John 14

Is there a bigger issue than death for any human being? Death came into the world through sin. To deal with death, one must first deal with sin. As the one with complete mastery over both sin and death, Jesus speaks with full confidence to His disciples as He prepares to take our sins on the cross. He is able to say, “Let not your hearts be troubled,” and we are able to know that this is something more than a self-help positive motivation lecture. Instead of giving in to worry, we are to trust. We trust in God. We can trust in Jesus Christ. He has a plan for us beyond death. He has a place in the current heavens that He refers to as His Father’s house. Is that the whole of heavenly realms, or just some part of it? So many questions… We do know that in God’s house there are many rooms, and that Jesus, now in the present heavens, is preparing a place for us. We don’t know whether He is doing that by Himself, or using the means of men and angels who have gone before us. We do know that when the right time comes for our days here to be over, the Lord will somehow come and take us to be with Him. That is enough for us.

But Jesus says that we know more than this. We know that He is the way to the Father’s house. If we want be there, no other pathway exists. We must come to the Father through the Son. He is not only the way, but He is also the truth and the life. These are three vantage points from which we can gaze at the perfect mediation of the Son of God. He is the only pathway to God’s house. His Word is the perfect truth that we need to hear and believe. Through hearing that Word and traveling along that Way, we will arrive at a place that is the purest and fullest life in the presence of the one who is Life. Jesus is the Key to our life with our heavenly Father.

Even though we know these things, we still face doubts. In this way we are like the disciples. One of them asks to see the Father, perhaps hoping that this will chase away all remaining unbelief. But seeing Jesus is seeing the Father. It must be enough for us to see Him with the eyes of faith, and to trust His Word, and to be used by Him as the church throughout the centuries, proclaiming His Word throughout the world in so many places where the physical feet of our Savior never walked. It is in this sense that the church does greater works than her Master.

Jesus is not only the solution to life beyond the grave; He is also the solution to life prior to the grave. We want to live well now, not merely to live at ease and to have pleasure, but to know that we are serving the Father. This has become our desire. We want to love God. Jesus tells us that we can show our love for God by obeying the commandments of the Son. To assist us in this life of love, God Himself will grant us a Helper, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth. This Spirit lives in the one who believes in Jesus Christ. It is in this way that Christ is with us, through the gift of His Spirit. He will not leave us as abandoned orphans, and He will do great works even through us.

The life of communion with God is a life of knowing the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. There is one God, existing eternally in three persons, and these three persons exist in the most perfect communion. To love God is to love the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Jesus is in the Father, and when we are in Jesus and He is in us by His Spirit, then we do know the Father. When we love the Son, we are loved by the Father. This life of communion with the Triune God is not something that the world knows, but we have been granted this inestimable privilege of knowing God, keeping His word, and experiencing the presence of God in this life and the next. Anyone who does not love Christ and His Word, does not have this kind of life.

This teaching of Jesus is essential for the life of the church. He entrusts it to His disciples, and He assures them that He will bring to their remembrance everything that He has said to them. It is because of this special gift to them that we have been granted the New Testament accounts of Christ. We have a strong assurance that God has brought about a reliable record for us of the life and teachings of our Messiah and King.

This message must be heard and believed. This is the only way that we can have real peace. This is why Jesus can say, “Let not your hearts be troubled.” His love is stable and sure. There is life for us in that place where Jesus is at the right hand of the Father. Any glories of spiritual attainment that the most eminent believers experience in this life come to them from above, from the place that is the source and original of Love, from God Himself. When Jesus goes to the Father, He is not less of a blessing to the church, but more of a blessing if that is possible. We truly do not need to worry. We can safely rejoice in the love of Christ.

Our Lord is able to teach these important truths knowing that He will soon take our hell upon Himself. The one He calls the “ruler of this world,” is surely only operating underneath the sovereign plan of the Almighty Ruler of heaven and earth. That one has no claim on the Son of God. It is the Father that Jesus loves and serves, and not Satan, and it is the justice of the Father which is satisfied for us in the work of the Son. Let not your heart be troubled. Jesus is victorious over the world, the flesh, and the devil. He has conquered sin and death for you.