Month: June 2018

120. Teach all Things

 John 14:26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

 Jesus promises the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. He will teach me all things and bring all things to my remembrance. This promise came literally true for these disciples who remembered “whatsoever I have said unto you.” The Holy Spirit would call to their minds the words of Jesus, words that they could not understand before His resurrection.

The same promise applies to us also even though we were not present to hear the words Jesus said; the Apostles wrote down what Jesus said to them with the aid of HS who remembered for them. Thus we have the New Testament. The Comforter will call these words to our minds and bring them to our remembrance when we need to believe them and apply them to today. This does assume that we have heard and read the words of Jesus in the Bible so that they are somewhere in our minds ready for recall.

Not only will the Comforter remind us of the Word of God, but He will also teach us the meaning of the Word and apply it to the problems and needs of the day. It is one thing to know the words; it is another thing to know the meaning; it is yet another thing to apply the meaning to the present situation.

The promise is given so that we might avail ourselves of this wonderful tool more often than we do. We can listen to HS and learn of Him; in this way He Comforts.

119. God’s Home with us

 John 14:23b We will come unto him and make our abode with him.

 By His death and resurrection Jesus has prepared a place for us; that place is in us, in our spirit. The “abode” is a home, a semi-permanent dwelling, more than a tent and less than a solid brick building. The Father and the Son (“we”) come to the believer and make a home there. Technically, the promise is that the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within our spirit inside of our body and soul, but since God is one substance the Father and the Son come with HS. Who lives in me? God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Where can one find God on the earth? The world may find God on the earth in the hearts of His believers. In the human spirits of Christians is the home of God on earth, the Church, the Presence of God in our physical world. The human body becomes the Temple of God, the House of God, and the Home of God. When one is baptized or comes to faith in Jesus HS immediately enters in and dwells; He makes our dead spirit alive and then resides there beginning to influence the soul and the body while we live in exile, sojourning far from our home.

Until we die we cannot enter physically into the dwelling of God in heaven, that is, in the spiritual world existing alongside the physical world. Therefore, for the children of God who belong rightly in the home of God He has chosen to make a home with us. In truth, heaven is inside each believer in Christ. We don’t see it and we don’t often feel it, so God’s Word and Promises must tell us the truth: God’s home is with us, in our spirits.

When believers, in whom Christ lives, gather together in Jesus’ name He is there in the midst of us in a special way telling the Gospel and sharing His life. All the believers together make up the “body of Christ.” My own attitude toward myself and toward fellow members of the household of God is profoundly affected when I recognize Who is dwelling with me and with them. Conscious awareness of the Presence of God changes how I think and act. Additionally, my attitude toward those outside the church changes because I recognize them as potentially fellow members in whom Christ will live when they, too, are brought to faith through the Gospel.

118. Loved of the Father

John 14:21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me, and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

John 14:23a If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him.

 God is Love; Jesus loves me. This we know, but here the conditional promise that the Father will love you is based on the condition that you love Jesus. If you love Jesus, then the Father will love you. Actually, the Father loves you before you loved the Son, for that love for you motivated Him to send his Son to die for you. God loves all people, whether they love Jesus or not. All this love from God is because that is what He is, Love.

The love of the Father in this promise is that the love of God is effective and activated because of Jesus. God’s love is unearned: that is why Jesus came, because God loved us before we could do anything or even before we existed. However, God is unable to give, share or activate that love in action until Jesus died and paid for our sins. Justice, perfect holiness, demands that sins be punished and paid for. Until that happens love cannot legally be given out; undeserved love and mercy would destroy justice and holiness; without upholding holiness in perfection the universe would crumble, life would disappear, God could not be trusted, and God’s Word would be meaningless. This is a strange way of putting the truth, but listen: Jesus earned the favor, blessing, mercy and forgiveness of God. Grace is defined as unearned favor, but in truth it is earned favor; it’s just that Jesus earned the favor and forgiveness of God by His death and resurrection. That’s Grace; Jesus earned it.

The father will love those who love Jesus simply means those who believe in Christ. It is a given that the Father (and any parent) loves the Son (and any child), but it is a further given that Jesus earned favor and mercy by perfect obedience. By faith (and in Baptism) we are identified with and in union with Jesus Christ, the Son of God; therefore the Father must love us, as He loves the Son. Therefore, we are not allowed to have any doubt whatsoever that God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, loves us unconditionally and totally. That’s a promise.

117. Know

 John 14:20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

The promise is this: You will know that Jesus is in you. This whole description of unity of relationship of the Father and Jesus and me is mysterious; it is hard to wrap our minds around the concept of Christ being in me and I am in Christ and the Son is in the Father. It is hard to understand the simple word “in.” How is Jesus in me and I in Him? What does He do and what do I do? When am I thinking and when is He thinking? Who gets credit for what I think, say and do?

Paul seems to have trouble understanding this also in Galatians 2:20: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God.” This is not easy to understand, but it is as clear as human language is able to express it.

Although we may not be able to understand or describe the relationship completely, we can know it. “Know” does not signal complete understanding, but the word “know” does mean intimate relationship. Paul says in Ephesians (5:32): “This is mystery is profound.” He is referring to the one flesh relation between husband and wife, and then applies it to the greater mystery of Christ and the Church (me). It is a miracle of God’s Spirit that we can know the mystery of “He in me and I in Him.”

We take the promise as true and real even though the mind and tongue get tied up in knots when we (or Paul) try to explain it. In 1 Corinthians 2:7, 10, Paul says, “We impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God…. These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything even the depths of God.”

We simply know and enjoy the mystery: “Jesus in me.”

116. Live

John 14:19 Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.

 The “world” in this context includes the people who do not believe in Christ, while “ye” includes all the believers in Christ. “See” bears the simple meaning of understand; we understand because we believe Him. If the world does not see, or understand who Jesus is and what He is doing, it is because they do not believe. Without the eyes of faith it is not possible to believe. When Jesus leaves the earth no one sees Him any longer in the physical sense. But those who understand and believe “see” Him even when He is no longer physically visible.

Believers see and understand and believe the Resurrection and the Life. Then Jesus can promise thet will live because He lives. Jesus said, “Because I live,” before He had yet died and rose, meaning that He lives now and ever. Believers in Christ are related to the Life that is Jesus; thus they are connected to the Life that is always life and it never ends.

Not in the immediate context, but by logical extension, Jesus is alluding to His own resurrection. The disciples will know this allusion to resurrection when they later remember Jesus’ word and promise. Therefore, it is not a jump to apply the words, “ye shall live also,” to the guarantee of their own resurrection of the body. The believer is connected to Christ, connected to Life, and united to His bodily resurrection. Because He is risen, you will rise also.

“Live also” applies both to the present day while we are alive on earth and also to the later life after death. To confess by faith, “He is risen; He’s alive!,” is to say and confess: “I will rise; I am alive!”

115. Not Comfortless

 John 14:18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

 When the Son of God was on earth in human flesh with His disciples they were continually sensing a strong feeling of comfort and security. The promise of Jesus is that Strong Comfort will always be with them even when Jesus physically leaves them and ascends into the heavenly realm. He promises His disciples that He will come to them, but He will come to them with the presence of the Holy Spirit (the Spirit and Jesus are the same One God) in them. We believers are included among the disciples who can enjoy this promise.

When Jesus comes to live with us and in us there will be amazing comfort. That comfort is strengthened and secured every time we hear and believe the Gospel. Faith comes through hearing. Comfort comes with that receiving of the Good News. “Not comfortless” is an understated euphemism for Great Comfort. We need comfort, sometimes more than other times, all the time, and we can enjoy it constantly.

The ups and downs of daily life can give us the feeling and sense that we are alone without help and we don’t know where to turn or what to do. But this promise means that the comfortless feeling is a lie; so we need to hear the comfort of the Gospel, which is the truth. The devil will leave us comfortless; Jesus will never.

114. Spirit Dwell with and in

 John 14:17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

 The Spirit of truth will dwell with you and He will be in you. This is why you know Him. “In and with” is a remarkable promise; and it must be believed since we do not usually see or know or feel His Presence and Indwelling. We believe it is true because Jesus said so. We receive the Spirit by faith in Christ; we know the Spirit by believing the Gospel.

Because the Spirit of truth dwells with and in us we know the truth; even opposed to sight and appearances we believe the Truth of the Word. The truth is that we are miserable sinners, even evil people by nature, living in the darkness of death with no hope for the present or the future. The greater truth is that God loves us in this way, that He sent His Son to forgive the sin and bring us into the light and defeat death forever. These twin truths of Law and Gospel result in one great truth: Jesus loves me, this I know. The Spirit of truth has so convinced me that this is true that nothing can shake it; that sight and appearance to the contrary cannot move me from this truth; that all the thoughts and ways of the world cannot convince me; that the works and lies of the devil cannot cause doubt and uncertainty.

Blessed assurance is comforting in all the various circumstances of life. The Truth will make free: we are no longer slaves to sin, nor under the power of the devil, nor overwhelmed by death. If we should believe the Lie, and not have the Truth, we would be plunged back into the chains of sin, death and the devil. But no, we have the indwelling Spirit of truth with us and in us.

113. Comforter Abide

 John 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever.

 Jesus promises another Comforter; He promises that He will stay with us forever. The promises of the Holy Spirit and Jesus being with us go together. Is it the Son or the Spirit that lives within us? Both, of course; but the Holy Spirit draws attention to the Son of God and not to Himself. The Father and Jesus and the Comforter are one. We distinguish the persons only to describe the activity of God on earth in terms we can understand, but we cannot understand the Trinity.

The Paraclete, in Greek = one who is called alongside, Counselor, Comforter, Advocate, Helper, etc. The idea is that HS is with us and in us as everything we need to live a godly life by faith in Jesus. He is also called “another,” meaning that He will be just like Jesus the Son, another one like me. This third person of the Trinity is just like, or one with, the Father and the Son.

This promised HS will abide with us forever. Not only will He be with us until the end of the age, but also He will be with us forever. Indeed, He will never, ever, leave us. He may be quenched, He may be grieved, but He will not leave. It may appear to us from time to time that God is absent, that He is far away, that HS is not with us, but that cannot be because Jesus promised He would abide. This promise means that we can come back to Him, approach Him, find Him, and ask Him for He is not far from us. Not only is He not far, but he is abiding with us. Abide = stay, remain, live, dwell. The bond between my spirit and HS is exceedingly strong; the two of us are joined together as one.

112. Do what Ask

 John 14:13, 14 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it. John 15:16 Whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. John 16:23, 24 Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you…ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.

 Four times in this one discourse Jesus promises that God will do it or give it, whatever you ask. The result will be that God will be glorified and that your joy will be full. Four times He says: “Ask in my name.”This is a condition: if you ask, then Jesus will do it or the Father will give it. Part of the condition for the fulfillment of this promise is not only asking, but also asking in my name.

In the name of Jesus means coming to God through faith in Jesus the Son; it also means in accord with the will of God, in line with the mind of Christ, asking the same thing that Jesus would ask. If we know Jesus and know His will we can ask “whatsoever” and God promises to give it. It looks easy and simple, but it is really is harder and more complicated that it appears. The key is to know the will of God before we ask; then ask in line with God’s predetermined will in a matter, and, of course, He will give it. God wants to effect His will in our earthly affairs and get His will done on earth, as it is already determined in heaven. The amazing thing is that God uses frail and ignorant human believers to work His will on earth, prompting us to pray His will in His name.

Instead of ending our prayers “if it be thy will,” we might be better to determine the will of God ahead of time and pray with confidence: 1 John 5:14, 15, “If we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.”

We naturally resist this promise because we cannot believe it, but we may have to be careful that we are not doubting God’s word and promise and fighting against the goodness, mercy and kindness that the Lord wants to give us, so that we may be full of joy. Surrender to the will of God, ask for it, receive it, and be full of joy.

This four-fold promise of Jesus may be one of the most life-changing promises we can ever hear and believe.

111. Do the Works

 John 14:12 He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.

 The promise that believers will do the works that Jesus did, and greater works, is really unbelievable; in fact, it is so unbelievable that we look for other ways to interpret the promise, because we cannot take it at face value.

The interpretation turns upon the meaning of the word “works.” We think that Jesus means the physical miracles, healings, exorcisms and resurrections; we don’t see that happening. We can legitimately take the “works” that Jesus did to be spiritual: saving the world and forgiving sins and granting eternal life by His death on the Cross. But we do certainly not do these works, nor can we “save” anyone.

Therefore, we take it to mean that He promises that we will continue the works that He finished by proclaiming them through the Gospel. When we preach the Gospel we “finish” or continue the finished works of Jesus. The Gospel recreates and reproduces the miraculous works of salvation that converts the sinner and brings him out of darkness into light. The continued Gospel work is “greater” in that it reaches more people through the witness and the Word. We seldom recognize the “great work” that happens when we preach repentance and forgiveness of sin; we don’t see the power at work doing what Jesus did (saving people and making them whole). The Holy Spirit working through His people through their works and witness (the preaching of the Gospel) is an awesome miracle, and these greater works have been going on since then until now. Because Jesus has gone to the Father He could pour out the Holy Spirit on Pentecost and every day since.