John 14:28

John 14:28. Ye heard that I said unto you, I go away and I come unto you. If ye loved me, ye would have rejoiced that I go unto the Father, because the Father is greater than I. But the disciples were not only to have peace: true love would fill their hearts with joy. The ‘going away' of Jesus is really a ‘going unto the Father,' a re-establishment in all the glory of the Father's immediate presence. The last clause of the verse contains simply the general teaching of the Gospel, of the whole Bible, and of all the greatest theologians of the Church, that the Son, while of the same nature as the Father, is subordinate to Him, inferior (for essence is not spoken of) economically, as Mediator. While, however, the departure of Jesus was thus a return to the glory of the Father's presence, and good for Him, we must not suppose that it is on that account that the disciples are to ‘rejoice.' ‘If ye loved me' is not an appeal to their personal interest in Himself: it appeals rather to their interest in His work and purpose; it is a statement of the fact that ripened Christian perception, when they stand in the ‘love' spoken of in John 14:21; John 14:23-24, will lead them to see that the departure of Jesus to His Father was an arrangement fraught with far higher blessings, both to His believing people and to the world, than His remaining among them would have been. The love which is the condition of higher revelations will teach them that the departure preliminary to these is not a matter of sorrow but of joy.