John 14
The Lord is leading His disciples away from earth to associate their minds with Himself up in heaven; all that He was is borne witness to, in spite of His rejection as Son of God, Son of David, Son of man. The Greeks come up to worship Him; then He states, If I am to take this place, I must die. He takes the ground of having given up having to say to His disciples as on earth; and He tells them, "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me." His having part with men, as men on earth, is all over; all have turned against and rejected Him. He is doing entirely another thing; instead of bringing blessing down to them, He is taking them up there. The key to it all is, "part with Me." He gives us our portion on the ground that He is thus going away. "Let not your heart be troubled." How were they to get the comfort of God? Not now by seeing Christ in bodily shape, but by believing in Him for what He is. Therefore, He says, "Ye believe in God, believe also in Me." You must believe in Me. I am going to prepare a place for you; I have brought you by redemption into the same place as I am Myself. He is your God as He is Mine—your Father as He is Mine. I am not going to be alone in the Father's house.
He had not deceived them; He knew where He was taking them—that place above where He would prepare an abode for them. And what He is putting before their hearts had this specific character, that it was where the children were at home. He had brought them into the place of children, and when the time came He would take them to their Father's house. It is the thing He sets before us in a distinct and definite way—what God was about, namely, to have us like Christ and with Christ in the Father's house. That, He says, is where I am—where I, as Son, find My joy, rest, blessedness, and glory—and that is where you shall find it too. Your portion is with Myself in My Father's house. First we get what His purpose is, and our relationship with Him and with the Father. This is full of richest blessing to us. Whatever blessedness He has gone to, He will in deepest personal interest come to fetch us there. After His Father, His redeemed ones are everything to Him. He will come and meet them and bring them up to Himself in His Father's house. This is the basis of all His teaching here. He tells us all we have, and we are to be realizing this while He is away. How far do we really know it as a definite object before our souls? Are we living in these things now before we are really there?
With the world, as it is, He has made a total breach. He is going to the Father's house, and that is in direct opposition to the world. When the world entirely rejected Him, He went up to sit at God's right hand. The Accepted of the Father is the Rejected of the world; the world sees Him no more; it is all over with the world. We get this blessed, obedient One, one with the Father always, but upon the accomplished work accepted of the Father, taking His redeemed ones up with Him. We are to be in the glory, conformed to the image of the Son, that He may be the firstborn among many brethren.
Then we see how we are to realize this now. First, it is the object before us; second, what I know of the place, and how I know the place. The Father is there; that is the thing that makes it valuable to the child, if he has the affection of a child. If I have found the Father in Christ, I feel the blessedness of being with the Father and the Son. In Christ we get the revelation of the Father, and what brings us to the Father—"I am the way." If I know the Father, I know where Christ has gone, and that is where I am going. If, in coming to Him, I have found the way to the Father, I have found the way as well as the place, and know the blessedness of the Father's house, because I know that is the center of it all. I am in the consciousness of the love and divine favor that put me in this place, and I am able to cry, "Abba, Father." How can I see this—know it? In Christ. When the heart gets hold of this, it has the spring of all the blessedness which we shall have when Christ comes to take us up there; and the spirit enjoys it now because it is all for us as a present thing. We shall not get a thing there that is not revealed to us now as our portion while we are on earth. We have not seen the glory yet. We get the work of Christ as our title, and the Father's love to enjoy. We do not apprehend it all, but it is a blessed thing to be able to say, I have got Christ's own thought of the blessedness of heaven, what His joy was in thinking of the Father's house. We have got that now. He says, There is the One that My delight is in; there is the One that I have walked with while on earth—the One I can say that I am one with, the One I have brought you to be with now. Thus I know what I am to get in the Father's house; I know where I am going; and I know the way. What a settled quietness of spirit it gives! "In Me ye might have peace." What confidingness of heart in Him! I have got into that place by what I have seen in Christ. He is the way; I have been that way; it has brought me to the Father; I have found the Father in Christ.
Now when He has set an object before our hearts, He insists upon the second part, "I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter." He had to go away to prepare the place, and to return for us; but He desires for us that we should have the power and the truth of a present Holy Spirit as that by which we apprehend these things. "Ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." The Holy Spirit is only known by being in us. Christ ought to have been known by all; He came out as the blessed manifestation of God in love. The world was called upon to see this blessed testimony of what God was in love in the Father sending the Son. He was there to be received, but of the Holy Ghost the Lord says, "It [the world] seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him." The world ought to see the fruits of the Spirit in works and power, but there was no personal manifestation when the Holy Spirit came, no object of faith. Christ came visibly, God manifest in flesh, but the Holy Spirit is known only where He dwells. The Lord says He will abide with you, He will not go away like Me. He will be in you and not leave you comfortless. "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." "Rooted and grounded in love." The Holy Spirit brings in that sense Christ into our hearts. You shall not be comfortless, you shall see Me. He will make you conscious that you live by Me. The power of divine life which triumphed over death. When a person believes in Christ, Christ is brought into that man's heart, much more really than if Christ were on earth. So that He might not leave us comfortless, He says, I am going to be in you in a far better way. The Holy Ghost brings Christ down to our hearts, and there He dwells. "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?" I am brought into immediate intercourse with Christ, the One who is everything to me. "Strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man." I have got everything that is in heaven; I, a poor vessel, cleansed by blood, and inasmuch cleansed, fit for God. God comes down and dwells in the vessel. I have got Christ back, not palpably now, but I know that I am not left comfortless; I know it is to hear His voice, to hear the testimony of the Spirit who is present with me. I have rest in Him—His peace.
And mark what flows from this presence of the Comforter. "But ye see Me," and, "Because I live, ye shall live also." It is the life that has overcome death; He has been down under death for us, and if He lives as triumphant over all, I live too. Blessed to have it from, with, and in the Lord Jesus Christ. How anxious He is to make us happy! Do you know how to walk in it, to live in it? It is not by the sight of the eyes, but what is unseen and eternal, in the knowledge of the Father and the Son. The consciousness of belonging to these things makes us heavenly in walk and ways. We have the consciousness of being a present object with the Father and the Son. In verse 21 He takes up the practical present reality of it. If you love Me, the way to show it is by keeping My commandments, not by regretting Me when I am gone; he that loveth Me is the one that has My commandments and keepeth them. And here we get the positive manifestation of Himself to us in the path of obedience. Obedience is what characterizes you. You keep His commandments when you know them. When I get this close relationship with the Father and the Son, the proof of being in them is to act according to them.
Can a child be in the house and not know his father's wishes? If he can, he must be a very inattentive child. If you are living in the relationship of a child, you must be in the power of what the Father likes. You could not be otherwise. The soul must be attentive to Christ's wishes. Christ said, "He wakeneth morning by morning, He wakeneth Mine ear to hear as the learned." If we were walking like Christ, with our ear opened as attentive children, we should understand what His wishes are; we should learn then and answer to them. He delights to make us know His will. Here it is not that sovereign grace and love which gave His Son for me when I was a sinner, but it is the Father dealing with the children according to the children's walk. It is the manifestation of Christ's life and ways; it is all very feeble in us, but the Lord's heart is always true, if our hearts are not; the attentive child listens for His commandments, and seeks them, wants His will, wants it because he loves it. If we love the Lord Jesus Christ, we should want only that, no matter what the rest is; if I can only please Him, I live in the present enjoyment of Christ, because my heart is abiding with Him. What an anticipation of heaven it is—walking with the Father and the Son! And they come and make their abode with us. The Lord seeks to strengthen and encourage us in the path of obedience; and until the time comes for us to abide with Him, He will come and abide with us, if we keep in it; and what He gives us here is His peace, while putting us in His own place in that uninterrupted intercourse with His Father.
The Lord give His people thorough self-judgment in the thorough consciousness of what we are, as set aside before God in the cross, and the consciousness of the place God has set us in Christ. May we walk in peace and confidence of heart as His children, and in the quiet lowliness which Christ did in passing through the world.