What Then Has Happened? (3)

 

 

“In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” John 14:20.

 

In the previous meditation we considered what “that Day” is – however we turn the kaleidoscope of the Word of God in the Light of Jesus Christ, certainly those who are in a relationship with Jesus Christ are living in that Day. This leads to the question, “Do we know that Jesus Christ is in the Father, that we are in Jesus Christ, and that Jesus Christ is within us?”

 

Do we speak and act as if we know? Do we witness to Jesus as if we know? Do we love one another as if we know? Do we tell the truth as if we know? Do we spend our money as if we know? Do we read and share the Bible as if we know?

 

Are we living in communion with the Trinity, or is God a far–off God to us?

 

Does the fabric of our lives demonstrate that we are living in the reality of John 14:20?

 

Paul writes that we have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are the children of God.” (Romans 8:15 – 16).

 

Now dear friends, beloved of our Father, does it not make sense for a father to speak to his children? Does it not make sense for an elder brother to speak to his siblings? How can we read the Upper Room (John chapters 13 – 17) and not see the deep theme of intimacy with the Trinity and with one another?

 

A tragic irony is that many Christians who profess to have a high view of Scripture think and teach that our Father no longer speaks to us because we have the Bible. This thinking betrays misunderstanding on at least two fronts.

 

The first misunderstanding regards epistemology, how do we know things? In our context it specifically has to do with, “How do we know the Scriptures? How are we to understand them?”

 

In the Upper Room Jesus speaks to us again and again about the Holy Spirit living in us and teaching us. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 1:17 – 2:16, teaches us that “the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God…” (2:14a), and yet well – meaning Christians anchor their epistemology and exegesis and interpretation (and therefore their teaching and preaching) on natural methods, on methods that do not require reliance upon the Holy Spirit, that do not require the revelation (unveiling) of Jesus Christ.

 

When we give any method primacy or equality over the Holy Spirit and Biblical epistemology, including the grammatical – historical method, we display a fundamental misunderstanding of our Biblical relationship with God and of Scripture and we  disregard Biblical epistemology.

 

The second misunderstanding regards our nature as new creations in Christ Jesus, our new nature as daughters and sons of the Living God. “Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” We are to come to the Scriptures not as strangers to God, not as slaves, not as sinners, not as those in bondage to sin and the Law, nor even as minor children (Gal. 4:1 – 5; Rom. 8:1 – 17), but as adult sons and daughters partaking of the Divine nature of our Father and our Lord Jesus in the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:4).

 

Do we not see the irony in preaching on the one hand that we must be born again, and then, on the other hand, once we are born again we teach, “Yeah but, while you may be born again, while you may be a new creation, your essential identity remains that of a sinner and you can expect to live the life of a sinner”?

 

Would a kind father, whose wealth is beyond measure, have his children scour the alleys and gutters of the world to find sustenance, when his pantries are full of good food and drink to overflowing?

 

How can it be that we do not know the living reality of Jesus’ words in John 14:20?

 

Few professing Christians are functionally Trinitarian, for the Holy Spirit is usually, at best, nebulous and distant – at worst I suppose He is a functional non-entity. For those who do speak of the Holy Spirit, and for those who are open to His manifestations – John 14:20 is seldom a reality because they are focused on external manifestations and surface experiences rather than intimate koinonia in which we are transformed into the image of Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:29; 2 Cor. 3:17 – 18) as individuals and as His People.

 

Writing about John 14:20 is one of the hardest things I’ve done, it has been a tough reality check – for if what Jesus is saying is true, then we need a wake-up call. We do not need excuses, we need to examine just how it is that the idea and reality of John 14:20 is foreign to Christians – do we have the courage to do this?

 

We can pride ourselves on orthodoxy, but there is the orthodoxy of doctrine and dogma, and there is the orthodoxy of life in Christ – and to think that we can have the one without the other (though I think we are always  - hopefully – in transformative process in both respects) is simply foolish. Our Biblical understanding and teaching ought to inform our experience in Christ, and our experience in Christ ought to inform our teaching and understanding – the two really can’t be bifurcated…not really.

 

For us, as God’s People, not to live in John 14:20 means that we do not really know what Day we are living in.

 

Jesus has given us His very own glory (John 17:22) that we may know unity with one another in the Trinity – ought we not to receive and rejoice in the glory of Christ in this New Day?

 

When Judas (not Iscariot) asks Jesus in 14:22, “What then has happened?” The answer is that Jesus has brought us a New Day. Am I living in the Day? Are we?

 

Are you?

 

What Then Has Happened? (2)

 

I've been wrestling with John 14:20 for quite a few days. Since I have two distinct lives of thought, I'm going to post the first focus now and follow up soon, the Lord willing, with the second focus. I hope you will read the Scripture passages - after all, they are what really matter.

What Day are you and I living in?

Much love,

Bob

 

“In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” John 14:20.

 

What is “that Day”?

 

We can see the answer to that question in our context, both the immediate context and in the entire Upper Room and in the Gospel of John. It is the coming of the Holy Spirit to live within us, which is the result of the Ascension and Exaltation of Jesus Christ (John 7:37 – 39; Acts 2:33). It is Jesus going away and coming to us again. It is the “grain of wheat falling into the ground and dying” and coming forth as much fruit (John 12:23 – 24) in glorification.

 

It is Christ Jesus bringing us into this New Day, this New Creation, and making us new creations in Himself (2 Cor. 5:14 – 21), making us the “righteousness of God in Him.” When Jesus ascends He does so to, “…My Father and your Father, My God and your God” (John 20:17).

 

We might say that there are two new days, one that brings a New Creation, a new humanity, into existence in Jesus Christ; and another New Day that is individual and highly personal to each of us who are in Christ. We cannot experience the grand New Day unless we have our individual New Day, we must be made new creations in Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 5:17) if we are to enter into the New Heavens and New Earth in which righteousness lives. Dead people (Eph. 2:1 – 3) cannot live in the New Creation, dead people cannot live “in that Day.”

 

The Gospel is the proclamation of that New Day, it is the offer of the New Day to all who trust in Jesus Christ – it is the offer of eternal life (John 3:16), it is the offer of heavenly citizenship (Phil. 3:20). Jesus Christ is the New Day, and that Day is never ending (Eph. 1:9 – 12; Col. 1:13 – 20; Rev. 21:22 – 23; 22:1 – 5).

Are we living in that New Day?

 

 

 

 

“What Then Has Happened?” (1)

 

 

John 14:18 – 24 form an enigmatic unit which requires pondering; it raises questions, it has a wonderful question (“What then has happened?”), and it confronts us with how we see Christ, the world, and ourselves. Previously we considered the theme of Jesus going away and coming again, and we see that again in this passage. As we read the passage, what else do we see? What questions do we have? Are we puzzled by anything Jesus says? Why is Judas (not Iscariot) asking his question? (Please read the entire passage).

 

Since in our previous post we pondered verse 18, we’ll consider verse 19 in this reflection.

 

“After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also.” (John 14:19).

 

In 16:16 Jesus also says, “A little while, and you will no longer see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me.” Do we “see” this theme in the Upper Room?

 

Jesus has a lot to say about the “world” in the Upper Room. (see 15:18 – 16:11; 17:14 – 18). In 14:19 He tells us that a time will come when the world will not see Him, but we will see Him. How can this be? Perhaps a clue is found in, “…because I live, you will live also.”

 

Simply put, people who are alive in Christ see Him, people who are dead do not see Him. We were all once dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1) and our lives were animated by the ways of the world and of the enemy (Eph. 2:2). God, in His mercy, raised us up from spiritual death and made us alive in Jesus Christ (Eph. 2:4 – 10).

 

We are aliens on this planet and in this world, as Jesus says (17:16), “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.”

 

Why do we not embrace our otherworld identity in Jesus Christ? Why do we instead try to be like the world? Why do we try to attract the world with the things of the world, rather than the things of Christ and God? In Michael Green’s Evangelism in the Early Church, he points out that the Church’s witness has been the most effective when it has been the most counter-cultural. Yet, at least in the West, we give ourselves to economic and political and entertainment movements, allowing them to displace the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ. We push “Christian” worldviews on others at the expense of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus.

 

(I hope you will forgive me, but I must make this observation. Does no one see the irony that “Christian” conservatives who criticize Christian liberals for preaching a social gospel, have now embraced a political and social gospel of their own?)

 

Should we be surprised if the world cannot “see” Jesus? Should we be surprised if our worldly ways of attempting to communicate the Gospel fail to reach the hearts of others? Aren’t we called to “make disciples” (Mt. 28:19) as opposed to operating group therapy sessions on Sunday mornings?

 

John 14:18 – 24 demonstrates that those whom Christ has called to Himself are not to see and hear and think and live as the people of the world – and yet much of the professing church has adopted the world’s thinking and way of doing things. Let’s remind ourselves that the things that are seen are temporal, while the things that cannot be seen are eternal (2 Cor. 4:18). We are called to live with eyes that see the invisible (consider Hebrews chapters 11 and 12).

 

I find great assurance in Jesus’ words, “…because I live, you will live also.” This means that we not only live in Him today, but that we live in Him tomorrow and for eternity. This means that our existence and forever future is rooted and grounded in Jesus, in the Resurrected One who has conquered and abolished death – and that our reality is not the false reality of a world in rebellion, but of the everlasting Kingdom of God our Father.

 

Jesus says to John (Rev. 1:17 – 18), “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.”

 

Can we hear Jesus saying to us, “Do not be afraid, because I live, you will live also”?

 

Can we hear Jesus saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life”? (John 5:24).

 

Can we hear Jesus saying, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die”? (John 11:25 – 26).

 

I pray that this Easter we will see Him as never before!

 

Orphans, or Sons and Daughters?

 

“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” John 14:18.

 

As a reminder, these verses and passages, as all Bible passages, ought to be read and pondered again and again in their context – that is, in their extended passages. This one verse is connected to its immediate context (the verses immediately preceding and following it) and it is a thread of a glorious tapestry revealing Jesus Christ. The man or woman who is born again of the Holy Spirit can never exhaust the depths of Jesus Christ in the Bible – Jesus Christ is forever and always coming to us afresh in and through His Word.

 

Someone recently said to me, “I read the Bible once and I know what is in it.” What can we say in response to such a statement? Such a statement is likely the result of ignorance or arrogance, or of both. No doubt I have lived in both places, ignorance and arrogance, not realizing the depths of Jesus Christ in the Bible, thinking foolishly that the Bible is a matter of information and data, thinking like a fool that the Bible was something I could “apply” the way I might “apply” mathematics or logic or the laws of physics or the rules of accounting.

 

Jesus calls us to obey Him and His Word, not to apply it. Jesus calls us to receive Him and worship Him and say, “Not I, but Christ.” Jesus commands us to deny ourselves and follow Him, to live as those purchased by His blood, no longer belonging to ourselves.

 

Those who know the Scriptures, realize they know so little of the Scriptures – for the depths of the Bible are the depths of eternity and the Eternal One. We may be, at some point, “wise master builders,” but even then we know that we are such because we sit at the feet of the one true Master…our Master. To be mastered by the Master, that is to be most desired. Don’t you think?

 

As we ponder John 14:18, I am struck by Jesus saying, “I will come to you.” Isn’t this a theme of the Upper Room? Jesus is always coming to us, He is promising to do so, to always do so.

 

In 14:3 Jesus says, “I will come again.” In 14:21 – 23 He speaks of disclosing Himself to us and coming to us. In 16:16 – 22 He again speaks of His coming to us, of us seeing Him. And then, in John 17 Jesus calls us into the depths of union with the Father and with Himself, into the holy koinonia of the Trinity. Also, throughout the Upper Room Jesus is speaking to us of the Holy Spirit coming to us and living within us, and of the Father living within us.

 

We, individually and as His Body, are to experience His coming to us as our Way of Life. But O how many of us live as if we are orphans! How much of our teaching and preaching dumbs us down rather than raises us up! Why do we not know and experience and embrace the overwhelming power of the Holy Spirit in our lives – as individuals, as families, as congregations?

 

Dearly beloved, we are the sons and daughters of the Living God and Jesus Christ is our elder Brother who has redeemed us and brought us back to our Father. We ought to banish forever the thought that we are orphans, that we have no Father…or that we have a Father who is far away from us, a Father who does not care for us, a Father who does not desire to be in deep communion with us every moment of every day.

 

God came to earth in the Incarnation some 2,000 years ago, and He has never left…He lives within the Body of His Son Jesus Christ. We are no more orphans than Jesus is an orphan.

 

O beloved, the enemy would rob us of our identity in our Lord Jesus Christ. If the enemy cannot rob us of our salvation, he will seek to rob us of the riches of our salvation – he will seek to blind us from the fulness of our inheritance in Jesus Christ. And let us make no mistake, this is not about us or our glory, this is about the glory of God and the blessing and salvation of others – for if we are debilitated then our witness is debilitated and muted.

 

If we ponder this passage before us, if we consider the flow of John Chapter 14, indeed of the entire Upper Room discourse, we will see that Jesus calls us to hear and see and live beyond the veil of natural hearing and seeing and understanding – “After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also.”

 

We simply cannot afford to live as earth dwellers, as bottom feeders, as orphans.

 

Can we not cry out to Jesus to raise us up on the winds of the Holy Spirit? Can we not cry out to Jesus to make His words in the Upper Room a present reality to us? Can we not plead with Jesus to set us free from the bondage of our natural understanding, including our natural “religious” understanding (see 1 Cor. Chapter 2), and to transform us into His image from glory to glory? (2 Cor. 3:17 – 18; Rom. 8:29 – 30).

 

“For you have not received a spirit of bondage leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons [and daughters!] by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God…” (Rom. 8:15 - 16).

 

Let us, in Christ, live as the sons and daughters of our glorious Father today – let us not deny our birthright in Jesus, let us confess our Lord Jesus and our Father and rejoice in the Holy Spirit!

 

Glory!!!!!!!

The Holy Spirit

  

“I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; 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. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” John 14:16 – 17. (See also John 16:5 – 15).

 

The “Helper”, the Paracletos in Greek, comes alongside us as our Comforter, our Intercessor, our Advocate, our Helper. We are not left as orphans because our Advocate, the Holy Spirit, lives within us. But note, that not only does the Holy Spirit live in those who believe and trust in Jesus, but the Father and the Son also live in them, “…My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him” (John 14:23b).

 

God tabernacles within His People; Jesus first tabernacled among us (John 1:14), and now the Trinity tabernacles within us; in Christ we are the Temple of God (Eph. 2:19 – 22; 1 Peter 2:4 – 10).

 

Let us please not miss the significance of these words of Jesus, “…He abides with you and will be in you.”

 

During the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus says (John 7:37 – 38), “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”

 

John, the Gospel writer, then adds in verse 39, “But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” (See also John 16:7 and Acts 2:32 – 33).

 

Are we experiencing rivers of living water flowing out from us to others? Is this our Way of Life in Jesus Christ?

 

How is it that on the one hand we preach that we must be born again of the Spirit of God, and on the other hand we live denying and ignoring and suppressing (if we can use such language) our new life in the Spirit? Jesus says, “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).

 

We often insist that the Holy Spirit conform to our notions of behavior and reasoning – and since God the Holy Spirit conforms to no man, we are left with our own diminished devices. We ignore the Holy Spirit epistemologically (1 Cor. 1:17 – 2:16), and we rationalize away our glorious inheritance as found in passages such as Romans Chapter 8. We think that the Holy Spirit can be confined and conformed to rationalistic and naturalistic wine skins (Mt. 9:16 – 17); (if we can use such language, for we are speaking of God).

 

O dear friends, when we live in the Throne Room, and the Throne of God is established in our hearts, His River flows to us and through us (Rev. 22:1; Ps. 46:4).  We become fountains of Living Water that others may drink from (John 4:7 – 14). Why is it that we insist on focusing on our supposed wants and needs when our Father has given us all things in Jesus Christ and we are to be about our Father’s business? Why do we not see that we are “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ”? (Romans 8).

 

Why do we not confess that, “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God”? (Rom. 8:14).

 

If we consider 1 Corinthians 2:1 – 3:1 we see that there are “spiritual men” and “men of flesh” (1 Cor. 3:1); people who are learning to live in and by the Holy Spirit, and those who cling to the natural, the earthly and self – centered way of life. Paul is writing to those in the church, he is talking to Christians about Christians, he is writing to them about themselves.

 

O dear friends, Paul writes (1 Cor. 2:7), “…but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory”! This wisdom, this Way of thinking, this Way of Life in Jesus Christ, can only be received, understood, and shared with others in and through and by the Holy Spirit. How have we become so naturalistic in our thinking, our teaching, our preaching, and in our way of church?

 

Paul writes that God’s hidden wisdom (in Christ, see Col. 2:1 – 3) is for our glory. Jesus says in John 17:22, “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them…”

 

The creation is travailing for the manifestation of the sons of God (Rom. 8:18), so that it might be set free into “the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21). Are we learning to live in His glory today? Are we living in the Holy Spirit as our Way of Life?

 

When we gather together, whether on Sundays or during the week, whether in large groups, small groups, or in simply meeting another Christian for coffee – are we gathering in His glory?

 

And lest you should misunderstand me, His glory radiates Jesus Christ, the Lamb slain who is Alive. His glory can be boisterous at times, it can be silent at times, it can be a whisper at times – this is not about artificial noise or artificial quiet or artificial decorum.

 

His glory radiates from the Cross, and it is Jesus Christ and Him crucified from whom all Life flows to us and in us and through us (1 Cor. 2:2 – 5). It is in the preaching of the Cross that we see the power of God, now and always. It is in the preaching of Jesus Christ crucified that we are transformed into His sacrificial image and participate in His sacrificial Life for His glory and the blessing of others (Phil. 3:10).

 

Are we knowing the joy, peace, power, and comfort of the Holy Spirit today? Are we trusting the Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us and teach us today? Is the Holy Spirit empowering our witness to Jesus Christ? Is the Holy Spirit our biosphere, or do we still breathe earth’s atmosphere?

“If You Love Me…”

 

 

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” John 14:15.

 

I wonder if we love Jesus. Do I love Jesus? Do you love Jesus? Do our congregations love Jesus?

 

The Upper Room begins in love and it is completed in love. In 13:1, “…having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.” Then in 17:26, “…so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

 

In 14:21 Jesus says, “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me…” Do we love Jesus?

 

Then in 14:24, “He who does not love Me does not keep My words…”

 

Then in 15:10, “If you keep my commandments you will abide in My love…”

 

John continues this theme in his first letter; “The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected…” (1 John 2:4 – 5).

 

Then, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.” (1 John 5:3).

 

Jesus Christ does not give us commandments that we cannot keep, I cannot understand why we do not recognize this…unless it is that we have been taught that we cannot keep them, unless we are convinced that we cannot keep them. Is not this akin to Israel believing the negative report of the ten spies that the land that God promised could not be possessed?

 

How cruel it would be that our Father should give us commandments, in Jesus Christ, knowing full well that we cannot keep them. How mean it would be if Jesus, commanding us that we should love one another as He loves us (John 13:34 – 35), knows full well that we cannot possibly keep such as commandment.

 

Thankfully, our Father and Lord Jesus do not treat us this way, they do not give us stones for bread or serpents for meat or wormwood for water – instead they give us themselves – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit invite us to live in them and they come to live within us (John 14:16 – 17; 23). Jesus bids us to abide in Him, to draw our life from Him, so that we may bear much fruit, for without Him we can do nothing – but in Him we can do all things, including keeping and fulfilling His commandments (John 15:1 – 11). When Jesus becomes our Way, Truth, and Life, fulfilling His commandments becomes our Way of Life as we live in Him and He lives in us.

 

One of the great distinctions between the Law and the Gospel is that the Law was given to manifest our sinfulness, our need for a Savior, to drive us to Christ. We could not possibly keep the Law, we were essentially powerless. However, in Christ the Gospel through the indwelling Holy Spirit and empowering grace sets us free from the law of sin and death and condemnation and releases and empowers us, in Christ, to obey and fulfill the commandments of God.

 

It is a tragedy when professing Christians think they cannot fulfill the commandments of God in Christ, it is a repudiation of their identity in Christ, of His perfect work on the Cross and in Resurrection, a rejection of the reality of the indwelling Holy Spirit – it is saying to Jesus in response to His teaching of the Vine and the branches, “Yeah but…”

 

It is allowing our experience to determine our interpretation of Scripture – something we might reject when it comes to other teachings…and I find an irony here. The irony is that believers who criticize other believers for their supposed reliance on “experience” in one area of life and thought, do the very same thing when it comes to other areas of life and thought – if not more so. I write “if not more so” because the issue of our identity in Jesus Christ and of His perfect and complete work of salvation and its outworking within us is what is at stake here – whether or not the Vine and branches is an actual present reality or some elusive ideal that we cannot experience.

 

Are we continuing to grow in Christ? Let us hope we are. Is our obedience continuing to be perfected, let us hope it is. Is conformity to our Father’s will an ongoing process and experience? Again, let us trust Him that this is so.

 

Jesus says that if we love Him that we will keep us commandments.

 

Do we love Him?

 

What Jesus commandments, He gives us the power to obey and fulfill – He “wills and works in us for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). And as we will see, the Lord willing, in our next reflection, He gives us the Holy Spirit – not just to be with us, but to live within us.

Series on Revelation

 Good morning dear friends,

My friend, Dr. David Palmer, has just started a series on Revelation at Kenwood Baptist Church in Cincinnati. I love David's passion for Jesus Christ and his devotion to Scripture. I hope you will consider watching this series and pondering how Jesus is speaking to us in our generation.

Here is a link to the Sunday service, the message begins around minute 30.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhK9ClH6rkA

Here is a link if you want to know a bit more about David.

https://www.gordonconwell.edu/faculty/adjunct/david-palmer/

much love,

Bob

Asking in His Name…A Life

 

“Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.” John 14:13 – 14.

 

Jesus encourages us to ask (see also John 15:7; 16:23 – 27). Early in His ministry Jesus says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matt. 7:7).

 

“Why doesn’t God answer prayer?” is one of the questions we most often ask. I still wonder why my Mom died when I was 17 and my brothers were 15 and 12. Wasn’t I praying effectively? I wonder why Martha, a mother of young twins in our congregation, died after much intercessory prayer. I wonder why I have made such selfish and stupid and sinful decisions in my life; haven’t I been praying for God’s will? (Maybe not really.)

 

What I do know, and I am more deeply certain of this as I advance in years and as I continue to know Jesus, is that God’s character is perfect, His love is perfect, His desire for us is perfect. I know that God can be absolutely trusted. God is the core of our life, the ground of our being in Jesus Christ, our Alpha and Omega.

 

While there are prayers in my life and in our marriage that God does not seem to have answered, I believe that my Father has always heard them and I know that He has always been with us. I have seen many prayers answered, and it has taken years for some of them to be fulfilled. When I look back over my life, I see God’s lovingkindness and mercies, I see answered prayer, I see His kind and loving guidance, I see His forbearance – both when I have been wise and when I have been foolish.

 

When it comes to praying for others, we should never give up. Jesus did not give up on us, and He makes intercession for us always (Heb. 7:25), and so I think that we should not give up on others in prayer and intercession.

 

I suppose, for me, questions surrounding prayer are an element of the human condition – even the redeemed human condition as sons and daughters of the Living God.

 

While we will consider prayer again, the Lord willing, in John 15:7 and 16:23ff, for the present let’s note four things:

 

1.    Jesus wants us to ask, three times in the Upper Room He speaks to His disciples about asking so that they may receive.

2.    The context of prayer is relational – we are the friends of Jesus (15:12 – 17) and are called into the koinonia and unity of the Trinity (John 17). The Father loves us! (17:23).

3.    In relation to 14:13 – 14, it follows the “greater works” statement of verse 12, what might this indicate to us?

4.    Obedience to Jesus Christ is an element of prayer (14:15; 15:7, 10). The relational element of prayer contains the element of obedient discipleship (is there any other kind?) and filial obedience to our heavenly Father.

 

Here are two passages in the Valley of Vision which have caught my attention:

 

“Help me to be all prayer and never to cease praying.” (page 265).

 

“Give me unwavering faith that supplications are never in vain, that if I seem not to obtain my petitions I shall have larger, richer answers, surpassing all that I ask or think.

 

“Unsought, thou hast given me the greatest gift, the person of thy Son, and in him thou wilt give me all I need.” (page 271).

 

Asking in His Name entails much more than simply verbalizing the name “Jesus.” Professing Christians can come pretty close to pagan thinking when it comes to the name Jesus – for His Name is not a code word, it is not magic – it is holy, it is sacred, and it is the Name of the One we worship and obey and who has purchased us with His blood – the Lamb of God.

 

Yes, there is power and authority in the name of Jesus – when we live under that power and authority, when we live under the lordship of Jesus Christ. We are to live in the name of Jesus in all that we do, Paul writes, “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father” (Col, 3:17). When we come to prayer again in John 15, we will see that it is linked to abiding in the Vine, living in our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Asking in His Name is to be our way of life; His Name, His Nature, is to be our Way of Life. Our days and our nights are to be lived in Him, our vocations are to be devoted to Him, our marriages and families are to be rooted in Him, our friendships are to be found in Him, our recreation is to be enjoyed in Him – He is to be our All in all.

 

Life in Christ is conversing with Him throughout the day, living each day in fellowship with Him – sharing each day with Him, enjoying each day with Him, learning from Him throughout each day. When we live in Him thusly, we naturally ask in His Name – being aware of His authority and power, and being aware of living in His Nature, drawing our life from the Vine.

 

“These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.” (John 15:11).

 

Again, here is a passage from The Valley of Vision:

 

“When thou commandest me to pray for pardon, peace, brokenness, it is because thou wilt give me the thing promised, for thy glory, as well as for my good.

 

“Help me not only to desire small things but with holy boldness to desire great things for thy people, for myself, that they and I might live to show thy glory.” (Page 267).

A Mystery of Greater Works

 

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.” John 14:12.

 

I would be happy to simply do the works that Jesus did, and quite content to live life there. I would rejoice at healings and deliverances and seeing others come to the Father. I would be thankful to see others share the Gospel as a result of receiving the Gospel from Christ through me.

 

What about you?

 

Note that in verse 10 Jesus couples “words” and “works” together. “The words that I say to you I do not speak out of Myself, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.” I write this to caution us about equating the “works” of verse 12 solely with miracles, healings, deliverance from the demonic, and the like. “Works” can include words.

 

On the other hand, “works” can include miracles and I see no warrant to exclude them and no reason not to desire them for the glory of God.

 

Let’s also note verse 13, “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”

 

Regarding healings and deliverances, I cannot imagine anything exceeding the ministry of Jesus Christ on earth when I read passages such as Mark 1:32 – 34, when virtually the entire city comes to Jesus and there are many miracles. Then we have the raising of the dead, such as Lazarus.

 

Of course we have Paul in Ephesus. “God was performing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that handkerchiefs or aprons were even carried from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out.” (Acts 19:11). We also see both Peter and Paul raising the dead in Acts.

 

The writer of Hebrews reminds us that the Word of the Gospel was surrounded by the power of the Gospel. “God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will.” (Hebrews 2:4).

 

When we have a discrepancies between what we ought to be and what we really are, we can either make excuses for our shortcomings or we can acknowledge them and ask our Lord Jesus Christ to help us. When we excuse our shortcomings by rationalizing them away, and especially by saying they are God’s will, we are on dangerous ground.

 

Paul writes, “For as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes; therefore also through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us.” (2 Cor. 1:20).

 

Since Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8), we ought to expect Him to be the same in ministry within and without His Body – His continuing Incarnation - today as yesterday; and we ought to expect that the Holy Spirit abides in us today as He does within the Body when 1 Corinthians chapters 12 – 14 were written.

 

I cannot believe that brethren who profess a high view of Scripture venture onto the dangerous ground of teaching against the present – day living and working of the Holy Spirit in Christ’s Body in accordance with 1 Corinthians 12 – 14, as well as other passages. No matter how we may want to gloss over this, no matter how we may rationalize it, this is robbing others of the promises of God and of their life in the Holy Spirit and I just don’t understand it. Have we forgotten Revelation 22:18 – 19? Ought we not to leave things alone that we don’t understand?

 

Just because we, at least in the West, are falling short of living in the fulness of our inheritance, is no warrant for any of us to add or detract from the Word of the Bible – and I suppose I should say that there are, no doubt, those on the other end of the spectrum who often add to the Word of Christ. Being demonstrative is not a sign of living in the Holy Spirit nor of spiritual worship – the Presence of Jesus Christ and His Living Word, our koinonia with Him and with one another, is what we should be seeking. As Jesus says, and as He will repeat, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” (John 14:15).

 

As Jesus makes clear, the distinguishing marks of Christians are to be our love for one another and our unity (John 13:34 – 35; 15:12 – 13; 17:20 – 23). This is where we will see the glory of John14:12, this is where we will have a Biblical Gospel witness, and this is where we will all see clearly.

 

Whatever John 14:12 means, its meaning cannot be understood apart from its context, apart from John chapters 13 – 17…which of course culminate in the Holy of Holies of John 17. Its meaning must be lived in Christ and with one another and in the context of the entire Bible – I wonder if we will see this in our lifetimes?

 

 

A Mystery of Belief

  

“Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.” John 14:11.

 

Jesus calls us to believe in Him, He calls us to come to Him. Jesus says that He is the way, and the truth, and the life. The message of the Early Church was Jesus, the Person of Jesus Christ. A friend recently asked me, “Do we believe in Jesus, or do we believe in what we believe about Jesus?”

 

A congregational leader once said to me, “Right doctrine produces right living.” This man’s life proved his statement wrong because he was dictatorial, abrupt, abusive, and even slanderous to the congregation he was supposed to be serving. Doctrine in the mind does not necessarily translate into doctrine in the heart and soul. I have known dear brothers and sisters who may not have had the soundest doctrine, but who had lives of devotion to Jesus and others.

 

Perhaps we ought to remind ourselves of Paul’s words to the Romans, “Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.” (Rom. 14:4). Then we have, “Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men’s hearts; and then each man’s praise will come to him from God.” (1 Cor. 4:5).

 

Jesus desires that we believe that He is in the Father and that the Father is in Him, but if we cannot see this glorious reality, Jesus says, “…otherwise believe because of the works themselves.”

 

How we believe is a mystery, and, I think, how we grow in our belief is a mystery – for God must be the Author and Completer of our faith, our belief, our destiny in Jesus Christ. Jesus says, “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8).

 

Are not we all in some stage of belief and growth in Jesus Christ? If this is so, then is it so strange that some of us will see that Jesus is in the Father and that the Father is in Jesus, and that others may not yet see this glorious reality? Is it so strange that some of us will see that the Trinity lives within us and that we live within the Trinity, and that others will not yet see this, our eternal destiny?”

 

Are we not often like the Ethiopian official of Acts 8, who was not really sure of what he was reading in the prophet Isaiah? Not being sure of what we’re reading can be a very good thing, it surely beats presumption. It is an especially good thing when we ask, “Just what does this mean? Just what am I reading? Just who is the prophet writing about?”

 

The Upper Room of John chapters 13 – 17 has many enigmas, many nuances to ponder, many points and counterpoints – it is a never-ending dance, onward and upward into the Trinity with one another – a dance in which the very image of “one another” envelops us in the Glory of God.

 

Learning the dance steps is a process, and the steps are progressive (2 Cor. 3:17 – 18), and Jesus is patient with us. If we can’t see that Jesus is in the Father and that the Father is in Jesus right now, Jesus says come along anyway and, “…otherwise believe because of the works themselves.”

 

Do we give others room to believe in Jesus Christ? Do we give others the freedom to grow in the mystery of belief in Jesus? Do we accept that there is, or ought to be I think, mystery in our own pilgrimage of faith in Jesus?

 

What Paul writes about in Romans 14 and 15 respecting where we are in our spiritual growth and understanding – and how we are to treat others - is about more than what we eat or drink or what days we observe, if indeed we observe any days. We are all somewhere on the journey, somewhere on the mountain; we are all (hopefully) learning new dance steps and sequences as we grow in Jesus Christ and with one another.

 

Jesus takes the measure of faith and trust we have in Him today and grows it into a greater measure tomorrow – for after all, life is about knowing Him – and since He is infinite we will forever and always being growing in Him and into Him.

Not From Myself

 

“Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words I say to you I do not speak from Myself, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.” John 14:10.

 

The theme of Jesus being in the Father and the Father being in Him, and of Jesus being in us and us being in Him, and of the Father and Jesus being in us, and the Holy Spirit being in us, and of us being in the Trinity, is embedded in the Upper Room. This is woven into the music of what I’ve termed a dance. In a few moments Jesus will say (Jn. 14:20), “In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.”

 

In John 15:4 Jesus says, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.” Then throughout John Chapter 17 Jesus speaks of our union in the Trinity, our oneness in the Father and Son, enveloped in the Holy Spirit.

 

Jesus invites us into His Way of Life, and that Way of Life is abiding in the Father, in Him, and allowing (if we can use such a term) Christ to speak and work and live through us as the Father speaks and works and lives through Jesus Christ. This is a mystery in the sense that it exceeds our comprehension, but we can nevertheless participate in this wonder, we can have koinonia with and in the Trinity.

 

I do not think the simplicity of the Greek of John 14:10 can be improved upon, “I do not speak from Myself”, or “of Myself”. Whatever Jesus means, we need to wrestle with it in all of its possibilities and implications, and with its baseline simplicity. Here we have the simplicity of John 15:5, “…apart from Me you can do nothing.”

 

When I write “simplicity” I mean simply this, that when Jesus says in John 5:19, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing…” that Jesus means exactly what He says (see also John 8:28; 12:49). If this is true of the Incarnate Son, how much more ought it to be of us?

 

We might say, if this is true of the Incarnate Son, the Head of the Body, how much more ought it to be true for us, His Body. (Of course I’m using a limited manner of speech and comparison – because in reality we are One in Him…but are we manifesting that Reality?)

 

Who are we to think and live on our own, if Jesus Christ did not think and live on His own? The idea that we go to God when we are at the end of our resources, that God wants us to only turn to Him when we have exhausted all of our effort and ingenuity, is simply false. Jesus is clear in John 15 that we are to live in Him and that without Him, apart from Him, we can do nothing. We were created, and we have been redeemed, for uninterrupted communion with God in Jesus Christ.

 

When Jesus says in John 14:10 that, “I do not speak from Myself,” He is giving the disciples a precursor of what is to come – that He is inviting them into the very same life in the Father as they live in Him.

 

Are we living by the life of Jesus Christ? Are we abiding in Him? Are we learning to speak and act, not out of ourselves but out of our koinonia with Him? O dear friends, if we will live this Way in eternity, why should we not embrace this Way of Life today?

 

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20.

Seeing Jesus, Seeing the Father

  

“If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.” Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 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?’” John 14:7 – 9.

 

What do you think about what Jesus is saying? What do you see? Here, once again, is the Divine mystery, the Holy Dance; to attempt to “figure it out” and explain it leads to frustration and profanation, to receive Jesus’ Word leads us into the Trinitarian Family of God.

 

Jesus says (Matthew 11:25 – 27), “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was well- pleasing in Your sight. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”

 

We are utterly dependent on the grace, mercy, and kindness of God in all things, including in knowing Him. When Peter confessed that Jesus is the Christ, Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven” (Mt. 16:17).

 

We ought not to be surprised at the images and language Jesus uses in the Upper Room, for John begins his Gospel with, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This is shortly followed by, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth…No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known.”

 

John’s Gospel begins with a dance, in the Upper Room the dance continues. Then on Easter morning (Jn. 20:17), we hear the melody, “…but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.’”

 

Paul writes that Jesus is “the image of the invisible God” in Col. 1:15. The writer of Hebrews tells us that Jesus the Son “is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature” (Heb. 1:3). As we see in Revelation chapters 4 – 5, and 21 – 22, our destiny, our ultimate existence, is rooted in and focused on and lived with the Lord God Almighty (the Father) and the Lamb (the Son) as the Holy Spirit gives Life to all the redeemed in the Lamb.

 

There is enigma in Jesus’ words to Philip, “If you had known Me…” Hadn’t Philip been with Jesus since right after Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist? (John 1:43). Wasn’t it Philip who found Nathanael and told him, “We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph”?

 

Why does Paul write, well into his life with Jesus Christ, well into his apostolic ministry, “…that I may know Him…”? (Phil. 3:10).

 

We know Him but we don’t know Him, we see Him but we don’t see Him; for Jesus Christ is God and we are always coming to Him and He is always coming to us for He is infinite and we are not. Yes, yes, we live by His life, His eternal life and Nature dwell within us – but He is always God and we are always not God – even though we are His Body, even though we are His Bride – and so here is yet perhaps another enigma.

 

Yet is it really an enigma? If it is “here” it won’t be “there” – for “there” His overwhelming light and life and love, and His glory in “one another”, is such that I doubt we’ll ponder these things the way we do now – O what peace we will have in Him, what peace with one another in Him!

 

Of course Philip knew Jesus, but then again of course Philip did not know Jesus – isn’t this the most natural/supernatural thing in the world and in heaven? Wherever we are in Christ, we know Him and yet we don’t know Him; we know Him and yet there is so much more of Himself that He is giving to us.

 

Our arrogance ought to frighten us. How many Sunday school lessons and commentaries treat Jesus Christ as a psychological and religious specimen for study – rather than bow before the God of the Incarnation? We are not called to “master” the life of Jesus, we are called to submit to Jesus Christ in obedience and to allow His life to master us.

 

Thomas, Philip, and Judas (not Iscariot) all ask Jesus questions or make requests of Him in John 14, and Jesus responds to each one. They do not ask in the challenging attitude of the religious leaders, but rather they ask in the posture of disciples and friends – for they love Jesus, whether they understand Him or not…they love Jesus.

 

What about us? Do we love Jesus Christ? Is He our Lord and Master?

 

Are we coming to know Him, and do we daily see Him coming to us?

 

Do we realize that while we may know Him, that yet we do not know Him?

 

I have a friend who says, “I want to love Jesus more today than I did yesterday.” I first heard my friend say that years ago, and since then I have woven it into the fabric of my morning prayer and daily desire.

 

I want to love Jesus more today, to know Him deeper today, to receive more of Him today…than I did yesterday….knowing that In seeing Him, we are seeing the Father…Jesus is bringing us home to our Father.

 

What about you?