The Way to the Father’s House
The “disciple whom Jesus loved,” known as John, either John ben Zebedee (the Apostle), or John the Elder, wrote his recollections of his experiences with Jesus so that those who hear or read would believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and would find eternal life in His name (cf. John 20:31).
The moment at which the Son of Man would be glorified, and God in Him, had arrived (John 13:31-32): Judas had just departed to betray Jesus; soon Jesus would be arrested, tried, abused, executed, but raised from the dead on the third day. Jesus well understood these things, but His disciples did not. Everything Jesus would say and do in John 13:1-17:26 was designed to prepare His disciples for these events and what would come afterward.
To this end, in John 13:1-17, Jesus washed the feet of His disciples, and explained to them how they should follow His example and humbly serve one another. Jesus spoke of His imminent betrayal and sent Judas Iscariot out in John 13:18-30. Jesus, focusing on the eleven remaining disciples, would then begin a discourse in John 13:31 which would conclude with His “High Priestly Prayer” in John 17:1-26. He began this discourse by emphasizing how God would be glorified in the Son of Man, and it was for them to love one another as He had loved them (John 13:31-35).
Jesus had also told His disciples they could not go where He was going just yet, and such caused consternation among them (John 13:33, 36-38). In John 14:1-31, Jesus would try to provide comfort and assurance to His disciples regarding His departure and its implications.
Jesus’ discourse in John 14:1-31 has often been distorted and misconstrued on account of decontextualized applications and an unhealthy focus on the imagery to the neglect of its meaning. Jesus will speak of going away, coming back, being the Way, etc., and many have understood these statements in spatial ways. While Jesus would indeed physically depart from the earth and ascend to the Father in heaven, we seriously misunderstand Jesus’ meaning and intention if we understand Him as speaking about bridging spatial distance. Throughout John 14:1-31 Jesus’ focus was much more on relational distance. At this point in John’s Gospel, Jesus has not yet died or been raised from the dead; the work of reconciliation which Jesus would accomplish in His death and resurrection remain in the future. While Jesus was also preparing His disciples for the period after His death and resurrection, He remained primarily focused on reassuring them in the face of what He was about to experience. We may brusquely dismiss concern about what the disciples might do between His arrest and His resurrection by wondering what really could happen over that roughly forty-eight-hour period. But you can get yourself in a lot of trouble in forty-eight hours, and so assuredly could the disciples. Jesus’ concerns remained well placed.
There is no contextual transition or shift from John 13:36-38 to John 14:1-31. Jesus could tell His disciples were troubled by His imminent departure. So He spoke to encourage them: believe in the Father and Jesus; there are many dwelling places in the Father’s house, and Jesus was going to prepare a place for the disciples, so they could be where He was, and they would know the way to get there (John 14:1-4).
When we read John 14:1-4 we can understand why many would understand Jesus’ words according to spatial distance. So much has been made of what the King James Version translated as “mansions” in John 14:2: the Greek word monai is well translated as “rooms” or “dwelling places,” and ironically such is what “mansions” originally meant in English (derived from Latin manere, “to remain”). Christians read about “mansions” in John 14:2 and began imagining them as fancy houses in heaven; they then began describing fancy houses on earth as “mansions,” and so people today now associate “mansions” with fancy houses, and read that back into what Jesus said in John 14:2.
Yet, as Jesus will continually demonstrate as the discourse continues, the distance bridged is not spatial as much as relational. To this day we associate “household” both with a dwelling place and as joint participation within a family structure, and such is what Jesus intended for us to understand here. Yes, Jesus would physically suffer, die, be raised from the dead, and would ascend to the Father; in so doing, He would allow us to be reconciled to God so we might be able to be adopted as sons and daughters of God (cf. Romans 8:1-17). Therefore, in this way, Jesus spoke of what He was about to do and explained what it meant in terms of the relationship the disciples could have with God.
Jesus affirmed the disciples knew the way He was going in John 14:4, but Thomas was not nearly as sure: they did not know where He was going, so how could they know the way to where He was going (John 14:5)? Jesus’ response has become infamous: He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life; there is no other way to the Father than through Jesus (John 14:6). To know and see Jesus is to know and have seen the Father (John 14:7).
While Thomas, no doubt, continued to think spatially, Jesus redirected them to think relationally. We should not underemphasize how Jesus is the Truth and the Life; nevertheless, in context, the emphasis is rightly placed on how Jesus is the Way. The faith in Christ would even be known as The Way according to Acts 24:14, and for good reason: the faith was embodied in Jesus, and if we would glorify and honor God in Christ, we must follow Him in His ways. Then as now we closely associate living with a journey, and so we frequently use journeying metaphors to understand how we live. The Hebrews author would speak of Jesus as the pioneer of the faith, blazing the trail all of us should follow after Him (cf. Hebrews 2:10). If we want to find room in the Father’s house, we can only get there by following the Way; thus, if we want to share in the life of God, we can only do so through submitting to and following Jesus in all He has told us to think, feel, say, and do.
The claim Jesus is the only way to God the Father has struck many in the world as arrogant and presumptuous. If it were said by anyone else, such a response would be understandable and appropriate. But if Jesus is who He says He is, the statement is inescapably true. Jesus has claimed to be God in the flesh; if we have seen Jesus, we have come to understand the essential characteristics and attributes of God. Any other characteristics and attributes would not truly be of God or Jesus, and therefore could not lead you to God. Thus, where other forms of philosophical, religious, or spiritual forms of instruction or understanding remain consistent with what God has made known in Christ, we can find something praiseworthy in them. Yet wherever any other philosophical, religious, or spiritual forms of instruction or understanding are inconsistent with what God has made known in Christ, such cannot well and accurately represent reality or a means of understanding God in truth.
Philip did not quite understand: he asked Jesus to show them the Father, and they would be content (John 14:8). Jesus responded, perhaps with some frustration (and understandably so), wondering if he had been with Jesus for so long without really understanding Him: how could he ask to see the Father when those who have seen Jesus have seen the Father (John 14:9)? Did he not believe the Father was in Jesus as Jesus was in the Father, and He was doing the Father’s works (John 14:10)? Even if he did not believe that, Philip should at least believe in the works Jesus had done (John 14:11).
Jesus then took the opportunity to continue reassuring and encouraging His disciples: if they believed, they would do even greater miraculous things than what Jesus had done, since He was going to the Father (John 14:12). He assured them He would do whatever they asked the Father in His name (John 14:13-14). If they loved Jesus, they would do His commandments, and Jesus would ask the Father to send them the Parakletos, the “Paraclete,” the Advocate or Comforter, the Spirit of truth, who would reside with the disciples (John 14:15-17). In this way Jesus would not abandon His disciples as orphans: He would come to them, and they would then know Jesus was in the Father, and they were in Jesus and Jesus was in them (John 14:18-20). Jesus re-affirmed and re-emphasized how those who have and obey His commandments loves Jesus, and Jesus and the Father will love them, and Jesus will come to them (John 14:21).
Jesus thus promised the coming of the Holy Spirit to His disciples as a form of comfort, assurance, and as an advocate. Even though Jesus would physically remain in heaven after His ascension, the Spirit would come and dwell within and among the disciples, and by means of the Spirit God in Christ would abide and remain with the disciples if they persevered in His commandments.
Judas – not Iscariot, the other Judas – then asked Jesus an understandable follow-up question: how would Jesus reveal Himself to the disciples but not the world (John 14:22)? Jesus did not seem flustered by this question, but His response may not have been what anyone was expecting: He reaffirmed how those who love Jesus will obey His word, the Father will love them, and the Father and Son will “take up residence” with them, but those who do not love Jesus will not obey His words, which really belong to the Father (John 14:23-24).
The word for “residence” in John 14:23 is Greek mone, the same word as used for “dwelling places” in John 14:2, and the only times the word is used in the Greek New Testament. This association confirms how Jesus has not been speaking of spatial matters, but relational. Jesus suffered and died so we might be forgiven of our sins and reconciled to God. Jesus was raised from the dead and ascended to the Father to be glorified and honored with all authority and power in His Kingdom. God would then send the promised Holy Spirit to dwell in and among the disciples and all those who would believe in Jesus and obey Him through their proclamation. By means of the Spirit, God would dwell in and among His people in Christ.
The Greeks had a word to describe mutual interpenetration without loss of distinctive identity: perichoresis. God maintains perichoretic relational unity within Himself: such is how He can be the One in Three, and Three in One, so perfectly One we speak of God as a singularity, yet manifest in three Persons (cf. John 17:20-23, etc.). Thus Jesus has spoken of how the Father is “in” Him and He is “in” the Father in John 14:20; and through what He has accomplished and by means of His Spirit, God in Christ would maintain perichoretic relational unity with us as believers in Him.
Such is why Jesus again re-assured the disciples: He had taught them all of these things while with them, but the Advocate would come and teach them all things and remind them of all the things Jesus had taught them (John 14:25-26). He would leave them with a peace which was unlike peace in the world, and so they should not lose heart (John 14:27). They really should be glad Jesus was going to be with the Father, for the Father was greater than He (John 14:28). Jesus had thus spoken in advance so they might believe when it would take place (John 14:29). Before long the “ruler of this world,” most likely Satan, would be coming; he really had no power over Jesus, since Jesus was doing what the Father had commanded Him (John 14:30-31).
While much of what Jesus said to the eleven disciples that night would have direct applications to believers afterward, John 14:26 was a promise more specifically to the eleven from which we benefit as a result. None of us were alive to see and hear Jesus; therefore, the Spirit cannot bring to our remembrance what Jesus taught us as He could, and did, for the eleven disciples. Yet the promise can assure us what we hear from the apostolic testimony remains accurate and faithful: on their own, people are liable to forget a lot of what they have been taught, but we can be assured the Spirit brought to the remembrance of the Apostles what Jesus had taught them, and therefore their testimony which we have received in Scripture remains faithful.
Jesus told His disciples to get up and go from where they were in John 14:31. In John 18:1, John the Evangelist suggested Jesus went out across the Kidron after He had spoken all of those things. Perhaps Jesus continued speaking while they made preparation to walk; perhaps the discourse continued while they walked until they reached the Kidron. Regardless, John 14:31 represents only a mild disruption, for Jesus would continue according to the same themes in John 15:1 and following.
Jesus intended to comfort and re-assure His eleven disciples in John 14:1-31, and as those who believe in their witness, we can draw great comfort and assurance from His message as well. Jesus suffered, died, was raised again in power, ascended to the Father, was made Lord and Christ and given an eternal Kingdom, and now reigns from heaven. Yet Jesus has not abandoned us as orphans: He has reconciled us to God so we might share in His life and truth forever. He has given us of His Spirit so we might share in relational unity with God as God shares in relational unity within Himself. Yet we can only share in such hope and promise if we abide in Jesus as the Way and love Him and do His commandments. May we find eternal life in the house of God by means of Jesus, take comfort in the Advocate, and share in God’s relational unity now and forevermore in Christ through the Spirit!
Ethan R. Longhenry
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