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.