the law.
That is exactly what distinguishes and lifts the morality of the Gospel above all other systems. The worst man in the world knows a great deal more of his duty than the best man does. It is not for want of knowledge that men go to the devil, but it is for want of power to live their knowledge. And what morality fails to do, with its clearest utterances of human duty, Christ comes and does. The one is like the useless proclamations posted up in some rebellious district, where there is no army to back them, and the kings authority from whom they come is flouted. The other gets itself obeyed. Such is the difference between the powerless morality of the world and the commandment of Jesus Christ. Here is the road plain and straight. What matters that, if there is no force to draw the cart along it? There might as well be no road at all. Here stand all your looms, polished and in perfect order, but there is no steam in the boilers; and so there is no motion, and nothing woven. What we want is not law but power. And what the Gospel gives us, and stands alone in giving us, is not merely the knowledge of the will of God and the clear revelation of what we ought to be, but it is the power to become it. Love does that, and love alone. That strong force brought into action in our hearts will drive out from thence all rivals, all false and low things. The true way to cleanse the Augean stables, as the old myth has it, was to turn the river into them. It would have been endless work to wheel out the filth in wheelbarrows loaded by spades: turn the stream in, and it will sweep away all the foulness. When the Ark comes into the Temple, Dagon lies, a mutilated stump, upon the threshold. When Christ comes into my heart, then all the obscene and twilight-loving shapes that lurked there, and defiled it, will vanish like ghosts at cock-crowing before His calm and pure presence. He, and He alone, entering my heart by the portals of my love, will coerce my evil and stimulate my good. And if I love Him, I shall keep His commandments.1 [Note: A. Maclaren, Holy of Holies, 72.]
When the sun rises in the east, the sunflower opens towards its rays, and turns ever eagerly towards the sun, even until its setting in the west; and at night it closes and hides its colours and awaits the return of the sun. Even so will we open our hearts by obedience towards the illumination of the grace of God, and humbly and eagerly will we follow that grace so long as we feel the warmth of love. And when the light of grace ceases to awaken fresh emotions, and we feel the warmth of love but little, or feel it not at all, then it is night, when we shall close our heart to all that may tempt it; and so shall we shut up within ourselves the golden colour of love, awaiting a new dawn, with its new brightness and its fresh emotions; and thus shall we preserve innocence always in its pristine splendour.1 [Note: M. Maeterlinck, Ruysbroeck and the Mystics, 50.]
2. The outcome of true love is obedience.There is no love worth calling love which does not obey. All the emotional and the mystic, and the so-called higher parts of Christian experience, have to be content to submit to this plain testDo they help us to live as Christ would have us, and that because He would have us? Love to Him which does not keep His commandments is either spurious or dangerously feeble. The true sign of its presence in the heart and the noblest of its operations is to be found not in high-pitched expressions of fervid emotion, or even in the sacred joys of solitary communion, but in its making us, while in the rough struggle of daily life, and surrounded by trivial tasks, live near Him, and by Him, and for Him, and like Him.
So the test of love is obedience; and the more overmastering the love, the more will the obediencenot as reluctant, but as eager, not as a yoke or a burden, but as a passion and a lifedominate the whole self. It may be true that obedience which is not love is valueless. It is certainly true that love which does not express itself, perforce, in obedience, is not love. To the natural self the obedience of Christ seems burdensome. It is only experience of obedience that gives the lie to the instincts of the natural self. It is only experience that makes the religious man realize at last that Christs yoke is easy, and His burden is lightnot indeed because it dispenses with self-denial, but because self-denial itself, as the necessary expression of desire towards God, finds in its own very suffering a gladness which is greater and deeper than the pain.
We must begin to love Christ before we can keep His word. Christ is the lawgiver of Gods world, and before we can obey His laws we must be on terms of amity with Himself. This implies that we know Him to be at peace with us; for, as we are made, we cannot love where we dread. Gods friendship must come before Gods service. Now, the very opposite of this is frequently taughtthat there is to be service before there can be friendship, and that peace can be purchased only by obedience. We need not so much consult the Bible to see the falsehood of this as look into our own hearts, where we may feel the impossibility of doing anything that will bear the look of service in a spiritual sense until the heart is in it.1 [Note: John Ker.]
Gods will isthe bud of the rose for your hair,
The ring for your hand and the pearl for your breast;
Gods will isthe mirror that makes you look fair.
No wonder you whisper: Gods will is the best.
But what if Gods will were the famine, the flood?
And were Gods will the coffin shut down in your face?
And were Gods will the worm in the fold of the bud,
Instead of the picture, the light, and the lace?
Were Gods will the arrow that flieth by night,
Were Gods will the pestilence walking by day,
The clod in the valley, the rock on the height
I fancy Gods will would be harder to say.
Gods will isyour own will? What honour have you
For having your own will, awake or asleep?
Who praises the lily for keeping the dew,
When the dew is so sweet for the lily to keep?
Gods will unto me is not music or wine,
With helpless reproaching, with desolate tears,
Gods will I resist, for Gods will is divine;
And Ishall be dust to the end of my years.
Gods will isnot mine. Yet one night I shall lie
Very still at His feet, where the stars may not shine.
Lo! I am well pleased, I shall hear from the sky;
Becauseit is Gods will I do, and not mine.2 [Note: Sarah M. B. Piatt.]
II
The Reward is Divine Manifestation
Revelation on the part of God presupposes a certain disposition on the part of man. Love to Christlove to the Son of God, who has brought Himself within the range of human affectionbrings to the believer the love of His Father. Then follows that inward, abiding, transforming fellowship in which the Christian sees God more clearly as he reflects His likeness a little less dimly. There is brought to pass that twofold fulness of the spiritual life which unites two worlds: Christ lives in the believer and the believer lives in Christ.
God has not set up an arbitrary test of manifestation, He has taken the common course of our life, and given it applications to Himself. I might challenge the worshipper of Nature to say whether his god does not demand precisely the same condition of manifestation. The mountain is saying, If any man love me, I will manifest myself unto him; the sun holds the same language, so does the sea, so does every leaf oi the forest.1 [Note: J. Parker.]
Christ will come unto thee, and shew thee His own consolation, if thou prepare for Him a worthy mansion within thee.
All His glory and beauty is from within, and there He delighteth Himself.
The inward man He often visiteth; and hath with him sweet discourses, pleasant solace, much peace, familiarity exceeding wonderful.
O faithful soul, make ready thy heart for this Bridegroom, that He may vouchsafe to come unto thee, and to dwell within thee.
For thus saith He, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.2 [Note: Thomas Kempis, Of the Imitation of Christ, bk. ii. ch. i.]
1. The manifestation is in union with the Father.Jesus shows Himself to the obedient heart in indissoluble union with the Father. Look at the majesty, and, except upon one hypothesis, the insane presumption, of such words as these: If a man love me, my Father will love him: as if identifying love to Himself with love to the Father. And look at that wondrous union, the consciousness of which speaks in We will come. We will come, together, hand in hand, if one may so say; or rather, His coming is the Fathers coming. Just as in heaven, so closely are they represented as united that there is but one throne for God and the Lamb; so on earth, so closely are they represented as united that there is but one coming of the Father in the Son.
This is the only belief, as it seems to me, that will keep this generation from despair and moral suicide. The question for this generation is, Is it possible for men to know God? Science, both of material things and of inward experiences, is more and more unanimous in its proclamation; Behold! we know not anything; and the only attitude to take before that great black vault above us is to say, We know nothing. The world has learned half of a great verse of the Gospel: No man hath seen God at any time; nor can see Him. If the world is not to go mad, if hearts are not to be tortured into despair, if morality and enthusiasm and poetry and everything higher and nobler than the knowledge of material phenomena and their sequences is not to perish from the earth, the world must learn the next half of the verse, and say, The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. Christ shows Himself in indissoluble union with the Father.1 [Note: A. Maclaren.]
2. The manifestation is abiding.That coming is a permanent residence: We will make our abode with him. Very beautiful is it to notice that our Lord here employs that same sweet and significant word with which He began this wonderful series of encouragements, when He said, In my Fathers house are many mansions. Yonder they dwell for ever with God; here God in Christ for ever dwells with the loving heart. It is a permanent abode so long as the conditions are fulfilled, but only so long. If self-will, rising in the Christian heart from its torpor and apparent death, reasserts itself and shakes off Christs yoke, Christs presence vanishes.
In the last hours of the Holy City there was heard by the trembling priests, amidst the midnight darkness, the motion of departing Deity, and a great voice said: Let us depart hence; and to-morrow the shrine was empty, and the day after it was in flames. Brethren, if you would keep the Christ in whom is God, remember that He cannot be kept but by the act of loving obedience.1 [Note: A. Maclaren.]
We will make our abode with him, i.e. will be at home, as is possible where there is reciprocity of love. Where there is reciprocity of love there is what we call friendship. Lazarus was a friend of Jesus, who loved all, but had His friendships when on earth, and so He has now.2 [Note: R. W. Corbet, Letters from a Mystic of the Present Day, 171.]
Where He Delights to Dwell
Literature
Bonar (H.), Gods Way of Holiness, 153.
Bourdillon (F.), Short Sermons, 109, 119.
Griffiths (W.), Onward and Upward, 65.
Humberstone (W. J.), The Cure of Care, 109.
McClelland (T. C.), The Mind of Christ, 167.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions: John ix.xiv., 350.
Meyer (F. B.), The Souls Pure Intention, 35.
Miller (J.), Sermons Literary and Scientific, ii. 336.
Moberly (R. C), Christ our Life, 52.
Pope (W. B.), Discourses on the Lordship of the Incarnate Redeemer, 223.
Robertson (A. T.), The Teaching of Jesus: God the Father, 117.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, l. (1904) No. 2895.
Telford (J.), The Story of the Upper Room, 128.
Watson (J.), The Inspiration of our Faith, 179.
Westcott (B. F.), Peterborough Sermons, 39.
Whately (R.), Sermons on the Principal Christian Festivals, 107.
Christian World Pulpit, viii. 148 (Beecher); xii. 298 (Gallaway); li. 244 (Black).
Keswick Week, 1905, p. 87 (Sloan).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
If: Joh 14:15, Joh 14:21
make: Joh 14:17, Joh 5:17-19, Joh 6:56, Joh 10:30, Gen 1:26, Gen 11:7, Psa 90:1, Psa 91:1, Isa 57:15, Rom 8:9-11, 1Jo 2:24, 1Jo 4:4, 1Jo 4:15, 1Jo 4:16, Rev 3:20, Rev 3:21, Rev 7:15-17, Rev 21:22, Rev 22:3
Reciprocal: Gen 47:11 – Rameses Exo 29:45 – General Jdg 13:23 – he have showed 2Ch 19:11 – the Lord Psa 5:4 – evil Psa 68:1 – that hate Psa 68:18 – that Psa 69:36 – they Psa 91:14 – set Psa 119:2 – keep Psa 145:18 – nigh unto Pro 7:1 – keep Pro 8:17 – I love Pro 14:10 – and Eze 43:7 – where I Dan 2:11 – whose Zec 2:8 – sent Zec 2:10 – and I Zec 8:3 – dwell Zec 13:7 – the man Luk 19:5 – for Joh 1:39 – Come Joh 5:18 – God was Joh 16:27 – the Father Joh 17:23 – I Joh 17:26 – that Rom 8:10 – if Christ 1Co 16:22 – love 2Co 13:5 – Jesus Christ Eph 3:17 – Christ Eph 4:6 – and in Phi 2:11 – to the Col 1:27 – Christ Col 3:11 – and 1Jo 2:5 – whoso 1Jo 5:20 – and we Rev 21:3 – Behold
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
3
Come . . . make our abode is explained in the first part of the verse. The spiritual association of God and Christ with the disciples, was to be based on the condition that they keep the words of Jesus.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Joh 14:23. Jesus answered and said unto him, If any one love me, he will keep my word; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. Again the thought of Joh 14:15, and a fuller expression of the main teaching of this chapter, and, indeed, of this whole section of the Gospel. The answer to Judas is, that the manifestation referred to must be limited, because it can only be made where there is that communion of love which proves itself by the spirit of self-denial and submission to the charge of Jesus (comp. Joh 14:17; Joh 14:21). Two additional points are to be noted(I) The climax: no longer I but We, a fuller presentation of the truth. (2) The beginning of the discourse is taken up again, and thus its parts are more closely united: In my Fathers house are many places of abode (Joh 14:2); We will make our abode with him.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Observe here, How our Saviour still goes on to direct and encourage his disciples to evidence the sincerity of their love to his person, but the universality of their obedience to his commands; and tells them how great their advantage would be by so doing.
For first, The Father would love them; that is, manifest his favour to them in farther dispensations of grace and comfort.
Learn thence, That all the manifestations of divine love to the souls of believers, depend upon their close walking with God in the paths of holiness and strict obedience.
Secondly, We will make our abode with him. He shall have Father and Son’s company. An illusion to a parent that has many children; he will be sure to live with them that are most dutiful to him, and most observant of him. The expression of making their abode with us, denotes that sweet and intimate fellowship which shall be betwixt God and us, and the perpetuity and constancy of it at all times; till we are taken up by him into heaven, he will make his abode with us, by the indwelling presence of his Holy Spirit, the graces and comforts whereof shall abide with us for ever.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Vv. 23, 24. Jesus answered and said to him, If any one loves me, he will keep my word; and my Father will love him and we will come to him, and make our abode with him. 24. He who does not love me, does not keep my words; and the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father’s who sent me.
Jesus continues His discourse, as if He had not heard the question of Judas; for the first part of Joh 14:23 is only the reproduction of Joh 14:21 developed and stated with greater precision. And yet He answers the question proposed, by more energetically reaffirming the promise, as well as the moral condition which had called forth the objection; comp. the same mode of replying in Luk 12:41 ff. To love Jesus, to keep His word, to be loved by the Father,these are the conditions on which the promised revelation will be made (Joh 14:23); now the world does not fulfil them; it is animated by dispositions of an opposite character (Joh 14:24).
As to the conditions and nature of this revelation, Jesus develops them grandly. The revelation of Himself which He will give to the believer will be nothing less than His own dwelling in his soul, and this will be one with the dwelling of God Himself within him. How can we think here only of the appearances of the Risen One, or even of temporary aid granted to the disciples by the glorified Lord in the work of their ministry? It is incomprehensible how Weiss can persist in such an interpretation to the very end.
Here, as in Joh 10:30, Jesus sayswe in speaking of God and Himself; this expression, if it is not blasphemous or absurd, implies the consciousness of His essential union with God. The conception of the kingdom of God which we find here is not foreign to the Synoptics; comp. Luk 17:20 : The kingdom of God comes not with observation; it is within you ( ); and Mat 28:18-20. A very similar figure is found in Rev 3:20 : If any one opens the door, I will enter in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
Joh 14:2 proves that the term , dwelling, can designate not only an inn, but the permanent domicile (see Passow). This expression perhaps places the idea of this verse in connection with that of Joh 14:2. Here on earth, it is God who makes His abode with the believer; in heaven, it will be the believer who will make his abode with God. The first of these facts (Joh 14:23) prepares for the second (Joh 14:3).
Weiss rests upon the , properly near him, to support the view that the question is not of an inward dwelling. The unio mystica between Christ and the believer, must have been designated, according to him, by , in him. But the preposition , with, is necessarily introduced by reason of the figure of a dwelling ( ) and cannot in any way serve to determine the mode of this union. And it follows from the terms and , as from the parallel Rev 3:20, that this mode is internal and spiritual.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
Verse 23
Jesus does not appear to reply directly to the question of Judas.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
Ver. 23.–Jesus answered, &c. As if He said, “Do not suppose, 0 Judas, that I will appear to thee alone and thy fellow-Apostles after My resurrection, as if the fruit of My life and passion were restricted to you only and the few others, to whom I shall visibly appear. I shall appear, though invisibly, to all those who throughout the world shall receive My faith and doctrine by means of the preaching of thyself and the rest of the Apostles, and shall love and keep it.”
And We will come to Him, I and My Father, and consequently the Holy Ghost. For where there is one Divine Person there are the other two. He means, Be it that after My resurrection I shall appear visibly to you alone, invisibly I shall come by My grace to all the faithful who believe in Me. And as I will come, so also My Father and the Holy Spirit will come to them. And we will dwell in their souls as in our house and temple.
Observe, God, who is everywhere, and therefore immovable, is said to come and abide, not by change of place, but by the fresh working which He effects in such and such a place. So He is here said to come to the faithful and the just by grace and a fresh operation, because He preserves them, and furthers them in justice, and He assists and co-operates with their own free will. For He prevents their understanding with His illumination, and their will by pious affections, by which He impels them to good works, even such as are arduous, and by His concurring grace He labours with them for this accomplishment.
Hear S. Augustine, “Love, which makes men to dwell with one mind in a house, separates the saints from the world. In that house the Father and the Son, who giveth the gift of love, make their dwelling-place. They come to us whilst we come to them. They come by assisting, enlightening, filling. We come by obeying, beholding, receiving.”
Lastly, thus piously writes S. Bernard (Serm. 3, de Advent.), “Blessed is he with whom Thou wilt make Thine abode, 0 Lord Jesu; blessed is he in whom Wisdom builds herself a house, hewing out her seven pillars; blessed is the soul which is the seat of wisdom. What is that soul? It is the soul of the just. Rightly so, for judgment and justice are the preparation of Thy seat. Who is there among you, brethren, who desires to prepare in his soul a seat for Christ? Lo! what are the silks, the tapestry, the cushions, which ought to be prepared? Justice and judgment, He says, are the preparation of Thy seat. Justice is the virtue which is His very own, and which He gives to each. Render thus to each of the three classes of thy superiors, thy equals, thy inferiors, what is due to each. Thus shalt thou worthily celebrate the coming of Christ, and prepare His seat in justice.”
Tropologically, God the Holy Trinity comes to the three faculties of the soul, which He created after His own image, that He may inhabit them, renewing in them His image depraved by concupiscences. To the Father is appropriated memory, because He from fruitful memory conceiving all things, produced the Word, and begat the Son. To the Son is appropriated the understanding, because by the understanding He was begotten, as it were the word of the mind, the idea, image and pattern of all things. To the Holy Spirit is appropriated the will, because He Himself proceeds by the action of the will, i e., the love of the Father and the Son, as it were the love and bond of union of both. The Father therefore reforms the memory when He blots out of it the appearances of vanity, and brings into it the appearances of divine things, so that it should remember only God, His worship and His love. The Son reforms the understanding, so that it should think only of the things which pertain to salvation and holiness. The Holy Spirit reforms the will, so that it should love and desire the same. Wherefore a holy soul continually reflects that it is a temple of the Holy Trinity, as it is said in 2 Cor. vi., “Ye are the temple of the living God.”
There were in the ancient Temple three vessels of service-the altar for burning incense, the candelabrum with its seven burning lamps, and the table of shewbread. There should be in like manner in a holy soul an altar of prayer, breathing out holy praises and pious desires to God. There ought to be a candelabrum brightly shining with the seven gifts of the holy Ghost. And there ought to be a table of beneficence and charity. Then will come to pass that which is written in the Apocalypse, (Rev 21:3), “Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He shall dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself with them shall be their God.” See S. Bernard (Serm. 27, in Cant.) where he teaches that a holy soul is a heaven in which shine the sun of charity, the moon of continence, the stars of the other virtues.
Ver. 24.-He that loveth Me not, &c. The reason then why any one does not keep God’s commandments is because he loveth not God.
And the word which ye have heard is not Mine, &c. Listen to S. Augustine, “He said that the word was not His, but the Father’s, intending Himself to be understood, who is the Word, the Image and the Son of the Father. Rightly does He attribute to the Originator what the equal does, from whom the equal has that He is an equal.”
Vers. 25, 26.-These things have I spoken unto you, remaining yet with you. But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send, &c. Thus should this passage be pointed with the Roman, Greek, Arabic, and Syriac Versions. Less appropriately S. Chrysostom connects the words, remaining with you with the Paraclete, as though it were meant, “I go away, but the Holy Ghost will remain with you in My place.” But the words should be referred to Christ who went before. He means, “These things which thus far ye have heard from My mouth I have spoken unto you, and taught you, whilst I remained with you, but I know that, either through your own ignorance, or through the strangeness and sublimity of the things which I have spoken, many are not received or understood by you. I will cause therefore that the Father will send you the Holy Ghost, as a Paraclete, i.e. an Instructor and Comforter, who will bring back to your memory, and explain to you all these things which I have said unto you. By His illuminations ye will easily understand all things. He will comfort you when you are sad at My departure, and will strengthen you under the persecution of the Jews, or any other tribulations. That the Holy Ghost did this is seen by the earlier chapters of the Acts of the Apostles and elsewhere. As S. Chrysostom says, “He frequently speaks of the Comforter because of their sadness.”
Whom the Father shall send in My name, i.e., says S. Cyril, through Me, because the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and the Son. Wherefore the Father with the Son, or through the Son, as He breathes, so also He sends the Holy Ghost. 2d. In My name, i.e., for My sake, and because of My merits. 3d. In My name, i.e., for Me in My place, that He may finish My work which I have begun, and by the preaching of the Apostles may disseminate My faith, My doctrine, My Church throughout all nations.
He shall teach you all things, which pertain to my advent and Incarnation. All things which are necessary for the foundation, instruction, establishment of the Church. Listen to Didymus (lib. de Spir. Sanc.)-“He shall teach the perfect in the faith of Christ spiritual and intellectual sacraments. But He shall teach by infusing invisibly the knowledge of Divine things into the soul.” And Augustine-“The Son speaketh not without the Holy Ghost: neither doth the Holy Ghost teach without the Son, but the Trinity speaketh and teacheth all things. But unless separate mention were made of each Person, human weakness could not receive these things.”
And shall suggest (suggest, Vulg.) Greek, , i.e., shall bring back to memory. So Cyril, Augustine, &c. Wherefore from this passage S. Augustine takes notice that the external voice of an apostle or preacher does not suffice for the understanding or reception of the thing preached, but that this is the work of the Holy Ghost, who inwardly enlightens the mind to understand those things, and inclines the will to embrace them, and strengthens the memory to retain them. An orthodox doctor teaches this. Theophylact says, “The Holy Ghost taught all that Christ had not said to them, as not being able to bear it. Also He brought to mind what the Lord had said, but which they, through its obscurity or the dulness of their understanding, had been unable to remember.”
Ver. 27.-Peace I leave you. My peace, &c. The Arabic translates My own peace. This is Christ’s farewell. For the Hebrews, when they salute any one coming, or bid good-bye when departing, say, Peace be with you. Where under the word peace they wish every kind of good, prosperity, and happiness. It is as though Christ said, “Going away from you, I give to you, 0 ye Apostles and your successors, and as it were leave you, My benediction for an inheritance. By this I pray God to give you every good thing. And this I do not vainly or briefly, like the world, but truly, solidly, eternally. I do it not by adulatory words, as worldly people do, but really supplicating and bestowing grace and power, by which ye may securely attain to the eternal goods, and by your preaching, charity, and prayers may lead many others to the same blessed end.” So Maldonatus.
Jansen and Toletus explain a little differently. They say, This peace is that of which S. Paul speaks in the 4th ch. of the Philippians, “The peace of God which surpasseth all sense keep your heart and understanding in Christ Jesus.” Now this peace includes-1. Friendship with God. 2. Tranquillity of mind and calm in temptations and persecutions. 3. Mutual concord amongst ourselves. This makes men strong in every danger, and gives consolation in every trouble. This the Lord bequeaths us, not riches, nor temporal possessions. Far above all the wealth of this world peace stands pre-eminent.
Hear S. Augustine. “We cannot arrive at the Lord’s inheritance, who wished us to observe His testament of peace-we cannot have concord with Christ if we quarrel with our fellow-Christians. Peace is serenity of mind, simplicity of heart, the bond of love, the concord of charity.”
Symbolically, S. Augustine. “He leaves peace in this world, abiding in which peace we overcome the enemy. He will give peace in the world to come, when we shall reign without an enemy. He is our peace, both when we believe that He is, and when we shall see Him as He is. We must observe that when He saith I will give, He adds My peace, wishing us to understand that it is such peace as He hath Himself, in whom there is no fighting, because He hath no sin. But the peace which He leaves us is rather to be called ours, than His. It is such peace as is consistent with the state in which we still say, Forgive us our debts. There is peace among ourselves forasmuch as we trust and love one another. But it is not full peace, because we do not see the thoughts of one another’s hearts.”
Ver. 28.-Let not your heart be troubled, &c. Christ adds this because He saw that the Apostles were sad at His departure, and fainthearted on account of the hatred of the Jews, and the battles which were impending, says S. Chrysostom. Lest the wolf should attack the sheep when the Shepherd was absent, says S. Austin. Therefore He consoles them, and lifts them up, saying, “Be not troubled nor fearful because of My departure, as though ye were about to be sheep without a Shepherd. For I, as I have said, go away indeed to death, but I will rise again on the third day, and then I will come, i.e., I will return, to you.”
If ye loved Me, &c. The apostles did love Christ, and therefore they were troubled at His going away. When therefore Christ says, If ye loved Me, He speaks after the manner of men. It is the way of consoling friends when they are sad at the departure of a friend. If you showed Me, 0 ye Apostles, what true and sincere love demands, ye would not grieve but rejoice at My departure, for My going away will be exceedingly profitable to Me, yea, and to you likewise. For I am going to the Father who is greater than I, i.e., I am going from consorting with men to God, from human misery and contempt to Divine felicity, exaltation, and glory. I am going to prepare a place for you, to which in due time I will bring you. So Cyril.
For My Father is greater than I. This was the great stronghold of the Arians, by which they sought to prove that the Son was not God, but the highest creature of God; but SS. Athanasius, Augustine, Basil, and the rest of the Fathers, admirably reply to them, that Christ is here speaking of Himself not as God, but as man. For as such He was less, not only than the Father, but even than the angels. And that Christ is speaking thus is plain from hence, that He gives the reason why He is going to the Father: because, He saith, My Father is greater than I. Now Christ goeth to the Father, in that, as man, He ascendeth into heaven. For as God He is alway in heaven with the Father. Wherefore S. Augustine saith, “He went, in that He was in one place: He remained, in that He was everywhere.” That is, He went through His Humanity, He abode through His Divinity. Therefore His Father was greater than He in respect to His Humanity, not His Divinity. The meaning then is, Ye must rejoice, 0 ye Apostles, at My departure, because I go to the Father, and ascend into heaven to greater honour and dignity, that I may obtain from the Father, for Myself and for you, the rewards of My Passion, even a seat at the Father’s right hand, and the empire of the universe, the adoration of all the angels, and the conversion of all nations to My faith and worship: and for you the Holy Ghost and all His gifts, armed with which ye shall conquer the whole world for Me and for yourselves, and bring it with you to celestial glory. For those things, which are far greater than what ye have as yet seen and received, I will ask and obtain when I go to the Father.
Some fathers, moreover, in order to give a complete answer to the Arians, answer more subtilly, but intricately, that the Father is greater than the Son not only as He is man, but also as He is God, because the name of Father seems among men to be more honourable than the name of Son. For a father is the beginning and cause of a son. The Father therefore is greater than the Son, not in magnitude, nor time, nor virtue, nor dignity, nor adoration, but in respect of a certain honour amongst men, i.e., in respect of origin, because the Father is the origin of the Son. So S. Athanasius (Serm. cont. Arian), S. Hilary (lib. 9, de Trin.), &c. Although with reference to Divine things, filiation, from whence is derived the idea of sonship, is something as excellent and as honourable as is the idea of paternity in the Father. Indeed, as the Son hath from the Father that He is the Son, so in turn the Father hath from the Son that He is the Father. For the Father is He who hath the Son. Wherefore in this case, that passive origin which is in the Son is in itself as worthy and as honourable as that active origin which is in the Father. For it is as great to be Begotten God as it is to beget God. Therefore it is as great to be the Son as to be the Father. Lastly, each hath altogether in personality the same Divine Essence, the same majesty and omnipotence. Wherefore one cannot be greater than the other. “Greater,” says S. Hilary, “is He who gives by the authority of a giver, but He is not less to whom it is given to be One (with the Giver).” Greater, i.e., in the estimation of men, not of God. Wherefore Maldonatus thinks that Hilary and some others have conceded too much to the Arians. And Damascene (lib. 1, de Fid.) corrects them thus, “The Father is greater, not in nature, nor in dignity, but only in origin. (See Suarez, lib. 2, de Trin. cap. 4.) And in my opinion this was the teaching of S. Hilary.
Moreover, the analogy of the Divine compared with human generation is so entirely different as to refute the Arians. For in things human the father is greater than his son. 1st. Because he is prior, and senior to the son. 2d. Because he is greater in stature and bulk, for a grown-up man generates a little infant. 3d. Because he produces a nature numerically different from himself, which he communicates to his son. Wherefore he is greater than that nature as being its author. 4th. Because of his own free will he begets a son. For it was possible to him not to have begotten. But in things Divine the manner is altogether different. For the Father is greater than the Son neither in age nor size: neither does He beget a Deity different from His Own, but communicates to the Son the same Deity which He Himself has. Neither does He beget of His own will, so to say, but of the natural fruitfulness of the Divine Nature He produces a Son the equal of Himself, nor can He produce another. Lastly, S. Cyril, in the Council of Ephesus, proves that the Father is greater than Christ in so far as Christ is man, but not in that He is God, after this manner:-“We acknowledge Him (the Son) to be in all respects as the Father, to be incapable either of turning, or of change, and to have need of nothing, a perfect Son, like unto the Father, and differing from Him only in this respect that the Father is unbegotten. For He is the perfect and express Image of the Father. And it is certain that the Image ought fully to include all those things in which the Pattern itself, which is greater, is perfectly expressed, even as the Lord Himself hath taught, saying, the Father is greater than I.”
Ver. 29.-And now I have told you, &c. That is, and now I foretell to you My departure and death, My resurrection and return to you, not that ye should condole with Me, and look after your own safety, but that, when ye see those things fulfilled, ye may believe that I foreknew and foreordained them all, and therefore that I submitted to death, not of necessity, but of My own free-will, for your salvation and that of the world, and therefore that ye may believe that I am the Messiah, the Son of God, the Saviour.
Ver. 30.-I will not henceforth talk much with you, &c. For this is not the time to speak much, but to conclude, for the prince of this world, to whom worldly men are subject, by sinning after their own will, cometh. That is, he cometh to take and kill Me. For Christ said this when Judas was approaching with the officers, who were sent by the chief priests to take Him.
But he hath nothing in Me, i.e., he cometh to take Me, but he hath no power over Me, because he will find nothing of sin in Me, nothing of that which caused Adam and his posterity to die. Wherefore he must unjustly bring death upon Me being innocent. And this I am ready to suffer, that by means of My unjust death I may despoil him of his power, and deliver men from his jurisdiction and tyranny. So Cyril and Chrysostom. The innocence therefore of Christ, and the death of that innocent One, hath delivered all of us, the guilty ones, from harm. And this was that supreme consolation of Christ, which He here brings home to the Apostles. Or, as Maldonatus puts it, “The devil cometh, to take and kill Me by means of the Jews, but in Me he hath nothing, i.e. he will not be able to overcome or destroy Me, as he hopes; for although I am about to die, I shall not do so through his power or strength, but of My own free choice, that I may fulfil My Father’s will.”
Ver. 31.-But that the world may know, &c. That is, “I will die, not compelled by the devil’s servants, the Jews, but freely, out of love and obedience to the Father. For He hath given Me commandment to undergo death for the redemption of men. Wherefore so I do, submitting myself to death.” So SS. Chrysostom, Cyril, &c.
You may say, Christ received commandment from the Father to suffer, to die, and to do the things which He did. Therefore He could not will the contrary, neither was He free, for had He done otherwise He would have sinned. But Christ is impeccable by a twofold title,-1st, on account of His hypostatic union with the Word; 2d, on account of the light of glory, in that He seeth God. For Christ and the Blessed, because they clearly perceive that God is infinite Good, are so wholly ravished with His love that they cannot either love or will anything which is contrary or displeasing to Him. I reply: the hypostatic union with the Word made Christ impeccable in such manner that the office of the Word was to keep and preserve that humanity which was hypostatically united to Itself altogether sinless, lest the Word, or God, which upheld the humanity, should be said to sin. But the Word kept the humanity from sin, not by physically predetermining, so to say, the will of Christ, to obey the Father’s commandment, but only by Its congruous grace, so continually preventing It, and sweetly directing and urging It, as It foreknew future conditional events, that Itself was (ever) consenting to this grace, and therefore was always freely subjecting Itself to the will of God, and never, even by venial offences, displeasing Him. Moreover, the light of glory constrained indeed Christ, forasmuch as He was blessed to subject Himself in beatific act to the will of God and the decree of death as perceived by this light to be His will. Yet it did not force Him, in so far as He was a wayfarer (viator). For as a wayfarer He had infused knowledge, as we have faith, according to which He was able freely to elicit acts of love and obedience, or not to elicit them, at His pleasure, as we of our free will are able to elicit similar acts. He therefore freely elicited that act by which, in obedience to the Father’s commandment, He accepted the death of the cross, saying, “Lo! I come to do Thy will, 0 God” (Ps. 47.) Neither did the prior act determine ex necessitate the subsequent act, because they were altogether incommensurable, and of a different order. For the former is the act of one of the (already) Blessed, the latter act an act of one travelling to the country. See the Schoolmen.
Arise, &c. These words depend upon what went before, and are thus connected, “That the world may know that I love the father, and am obedient to His commandment to suffer death, arise, and let us go to the garden of Gethsemane where the Jews await Me to take and kill Me.”
You will ask whether Christ actually rose from the table, and went out of the house towards Gethsemane, and in the way proceeded to utter the things which John records in the three following chapters: and that then, when they were ended, He passed over the brook Cedron, and entered the garden, where he was betrayed by Judas, and taken by the Jews, as John narrates, ch. xviii. 1, &c. Cyril and Augustine answer in the affirmative, and this is probable. Maldonatus and others, more probably, answer in the negative. They think that Christ did not go out of the house. They are of this opinion, 1st, Because John does not say so. 2d, Because Christ could not conveniently, with the apostles following Him, say all things in the way which are related in the three following chapters, so that they could hear and understand them. Christ saith therefore, Arise, because He did actually rise up from the table, and stood upon His feet, and bade the apostles do the same, that they might go away with Him to the mount of Olives. But, as dear friends are wont to do when they are saying farewell, and are hardly tearing themselves away from those they so tenderly love, so did Christ, as they were standing, resume a fresh and longer discourse, prolonging it until the 18th chapter. Then bringing it to a close, He went across the brook Cedron to the mount of Olives. For such is the wont of those who love when they are bidding their mutual good-byes. As Ovid says, when he is going away into exile (lib. 1, Trist.):
And thrice the threshold gain:
To linger near with fond regret
My footsteps were full fain.
Farewell, farewell, I cried:
Words full of love I said:
Then, with a last fond kiss,
For ever from it fled. Thrice did I turn my steps,
Tropologically: when any arduous duty is decreed by God, or ordained by our superiors, such as a dangerous journey, death, or martyrdom, let us generously and with alacrity offer ourselves to God as victims of charity and obedience, and freely meet the danger, saying with Christ, Arise, let us go hence. For he who breaks the first onset of fear, by boldly meeting it, has overcome half the difficulty, and will easily vanquish the remainder. Daily experience proves that “He has accomplished the half of a deed who has well begun.”
Fuente: Cornelius Lapide Commentary
Jesus did not clear up Judas’ misconception, apparently because He wanted to stay on the subject of the importance of loving and obeying Him. He did not deny an eschatological return, but He restated what He had just said about His post-resurrection appearance to the Eleven. Jesus stressed the principle that loving obedience always results in intimate fellowship. He was speaking here about the relationship that believers could have following Pentecost. In the process He again stressed His union with the Father.
Jesus began this instruction by referring to abiding places (Gr. monai, plural) that He would prepare for His disciples in heaven (Joh 14:2). He now revealed that He and His Father would make their home (Gr. monen, singular) in believing disciples on the earth first. These are the only two occurrences of this word in the New Testament. They bracket this section of Jesus’ discourse and indicate its unity.
"Salvation means we are going to heaven, but submission means that heaven comes to us!
"This truth is illustrated in the experiences of Abraham and Lot, recorded in Genesis 18, 19. When Jesus and the two angels visited Abraham’s tent, they felt right at home. They even enjoyed a meal, and Jesus had a private talk with Abraham. But our Lord did not go to Sodom to visit Lot, because He did not feel at home there. Instead, He sent the two angels. . . .
"Charles Spurgeon said, ’Little faith will take your soul to heaven, but great faith will bring heaven to your soul.’ Your heart can become a ’heaven on earth’ as you commune with the Lord and worship Him." [Note: Wiersbe, 1:353.]