Chapter XIV
Verses 1-3. We may imagine a brief pause between the last verse of the preceding chapter and the beginning of this new chapter. He had spoken another “Verily.” It concerned Peter’s coming denial. All must have weighed heavily upon the hearts and minds of the little company; each one must have felt that something was about to happen, which none of them could realize. Judas had gone out into the night; their Lord had spoken words which they were unable to grasp and to understand at the time they were spoken. That Peter, to whom they all looked as their spokesman, should deny Him thrice, when they all knew of his former confession, must have been still more troublesome to them. No doubt they were greatly troubled and perplexed. Then His loving, gracious voice broke the silence as He continued His discourse: “Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in Me.” Wonderful words! In this awful hour of unparalleled events looming up, with Gethsemane, the betrayal, the denial, the mockeries, the cruel scourging and the shameful, painful death by crucifixion in full view, the Lord does not think of Himself. The heart trouble of His beloved disciples occupies His loving heart. Another one might have sought comfort; He seeks none, but instead comforts. Let not your heart be troubled! How precious it is to note that He did not say “hearts,” but “heart”; it means that His loving comfort is for each individual heart. And God’s people at all times, ever since these words were penned by the beloved disciple, have turned to this chapter and appropriated in faith the precious words which He spoke. A very old Bible in the possession of the writer, used by numerous generations for centuries, shows many of the pages in the Old Testament so clean and perfect, that it looks as if they came from the printer’s press but yesterday. But the page which contains the fourteenth chapter of John is well-worn and is spotted by the teardrops of different generations. Let not your heart be troubled! It is, with the precious words which follow, the great anaesthetic of our great Physician. As a physician gives an anaesthetic to produce painlessness, so our Lord has His anaesthetic for the heart troubles, for the sorrows and bereavements of His people. Thus He speaks still to our hearts, and with these words wipes our tears away and stills our troubled hearts.
But faith is needed to receive and to enjoy this comfort. They believed on God, and He told them “believe also in Me.” He was about to be rejected by the nation, delivered into the hands of the Gentiles and to be crucified. It would stumble their faith as Jews in Him, the Messiah. ‘Therefore He said, as ye believe on God, believe in Me also. He claims for Himself the same faith and trust which belongs to God, which is perfectly right, for He is God. He was about to leave them and to go back to the Father; how necessary, then, to trust on Him, to believe on Him. Then follow some of the sweetest words which were spoken by Him: “In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself, that where I am ye may be also.”
What is the Father’s house? Let us remember that our Lord spoke of the temple as His Father’s house. When He cleansed the temple, He said: “Take these things hence, make not My Father’s house an house of merchandise” (ii:16). But that earthly house, in which once He dwelt in visible glory, was the figure of another house. In fact, the earthly house which Israel possessed was patterned after that Moses had seen on the mountain (Acts vii:44 and Heb. viil:5). The places made with hands, that is, the earthly tabernacle with its outer court, the holy part and the Holy of Holies, were the figures of the true; there is a true tabernacle which the Lord had pitched and not man (Heb.viii:2).
This great universe is the great House of God (Heb. iii:4). In that great house there is, in the third heaven, the eternal dwelling place of the eternal God. “Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool” (Isa. lxvi:1). That third heaven corresponds to the Holiest in the earthly tabernacle, and the temple, which our Lord called ‘““My Father’s House.” Into that place the Lord Jesus Christ went after His resurrection from among the dead; of this Father’s house, the glorious home, and the home for all the family of God, purchased by His blood and fitted for that home, He speaks now. He tells us that in that blessed home, the Father’s house, are many mansions. The Greek word does not mean what we understand by that word, magnificent palaces. Even the original meaning of the English word “mansion” is not a place, but a palace to abide, a dwelling place.* The same word is used again in this chapter, in verse 23, and then it is translated “abode.” Since olden times the word “mansions” has been interpreted as meaning different degrees in glory. Chrysostom, Augustinus and many others taught this as it is still done by teachers, and often fanciful embellishments are added. They speak of the mansions as being located on different planets and stars, and that the most faithful on earth will receive the most glorious mansions in some star. All this has no Scriptural foundation. That there will be degrees in glory, different rewards and crowns, every Christian knows, but this is not the teaching our Lord gives when He speaks of the Father’s house with its many mansions. To be in the Father’s house with its eternal dwelling places is not the result of our worthiness as believers, but the fruit of His own blessed work on the cross. The Father’s house is for the children of God, born again; and even the youngest and the weakest believer belongs there. And then He assured them and us that we need not fear, but be perfectly at rest about it. “If it were not so I would have told you.”
Next, He speaks of going back to the Father’s house to prepare a place for them: “I go to prepare a place for you.” This statement of our Lord has also been surrounded with many fanciful imaginations. Some teach that this preparation of the place is now going on continually. But this is not the case. As long as He walked on earth, Paradise, the third heaven, was not fully prepared. His blessed atoning work on the cross opened the portals of the Father’s house, and there He has gone a forerunner; there He is as the Priest and Advocate of His people, and thus by His death, by His entrance there as the forerunner, by His presence in the
*Like the French maison,
Father’s house, He has prepared the place for us. Yet there is a deeper meaning attached to this, when we think of the statement in Ephesians i:14 concerning “‘the redemption of the purchased possession,” and of Hebrews ix:23, where it is written that the heavenly things had to be purified with better sacrifices. Not alone earthly things were defiled by sin, but even the things in this great universe, the house of God, have been affected. He Himself by His atoning work and great victory has prepared heaven for the reception of His blood-bought children. Heaven, therefore, is a prepared place for a prepared people.
‘And if I go to prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.” ‘This is still more precious. He was about to leave them; they were to be left alone in the world. His going away was not a spiritual departure, but a physical one. In His resurrection, the body which He had offered on the cross came forth out of the tomb, and in that body He left the earth to go back to the Father. When He therefore tells His eleven disciples “I will come again,” it surely cannot mean a spiritual coming again. Yet this is the teaching of a large number of commentaries, that “I will come again” means His spiritual coming on the day of Pentecost in the person of the Holy Spirit, hence the teaching so widespread, that the second coming of Christ happened when the Holy Spirit was given. But the Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the second Person of the Trinity. How, then, can the promise of the second Person of the Trinity to come again mean the coming of the third Person?
Another teaching is that when our Lord promised to come again and to receive His own unto Himself, so that they might be with Him, means the death of the believer. They tell us, when the Christian dies the Lord comes again, so that every day the coming of the Lord takes place hundreds of times, because hundreds of Christians die each day the world over. ‘This error is clearly refuted by the fact that elsewhere in the New Testar ent the Spirit of God tells us that the believer’s death is not the Lord coming to the dying believer, but the deaih of a Christian means that he goes to be with the Lord; he goes in his disembodied spirit to be with Him. For the believer to be absent from the body means “present with the Lord,” and that is a conscious presence. Soul sleep, between the death of the believer and the resurrection, is a miserable invention (2 Cor. v:1-8). Paul wrote to the Philippians: “For I am in a strait between two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better.”
And there is still another view placed upon this promise of our Lord. It is said that the Lord meant that afterward He would lift believers to share in Him the heavenly places, as revealed in the Epistle to the Ephesians. When He said: “I will receive you unto Myself,’ He meant, they tell us, to be seated in Christ in the heavenly places. This far-fetched theory does not need an answer.
When our Lord told His disciples, ‘‘I will come again,” He meant only one thing, and that is His own, personal coming again. These words cannot be logically explained in any other way.
Here is an important and unique revelation. The coming of the Lord, that is, His second Advent, is revealed in the ‘Old Testament as a glorious, visible event. It is preceded by troubles, wars, different calamities and upheavals for Israel and the nations; even nature will be affected by it. He is predicted to come to judge the nations, to deliver the remnant of His people, to bring them to their own land, to cover that land with His glory, to establish His kingdom, to reign over the nations as King of kings, and to bring peace to the earth. Now what our Lord reveals about His second coming, reported in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) is nothing new. It is a restatement of what His Spirit taught in the Prophets and in the Psalms. What He predicts in the Olivet discourse is but a confirmation of what the Old Testament teaches about the second Advent. The great tribulation of which He speaks is the same tribulation recorded by Daniel and others, which did not happen in the year 70, but is that great tribulation which precedes His visible, personal and glorious return to earth. In other words, the references we have in the first three Gospels about His coming again all mean His personal and glorious return to the earth. The disciples are addressed there as representatives of the godly remnant of their nation at the end of this age. That remnant will wait for Him in the last days, and their hope is to see Him coming in the clouds of heaven to deliver them from the antichristian forces and to give them a promised kingdom, as Daniel states “‘the saints shall possess the kingdom,” not Church-saints, but Jewish saints.
But here in John xiv the Lord gives a new and unique revelation; He speaks of something which no prophet had promised, or even could promise. Where is it written that this Messiah would come and instead of gathering His saints into an earthly Jerusalem, would take them to the Father’s house, to the very place where He is? It is something new. And let it be noticed in promising to come again, He addresses the eleven disciples and tells them, “I will receive you unto Myself, that where I am ye may be also.”” He speaks then of a coming which is not for the deliverance of the Jewish remnant, not of a coming to establish His kingdom over the earth, not a coming to judge the nations, but a coming which concerns only His own. Therefore He has nothing to say here about a preceding great tribulation, nor does He speak of signs on earth and in the heavens, nor does He describe a visible coming in the clouds of heaven in power and great glory. All He says is: “I will come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am ye may be also.” We repeat this is a new and unique revelation.
But if we had asked one of the eleven at that time to explain the meaning of the words of the Lord, none of their number would have been able to tell us what He meant and what that coming to be with Him is. They were ignorant of it. And even after Pentecost Peter would not have been able to explain this promise; when he mentioned the return of Christ in Acts iii:19 it is His visible coming to earth, to bring the restoration promised by the prophets, and not a coming to take His own to the place where He is.
But the full meaning of the promise of our Lord to His eleven disciples was revealed through the Apostle Paul. To him was committed the truth about the Church as the body and the bride of Christ, and with it the revelation of the heavenly destiny of the Church. It was therefore fitting that he should also be the instrument to make known by revelation “that blessed hope” — the coming of the Lord for His saints. This revelation given to him is the expansion of the words of our Lord in the passage before us. It is found in 1 Thess. iv:15-18. When Paul says in this passage, that is was spoken by the Word of the Lord, he does not mean that he cites the prophetic Word in the Old Testament, for nothing of this nature is found there. It was a direct word which he received from the Lord, revealing how the promise “I will come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am ye may be also,” will be accomplished. It is still the unfulfilled promise. Saints are waiting in glory for it, and their bodies are sleeping in the dust of the earth. The living believers are waiting for it. The day is surely coming when He who spoke these words will also fulfill them. Before the great tribulation, before the days of Antichrist, before the visible manifestation of Himself takes place, He comes for His saints, to catch them up to meet Him in the air and to lead them into the Father’s house.
Verses 4-7. The beautiful words of comfort and cheer had been spoken. Perhaps there was a brief pause before He continued ‘And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.” He had spoken to them before of His return to the Father’s house. But it seems His words now were mostly spoken to provoke further inquiry from their side. Let us remember that the Lord Jesus Christ is omniscient. He knew their hearts, their innermost thoughts, yea He knew their thoughts from afar off (Psalm cxxxix:2). To draw them out, and move them to questions He spoke these words. ‘Thomas then speaks. Three times we have the record of his words. In chapter xi:16, he manifested his devotion to the Lord when he suggested “let us also go, that we may die with Him.” In chapter xx:24 we read of him again; here it is his unbelief in the resurrection of the Lord. On account of his unbelief he has been called “the rationalist among the disciples,” but he possessed with his inclination to doubt a warm heart full of affection for the Lord. What he spoke in the passage before us was probably the uppermost thought in the heart of all the disciples. He was their spokesman. The Lord waited just for this question. It was the means of bringing forth one of the greatest utterances of our Lord. “Jesus saith unto him; I am the way, the truth and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.” ‘The words are so simple that a child can understand them. They have depths which no saint has ever fathomed. No such words were ever spoken by a human being before. No prophet ever spoke thus, and, if he had, he would have been a deceiver. The blasphemous comparison of our Lord with religious leaders of the past is often made by the rationalistic leaders in Christendom. These critics place Him on the same level with Confucius, Zoroaster, Buddha, Socrates and others. But did any of these men with their religious philosophies, if they deserve to be called philosophies, ever say anything like this? Did any religious teacher of the past ever make such a claim? If Confucius, Zoroaster or Buddha had done so they would have branded themselves as miserable liars. Nowhere do we find even a suggestion that any of these men ever uttered a word approaching the declaration of our Lord. Only one who not only knows God, but who is God, can speak such words and make such claims. We shall find later a still greater word (verse 9). If our Lord were but a human being, towering, as it is claimed today, in religious sentiment, undertaking and character, above the rest of the race, these words would convict him of self-exaltation and deception. All who deny His Deity charge Him with being untrue, in the light of this claim. The words He spoke are unique and even this fact confirms His Deity. “IT am the way.” This has been perverted as meaning “TI am the way-shower”; I show man how to live, how to practice the golden rule. Look at Me and see in Me an expression of real manhood! Iam your example, follow Me! This conception produced a number of years ago that puerile novel “What would Jesus do?” This conception has its source in the denial of the lost condition of man. What man needs is not one, in the first instance, to show him how to live, but man needs a Saviour, because he is lost, dead in sins, without strength to do anything. When our Lord declares, “I am the way” He means by it that He is the
One who has made the way for lost sinners to come back to God. As He said in the tenth chapter, “I am the door, by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved,” meaning by it that, in virtue of His sacrificial death, He is the door through whom all must enter, so here, He is the way, because by His death on the cross, He has become the way for lost sinners, by which they can be saved and draw near to God. He is “a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh” (Hebrews x:20).
Thus He is the way to the Father and to the Father’s house with its many mansions. For those who believe on Him He is the way in which they walk.
“IT am the truth.” ‘This means more than being the true Messiah; it means more than revealing the truth, He is the Truth Himself. While the Word of God, the written revelation of God, is truth, He, the living Word, is the Truth. Whosoever knows Him knows the truth, for in Him are found all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. To know the truth means to know Him, and the more we know Him, the more we know the truth and walk in the truth.
“Tam the Life.’ He is the true God and the eternal life. He is the source and fountain of all life. This life, which He is, is imparted to the believer. The eternal life which He promises to give to those who believe on Him is He Himself. The First Epistle of John develops this great truth. We share as believers the life which He is, and that life is to be manifested, as it was manifested in His life on earth.
“No one cometh to the Father but by Me.” Because He is the way, the truth and the life, there is no other way to the Father. No one else, nor anything else, can bring the lost sinner to the Father. No one can know the Father and be a child of God apart from Him. The soul which rejects Christ and does not believe in Him as the Son of God is therefore a lost soul.
“We should mark carefully what an unanswerable argument this one sentence supplies against the modern notion that it does not matter what a man believes, that all religions will lead men to heaven if they are sincere; that creeds and doctrines are of no importance; that heaven is a place for all mankind, whether heathen, Mohammedan or Christian; and that the Fatherhood of God is enough to save all at last, of all sects, kinds and characters! Our Lord’s words should never be forgotten, “There is no way to the Father but by Me.’ God is a Father to none but those who believe on Christ. In short there are not different ways to heaven. There is only one way.”*
“If ye had known Me, ye should have known My Father also; and from henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him.” To the unbelieving Jews our Lord had made previously a similar statement: “Ye neither know Me, nor My Father: if ye had known Me, ye should have known My Father also” (Chapter viii:19).
It has for a foundation the deep declaration of our Lord, also made in this Gospel, “I and the Father are one.”” Once more, as so often before in John’s Gospel, He witnesses to the perfect union which is between Him and the Father. To know Him is to know the Father and the more we know Christ, the more we learn to know the Father through Him. When our Lord said, “from henceforth, ye know Him, and have seen Him,” He had reference to the revelations which He was now making to them, especially in the words which follow:
Verses 8-11. How little the disciples understood Him is seen from the question of Philip. It is the Philip who had found Nathanael, to whom he gave the message: ‘“‘We have found Him of Whom Moses in the law, and the prophets did write * * * Come and see” (i:45-46). Though he knew that He is the promised Messiah, he had no understanding of the great fact, of which the Lord spoke so often, the fact of His oneness with the Father. He speaks as a Jew speaks, asking for a sign, for some visible evidence. He probably thought of the theophanies in the Old Testament, how prophets beheld the visible glory of the Lord, and he longs for such a visible manifestation. He thought if he only could get a glimpse of Him, whom their Lord called Father, it would be sufficient.
The Lord rebuked him in a tender way. ‘Have I been
*Ryle on John.
so much time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip?’ Philip was one of the earliest disciples. For almost three years he had been in constant companionship with Him. They had journeyed together, lived together, and were intimate. All had seen His mighty works; they were the witnesses of the miracles He performed; they had seen the miraculous feeding of the multitudes, the cleansing of the lepers, the opening of the eyes of the blind, the raising of the dead. They had seen the works which only omnipotence could perform. They had listened to His words. They knew that He was the Lord. Yet Philip asked, “Shew us the Father and it sufficeth us.” He had not understood what the Lord had said, “if ye had known Me, ye should have known My Father also.” He did not realize that He and the Father are one. We do not know if the other disciples had any deeper knowledge than Philip. But all was changed after the Holy Spirit came to take of the things of Christ to reveal them to their hearts. Then John wrote this blessed Gospel with the full revelation of the Lord and His glory. In both the Gospel and the First Epistle, he voiced the faith of his brethren: ‘That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life; that which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that ye may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John i:1-3).
Then He spoke the great word concerning Himself. “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself; but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works.”
In the Old Testament the prophets beheld the visible glory of the Lord. He dwelt in the midst of His people, both in the tabernacle and in the Solomonic temple. Many times His glory was seen. Isaiah beheld Him in the temple vision; Ezekiel saw the glory and in the midst of the glorious cloud one like unto a son of man; Daniel beheld Him in His visions and saw Him face to face on the river banks of Hiddekel. They did not know that He who appeared in visible glory — whom Moses, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and other holy men of God saw — was none other but He in whose companionship they had walked, who was speaking to them now. Through Him, God the Son, God the Father had revealed Himself in olden times. But now the Son, who is one with the Father, was incarnate. He had come to reveal the Father in His own person. Of God it is written, “Whom no man hath seen, nor can see” (1 Timothy vi:16); ““No man hath seen at any time: the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him” (John i:18); ‘And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth.” And the day is coming again when His visible glory will be seen, when it will be no longer a spiritual but a physical vision. That will be in the day:of His return when every eye shall see Him. The transfiguration was a foregleam of this coming glorious event.
What majestic words these are, “he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father’! To deny in the face of them His absolute Deity shows the awful darkness of the natural mind. How could He who was perfect in His blessed life on earth have spoken such marvelous words, and made such a claim, if it were not true that He and the Father are one! We let another speak, who alas, made such a shipwreck years after he had penned the words which we quote:
“The language of Christ here, and indeed throughout this whole discourse is utterly inconsistent with the conception of Him as a mere human or superhuman ambassador of God. He represents not merely the divine government, but the divine Being. The Father is in Him so that whoever looks within the tabernacle beholds the glory of the only begotten of the Father. He is the manifestation in the flesh, not of the divine government, but of God (1 Timothy iii:16). It is impossible to refer this answer to the mere union in sympathy and purpose of Jesus with God. No Christian, even if perfected, could say — He that hath seen me hath seen Christ. How much less then, could a Jew, though perfect, have said, He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.’’*
His words and His works are the evidences that He is in the Father and that the Father is in Him. It is the same self-witness which we have had before in this Gospel (Chapter v). “Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the very works’ sake.” Have faith in Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, is what the Lord tells Philip and the rest of the disciples. And in His graciousness, without any severe word of rebuke, He condescends to the weakness of His frail followers, “‘or else believe Me for the very works’ sake.” They were His credentials; by these signs He manifested Himself as one with the Father, for the works which the Father does, He did also.
Verses 12-14. The words which follow the answers which our Lord gave to the questions asked by Thomas and by Philip must be linked with the comforting assurance He gave to His disciples in the beginning of this chapter, “Let not your heart be troubled.”” We may look upon verses 5-11 as an interruption in the address of our Lord to His own. The “Verily, verily”’ of verse 12 should be connected with verse 4. He was returning to the Father and in verse 12 He speaks of the result of His going to be with the Father.
It is a great statement He gave to them: “Verily, verily, I say unto to you, He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he also do; and greater works than these shall he do, because I gountomy Father.” It is one of the significant passages in the Gospel introduced by a double “verily” and which we paraphrase by “be assured it is so beyond a doubt.” It is just as sure and certain as the other statements in this Gospel which begin with the same words.
But what does our Lord mean? ‘This verse wrongly interpreted has been the fruitful soil upon which all kinds of delusive and fanatical movements have flourished. It is so still, especially in connection with the men and women who go about teaching and preaching a restoration of apos-
*Quoted from a Commentary on John, by Lyman Abbott, D. D.
tolic gifts, such as the gifts of speaking in tongues and of healing the sick.
The question is what did our Lord mean when He spoke of greater works that those He did on earth, which those who believe on Him should do after His departure? Did our Lord mean miracles of healing, such as He performed on earth as the evidences of His Deity and the credentials of His Messiahship? The greatest miracles our Lord did were the miracles of the resurrection of the dead. He raised the daughter of Jairus; He gave back to the widow of Nain her only son and He brought back to life the brother .of Mary and Martha. The raising of Lazarus after he had been dead for four days, so that decomposition had started in, is the greatest of all His miracles. Could there be a greater miracle than that? Any sane person sees at once that our Lord could not have meant by the “‘greater works” the works of healing and the raising of the dead.
It is then clear that the greater works cannot mean His works of physical miracles. But it is equally clear that when our Lord said in the first part of this verse “the works that I do shall he do also” that He meant his miraculous works. He indicated thereby that when He had left his disciples, when they were to be His witnesses, testifying to Him as the Messiah, they should not be troubled about a continuation during their ministry of the same works of power and mercy, which He had shown and by which He had been attested as the Messiah-King. The same assurance He gave to His eleven disciples at the close of the Gospel of Mark. (See Mark xvi:17-20).
And these promises have been fulfilled during the lifetime of the Apostles. The ‘Verily’ of our Lord of the verse before us is seen accomplished in the beginning of the history of the Church in the book of Acts. The sick were healed, demons were driven out and even the dead were raised.
Let us remember when our Lord sent forth His disciples with the message that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, a message which was only for the kingdom people, that is, Israel, He conferred upon the messengers His own miraculous power to heal the sick, to cleanse the lepers and to raise
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the dead. The message of the kingdom requires outward evidences. The Jew asks for a sign and has a perfect right to do so, for signs and wonders are promised with the establishment of the kingdom as predicted by the Prophets.
Every believer who has learned to divide the Word of Truth rightly also knows that the beginning of the book of Acts starts with a message to Jerusalem, and once more the fact is presented that He who had lived amongst them, whom they crucified and whom God had raised from the dead, is the promised Messiah, Israel’s King. Hence we find not yet in the beginning of Acts the full message of the Gospel of Grace and the revelation concerning the Church, but Peter’s testimony is at first exclusively addressed to Israel. The call is once more “‘to the Jew firs?’ to repent, and the promise is a Kingdom promise, the times of refreshing and the restoration of all things by the return of Him whom the heavens received. It was a repeated offer of the kingdom to the nation, so beautifully indicated in the parable of the marriage of the King’s Son in Matthew xxii:1-10. And during this period, especially, we find the word of our Lord fulfilled. They did the works which He did. Many miracles took place in Jerusalem, in Judea and in Samaria as the outward evidences that the message not alone was true, but that He who had done the miracles on earth is living, risen from the dead, and that His power is undiminished. These outward evidences of the truth of Christianity continued as long as the full revelation of God had not yet been put into the hands of man. We find miracles in the life and ministry of the Apostle Paul and his associates. But as he received from the Lord the great revelations, and wrote them under the guiding pen of the Holy Spirit, these outward signs became less. Finally, when Paul wrote these marvelous documents, which complete the Word of God (in the sense of giving the highest revelation) we see him a prisoner in Rome. In the beginning of Acts the Lord did miracles in sending angels to deliver the Apostles, and later Peter, from prison. But there was no miraculous deliverance from prison in the case of the Apostle Paul.
There is no evidence anywhere in Scripture that miracles such as our Lord did in physical things, such as the healing of diseases, the cleansing of lepers, or the miraculous feeding, and the raising of the dead are to continue throughout the history of the Church. As long as the Apostles lived, to whom the promise was given, these signs were present. As long as the full truth of Christianity had not been revealed outward evidences were needed. After the Word of God had been completed by the Spirit of God in the epistolar testimony, the character of the age, as an age of faith and not of sight, was fully established, and miracles in the sense as our Lord did miracles ceased, and then begin “the greater works.”’ Before we explain what these greater works are we wish to say that in the post-apostolic times miracle-workers arose who claimed to have power to heal and to perform all kinds of miracles. Church history reports many incidents, and the lives of the saints are filled with miraculous happenings, healing of divers diseases, manifestations of angels, and other supernatural manifestations. Periodically, movements started which claimed to be a revival of apostolic times and a restoration of miracles. All these claims were proven counterfeits and not a few of these movements became the hotbed of false doctrines and even immoralities. The present day Pentecostal movement, with its so-called miracle women and miracle men, with its false teachings, with its claims and subtle deceptions, belongs to this class. In some of these Pentecostal sects the most abominable things of the flesh under the garb of great spiritual attainments have been practiced.
But what are “the greater works” of which our Lord speaks? Our Lord did not only work physical miracles, but there were other miracles, the conversion of sinners. The conversion of a sinner is a spiritual miracle. We know from Scripture that not many more than five hundred had been gathered by His earthly ministry, who believed on Him as the Son of God and were born again. When the Holy Spirit had come on the day of Pentecost and Peter preached, three thousand miracles of grace took place. This was a greater work spiritually than He had done. And so throughout this present age over and over again through His chosen instruments, which are His gifts to His body, these greater works have been done. And these greater works are the
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results of His return to the Father and the subsequent coming of the Holy Spirit.
To this promise is linked the promise of prayer. “And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in My name, I will do it.” This is another comfort with which He comforted His soon to be orphaned disciples. He heard their requests while He was with them; He knew their thoughts and their desires and graciously dealt with them. He was about to go to the Father’s house to prepare the place for them, and now He gives them the promise that they can pray to the Father in His name and whatsoever they ask in His name that He will do. He had given them before the form of prayer, which is commonly called “The Lord’s prayer,” that is the “Our Father.” His name was not mentioned in that prayer. But now in anticipation of His sacrificial work, His resurrection, His ascension and His presence at the right hand of God, He institutes prayer in His name. This fact is emphasized by Him when He said to them later in His discourse, “Hitherto have ye asked nothing in My name; ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full’ (xvi:24). But what does it mean, “Ask in My name”? It means more than using His blessed name in a form of prayer. In order to pray in His name it is necessary that the person is in Him and identified with Him. The phrase “in the name” as used in the New Testament generally signifies the representation of the person whose name is used, standing in his stead, fulfilling his purposes, manifesting his will and showing forth his life and glory. To pray, therefore, effectually in His name means to realize our standing in Christ, our union with Him, and seeking His glory. The mere use of the name of our Lord in prayer without the spiritual reality of our oneness with Him and deep desire to glorify Him by having His will done in our lives is unavailing. But knowing Him and bent on doing His will we can pray in His name. Whatsoever we ask must be qualified by whatsoever we ask according to His will, that which is in harmony with His will; true prayer in His name will be like His own prayer, “Not my will but thine be done.”
Ever since this comforting promise was given the Lord’s people have cast themselves upon it, and, pleading in simple faith, with hearts devoted to Him as their Saviour and Lord. They asked of Him and received His gracious answer. It is still the comfort of all trusting hearts, and as long as His people journey through the wilderness towards the homeland, they can test and make use of the promise. It is most blessed to come to the Father with our wants and remind Him of the words His Son spoke on earth, the encouragement He has left His people, to ask in His name and expect in faith the answer.
And in answered prayer the Father will be glorified in the Son. It means by the use of His name, by sinners redeemed by Himself, as their needs are supplied and believing prayer answered, God the Father will get glory on account of it. Then He restates the same promise: “If ye shall ask anything in My name I will do it.” It is most emphatic, as if He would want to remove even the slightest doubt. Just ask anything in my name and see how I will do it. In both instances He says “I will do it,” while in chapter xvi:23 we read, ‘‘Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name He will do it.” Prayer is to be addressed to God. When our Lord speaks that He will do it He gives another evidence to the many of this Gospel that He is God. Well said Bengel, ‘This ‘I’ indicates the glory, the glory of Him who is One with the Father.”
Verses 15-20. In these words our Lord told His disciples of the gracious provision He was making for them after His departure. They loved Him. But He loved them in a measure which they could not understand. Their love was expressed by sorrow when He told them that they were now soon to be orphaned. This must be a reason why He said to them “If ye love Me keep My commandments.”’ The test of love for Him is obedience, that is doing His will. Then follows a new revelation and promise. He had spoken to them about praying in His Name, but now He tells them, what He had not said before, that He would pray the Father in their behalf. The Greek word used here and translated “pray” is of interesting significance. Three Greek words of different meaning are translated in our English Bibles by the word pray. One means “to ask’; another “to request”; and the third “‘to entreat.”” The word used here is the word “‘to request.” In chapters xvi:26; xvii:9, 15 and 20 the word “ask”? is used. Not once does the Holy Spirit employ in connection with our Lord’s praying the word ‘‘to entreat.” His is not the entreating petition of a creature, but the request of the Son from the Father.
His request for His own concerns the gift from the Father of “another Comforter.” This word is also inadequately rendered. ‘The Greek is a compound, Paracletos. It means to call to one’s side (Para kaleo). It is the same word translated ‘‘Advocate” in 1 John ii:2. There it is the Lord Jesus Christ who is the Paraclete, the Advocate with the Father. And here He promises the third person of the Trinity to take His place in the believer as the Advocate. The statement “another” shows that the Holy Spirit is to do the same work in the believer as the glorified Christ does in heaven for the believer.
Before we take up the promise of the Paraclete and His work we call attention to the three persons of the Trinity as revealed in verse 15. The Son of God is requesting of the Father, the Father is giving as the result of the request of the Son, and the Holy Spirit comes to abide. There are some queer Bible students, as they call themselves, who refuse to believe in the Trinity, because the word does not appear in the Bible. They do not belong to Unitarians or the vicious “Latter Day Saints,” known as Mormons, both of whom deny the Trinity, but they claim orthodoxy. This verse alone should deliver them from their foolish imagination, for here are three persons and the three are one.
Twice before our Lord had spoken about the future gift of the Spirit, to the woman of Samaria at the well and in the seventh chapter (verse 35). In the latter passage we read that the gift of the Spirit was dependent on His death, resurrection and ascension to the right hand of God. Of this condition He spoke again in chapter xvi:7, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you.” Here in chapter xiv:16 He announces for the first time definitely the gift of
Him, who would take His place in and with His own during this present age. As already stated He is to be an Advocate, one who stands alongside of those who belong to Christ, as the glorified Christ is the Advocate with the Father. The Lord Jesus Christ exercises His office as Advocate in behalf of His people when they sin. He then intercedes in their behalf. Such is also the ministry of the other Advocate, the Holy Spirit, for it is written “(Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans viii:26). Whatever help the believer needs in prayer, worship, witness-bearing, service, in trial, sorrow and all other circumstances, the Holy Spirit as Advocate is in the believer to cheer, comfort, lead, teach, and to give strength.
And the Lord promises Him as a permanent gift, “that He may abide with you for ever.” He was present during Old Testament times. Even in the age before the deluge He manifested His power (Genesis vi:3). But never before was He present on earth as the Spirit indwelling believers and abiding for ever, without leaving them. David prayed: “Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me” (Psalm li:11). He had seen the tragedy of Saul, the mad king, as the Spirit had left him and an evil spirit had taken His place. The New Testament Saint is assured that the Holy Spirit, given to him through grace in believing on Christ will abide with him. We are sealed by Him unto the day of redemption (Ephesians iv:30).
Our Lord describes Him as the Spirit of Truth. God the Father is Truth, the Son of God is the Truth and so is the Holy Spirit Truth, another evidence that the three persons in the Godhead are one. In his first epistle John writes, “It is the Spirtt that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth” (1 John v:6). He dispels the darkness and reveals the Truth concerning Him who said “I am the Truth.” He teaches the Truth and guides into all the Truth, which He makes known in the written Word, of which He is the communicator. The world cannot receive this Spirit of Truth for the simple reason that the world has rejected Christ, nor can anyone receive this gift of God’s Grace unless by the hearing of faith (Gal. iii:2), that is by believing on Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Saviour, who died for our sins, was buried and arose on the third day. The natural man does not know Him, cannot see Him nor receive Him. ‘The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, neither can he know them” (1 Cor. ii:14).
It is otherwise with those who own Christ as their Saviour and Lord. “But ye know Him, for He abideth with you and shall be in you.” It must be noted that the Lord spoke of the fact that the Holy Spirit was with them, but He announced His indwelling as taking place at some future time, for He said “He shall be in you.” As they had believed on Christ as the Son of God, followed Him, they were born again and the Holy Spirit was with them. His personal indwelling had not yet come; that was consummated on the day of Pentecost, when the promise was fulfilled and the third person of the Trinity came to earth to dwell in the hearts of believers. And this is the blessed truth of Christianity, that all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, are washed in His blood, saved by His Grace, born again, and have received the Holy Spirit. He dwells, not an influence, but a person, in every believing heart, putting His seal there of ownership. The bodies of believers are the temples of the Holy Spirit. This is not the question of seeking a personal experience of receiving the Holy Spirit, but it is the question of believing that the Word of God assures us that this is the case. “What, know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” (1 Cor. vi:19). Thousands of Christians today believe the false doctrine that a saved Christian must have a personal experience of a personal Pentecost, evidenced by the gift. of an unknown tongue. Where does our Lord speak of this in these final words in John’s Gospel? Nowhere!
Following wrong teachings concerning the Spirit of God, seeking certain influences, powers and gifts, supposing that they come from the Spirit of God, is a dangerous path to follow. It is on this territory that the enemy manifests his most awful power and garbs himself as an angel of light. The Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost. He is here and no other Pentecost is needed. Every individual believer shares in the baptism which took place, just once, on that day and becomes through grace the temple of the Holy Spirit. It is unbelief in what God has said, if a believer seeks a special experience of receiving the Holy Spirit. The other truth connected with the gift of the Paraclete, the formation of the Church on earth, uniting believers with Christ in glory, thus constituting the body of Christ, is not taught in the Gospel of John.
And all this must be realized in faith and then expressed in a life of devotion and obedience to our Lord. Those who profess that they are in Christ, indwelled by His Spirit, His temples, and do not walk in separation, serving two masters, dishonor, grieve and quench Him, and show that their hearts know but little of true love for Christ.
“If the Spirit be come to dwell in us, the first requisite is readiness of obedience. Wondrous are the possibilities held out to us in this marvelous gift; but marvelous also is the possibility we have of belittling even a gift like this. The Galatians had it, who were giving up the Gospel for the Law. The Corinthians had it, who were carnal, and walked as men. It belongs to the mystery of our nature that we may have as though we had not. It belongs to the royalty of it that we may debase ourselves. Stranger still is it that the children of this world may be wiser in their generation than the children of light, and that the Lord should even have to put this as if a characteristic thing. Were we not unfaithful to ourselves and to God, how would the world be lighted up with the reflection of the glory that is in the unveiled face of Jesus! how we should go through the world as visitants from another sphere! Thus we need not wonder that the Lord should almost seem to put it as if the gift of the Spirit were dependent upon the reality of one’s obedience. What! can we have God in us, and entertain Him so poorly? Nothing could make such a thing credible but the sad experience of so lamentable a fact! Yes, men who know that Christ has died for them — who know that the Spirit of God dwells in them — who know that God’s way is the only way of peace and joy and power — can yet live and act as if nothing of all this were true. We can give up certainties of blessing for certainties of spiritual loss!) Who can enough bewail the misery of such unaccountable folly?’’*
Then follows the precious assurance, “I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you.” Though this sentence is beloved by many saints it is far from expressing the original. The correct rendering is, “I will not leave you orphans.” An orphan is not without parents. Death came and deprived the child of father and mother. Then memory looks back to them and hope looks forward also to meeting them again, but the parents are not present. Such an orphaned state was before the disciples; they were soon to be solitary and friendless. He therefore assured them, “I will not leave you orphans.”
But what does it mean when He assures them “I will come to you”? It has been explained as meaning His manifestation after His resurrection. But this cannot be the meaning, for their state as orphans began after His ascension. Augustine, Bede, Ryle and others apply it as meaning His second visible coming. But it cannot mean this for it was spoken to the eleven disciples as a comforting assurance during their lifetime. It seems the context gives the correct interpretation. It means the promise of verse 23, that He and the Father will come to the believer’s heart to make their abode with him. It must not be detached from the promise of the indwelling Spirit; thus Christ dwells in our hearts by faith (Eph. iii:17).
“Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no more; but ye see Me: because I live, ye shall live also.” A short time only, and as far as the unbelieving world is concerned, they would no longer see Him. The last the world saw of Him was when they looked upon Him hanging on the cross between two thieves. None of the world beheld Him risen from the dead. The world will see Him some day when He comes as a thief in the night. He assured His disciples that while the world would not see Him any longer that they would see Him. To apply this to His second coming is incorrect, for it is the present tense, “ye see Me.” It means the spiritual vision of Himself which the true believer has in
*F, W. Grant.
virtue of the indwelling Spirit. It is what Paul writes in the Epistle to the Hebrews: “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor” (Hebrews ii:9). Then comes the assurance of life. ‘Because I live ye shall live also.” Into what a depth we look through this one sentence of our blessed Lord! The life which He has we have; the life of the head in glory is the life which is in every one of His members on earth, and we are the members of His body, His flesh and His bones. His life can never die, never be affected or destroyed by enemies, and such is our life. It is hid with Christ in God.
“On that day shall ye know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you.” This day has also been explained as the day of His appearing. It is, of course, very true that in His day, when we shall be with Him, we shall know as we are known. But it is a strained view to make this verse the future day of our Lord’s return. It is the day when the Holy Spirit came to make known the things which our Lord had indicated to them. He did not tell His disciples that they were going to knowwhen theHoly Spirit comes, how He is in the Father, how they are in Him and He in them, but the fact that such is the case is to be made known to them. This is distinctly the work of the Spirit. The great Pauline Epistles reveal this blessed fact of the union of the believer with Christ.
Verses 21-26. The twenty-first verse evidently connects with verse 15, and the statement there is now fully unfolded and emphasized. It also must be linked with the preceding promise of the indwelling Spirit. The Spirit of God produces in the believer His fruits, which are the results of practical obedience. Love for Christ can only be manifested by obedience to His words; obedience therefore is the true test of love. In the First Epistle of John this test is made likewise, and John brands there those who profess to know Him, and do not keep His commandments, as liars. ‘He that saith I know Him and keepeth not His commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him” (1 John ii:4).. Many have the commandments of Christ, yet they do not keep them. Such do not give an outward evidence of real love for Him. But what are His commandments? They are all summed up in two words, ‘‘Follow me.” He has left us an example that we should follow His steps. ‘‘He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked” (1 John ii:6). ‘Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil. ii:5). One who walks in union with Christ, follows Him, will keep all His sayings, and the indwelling Spirit supplies the power to walk in the Spirit. A blessed promise is attached to this demand. ‘He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.” What a marvelous promise and what an incentive to obedience! This is the way that every believer may become a “beloved disciple.” Here is a special love of the Father for those who express their love for His Son in practical obedience. How deep we may drink at this well of love! What gracious possibilities are here! Then He Himself assures us that He will love such a one and manifest Himself to him. The manifestation is, of course, a spiritual manifestation. In our days certain deluded people, given to an emotional fanaticism, claim that they have deeper experiences, that these experiences include visions and dreams, besides other supernatural manifestations. Our Lord never promised such things. That these people are not sound is shown by their unscriptural teachings, by their spiritual pride and often by worse things. The manifestation of which our Lord speaks is the consciousness of His presence with us, the satisfying knowledge that we please Him, and the precious comfort of intimate fellowship with Him. Only to those who are obedient to Him can He reveal Himself thus.
Judas’s voice breaks in. Judas Iscariot was no longer present. He had gone out into that awful night to betray Him. It is the other Judas, called in Matthew’s Gospel Lebbaeus, and in Mark, Thaddaeus. The Spirit of God calls attention to the identity of Judas, that he was not Iscariot, the betrayer, who said, “Lord.” Judas Iscariot never addresses Jesus as Lord, because he did not believe on Him as the Son of God. His question literally translated is “Lord, and what has happened that Thou wilt manifest Thyself to us, but not at all to the world?” One can easily read in this question the disappomted Jewish Hope. Had they not followed Him as the Messiah, the King of Israel? Had they not announced that the long-promised kingdom is at hand? He and the other disciples expected that He would manifest Himself as King with power and glory before all Israel and the nations of the world. And now He had announced that He would manifest Himself only to the disciples. What had happened? He was greatly perplexed, not understanding the deep spiritual meaning of the words of the Lord.
Our Lord, therefore, speaks words similar to those recorded in verse 21: “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.” The spirit of obedience is again made prominent and here it is not keeping His commandments, but keeping His Word (not words). Keeping the Word, being obedient to it, has attached to it one of the greatest promises. The Father and the Son promise, “We will come and make our abode with him.” This is, of course, a spiritual coming and abiding in the heart of the obedient believer. It is the highest and the best manifestation promised to the child of God, to become the dwelling place of the Father and the Son. The realization of this promise is conditioned on obedience to His Word. Well has another said, “In God’s ordered path alone can we find God. In His marked out way it would be impossible not to find Him.” And when our Lord said, “We will come,” He testifies again to His unity with the Father.
Then follows the same truth presented negatively: “He that loveth Me not keepeth not My sayings.” But there is more than that involved. One who does not love Him and shows his character by not keeping His sayings does more than reject His words, he rejects the Father whose words the Son declared. ‘Where there is no obedience to Christ, there is no love. Nothing can be more plain than our Lord’s repeated warnings that practical obedience, keeping His commandments and sayings, doing His will, is the only sure test of love to Him. Without this obedience, profession, talk, knowledge, church-membership, yea, even feeling, conviction, weeping and crying, are all worthless things.”
And as they listened with their ears to all these words of
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comfort and instruction, their hearts did not grasp the meaning of what He was saying to them. He told them that the time would come when they would know and understand. “But the Comforter (Paraclete) which is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you.” The person of the Holy Spirit, the other Advocate in their behalf, would supply their lack of understanding. Through this coming One they would remember all these things; He would teach them and lead them into the things of Christ, even as He has done and still does through the blessed redemption truths, as taught by Him in the Epistles. The promise that the Spirit would bring all things to their remembrance vouches for the perfect accuracy of the four Gospels. “It is in the fulfillment of this promise to the Apostles that their sufficiency as witnesses of all that the Lord did and taught, and consequently the authenticity of the Gospel narrative is grounded.”
Verses 27-31. He gives them a legacy: ‘‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.” About to leave the world and go back to the Father, He made His will and bequeathed to His own the priceless treasure of peace. But we must notice the difference between the peace He left and the peace He gives; the latter He calls ““My peace.” He made peace in the blood of the cross. “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. v:1). Peace with God is the legacy of His death for all who trust in Him. It is the peace He made and which we cannot make nor maintain. It is ours as the gift of grace, a peace which can never be undone. But there is also “the peace of God” of which we read in Phil. iv:7.. This peace of God is the same as the peace He promises to give and which is His own peace. While the peace with God is the result of having accepted Christ as Saviour, His peace is dependent on obedience to Him and communion with Him. The Holy Spirit is given to dwell in the believer so that the believer may know and enjoy His own peace. The peace of God is that peace which God possesses in the serenity of His being, and, because Christ is God, He had this marvelous peace which nothing could disturb. He stood unmoved and unperturbed in the courts of Caiaphas and in the judgment hall of the Roman Pilate. We behold nothing but calmness in His blessed life. When the waves began to fill the little ship and the disciples cried out for fear, He knew no fear, but rested in perfect peace on His pillow. When they wanted to cast Him down some mountain side, or picked up stones to stone Him, He remained undisturbed. He trusted God and knew the issues of all. Hence this majestic peace.
We see the promise realized in the beginning of the history of the Church on earth. It enabled the Apostles to stand fearless and unmoved before the threatening Jewish authorities. It gave to Stephen a heavenly calmness in the midst of the shower of stones. Peter, having ‘His peace,” slept peacefully in chains. Paul and Silas, in possession of the peace of God, sang praises at midnight, and Paul remained undisturbed, surrounded by the Jerusalem mob, as he was unmoved when the shipwreck was about to take place. It was His peace, which kept the millions of martyrs, and enabled them to meet the lions and the tigers with a song of praise. Such is His blessed legacy. We also may enjoy it all as we do His will and rest in Him. The formula for it is simple. “Be anxious for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Phil. iv:6-7).
Then there is the second, “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.’”’ Here is the true remedy for fear. It is His peace in a life of trust and obedience.
In verse 28 He refers to His words in chapter xiii:33-36 and xiv:2,3,12. In view of His going away and the promise of His return, instead of being grieved, they should rejoice, for He went back to the Father to represent them in His presence, and finally He would return and take them to the Father’s house with its many mansions. What did our Lord mean when He said “for My Father is greater than I’? Unitarians and other anti-trinitarians use it as one of their star texts to uphold their unscriptural theories. Is this statement not inconsistent with the many declarations in this Gospel as to His perfect unity with the Father? He who is one with the Father had taken the place of a servant; He became man. As such He was sent forth by the Father, derived His authority from the Father, obeyed the Father, did the Father’s will. The Lord Jesus Christ while very God, is God manifested in the flesh, and God in His absolute Being is greater than any manifestation of Him. God absolute is more than God revealed. An ancient creed states, “Christ is equal to the Father as touching His Godhead and inferior to the Father as touching His manhood.”
He had told them before what would take place. Afterward they would remember it all, as they did when they believed. His words would be few for the time of His passion was almost at hand.
Significant is the statement, “The prince of this world cometh and has nothing in Me.” He does not say that His enemies are coming, but He mentions but one person, Satan, the Devil. And he is ‘‘the prince of this world.”” What an important statement from the lips of the Son of God! In his first epistle John tells us that the whole world lieth in the wicked one. Sin has made Satan the ruler over fallen man, and the system which man builds up is alienated from God. And when the world rejected Christ this sinister being became “the god of this world,” or age (2 Cor. iv:4). He came before to the Son of God with his tests, but found nothing in Him. All he tried to do to keep Him back from doing the will of God in redemption resulted in defeat. There was nothing in our Lord which in any way could respond to the Devil’s suggestion, for our Lord was absolutely sinless in His human nature. And now Satan came for the final assault and foynd only another defeat.
“But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment even so I do. Arise, let us go hence.”’ He was ready to go to the cross and thereby show His love for the Father, by being obedient unto death, yea, the death of the cross.