Clough John Lesson 52
Can Man Experience Eternity Future Now – John 14:5-21
…tie together the last hours of the life of Christ in great detail, details that are necessary for us in our daily walk with the Lord as Christians, because the Holy Spirit has designed it to be that way, and particularly in John 13:34 we have the new commandment that Jesus Christ gave the disciples, that you “love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also [ought to] love one another.” And it’s that new commandment that is the grounds, the base, the theme, that underlies the rest of chapter 13, chapter 14, chapter 15, chapter 16 and chapter 17. All of those chapters, though they deal with many different details, have as their ultimate objective securing our response to that new commandment. Now because it is precisely this new commandment that is being misused today in fundamental and evangelical circles, it is precisely therefore this passage of Scripture that must be gone through very carefully so we don’t fall into the trap of many Christians, who, in their ignorance of Scripture, in their really utter disregard for Scripture, are substituting a natural affection for this supernatural love.
Now this love that is described here is going to be described from a number of points of view and by the time we finish I hope that you will have something objective, something that you can get your hands on to measure what this love is all about. And have some idea on an objective basis whether you are submitting personally to this commandment. This commandment is not dependent for its fulfillment upon your personality. Some people have naturally affectionate personalities and the tendency when you’re first a Christian is to look around some Christian group and you know something like this is supposed to be happening so you pick out some affectionate person and then you use that naturally affectionate person as some sort of a model for you and you begin to try to bend your personality to fit this other naturally affectionate person. And sooner or later you’re going to find that you can’t do that and you’re going to be frustrated with it and then you’re going to draw the conclusion as many have, well, that’s a nice idea but unfortunately it’s a fallen world, it’s just not applicable to me and I’ll never fulfill it. And so we just phase out of it. Or, having gone down that route for a while we come across somebody that has some sort of strange experience and this strange experience is supposed to guarantee that this love of God is suddenly created inside the human heart, after salvation. That isn’t taught in Scripture either.
This particular love has a certain form to it. It is amply described by Christ. In fact, if we just review that little phrase tucked in the middle of verse 34, “as I have loved you,” it would solve most people’s problems immediately. Let’s look at what that phrase means by way of review: “As I have loved you.” Now Jesus Christ is God; that means Jesus Christ is sovereign, Jesus Christ is righteous, He is just, He is loving, He’s omniscient, He’s omnipotent, omnipresent, immutable and eternal, plus other attributes depending on what system you use to enumerate them. Jesus Christ has these characteristics. Now if He loves us He loves us with this kind of character. Last time I showed you three attributes in particular that you can think of as you ask yourself—am I loving the brethren as Christ loved them?
The first one, Christ, because He is God, is sovereign. Therefore when Christ loves He loves from His own choice. Jesus Christ chose in eternity past whom it would be that He loved forever and ever and ever. We call that the doctrine of election. Jesus Christ chose to love people in Himself, born again believers “in Him,” the plan of salvation was designed to bring out into historical openness this choice, this sovereign choice of Christ. Therefore, Christ loves us, all believers, we’ll indicate believers with + signs, unbelievers with – negative signs, Jesus Christ sovereignly chose to love those people who are called believers. He chose not to love, in this sense, those who are unbelievers. So since Jesus Christ chose, therefore that’s one way that He loved us. And therefore that is a model of how we are to love. How does it apply? Let’s show the example.
Here is a group of believers and here’s a person with a nice personality; here’s a person who’s a clod, here’s a person who is just the quiet type, you can’t tell what they’re like, here’s a person who is a crybaby, anything going wrong they’re moaning and groaning about it, always sharing all their problems with everybody within earshot, and then on the telephone extending their range. And then we have a few others which we will leave up to your own imagination to fill in the details. All right, we have a group of believers. To show you concretely how this is, let’s suppose you are one of these persons and you look over at this quiet person and you say to yourself, gee, I don’t know about that person, I don’t know anything about them because they’re quiet, they mind their own business, they’re not shooting their mouth off all the time so I can’t tell what they’re like. But yet you do know and you have good basis for the fact that they are a Christian, they have personally trusted in Jesus Christ.
Now the moment that you are convinced that this person is a Christian, if you are to exercise this commandment, verse 34, you are to think of this relationship like this: now look, Jesus Christ picked out you from all eternity, Jesus Christ chose that particular individual, He chose that individual to be with Him forever, His death on the cross secured the basis for their salvation, Jesus Christ’s resurrection and subsequent sending of the Holy Spirit was for their positioning in the body of Christ. Jesus Christ has done all these things. So if I am going to be a Christian responsive to the Word of God, whether this person is quiet or whether he’s clod, or whether he’s something else doesn’t make any difference in this sense because they are all people who have been chosen by Jesus Christ. And so verse 34 becomes a means of respect for the choice of Christ. So love them, Jesus says, “as I have loved them.” I have chosen that person, whether you like that person or not is not the issue, the issue is do you respect that I know what I happen to be about? That I am the Lord of history and from all eternity I have chosen that person and believe it or not, some good is eventually going to happen, because I said so, I chose them and it is going to happen that way. And if you do not respond to quiet or clod or this other person, then you are in effect saying I do not really buy that the Lord knows what He’s doing when He picks out that kind of a person to be a Christian. So you see, your relationship, then, with one who is chosen is a reflection of your respect for the one who did the choosing. That’s Christ in His sovereignty loving the believer.
We said also Jesus Christ loved us graciously; going back to His essence, going back to His divine attributes and knowing that He is love and that this love pours out after the fall, and because it is after the fall it can be redefined as gracious love, for remember grace could not really be shown before the fall of man, before we all in Adam became rebels against God’s Word, so therefore it means… going back to this group again it means that you can look over here at some person who may be the clod and this person to your social mores may be particularly gross kind of clod; you might not stand this person, you’ve come out of a refined background and every other word this person may use is slang or something and it’s not the way that you are used to speaking, this person has passed through some very rough situations in life, it’s made them kind of rough, and when you talk with them this just kind of grates your soul a little bit the wrong way. And you begin to look down your long spiritual nose at that individual and begin to say well I’m five points higher on God’s ladder than that person, at least I don’t do this and I don’t do that and that makes me better than so and so, and we have spiritual king of the mountain going on, where we have the saints skyline, one’s higher than the other, that kind of thing. Well, that’s not how Jesus Christ loved us; Jesus Christ loved us graciously; Jesus Christ, from all eternity knew exactly what kind of a stinker you would be and He went ahead and loved you anyway and He died for you on the cross.
So regardless of what your sin or sin pattern happens to be and regardless of what the sin or sin pattern happens to be on the part of this other person you can’t stand from your own human resources, Christ graciously extends His love towards them, and therefore the lesson obviously is that we are to love on a grace basis; we are to in effect say well Lord, if I see that this person has trusted in you, he gives all evidences of salvation, he has a long way to go in sanctification maybe, but nevertheless we can argue that this person is a Christian. Now comes the second way, besides sovereignty, now I have to say does Jesus Christ really love that person? How can He love that person with all his yick, how does He love that person? He just goes ahead and loves them on the cross basis. He loves them on a grace basis. Christ loves him because of what Christ in turn does for that person. Christ does not love the person because this person has deep buried within his bones some pieces of gold or silver that make him valuable, or buried in the deep inner recesses of his personality he has such hidden scintillation that Christ can’t help but see his glow through the clouds. That’s not the point. Jesus Christ loves that person because of His grace toward the person. That’s the issue. So how does Christ love us? He loves us graciously in spite of our spiritual shortcomings, so that’s the second way you can apply John 13:34. Jesus Christ has chosen that individual, therefore I respect His choice. Jesus Christ loved the individual in spite of his worst side, and therefore I must recognize that that’s the grace way of operating.
A third way we suggested last time of applying verse 34 is that Jesus Christ, again going back to His essence, loves out of His omniscience. He loves in an omniscient way or in a perfectly wise way. When Jesus Christ goes to express His love, again pick out clod here, because Jesus Christ expresses His love Jesus Christ doesn’t just fawn all over the person, He’s not like a dog, wag his tail and jump up and down; that’s not the way Jesus Christ loves, He loves him in a wise way and that means that love is tailored in its expression towards different people in different ways. Jesus Christ loved Peter a lot differently than He loved John. That’s clear from the last several chapters of the Gospel. Why does Jesus love Peter differently than how He loves John. It’s simple; John is John and Peter is Peter, they’re two different creatures, they’re made with two different personalities, they’re made out of two different situations so Jesus Christ, when He comes to love him He respects the uniqueness of that person and relates Himself to him in a Scriptural and a wise way.
We could go on and we could enumerate the rest of them but I just toss these out and you can do your own imaginative exercise some time, just take a piece of paper, draw yourself the essence of God, take each one of those attributes and ask yourself, Christ loves sovereignly, Christ loves righteously, Christ loves lovingly, Christ loves omnisciently and so on, just go down all the attributes; this is just a starter but it should show you something of what it means.
Notice again in verse 34 that the objects of the love are only believers. This particular love cannot be extended toward those who are not Christians. It is highly discriminatory love and the reason it is, as I said, it is only believers who are going to be around for all eternity, so here you are, and here is this other person who is a believer and we’ll make another person who is an unbeliever. This person is going the same place you are for all eternity, so you might as well get used to one another. This person is going to peel out some place along the line and go to hell. So, you don’t develop, you can’t develop a loving kind of relationship with that person until that person shows signs, evidence of regeneration. It’s that simple. The reason: because you can’t commit yourself to love that person if that person first hasn’t committed themselves to respond to Christ. This love, contrary to what you read in Christian circles, is not unconditional love; it is highly conditioned. It is conditioned upon Christ’s sovereign choice. Once you take that, yeah, you could say it’s unconditional love after Christ’s choice, but it’s certainly not unconditional love toward all men, definitely not. It will be treason in heaven to love those in hell.
Let’s go on to the discourse that flows out of this conversation. John has presented this in a very neat way as he usually does in the Gospel of John and this really literally happened but it’s organized in such a way that John is doing lots of things at the same time and I want to point out to you this pattern that you want to see as you read through this section of John. John is writing late, far from… time has passed since this event. So he’s writing to the Christian church, facing very practical problems, very practical questions. So what John is going to do is he’s going to explain to us what loving one another is as Christ has loved us, but he’s going to do it by answering questions that believers have always asked down through history. So he’s going to do this and the way he arranges his material is he recalls that night and they had an active dialogue among all the apostles as they sat at this table after the Passover. And they were asking questions, kind of a question and answer time.
And John says I know what I’ll do, the best way I can get this across is I can remember what Jesus said to Peter, I can remember that night what He said to Philip, I can remember what He said to Thomas, and I’ll take Judas, not Iscariot, the other one, so I’ll take four disciples and I’ll use, to make it interesting so people enjoy it while they’re reading, I’ll make this in terms of a dialogue, at the same time I’m going to answer basic questions. So what he does is take Peter, John 13:36 through John 14:4, this is Peter, and Peter has a question. But Peter’s question stands for a bigger question that Christians all down through church history will ask. Peter’s question on the surface appears to be why can’t we stay together. That is, why can’t Jesus Christ and the apostles stay together, why does there have to come a separation. Now that’s Peter’s surface question, but that also stands for another question that we’ve had and I’m sure you’ve had and that is why the Church Age. Why this extended duration in history of the absence, why do we have a concealed Messiah after all? Why isn’t Jesus visible, why doesn’t He actively rule in history, why do we have to put up with the absentee Lord, so to speak, all the time.
All right, Jesus answers. Jesus’ answer to this, we went into the doctrine of the imminent rapture last week, His answer is that the New Jerusalem must be constructed. So His direct answer to why the Church Age and why can’t we stay together is that I must build New Jerusalem. And He does, Revelation 21:22 is what it looks like when He’s going to get it finished; it still isn’t finished tonight; if the rapture occurs before the end of the service you’ll know it’s pretty well finished. But the question here is why the Church Age and the answer is to build New Jerusalem.
Now I didn’t do this last Sunday night so I’m going to do this as we finish each one of these questions; I’m going to give a third point, not just the question, not just the answer, but the application of this answer to the original problem, verse 34, why “love one another,” what’s this answer and this question got to do with the overall theme, so the application of Jesus Christ’s answer to loving one another. And the application is, John does not state it, it is to be inferred from the way Jesus answers Peter, the application is that you’re going to live together, all of you, forever. So there’s one objective reason for loving the brethren. Suppose you have this clod character that you can’t stand and he turns out to be your roommate in the New Jerusalem forever. So this is one long-range reason for loving the brethren. It is not grounded on how you feel, it is not based upon your natural personality, it has nothing to do with anything that is natural; it has all to do with God’s historic plan. So be thinking, ye gods, am I going to live with them forever? Well, if you think that way, there’s some mental adjustments that had better be made.
Okay, we go to the second apostle, that’s Thomas. [John 14:5, “Thomas saith unto Him, Lord, we know now where You go; and how can we know the way? [6] Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh to the Father, but by me. [7] If ye had known Me, you should have known My Father also; and from henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him.”] So John remembers something, Thomas is always good for a laugh, and so he says yeah, Thomas asked a neat question that day, I remember that. Thomas in the middle of all this things said I don’t buy any of it, what’s all this going on for? So Thomas asked why is this taking place; that’s the surface question. That’s the real question that Thomas asked but John is letting Thomas speak for many, many Christians who have asked a related but deeper question and that is what is the ultimate end of the plan of salvation? It’s nice to talk about being saved but saved to do what? Be nothing more than a witnessing machine and you go around knocking on doors, are we going to do that for all eternity. What’s the ultimate end of salvation? And so Jesus Christ’s answer to Thomas, the famous one of verse 6, “I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life. What he has said to Thomas is I am not only the means to arrive at the goal but Thomas, I am the goal. So Christ’s answer, why is all this taking place, why this building of the New Jerusalem—because man must reach His created destiny and that is knowing God forever, living in His presence is a biblical synonym for this. Those of you who have a Presbyterian background should recall what you had to memorize in catechism, “what is the end of man,” and so on, “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” There’s a summary of the ultimate reason for the plan of salvation.
All right, that’s Thomas. Now tonight we come to the third man to ask a question that evening, Philip. And thankfully for us Philip was the stupidest of all the disciples, he was always asking for something ridiculous, poor guy, but he was good and I’m glad he was because I probably couldn’t have improved on his questions any. Philip was, as I pointed out when we were in John 1, sovereignly chosen by Christ, and he just was a little thick, all during the Gospels, every time Philip… he just kind of doesn’t get tuned in to what’s going on, he just naturally is not an alert man. But this should be cause for rejoicing among many, that Jesus Christ picks all kinds and Philip was His inner circle man. And maybe He picked Philip for no other reason than asking this question, because Philip asked the question that was the most profound question of them all, except Philip didn’t realize what he was doing, he just asked some innocent question but John points out in kind of the way he does how God ironically works, He takes Philip who would be amazed at that moment if someone said Philip, do you know what you asked the Lord just now? No, who… what… it appears that Philip was asking a very simple question and you see it in verse 8 and the discussion extends all the way down to verse 21 where you see the next verse, verse 22 deals with Judas, the fourth man to ask a question that evening. So this part of the text, we’re going to begin with John 14:8 down through verse 21. Now it’s a little modest question, just show us the Father, that’ll suffice. What he was asking for was a theophany, in other words an appearance of God, a supernatural appearance of God, kind of like it appeared to Isaiah. Remember Isaiah was in the temple, all of a sudden he saw this vision of God Himself; Daniel in his dream, he saw God Himself. Moses up on Sinai saw God Himself, and so Philip thinks hey, that’d be cool, why don’t we ask Him if He’d do that. So Lord, show us the Father, and it’ll suffice. [John 14:8, “Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.”]
Well, there’s a little bit of a background on why Philip asked this question and you have to appreciate that Philip did have some reason for asking this question, and this question mirrors a deeper question. So let’s look at Philip’s question, get our notes set up here; the question was, “show us God” and we’ll put “in a theophany,” that is, in a detailed appearance of His glory. That’s what we want to see, just do that Lord, just as a little favor. Now that question, though, stands for a deeper question that is going to be answered shortly in a most revolutionary way and that is this, and I’ll give you the deeper question and then I’m going to explain why this question is related to Philip’s question. Can man experience eternity future now? In other words, can we, now in the present moment of history, know God in a way very similar to the way we’re going to know Him forever in eternity future? Is that possible?
Now here’s why, do you see why Philip asked the question? Let’s go back into the Old Testament for a little background of their thinking. Jeremiah 9:24. In the Old Testament, it’s an amazing thing, in the Old Testament it is said again and again that God knows man, but very, very rarely does it ever say man knows God—very rarely. And I’ve chosen some texts that I want you to read and we’ll discuss in a few moments each one to give you an idea about this business of knowing God and seeing God and showing us God and how that came across in that day so we’ll be a little more sympathetic with Philip. In Jeremiah 9:24, “Let man that glorieth glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises loving-kindness, judgment and righteousness, in the earth; for in these things I delight, saith the LORD.” Now verse 24 expresses the Old Testament goal for man; it didn’t mean that all men knew God; it meant that they were to aim to know God.
This may be clear if we think back to the Garden of Eden; visualize, you are there just five minutes after creation. Adam walks around the Garden and you conduct a little interview with Adam and you say Adam, why are you here, and a superficial answer that Adam might give you is well, God created me and I guess I’m here. But if Adam thought a little further he would probably have told us well, I’m here because God said I’m to keep the Garden and to subdue the earth. And then suppose we engaged in a little more conversation. But Adam, what happens after you finish subduing the earth? Well I don’t know. Well, what would happen is that by that time, when man finishes his role in history, that part is over, what next? To have fellowship with God forever. That’s the goal of man’s existence in history; subduing the earth is the means but even subduing the earth is not the ultimate goal of man. The ultimate goal is to know God.
All right, when is this knowing of God
going to happen? Turn to Jeremiah 31:34,
this passage is doubly significant; it’s good that communion fell on this
Sunday night because we said in the communion service that communion was the
bringing into existence of the New Covenant, Jeremiah’s passage refers to the
New Covenant. What is the New
Covenant? The New Covenant is that
covenant that God has designed for all people for eternity future. In other words, the New Covenant sets up the
shape of the final
In other words, here we have all men in the day of the New Covenant. All these men know God. Why do these men know God? It says because God has been gracious to them. In other words, this act of God’s grace toward these men becomes the means by which they really come to know God. So the background to all of this is simply this. In the Jewish view you would not know God really until the last day of history; when the history had been finished, the New Covenant wholly phased in, the kingdom here forever, that’s their view. So “knowing God” in quotes, is a technical phrase of the last days. Now it was in that context that Philip asked his question.
Now let’s turn back and see what Philip’s doing, then we’ll grasp the revolutionary answer that Jesus gave back but we can’t appreciate the revolutionary answer unless we appreciate that Philip just happened to trip over one of the greatest truths in church history. John 14:8, Philip said to Jesus, “Show us the Father,” what Philip was asking for was a preview of the end. Philip was saying Jesus, before you go, before you become a concealed Messiah, before you depart this history would you just give us an idea of what it’s going to be like for all eternity when we can know God. So Philip thought prophecy, it’s a prophetic or eschatological idea that Philip has, show us Jesus, a preview of coming attractions. Show us what it’s going to be like to live in His presence forever. Another reference on this, we don’t have time to cover, is Hosea 6:2-3; there’s another passage that shows this idea that knowing God was connected in their thinking with eternity, with the final end.
So Philip sits here and asks for a preview. You can understand now why Philip asked that, after all, the Lord is going to go away, they’ve learned so much about God through the Christ and they’d like to know the real last deal. And maybe Philip has another reason because he’s just heard Jesus say, “As I have loved you, you love one another.” And Philip would say to Himself yeah, but I don’t really see how you loved me, show me, show me the bare character of the glory of God, I want to see that, and then if I can see that I can understand what you’re saying when you say love as you have loved us.
So now Jesus gives His fantastic answer, John 14:9, “Jesus said to him, Have I been so long with you, and have you now known me, Philip? He that has seen me has already seen the Father; and how do you say then, Show us the Father?” Now, let’s draw some implications out of this so we can see the revolutionary nature of Christ. Let me just comment on this picture of the New Covenant, then I’ll illustrate it with three or four implications. What Jesus has just said is that when those men walked the face of the earth with Him, when talked with Him, when they watched Him at that last communion feast, He said Philip, when you saw Me and you talked to Me, you have known Me as well as you will know Me forever and ever. Now that’s an outstanding claim; Philip, you have known Me in the Old Testament sense, the New Covenant sense, I have shown the character of God in the highest to you all. Philip, when the end of history comes and you are ushered into the glory of God it’ll be My glory. And the person that you know in all eternity will be Me, and we’ll have familiarity.
So Philip, if you’ve known Me you’ve become familiar with Me. There’s not going to be something strangely different about me in eternity. You already have a glimpse of who I am in My character, so you’re going to know Me like this forever. Now it doesn’t mean, of course, that we won’t know God quantitatively better but qualitatively no, Jesus will be the familiar Jesus. It will be amazing how much in eternity you’ll say well I know that, I mean, we learned that in the Bible. You’ll look at Jesus’ hands and you’ll see the scars, and you’ll say well I know that, that’s what the Bible says, and you’ll hear Paul or Saul go through the [can’t understand], the various men, and you’ll already have an acquaintance of what it is like in eternity. You’ve gotten it through the revelation given.
But let’s draw this tightly and let’s make
three conclusions from Jesus’ remarks that may show the revolutionary myth of
His statement. The first thing we can
say is that Christ claimed to be the highest revelation of God ever forever. In other words, no needed future teacher. We
do not need Bahiullah traipsing out of
Turn to John 1:18, this is where John got all those verses that he keeps using again and again in this Gospel. This is the ultimate answer to all the cults that come knocking on your door with a new piece of revelation that just dropped out of the clouds. “No man has seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has declared” or “exegeted Him,” and therefore we know God as we know Christ and we do not know God in any other channel. Christ is the highest revelation of God ever given in history. Don’t get with your Oriental influenced friends and think that Jesus kind of blends in with Harry Krishna and all the rest, into one great lord. Jesus Christ is the ultimate revelation of God.
The second thing, what Christ has said, besides the fact that He is the highest revelation and therefore no cult needed, no added teachers like Mohammed or Bahiullah, Mary Baker Patterson Glover Eddy, or anyone else is needed in this process. The second conclusion is that the claim that God could be known in present history blew the minds out of both the Greeks and the Hebrews. Here’s why: “God can be known now” would wipe out the Jews and would wipe out the Greeks for two different reasons. The Jew did not think you could know God now wholly until you got to be with Him in eternity. The Jews thought chronologically, that you couldn’t know Him, you couldn’t really know Him, only Moses saw Him face to face, we peon believers can’t really know God until the future, until the end of history. Christ says no, the time is coming, and He’s talking about His death and His resurrection, Philip you’ll know Me like you’ll know Me forever. That kind of information is available today in history. That wiped out the classic Old Testament picture, misunderstood Old Testament picture but the anticipation that you couldn’t know Christ, you couldn’t know God until the end. Christ says no, you can know Him in the present. But it was also a wipe out to the Greeks because the Greeks had the idea that you couldn’t know God historically, you could only contemplate, you could only intuit, but you couldn’t see Him, God wasn’t something that you could see in space/time history. You couldn’t come up and touch God, that would be totally anathema to the Greek way of thinking.
Now John caught the implication of this
because in the same John
The third thing, conclusion we can draw from Christ’s remarks to Philip. Our attitude to the canon of Scripture, which is Christ’s Word, the attitude to the Bible, which is identical to Christ’s Words, for He is the One who commissioned the last half of the Bible directly, and the first half or first two-thirds indirectly, our attitude to the Bible which is Christ’s Word equals our attitude to God Himself. You see, that’s a very sobering thing. People don’t like this, because they say well, you know, I can’t stand the content of Scripture, and all this blah, blah, blah stuff, and if a person is really exposed to Scripture and comes to that conclusion, do you know what they have just said? They’re kind of like Philip maybe, a little slow at realizing what they really just said but what they have really just said is that I can’t stand God’s character. You see, the conclusion to this idea of historic revelation is that this is the revelation of Christ’s character; His Words found, the Holy Spirit opens their eyes to the content of Scripture and if this doesn’t turn you on God Himself isn’t going to turn you on either. That’s a very, very sobering conclusion. But a person who neglects the Word is a person who is saying I don’t care about God’s own being, His own character. This is what’s so hard to understand about people who profess to be Christians, who profess to say oh yeah, I love the Lord, and when the end of the creature is to know his Creator and his Creator has gone to all these extremes of revealing Himself in His works and His words in Scripture and a person goes hummppff, how can they turn around and say they love the Lord? It seems to be a totally non sequitur. Historic revelation demands that we know the Word.
Now that’s the secret and that’s the image behind that strange passage in 1 Corinthians 13:9-10; another one of these “knowing” passages, one that is often said to be referring to the future rapture of the Church. “For we know in part,” says Paul, “and we prophesy” or preach “in part. [10] But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. [11] When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. [12] For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then, face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
Now the tendency always is to think of that as true at the rapture and do you know what that is? That’s going back to the Old Testament idea that we can’t really know God until the future; that’s a reverse of the progress of revelation. That’s the wrong way to interpret the passage; in the first place it’s wrong because the way most people interpret it, they think of verse 12 as suddenly we become omniscient when we got to heaven but we never become omniscient. You don’t become omniscient in heaven, you don’t share one of God’s divine attributes in heaven; you never will do that. So how’s this, that verse 12 must automatically must mean the rapture of heaven. Think a moment, think of the implications of what the person who interprets it that way is saying; it’s not talking about that, it’s talking about the completion of the New Testament revelation, when Jesus Christ has finished… you see, Christ said to Philip, He said you are about, Philip, along with the rest of the Christians, to really know God. That “about” will cover all the way from Jesus Christ’s virgin birth all the way on up to the close of the New Testament. That will include the death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, the ascension of Christ, the preaching of the apostles, the writing of the New Testament epistles, until that New Testament canon is closed and when that New Testament canon is closed, that which is perfect is come. You hold in your hand that which is perfect.
Let’s go back and see Jesus’ dialogue with Philip, see how He closes the conversation. He says in verse 9 what are you trying to say Philip? If I gave you a theophany here you wouldn’t know anything more about God after the theophany than what you know about God right now. That’s why He also says in verse 9, “Have you not known Me, Philip?” See what He’s saying? “Known Me,” if you knew Me “you would have seen the Father,” now look at the verb there, in a very un-Greek way, you’ve seen empirically the Father, He’s been in front of your face all during Passover, who was it that broke the bread and gave it to you Philip? It was the Father, you’ve seen Him.
Now in John 14:10 Jesus goes on to amplify His answer: “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?” What does He mean by this? Epistemologically or in a knowing way we know the Father by knowing the Son. It’s a union. “…The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of Myself; but the Father that dwells in Me, He does the works.” Now did you just notice something; if you are a sharp reader of your bibles you should have felt something wrong with that sentence, something should have caught your eye immediately when you read that sentence. The sentence winds up with the wrong word, doesn’t it. How does that sentence start out, read it again, “The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of Myself; but the Father that dwells in Me doeth the works.” Isn’t that a strange substitution that has happened there? Notice how the verse starts out talking about words and winds up talking about works and it’s using the two interchangeably. How is this that works, acts, miracles, are words? I thought miracles were acts and you had to have words to explain them but Jesus uses them interchangeably. And the reason is because John’s word to describe miracles is the word “sign,” and a sign is a symbol that communicates. And so Jesus’ works are just as much words as His words are; the reason of course being that it presupposed that you have Old Testament revelation to interpret correctly the works.
John 14:11, “Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? Or else believe Me for the very works’ sake.” Now in verse 11 we have two ways of coming to Christ. It’d be interesting to take a survey tonight, we won’t, but it’d be interesting to see how many of you came to Christ one way or came to Christ the other way. The two ways of coming to Christ is the direct and the indirect approach. The direct approach is when we implicitly recognize or we implicitly recognize and trust the New Testament. That is, we recognize that that’s God’s Word. And we implicitly trust the work of Christ, when Christ tells us something is true I say to myself, I recognize the voice, that’s the voice of God, yes Christ, I believe what You’re saying is true, it is the very Word of God. I take it as my absolute authority. That’s the direct way of coming to know Christ. Some people come to Christ this way. The other people is in verse 11, “or else believe Me for the very work’s sake.” And this would be the indirect approach of coming to know Christ, the indirect approach, and how does this operate. It looks at the data, the New Testament data, puts them together with the rest of God-consciousness, maybe added because of the Old Testament, and comes to the conclusion that Jesus Christ is who He claimed to be. In other words, the second way involves a little bit more torturous way of conversion, you have to think through this, is this really God speaking here, and so it involves much more of a reliance upon the empirical data, believe Me on the basis of the sake of the works.
Jesus goes on to say, John 14:12, “Verily,
verily, I say unto you, He that believes on Me, the works that I do he shall do
also; and greater works than these shall he do, [because I go unto My
Father].” Now what’s this got to do with
Philip’s original question, “Show us the Father?” Who’s going to show the Father to the rest of
the world? Isn’t it going to be
Christians, who are going to follow the Lord’s Words and do the Lord’s works
out into the world of darkness? Isn’t
that how other men are going to find and see the Father? Of course, so that’s how it’s related to
Philips overall question, how do men see God.
Can we experience the future in the present, that basic question. Christ says yes you can, you can do it
through Me but in order for the men out in
Now immediately in John 14:13-15 Jesus goes to prayer, and He enumerates our three points on the doctrine of prayer. Why? Why does prayer all of a sudden appear in this, how’d that get here? Because of verse 12, what is verse 12 talking about? The expansion of Christian witnessing in the world. What is going to be the means by which Christians pull it off? Prayer; prayer, then, is essential. Verses 13-15 are related to the overall message. Let’s see what Jesus says in this short discourse on prayer.
John 14:13, “Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” So the first point in our doctrine of prayer which we have gone over and over in this area but we see that same familiar point is that prayer is the means to effect God’s plan and if it’s not done, as James says, “you have not because you ask not.” So the omission of prayer will result in a truesciated program of God. “Whatsoever you ask in My name,” implying you’d better do it, “I will do,” and notice who is the actor in the answering of the prayer? The Son; the Father but yet Jesus says in the Church Age it’s going to be a little different, it’s not going to just be the Father that answers your prayer; when you pray, I says Jesus, I will be the One who effects the answer. Now maybe that makes it a little bit more personal for some of you, to realize that some of those prayer answers that you’ve had has been the direct work of Christ down in your life. In other words, when you come to Christ face to face in eternity you won’t have to say… there won’t be any distance between you and the Lord about that little thing that happened last night or something went on on the way to some place. There’ll be a familiarity, there’ll be a wink of acknowledgement in the eyes of the Lord, I did that, that thing that you…that’s on your mind, I did that for you. So it’s the Son who is the actor in the fulfillment of prayer. And notice why He gets involved, because He wants to glorify His Father. The work of Christ isn’t finished when Christ departs this earth; the work of Christ isn’t finished until the Church Age is finished. Christ is extending His ministry out through believers. So verse 13 gives you the necessity of prayer.
John 14:14, “If you shall ask anything in My name, I will do it.” And so we have the third class here, there’s a debate on whether it’s ask Me anything in My name, “if ye ask anything in My name,” we’ll stick with the King James text, I will do it. And here we have our second principle of prayer and that second principle of prayer is not only prayer is the means but prayer must be grace oriented. In other words, when we pray we have to have the attitude that we have no points with God, God does not have to listen to us for two seconds, we are wholly dependent on His attitude towards us at that moment. Fortunately we have a Savior; fortunately we have a blood advocate at the Father’s right hand. If we didn’t have Him God has no reason under the sun, none, to listen to you or to me; it’s only because of Christ.
Now in John 14:15, notice, “if you ask anything in My name,” see that “in My means that’s the grace part of it, what I have done for you, now verse 15. “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” See, that’s not separate, that’s not a new paragraph, that’s related to prayer and that’s your third point, the control of prayer, that prayer must be based upon God’s faithfulness to His own Word, immutability, God’s trustworthiness. Prayer has to be grounded on that and Christ is saying if you love Me you’re going to keep My commandments so when you pray your prayers will be Scriptural. This is not a carte blanche, people take verse 13 and they rip it out of the context and they walk around, gee, I can pray to the [can’t understand word] in the middle of 34th street and it will happen. That’s not the way you’re supposed to do; “if you keep My commandments,” that’s the point, Scriptural.
Then He concludes His answer to Philip and we can pass through this fast because this is going to be reiterated again and again throughout the text, Jesus Christ is going to send the Spirit and this Spirit, part of His function is to provide Philip with knowledge of the Father. Originally the question was Jesus, show us the Father. Jesus’ answer, the knowledge of the Father can be seen in Me, and Philip, I’m going to send My Spirit to you so you can see Me even better. Philip could argue, but Lord, you’re going to go away, how can we see you better than we can see you right now sitting here at the table. I send My Spirit of truth, and when He has come He will guide you into all truth and you’ll know Me better then than you know Me now. Do you know what that’s saying? You sit there with a New Testament in your lap, you have an opportunity to know Christ better than the men who lived with Him. It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? But you have an actual ability to know Him better than Peter and John and Paul during the days of His earthly ministry.
John 14:16, “I will pray the Father, and he will send you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever. [17] Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it doesn’t see Him, neither knows Him: but you know Him; for He dwells with you, and shall be in you.” Notice the two prepositions; under the Old Testament system the Holy Spirit was with believers; in the New Testament system He is in believers. [18] “I will no leave you orphan-less” in the Greek because Jesus has started to call believers “my little children, “I won’t leave you orphan-less; but I will come to you.” And He will come three ways in John. He will come in His resurrection for forty days; He will come at Pentecost with the giving of the Holy Spirit and He will come literally to receive us to Himself at the imminent rapture.
John 14:19, “Yet a little while, and the world sees Me no more; but you will see Me. Because I live, you shall live also. [20] At that day,” notice, “that day,” it’s a close off to Philip’s answer, “that day” in the future Philip, when I have gone to the cross, I have paid for the sin of men, the New Covenant comes into effect in a partial sense, and you have that benefit looked forward to in the Old Testament, because I have forgiven their wins they will know Me, from the least of them to the greatest. “Yet a little while, and the world sees Me no more… [20] At that day you will know I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” That means there is a knowing relationship established between the Father, the Son and the believer. And then he concludes in verse 21, “He that has My commandments, and keeps them, that’s the one that loves Me; and he that loves me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and I will show Myself to him.”
Philip, He said, you want to see Me, keep My commandments, then you’ll see Me. Verse 21 is a promise to you, to every believer who exists that the more we submit to Scripture the more we are going to see God in the present. We don’t have to wait till the future, in the present we will see the Father. Jesus promises that; I’ll love him and we’re going to show ourselves to…not every believer but only the believer who loves Me; and who is the believer that loves Me? The one who has My commandments and keeps them. Obvious conclusion: you can’t love the Lord unless you have… possessing His commandments and you do them, you submit to them. You must know New Testament doctrine and you must submit to New Testament doctrine or in spite of all the feelings, seeing lights, getting slain in the Spirit and frothing at the mouth or whatever it is, you still are not going to know the Lord apart from knowing the content of the New Testament.
Now let’s summarized what we have learned. Philip’s question, what was Philip’s question? The question was show us that future picture of the presence of God. Philip’s surface question was a better version of a basic question, can man experience the future presence of God now in the present? Christ’s answer: yes! Man can know God as he will in the future in Me now. Application of course to the New Covenant is this. Remember we’ve got to go back to the new commandment, “love one another as I have loved you.” All right, what is the application? Philip originally asked that question because he wanted a model to love. He said now I’m going to love these other guys at this table like You loved us, I’ve got to have the big picture before I can handle that stuff. So the prayer was for the big picture on a base to ground his love. So the application, Jesus answer is yes you can, the application to 13:34 as we did this for the other answers, is that this love is possible now. You know enough about God and His love to show this love in the present, you don’t have to wait for the future, it can begin this moment. That’s the nature of Christ’s revolutionary answer and that in turn will lead Judas, who is not Iscariot, to ask yet a fourth question in this ongoing dialogue at the last supper.
Father, we thank You ….