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Articles 2018-2020
Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places (Greek, MONE – places of abiding); if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.
Jesus was leaving and the disciples were distressed. What would become of them? How could His going away be a good thing? So, in speaking to their concerns, He began giving them Heaven’s perspective. He would prepare a place in Father’s house for each of them. While it was true that God’s house was in heaven, it was under construction on earth as well.
Clearly, our Lord has made ready a place for each of us in heaven. But it is also true that from heaven He has prepared a place for each of us in God’s house on earth. Jesus’ words were a comfort not just for our future, but also for our present situation in which He is not physically with us. We can experience His presence and His work among us by finding the individual dwelling place He has designed for each of us. How do we go about doing this?
If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.
The answer to the above question is as simple as pursuing and finding Christ. By the power of the Holy Spirit He has come to receive us to Himself so that we can be with Him. The Christian life is not simply about active service for God; it is first and foremost about discovering and spending time with the One who is the source of our spiritual life.
And in beholding Him, we will discern His heart concerning the needs of others around us. Then as He sends us to serve them, He will not only go with us in His manifest presence, He will also be waiting for us there in the circumstances of the needy. To be clear, we discover our place in God’s house as we spend time in His presence in our own personal times of intimacy with Him, then on the way wherever He would send us, and finally also in the activity of serving others. But in all of life, our priority is knowing Him. It is in the knowledge of God that we discover the specific place in His house on earth that He has designed for us from heaven.
Jesus lived this way in full view of the disciples.
”And you know the way where I am going.”
Thomas was not sure he understood.
Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”
Jesus had lived in union with the Father all His life and also in full view of His disciples for the previous three years. And He was now inviting them to come (not go) to the Father and to live where He did. The route to be taken was Christ (the way). The power to make the journey was Christ (the life). And the ultimate reality to be discovered and experienced was Christ (the truth). Here is the Good News – Jesus is the salvation of God made known to man.
”If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.” Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 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’”?
In His human limitation Jesus had perfectly revealed the omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent One. In seeing Christ, the disciples had experienced God put into human terms.
”Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.”
The Father had come and had received the man Christ Jesus unto Himself that where He was, there the Son could be also. And Jesus lived in that place of intimacy His whole time on earth. And He wanted the disciples to come and live where He did (John 17:24).
When the Father had sent His Son into active ministry, Heaven’s works were revealed because Jesus spoke not from His own initiative but from what He heard the Father saying. And since God had brought forth the natural creation by His word (Genesis 1:3), so He was now bringing forth the New Creation in human history as His Word made flesh revealed the way forward for those who would follow. But the disciples had to believe that what they were experiencing in their interaction with Christ was the active, abiding, invisible, and eternal God living in and through the man Jesus. Our Lord was not only God who had become a man, He was the Man both fully indwelt by God and also perfectly making Him known. This truth was so important to our Lord that He then repeated Himself. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves (John 14:11).
“If you are having a hard time believing what I’m telling you about who I am, then look at the works I’m doing.”
”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.”
Jesus had His sights set on the greater works yet to come on earth as His life and presence would be poured out first on thousands of people (Acts 2) and then ultimately upon millions of those who believed. What had started with one Man in Israel would be multiplied across the whole earth. And key to it all was that Jesus was now going back to the Father so He could personally design a place for each of His own in the house He would construct by the power of His Holy Spirit. As His people lived in union with Him, what could they expect?
”Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.”
Here was not a license to glibly ask for whatever we wanted. It was a promise that like Jesus who refused to speak on His own initiative so that the world could experience the Father’s works through Him, so also as His people lived in the same manner, His works would be revealed through them. And therefore, no matter what was on God’s heart, no matter how impossible it seemed, His people would be empowered to speak and see it come to pass. While this sounds really amazing, how are we to come to such a place of oneness with God?
”If you love Me, you will keep (Greek, TEREO – to guard, to watch over, to keep the eye upon) My commandments.”
The mark of those who wholeheartedly love the Lord is that they will count His words to them as important – so important that they will guard them, watch over them, and not let them leak away. Here is how Christ lived in union with His Father.
To fulfill His mission of constructing from heaven Father’s house on earth, He would come to His disciples in a new way. Though departing, He would not be deserting them.
”I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; 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. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”
His help for them would now be different. The Holy Spirit of truth would come to abide in them forever; His presence would be permanent. The separation they were about to experience in Christ’s departure would not happen in this new relationship with Heaven. And though this new bond would differ from what they had known in Christ’s physical presence, it would still be He Himself coming to abide in them. They were not about to be orphaned. Indeed, the Church is not an orphanage; it is a family because God has come to permanently abide both with us and in us.
”After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also.”
The world was not privileged to see Christ after His resurrection. Only those chosen beforehand to be His witnesses had that privilege. And because He arose, His followers were about to enter into a new reality of spiritual life. The empty tomb guaranteed the permanent abiding presence of God in their hearts.
”In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.”
Oneness with God. As a man, Jesus lived there perfectly and has now issued the call for all who have ears to hear to come and live there too. He is the way there, the power needed to get there, and the ultimate reality that defines and fulfills the deepest longing of the human heart.
”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.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us and not to the world?” Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.
God would make His abode (Greek, MONE – dwelling place. Same word as in John 14:2 at the beginning of this article) with those who loved Him. Israel had expected that when He came, the Messiah would be revealed to all the earth. But God had plans to first make Himself known to the nations by the Spirit through a corporate body. He would disclose Himself to those who treasured His words. Here is what His heart had longed for with Israel from the beginning. And since His calling upon them is irrevocable (Romans 11:29), the grace to make the same journey we are on is sure to come and be revealed in that nation. What a sign to the whole earth still to be revealed in our future!
Donald Rumble – November 2019
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