What Answers! (John 14:4-14)
One of the best ways of discovering information is to ask questions. I know a man who does not like to stop his car and ask passers-by where a certain place is. Instead, he keeps on searching and usually gets there half-an-hour behind everyone else, unless his wife happens to be with him because she will ask a passer-by and then they get there half an hour early. In this section of the interaction between Jesus and his disciples, we see the benefits of asking questions to someone who can provide the answers.
Question 1 – Where are you going and how can we get there?
Thomas expresses his inability to understand what Jesus had described in the previous verses when he said that he was going to his Father’s house. We can see from the answer of Jesus in verse 6 that what he had in mind was not so much going to a place, but going to a person, the Father: ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’
His description of himself as the way, the truth and the life is connected to sinners going to the Father. This going to the Father is described with a present tense and not a future one, so the implication is that a person cannot go to the Father in the future if he has not come to the Father in the present. Entrance to the Father’s house in the future depends on having gone to the Father before then.
So what can we learn about going to the Father from this threefold description of Jesus? One way is to consider the opposite of what he says. He does not say that there are many ways, many truths and many sources of life that lead to the Father. Instead, he says that there is only one way, one truth and one source of life – himself.
We also can see from this description by Jesus that we cannot compartmentalise him. Some may want him as the way, but then wish to obtain truths about the Father from other teachers in addition to Jesus. But Jesus says that cannot be done. They must use the whole package, not part of it.
When Jesus says that he is the way, he means that he is the only one who can give access to the Father. No doubt, he includes within this description his work on the cross which provides pardon for sin. But him being the way is not limited to the initial occasion when a sinner came to the Father. Jesus is the only One who can give to sinners this constant access to the Father.
When Jesus says that he is the truth, he is not referring to all kinds of truth. Rather he is saying that he is the One who can teach about the Father. A religious teacher at that time did not merely give instruction about his beliefs, he also modelled his beliefs for his disciples as a means of helping them to understand what he was teaching. Jesus not only taught about the Father, he also modelled for his disciples what the Father is like. That is why he says to his disciples in verse 7 that they know what the Father is like: ‘If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’
And when Jesus says that he is the life, he reminds the disciples that he is the source of all spiritual life. Where does spiritual life come from? Where is it to be found? Only in God.
Jesus in this saying stresses his deity – as God, he knows how to give us access to the Father; as God, he knows how to communicate truth about the Father; and as life, he knows what divine resources we will need to know the Father.
The apostles show their grasp of this reality when they begin their later letters by saying to the readers that they can have grace and peace from the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. I suspect that what they mean is that believers receive them from the Father through the Son.
So Thomas received a wonderful answer to his question. But he was not the only disciple with a question. John records that Philip also had a question.
Question 2 – What benefits come from knowing that Jesus revealed the Father?
The question of Philip indicates he had not grasped that what he had seen and heard during the three years of Jesus’ public ministry were designed to reveal the Father to the disciples. So he basically asks Jesus to start revealing the Father (v. 8). In response, Jesus explains to Philip what his previous words and works had been about (vv. 9-11).
The words Jesus had spoken had come from the Father and the works that he had performed were done by the Father. This does not mean that Jesus was not involved in what he said and did. Rather he is reminding his disciples of the harmony that always exists in the announcements and in the actions of the Trinity.
When we see Jesus in action, we should also realise that the Father and the Spirit are there. We can see that here in this passage Jesus says that the Father was involved in all that he did; elsewhere, he says that he did his works by the Holy Spirit. It is important for us to remember that the divine Persons work together – they did so at the creation, and they do so in providence.
Even when there are distinct activities by one of the divine Persons, the other two are involved. For example, when we think of Jesus as our prophet, priest and king, he does each role according to the Father’s will and we experience the consequences through the work of the Spirit.
Philip then is provided more information about what will happen when Jesus goes to the Father: ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father’ (v. 12) His words indicate that his followers will participate in his activities even although he is no longer physically with them. He also says that in some sense the future works will be greater than the ones that Jesus had done when he was on earth.
The participation of Jesus’ followers in his works is not surprising, although it is amazing. On numerous occasions in the Acts and in the Epistles, we are told that Jesus did things through his people. Indeed, Luke says as he begins the Book of Acts that the contents describe activities of Jesus from heaven. Yet he usually does them through his people. On the Day of Pentecost, he preached through his apostles. At the Beautiful Gate of the Temple he healed a beggar through using Peter and John. And there are many other examples.
But what does it mean when Jesus says that they would do greater works? He does not mean that they will do them apart from him, nor does he mean that they will be able to do things that he could not perform. Moreover, it does not mean that they can do more spectacular miracles than he did on earth. When, for example, did a disciple of Jesus feed thousands of people from five loaves and two fish?
Rather, what is meant is the works will be greater in number. Is that not what occurred on the Day of Pentecost when thousands were converted? Before Jesus ascended, although great crowds came to hear him, there were not large numbers of conversions. The greatness of the new works is connected to Jesus going to the Father, to his glorification when his name will be highly exalted, and from that place of exaltation he will do great things through his servants.
How to pray
The Saviour does highlight one area of the Christian life that will be affected remarkably by him going to the Father and that is a believer’s prayer life: ‘Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it’ (vv. 13-14).
In this promise, there are at least three matters that affect our prayer lives. First, we can pray to the Father and to Jesus. We are familiar with prayer being made to the Father; for example, the teaching of Jesus about this in the Lord’s Prayer and elsewhere. Regarding prayer to Jesus, we know that is how Paul describes believers in 1 Corinthians 1:2: ‘To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.’ And it is how Ananias spoke to Jesus in Acts 9:13-14: ‘But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name.”’
Second, in order for some prayer requests to be answered, they must be in line with whatever is meant by the phrase ‘in my name’. Jesus did not mean by this that we should add that phrase to the close of our prayers. I am not aware of any prayer in the Bible that includes that phrase. I suppose if we are going to use it, we should say something like ‘answer those requests that are in line with your name.’
The phrase is connected to the authority of Jesus, to his role as both head of the church and ruler of the nations, which was about to commence in a new way with his going to the Father. Where can we find out about his authority? The details are given in the Bible. This means that when we pray, there are items that we can ask for expectantly because we have divine instructions and promises connected to them; there are also items that we mention submissively because we don’t know what the answer will be. When Jesus uses the words ‘whatever you ask’, he qualifies the ‘whatever’ by ‘in my name’.
Third, the main reason why Jesus will answer prayers offered in his name is that he can, through doing so, bring glory to his Father. After all, every answered prayer is a detail in the Father’s great plan. Moreover, no answered prayer is an isolated event; in ways that we cannot discover, all answered prayers are interconnected to the activities of the Son as the Father’s Servant.
Application
First, it is wise for us to remember that the three Persons in our triune God work in harmony. Each has particular activities, yet the three are involved in each activity in some way. That is true of things far away from us and it is true of things involving us such as our sanctification.
Second, there are basically two kinds of prayer requests. There are those matters for which we have divine authority to expect a positive answer because the answer is promised in God’s Word (of course, there are conditions attached to them, such as not allowing sin in our hearts). The other kind of prayer concerns matters about which we do not have a particular promise in God’s Word, but which are in line with what we know of the character of God. When we pray such petitions, we must pray submissively.
Third, we should remind ourselves how blest we are to live during the period when Jesus has gone to the Father. He says in this passage that he through his people will do greater works than what he did when he was with his disciples during the three years of his public ministry. What amazing things have taken place down the centuries as Jesus has been building his church!