John 14:1-21

We have often read this chapter, both in our private meditations, and at our public worship; but we cannot read it too often. It is sweet as honey and the honeycomb. It contains the very quintessence of consolation. Every word in the chapter is rich, and full of meaning. Perhaps they understand it best who cannot read it quickly, but are obliged to spell over every word of it, and so are like those who feast upon marrow and fatness.

John 14:1. Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.

That is the cure for heart trouble, and all other trouble, too, believing in God, and believing in his Son, Jesus Christ. Faith is the double cure of trouble, for it delivers us altogether from the trouble, and, at the same time, it helps us to find sweetness in it as long as we have to endure it. Notice that our Saviour says, «Let not your heart be troubled.» If your heart can be preserved from trouble, you will not be greatly tried by it. Trouble is in your house, perhaps; but, if so, let it not get into your heart. The waves beat all round your vessel, but let not the vessel itself leak, and take in the water: «Let not your heart be troubled.»

John 14:2. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

This was very largely the cause of their trouble; they were full of sorrow because their Lord and Master was going away from them; yet he was going for their good. It was with a set purpose that he was leaving them, and the same reason still keeps him away from us. We are not to mourn for him as we might for one slain in battle, who would never come back to us. He has gone for a little while to another country, to the great Father's house, upon a most gracious and necessary errand: «I go to prepare a place for you.» The Spirit of God is down here to prepare us for the place; the Son of God is up yonder to prepare the place for us.

John 14:3. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

Do not tell us about a purgatory for Christ's people, a limbo in which they are to be awhile to be prepared to share his glory. No, he will come at the right time, and take them to be where he is, and they shall have the very place that Jesus has: «I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.» Do you want a better rest than that after all your work and warfare here below? Does not this prospect cheer you while you are journeying down the hill of life?

John 14:5. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.

«Ye know that I am going to the Father, and ye know that I am myself the way to the Father; I am going whence I came.»

John 14:6. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life:

«I am all that you want on your way to heaven, the truth that will make heaven for you, and the life which you will enjoy with me for ever in heaven. I give you all that while you are yet here below.»

John 14:6. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

There is no getting to God except through Christ. Those who say that we can go to heaven without a Mediator know not what they say, or say what they know to be false. There can be no acceptable approach to the Father except by Jesus Christ the Son.

John 14:7. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also:

For Christ is also «the mighty God, the everlasting Father.» All the character of God is seen in the Christ of God, and he who truly comes to Christ has really come to the Father.

John 14:7. And from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.

I hope that this may be said of many of us, that we do truly know God; and, since we have seen Christ by faith, we have seen the Father also.

John 14:8. Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.

What a comfort these questions and blunders of Thomas and Philip ought to be to us, for it is clear that we are not the only dolts in Christ's school; and if he could bear with them, he can bear with us also. Like them, how little do we retain of that which he teaches us! We are taught much, but we learn little, for we are such poor scholars. Our memory holds but little, and our understanding still less of what we have been taught, and we are all too apt to want something that we can see, just as Philip said, «Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.»

John 14:9. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake.

Note how the Master continued to urge his disciples to believe. Again and again he returned to that vital point: Believest thou? «Believe me...: believe me.» This he did because there is no relief from heart-trouble but by believing the everlasting truth of God, and especially by believing him who is «the truth.» The believer alone has true peace of heart; the unbeliever is tossed to and fro on the billows of the great ocean of doubt; how can he rest? There is nothing for him to rest upon. Happily, Christ is still saying, «Come unto me, and I will give you rest;» and they are truly wise who accept his gracious invitation.

John 14:12. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.

When Christ had gone back to the Father, he opened all heaven's treasures for his people; he bestowed the Spirit of all grace, and so his servants were helped to do even greater works than he himself did while he was upon the earth. We cannot add anything to his atonement; that work must for ever stand as complete and unique; but there are other forms of service, in which he engaged in his earthly ministry, in which his servants have gone far beyond him. The Lord Jesus Christ never preached a sermon after which three thousand were converted and baptized in one day; to a large extent he kept his personal ministry within the bounds of Palestine; but, after his resurrection, when the Spirit was poured out at Pentecost, then, in the power of the Spirit, greater works than his were wrought the wide world over.

John 14:13. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.

Is that promise true to every man? Certainly not. It was made by Christ to his own disciples, and not to all of them absolutely; but only to them as they believe in him, as they are filled with his Spirit, and as they keep his commandments. There are some of God's children who have little power with him in prayer, some who walk so disorderly that, since they do not listen to God's words, he will not listen to theirs. Yet he will give them necessaries, as you give even to your naughty and disobedient children; but he will not give them the luxury of prevailing prayer, and that full fellowship with him which comes through abiding in him. Such luxuries he saves for his obedient children, who are filled with his Spirit. Even under the old dispensation, David wrote, «Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart;» and in a very special sense, under the new dispensation, that spirituality of mind, which enables us to delight in God, is a necessary antecedent to our obtaining the desires of our heart in the high and spiritual sphere of prayer.

John 14:15. If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him:

The world is carnal, it is unspiritual; therefore, it is unable to see or to know the Spirit of God. A man without a spiritual nature cannot recognize the Holy Spirit; he must be born again before he can do so. You who are only soul and body need to receive that third and loftier principle the spirit which is wrought in us by the Spirit of God. Until you have it, this verse applies to you: «The Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him.»

John 14:17. But ye know him;

Christ's own disciples know him.

John 14:17. For he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.

Oh, what a rich promise! How, then, can Christ's people ever perish? Until Christ himself perishes, no child of his can ever be lost.

John 14:20. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

Three wondrous mysteries of union, Christ in the Father, the Church in Christ, and Christ in his Church.

John 14:21. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

May we be such lovers of Christ that he may love us, and manifest himself unto as, for his name's sake! Amen.