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The Coming Increase of Christ in His House
God revealed himself in Jesus Christ two thousand years ago in the nation of Israel. While most of the world missed both the event and its significance, there were those who received Him, gained understanding and led many to righteousness. At the end of history when Christ returns, no one will miss either the event or its importance. All will come face to face with Him and have to give account of their lives.
Prior to that day, God will bring to fullness all that He has purposed to do on Earth through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The question we face today is whether we believe the Spirit of God will succeed in all He has been sent to accomplish. Will the Holy Spirit be as victorious in Church history as Christ was two thousand years ago?
Just as Jesus was sent to reveal the Father, so also the Spirit has come to reveal the Son:
And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.
However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.
If we are responding to the Spirit, we are both learning and revealing Christ. Two thousand years ago, Jesus’ own disciples failed at first to grasp that the God who fills eternity was revealing himself among them. Time after time, in one circumstance after another, Jesus would accurately discover and make known the Father’s heart and purpose to those around Him. In other words, His life as a man revealed to those He loved the road of access to the Father.
As Jesus began to prepare the disciples for His departure, He expected them to already know the road He would take. “And where I go you know, and the way {Greek, HODOS – a road} you know” (John 14:4).
He was going to the Father. He had been doing so in front of them for many months. Surely now they had a clear understanding of God’s road. But their words revealed that they did not. “Lord, we do not know where you are going, and how can we know the way?” (John 14:5).
His response startled them and amazes us. Jesus himself is the road of access (John 14:6). And His instruction was that apart from Him no one could come (notice that He did not say go) to the Father. The locale of God for relationship could now only be found in the Son. Jesus’ heart was filled with the presence of the One who had sent Him. To put it another way, Jesus had come relationally to the place where He was about to go physically.
From now on, anyone’s sincere search for God would bring the seeker directly to Christ. Jesus had become both the road to the goal and the goal at the end of the road. God had established such a union of intimacy and expression with His Son that whoever looked upon Jesus saw the Father (John 14:9). [2]
The fact that He came as a man to such an experience of oneness with His Father while still on the Earth, testifies to us of God’s strategy for His redeemed people.
The Holy Spirit has been sent to the Earth to bring forth on Earth the locale where God can be found relationally. As God was in Christ two thousand years ago, so now the presence of God is to be found in the Church. Too often though, what is found in His house is an external form of religion more than the vitality of a living and increasing intimacy with Him.
So the question arises again. Will the Holy Spirit be as successful in Church history as Jesus was two thousand years ago? Will He succeed in revealing Christ in and through the Church? Will the nations be able to look and behold the consistent expression of the glory of God in His people? Or will we continue to draw attention to ourselves, to our leaders, to our methods, and to our successes in His name? To put the question another way: “Is there a way forward from where we are that will bring us to God’s destination for us?”
Very simply, we must gather to Him. Jesus taught that in His Father’s house there were many dwelling places (John 14:2). His strategy for establishing God’s purpose on Earth was to ascend back to the Father and then from Heaven to prepare a place for each of us in God’s house. If Christ has established a unique place for each of us in His house, then one of our top priorities must be to find where we belong. But how do we do so?
In His dialogue, the Lord made it clear that He would send the Spirit of truth to abide in us. He would not leave us as orphans; He would indeed come to us. In fact, as He prepared a place for each of us, He would come and receive us to himself so that where He is, we could be also. The key to finding our place in God’s house is to pursue Him; the whole point is that He would draw us to himself.
God is not drawing us primarily into a ministry; He is drawing us to himself. But in finding Him, we then discover His heart for those to whom He sends us. Remember, God has not sent His Spirit to reveal mighty men and women of God, and their ministry to others. He has come to reveal Christ. It is as we discover Him in the situations of life that we then have something of eternal value to say to others.
So also, Jesus came to Earth not primarily to minister among men according to their needs, but to reveal the One who had sent Him. This mission also included dying on the Cross. The revelation of God, not the need of man, was His primary motivation.
But as He sought to know and to reveal the One who had sent Him, Jesus found himself on the road to the Cross. The Cross was the inevitable consequence of knowing and making known His Father. God’s amazing love for the world along with His simultaneous hatred for our sin seemed like irreconcilable aspects of His heart. But these two opposite extremes met and were fulfilled in the person of Christ when He who knew no sin became sin and then died, breaking its power.
Christ’s death and resurrection two thousand years ago just outside Jerusalem were the greatest price ever paid and the greatest victory ever won in human history. Mercy and truth kissed and divine love and justice were revealed. The revelation of God was and is the whole point of human history.
In fact, Jesus seemed almost overly zealous that His disciples get the point. If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father. You must believe that the Father is in Me and that I am in Him. The words that I speak are really His words. The works are His works. If you have a hard time believing what I’m saying, believe on account of the works that I’m doing. You must believe in Me. (See John 14:9 -12).
What was Jesus saying? Very simply, the Father had come and received the Son to himself so that where the Father was, there the Son was also. Jesus lived His whole life abiding in the One who had sent Him. Whether He was in the midst of Pharisees, the tax collectors, etc, the Father was there also. Wherever the Son went, He made His Father known.
Jesus wanted the disciples to accept and believe that He had in fact succeeded in consistently knowing and revealing the Father’s heart no matter what the circumstance. His works proved His point. In the light of this truth and in this particular context, Jesus then made one of the most startling promises in all of the New Testament. Amazing things would happen if we understood what He was saying and believed Him.
Most assuredly, 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 My Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.
Jesus did not say that He would give us whatever we wanted. The Christian life is not about us getting what we desire. The Holy Spirit has been sent to reveal Christ. If we will draw near to Him and find His heart in the situations of life, He will do through us works impossible for us to do in our own strength, works that will glorify the Lord Jesus.
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