(i) ‘Let not your hearts be troubled’—discourse A (John 13:31–14:31)

c.    The farewell discourses (13:31–16:33)

(i)  ‘Let not your hearts be troubled’—discourse A (13:31–14:31)
(ii)  ‘So I send you’—discourse B (15:1–16:33)
    The departure of Judas permits Jesus’ final discourses. Within this block of teaching a break of some sort is indicated at the end of chapter 14, Come now let us leave (14:31). The material of chapters 15–16 would then perhaps have been shared during the progress through the city to the Garden of Gethsemane. More plausibly, the injunction to let us leave was not immediately acted upon until the teaching was completed and Jesus had offered his prayer (17). This latter view would accord with 18:1: ‘Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley.’ Either way we should recognize a break at the end of 14 which is confirmed by the content, and so divide the material into two distinguishable parts.

[John, Page 205]

    A more general question concerns the essential focus of these chapters. What does Jesus have in view in his instruction of his disciples here? We have already indicated the emergence at this point of what could be referred to as a minor motif in the earlier music, the mission of the disciples. While it is stated only in a preliminary way at 13:20, and will not emerge fully until the second discourse in chapters 15–16, it is arguably the underlying theme throughout. Jesus is preparing the disciples for their post-Easter work. If this perspective is correct, then these discourses have an urgent relevance to a church facing the enormous challenge of world evangelization at a time of exploding population and diminishing resources. Viewing the discourses in this way also, one hopes, removes them from the rather esoteric and enclosed atmosphere in which they have been traditionally set, and allows us to bring them out into the marketplace where they and this whole gospel surely belong.

(i)    ‘Let not your hearts be troubled’—discourse A (13:31–14:31)

[A New Commandment]
    [31] When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. [32] If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. [33] Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’ [34] 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. [35] By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
[Jesus Foretells Peter's Denial]
    [36] Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus answered him, “Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward.” [37] Peter said to him, “Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” [38] Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.
[I Am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life]
    [14:1] “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. [2] In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? [3] And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. [4] And you know the way to where I am going.” [5] Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” [6] Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. [7] If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
    [8] Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” [9] Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? [10] Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. [11] Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.
    [12] “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. [13] Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. [14] If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.
[Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit]
    [15] “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. [16] And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, [17] even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
    [18] “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. [19] Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. [20] In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. [21] Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” [22] Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” [23] Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. [24] Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me.
    [25] “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. [26] But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. [27] Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. [28] You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. [29] And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe. [30] I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, [31] but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.
(John 13:31-14:31 ESV)

    1.  The absence of Jesus (13:31–38).

[A New Commandment]
    [31] When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. [32] If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. [33] Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’ [34] 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. [35] By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
[Jesus Foretells Peter's Denial]
    [36] Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus answered him, “Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward.” [37] Peter said to him, “Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” [38] Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.

Jesus’ first words, Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him (31), serve as a fitting title for the entire discourses, and indeed for the remainder of the gospel. That revealing of his glory has a clear focus, however—the hour of suffering. Son of Man echoes Daniel 7:13, but it is to be linked with the Servant who suffers.28 Now (31) implies that with Judas’ departure the trap is sprung; the sequence of the arrest, trial and crucifixion is already set in motion, a succession in relation to which Jesus must be submissive. But this very submission is the glorifying of the Father through him, and the completing of his work (17:4). ‘For the glory of God is not the self-glorification of a supreme monad; it is the glory of perfect love forever poured out and forever received within the being of the triune God. It is the glory of Sonship.’29
    The glory of the Son, and the Father through the Son, is so intimately one reality that it can be expressed the other way round, God will glorify the Son in himself (32). All this will happen ‘immediately’ in the events of the following hours. Possibly the ‘immediately’ can be interpreted in the sense of ‘at one moment’, i.e. at the same time. The glorification of the Son and the Father will be one indivisible act. The title of the Father here is ‘God’, but carries no implication of any subordination of being as far as [John, Page 206] Jesus is concerned. He is the one whose glorification is the glorification of God.
    Jesus’ endearing my children, or ‘my dear (little) children’,30 is appropriate to the Passover meal setting, which was celebrated according to the law, en famille. Jesus’ feelings of endearment towards the disciples are made more tangible as he recognizes that I will be with you only a little longer (33) and that they cannot, for the present, follow him. In this regard their case has some parallels to the Jews to whom Jesus had spoken in similar terms some months before (cf. 7:33–34; 8:21). It is in this context that Jesus shares the love commandment, A new commandment I give to you: Love one another, and adds the promise, All men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another (34–35).
    Here Jesus expresses the meaning of love. For a concept in such wide everyday use love is surprisingly poorly defined. In common usage the emotional aspect, ‘feelings of love’, is often paramount. Jesus’ definition focuses rather on loving action. Love is defined by what he has been and would soon be to his disciples. 13:1 links the exposition of love ‘to the full extent’ to the foot-washing, which is an acted parable of his washing away of sin through his sacrifice. Love is defined by the cross. It is love of that calibre which his disciples are called upon to express towards each other.
    This commandment is new, not because it is intrinsically different from the law of love of the Old Testament.31 Nor is it new because of Jesus’ redefining of ‘neighbour’ (Lk. 10:29–37), though that is certainly significant. The ‘newness’ lies rather in its being the law of the ‘new covenant’ which Jesus is to establish through his death, and which he has so recently proclaimed during the supper they have shared.32 The new covenant brings with it the new life in the Holy Spirit which will as never before enable the fulfilling of the law.33 It is ‘new’ also in the sheer depth and demand of the summons to love which Jesus issues. In the light of the cross all other descriptions and definitions of love pale into insignificance. Here indeed is love ‘so amazing, so divine’ (Isaac Watts). Yet according to Jesus this is the norm for Christian community.
    We note also the evangelistic power of love. A loving community, says Jesus, is the visible authentication of the gospel. Love is the ‘final apologetic’ (Francis Schaeffer). Jesus places no limit on this demonstration; all will recognize and know it. Unlike other associations [John, Page 207] which are based upon common interest or outlook, the church is to be marked by an inclusiveness which echoes the universal appeal of Jesus. It is designated as a community which welcomes all people, irrespective of background, age, gender, colour, moral history, social status, influence, intelligence, religious background or the lack of it. To love like Jesus is to love inclusively, indiscriminately and universally. When that kind of love flows within a congregation the world will take note that ‘they have been with Jesus’. Nor need this standard daunt us. Tertullian reported in the late second century the comment of the pagans in his day: ‘Behold, how these Christians love each other! How ready they are to die for each other!’ Their mutual love was the magnet which drew the pagan multitudes to Christ. It has the potential to do so still.
    Finally, there is here the promise of love. The immediate setting of the command is important; Jesus is about to leave the disciples. Here is the consolation for a community soon to be bereft of the tangible presence of its Lord—loving each other, in reflection of his love for them. ‘No-one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us’ (1 Jn. 4:12). In the caring and costly service of ‘the brothers and sisters’, we shall meet with Jesus himself (Mt. 25:31–45). Mother Teresa’s prayer has direct application within every Christian community. ‘Dearest Lord, may I see you today and every day in the person of your sick, and, whilst nursing them, minister unto you. Though you hide yourself behind the unattractive disguise of the irritable, the exacting, the unreasonable, may I still recognize you and say, “Jesus, my patient, how sweet it is to serve you.” ’34
    Peter, however, has no ears for Jesus’ sublime instruction. He is agitated by the talk of Jesus’ departure (36). Jesus assures him that while he cannot follow immediately, he will later; a reference to his future martyrdom (21:18–19). Peter, vociferously loyal as ever, expresses his willingness to die for Jesus (37). Like the others around him, however, he has no appreciation of the dark and terrible forces abroad that night in Jerusalem. Before the cock crows (38), these forces will search him and his colleagues to the very core and leave Peter, the confident, self-reliant leader, as a broken, Christ-denying failure. Even then the sheep will not be snatched from the shepherd’s grasp (10:28).
    It is important before concluding this section to note the parallels, as well as the contrast, between Judas and Peter. Both had [John, Page 208] associated with Jesus across the previous years. Both had seen his signs and heard his truth. To both he gave his love and extended his appeal. In the final hours of Jesus’ mission both abysmally failed him, and abandoned him in the hour of his greatest need. Both grieved Jesus’ heart and added to his pain. The failure of both was spectacularly public. Both are known today around the world for the failures they perpetrated. One, however, was lost and the other saved. One repented, sought Christ’s mercy, and went to heaven. One, overwhelmed with remorse, turned upon himself, took his own life, and went unforgiven to hell.
    The seeds of the failure of both Peter and Judas lie embedded in each of our hearts. We know what it is both to deny Jesus and to betray him. We can only cast ourselves daily on his limitless mercy, knowing that he will not cast away even one of all who come to him, and that not one will be lost of all that the Father has given him (6:37, 39).

because we are all
betrayers, taking
silver and eating
body and blood and asking
(guilty) is it I and hearing
him say yes
it would be simple for us all
to rush out
and hang ourselves

but if we find grace
to cry and wait
after the voice of morning
has crowed in our ears
clearly enough
to break our hearts
he will be there
to ask us each again
do you love me.35

    2.  The blessings of his ‘absence’ (14:1–31).

    [14:1] “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. [2] In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? [3] And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. [4] And you know the way to where I am going.” [5] Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” [6] Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. [7] If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
    [8] Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” [9] Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? [10] Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. [11] Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.
    [12] “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. [13] Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. [14] If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.
[Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit]
    [15] “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. [16] And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, [17] even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
    [18] “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. [19] Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. [20] In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. [21] Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” [22] Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” [23] Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. [24] Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me.
    [25] “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. [26] But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. [27] Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. [28] You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. [29] And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe. [30] I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, [31] but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.

While there are obvious points of transition in this chapter (from verse 4 to 5; and 14 to 15) the material hangs together as a unified discourse around a specific theme. The theme is stated in the opening words, Do not let your hearts be troubled (1). We gather the exposition under two [John, Page 209] heads: first, why the disciples (and we) become ‘troubled’; and secondly, what brings peace to troubled hearts (27).
    The disciples are experiencing perceptible anxiety. The reasons for it are to hand.36 The most obvious is that Jesus has informed them he is about to leave them (13:33). Their whole world had been so wrapped up with Jesus over the last few years that the prospect of his departure must have been devastating. The image he uses for them is ‘orphans’ (18). Emotionally they can only contemplate the loss of Jesus as like a child’s loss of its parents. He had asked them to invest their whole future in following him and they had made the commitment he demanded. If they thought of the future at all during these years it was in terms of sharing the glory of his coming reign (cf. Mt. 20:20–24). A future without Jesus comes as a shattering prospect, despite his repeated attempts to prepare them for such an eventuality. A further cause of anxiety was Jesus’ foretelling Peter’s denial (13:38). It is not difficult to imagine the others arguing that if Peter was not going to stand the coming test, what hope had they? In addition to these immediate threats were the indicators that they, the disciples, had some great task to fulfil once Jesus was gone. True, with Jesus around they had undertaken a mission tour with some success (Mk. 6:7–13), but such activity without Jesus to direct them was a very different prospect. It was all deeply troubling.
    ‘Troubled hearts’ expresses the mind-state of multitudes in the modern world. Paradoxically many of these troubled folk live within western society, which is in most respects sheltered from the starker deprivations, such as the chronic lack of food, shelter and health care which plague the millions in the third world. Plenty, however, does not equal peace of mind. Even the followers of Jesus are frequently plagued with anxiety.
    Jesus addresses these ‘troubled hearts’ by urging them, first of all, to have faith (1). The answer to trouble is trust. The NIV, following earlier translations, uses trust here, which is defensible, though the Greek word is the basic verb for ‘believing’ (pistueoœ). While the manuscripts indicate some support for a reading such as ‘You already believe in God, now have the same faith in me’, a double imperative is probably correct: ‘Have faith in God; have faith in me.’ On any reading this reflects a high Christology. Jesus presents himself unambiguously as the object of faith. ‘For John there is only one faith and that is in Jesus and God at the same time.’37 Faith needs adequate grounding, however, if it is to experience [John, Page 210] serenity and to overcome the ‘troubled hearts’ of the disciples. The effectiveness and strength of faith are bound up with the greatness and dependability of the God in whom the faith reposes. ‘ “Have faith in God” means “hold God’s faithfulness” ’ (Hudson Taylor).
    Jesus accordingly relates the grounds for the disciples’ faith by showing them, in a series of thrilling paragraphs, that his leaving them is not the unmitigated disaster they imagine. On the contrary, all manner of remarkable blessings will flow from it. Jesus will even be able to assert in conclusion that his going away is something they can be glad about (28; cf. 16:7, ‘It is for your good that I am going away’).
    Jesus’ departure will have three major benefits for the disciples.
    1.  His going away will secure their future destiny (2–6). Jesus will continue in the fullness of his life, but in a different place. He is returning to life, he tells them, in my Father’s house (2). His going there will be by a specific route, through death and resurrection (10:17–18; 12:31–32). Thus his going to the Father is an act of power which will win eternal life for all who believe in him.38 In the terms of his ‘homely’ (literally) metaphor, his going will prepare rooms for the disciples in God’s eternal home, the transcendent dwelling of God depicted in Hebrews 12:22 as ‘the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God’ (cf. Rev. 21–22).39
    Jesus appeals to their knowledge of him. If there were no glorious dwelling for the children of God beyond the limits of this earthly life, Jesus, as the true Son who has come from the Father’s bosom, would certainly have warned them. The hope of life beyond the grave is thereby rooted in the most certain of realities, the veracity and trustworthiness of Jesus Christ. Jesus is going away to make that ready. By implication, if they resist his departure the ‘making ready’ will not take place. The price of their refusal to be ‘made orphans’ now through the departure of Jesus is finding themselves homeless orphans on the other side of death. Besides which, Jesus will not forget them in his departing. Having prepared their rooms, he will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am (3). Scholars have disputed what this ‘coming back’ refers to, whether his appearances after the resurrection, or the gift of the outpoured Spirit at Pentecost, or his repeated ‘coming’ [John, Page 211] through the sacraments or other moments when faith’s realities are especially vivid. The most obvious meaning is arguably the correct one. Jesus is referring to his glorious appearing at the end of the age, his ‘coming back’ at his parousia.
    John’s stress on the second coming of Christ is more muted than that of the other evangelists, who record many of Jesus’ parables about the end, and also give the details of his great eschatological discourse (cf. Mk. 13:1–37; etc.). Jesus’ glorious appearing is not ignored by John, however, as this verse makes clear (cf. also 5:25f., 28f.; 21:22f.). Though the centuries have stretched since this promise was made, its fulfilment is certain. The Lord is coming to take his people home to share his glory (17:24). History is not at the mercy of the whims or passions of politicians or tyrants. The reins are firmly in the hands of the Lord of history, and ‘he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice’ (Acts 17:31). That day was entered in the calendar of God when the world was made. It is drawing daily nearer.
    It is noteworthy that Jesus gives no details concerning that future state. It is simply being where he is. That, however, is sufficient; ‘Where Jesus is, ‘tis heaven there.’ This great blessing, the assurance of eternal life with Jesus in his heavenly home, is possible only because Jesus goes away from us through his cross, resurrection and ascension. If part of the reason for our ‘troubled hearts’ is the loss of dear ones through death, or our disillusionment with this present world, we are called to renew our trust in him and rediscover his gift of peace, in the confidence that he is coming as he promised and that he has prepared a place for all who love him, in the glory that will surely be.
    The way to this future life is known, Jesus asserts (4). But Thomas, nothing if not honest, expresses his ignorance not just of the way but of the destination itself. Clearly, what Jesus has been speaking about has passed Thomas by. While we cannot be glad for the dullness of the disciples (would we have done better?), we can be thankful that their questions not infrequently draw out an important response from Jesus, albeit none quite as memorable as this one: I am the way and the truth and the life (6).
    The stress falls on the way, since that is the issue in question. The way to heaven is Jesus himself. Faith in him shatters the barrier of sin and death, and blasts open the road to the eternal life of the kingdom of God. It is ‘the road that leads to life’ (Mt. 7:14).
    He is also the truth40 and the life.41 The reality and truth of God are incarnated in Jesus Christ, who embodies the indestructible life of the ever-living God. This audacious claim carries a major [John, Page 212] corollary, no-one comes to the Father except through me (6). The exclusivism of this statement must not be reduced. Peter makes exactly the same claim in Acts 4:12. ‘Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.’ At a time when religious pluralism and syncretism are widespread, such claims are never going to be popular. Nothing less, however, is the implication of Jesus’ incarnation. If, in Jesus, God has come among us in person to reconcile his rebellious lost world, it follows necessarily that through him, and him alone, is the way to God. The exclusiveness of Christ’s salvation is simply the uniqueness of his divine person.
    To say that Jesus is the only way to God does not imply that every idea in non-Christian religion is devoid of value. Non-Christians may find that their conscience approves them, in terms of fulfilling this or that element of the law of God engraved upon their hearts, as Paul recognizes in Romans 2:14. In the same way non-Christians as religious seekers may at one point or another express a response which reflects a valid truth. Such factors, however, do not rescind the general biblical verdict that the non-Christian conscience also universally accuses, and so invariably needs Christ’s atonement and forgiveness (Rom. 3:23), or that non-Christian religion is idolatrous at its heart and cannot offer salvation. Jesus alone is the way to God, but he is the way for all, and so whatever the religious background of an individual, or lack of religion, Jesus in his grace welcomes every one of them to the Father if they will come through him. For them too he is ready to prepare a place in the Father’s house.
    2.  The second benefit for his disciples of Jesus’ going away is that it will complete his revelation of the Father (7–11). He again calls for faith to still the troubled hearts of the disciples, a faith rooted in the revelation of the Father which he has shared with them. The identity of Jesus with the Father, and hence the validity of the revelation of the Father through him, will be significantly enhanced from now on (7). Jesus is once again expressing his need to ‘go away’. Only thus can the world learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded (31). The revelation through Jesus is made possible by Jesus’ total submission to the Father, and his unswerving obedience to his commands. That obedience will be made complete in his ‘obedience unto death’. Thus it is the death of Jesus which will complete his revelation of the Father, and without it the world would not be able to say that it has truly known and seen God (7). Furthermore, the act of final obedience is also simultaneously an act of infinite love and holiness as Christ, the Sent One of the Father, bears the sins of his creatures. So, in a second sense, the revelation of the Father is completed in [John, Page 213] Jesus’ ‘going away’, since through it alone the wonder of the love of God, and the terror of the holiness of God, are made truly and fully known.
    Philip this time expresses the groping faith of the disciples. If they could only truly know and see the Father, that would be all they need (8). His plea articulates the longing of the heart of humanity across all the ages to see and to know the living God. Moses had uttered it centuries before when he communed with God in the tent of meeting, ‘Show me your glory’ (Ex. 33:18). How discouraging for Jesus, however, to be faced in these final moments of his instruction with this particular request, and with its obvious ignorance of his true relationship to the Father! Don’t you know ME (my emphasis), Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time?… Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? (9–10). This statement is ‘a linguistic way of describing the complete unity between Jesus and the Father’.42 It parallels ‘I and the Father are one’ (10:30), hence anyone who has seen me has seen the Father (9). The words and works of Jesus are the words and works of the Father in him. No other explanation of them is possible (10–11).
    Here Jesus touches another great cause of ‘troubled hearts’, not merely among these first disciples, but among his followers over the ages. Life at times does not appear to make discernible sense; the vastness of the universe oppresses us, the seemingly impersonal cycle of nature evidences no master plan, and the story of humanity rolls on generation after generation with little apparent meaning at the heart of it all. In our personal lives unexpected happenings break in unbidden, sometimes cruelly, and we find ourselves lisping the verdict of Macbeth, ‘Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’ In such moods we cry out from our ‘troubled hearts’ for some word from beyond to reassure us that there is a meaning; that a heart of love still beats behind the cold indifference and arbitrariness of things.
    That word is spoken to us here. In Jesus and his coming, in his death and his rising, God speaks his Word of peace. There is meaning. Life can make sense, and purpose can be reborn for us amid the years. In this man, and his life of lowly service unto death, God is made known, a God in whom we can truly believe and find peace. The answer to the anxiety of troubled hearts is assured knowledge, and assured knowledge comes through Jesus.

[John, Page 214]

Him will I find, though when in vain
I search the feast and mart,
The fading flowers of liberty,
The painted masks of art,

I only find him at the last
On one old hill where nod
Golgotha’s ghastly trinity—
Three persons and one God.
G. K. Chesterton

    3.  A third benefit for Jesus’ disciples is that his going away will equip them for living for him, and serving his mission in the world (12–26). At this point Jesus makes the first of his references to the Holy Spirit (15–17; 25–26).
    Before commenting on the title he uses, we first underline the context. Jesus is about to depart to the Father by way of exaltation in death and resurrection. This act of exaltation will secure the ministry of the Holy Spirit (16:7, ‘Unless I go away, the Counsellor will not come to you’, cf. 7:37–39). The Spirit (as Jesus will later teach them, 20:22) is nothing less than the life-breath of the exalted Jesus, who makes the victory of Jesus available for the people of God in history. The title Jesus uses is in Greek, parakleœtos, which (with the sole exception of 1 Jn. 2:1) occurs in its nominal form only in these chapters of John. Literally, a ‘paraklete’ is ‘one called alongside (to help)’. It has a legal context outside the New Testament, and is used in that sense in 1 John 2:1. The meaning in these farewell discourses is arguably wider, as in the verbal form of parakleœtos which occurs regularly throughout the New Testament, and is variously translated ‘exhort’, ‘comfort’, ‘entreat’ and ‘encourage’.
    The translators and commentators offer a range of equivalents including ‘counsellor’ (NIV), ‘helper’ (GNB), ‘comforter’ (AV) and ‘advocate’ (NEB). Perhaps the most important consideration is that expressed in verse 16:… give you ANOTHER (my emphasis) Counsellor. The Spirit will fulfil a role parallel to the role Jesus had fulfilled to this point; he is ‘another Christ’ (alter Christus: Luther). Such is the gift of the departed Jesus.
    Like the other answers to ‘troubled hearts’, this blessing also is utterly dependent on the ‘going away of Jesus’. This one gift encloses at least six more particular gifts which are mentioned in these verses.
    First, the Spirit imparts power for the service of Jesus (12–14). The Spirit’s enabling presence is put more specifically in a remarkable promise in verse 12: greater things than these you will do [John, Page 215] because I am going to the Father. Since Jesus’ things included spectacular healing and nature miracles, even the raising of the dead, we find ourselves struggling to interpret this saying. As a matter of historical fact the apostles were to perform nothing more spectacular in their ministries than Jesus had done in his, and so greater things obviously cannot mean ‘more spectacular miracles’. As D. A. Carson argues, the key probably lies in the link to the phrase because I am going to the Father, and the other reference to greater things in 5:20. This refers to the greater things which the Father will show the Son in the future, specifically judgment and resurrection (cf. 5:17, 24–26). The difference between Jesus and his disciples lies in the event which marks the boundary between the old and new aeons, the Easter triumph of Jesus. Because of that, the disciples will serve in the new time of the kingdom’s presence.
    This new thing is consequent upon the dawning of the kingdom, the era of salvation history in which the last judgment and the final resurrection are anticipated. It is the universal preaching of the gospel.43 The ‘greater works’ therefore are the works of the greater mission in ‘Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth’. “ ‘Greater works” means more conversions. There is no greater work possible than the conversion of a soul.’44 Such an interpretation is perfectly in keeping with the ‘mission’ perspective, which as we have already shown is the key to interpret this whole ‘last discourses’ section of the gospel. This interpretation does not imply that the church ought not to anticipate tangible demonstrations of the presence of the risen Lord in its midst. But it does not encourage unhealthy sensationalism, or unworthy arrogance on the part of the disciples. In the final analysis, the one who works in the church is its Head and Lord, and hence the powers of the kingdom are available only through believing prayer in Jesus’ name (13–14). The outcome then will be the glory of the Father through the Son (13).
    Secondly, another blessing of Jesus’ gift is that the Spirit will unite the disciples to the risen Jesus in a new intimacy of communion (17–21). Here is Jesus’ deepest reassurance to hearts troubled by his departure—he will not in fact leave them! Jesus himself will come to them through the Holy Spirit in an experience which a world confined within naturalistic categories can neither discern nor measure (17). They will not be bereft orphans: I will come to you … you are in me, and I am in you (18, 20).

[John, Page 216]

    Jesus speaks here of an intimacy which is without precedent or parallel. Even ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’, leaning on his breast at the supper, could not make such a claim. The key to it is expressed in these terms, because I live, you also will live (19). Thus ‘Jesus comes at Easter to be reunited with his disciples and to lift to a new plane his relationship with them, for which that in the ministry could be only a preparation.’45
    A third gift is that the Spirit will also unite the disciples with the Father, who will make his home with them (23). The gulf separating Creator from creature, the Holy One from sinners, will be bridged. The fruit of the going away of Jesus will be the reconciling of those who believe with the living God, producing a life which fulfils the ancient divine purpose, ‘I will dwell among [them] and be their God.’46 Since the one whom Jesus sends is the indwelling Spirit (17), what Jesus is asserting is nothing less than that our poor and needy hearts will become the residence of the triune God, as all three persons of the Godhead make a home within us. It is difficult to do any justice in words to so immense a vision, or so rich a gifting.
    A fourth blessing is that the Spirit will support them in their loving obedience to the teaching of Jesus (21–24). The new life of communion with the risen Lord will be expressed under moral conditions. Love for Christ implies obedience to him (23). Conversely, obedience is the evidence of love (15, 21). Thus the promise of the prophets concerning the new covenant is fulfilled. It is fulfilled as ‘the Law’ written on the heart is fulfilled through the indwelling Spirit.
    We should note further that this loving response on the part of the disciples (15, 21, 23) is made possible because Jesus has made God known to them (9, 10). Here lies the answer to the bleak conclusion of Wittgenstein: ‘You cannot love God, for you do not know him.’ In Jesus the hidden God is made known, and we love him.
    A fifth blessing is that the Spirit will teach them (26). He is the Spirit of truth (17). His truth is inward and spiritual, not received or understood by the world (17). He will teach all things, and remind you of everything I have said to you (26). This function was to become especially critical for succeeding generations of Christians. Paul testified to a parallel divine inspiration in 1 Corinthians 2:6f. The imparting to these first chosen witnesses of a special insight and recollection concerning the words and works of Jesus ensured their preservation for the church in every generation. The [John, Page 217] fruit of that ministry is the New Testament. ‘The Spirit’s ministry in this respect was not to bring qualitatively new revelation, but to complete, to fill out, the revelation brought by Jesus himself.’47
    Sixthly, the Spirit will impart the gift of Jesus’ own peace (27). While the link to the Spirit is not explicit, the proximity of the reference to the Spirit and the gift of peace makes it a natural linkage, and the later New Testament does not lack explicit support for it (Rom. 14:17; Gal. 5:22). Peace is a category rich in meaning (cf. comment on 20:19). It is a summing up (Hebrew, shalom) of the blessings of the messianic age. Jesus was to use it in their hearing again as he met them after the resurrection (20:19, 21). The peace he imparts to them as the fruit of his Spirit is a unique and supernatural reality, not as that of the world (27).
    Few things are more sought after than peace. For some it amounts to no more than a longed-for release from the relentless pressures of business or home. In the first century the pax Romana was widely heralded, but it was a peace won and maintained by the brutal force of the sword. In that sense it typified the peace that the world gives. The human spirit, however, reaches beyond these lesser expressions for an inner tranquillity of spirit, not abstracted from the world of responsibility and relationships, but nourished and expressed in the midst of it. Such is the peace Jesus offers: MY (my emphasis) peace I give you, in the very face of unspeakable suffering. It is a peace born from a living personal relationship with Jesus, and deepened through a growing surrender of life to his gracious rule. This the Holy Spirit makes available to the troubled hearts of the disciples, and to ours.
    All of these remarkable gifts depend on the departure of Jesus. In the light of them we are summoned, like the disciples in the upper room, to trust in Jesus (1), to banish our anxiety and to face the challenge of God’s call to us.
    Before concluding the discourse Jesus has one further reason to offer the disciples why they should not be troubled. In the previous teaching he has concentrated wholly on the blessings which his going away will procure for them. In a sense he has appealed to their own self-interest. In a final comment he invites them to rise above what his departure is going to mean for them, to consider what it will mean for him. ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I (28). This can of course simply mean that Jesus’ presence with the Father is a further benefit to them because he will mediate in a more intimate way the Father’s sovereign power. But it may also imply, as we believe, that their [John, Page 218] love for Jesus should allow them to be happy for him that he is going away, since that journey, albeit through the horrors of the cross, will take him again to the intimacy of the Father’s bosom, and to the ‘glory I had with you before the world began’ (17:5). Let the disciples stop being preoccupied with their own loss, and in their love for Jesus think also of him and his coming joy (Heb. 12:2).
    On the Father is greater than I, Barrett comments helpfully, ‘The Father is the fons divinitatis in which the being of the Son has its source; the Father is God sending and commanding, the Son is God sent and obedient. John’s thought here is focussed on the humiliation of the Son in his earthly life, a humiliation which now, in his death, reached both its climax and its end.’48
    So Jesus concludes his first upper-room message. In the light of all that Jesus’ ‘going away’ will accomplish they can trust him. It is ‘for your good’. His time with them is almost finished. Satan is coming for his moment of apparent victory (30). He has no claim upon Jesus, however, and Jesus does not fear him. His grasp upon Jesus therefore will be only the grasp which is permitted for the world’s redemption, and which the Father commands for his love’s revealing. Even in the fire of hell he will be seen to be the Lord whose love for his own is matched only by his love for the Father.