Comfort For The Witnesses
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The hour was swiftly approaching, that Jesus would depart out of this world to the Father. In the hours leading up to His final death, the Lord washed the feet of His twelve disciples. Then He tells them that they should wash one another’s feet. Then Jesus predicted that there was one, among the twelve disciples, who would betray Him. This troubled the disciples because they wondered, “how could this be?” Simon Peter gestured to John, and said to him, “Tell us who it is of whom He is speaking.” The Bible implies that Jesus relayed to John, that the one who would betray Him was, Judas Iscariot. After giving him a piece of bread, Satan entered Judas, then he departed the upper room, from among the other disciples.
Jesus explained that He was about to depart from them, and the disciples were disturbed about it. In comforting words, Jesus assured them that His departure would only be temporary. In fact, He said them, “I go to prepare a place for you.”
!I’m going to get your room ready, and I’ll come back and take you to where I live! Is what is being said here!!!
The Lord reassures them of who He really is. To look upon Him, is to have looked upon God. After all, He is in the Father and the Father is in Him. He says in essence, “if you are having difficulty believing what I have been saying, then look at the works, at the miraculous wonders, that I have performed.” Only God could do such things as Jesus did!
Jesus encourages them, “If you love me, then show it by doing what I’ve told you.”
Unlike the godless world that does not have eyes to see Him for who He is, the disciples had been called and given the special privilege of getting to know Him. They were given the proof before their very own eyes, that He is the true Messiah.
Jesus charged them and all who would follow Him to abide by His word!
He said, “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”
The Lord Jesus Christ promised to not leave them comfortless, but to send the Helper, the Holy Spirit to them. The Holy Spirit would indwell them and teach them all the things that God wanted them to know.
Beginning in Chapter 15 we are told who the True Vine and the Vine Dresser are. Jesus is the True Vine and God the Father is the Vine Dresser and those who abide in Christ and Christ in them are the branches. The abiding of the branch in the Vine is evidenced by its fruitfulness. To be separated from Christ will result in deadwood, gathered up and thrown in the fire. They who abide in Christ and Christ in them, will bear fruit. The Father is glorified thru His disciples when they produce fruit.
Then Jesus gives His disciples the teaching on how they must treat each other.
12 “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.
13 “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.
14 “You are My friends, if you do what I command you.
15 “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.
16 “You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask of the Father in My name, He may give to you.
17 “This I command you, that you love one another.
Jesus then clarifies the kind of relationship His disciples should expect from the world.
18 “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.
19 “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
20 “Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also.
21 “But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me.
22 “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.
23 “He who hates Me hates My Father also.
24 “If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well.
25 “But they have done this in order that the word may be fulfilled that is written in their Law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’
John No Plea of Ignorance
by refusing to accept the Son, those who claimed to love the Father were actually showing hatred for the Father. They should have bowed to the Son. But instead they hated Him without reason, simply because their sinful hearts could not tolerate His rule.
Brethren, if it seems that you are not well received by the world, know this, neither was Jesus well received. He was truly hated without a cause. The world loves its own, but it hates everyone who is chosen out of the world.
Persecution is inevitable. But we are not greater than our Lord are we? As surely as Jesus was persecuted, so are His true disciples for His name’s sake, why? Because His true disciples would continue the work of Christ and would face much of the same persecution as the result of exposing sin. The light reveals the truth, therefore the ungodly hate the Light. In fact, the Bible says that prefer darkness over light. If Jesus had not come and spoken to evil men, then they could claim ignorance of sin. But Jesus says, “but now they have no excuse for their sin.” Those who hear the truth and reject the call to salvation, Jesus says are without excuse.
The primary ministry of the Holy Spirit to a lost and dying world is to testify about Jesus. It is the Spirit who testifies about Jesus, because the Spirit is the truth.
Jesus said to His disciples...
26 “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness of Me,
Disciples of Christ must make the distinction between the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. The spirit of error is working through the many false prophets that are gone out into the world.
But the Spirit of truth confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh; His gracious activity is to testify of Christ. If you will notice, it is the Spirit of truth that testifies to the disciples of Christ, and the disciple then testifies to the world.
As the Apostle Peter said in...
32 “This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses.
Still again the Apostle Peter said in...
32 “And we are witnesses of these things; and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him.”
John 12–21: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary Christian Witness Is about the Son
Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2; cf. 15:15), and Peter described himself as a “witness of the sufferings of Christ” (1 Peter 5:1). The apostle John was exiled to “the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus” (Rev. 1:9). The Lord commended Antipas as “My witness, My faithful one” (Rev. 2:13), and the martyred tribulation saints are called “the witnesses of Jesus” (Rev. 17:6).
The Apostles knew Jesus from the beginning of His earthly ministry, when He called them. They were close to Him.
As the final link in the chain of witness, Jesus says to His disciples...
27 and you will bear witness also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.
After describing the Holy Spirit’s witness, Jesus told the disciples you will bear witness also.
John No Plea of Ignorance
The Holy Spirit would both testify of Jesus and empower the disciples to testify of Him in the face of the world’s hatred, hostility, and persecution. This promise has been fulfilled for two thousand years, and it continues to be fulfilled as Christians around the globe bear witness to Christ even unto death.