John 14:15-29

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: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

«I am going away from you, you will not have my personal presence much longer; but I will send you One who will never go away from you, for whom there is no death and no departure: ‘another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth,' who knows the truth, who can teach the truth, and who applies the truth to the hearts and consciences of men, ‘whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him.'» Let us not imagine that the world ever will receive the Spirit of God. It is supposed by some, that the world gets more enlightened from age to age, but that is a supposition for which there is not the slightest foundation. The death of human nature never develops into life; the darkness brought by the Fall never becomes light without the operation of a supernatural power. It is the Spirit of God that worketh this change in God's own children: «but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.» He was with them in a certain sense, even while Christ was here; else they would have learned nothing; and he was more fully in them when Christ had gone back to heaven; hence they learned, after Pentecost, more of the meaning of the gospel than they had ever gathered from the teaching of their Master.

John 14:18. 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.

There is a continuous sight of Christ even as there is a continuous life in Christ. They who have not received the life of Christ cannot see Christ. How can there be eyes without life, and how can there be the spiritual sight of Christ without the spiritual life in him?

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

This is a wonderful trinity of unities, each one a mystery, but each one to be known by the believer when he is instructed of the Spirit of God: Christ in the Father, the saints in Christ, and Christ in them. He that experimentally knoweth what it is to be in Christ knoweth more than all the secular philosophers who have ever lived.

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.

Oh, what privileges are enjoyed by those who love the Lord Jesus Christ! We cannot help loving him, and by that love we are assured that the Father himself loves us, and we have the promise that Christ will yet more and more manifest himself to us.

John 14:22. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?

«Why are we the subjects of this election, this selection, this gracious manifestation?»

John 14:23. Jesus answered and said unto him, if a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

Just as the angels came to believing Abraham, and sojourned for a little while with him, so will Jesus and the Father, strangers in this world, become sojourners with us. Jesus says of the man who loves him, «My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.» This is not a mere call, it is an abiding: «we will make our abode with him.» God, whom the heavens cannot contain yet comes and dwells in a lowly heart, and abides with a loving spirit: «We will come unto him, and make our abode with him.» There is an aroma about these words which I cannot convey to you; but if you have the spiritual nostril, you will perceive their fragrance for yourselves.

John 14:24. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me.

You see that the Lord Jesus Christ does not profess to be a great original thinker, but he speaks as the Messenger sent by the Father, and unless we also are commissioned and taught by the Father, of what value will our poor feeble thoughts be? Our only power lies in the fact that we do not utter our own thoughts, but the truths which have been taught to us by the Holy Spirit. To some, this may look like weakness, but it is real strength.

John 14:25. These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. Peace I leave with you,

When men in the East met one another, they usually gave the salutation, «Peace be unto you,» «Peace be to this house;» but Christ says:

John 14:27. My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

«I do not say, ‘Peace, Peace,' where there is no peace. It is not a mere formal salutation, but there is a real, true peace communicated to you when I thus speak.»

John 14:28. Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.

Love makes us rejoice in the prosperity of the one we love. The Lord Jesus Christ in coming to this earth, had taken upon himself a subordinate position: he had become the stepping-stone between man and God; but now that he was returning to his glory, returning to his Father, it was the bounder duty of those who loved him to rejoice, and we should do the same now. He has left behind him the humiliation, the scorn, the spitting, the crucifixion, and who among us, who truly loves him, would wish to bring him back to this poor earth as he came at first? Ah, no! It is well that all that is over, there is sweetest music to our ears in our Lord's declaration, «It is finished;» and our soul swims in a sea of light as we think of the ineffable glory with the father to which he has returned for ever.

John 14:29. And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe. Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the Prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me. But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence.

«Let us go to Gethsemane and to the Passion; let us go to fulfill the Father's will.» It was a sure proof of Christ's love when he went forward from speaking to suffering that he might save his own forever.