Chapter fourteen is a very important chapter for me. In Jesus' own words, we are allowed to see truths that reach out to the human nature. Here, I address verses one through six. The things that I am about to write are things I derive from the words spoken by the Son of God. It is important for the reader to bear in mind that Jesus, as the Son of God, addressed himself as the son of man. He did so because he identified with mankind's condition and also because he wanted mankind to identify with his condition as the Son of God.
In verse one we find two identifications and a call for an identical faith in both. The first identification is God. God is a spirit. God has no body, yet, as a spirit, God indwells a body. Jesus is the second identification but by extension, all of mankind must be identified with Jesus. I say this because Jesus is a man with the spirit of God indwelling. It is the case also with all men and women. The spirit of God indwells. Jesus did not come into the world as a solitary and unique case of God in man but, rather, as an example of God in all men.
My evolving main discovery from all of my studies is that the spirit and the mind are one and the same. To say that God is spirit is to say that God is mind. In the case of each and every man and woman who has ever lived, God has taken a portion of himself and placed it within the respective body. Every man's and every woman's mind is in actuality a small portion of God, a mental connection to the one and only mind. When God, in the Biblical creation story breathed life into the original man, it is not written that God fanned around the air that existed. What is written is that God placed his breath, a portion of himself, inside the physical body of man. Since God is spirit, his breath is spirit. Man is a hybrid creation. For man to be alive, he not only requires the vehicle of a body but the spirit that drives it. When God combined a portion of his very being with the body of Adam – Adam was then, and only then, called a living soul.
In most academic circles, the concepts of spirit and life are swapped back and forth with equal certainty. It can be equally said, for example, that God breathed life into Adam and, also, that God breathed spirit into Adam. It is often called the breath of life but it is accepted to mean the spirit of God. That is how Jesus can assert such a thing as “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” in verse six. Jesus is an example to all of us – an example of what we can be when we accept that God lives within each of us.
After the two initial identifications in verse one, there was a call to accept the truth, a call to believe, a call for faith. Jesus said, “Ye believe in God, believe also in me.” That is like saying, you believe in the spirit, believe also in the spirit-filled man. It was never that Jesus presented himself as out of reach for the human nature, as too high up or far removed, as inaccessible but, rather, Jesus presented himself as the very human nature itself – in its unabridged manifestation. The spirit of God resides in all men and that is the truth. That is how Jesus can claim to be the “truth.” It is my opinion that the human brain is a God-engine. We can either accept that or deny that. If we let God take the wheel, he can be like a Mario Andretti in a Lamborghini. With the requisite faith, that is, acceptance of the truth, we can each be like Jesus. Otherwise, we can tool around on our own, running afoul of the odd obstacle and deceptive detour.
Verse two may be, in a nutshell, all that I am trying to express in these notes. To say, “In my father's house are many mansions,” is like saying, within the parameters of the spirit, there are many smaller divisions. Now, you can call them mansions or houses or temples or minds. Each division is a place that is set apart from all other divisions and, yet, each separate division is filled with the same spirit. Since Jesus was speaking, in this general area, about his sacrifice on the cross, since the betrayal had been set up and his arrest and crucifixion were now assured, it is reasonable to assume that his words reflected those facts. When he told his disciples that he was going to “go” as a preparation for their incorporation, that word might better be seen in the sense of finalizing the present work rather than in the sense of traveling somewhere, after the present work, to perform another work. In other words, 'I go to the cross to make it possible that you can be like me.'
These are not mere stabs in the dark by an overactive imagination. My thoughts, here, seem to receive further validation from what Jesus says in verse three. He said, “I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” If Jesus used the word 'go' to reference his death on the cross, to what did he refer when he said 'come again?' Did he only mean the resurrection which, after about forty days he was gone again? Did he mean the end of days after the disciples had been dead for centuries? It may be seen in further study that 'come again' has a strong link to verse seventeen.
Jesus said that the purpose of him coming again rested in the fact of him and his disciples being 'on the same page.' In other words where I am, there you may also be. I want to point out, here, that Jesus did not say, I will come again . . . that where I 'will be' but, rather, where I 'am.' Even after the fact, it was still present tense. Jesus said to them, I will receive you unto myself. This was in regard to the fore-mentioned preparations in the spirit. This speaks of incorporation into a larger identity. What is the identity of Jesus? He called himself both man and son of man because he, as the Son of God, identified with the whole nature of man. Might it not be, then, that the two expressions – son of man and Son of God – are two smaller ways to say the same big thing?
In verses six through nine, Jesus responded to the doubts expressed by two of his disciples. The first doubter was doubting Thomas who said in verse five, 'we don't know where you're going so how can we know the way?' The second doubter was doubting Philip who said in verse eight, 'Show us the Father and it will suffice us.' Jesus had just told all of them, after the departure of Judas Iscariot, 'you know where I'm going and you know the way.' In his response to Thomas, in verse six, Jesus said, 'I am the way. No man comes to the Father, but by me.' That is like saying, the only way that man can attain God is by being me. In response to Philip saying show us God, Jesus said in verse nine, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?”
What a statement! This is how I read the words of Jesus in his response to both Thomas and Philip. 'I am the way. The only way for man to reach the Spirit is through the spirit-filled man. When you look at me, a spirit-filled man, you see the Spirit. How can you possibly miss that?' What Jesus said in this chapter is amazing – but only if you stop and think it through. God has never been out of reach. Every believer's march toward God begins with that bit of God that God placed inside of him.
Jesus continued his response in verses ten through twelve. He asked, 'Why is it so hard for you to believe that I am in the Spirit and the Spirit is in me?' He said, 'The words that I speak don't originate in me. They come from the Spirit. The works are those of the Spirit. Either believe me that I am in the Spirit and the Spirit is in me, and if you can't do that, at least believe me for the sake of the works that only the Spirit can do.' When he said that last little bit, to what did he refer? Jesus referred to the works that God did through Jesus. They were works that every one of them had seen with their own eyes. Jesus walked on water, he raised the dead, he healed the incurable, he turned water into wine, he drove evil spirits out of people, caused the blind to see and the deaf to hear and the lame to walk again. He glowed on a mountain top while he spoke to Moses and Elijah. None of those works were possible for a man apart from the power of the Spirit within.
Jesus said in verse twelve, 'I tell the truth when I say that if you will believe in the spirit-filled man, you will do similar Spirit-powered works. Your works will continue forward because I go to the Spirit.' Now, I want the reader to pay special attention to what Jesus said in verses thirteen and fourteen. What did he really say?
The words are these: “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son (that the Spirit may be glorified in the man). If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it.” The truth behind the words is this – when we pray in Jesus' name, we are praying to God. We are Praying in Jesus' stead with an honest expectation that God will answer the prayer. Jesus is actually speaking of a spiritual hierarchy. While Jesus moves up to attain the Spirit, the believer steps forward to fill the shoes of the son of God – the son of the Spirit, the Spirit-filled man. Jesus had just told them that he was going to the Father in verse twelve. So, here is where adding one to one equals two: Jesus went to God, in other words, he attained the Spirit. Because of that, when we pray in Jesus' name, it is Jesus who will answer the prayer. Why do I say this? I say it because Jesus is the heir to the throne (the power) of God (the Spirit). When Jesus took his place as the rightful heir, that is equal to a spirit-filled man obtaining God-hood. Jesus the spirit-filled man became Jesus the Spirit.
What is verse fifteen? Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” When we love Jesus, are we asked to love the spirit-filled Jesus or Jesus the Spirit? Are we asked to keep the commandments of the spirit-filled body who was lost to us or are we asked to keep the commandments of the Spirit which is eternal?
Jesus was born of the Eternal Spirit, Matthew 1:18 and 20, Luke 1:35, Luke 3:22, and Luke 4:1. Jesus returned to the Eternal Spirit, John 3:5 and 6, John 13:1 and 3, John 14:12 and 28, and John 16:16, 7 and 28. Listen to what the Eternal Spirit says about love and commandment-keeping (“If you love me, keep my commandments.”) in Exodus 20:1-6, “And God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me ... I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.”
Verses sixteen through eighteen deserve our closest scrutiny. He had told his disciples that he would leave them. Now, he was telling them that he would not leave them without a comforter. We understand that he is speaking of the Holy Spirit. To go beyond the common understanding of things, one must keep all the facts in mind. One must put all the cards on the table. Jesus told his disciples that he would ask God, who is Spirit, and God would, after the departure of Jesus, send them another comforter. Please sit up and take notice of the word 'another.' What was Jesus telling them?
He was telling them that he, Jesus, up until that time, had been their comforter. He had given them his words, which he got from his Father, and by doing so had elevated the minds of his disciples, who were ordinary men striving and desiring to reach truth. His words took root in their minds, like a tiny mustard seed, and grew. They came closer to the truth with every new revelation and in so reaching those heights, they found comfort. Now, they were being told that the comforts of Jesus would end – but all was not lost. They would soon get 'another comforter.'
Who would this new comforter be? What comforts might he bring them? The first fact they learned about the comforter to come was that he would abide with them forever. None of us have a clear or complete concept of 'forever,' it is simply beyond us, but we can be certain that for the disciples, at least, the abiding would last to the end of their mortal lives. As mortals, we have mortal thoughts. The limit of mortal thought is found in death. Beyond our mortality, the concept of forever must be thought through with a higher spirit. Is forever like a really long line? Is it like a loop? Is it something on a par with Yin and Yang? Does forever cycle through mortal life as in the concept of reincarnation?
Jesus did not leave them in the dark about the new comforter. He named him. He described him in terms of applicability – that is to say, the comforter would be someone they could receive as opposed to the world (the worldly mindset) who could not receive him. He named him 'the Spirit of truth' in verse seventeen. One point I have labored to get across in my writing is that spirit and mind are two different words for the same quality. The mind is the spirit and the spirit is the mind. In regard to that point, here are two known facts.
One of the names attributed to Jesus is the 'Truth.' Jesus had just told them in verse six, I am the way the Truth and the life. By extension and in regard to the point made above, to say 'the spirit of truth' is like saying 'the spirit of Jesus.' It is also like saying 'the mind of Jesus.' What did Jesus say to his disciples? Did he tell them that the new comforter would be the mind of Jesus? Let us look closely at the assurances of Jesus.
The world, or the worldly way of thinking, could not receive the mind of Jesus but the disciples could. Jesus told them that the mind of Jesus could be found in his disciples but not in anyone of the worldly mindset. In fact, his own words to them, in verse seventeen, were that the mind of Jesus “shall be in you.” Note the word 'in.' In regard to the identity of the comforter, look closely at the words that Jesus spoke – and as we know, he got his words from the Father. In the same breath that Jesus told his disciples “and shall be in you,” (future tense) he said to them “he dwelleth with you” (present tense.) This is important to anyone who earnestly seeks the truth. It is also a comfort. Keep in mind that concepts such as 'abide' and 'dwell' are concepts of physical point location. It is where in space and time that you exist; it is where you are; it is where you stay; it is where you can be found; it is where you remain.
Up to the place and time that Jesus left to be with the Father, he dwelled with his disciples as their comforter. He assured them, “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” Jesus, the spirit-filled man, would leave them but Jesus, the Spirit, would come back to them with more of the same stuff that had comforted them all along.
Jesus will get back to the comforter in verse twenty-six but, first, in verses nineteen through twenty-five, he brings the attention of his disciples back to the present physical reality. Yet a little while and the world, as a whole, will be deprived of the son of God. However, such is not the case for the believer. He told them, you see me. That was a present-tense state that transcended into the future state. Life saw life in the sense of it takes one to know one. His assurance to them and to us is that all of us who have such a connection to life, in that we see it and know it in an intimate way, possess that same life within ourselves. When we see Jesus in ourselves, Jesus is, indeed, within us – living and sharing with us all that he is, that is to say, the way the truth and the life.
The day will come when all doubt shall flee and they shall know with certainty that all he told them was true. To make it clear, the mind that harbors the commandments of Christ, which come from the Father, is the mind that loves and connects with God through Christ. In that case, after Jesus is physically taken from the world, both Christ and God will connect to that mind in return. They will come to that mind and make their abode there. Remember what was said about abiding just above? It is where in space and time that you exist; it is where you are; it is where you stay; it is where you can be found; it is where you remain.
How can they and we receive such and yet the same is hidden from the world? It is the mental connection. That is to say, our spirit connects with his spirit and thus we are one. The worldly mind does not make that connection. The worldly mind rejects the sayings of Jesus thus cutting themselves off from the truth. It is a conscious and deliberate choice. By limiting themselves in such a way from the truth, they also limit themselves from life. The salvation that is offered by God is to whosoever will. Note the word 'will.'
Jesus is telling all of this in advance. He is preparing the mind that will make the connection. All of us who receive the truth, who love Christ and keep his sayings, who reach out to receive the salvation that God the Father offered through the death of his son Jesus Christ – we also come to our place by way of a conscious and deliberate choice.
So, back to the comforter in verse twenty-six. Jesus identified the new comforter as the “Holy Ghost.” Note the word ghost. If you recall, when Jesus walked on the water, all of his disciples feared, thinking that they saw a ghost or spirit. They may have been just as superstitious as we are today. Apparitions they could not immediately identify as normal or commonplace, they sweepingly included under the stock header of a spirit or a ghost. Was Jesus at all indicating himself by the word ghost? Let's think a moment about that. I have already put forward that the Holy 'Spirit' is the Holy 'Mind' and that the Holy Spirit of Truth (Jesus being the Truth) is the Holy Mind of Jesus. Yet, in his own words, in verse twenty-six, Jesus further identifies the Holy Ghost by saying, “whom the Father will send in my name.” That is like saying 'in my place' or 'in my stead' or 'to represent all that I am.'
One might say that the entire verse is pretty Jesus-specific. What will the Holy Ghost do once he (refer back to the word whom) is sent by God (refer back to the word Father?) This is what the son of the Father says that the Holy Ghost will do – first, the Holy Ghost will teach them all things. Note the word all. He will not stop at some things but will teach all things. This, I think, is an answer to those who complain that the Bible was written by 'fallible man.' Second is even more Jesus-specific. The Holy Ghost will bring everything that Jesus ever said to them back to their memories. Some people actually think that the writers of the Bible were making things up. I think that, even in their far-flung years, even in moments of dire distress, it was the Holy Ghost who caused them to remember and write the truth.
What would you be like if the Holy Ghost was with you (“dwelleth with you, and shall be in you?”) Note the word in. If the Holy Ghost, Spirit, Mind of Jesus is with you wherever you go and, in fact, can be found inside you in the space where a spirit or mind fits, then, we may justifiably say, and without any doubt, that we possess the mind of Christ. Christ leads us, Christ comforts us by teaching us all things and by bringing into our thoughts all the truth that he is – all that he ever said or has yet to say. In a world devoid of peace, those who possess the mind of Christ also possess peace of mind.
Verses twenty-seven through thirty-one are a fitting conclusion to this chapter. In the wake of Jesus' sudden absence, Jesus told them, one thing would be left. That one thing would be the peace of Jesus. It is important to note that even Jesus felt it was necessary to set that peace off as separate from and opposite to the peace of the world. You might say that the peace of Jesus and the peace of the world are worlds apart. One major difference between the peace of Jesus and the peace of the world is that the peace of Jesus is a peace that is 'given.' That is never the case with the peace of the world. The world might try to sell you peace but it will not just hand you something for free. For anything you get from the world, you must give twice the price for half the value. To obtain peace from the world, one must surrender a substantial portion of what makes that person naturally noble and justifiable.
Don't worry, Jesus told them. There are no strings, no catch. What Jesus gives makes us more not less. Jesus reminded them, then, that the gain they would experience was akin to the gain that he, Jesus, would obtain. Jesus was going back to the Father – that made Jesus more. Likewise, those who love and are loved by Jesus will receive into themselves something greater than themselves. The Father, whom Jesus was set to receive, was greater than Jesus. The spirit of Jesus, whom the disciples were set to receive, was greater than who they presently were. That goes for all believers. We are drawn up with him. Recall John 12:32, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.”
Jesus told them that if they loved him, they would not weep and bemoan his departure from this world. Instead, they would see that he was going to something better than this world. His present state would be elevated and if they recognized that fact, that fact alone should be cause for them to rejoice. It is the case with most deaths and funerals in our experience that those left behind grieve the loss of those they love. The crying cannot be for those who are no longer a part of this reality. Rather, when we cry, we grieve our own diminished state. There is a hole in us, an emptiness, and for that, we cry. We cry because in this world there is no peace, no consolation, no comfort.
Jesus told them to their faces, he made it as plain as he possibly could that he wanted them to remember his words – they were an advance warning. He prophesied that the spirit of the Father was turning away for a time. Not only would Jesus be forsaken but the disciples as well. That left only the mindset of the world. Because of that, Jesus would communicate less with them for a while. The mind of the world has no place in a spirit-filled man. The spirit of the world would gain dominance just as the pendulum swings back from whence it came. This would be needful so that the world might know the truth that God loved Jesus and the commandment given him by the Father was, because of the same love, implicitly obeyed. Why? Why so that 'the world' would know and not just the believers? It is for the very fact that the pendulum will swing back once more.
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