John: The Image of the Father
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
Middle of Jesus discipleship intensive - preparing them for his absence. How can they continue as disciples when their master disappears?
Don’t let these simple truths fall on deaf ears! This is powerful truth that you have grown familiar with.
Or, if you are not a church regular, if you are not a christian, then please hear these truths because they have the potential to change your life!
Jesus Prepares a Place for Us
Jesus Prepares a Place for Us
Jesus has just given the disciples some bad news:
1. That he will be betrayed,
2. That he is going away and they can’t come.
3. He has predicted that Peter will betray him too
But Jesus not speaks to encourage them, lift up their spirits and paint a picture of the good that is coming:
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?
It’s not the end! Don’t be troubled. This is a good thing that Jesus goes away!
This seems to be something that is continuing off a previous conversation, because we have no record earlier of Jesus saying he was going to prepare a place for them. But now he basically says “Would I lie to you?” - “why would I tell you I was going to prepare a place for you, if I wasn’t really going to do it?”
What is this place Jesus goes to prepare?
My fathers house - God’s place. With God the father, the source of love and good.
Seems to be a description of the future, when Jesus has made all things new after the second coming.
Now this feels a bit at odds with other descriptions of our future, because we are told about Jesus coming back and recreation of the earth. The idea is that God will come live with his people!
Firstly, it should be said that the Bible’s description of the future is often pictorial, it is saying the future will be “like” this, and here Jesus is painting a picture of what the future with God is like. It’s as if God has this big palace with a bunch of suites, and when Jesus has prepped them all, the disciples can take up residence in them.
Our hope is not for a perfect life without God, but to be with Him is paradise.
Then Jesus will come back and fetch his disciples to go live with the Father:
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
So Jesus will come back at retrieve his people to live with him in the Father’s house.
So is this something this is now or future? Are the 12 disciples there now, or will they go there later?
Well, the scriptures teach that those people who belong to Jesus when they die their soul will go to God’s presence, but they will be without a body.
However, when Jesus returns to the earth, they will be given their resurrection bodies, their forever bodies, and they will live in the presence of God on earth.
SO in some sense this verse can be describing something that is now in part, but will be complete in the future. These disciples are present with the Lord now, but Jesus has not yet returned to retrieve all his disciples for their final home with God.
This final home is described as the city Jerusalem descending from the clouds prepared like a bride on her wedding day. It is the place where God will dwell with his people.
So I think, this picture that Jesus lays out meshes with this picture of the New Jerusalem - Jesus is preparing the place for his people to live in eternity - in God’s house, and that place will come to earth, after Jesus has returned to raise his people to life and bring Judgment Day. He will gather all his people to himself to live in the presence of God for eternity.
So take heart, you who belong to Jesus! He has gone away to prepare a fantastic future for his disciples, including you and I.
If you die before he returns, then great! You get to go hang out in the best waiting room you could ever imagine! With Christ while he prepares for his second coming. Who knows, maybe he will even let you decorate a room or two, or perhaps nail in a skirting board!
Jesus has not left us here to rot, God’s plan is still unfolding, and he is preparing a better future for us that will last forever. The light momentary affliction of this life is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison (riff on 2 Cor 4:17).
But, how will we get there? How do we get on the path to this wonderful future?
Let’s return to the picture Jesus paints, of a mansion or palace that is far away, and he is going to get the place ready, then he will come back to retrieve them. But, here’s the thing, they already know the way!...
Jesus is the Way
Jesus is the Way
Jesus is the path to this “place” that is being prepared for his disciples. Remember he’s speaking in metaphor here. He’s describing a route or path, and then says “I’m the path”
Let’s look.
You know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
Thomas is confused by the metaphor, I don;t know what you mean, we don;t know how to get to this weird place you’re talking about.
SO he asks a pertinent question, “How can we know the Way?”
This is one of the best questions you could ever ask. If you are seeking truth in a world of deception, if you are seeking the path to light in a world of darkness, if you are seeking life in a world that only leads to death, you need to ask Jesus this question.
Put aside your vain conceits. Put aside your pretensions of being in control. Put aside the lie that you know how the world works. Put aside your pride that says “I will be the judge of right and wrong”.
If you would have life, and know truth, you must ask Jesus “What is the Way?”
Jesus answered Thomas:
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
I am the Way, The truth and the life!
The old song opens up this verse so clearly for us. You don;t need commentaries or greek lexicons, it states this truth so simply
Without the way there is no? (Going)
Without the truth there is no? (Knowing)
Without the Life there is no? (Living)
NO ONE come to God the father except through Jesus Christ. NO ONE.
Nice Mormans and JWs cannot come to God except through Jesus.
Jews cannot come to God except through Jesus
Muslims cannot come to God except through Jesus
Baha'i cannot come to God except through Jesus
You, you who have grown up around spiritual things and attended church and even read the bible - these things are no enough.
You who tries to be a good person and do more good than bad - you cannot come to God by doing good deeds.
The Only way to God is through Jesus
He is the Way, the path, the road to God the Father - you cannot get in by another way.
He is the Truth, no other message is true. It is all deception. All other religions are in some sense worshiping demons, and although they may contain nuggets of truth, they are on the whole a deception. They are lies that soothe people’s consciences while they cut themselves off from the love of God.
He is the Life, all other roads, all other “truths” lead to death. God is the source of Life, and so if you do not come to him, you are cutting yourself off from life.
We are all dead men walking - we are trapped in sin, and the result of sin is death. Although we are alive in body for now, many of us are dead in spirit. We need God to make us alive in Christ. He is the way to life, and life abundant.
But for the person trapped in the here and now, it can be hard to conceive of these things. How can I know God the Father is real? How can I know that Jesus is legitimately God the Son?
Philip feels this and so he asks Jesus an interesting question.
Jesus Shows us God the Father
Jesus Shows us God the Father
Ok, so the heading has just given away the answer to the question Philip is about to ask, but lets look at it anyway!
Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.
Phillips Question seems innocent enough, but it betrays a lack of understanding. To see Jesus is to see the father!
Jesus is a chip off the old block, and then some! Jesus has been teaching time and again that he is on earth on mission from the Father. He only says and does what the Father wants!
So complete is Jesus obedience to the Father, that to look at what Jesus is doing and saying, reveals the Father.
When you hear a voice on the other end of a phone, even if you don’t know the number, you can tell within a few moment whether or not you know the person speaking to you. You recognize the voice. These Jewish fellows who have been steeped in the OT, should “recognize” God’s voice in Jesus.
God the father doesn’t have a body or form that can be seen with human eyes, so the best we can hope for is the image of him “imprinted”, “incarnated” into this world through God the Son - Jesus Christ.
Whosoever has seen Jesus, has seen God, and not just the Son part, but the father part too! As much as our human minds could cope with!
We cannot physically lay eyes on Jesus now, but what we see in the scripture, shows God the Father to us in a tangible way.
Jesus is no lone ranger - we’re not left wondering if the Father has other ideas or if Jesus ever deviated from the plan, they are in such close alignment!
If you desire to see God, look for him here! Here is where he has revealed himself to us. Visions and dreams are not promised or reliable, but this word is the reliable revelation of God to his people!
So Jesus is preparing a place with the Father, he is the Way to Father, in fact he is the representation of the Father. But, how do we access this way?
Believe in Jesus
Believe in Jesus
This seems so simple. Yet it is the way to eternal life.
It is what Jesus said in v1 - <read it>
Here we get the shape of that belief - believe that Jesus is in the Father, and the Father in in Him:
Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.
If Jesus own testimony was not enough, just look at the evidence - the works, including the miraculous.
Soon he would do the great work - of dying on the cross and raising back to life!
How is this the greatest work? What did it achieve?
Sacrifice for sin - died in our place
Defeated death, the consequence for sin.
This is greatest evidence for Jesus being trustworthy!
The way that we access the house of God, the way to the father, is by becoming loyal to Jesus - trust him, believe in him, have faith in Him.
But the one who believes will be enable by God to do great things!
“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.
Great works like what? Proclaiming the Gospel and harvesting souls,
Greater, not in power, but in effect - His disciples will evangelise the world! The great deeds of charity and compassion will spread the world over!
We are to mimic Jesus in being an imprint of the Father and carrying out His will!
This is why we pray in Jesus name - because we are asking for the Father to be glorified in the Son.
Do not ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions, and do not ask with double mindedness.
Ask for the things that God has promised! (This is why we ask for the HS to be at work)
God waits till we ask, so that we become dependent on him, and not ourselves.
Whether we like it or not, asking is the rule of the kingdom. If you may have everything by asking in His Name, and nothing without asking, I beg you to see how absolutely vital prayer is.
Charles Spurgeon
Go to Him and ask! Have confidence that he is not withholding good things from you but that he will give all that is in accordance with his perfect plan to glorify the father in the Son.
And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
Jesus may be going away, but he will be listening and acting in the world via our prayers.
So What?
So What?
Jesus Prepares a Place for his people,
Jesus is the way to that place,
Jesus reveals to us God the Father, the loving father who calls us home there,
The way through Jesus is to believe in him.
The one who is in Jesus is powered by Jesus in this world.
References:
Carson’s Pillar Commentary on John.
Hutcheson’s commentary on John
Hendrickson’s commentary on John
Sermons by Richard D. Philips,
Sproul, R. C., ed. The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version. Orlando, FL; Lake Mary, FL: Ligonier Ministries, 2005.
Phillips, Richard D. John. Edited by Richard D. Phillips, Philip Graham Ryken, and Daniel M. Doriani. 1st ed. Vol. 1 & 2 of Reformed Expository Commentary. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2014.