Beginning in 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, and Son of Man. The Greeks come up to worship Him; then He states, If I am to take this place, I must die. His having part with men, as men on earth, is all over; all have turned against and rejected Him. Now, instead of bringing blessing down to them, He is taking them up there. The key to it all is, “Part with Me” (John 13:8). Therefore, He says, as it were, “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.”
The Children at Home
He knew where He was taking 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. That, He says, is where I am, and where I, as Son, find My joy, rest, blessedness and glory, and that is where you shall find it too. Your portion is with Me in My Father’s house.
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. Are we living in these things now before we are really there?
With the world as it is, He has made a total breach. 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. But we are to be in the glory, conformed to the image of the Son, that He may be the firstborn among many brethren.
The Object Before Us
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. 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, 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 and 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 anything 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. What a settled quietness of spirit it gives! 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 found the Father in Christ.
Another Comforter
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 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. The Holy Spirit is known only by being in us. Christ ought to have been known by all, but of the Holy Spirit the Lord says, “It [the world] seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him” (vs. 17). The world ought to see the fruits of the Spirit in works and power, but He is known only where He dwells. The Lord says He will abide with you; He will not go away like Me. You shall not be comfortless; you shall see Me. He will make you conscious that you live by Me. 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. “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. We are 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.
The Attentive Ear
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. 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” (Isa. 50:4). If we were walking like Christ, with our ear opened as attentive children, we should understand what His wishes are; we should learn them and answer to them. He delights in making 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. What an anticipation of heaven it is — walking with the Father and the Son! 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 walk in it. What He gives us here is His peace, while putting us in His own place in that uninterrupted fellowship with His Father.
May 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.
J. N. Darby (adapted)