Sunday 06:26:11

John 14:15-24 v. 15 – Love for Jesus results in obedience. Not to be confused with our obedience results in God loving us. v. 16 – The counselor – paraklete – one who stands beside as in a legal proceeding. He is given to us as a gift, just like Jesus was a gift to us. He will be with us forever. Jesus is departing, but the disciples can be comforted that they will not be abandoned. v. 17 – He is the Spirit of truth – just as Jesus is the truth (v. 6). “You know him” seems strange, since Jesus has yet to request the Spirit (v. 16; 16:7) and the disciples have not yet received the Spirit. Jesus says this Paraclete will be in you. He already remains among them (v. 17; in the NIV “lives with you”). The Spirit is not absent before the glorification. Indeed, he is present "without limit" in Jesus (3:34) and must be at work in the disciples in order for them to have the faith and love that Jesus mentions (vv. 12, 15). But the Paraclete has not yet been sent to the disciples and received by them in the new way Jesus is opening up. v. 18 – Only Jesus visible presence would be gone from them, but He would remain with them. v. 19 – The phrase before long, comes from the Old Testament (Ps 37:10; 36:10; Is 10:25; 26:20; 29:17; Jer 51:33; 28:33; Hos 1:4; Hag 2:6), where it is used "to express optimistically the shortness of time before God's salvation would come". “In a little while” – it really is only a matter of a few of days, until the salvation that is the beginning of the fulfillment of all the hopes will come. This salvation is a matter of life: Because I live, you also will live (v. 19). They will live because they will be united to him by the Spirit and thus come to share in the life of him who is resurrection and life. The disciples would see Jesus – probably refers to his resurrection appearance. v. 20 - The day referred to is the day of resurrection that inaugurates on earth new form of life, eternal life. The phrase on that day, like the phrase before long, echoes Old Testament hopes, for it is used 111 times in the Prophets to refer to the day of God's great acts of judgment and salvation. Here the salvation is expressed in terms of knowledge and union. The intimacy that exists between the Father and the Son has been the subject of Jesus' revelation. Jesus has called upon the disciples to accept this truth about him in faith (vv. 10-11), and now he promises that after the resurrection the disciples will come to realize it (gnosesthe), they will know it. Like faith, this knowledge is not just an intellectual grasping of a truth. It comes from a participation in the divine reality itself, for it is said they will share in that relationship because they will be in the Son and he in them. Thus, what was just said of the Paraclete (v. 17) is now said of the Son. The Son and the Paraclete will both indwell the disciples, key themes that will be developed in the rest of the farewell discourse. This indwelling is what will enable them to accomplish the task of doing "greater things" (v. 12). What has been true of Jesus will now be true of them—not that they will become unique sons and daughters of God as Jesus is the "One and Only" (1:14, 18), but rather that they, continuing as creatures, will share in the divine life by being taken up into the Son, just as Jesus took up into himself humanity at his incarnation. v. 21 - This union is not simply a matter of shared ideas or feelings but of. The love is reciprocal: He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him (v. 21). This verse does not deny the love God has for all shared life his creatures, but rather speaks of the fulfillment of that love in a qualitatively new way for those who are in the Son. Believers are those who "have entered into the same reciprocity of love that unites the Father and the Son" Jesus says that he himself will love such a disciple and will show himself to him or her (v. 21). Thus, Jesus himself will remain in personal contact with his disciples. He may be departing, but he will remain in relationship with them although the relationship will exist in a new form v. 23 - If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching (v. 23; or "keep my word," ton logon mou teresei). Jesus is referring not to simply holding onto his teaching, but to actually acting in accordance with it, as he himself has responded to the Father (v. 31). His teaching is not just interesting thoughts about God and the world. Rather, he has revealed God and opened the way to share God's own life. To obey his teaching is to adopt God's pattern of life. But the condition for such obedience is love for Jesus. The commands of Jesus are not a set of rules like a traffic code; they are a description of a pattern of life that reflects God's own life trans-posed into human circumstances. Love for Jesus involves both an attachment to him and a oneness with him and his interests, which naturally leads one to obey him and walk as he walked (1 Jn 2:6). One obeys what one loves. Indeed, our patterns of obedience reveal what we really love. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him (v. 23). Instead of describing a spectacular theophany, Jesus speaks of dwelling with his disciples. The word for home (mone) is the same used earlier of the "rooms" in the Father's house (v. 2). The future intimacy in heaven will begin already here on earth. The great prophetic hope of a time when God would dwell with his people (Ezek 37:26-27; Zech 2:10) has come to pass in the incarnation and the dwelling Jesus here mentions.