John 14 notes
Notes
14:1–31 This whole chapter centers in the promise that Christ is the One who gives the believer comfort, not only in His future return but also in the present with the ministry of the Holy Spirit (v. 26).
The scene continues to be the upper room where the disciples had gathered with Jesus before He was arrested. Judas had been dismissed (13:30) and Jesus had begun His valedictory address to the remaining 11. The world of the disciples was about to be shattered; they would be bewildered, confused, and ridden with anxiety because of the events that would soon transpire. Anticipating their devastation, Jesus spoke to comfort their hearts.
Great personal sorrows may well be an excuse if the griefs of others are somewhat overlooked. Yet although Jesus was going to his last bitter agony, and to death itself, he overflowed with sympathy for his followers.
14:1 Instead of the disciples lending support to Jesus in the hours before His cross, He had to support them spiritually as well as emotionally. This reveals His heart of serving love (cf. Mt 20:26–28). troubled. Faith in Him can stop the heart from being agitated. See note on 12:27.
14:1 Believe in God is translated as an imperative (or command), but the Greek could also be rendered as a statement, “You believe in God.” The imperative is probably better in light of the previous sentence.
“Believe,” in keeping with OT usage (e.g., Isa. 28:16), denotes personal, relational trust.
What troubles the disciples is Jesus’ imminent departure (see 13:36).
14:2 In Jewish wedding custom, the father would add rooms onto his house for his newly married son. Jesus wasn’t abandoning them but heading out to get their eternal home ready. When your time comes, have no fear. Heaven has been prepared for you too.
14:2–3 In light of the context (Jesus going to the Father; 13:1, 3; 14:28), it is best to understand my Father’s house as referring to heaven. In keeping with this image, the many rooms (or “dwelling places,” Gk. monē) are places to live within that large house. The translation “rooms” is not meant to convey the idea of small spaces, but only to keep consistency in the metaphor of heaven as God’s “house.” In a similar passage, Jesus speaks of his followers being received into the “eternal dwellings” (Luke 16:9; cf. 1 Cor. 2:9).
14:3 This return of which Jesus prophesied is what we call the rapture, the time when he will return to receive his saints and take them to heaven (see 1 Thess 4:16–17). Though we can’t know the precise timing of this event, it will happen prior to his return to earth to establish his millennial kingdom.
If I were to divide a sermon into three parts and show that, first, Christ is the way; second, that he is the truth; and third, that he is the life, I would not give the meaning of the text. Jesus is not speaking about three things—he does not say, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” He is speaking about only one thing, namely, that he is the way, and then the two words, truth and the life, are put in to explain what he means by “the way.”
14:6 Jesus as the one way to the Father fulfills the OT symbols and teachings that show the exclusiveness of God’s claim (see note on 3:18), such as the curtain (Ex. 26:33) barring access to God’s presence from all except the Levitical high priest (Leviticus 16), the rejection of human inventions as means to approach God (Lev. 10:2), and the choice of Aaron alone to represent Israel before God in his sanctuary (Num. 17:5).
14:6 This is the sixth “I am” statement of Jesus in John (see 6:35; 8:12; 10:7, 9; 10:11, 14; 11:25; 15:1, 5). In response to Thomas’ query (v. 4), Jesus declared that He is the way to God because He is the truth of God (1:14) and the life of God (1:4; 3:15; 11:25). In this verse, the exclusiveness of Jesus as the only approach to the Father is emphatic. Only one way, not many ways, exist to God, i.e., Jesus Christ (10:7–9; cf. Mt 7:13, 14; Lk 13:24; Ac 4:12).
Jesus alone is able to provide access to God because he alone paid the penalty for our sins (Is 53:5; Heb 1:3).
Jesus is the only “way” to God (Acts 4:12), and he alone can provide access to God.
He is the truth (Jn 1:14, 17; 5:33; 18:37; cp. 8:40, 45–46) and all contrary claims are false. He alone is the life (1:4), having life in himself (5:26).
Jesus as the truth fulfills the teaching of the OT (John 1:17) and reveals the true God (cf. 1:14, 17; 5:33; 18:37; also 8:40, 45–46; 14:9).
He is thus able to confer eternal life on all those who believe in him (3:16). Jesus is truth and life, and he is the one and only way of salvation.
Jesus alone is the life who fulfills the OT promises of “life” given by God (11:25–26), having life in himself (1:4; 5:26), and he is thus able to confer eternal life to all those who believe in him (e.g., 3:16).
14:7–11 from now on you know Him. They know God because they had come to know Christ in His ministry and soon in His death and resurrection. To know Him is to know God. This constant emphasis on Jesus as God incarnate is unmistakably clear in this gospel (v. 11; 1:1–3, 14, 17, 18; 5:10–23, 26; 8:58; 9:35; 10:30, 38; 12:41; 17:1–5; 20:28).
14:4–7 Thomas had misunderstood (14:5). The way mentioned in verse 4 isn’t a path; it’s a person: Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (14:6). Christ is the universal point of access to God. If you want to know the Father, you must come to him through his Son. Jesus assured Thomas that if he knew the Son, he knew the Father (14:7).