John 14

CHAPTER 14THEME: Jesus comforts His disciplesChapter divisions in the Bible are wonderful because they help us find our way around in the Bible, but sometimes the chapter break is at an unfortunate place, as is the case here. What our Lord says at the beginning of chapter 14 is a continuation of what He was saying to Simon Peter in chapter 13. Simon Peter has just declared that he would lay down his life for Him. Then the Lord Jesus told him that he would deny Him three times by the time the rooster crowed in the morning. We will see later that, when the rooster crowed that morning, Simon Peter had denied Him three times. Still speaking to Simon Peter, our Lord gave this chapter to bring him through that dark night of denial and to bring him back into a right relationship with God. It was given to comfort him. This chapter has cushioned the shock for multitudes of people from that day right down to the present hour.

John 14:1

JESUS COMFORTS HIS DISCIPLESPeople all over the world are seeking comfort at this very moment. They long for peace in their hearts. Jesus alone can bring that comfort, and here He tells the basis for it: “ye believe in God, believe also in me.” In the Greek, this can also be an imperative or a command. Believe in God. Believe in Me also. With the word believe we find the preposition eis which means “into.” When John talks about saving faith, there is always a preposition with it. The faith is not inactive, not passive; it is to believe into or to believe upon or to believe in. It is an active faith, which is trust. If you believe that your car will take you home, how do you get home? By just believing it? No, you believe in it so much that you commit yourself to the car. You get into it and trust that it will get you home. In just such a way you get saved. You believe in Christ; you trust yourself to Him. “Ye believe in God, believe also in me” is a clear-cut statement of our Lord that He is God. I know a theology professor who claims that Jesus did not claim deity. I’d like to know what He is saying here in this first verse if He is not making Himself equal with God. His statement makes something very clear right here. To believe in God means you are not an atheist, but to be a Christian, you must have personal faith and trust in Christ.

John 14:2

Let’s establish, first of all, what the Father’s house is; the Father’s house is this vast universe that you and I live in today. We are living on one of the very minor, smallest planets. We’re just a speck in space. We live in the Father’s house. Sir James Jeans called it the expanding universe. First, men thought of the earth with the stars up there like electric light bulbs screwed in the top of the universe. Then men began to explore and found that we are in a solar system, that we are actually a minor planet going around the sun, and that there are quite a few other planets “tripping the light fantastic” around the sun with us. We, together with other solar systems, are in a galactic system, and when you look up at the Milky Way, you see the other side of our galactic system. Now friend, ours is only one galactic system. If we could move out far enough, we would find other galactic systems that make ours look like it is just a peanut in space.

We are told that our nearest neighbor, Andromeda, is something like 2,000,000 light years away from us. Friend, we won’t go to our nearest neighbor of the galactic system to borrow a cup of sugar in the morning, because we won’t get back in time for lunch! Even these galactic systems are not the end of space at all. Beyond them, they find what they call quasars. The reason the astronomers call them quasars is because that is a German word meaning they don’t know what they are. They have found them through the radio telescopes like they have on the Mojave Desert.

They have an even bigger telescope over in England, and they have found that beyond these quasars are otherwell, they don’t know what they areso the British have come up with the very fine scientific term, “blops,” and so they call them blops! We simply do not know how vast this universe is. It may be an infinite universe. If there is an infinite universe, there must be an infinite God. Maybe God is letting us paint ourselves into a corner so that we will have to acknowledge that He is up there after all! Our Lord said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” I think there was a wry smile on His face when He said that. He is the One who made them, and He knew how many there were out there. We don’t know and may never know. I do not think that God has a vacancy sign hanging out anyplace in this vast universe. I don’t mean that human beings are living on other planets. One is enough of little mankindwe are the ones who are in rebellion against God.

However, I think this vast universe is filled with created intelligences who are looking at this little earth. This is where they see something unique in the universe. They knew something about God’s wisdom and His person and His power, but they knew nothing about His love until the second Person of the Trinity came down to this earth and died on the Cross. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son! There is a display of God’s love on this earth. You and I think we are pretty valuable. I don’t want to offend anybody, friend, but do you know the human race isn’t worth saving? God could very easily brush us off this little earth and start over again. He could speak the earth and us out of existence and very little would be missing. But then He wouldn’t be demonstrating His love. He would be demonstrating justice and righteousness but not love.

God loves us. That is the amazing thing and the most wonderful thing in the world. God loves us! He loves you and me, not because we are worth loving, but He loves us in spite of the fact that we are absolutely, totally depraved. We belong to that kind of human race. If you deny that, look around you.

Unless there is something radically wrong with the human family, how could a civilization that reached such heights tumble as far as we have gone in two or three decades? “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” For many years I was an ordained Presbyterian preacher, and I lived in what that church calls a “manse,” which is a shortened form of mansion. I lived in my first manse before I was married. It was a big place with fourteen rooms, and on a clear day you could see the ceiling in the living room. It was cold, and I lived in one corner of a room near the fire. When anybody talks to me about a mansion in the sky, I shudder. The Greek word is mone meaning “abiding places.” Jesus is saying that this vast universe is filled with abiding places or places to live. “If it were not so, I would have told you.” The Lord Jesus puts His entire reputation on the line here, and you either believe Him or you don’t believe Him, my friend. “I go to prepare a place for you.” This is quite wonderful. This vast universe is filled with so many places; yet He has gone to prepare a place for those who are His own. I said I think the universe is filled with intelligent creatures. John got a look at some of them in the Book of Revelation, and he was overwhelmed. He said there are a thousand times ten thousand; then he saw more and added thousands of thousands. We are dealing with a tremendous and wonderful God.

One can look upon the millions in this world today and wonder whether we will get lost in the shuffle somewhere. But Jesus is up there preparing a place for all of us who belong to Him. No one can occupy it but us. Years ago a neighbor of mine was one of the men working on the mirror for the 200-inch telescope at Palomar. In grinding the mirror, they missed it the first time by, I think, a millionth of an inch. When they finally got it finished, I kept asking him what they were seeing. Finally, he got tired of my constant questioning and wanted to know why I was so interested. “Well,” I said, “you’ve got that big eye poked in the front window of my Father’s house, and I’d like to know what you’re seeing, because Jesus is preparing a place for me up there.”

John 14:3

This is the first time in the Bible where you find a mention of God taking anyone off this earth to go out yonder to a place that He has prepared. This was not the hope of the Old Testament saint. God never promised Abraham to take him off yonder to a star. God told him He would make his offspring as numerous as the stars, but the promise to Abraham was to give him an eternal home on this earth. The hope of the Old Testament was for a kingdom down here on this earth in which would dwell peace and righteousness. This is the fulfillment of God’s purpose for this earth.

Personally, I think the expression “the Kingdom of Heaven” means the reign of God over this earth. God has said, “Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion” (Psa_2:6). That is God’s earthly purpose, and He is moving undeviatingly, unhesitatingly, and uncompromisingly toward the day when He puts His own Son upon the throne here on earth. That will be the Kingdom of Heaven. That is God’s earthly purpose; it is the hope of the Old Testament. The disciples are startled when Jesus reveals that He is going to take a peoplebeginning with the apostlesoff this earth to be with Christ in the place that He is preparing for them. This is the first time it is mentioned, but it is not the last time. Paul talked about it, saying in 1 Thessalonians 4 that the Lord Himself would descend from heaven with a shout. His voice will be like a trumpet and like the sound of an archangel. He is coming to call His own. The dead in Christ will rise first, and then those believers who are still alive will be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air.

So shall we ever be with the Lord in that place that He has prepared. John, in Revelation 21, tells us that the city, the new Jerusalem, will come down from God out of heaven. It will be a new city, a new concept in urban dwelling, my friend, and that is where believers, from the apostles on, will dwell throughout eternity.

John 14:4

He is lifting these men into the heights, because, you see, there in the Upper Room the shadow of the Cross had fallen athwart that company, and sin was knocking at the door of that room demanding its pound of flesh. Our Lord is attempting to lift them from the here-and-now to the hereafter, from the material to the spiritual, from the earthly to the heavenly. Jesus tells them two things: the destination, which is the “where,” and the way to go, which is the “how.”

John 14:5

There is an apostle sitting there whom we call doubting Thomas. He seems always to be asking a question or raising a doubt. He had a question mark for a brain, and it took our Lord a long time to make an exclamation mark out of it! I am really glad that he was there and that he asked the question, because it is a good question. I would have wanted to ask it if I had been there. If he hadn’t asked the question, we would never have had our Lord’s wonderful answer, which is the gospel in a nutshell.

John 14:6

The article in the Greek is an adjective. Jesus said, “I am the way.” He is not just a person who shows the way, but He, personally, is the way. No church or ceremony can bring you to God. Only Christ can bring you to God. He is the way. Either you have Christ or you don’t have Him; either you trust Him or you don’t. Also Jesus said that He is the truth. He isn’t saying that He tells the truth, although He does do that. He is the truth! He is the bureau of standards for truth, the very touchstone of truth. And He is the life. He isn’t simply stating that He is alive. He is the source, the origin of life from the lowest vegetable plane of life to the highest spiritual plane of life. “No man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” He made a dead-end street of all the cults and “isms.” He says the only way to God is through Him. That is a dogmatic statement! Years ago a student out at UCLA told me he didn’t like the Bible because it is filled with dogmatism. I agreed with him that it is. He especially selected this verse and said, “That’s dogmatic.” I said, “It sure is, but have you realized that it is characteristic of truth to be dogmatic? Truth has to be dogmatic.” I had a teacher who was the most dogmatic, narrow-minded person I’ve ever met. She insisted that 2 plus 2 = 4. It didn’t make any difference what you had two ofapples or cows or dollarsshe always insisted that 2 + 2 = 4. She was dogmatic. I have found that the bank I do business with operates on the same principle. Only in my case it Isaiah 2 - 2 = 0, and they are dogmatic about it. Friend, let me say to you that one of the characteristics of truth is its dogmatism. Now, not all dogmatism is truththere is a lot of ignorance that is dogmatic. However, that which is truth has to be dogmatic. When I ask directions to go somewhere, I do not want my directions from a man who isn’t sure and doesn’t know exactly how to get there. I want my directions from one who knows exactly where I’m to turn and how many blocks I’m to go. As I said to this young student, “Millions of people for over nineteen hundred years have been coming to Christ on the basis of His statement, ‘I am the way,’ and they have found it is accurate, that it has brought them to heaven. Why don’t you try it? The Lord Jesus says you are not going to get to heaven except through Him. Why not come through Him and make sure?” Someday I hope I can thank the apostle Thomas for asking our Lord this question in the Upper Room: “How can we know the way?” Without it we would not have this marvelous answer in Joh_14:6. Now there is another interruption. Philip has a question.

John 14:7

Philip was a very quiet individual, the opposite from loquacious Peter. I think he spoke very seldom. He has a Greek name and some Bible students believe that he was a Greek. However, he could have been Jewish and still have a Greek name. He is a very unusual man because every time we meet him he is bringing someone to Jesus. Remember that he brought Nathanael. I’ve often wondered about that. Philip was the quiet man and Nathanael was the wisecracker. Philip was the straight man and Nathanael was the humorist. But quiet Philip brings people to Jesus. Remember that the Greeks came to him, wanting to see Jesus. Here he expresses the highest ambition any man can have, the highest desire expressed by any person in the whole Bible, “shew us the Father.” I’d like to ask you a personal question today. What is your desire in life? What is your ultimate goal? Do you want to get rich? Do you want to make a name for yourself? Do you want to educate your children? Do you want to bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord? Our goals may be worthy goals; yet the highest goal is this expressed by Philip, “Lord, shew us the Father.”

John 14:9

Philip knew from the Old Testament that Moses had seen the glory of God and that Isaiah had a vision of the glory of God. I don’t think that we should interpret Jesus’ answer as a rebuke. He tells Philip that He has performed many miracles. Although Philip had not seen the glory of God as Moses or Isaiah did, he had seen Jesus and had witnessed His words and His works. Everything that Philip wished to see, he had seen in Jesus Christ. He had seen God.

In Christ there is a much greater revelation of God than anything in the Old Testament. Philip had the greatest revelation of God because he had seen Him incarnate in flesh and been with Himin His presencefor three years! Remember that the writer to the Hebrews says that Jesus is the brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image of His person (see Heb_1:3). “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” does not mean you are seeing the identical Person, but you are seeing the same Person in power, in character, in love, and in everything else. You have seen all you would see in God the Father because “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (Joh_4:24). “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (Joh_1:18). It is Jesus Christ whom we see. We are going to spend all eternity with Him.

For those of us who love Him, the goal of our lives is to come to know Him.

John 14:10

Jesus here points to the testimony of His words and of His works. They are the same. One equals the other. He was perfectly consistent. You see, our problem is to get our words and our works synchronized. We make tremendous statements and give glorious testimonies, but none of us lives a perfect life. This is the reason every Christian should have a time of confession. As we saw in chapter 13, Jesus says that He must wash us so that we may have fellowship with Him. Too many Christians lose their fellowship with God because they think they are all right, but their words and their works are not consistent. This needs to be confessed.

John 14:11

Have you ever noticed that the Lord Jesus never appealed to His own mind and His own will to make a decision? “The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.” When He spoke, it was the will of the Father. All His works were the will of the Father. So He tells Philip that when he heard the words of Jesus, he was hearing the words of the Father and, when he saw the works of Jesus, he was seeing the Father working through Jesus. You will notice that Jesus has interruptions during His discourse. First it was Peter, then Thomas, and now Philip. But Jesus continues on in His discourse until verse Joh_14:22 when He is again interrupted. Jesus says that if you can’t believe Him because of His words, then believe Him because of His works. They should convince you.

John 14:12

To understand this verse, I should call attention to the fact that the second word works is in italics which means that it is not in the better manuscripts but is put in by the translators to fill out the thought. To be accurate, it should read: “the works that I do shall he do also; and greater than these shall he do.” When our Lord was down here on this earth, He performed tremendous works and miracles. These apostles to whom He spoke did the same things. They healed the sick and raised the dead. Yet Jesus says that those who believe on Him will do greater. What is the greater thing which they shall do? Simon Peter, who had denied Him on the night He was arrested, preached a sermon on the Day of Pentecost and 3000 people became believers! I think of the men over the years who have invested their lives in winning men to Christ. I think of missionaries, such as George L. Mackey who went to Uganda. What a missionary he was! Preaching a crucified, risen, glorified, returning Savior so that a hearer may accept Christ and be born again is a greater miracle than healing the sick.

Am I right? Which is better: to heal the soul or to heal the body? When Jesus Christ was on earth, He performed the miracle of raising the physical bodies of men, but we have the privilege of preaching Jesus Christ so that men, body and soul, may live eternally. The supreme accomplishment is to bring men and women into a right relationship with God. How are these greater works done? “Because I go unto my Father.” You see, it is Christ who is still working, but today He is working through human instrumentality. He works through frail human clay, human flesh. I am amazed that I can give a Bible message over the radio and there are people who turn to Christ. Friend, that is greater. If Jesus Christ were here speaking to people, it would be a great work. When Jesus Christ takes you and me and works through us to reach people, that is greater. Have you noticed how often Jesus speaks of His Father? The Father is mentioned twenty times in this passage, and it is always the Lord Jesus who mentions Him.

John 14:13

He continues right on to say that these greater things are the result of prayer. Prayer evangelism is so neglected today. “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do.” These verses have been so misunderstood. A great many people have picked this up like a dog picks up a bone and runs with it. They say they prayed and God just didn’t answer their prayer. I’ve had Christian people tell me that they took that verse at face value. They prayed and God didn’t answer their prayer. They ask me what is wrong. I tell them that they are reading something into the verse that is not there at all. They need to keep on reading. This is all tied into one package.

John 14:15

Now let us consider what all three of these verses say. What does it mean to ask in the name of Christ? To pray in His Person means to be standing in His place. It means to be fully identified with Him, joined to Christ. It means that you and I are pleading the merits of His blessed Son when we stand before God. We have no standing of our own before God at all. He does not hear my prayer because I am Vernon McGee, and He does not hear your prayer because you are who you are. He hears our prayers when they are in the name of Christ. This is not just a little phrase that we tag on to the end of our prayer closing with “in Jesus’ name.” Praying in His name is presenting it in His merit and for His glory. “That will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” A prayer that will enable God to be glorified in the Son is the prayer that He will answer. So, when we pray in the name of Jesus and for the glory of God, we are not praying for something selfishly for ourselves. We are praying for Him. We are praying that the Father may be glorified in the Son. Also it depends on our obedience to Christ. This promise is given to those who love Him, and the evidence of their love is the keeping of His commandments. Love will be demonstrated by obedience to Christ. An undisciplined Christian cannot say that he loves the Lord Jesus. How are you doing in that area, friend? Do you love Him? Are you keeping His commandments because you love Him today? Dr. Harry Ironside was sitting on a platform with a young pastor during a meeting one night. A young lady entered the meeting and the pastor told him that she formerly had been an active leader among his members, then had begun to run with the world, and that this was the first time he had seen her in church in months. Dr. Ironside preached on this passage of Scripture that night. She was greatly incensed and came to see him after the meeting. “How dare you tell these people that if you ask anything in the name of Jesus, He will do it?” she asked him.

Dr. Ironside answered, “Why don’t you sit down and tell me about it?” She told him that her father had been desperately ill some months before, and while the doctor was up in his room, she had knelt in the living room, claimed that promise, and prayed in Jesus’ name for his recovery. When the doctor came down from the room, he told her that her father was dead. “Now,” she said, “don’t tell me that God keeps His promises!” Dr. Ironside said, “Did you read the next verse, ‘If ye love me, keep my commandments’?” Then Dr. Ironside asked her what would happen if she found a check made out to someone else and tried to cash it by signing that name. She said “I would be a forger.” So he referred her to this verse, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” Then he asked her, “Have you been doing that?” Instead of replying, she turned red.

Then he explained that what she was trying to do was the same thing as trying to cash a check made out to somebody else. We all need to recognize, friend, that obedience to Him is the evidence of our love for Him, and this promise is given to those who love Him.

John 14:16

This is a unique fact of this age in which we are living. The Holy Spirit was here on earth before Pentecost, but on the Day of Pentecost He came to indwell believers. That was the thing which was new. “Holy” and “Spirit” describe Him, but Comforter is His name, if He has a name. It is a very fitting name, as com means “along side of” and fortis means “strong.” He is the strong One who abides with us forever. He does not say that the world would not receive the Spirit of truth. He says the world cannot receive Him. Oh, if we could learn this! The Spirit of God can take the Word of God and open it to the believer, but the unsaved man must first believe in Jesus Christ as his Savior. The man of the world cannot see Him because He is seen and worshiped in spirit and truth. He is seen with the spiritual eye. It is only by the Spirit of God that these eyes and ears can be opened to understand the Word of God. The Holy Spirit is the teacher to lead and guide us into truth. Without Him, the Bible becomes a book of history, a book of facts. The Holy Spirit teaches the truths of the Bible. The Holy Spirit has been in the world, but Jesus says that now He “shall be in you.”

John 14:18

The Greek word for comfortless is orphanos which means “orphans.” Jesus says that He will not leave us orphans but will come to us in the person of the Holy Spirit.

John 14:19

What is “that day?” It is the day you and I are living in. It is the day that began with Pentecost. “Ye in me, and I in you” is the most profound statement in the Gospel of John or in the whole Bible. They are all monosyllabic words so that a little child can understand them; yet no philosopher can plumb the depths of their meaning. “You in Me"that is salvation. To be saved means to be in Christ. That is why Peter says that we are saved by baptism. Baptism means identification, and it means to be identified with Christ. God sees everyone as either in Christ or out of Christ.

You are either in Him by faith or you are out of Him with your sins still upon you. If you are in Christ, then God sees you in Christ, and His righteousness is your righteousness. You stand complete in Him. “I in you"is sanctification. That is Christian living down here. Is Christ living in you? Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Gal_2:20).

John 14:21

Don’t say that you love Christ if you are not obeying Him. He is making this very clear here. Jesus is going to manifest Himself to the one who loves Him. Don’t think this will be a manifestation by a vision. Later He says that it is the Holy Spirit who will take the things of Jesus and show them to you. Where does He do this? In the Scriptures. That is where Jesus is manifested.

John 14:22

Judas is saying, “Lord, this is wonderful to be here and hear you say these things, but have you forgotten the world?” Here is the first missionary, by the way. The Lord Jesus answers him and His answer is the rest of the chapter.

John 14:23

The way the world is going to find out about the Lord Jesus is through us, and obedience is imperative. Profession is not worth anything. Church membership is not really worth anything. The issue is our love for Him evidenced by our obedience. How about your love for Him? Does it discipline you? Is He real to you? These are the things that are important.

John 14:25

Jesus hasn’t forgotten the world. In fact, He is thinking of the world. He has called these apostles into the Upper Room and has given them the truth so that they might take it to the world in the power of the Holy Spirit. The only way the truth can be given to the world is through these men. John was one of those men, and he has written this Gospel of John for us in the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus assures them that the Holy Spirit will teach them all things and bring all things to their remembrance. It is evident that He did just that.

John 14:27

This verse takes us back to the beginning of this chapter. It is His final word of comfort. The peace He is talking about here is not the peace of sins forgiven. This is the glorious, wonderful peace that comes to the heart of those who are fully yielded to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the peace of heart and mind of those who are in the will of God.

John 14:28

He tells them they should rejoice that He is going away because of the wonderful blessings that will come to them. Jesus Christ was going back to the Father and then He would send the Comforter to them. He tells them He cannot walk and talk very much more with them, and He didn’tin a few hours He would be arrested and His disciples scattered. The prince of this world was coming. Jesus Christ would have another siege with Satan, which I believe took place in the Garden of Gethsemane. After that, He would go to the Cross for the sins of the world. After His ascension, the Comforter would come to indwell believers.