John 14

John 14:1

“Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.

Believe in God, believe also in Me. The Jews did the former; Christians do both.

There are different kinds of faith but only one kind that saves. The chief priests and elders believed in God but their faith was not accompanied by the work of believing in the One he sent (see entry for Jas. 2:18). Theirs was a dead and useless faith.

John 14:6

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.

(a) The Father; see entry for John 4:21.

(b) The life. Two kinds of life are described in the Bible; the psuche– or soul life we inherited from Adam and the zoe– or spirit life that comes from God (John 5:26). It’s the second kind of life that Jesus is describing here. See entry for New Life.

(c) But through Me. God reveals himself through prophecies, laws, and visions, but the clearest picture of God the Father comes through the Son. “No one has seen the Father, except the One who is from God” (John 6:46). “No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son reveals him” (Matt. 11:27). It is through Jesus alone that we encounter the true character of God.

John 14:9

Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

Show us the Father. The Father is exactly like the Son (Heb. 1:3). “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).

What is God like? He is like Jesus. If you have seen the Son, you have seen the Father. This similarity makes it easy for us to dismiss the silly caricatures of manmade religion. Since Jesus is not a semi-deaf sky-Santa, then neither is God. And since Jesus is not a terrifying punisher, neither is God. Your heavenly Father is exactly like Jesus.

(b) The Father; see entry for John 4:21

John 14:15

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.

(a) If you love Me. Our love for the Lord is a response to his great love for us (1 John 4:19).

(b) You will keep My commandments. When you know how much Jesus loves you, he is easy to trust and obey. His great love inspires us to trust him. This is the essence of faith. See also the entry for John 14:23.

John 14:16

“I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever;

(a) The Father; see entry for John 4:21.

(b) The Helper. Life is too big for any of us to handle, but the good news is that God is our very great Helper (Deu. 33:26). “The Spirit also helps our weakness” (Rom. 8:26).

Further reading: “Who’s your Helper?”

(c) He may be with you forever. The moment you said yes to Jesus, God stamped you with his seal of ownership and gave you his Spirit as a guarantee of your salvation (2 Cor. 1:22, Eph. 1:13). The Holy Spirit doesn’t come and go but he dwells or abides in you forever.

John 14:17

that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.

He abides with you. You are not a motel room for the Lord. You are the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19). You are his forever home (John 14:16, Rom. 8:9, Heb. 13:5).

John 14:18

“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

I will come to you. Jesus is referring to Pentecost and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, a.k.a., the Spirit of Christ (Acts 1:5, Rom. 8:9).

John 14:19

“After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also.

You will live also. In Adam, death reigned over us; in Christ, we reign in life (Rom. 5:17). In Christ, we can be free and whole and enjoy abundant and everlasting life.

John 14:20

“In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.

(a) My Father; see entry for John 4:21.

(b) You in Me, and I in you. You are one with the Lord. The best way to understand this is to picture the relationship of a vine and its branches (John 15:5). The branches are part of the vine and the life of the vine flows through the branches.

Intimacy is not something we ever need long for. (He is already with us.) We don’t have to beg God to rend the heavens and come down. (He already did.) And we never have to fear that he might abandon us as orphans. (He promised he wouldn’t.) The good news declares that now and forever more, you are in intimate union with the Lord (Eph. 2:13).

John 14:21

“He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.”

Loved by my Father. The God that Jesus revealed is a loving Father (John 10:17, 14:23, 15:9, 16:27, 17:26), who loves us as much as he loves his Son (see entry for John 17:23).

John 14:23

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 make Our abode with him.

(a) If anyone loves Me. No one can love Jesus unless they have first received the love of God. We love because he first loved us (1 John 4:19).

(b) He will keep My word. When you know how much Jesus loves you, he is easy to trust and obey (John 14:15). His great love for us inspires us to trust him.

In the new covenant, obedience follows trust, and we trust him because we know his love. However, someone with an old covenant mindset reverses the order: “If you wish to earn his love, you must keep his commandments.” Perversely, this mindset will have the very opposite effect as it will cause you to trust in yourself while alienating you from Christ (Gal. 5:4).

(c) My Father; see entry for John 4:21.

(d) Will love him. The God that Jesus revealed is a loving Father (John 10:17, 14:21, 15:9, 16:27, 17:23, 26).

(e) Make Our abode with him. Just as the Holy Spirit abides with us (John 14:17), so do the Father and the Son. “Surely I am with you always” (Matt. 28:20).

John 14:24

“He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.

(a) The Father; see entry for John 4:21.

(b) Who sent me. On numerous occasions, Jesus told his disciples that he was not from earth but had come or been sent from heaven. See entry for John 6:38.

John 14:26

“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 said to you.

(a) The Helper, the Holy Spirit; see entry for John 14:16.

(b) The Father; see entry for John 4:21.

John 14:30

“I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me;

(a) The ruler of this world; see entry for John 12:31.

(b) He has nothing in Me. Nothing means no hold, no claim, no power, and no ownership because Jesus was not from Adam’s enslaved line. Jesus was born outside the prison. Only a free man can ransom a slave.

See entry for Virgin Birth.

The Grace Commentary is a work in progress with new content added regularly. Sign up for occasional updates below. Got something to say? Please use the Feedback page. To report typos or broken links on this page, please use the comment form below.

Chapter Navigator

Book Navigator

Leave a Reply