What Do We Want to Know? (John 14:18-24)
Jesus clearly wanted to give assurance to his disciples as he spoke to them in the upper room. Of course, this raises the issue as to what is meant by assurance because I don’t think it means the same thing every time it appears in the Bible, or even when we speak about it together. The compilers of our Confession of Faith realised this because they included a chapter on assurance and in the second section of that chapter they say that there are three types of assurance or three levels of assurance.
The first level is based on the promises of God. For example, God promises in John 3:16 that if a sinner believes in Jesus he will not perish but have everlasting life. When a sinner does that, he is entitled to take God at his word and accept that he now is saved.
The second level is connected to evidence within the person himself that a change has occurred. This usually is discovered by self-examination. It is important when engaging in self-examination that a believer does not look for perfection. That would be pointless. Instead, for example, he should consider his desires after holiness, his feeding upon God’s Word, his practice of prayer, the existence of brotherly love and his willingness to forgive. Those things are basic Christian practices. If the believer has them to some degree, he can deduce that he is converted. If he does not have them, he has no evidence that he is converted and he should go to God about that issue, because it is serious.
The third level of assurance is called the witness of the Spirit and is based on Paul’s description in Romans 8 and Galatians 4 of the activity of the Spirit in the life of a Christian. I suspect that there are similarities between that experience and what Jesus predicts can happen in the verses we are considering from John 14.
Jesus speaks of real union (vv. 18-20)
One of the dangers that faced children in the ancient world was abandonment whether as a consequence of losing their parents or even of the parents leaving them. Jesus knew what his disciples would feel when he was arrested and killed – they would feel as if they had been orphaned. They would assume that there would be no one to take care of them in a spiritual sense. Jesus assures them that he would come to them after his death. Yet his coming to be with them would not be limited to a physical appearance, which is necessary for people of the world to have in order to be together. Nevertheless the disciples would still see him.
How would that happen? It would take place because the coming together would be connected to the kind of life he would have after his resurrection: ‘Because I live, you also shall live,’ he says. Somehow they would know something that they had not fully realised during the three years that they had been with Jesus. This knowledge included awareness of profound spiritual union.
How would we explain verse 20 to someone who is not a Christian? Jesus says in that verse, ‘In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.’ When that time came, the disciples would have certainty about two profound unions. One union is that between the Father and Jesus and the other union is that between Jesus and his disciples. In addition to saying that they would have certainty about those unions, the disciples would also be aware that they are very close unions. The way that Jesus illustrates the closeness is by using the preposition ‘in’. After all, he could have used the preposition ‘with’ and said, ‘In that day you will know that I am with my Father, and you with me, and I with you.’ That would still be describing something close, but it would not be as close as being ‘in’.
How does this take place? We will have the answer by the end of this sermon.
The importance of loving obedience (v. 21)
Jesus had previously stressed the necessity of providing evidence of our love for him through obedience to his commandments (v. 15). He repeats this necessity in verse 21, and it is not the final time he will mention it. Why does he repeat this requirement? Because it is the atmosphere in which the benefits of the union he has mentioned will be known.
In verse 21, Jesus mentions two divine responses to believers who show their love to Jesus by obedience. One response is by the Father and the other response is by Jesus. Jesus has already said that his Father and he are united, so we should not be surprised that they respond together. I think Jesus phrased this divine response in the way that he did in order for his disciples to ask him about it.
The response of each divine person to the obedient believer is love. The Father will love the believer and Jesus will love the believer. I think it is important to observe that this divine love is responsive – the particular way in which it is expressed or revealed only occurs to a loving obedient Christian.
This love of the Father here is not his electing love because that never changes; nor is it his adopting love because that never changes. It is delighting love, much higher than but similar to the love that a father has for a son who honours his mother. Matthew Henry commented on this aspect of the Father’s love: ‘He loves them, and lets them know that he loves them, smiles upon them, and embraces them.’ The old divines used to call this love the love of complacency, but since complacency has changed its meaning we need another word. By complacency, they meant delight in something or someone who pleased God. It does not mean that this divine response is merited by the believer, but it does mean that God is pleased with him or her.
At this particular point in the conversation, Jesus does not say what the Father will do to express his love, but Jesus does say what he will do. He will show himself to his disciples, which means that he will reveal to them who he is. How will he do this? We will discover how he will do it by the time we end this sermon.
Jesus speaks of real communion (vv. 22-24)
The statement of Jesus that he will show himself to his disciples prompts a question from Judas (I think this is the only statement of this Judas that is recorded in the Bible). Judas wants to know how Jesus can show himself in the special manner he has indicated.
In his reply to Judas, Jesus stresses for the third time the importance of loving obedience to his commandments. What he is going to describe will only happen to those who obey him from the heart. What will happen? In this answer, Jesus expands on what he had said in verse 21. He mentions the responsive love of the Father and then says that the Father and he will come and live in the hearts of the disciples who obey him. Again, we should not be surprised that the Father and he should do so together because he has said earlier that he and the Father are one. Where one goes, the other goes too.
Jesus, however, is describing more than union – he is also describing communion. This is the meaning of the illustration he uses of the Father and he coming to live with obedient disciples. If someone came to live in our house and never spoke to us we would find it very odd. And will the Father and the Son make their home with disciples and not communicate with them? The very suggestion is ridiculous.
The prospect that Jesus was mentioning to his disciples is amazing. In verse 1 of this fourteenth chapter of John, Jesus had spoken of the Father’s house, the place to which he would yet bring his people. But here in verse 23 he speaks of another abode that the Father wants to have, and an abode that he will reside in – the abode is the hearts of those who love his Son and show that love by obeying his commandments.
For the fourth time in this short section Jesus stresses the importance of showing our love by keeping his commandments. And in order to highlight the union of the Father and the Son he says that the words, the instructions he had been giving, were not only his, they were also the words of the Father. In summary, we can say that the Father and the Son together value so highly the love of an obedient believer to Jesus that they will come and have communion with him. How can this happen?
The role of the Holy Spirit
The answer to how union and communion is experienced is the Holy Spirit. Even when explaining his role within the Trinity, some theologians have described the Holy Spirit as the bond of love between the Father and the Son (this was how Augustine spoke about the Spirit’s role). Of course, when we start exploring the Trinity, after one step we find ourselves somewhere beyond the capability of words to describe. As someone said about our words in that context, we only speak so that we will not be silent. The Trinity should fill us with wonder, adoration, and peace, and also some mental exhaustion.
How does the Spirit bring about the comfortable presence of the Father and the Son being at home in a redeemed sinner’s heart? First, he is the sanctifier who enables his willing people to obey Jesus out of love. Second, he functions in their hearts as the Spirit of adoption and cries ‘Abba, Father.’ Think of what Paul says in Galatians 4:4: ‘And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”’
I hope we can see how this is the third level or aspect of assurance. It is connected to the second level of assurance which is concerned with a change of life. Loving obedience to the commands of Jesus is the expression of new life. And when that happens, we are promised by Jesus that we will know the presence of the Father and the Son. Is the way of assurance not simple in design? We can see the role of the Spirit in every stage. He enlightens believers to appreciate the promises; he enables believers to love Jesus and keep his commandments; and he brings to believers the presence of the Father and the Son.
In addition to being simple and straightforward, the third level is very sweet. We know the sweetness that occurs when close friends are with us in an external sense. But we can know divine Friends in an internal sense. When they come, they bring a sense of heaven with them.
As we close, here are a couple of applications? First, how much do we value obedience to Christ from the heart? How much does disobedience to the commandments of Christ cost us? If not repented of, it will cost us assurance, a living awareness that God and we are dwelling together. We can ask ourselves, is my heart experiencing the comforts of heaven?
Second, regarding the work of the Spirit, the Helper, in our hearts, what does he help us to do or have? He helps us do little things and bigger things. But for what, according to this passage, does he want to provide help? Does he not want to help us show hospitality to the Father and the Son? According to what Jesus says here, that is what the blessed Helper would love to do day after day as he makes their hearts the dwelling places of the Father and the Son.
Third, we should bear in mind the richness of the ways that the Bible speaks about the love of God. There is the divine love expressed within the Trinity, which we admire and adore; there is the electing love of the Father, there is the adopting love of the Father, there is the universal love of the Father (in the sense of John 3:16), and there is the responsive love of the Father to his obedient people. The Son and the Spirit are also involved with those expressions of the Father’s love. But it is the responsive love of the Father and the Son, made real in our hearts by the Spirit, that strengthens our assurance immensely. What higher experience can there be than knowing the benefits of pleasing God!