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?