Words; John 14:12-14

As we go through this section four things are present and are going to be interconnected through this discourse. John weaves them in an almost disconnected manner and it is not until we get to the last verse that it all comes together. The first thing that is present is faith. Faith is not merely faith in the deity of Christ but in His unity with the Father, verses 9, 10. The second thing that we will see here beyond the intimate unity between the Father and the Son is that there is a connection between Jesus’ words—also called His commandments later on—and the Father’s works, verses 10-12. Jesus will say: “If you love me you will keep my commandments,” verse 15, and it comes out of nowhere. Then v. 16 says: “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever.” But verse 15 doesn’t look like it belongs there at all, but He is introducing a connection. He has already talked back in v. 10 about His words and the works of the Father, now he is going to connect His words, the mandates, to love. Then He is going to talk about the Holy Spirit, then in v. 21 He is going to say: “He who has My commandments and keeps them [works] is the one who loves Me [love]; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose [reveal] Myself to him.” Who is the revealer of the Godhead? The Holy Spirit. So in verse 21 we pull together words, works, love, and the Holy Spirit. But as we read through that it looks like four different strands that are completely disconnected until John pulls it together for us in that last verse. Third, personal love for God the Father is emphasised through this passage. Fourth, the necessity of the Holy Spirit for understanding truth. That is why He is called the Spirit of truth. We cannot understand truth (The Word of God) apart from the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Fifth, obedience to the divine mandates under the filling of the Holy Spirit is the key to receiving greater illumination of truth and doctrine and growing in Christ.

John 14:9 ^NASB “Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been so long with you, and {yet} you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how {can} you say, ‘Show us the Father’? [10] Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me?’” Philip’s request, “Show us the Father and it is enough for us,” seems redundant since Jesus had just stated that if they had seen Him they have seen the Father. It seems that Philip is overstepping the bounds a little bit, but Jesus is going to say that this knowledge of God is intimately connected with knowing Him. Jesus says: “If you have seen me you have seen the Father. Therefore, do you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” That is the question.

In the Greek we have the question and then the use of the particle hoti [o(ti]. The word has a number of different meanings but often it is used to introduce a quote or a statement. In English we would write is this way: “Do you believe: …” with a colon. Then we would put after it a proposition—“I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” Belief is always directed toward something that can be stated as a proposition. That means faith is not an emotion, it is a function of the intellect. So Jesus is challenging Philip’s thinking here with this question. Now He is beginning to introduce the whole concept of the Trinity which he unfolds more and more through this discourse.

Then in the next half of the verse Jesus says: “The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.” Literally what He says in the Greek is: “The words that I am speaking to you right now I do not speak from the ultimate source of myself,” indicating that His message does not generate within Himself independently of the Father but has its ultimate source in the Father, “but the Father who abides in me continues to do His works.” What we need to see here is that he draws a connection between what Jesus speaks and what the Father is doing. So how you respond to what Jesus says is how you respond to what the Father does. Spirituality has to do with your relationship with God and with the Holy Spirit. We are going to see that one criterion for measuring that is your relationship to the words of Jesus, to His commands. How you respond top the mandates of Jesus in the Scriptures is exactly how you respond to God. You cannot say: “I love God but I have trouble with what this says in this passage.” What you are really saying is: “I have a real problem with God.” Because how you respond to the Word of God is how you respond to the person of God the Father. That is the implication here.

John 14:11 ^NASB “Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.” Once again we see that faith is related to a proposition. You believe something that can be stated propositionally. A proposition is a statement that can be verified or negated. Jesus says we are to believe something. Faith is understanding something—we have to understand what it means. In salvation it is Jesus Christ died on the cross as a substitute for our sins—and then accepting it to be true. Sanctifying faith, which is our spiritual growth faith, has as its object the propositions of Scripture, obedience to all of the various mandates, principles and precepts in the Word of God. What we see in this verse 11 is that there are two bases for faith. The first is the authority of Jesus Christ. He says: “Believe me.” Some come to Christ immediately on the basis of the authority of Scripture and others believe on account of the works themselves.

John 14:12 ^NASB “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater {works} than these he will do; because I go to the Father.” This brings up the whole issue of interpretation versus application. Who is Jesus talking with? He is talking to the eleven disciples that are left in the upper room. He is not talking to us. The problem is that we have a tendency to go to these passages and apply them to ourselves, especially the prayer verses coming up, and apply them to ourselves. That is legitimate, but first of all we have to interpret the passage and determine who it is that Jesus is talking to here. Is he talking to every believer in the church age or is he just talking to the disciples. Another way of putting it is, is he talking to the eleven or is He talking through the eleven to the church? He is just talking to the eleven here. Interpretation asks the question: What does the author intend to communicate by this statement? Application asks the question: How does that apply to my thinking and my actions.

The first thing we have to do in correctly interpret this particular verse. What does He mean by works? It is very clear from this passage and from other passages that what He is speaking of here is miracles. This is parallel to John 10:37, 38 ^NASB “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.” From these verses it is clear that they are talking about miracles here, the miracles that Jesus performed. John 5:19 ^NASB “Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless {it is} something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner’.” John 14:12 ^NASB “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater {works} than these he will do; because I go to the Father.” What are these greater works? They are greater in quantity, they are not greater in extent. 2 Corinthians 12:12 ^NASB “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles.” Paul is saying that the credentials, the calling card of the apostles was the miracles they performed. This is what Jesus is talking about. He is talking to them as apostles. This is not a passage for church age believers by means of interpretation. Hebrews 2:4 ^NASB “God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will.” So we see that in the early church the credentials were based upon the works, the miracles that the apostles did.

John 14:13 ^NASB “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. [14] If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do {it.}” What is the context? The context is performing miracles, He is not talking about general prayer to believers throughout the church age. We can take this by means of application and relate it because we have supporting Scripture to do so. That is the important thing. The principle of John 14:13, 14 is valid for application. Why? 1 John 5:14, 15 ^NASB “This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us {in} whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.” So there is our prayer promise that was directed to every church age believer. But John 14:13, 14 in interpretation is directed to the apostles and their performance of miracles, not to every church age believer—although we can then, having understood the interpretation, derive application from it in terms of prayer.

John 14:15 ^NASB “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” He wants to keep us on target. We are talking about love, what it means to love as Christ loved us. What it means to love as Christ loved us is to keep the commandments. What did Jesus do? He did what the Father said to do. He fulfilled the Father’s mandates. His words were the results of the Father’s commands. He is weaving this theme in now that love. This new love that we have and are to exemplify as believers is related to obedience to the Word of God. That is not legalism. Legalism is saying that somehow my obedience to the Word of God impresses God and gains God’s approval as the basis for blessing. That is false. The spiritual life is based on grace by means of God the Holy Spirit, but we obey as a result of what God did for us, not to get God to do something for us. It is a result of our love. How do we love God? How do we get to know Him? By learning the Word of God.

John 14:16 ^NASB “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another [a)lloj = another of the same kind]Helper, that He may be with you forever.” So He is going to permanently give the Holy Spirit in the church age. In the Old Testament they had the Holy Spirit but it was temporary and only a very few had the enduement of the Holy Spirit. It was a temporary empowerment given and it could be taken away, and only leaders in the nation Israel received it. [17] {that is} the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, {but} you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.” He is the Spirit of truth, of doctrine. He teaches us doctrine. That is the emphasis here. The prepositions here are important. “… He abides with you [Old Testament] and will be [future tense] in you.” So there is a prophesy here of the first advent of the Holy Spirit which took place on Pentecost. The second advent of the Holy Spirit is going to come during the fulfilment of the New covenant blessings in Israel at the Second Coming of Christ and the Messianic kingdom.

John 14:18 ^NASB “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” He is reiterating the theme from 14:1. [19] “After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you {will} see Me; because I live, you will live also.” This is a reference to the resurrection. Because He has victory over death so the disciples will have victory over death—“you will live also.”

John 14:20 ^NASB “In that day [the day when they see Him resurrected] you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” Now it is faith; then it will be sight. [21] “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” “He who has my commandments” is every single believer who has the completed canon of Scripture, the New Testament; “and keeps them,” i.e. application of doctrine. But before you apply it you have to know it; before you know it you have to learn it. We have to saturate our thinking with the Word of God. How do you know if you love God? It is directly related to your degree of obedience to the principles in God’s Word.

Notice the results of this: “ … and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father.” There is an increased awareness of God’s personal love for us as believers. “…and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” In other words, we come to the cross and we understand a small amount of doctrine. If we don’t assimilate that and apply that we may have many other questions but we will never know them unless we start applying what we are learning. This promise is saying we learn that and we apply it, then in that process Jesus Christ is going to further illuminate our thinking and disclose Himself to us through His Word. He is not going to give it all at one time; it depends on what we do with it.