Jesus Comforts His Disciples
1"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God[1] ; trust also in me. 2In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4You know the way to the place where I am going."
Jesus the Way to the Father
5Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"
6Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7If you really knew me, you would know[2] my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him."
8Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us."
9Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? 10Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. 12I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit
15"If you love me, you will obey what I command. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever-- 17the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be[3] in you. 18I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."
22Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, "But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?"
23Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.
25"All this I have spoken while still with you. 26But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
28"You heard me say, 'I am going away and I am coming back to you.' If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. 29I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe. 30I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me, 31but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.
"Come now; let us leave.
In chapter 13:1-30, John related the last major event (the Last Supper) that took place between Jesus and His disciples before He went to the cross. In chapters 13:31-38 and 14-16, John relates the last major discourse that Jesus gave to His disciples before He went to the cross. These three chapters are probably the clearest and fullest record of Jesus’ own teaching that we have anywhere in the Scriptures about His death and the things that would follow. Jesus has told His disciples that He is going where they cannot follow, and He has told Peter that he would deny Him; these were such heavy and sorrowful truths that He changes course and begins to give them words of comfort, words that explain the purpose of this difficult news. Eventually, He will pick up again with His themes of true discipleship, and so on; but for now, His message is one of explanation and comfort.
- V1-3 - Jesus mentions the Father some 13 times in the first 13 verses, and this has prompted many theologians to call this portion of the text, “Jesus’ Father Sermon.” He comforts the fearful and sorrowful disciples by directing their thoughts to the Father, in whom they already believe with fervent faith, as v1 declares. Jesus knows their hearts are troubled, so He says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” And Jesus, being the great physician, here the great Cardiologist, offers much in the way of remedy for heart-trouble. He has said that His own heart was troubled on numerous occasions. And from this we can learn that the reason we don’t have to be troubled is because Jesus has been troubled for us. Why should our hearts be troubled if we believe in God?
The disciples are, of course, sorrowful over the news of Jesus’ departure – yet He tells them not to be sorrowful, but instead to trust in Him – they already trust the Father. If they really believed that God the Father loved them, they would trust Jesus, and thereby be certain that He was not about to do something that was not for their good. On the contrary, He was going to prepare for them something far better even than His physical presence with them at that time – a place where they could dwell in the house of the Father and be with Jesus, there in the Father’s presence, forever. To understand fully what Jesus is saying, we must remember where He is going at this particular time, and why He is about to leave the disciples: He is going to His death on the cross – and that is how He is going to prepare a place for them in the Father’s presence. God the Father is holy and just, and will not tolerate sinful men in His house. But according to the Father’s gracious will, Jesus was about to make a way for this unthinkable reality to happen. He was about to prepare a way for sinful men to dwell with the holy God. And the way that He was going to do that involved His leaving the disciples for death on the cross. Of course, the later verses speak of Jesus’ coming to take us up to be with Him, by which He must mean His return to take us up to heaven – but the way that He prepared this place to which He would ultimately take us was nothing other than His immediate leaving of the disciples, in order to offer Himself up on the cross as a substitutionary sacrifice for their sins.
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V4-7 – At this point, Jesus tells the disciples that they already know the way to this place that He is preparing. But the disciples, or at least Thomas in particular, do not yet understand and so ask, “How can we know the way if we do not even know where You are going?” But Jesus Himself is the Way, and they do know Jesus. If they know the Way, then they will surely arrive at the end, which is life in the knowledge of God. In fact, if they know Jesus, they already know God, and have already seen Him – something that no one has done apart from the Son who reveals Him (John 1:18). True life consists of knowing the Father (John 17:3); and there is no life, no truth, and indeed, no way to pursue after either apart from the Father’s greatest self-revelation to man, which is Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life!
Notice that Jesus says, “You know the way,” and Thomas replies, “We can’t know the way.” Thomas is not intentionally, but rather indirectly, refuting Jesus. It is therefore sinful to deny the truth of what Jesus says, even when we don’t understand it. Furthermore, Thomas’ lack of faith is seen in his question, “How can we know the way?” And Jesus answers this question despite the disrespect of his disciple. When Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life,” He is claiming to be the way – the gate as we saw earlier (the entrance or the beginning) – and the life – the resurrection (the destination or the end) as we saw earlier. But what does He mean by saying, “I am the truth”? This fits perfectly with John’s style, and so there’s no doubt as to why John included this statement in the account. Jesus fulfills the Tabernacle imagery. He is the truth in the sense that He is the fulfillment of all the Old Testament types and shadows. Everything comes to its fruition in Jesus, and therefore, He is the truth (the route).
Calvin says, “If any man turn aside from Christ, he will do nothing but go astray; if any man do not rest on Him, he will feed elsewhere on nothing but wind and vanity; if any man, not satisfied with Him alone, wishes to go farther, he will find death instead of life.” Thomas A’Kempis, in The Imitation of Christ, says, “Without the way, there is no going; and without the truth there is no knowing; and without the life there is no living.”
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V8-14 – Jesus has just said, “You know the Father and have seen Him,” and what does Philip say? “Show us the Father; that will be enough.” He just said, “Philip, you’ve seen Him!” We are the same way – poor and slow to learn.
Philip understands that Jesus is the One who reveals the Father, and so his statement is really a question in statement form. He’s asking meekly, “Jesus, would You reveal the Father to us right now?” The request shows that Philip does not yet understand what Jesus is saying, any more than Thomas did. Jesus is disappointed with Philip’s words. He is not going to allow them some mystical ability to “see” the invisible God at some point in the future; on the contrary, He Himself is the image of the invisible God, in a form that man can see! Anyone who has seen Jesus has seen the invisible God, for Jesus is God, and He and the Father are One in the strongest sense of the word. In fact, they mutually indwell each other! If Philip knew Jesus, he should have realized that he already knew the Father – through Jesus’ words, which were the Father’s, through Jesus’ works, which were the Father’s, and through Jesus’ display of the glory of the Father, which the Father displays in His Son.
Even if Philip had not understood Jesus’ words and teachings on the subject, he ought to have recognized from Jesus’ sign-miracles, at the least, that Jesus was One with the Father, and that He was the One who came down to provide a way to the Father. The very nature of the signs, displaying as they did Jesus’ nature as the Light of the world, the Bread which came down from heaven, the Resurrection and the Life, and so on, ought to have taught him and convinced him of that much. Jesus is the living word – the sermon on God the Father.
Now in v12, Jesus continues on the subject of His sign miracles, and tells the disciples something truly staggering: “Anyone who has faith in Me will do what I have been doing.” Indeed believers (not limited to the twelve) would do greater signs than Jesus had done! How could this be? In order to understand Jesus, we must pay close attention to His reasoning: this astonishing teaching is only true because Jesus is returning to the Father, and together, they would send the Holy Spirit (v16-17); This staggering truth is only true, because Jesus would do mightier works than He had yet done in answer to the prayers of the believers through the power of His Holy Spirit. His power extends to and through the Church as His body. Although this teaching is nearly unbelievable, at first, it begins to make sense when one considers the marvelous plan of redemption: We are in the business of showing people God the Father when we show them Jesus. And we do this knowing the great truth that Jesus taught: “Where I am, there you will also be.”
Jesus would no longer be seen just by thousands – He would make Himself known, through the prayers of His witnessing people, to millions. He would not just walk among men – He would dwell within them through His Spirit! As great as Jesus’ signs were, something better was waiting to be accomplished by His people, or rather, by Jesus Himself as He answered the prayers of and indwelled and worked through His people through His Spirit.
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V15-21 – If the first 13 or 14 verses are considered to be Jesus’ “Father Sermon,” then the rest of the chapter ought to be called His “Spirit Sermon.” Jesus’ instruction now turns naturally to the coming of the Spirit. And it’s not likely that the disciples understood Jesus’ teaching here and now. Ironically, the Holy Spirit about whom Jesus taught would only later teach the disciples to remember and discern this teaching about Himself. Jesus will not leave His disciples; rather He will come to them (and us) in the Holy Spirit making His presence known. The world won’t see Him; but believers will know Him intimately, because He will live with them and in them.
V15 is challenging. All true believers would claim to love Jesus; consider Peter in the final chapter of John’s Gospel – He gets annoyed that Jesus would ask him if he loves Him three times. Calvin says, “The love with which the disciples loved Christ was true and sincere, and yet there was some superstition mixed with it, as is frequently the case with ourselves; for it was very foolish in them to wish to keep Him in the world. To correct this fault, He bids them direct their love to another end; and that is, to employ themselves in keeping the commandments which He had given them. This is undoubtedly a useful doctrine, for of those who think that they love Christ, there are very few who honor Him as they ought to do; but, on the contrary, after having performed small and trivial services, they give themselves no farther concern. The true love of Christ, on the other hand, is regulated by the observation of his doctrine as the only rule. But we are likewise reminded how sinful our affections are, since even the love which we bear to Christ is not without fault, if it be not directed to a pure obedience.”
In v16, Jesus comforts His followers by telling them that He would ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit, whom He calls “another Counselor,” or Comforter, or Advocate, or Paraclete, which means “Helper.” V17 calls Him the Spirit of truth. He’ll be with us “forever.” Jesus will elaborate on this in chapter 16. In today’s culture, when we get into legal trouble, we hire a lawyer. In first century Palestine, a person in legal trouble would seek out their best friend as someone who knew their character and could vouch for their typical behavior. This Person for us is the Holy Spirit. He is our hedge of protection God gives to believers. He speaks for us when we don’t know the words to say. And at the same time, He is the prosecutor and convictor of the unbelieving world, who effectually and irresistibly leads some to become believers. If the Spirit does not reveal Himself to each person, then we can know nothing of Him – the world cannot receive or accept Him.
V18 accomplishes two things. First Jesus tells His followers that they are orphans. He reminds us of our weakness apart from Him, and He’ll say later, “Apart from Me you can do nothing.” Second, Jesus tells His followers that He will not leave them in this state of weakness. He will come to them by the power of His empowering Spirit. This statement alone proves His Divinity – or His lunacy if you don’t believe. He speaks of the unity He has with His followers, extending even to life and death. V20 causes some question with the words, “On that day.” Some suggest this to be the day of Pentecost. Others think Jesus is speaking of the entire day – as in long period of time – of His Spirit’s power between Pentecost and His bodily return. This thought speaks to the reality that we can not really know anything of the Spirit unless He dwells in us (1 Corinthians 2:14). Finally, v21 reminds us of v15, the challenge to obey Jesus as evidence of our love for Him. The means of this process is progress (sanctification) resulting in the end of this process: conformity to the image of Christ – glorification.
Throughout the entire history of redemption, all three Persons of the Trinity have constantly been at work together, in perfect unity; and yet, in the different eras, the work of one of these Persons has come more to the forefront. Before Christ came, the Father’s work was in the forefront, as He sovereignly worked all things out for the coming of the King. After Christ’s incarnation, His own work of purchasing redemption for us was obviously at the forefront. And after this marvelous redemption was indeed accomplished, the ministry of the Spirit, in teaching men of Christ and opening their hearts to the knowledge of Him – applying to the elect of the Father the redemption which the Son had already won – this new ministry moved, in a sense, to the forefront. And Jesus called this ministry “greater” than His own. The Holy Spirit would change the hearts of His people so that they would be able to follow His perfect commandment – just as had been prophesied before (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ezekiel 36:25-27)! We must be careful not to forget that God’s Spirit was at work in the hearts of true believers in the Old Testament, “circumcising their hearts” so that they might obey God (Deuteronomy 30:6) – but after Jesus’ ascension, He was about to work in mightier ways than ever before, within the new Covenant, which exceeds the old Mosaic Covenant, just as the substance exceeds the shadow.
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V22-25 – What a great question we get in v22! Judas asks, “Why are you going to show Yourself to us but not to the world?” Do you ever wonder about that? I think it’s a question that has to do with election. This disciple is a quiet, intellectual type who soaks it all in and processes everything and only speaks when the timing is just right. And here we have it. Why us and not the world? Prior to our receiving Christ, we look like the world. Why pick us out of the world? And Jesus’ response is great. “If anyone loves Me, he will obey, and My Father and I will live in him. But if anyone doesn’t love Me, he won’t obey,” and thus, the Father and Son will not dwell in the unbeliever. How do we answer a question about election? By talking about man’s accountability to repent and believe. How do we answer a question about man’s accountability? By appealing to the sovereignty of God in election. Both stand firm and true; there is no contradiction.
Of course, the logical extension of this promise of the Spirit’s ministry is this: if the Spirit does not indwell and change a person, then that person is not a true believer. If the Spirit changes hearts and makes them desire to obey Jesus (and Jesus commands us to love one another as He loved us), then we will be changed and will desire to obey (more and more as we are sanctified) and will produce fruit in keeping with repentance (Matthew 3:8; Luke 3:8). Let us ask ourselves with this truth in mind: If God’s Spirit is not at work in our hearts, producing faith, love for Christ, and love for those who belong to Christ, then how can we say that we belong to Him (Romans 8:1-11)?
Finally, in v23 we learn that the Father and Son will make Their home or their abode with the believer by Their Spirit. This Greek word for “home” is “mone” (mo-neigh`). It’s only used twice in all of Scripture (here and in v2 of this chapter, where it is translated “rooms,” or “mansions” in other versions). The word conveys an intimate and permanent abiding and staying. It’s something only the Holy Spirit can do. Notice in v2, He’s making a place for you to be near the Father and the Son; and in v23, He’s making a place for the Father and the Son to be near you. How does that make you feel? Ephesians 2:22
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V26-31 – We also learn here in v26 that the Holy Spirit’s ministry involves teaching. What will He teach us? “All things.” Wow! Look back at v20: “On that day you will realize that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you.” When the Spirit indwells us, He teaches us these amazing truths. That’s everything right there. Jesus is in the Father, the Father is in Him; and believers are in Christ, and He is in us (perichoresis / circumincessio). Jesus is just beginning to teach this concept; He will elaborate in the next chapter with the vine and branches illustration.
Calvin says, “When Christ testifies that it is the peculiar office of the Holy Spirit to teach the apostles what they had already learned from His mouth, it follows that the outward preaching will be vain and useless, if it be not accompanied by the teaching of the Spirit. God has therefore two ways of teaching; for, first, He sounds in our ears by the mouth of men; and, secondly, He addresses us inwardly by His Spirit; and He does this either at the same moment, or at different times, as He thinks fit.”
Perhaps the entire point of this heart-healing chapter is found in v27, where Jesus says, “My peace I give you.” This peace is not like the shallow and temporary peace the world wishes but cannot bestow. Jesus’ peace is a deep and permanent prosperity which He guarantees with the deposit of the Holy Spirit. Matthew Henry says, “When Christ was about to leave the world, He made His will. His soul He committed to the Father; His body He bequeathed to Joseph; His clothes fell to the soldiers; His mother He left to the care of John. But what should He leave to His poor disciples who had left all for Him? Silver and gold—He had none. But He left them that which was infinitely better—His peace.” It’s the best thing He can give as He prepares to depart. It comes in the understanding of this moment in the Covenant of Redemption – the Father, Son, and Spirit working in unity for our good and for Their glory. This great peace relieves our fear and serves as the cure for our troubled hearts.
Look at v28, “If you loved Me, you would be glad that I am going…” Can we say that about our loved ones? Are we ready to let them depart this world and go to be with Lord? Jesus tells the disciples in v29 that He’s about to go. His house is in order. He’s leaving His final instructions. We ought to have our houses in order. Our final instructions ought to be recorded.
Lastly, there’s a curious thing here at the end of the chapter. “Come now; let us leave.” The group doesn’t actually leave until the first verse of chapter 18. Jesus uses a military word here: “Arise!” It’s a word to His beleaguered soldiers that they need to get ready now. They need to be aroused from their reclining and prepare themselves now. They need to be assured that Jesus the mighty warrior is here; He’s going to disarm powers and authorities through the blood of His cross. He’s going to destroy him who has the power of death. The ruler of this dark world is coming, as v30 declares, and he has already aroused one of the disciples and will be at work with Peter soon (the triple denial). So, get ready. Finally, notice what Jesus says, “He has no hold on Me.” It is in consequence of the sin of Adam that Satan holds the dominion of death, and, therefore, he could not touch Christ, who is pure from all the pollution of sin, if He had not voluntarily subjected Himself. United to Christ, Satan has no hold on us either.
Footnotes
- 14:1 Or You trust in God
- 14:7 Some early manuscripts If you really have known me, you will know
- 14:17 Some early manuscripts and is
Bible text from
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International Bible Society.