PASSION WEEK – Thursday Night
The supper is over. Jesus has washed their feet. Peter has been warned. Judas has left the building. 🚪
While lingering around the table, Jesus encourages His young followers. The next few hours and days are going to be frightening and confusing. Jesus’ words were meant to calm and anchor them and give them hope for this dark season. I suppose that’s why we still turn to them in the most difficult times.
The opening of John 14 in my Bible looks like this…
It’s a reminder for me that the “place” Jesus prepared for us isn’t only (or perhaps even primarily) a mansion in the sky in the sweet by and by. It’s the place He has made for us in the family and presence of God right now.
“And coming, he proclaimed the good news of peace to you who were far away and peace to the ones who were near, because through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. Consequently, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens of the saints and members of the household of God,”
Ephesians 2:17-19 LEB
There’s a line in the chorus of the song Who You Say I Am that says, “in my Father’s house, there’s a place for me, I’m a child of God, yes I am.”
There are two ways to have a “place” in a “house.”
- A designated space, like a room.
- A place in the family as a member.
The word translated as “mansions,” “rooms,” or “dwelling places” is…
It’s only used twice in the Bible; both times in THIS chapter. The second time is this:
“Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves me he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and will take up residence with him.”
John 14:23 LEB
There is a residence prepared for you in the Father’s household. And the Father and Son take up residence with those who love Him and keep His Word. I suspect that these are not two different residences but one.
The place that Jesus prepared is the place of honored son and daughter. He is the perfect son and heir. And the born-again believer is IN the Son and therefore in perfect standing and the co-heir. As far as I’m concerned, any “mansion over the hilltop” is secondary.
Jesus made the way to that place of Sonship through the Cross. And we can only inherit it if we also take up our cross and follow Him.
Jesus went to prepare a place through the cross and He made access through the Spirit.
My tiny picture of what is meant to be a flame 🔥 pointed to the words “I will come again” is to remind me that there is a sense in which Jesus did “come again” to His followers on the Day of Pentecost through the person of the Holy Spirit. I believe 100% that Jesus will return bodily to earth. I’m not suggesting that there is no future fulfillment of this verse or that the Holy Spirit IS Jesus. (In fact, the reason “receive” is circled in my text is because I suspect that the Greek word there – paralambano – might be a hint toward the idea of the Church being “caught up” as the Bridegroom comes to receive or take His Bride to Himself.)
But just as we already enjoy an aspect of the “place” He prepared (Eph. 1:13-14), we also presently enjoy the actual living presence of Christ within His Church. He has come to us and reigns in His Church. We know what it is like to walk with Jesus because we walk in the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father AND the Son. Jesus has not abandoned us. He has come to us through the Spirit, though we still wait for the ultimate fulfillment of His coming. In one sense, it isn’t the Church that is waiting for Jesus to “come again.” It’s the rest of the world.
K. I better pick up the tempo. If I spend this much time on every couple verses, we’ll be here for a very long time.
In chapters 14-17 we see a LOT of references to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We must always interpret any text in light of the whole counsel of God. I say this because some denominations and groups tend to isolate verses in these chapters and use them to teach that the Holy Spirit IS Jesus – or that Jesus IS the Father and that there are no distinctions within the Divine Being or that the distinctions are only of manifestation and not in eternal personhood.
😐 Uh…That sounds very smart. But I have no idea what you just said.
Perhaps this classic diagram would help.
The Father is God.
Jesus Christ the Son is God.
The Holy Spirit is God.
If it helps, you can use the word “Divine” in place of God. Sometimes people mistakenly think of the Father only as God. Not so.
But Jesus is not the Father. He is distinct. And though Jesus says “I and the Father are one” in John 10:30, it is a one of unity and not of number. Jesus also counts Himself and the Father as TWO. When defending His testimony of Himself to the Pharisees, Jesus says:
“Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. In your Law it is written that the testimony of two people is true. I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me.””
John 8:16-18 ESV
1 witness + 1 witness = 2 witnesses
There are 2 main ways people get the nature of God wrong. The two errors are:
- There are 3 Gods; 3 separate Beings
- There is 1 Being and He only appears in 3 different forms
I will say unequivocally that neither of those represent the claims of the whole Bible taken together or the historic (and unchanged) teaching of the Church from the time of the Apostles.
😏 And THIS is why she doesn’t have a comment section.
☝️🤓 Cuz this is the part where the people who disagree start getting mean.
True. But I do not need to write more to defend this position. There are already millions of pages written doing just that. In fact, here is a good video & article about the early heresy of Modalism and how an early church father, Tertullian, refuted it.
I would point those who disagree or wish to better understand, to pick up just about any systematic theology book- Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox – and read the section on the nature of the Godhead. It’s one of the few things upon which we all agree. And I don’t need to argue with someone in a comment section about it. I doubt that comment section debaters are open to another perspective anyway.
JOHN 15 – THE VINE & BRANCHES
At the end of chapter 14, Jesus says, “Rise, let’s go.” If what John records in chapter 15 is chronologically correct, then it may be that Jesus is speaking the content of John 15 as they walk from the Upper Room out of Jerusalem beside the Valley of Hinnom, across the Kidron Valley and up the slope of the Mount of Olives to Gethsemane.
It was spring time. The vineyard workers would’ve already done the major winter pruning and would’ve been just finishing the final spring pruning of any branches that didn’t have blossoms or tiny new fruit. Jesus and the disciples could have passed the glowing embers of fires in the dark which were burning up the dead branches.
The word for “branch” in this chapter is a word for the flexible canes of the grape vine and not the woody branches called “cordons” in modern grape production. I know Google can be a problem, but it can also pull together a few facts in a second that would’ve taken hours in a library. I asked how the word klema (branch) was used in ancient Greek.
And since I don’t know the first thing about tending grape vines, here’s what Google said about what a “cane” is and does. (And let me tell ya, you could preach from this outline).
If a branch is going to bear fruit, there has to be both maturity and new shoots.
Even a branch that produced fruit has to be pruned so that new growth will come.
The cane could bear more fruit, but it is trimmed to a select few buds. Quality takes precedence over quantity.
All of this grape-talk in John 15 applies to the fruit we bear for the kingdom. 🍇
I love this chapter. It’s one of my favorites – mostly because of this book:
Some years ago I was in one of those used book stores that is like a rabbit burrow of little nooks and rooms with creaky wood floors and shelves crammed with more volumes than they really should hold.
I was looking for a book or two to take to a week of camp. I was going to lead worship for a youth camp on an island in a river. No cell service or internet. And since I wasn’t technically a camp counselor or teaching lessons or organizing games, etc, I knew I’d have quite a bit of downtime between morning and evening services.
I popped into a local used bookstore shortly before closing time on the afternoon before we left for camp. Some people in my situation might head straight for the cozy mysteries, a vintage fantasy like Tolkien, or a classic novel. Me? I found a small section – about the size of a closet really – of Christian non-fiction books. Theology. Sermons. Commentaries. Most of them old.
I was immediately drawn to the small books. For some reason, I find small, hardcover books rather irresistible and own a whole collection of them. If I was a cat, small books would be my catnip. They are on my list of “Things that make me happy no matter what” along with the song of a White-Throated Sparrow and a well-made cup of tea. The book in the picture above is just 4x6in (10.5x15cm) – like small postcard. That’s the size of most of my small books. A few are smaller.
🤔 So if you had a small book in your hands while sipping a cup of tea and a white-throated sparrow was singing in a nearby tree, what would happen?
Oh my… probably a face-hurting smile and giggles.
😏
Abide In Christ by Andrew Murray is a 31-day devotional from the text of John 15. And it changed my life. I bought it and took it to camp and sat outside reading- absorbing both the message and the sunshine.
You can read it for free here online or you can pick up a print copy at most good Christian bookstores or online sellers both new and used. While I wouldn’t guarantee that I agree with everything Murray taught or believed, the way he wrote about the branch resting in the Vine and drawing nourishment from the Vine, and how bearing fruit was the natural consequence of abiding in the Vine and not of effort on the part of the branch – those ideas and others really shifted my relationship with God from one of trying to work to please to resting in His love. And it had a profound effect. It’s a book I highly recommend.
THE 3 COMMANDMENTS
Jesus gives 3 commands in this chapter:
- Remain in Me (v4-8)
- Remain in my love (v9-10)
- Love one another (v12-13, 17)
We are invited and even commanded to abide, dwell, remain IN Christ.
We don’t just go to visit Him at Church on Sunday. We pack up the Uhaul and move INTO Christ. 🚚 You don’t just bring a suitcase. 🧳 You bring the sofa. 🛋️ You settle in to stay permanently.
And you’re not an unwelcome houseguest. You are a beloved child – not necessarily because you (or I) are so splendid, but because we are IN Christ, the perfect Son.
Look at this staggering statement:
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.”
John 15:9 ESV
Sit with that for a moment. 🪑
In the same manner and degree that the Father loves the Son, that’s how the Son loves His disciples. The Father and the Son love us so much that they want to live with us and us with them. Amazing.
I think it’s probably the Enemy’s number one tactic and task to get us to doubt the LOVE of God. If you have doubts about whether or not God loves you, and you are trusting Christ for salvation, you should recognize those doubts as an attack on your faith. Do not entertain the Enemy and listen to his marketing pitch on why God doesn’t love you. Resist that mess and cling to the Word of God.
Jesus has said and done everything humanly AND divinely possible to prove that love. We need never doubt it. I know it’s cheesy, but it reminds me a bit of the scene in The Princess Bride when Buttercup has realized that Westley was not only alive, but had never stopped loving her…
But love is not simple warm fuzzy feelings like we get from watching The Princess Bride. It’s loyalty. Faithfulness. Selfless devotion.
We obey Him when we love one another. When we keep His commandments (to love one another) that’s how we abide in His love It also happens to be the greatest evidence that we belong to Christ. Just before they left the Upper Room Jesus had said:
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 13:34-35 ESV
I know that other Christians can be irritating. They have different views or they’re acting like Middle School drama queens. I’m sure there are people who find me irritating. Jesus never said loving one another would be easy. It’s not. We’re needy and flawed and sometimes we completely run out of patience. But in a world that hates God and His people, we need one another.
The disciples have often argued and bragged, competed, blamed and been totally clueless. They are going to need each other’s love and support. Very soon.
