Radio Series: A Study of John 14: 1-6
Pastor Brad Abley: Biblical Educator and Religious Broadcaster
This Study of John was originally preached via Radio Broadcasts in Africa!
“John 14: Jesus Reveals the Father & the Holy Spirit”
John 14:1-6
I am the WAY, the TRUTH and the LIFE. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
(Note:* The following is excerpted from Pastor Brad’s personal commentary notes on the gospel of John, and are unedited and incomplete).
John 14: Jesus Reveals the Father & the Holy Spirit.
“In the first three verses of John 14, Jesus teaches His disciples about His crucifixion, His resurrection, His return, and the resurrection of His followers. Moreover, He teaches them about their eternal home and their eternal security.
They can earn none of this; it comes freely through His death and resurrection.
But it was His imminent arrest, crucifixion, death, and departure from them through His resurrection which devastated them. On top of that, in John 13, Jesus foretold that one of them would betray Him and then that Peter would deny Him.
At that point, the air must have gone out of the Upper Room – and out of their hearts. Now, the questions flooded their minds: Was Jesus really the Messiah? Could they have been mistaken? What about their greedy plans to sit with Him in His kingdom, judging the 12 tribes of Israel (cf. Mt. 20:20-24)?
It’s no wonder He can tell His disciples not to be troubled (v.1). In fact, the word “troubled” is a command, and it’s in the present tense. The word “not” is emphatic. He also repeats the command in v.27.
We saw this word and definition in John 11:33 (cf. 12:27; 13:32): to shake; to be disturbed, even to shudder. Does it even seem reasonable – considering the confused state of His disciples – for Jesus to command them not to be troubled?
In truth, the Christian faith and even Jesus our Lord appear at times to be counterintuitive. This certainly was the case for the disciples! But from Jesus, there was a simple remedy; trust in Him.
Recall that in John 13:21, Jesus became “troubled,” where the same Greek word is used in 14:1, 27. However, in 13:21, the Greek tense is aorist, which is past point -- one time.
Thus, when we’re “troubled,” we’re not sinning; we experience the same thing our Lord did. But it’s choosing to stay in that state that’s sinful – and according to Jesus – unnecessary -- and even pointless if we’ll keep our focus on Him as He did with the Father.
To stay in such a state when we’re in relationship with our omnipotent Savior, Father, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is ludicrous, if we think about it. It’s also spiritually dangerous.
Why does He speak with such finality and surety? He does so because of the reasons He gives, and the urgency needed for the disciples to believe His words; He knows the terror that awaits them upon His arrest and especially after His crucifixion -- less than a day from speaking those words.
He furthermore understands that such teaching is what His followers in every generation will need to hear and apply throughout their lives in this unpredictable, hostile world we live in.
Accordingly, Jesus is giving us urgent and invaluable lessons in Christian living.
What Jesus told His disciples throughout John 13 especially, rattled them, shook them to their core.
They barely understood what He told them, and the truth is, they simply didn’t want most of it to be true.
Accordingly, they were constantly confused by His words. Their spiritual state could be summed up with the words Thomas would later utter emphatically, with unbelief:
So the other disciples were saying to him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe” (John 20:25).
Of course, Thomas had no idea Jesus heard every word he said, and those words would come back to him with a rebuke from Jesus, eight days later:
After eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus *came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then He *said to Thomas, “Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.”
28 Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus *said to him, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed” (John 20:26-29).
In attempting to help believers to learn to believe God and not become like Thomas, the great theologian Anselm – Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1109) – would use the phrase “Faith seeking understanding.”[1]
Anselm elaborated: “I believe in order to understand; I don’t seek to understand in order to believe.” The last thing Anselm was advocating was the refusal to use logic. Instead, he rightly argued that the starting point for every Christian in understanding our triune God and His Word is to have the position of faith – not doubt.
Had the disciples taken that approach during the events of John 13, they would not have been devastated. Instead, that very night and even into the early resurrection appearances, the disciples were unbelieving.
So important was this to future believers that these same disciples mention their own unbelief eight times in all four gospels (Mt. 28:17; Mark 16:11, 13-14; Luke 24:11, 38, 41; cf. John 20:27-29).
Here is an urgent lesson for us to carry with us each day, throughout our lives – most especially when the storms blow against us, all Hell seems to scream at us, and God seems silent in our pain and confusion.
Moreover, Anselm also understood that without faith, it’s impossible to please God, and when one does trust Him, he is at peace (cf. Ps. 119:165). It’s impossible for us to escape times of similar pressure to doubt, panic, or despair when we face confusion or adversity.
Add to that the daily spiritual warfare of the demonic realm with arrows of doubt, lies about God to us, fear, heaviness, oppression and so many other temptations which come our way!
The disciples didn’t fully understand Jesus and His deity – His omniscience and His omnipresence – His power to enable them to overcome. And it’s the same for us today.
“Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, than to trust and obey.”
It seems highly significant that Jesus didn't tell his disciples not to be troubled because everything would work out fine for them! Instead, he pointed them to their eternal home, which He Himself is preparing for them – and us! Is there a lesson here for us?
Yes, there absolutely is. And this isn't the first time that Jesus pointed His disciples to their eternal home (Luke 10:17-20). When our Lord emphasizes something on at least two occasions, we ought to pay close attention.
One of those disciples, Peter, would understand the importance of our Eternal home when he wrote in 1 Peter 1:1 that we believers are “aliens” in this world, and in 2:11 he called us “aliens and strangers.”
John Calvin has one of the best insights and perspectives on our eternal home, compared with this world, writing,
Whatever be the kind of tribulation with which we are afflicted, we should always consider the end of it to be, that we may be trained to despise the present, and thereby stimulated to aspire to the future life.
For since God well knows how strongly we are inclined by nature to a slavish love of this world, in order to prevent us from clinging too strongly to it, he employs the fittest reason for calling us back, and shaking off our lethargy…
In short, the whole soul, ensnared by the allurements of the flesh, seeks its happiness on the earth. To meet this disease, the Lord makes his people sensible of the vanity of the present life, by a constant proof of its miseries.[2]
At the same time, Jesus never countenanced a hyper spiritual, mystical approach to our faith. Instead, He expects all of us to bear much fruit for He and the Father, as He spoke a short while later in John 15:1-8.
How is this accomplished? How do we believe in our Lord? The answer is through prayer -- both to Him, and to the Father (primarily) -- but in His name -- to the Jew a clear claim to deity.
And for the first time in John's gospel, Jesus will teach them to pray directly to Him. The broader context of this discourse reveals this (14:12-14; 15:7, 16; 16:23-24).
What does Jesus mean by “many dwelling places” in His “Father’s house” (v.2)? Barclay offers the following insight:
"There are many abiding-places in my Father's house" may simply mean that in heaven there is room for all. An earthly house becomes overcrowded; an earthly inn must sometimes turn away the weary traveller because its accommodation is exhausted.
It is not so with our Father's house, for heaven is as wide as the heart of God and there is room for all. Jesus is saying to his friends: "Don't be afraid. Men may shut their doors upon you. But in heaven you will never be shut out."[3]
With the repetition of our Lord’s words, “I go to prepare a place for you” (v.2), we can see His prophetic promise of His own resurrection. This is vital for His disciples to hear, since first He must be crucified.
In a short time, chaos will ensue; He will be captured, tried, crucified, and buried. For a time, all the disciples’ hopes will have been smashed, and they likely feared for their own lives.
But in His grace, three days later the disciples – at first refusing to believe He had been raised from the dead (Mark 16:13) -- would remember Jesus’ words and believe them (John 20:3-10).
Without using the term “return” or “second coming,” Jesus nevertheless spoke of this in v.3 when He said, “I will come again and receive you to myself.” Notably, the Greek word translated “receive” is the same word used in Mt. 24:40-41.
There the word is “taken.” The word means to receive favorably, or to take to oneself favorably; to welcome. Not only could the disciples not save themselves, but neither could they enter heaven by themselves; Jesus must come to them to receive them and bring them to heaven – His “Father’s house.”
One of the great seven I AM statements of John’s gospel (with the predicate) comes now in John 14:6. It isn’t the first time Jesus referred to Himself this way, but given their slowness to believe and their hard hearts, our Lord needed to emphasize to them that this Man standing before them was equally God – God the Son – who was worthy of their trust.
His claim is utterly exclusive, and there is no room for equivocation with His disciples – or with us. There is absolutely no life in Him, no forgiveness from Him, no sonship, no propitiation, no justification, apart from Him. And there certainly is no hope of eternity in heaven without a surrender of one’s life to Him.
On a different note -- though He doesn’t say so here in v.6 -- the broader context of Scripture makes it clear that to be the way, the truth, and the life cost Jesus His life – and worse for Him – the turning away of the Father, who placed His wrath against sin – our sin – upon Jesus.
Only that could qualify our Lord’s statement and promise in John 14:6. That singular act of propitiation on the cross resulted in our justification, sanctification, redemption, reconciliation, renewal, restoration, spiritual resurrection – to be followed by our physical resurrection.
The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus – now our way, truth, and life – means we’re destined to rule and reign with Him for a thousand years, and then into the Eternal State in the new heavens and the new earth.
It means we have His resurrection life in us now, wide-open access to the Father – something no OT saint ever experienced – and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit – something very, very few OT saints ever experienced – but desperately wished they had.
There is a searching question which comes from Jesus to His disciples about a shortcoming in “knowing” Him (vv.4-5). We see this first in His three-fold use of the word in v.7.
However, in the rest of v.7, He promises that “from now on you know Him and have seen Him.” The backdrop of this comes from John 1:1-3, 18, which of course John wrote many years after the resurrection of Jesus.
In this promise of Jesus, we see His grace in enabling them to know and to see the Father. But Philip and the disciples are still having trouble (v.8; cf. Mark 16:14). Perhaps they expected Jesus’ words to be fulfilled immediately, and they were not.
Accordingly, Philip’s question is immediately followed by an assertion of astonishment from Jesus in v.9. After all, Jesus has lived with His disciples, taught them, and brought forth the most astonishing miracles expected of the Messiah for 3 ½ years – yet He declares they still don’t know Him!
Scripture tells us that the highest good for man is to come from a personal, truthful, experiential knowledge of the triune God, rooted in the accuracy of His Word (e.g., Is. 1:2-3; Jer. 9:23-24; Phil. 3:8-10).
Jesus will define such knowledge in this same teaching, a short while later (John 17:3). But the problem before them, Jesus says, is that their faith is shockingly deficient, emphasized through the word “believe” (vv.9-11).
For the disciples to believe Jesus, to take Him at His Word and refuse to doubt it – this was a major issue with Him. He did not treat it lightly with them (Mark 16:14; cf. John 20:24-27).
And so, it must be with us as well – also His disciples. We may struggle to believe at times, but we must not allow ourselves to stay in that struggle. He has proven Himself faithful, and He does not deserve to be questioned or doubted.
How can they fulfill the mission Jesus has for them if they don’t believe in Him (vv.2-3, 12-14)? In fact, as God the Son, they will need to believe in Him to such an extent that they must learn to pray to Him, as well as to the Father (v.14; cf. 15:8).
His teaching here isn’t sentimental or clever or meant to be impressive; it is a teaching that expresses with gravity the weight of present and eternal matters.
Jesus also emphasizes the Father, calling Him “My Father” in vv.2, 7 and “the Father” in vv.6, 9 (twice), 10, (three times), 11 (twice), 12, 13, 16, 20, 21, 23, 24, 26, 28 (twice), 31 (twice) – for a total of 20 times in 31 verses.
This is significant when we compare the complete absence of any reference to the Father in John 13 (although He references Him – not by name – in 13:20)! Why such an absence? For one reason, Jesus is the Passover Lamb, so the emphasis is rightly on Him.
For another, He invests a great deal of time trying to persuade Judas to repent (vv.18, 21-27). Also in John 14, Jesus expects His disciples to understand where He’s going (vv.4, 12, 28b), He expects them to know Him (vv.7-8).
Jesus also promises His followers their own resurrection (because of His resurrection) -- and them having been cleansed of sin by Him (John 13). We see this promise (cf. 11:25-26) in 14:2, 3, 19, 28).
What is particularly exceptional about His teaching on the resurrection is easily missed in 14:19. They (and we) will be raised “because I live.” He will shortly be crucified, but He will defeat death; it will not hold Him.
Accordingly, Jesus assures them, “you will live also” (“live” is zoe, that quality of life resident in God alone, and which He freely shares with all who come to Him through Jesus).
It may be that the famous hymn, “Because He lives” came from the author of that song from verses like John 14:19. For an excellent rendition of this hymn, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La9Zy917JcQ.
Yet another essential teaching of Jesus in John 14 is the matter of the disciples “believing.” So vital is this word that Jesus uses it seven times in John 14: in vv.1 (twice), 10, 11 (twice), 12, 29 (cf. 20:31).
Jesus calls His disciples to love Him, but He also explains what true love for Him looks like (vv.15, 21 [four times], 23 [twice], 24, 28. We see this emphasis nine times, twice with teaching on the Father’s love for His own (vv.21, 23).
Clearly, the focus on knowing Jesus, believing in Him, and loving Him are all meant to demonstrate His deity.
Union with Him is yet another fundamental teaching in John 14. This can be seen with the simple word “in” (throughout the chapter). There is no eternal life apart from one being “in Him.”
But to be “in Him” also means that the Father is in the believer, and the Holy Spirit is in the believer as well.
Jesus and the 12 Disciples
Jesus Prepares His Disciples (John 14)
Because there is so much to learn from just John 14:1-6 alone, we offer a summary in advance of our study. What we’ll discover is that Jesus takes care -- as our Good Shepherd -- of our fears of loneliness, of death, of the present, and of the future.
He promises us our resurrection; He promises heaven; He promises current and eternal relationship with the Father, in intimacy (pros). He promises His return, and He promises us that He is our complete Source for all of life – as the way, the truth, and the life – now and throughout eternity.
As the omniscient God the Son, He always knows the way we should go, and it’s always the right way. In the OT, there is the constant contrast between the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked. As our prophesied Counselor (Is. 9:6-7), He enables us to make the right decisions.
He and His Word are the Source of all truth, without which man cannot function (Deut. 8:3). And He alone is the Source of our resurrected life -- His supreme gift of grace.
And that means that we have been exalted to the highest place of all (Phil. 3:20-21), securing our immense dignity with His very own glory! All of this is due to his self-revelation as “I AM,” which, like eyeh in Exodus 3:14, means He is presently and eternally present with us as God the Son.
As Moses led the Israelites out of the bondage of Egypt to the Promised Land (although the unbelieving first generation died in the wilderness), Jesus is leading His people into their superior Promised Land and into their eternal rest. Even Moses didn’t make it to the Promised Land, but Jesus is Lord of heaven and earth.
At this point – this dangerously late point in their careers – the disciples still don’t know who Jesus is. They still don’t fully get His nature or His Mission – and the very next day, He will be crucified.
How can they possibly lead the Church and win the lost if they don’t know the One they represent? The stakes here could not have been any higher. Jesus needed them to understand that while He was (and remains) Man, He was (and is) God.
This is John’s message; it’s why we find in his gospel Jesus declaring Himself “I AM” some 26 times, with seven absolute “I AM” statements. He is revealing to them precisely who this Messiah is. When they come to realize this, they will “turn the world upside down” (Acts 17:6).
Of course, this also happened after His resurrection (which they were slow to believe), His breathing into them their resurrected life through the Holy Spirit (John 20:19-22), and them receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-4).
But they still had to know Him thoroughly; there could be no mistakes over knowing and explaining His nature: fully God and fully Man, two natures in One Person, perfectly united, and not mixed.
In the Incarnation, there is no subtraction of deity – only an addition of humanity. The disciples must understand this, and they must be able to articulate this truth to the world.
This is the very One who upholds all things by the word of his power (Heb. 1:3), who controls an estimated one hundred billion to two trillion galaxies in the observable universe -- with an estimated range of 100 million to one hundred trillion stars each -- and the Bible declares to us in two places that He calls them all by name (Ps. 148:4; Is. 40:26).
Accordingly, He is worthy of our trust, and that is exactly why He exhorted His disciples to continually believe Him.
“Behold, this is our God for whom we have waited that He might save us.
This is the Lord for whom we have waited;
Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation” (Is. 25:9).
We must know now that when this moment happens, it will be the greatest moment of our entire existence – and will continue throughout eternity.
Consider this scene for Jesus’ disciples as one of great emotional distress and even devastation; Jesus has just declared that one of their number would betray Him (John 13:21) -- and then He turns to Peter to declare emphatically that Peter will deny Him (John 13:38).
And Peter is the lead apostle of the twelve, their spokesman – the one who declared that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God (Mt. 16:16)! Fear, devastation, confusion must have gripped these men – who left everything to follow Jesus!
Is this great mission now a failure? Is Jesus admitting failure? Now what? What will they do? Will they return in utter shame and humiliation to their towns, only to be mercilessly mocked and derided?
How rattled the rest of the disciples must have been at this point, while continuing to try to wrap their brains around Jesus’ statement that He must go away. Utter devastation! How now would Jesus the Pastor shepherd them? Because it's only about to get far worse in a matter of hours.
First, He gives them words of assurance, but in the form of a present-tense, loving, sober and urgent command – literally, “Do not continually let your hearts be troubled” (John 14:1).
The Greek word is tarasso, which can mean to disturb, to upset, to stir up, to shake back and forth, throw into confusion, or even to frighten or to terrify. It can describe used figuratively to speak of severe mental or spiritual turmoil.
Jesus tells them this because that word has encompassed them at that very moment; it has seized and terrified them. Remarkably, this same word was used of Jesus in John 13:21 (and in 11:33; 12:27).
The difference is that He didn’t allow Himself to stay in that state. Thus, there is nothing sinful in experiencing tarosso; that is normal in a sinful world. But it is sinful if we choose to stay in this state, jettisoning all effort to trust our Lord.
He now encourages them positively by giving yet another loving command; they have trusted in God the Father until now, but they must continue to trust Him in the face of current and further coming chaos (v.1).
And the disciples have every reason to continually trust Jesus entirely; has He not already proven Himself faithful to them in every moment and situation – for 3 ½ years? Has He not demonstrated Himself to be the Messiah, as Peter has testified to on two momentous occasions?
Has he not raised the dead, cleansed the lepers, and opened the eyes of the blind? He has established His credibility with His disciples through prophecy and fulfillment of the OT; they must not abandon faith in Him but continue steadfast in faith -- for when Jesus calls for trust in Him, there is no more solid foundation.
D.A. Carson correctly asserts,
For a man to say “trust in me” in so absolute a context is either sublime or ridiculous: there is no middle ground. A man who is only a man is not deserving of such trust and must in time disappointed; a man who is also God not only deserves such trust, but cannot possibly betray it.
On the basis of trust in God and in Jesus, the disciples are not to be troubled. Presupposed are both the sovereignty and the goodness of God and of Jesus. They have the power to accomplish what they will, and they have the welfare of the disciples at heart: otherwise, they could not be thought trustworthy and so absolute a sense.[4]
“On Christ the solid Rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand!”
Barclay notes,
Jesus told men bluntly that the Christian must bid farewell to comfort (Luke 9:57-58). He told them of the persecution, the hatred, the penalties they would have to bear (Matthew 10:16-22).
He told them of the cross which they must carry (Matthew 16:24), even although he told them also of the glory of the ending of the Christian way. He frankly and honestly told men what they might expect both of glory and of pain if they followed him.
He was not a leader who tried to bribe men with promises of an easy way; he tried to challenge them into greatness.[5]
Our Lord certainly understood the overwhelming temptation facing His disciples from the evil one to abandon faith in Him. But His calming, authoritative voice would win the day for them, though all would flee from Him in His hour of need! How great is the mercy of God!
It’s important we understand the weight of our Lord’s words to His disciples, for they are His words to you and to me in our own many seasons of distress. Therefore, we would do well to memorize them, meditate on them, and pray them.
J.C. Ryle has a very helpful pastoral insight in this:
We have, first, in this passage a precious remedy against an old disease. That disease is trouble of heart. That remedy is faith. Heart-trouble is the commonest thing in the world. No rank, or class, or condition is exempt from it.
No bars, or bolts, or locks can keep it out. Partly from inward causes and partly from outward causes -- partly from the body and partly from the mind -- partly from what we love and partly from what we fear, the journey of life is full of trouble.
Even the best of Christians have many bitter cups to drink between grace and glory. Even the holiest saints find the world a valley of tears.[6]
In this same teaching (called “The Upper Room Discourse”), Jesus reminds His disciples, “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation but take courage; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
“Tribulation” comes from thlipsis – it’s that which burdens, presses, or crushes the spirit. Jesus isn’t minimizing the reality of tests, trials, and tribulations – and neither should we. But He is telling us how to overcome them.
T.D. Bernard helpfully explains the reason for our Lord’s command: “there is a strain upon faith when it is called to rise to new ideas, or to stand some searching test.[7]
First, Jesus isn’t simply going away from the disciples; rather, He is going to the Father, from Whom He came – for them and for all who believe in Him (cf. John 17:13). But their hearts were not on heavenly or eternal matters (cf. Col. 3:1); they were on earthly, temporal, and selfish matters (Luke 22:21-24).
Such thinking is deadly to a follower of Jesus, and it can only lead to devastation -- sooner or later – because the believer is now caught between two worlds, instead of keeping his or her eyes on Jesus.
Consequently, it is faith – faith in the Father and in the Son – that will enable the disciples to overcome all devastation. It is a choice to trust in the Father and the Son, instead of what they can see or feel.
Carson's assessment is correct, when he writes,
[I]if believed, their faith would triumph over their doubts and their troubled minds. Such faith would dispel the nagging suspicions that they were being abandoned. Indeed, how could men who had every reason to trust in Jesus as they trusted in God stoop to think that his departure was not for their ultimate good?[8]
And Mounce explains the important religious background of the disciples:
As members of the Jewish community, the disciples would know from their own religious tradition that God would never abandon them. Throughout history he had responded to the needs of his people and protected them in times of distress... if the Father is worthy of your trust, so also is the Son.[9]
If the disciples were with Jesus in an upper room in the temple, they knew that as “the Father’s house” (John 2:16). But this was most certainly not our Lord’s aim; as He reveals in John 17, it’s His eternal home in heaven – His yearning.
Unfortunately, the disciples do not share that same yearning. Their hearts are fixed, riveted to this world. But throughout the remainder of their lives, the Holy Spirit would work deeply in them to have their priorities settled (cf. John, for example, in 1 John 2:15-17).
Then, ingeniously, Jesus reveals to us that heaven is chiefly “My Father’s house” (v.2), and this house is also to be the home of the disciples, which Jesus reveals to them when He says He goes not only to be with the Father but to prepare heaven for them.
This is nothing less than extraordinary. To be in His “house” is to be with Him – at last -- face-to-face (Rev. 7:17; 21:4-5; 22:4; cf. Is. 25:9).
For this, note Ps. 65:4:
“How blessed is the one whom You choose and bring near to You
to dwell in Your courts. We will be satisfied with the goodness of Your house,
Your holy temple.”And the exclamation found in Is. 25:8-9:
He will swallow up death for all time,
And the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces,
And He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth;
For the Lord has spoken.
9 And it will be said in that day,“Behold, this is our God for whom we have waited that He might save us.
This is the Lord for whom we have waited;
Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation.”Mounce rightly says, “To be in the Father’s house is to be with him; everything else will pale by comparison.”[10]
Therefore, let us consider just how immeasurably rich we are in Christ; let us live now with this eternal perspective and hope – and share it frequently with other believers. In fact, why not even speak this to the unsaved as an evangelistic verse?!
Beasley-Murray explains of v.2 that the translation, “mansions” goes all the way back to William Tyndale’s translation of the Bible in the 1500’s. Tyndale echoed the Latin Vulgate translation of “mansions.” Then, however the term simply referred to a dwelling place.[11]
Yet another point to consider is that Jesus says there are many dwelling places in the Father’s house. That is, more than enough. Perhaps He meant by this to impart to His disciples a heart for the unsaved? Certainly His teaching in Luke 14:16-23 would certainly indicate this:
But He said to him, “A man was giving a big dinner, and he invited many; 17 and at the dinner hour he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now.’
18 But they all alike began to make excuses. The first one said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land and I need to go out and look at it; please consider me excused.’ 19 Another one said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please consider me excused.’
20 Another one said, ‘I have married a wife, and for that reason I cannot come.’ 21 And the slave came back and reported this to his master. Then the head of the household became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’
22 And the slave said, ‘Master, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ 23 And the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled.
24 For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste of my dinner.’”
The Father’s House – Heaven -- is a real place; it’s called a country and a city in Hebrews, which also tells us that this world is only a pattern of what already exists in Heaven. The New Jerusalem alone is approximately 1500 miles long, 1500 miles wide, and 1500 miles high (Rev. 21:15-21).
Some estimates conclude that it could easily accommodate 20 billion people, with plenty of room to spare, since that would only take up 25% of the space of just the city (imagine a worship service with that many people!).[12]
What does our Lord mean by His words, “if it were not so, I would have told you”? First, there was confusion about Heaven even among the Jews of Jesus’ time. Among the pagans, there was vast confusion. Jesus wants His disciples to be certain about where He’s going and what Heaven is like.
In addition, in his book, Expository Studies in John 13-17, my first pastor, Ray Stedman explains that Jesus is saying, "I have come to correct the thinking of men, to set right their delusions, to reveal the ways in which they have been wrong, to straighten out their twisted, distorted ideas."[13]
Part of those twisted ideas for the disciples involved any thinking on their part that Jesus would abandon them. This is likely His reason for saying, “if it were not so, I would have told you” (v.2).
Jesus had repeatedly told His disciples of His impending departure from them, via His crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension (6:62; 7:33-34; cf. 8:21). But they were rattled because they were unbelieving. But once they believed, they would find themselves settled.
We find in Romans 8:18-25 that part and parcel of our Lord's preparation of a place for us in heaven includes the resurrection of our bodies and the restoration of all things – all of God's beautiful Creation.
Sin has marred His Creation, bringing death and destruction to it – but God will never allow sin to have the last word. Tragically, however, Satan and the demons who rebelled against God will never experience restoration, and neither will those who steadfastly refuse to repent of their sin.
Such is the weight and responsibility of man’s free will, though aided by the Holy Spirit. In the meantime, among Christians today we witness a sad reality – the comfort of this world and an ambivalence toward heaven.
Accordingly, as Carson asserts -- "The status quo is what is desirable, not the consummation."[14]
Indeed, this is the condition of far too many Christians today! On a different note, how is it that our Lord could take so long to prepare a place for us?
That might be the kind of question that is in our minds, but that question misses the point of such preparation; our Lord's crucifixion, death, resurrection, ascension, and the sending of the Holy Spirit is for far many more than us here today; His delay is for the salvation of others as well.
However, the day is coming when the doors of heaven will be shut and those outside will not be let in (cf. Mt. 25:1-13). There is a sense of urgency to get right with Him today: “Behold! Today is the day of salvation; now is the appointed time!” (2 Cor. 6:2; cf. Is. 49:8).
For v.3, our Lord's promise to “come again and receive you to myself, that where I am you may be also" (cf. 21:22) ultimately involves Jesus being resurrected from the dead, appearing to His disciples, and then in this current age, living in us through the Holy Spirit. After that will be His physical return to this earth, called the “Second Coming.”
Hence, in vv.1-3, Jesus is teaching the reality of our resurrection, Heaven, and His second coming – all cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith – and all tied in deeply with the command He issued to His disciples in v.1.
This teaching is all the more buttressed by His “I AM” statement in v.6 – that this “Good Shepherd” is God in the flesh, and as such, their salvation is secure, and so is their eternity.
When Jesus returns for us and take us to heaven (if not earlier, through the rapture of the Church), we will fully experience the totality of the presence of the Holy Trinity and never be apart from our God -- not even for one second (Rev. 21:3; 22:4).
All that hinders us now -- distractions, frailty, sin, disappointment, spiritual warfare -- all of it will cease throughout eternity. Gary Burge writes in his commentary on v.3 that Jesus' entire point is not that we should think of palatial residences, but rather a place of residence with Him.[15]
This is explained in the word μοναι ("monai") which comes from the verb meaning to remain or to abide (c.f. 15:4-10). "To remain with Jesus is the highest virtue in John's Gospel (15:4-10), and he is promising that death will not interrupt intimacy enjoyed with him."[16]
Now that we correctly understand what Jesus is teaching His disciples (and us), we can only imagine the exhilaration of even our first seconds in the presence of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
If David could tell us (on this side of heaven, limited as we are), “in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand there are pleasures forevermore” (Ps. 16:11), then we can expect Ps. 16:11 to be our experience every second of eternity – not intermittently as we do in this world.
The same sentiment is expressed by yet another psalmist (Asaph):
Nevertheless, I am continually with You;
You have taken hold of my right hand.
24 With Your counsel You will guide me,
And afterward receive me to glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but You?
And besides You, I desire nothing on earth.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever (Ps. 73:23-26).
Asaph then beautifully adds, “But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all Your works” (v.28). While heaven is the domain of the entire triune God, it is chiefly “My Father’s house.”
Accordingly, He teaches us that heaven is relational, as is fitting for the sons and daughters of God our Father (again, cf. Rev. 7:17; 21:4-5; 22:4; cf. Is. 25:9). Now, we might ask how Jesus is preparing a place for us (v.2) – and why?
The problem is that He doesn’t offer any explanation – nor does John. Thus, T.D. Bernard asserts, “We understand how men are prepared for the place; but not how the place is prepared for men.”[17]
The “Father’s house” is our home; this world is most certainly not our home (cf. 1 Pet. 1:1; 2:11; Heb. 11:9-10, 13). At long last, we’ll belong; our sense of belonging will be perfect, complete, with no loneliness, no fear, no uncertainty, no sin getting between us and the Father – no limitation for us at all – spirit, soul, and body!
And Jesus assures us that it’s coming! But until that day comes, let us also be assured of this – that everything about this evil, sin-poisoned world has an expiration date on it. But it is a frightening expiration date for the unsaved:
Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. 17 The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever (1 John 2:15-17).
“But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men” (2 Pet. 3:7).
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up (2 Pet. 3:10).
11 Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat!
13 But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells (2 Pet. 3:11-13).
On the other hand, heaven is no place of mystery for the believer in Jesus; indeed, this world is merely a pattern of what already exists in heaven – in its pristine beauty and splendor – absent as it is from any sin (Heb. 8:5; 11:9-10, 16; 13:14).
So significant is heaven that Jesus refers to it about 73 times in the gospels, using the word “heaven” that often. But He also refers to heaven in other terms, such as “the kingdom of God,” which refers to the kingdom which is present and to the fullness of the kingdom to come (which Gerhard Vos described as “already and not yet”).
Paul declares to us that our true home, our true citizenship is “in heaven”:
For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; 21 who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself (Phil. 3:20-21).
Therefore, A.M. Stibbs cautions rightly: “As long as we are in this world, there should be in our lives as Christians, a certain detachment.”[18]
We should take note from Heb. 11:8-16 that heaven is both a “country” and a “city.” Cities and countries on earth have beautiful scenery (as heaven does), and they have buildings (as heaven does; cf. Heb. 10:34). Cities and countries also have roads (as heaven does, cf. Rev. 21:21), activities (e.g. John 14:1-3; Rev. 7:9), gatherings (e.g. Rev. 7:9, 13-14), conversations and work (like in heaven: John 14:1-3).
The OT prophets expected God’s promises to them to inherit literal land, as God Himself indicated repeatedly throughout (Gen. 12:1; 13:14-15, 17; 17:8, 19; Zech. 14; Joel 3:20; Amos 9:13-15; Micah 4:1-4; Ezek. 37:24-28; cf. Luke 21:24; 24:44; Acts 1:6-7).
An extensive description of virtually all of the above can be found in Rev. 21-22, which we’ll come to later in this study. Through an in-depth examination of Rev. 21-22, we can become more confident that by the time we get to heaven, we should not be completely surprised at its stunning beauty and familiarity.
However, we will no doubt be astonished at its splendor, not having been tainted by sin.
Robert Mounce offers an insight into Thomas’s question (John 14:6) worth our consideration, remarking, “Unwittingly, the mundane question by Thomas led to one of the most far-reaching and provocative statements ever made by Jesus.”[19]
Thomas was clearly troubled at the prospect of Jesus “leaving” them. Morris reveals the intensity of the times about to be foisted on the disciples from v.6, writing,
We should not overlook the faith involved both in the utterance and in the acceptance of those words, spoken as they were on the eve of the crucifixion. “I am the way,” said one who would shortly hang impotent on the cross.
“I am the truth,” when the lies of evil people were about to enjoy a spectacular triumph. “I am the life,” when that within a matter of hours his corpse would be placed in a tomb.[20]
And Mounce declares, “Jesus is not one who shows the way but the one who himself is the way.”[21]
Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Those three descriptions are unequivocal, and they are exclusive, because only Jesus could ever qualify to forgive sin – being God the Son who alone can give eternal life – and the Son of Man who shed His sinless blood, taking the wrath of God due us upon Himself and turning that wrath against us into God’s favor for us (the definition of propitiation; cf. Rom. 3:23-25; Heb. 2:17; 1 John 2:2; 4:10).
He alone is the way of eternal life (Acts 4:12); He alone is the truth (John 1:14, 17; 8:31-32; 18:37; Rev. 3:7; 19:11), and He alone can give eternal life (John 1:4; 3:36; 5:26; 11:25; 1 John 1:1; 5:20).
If He’s wrong at any point, He can only be called the greatest fraud who ever lived. But if He’s right on these points, to ignore Him is to forfeit one’s eternal destiny – a gamble of eternal consequences that people make every day (cf. Mt. 7:13-14, 21-23).
Jesus’ words are so strong that any professing Christian who doesn’t take them seriously is in serious trouble himself as to whether he is even born-again. And for anyone to say – especially one claiming to be a Christian – that Jesus is not the only way to heaven is a blasphemy of the worst kind.
Again, I would seriously question the salvation of any so-called Christian who is audacious enough to say such a thing. Moreover, it is rank idolatry – idolatry of the worst kind – because the fool who says such a thing sets himself up as Jesus’ judge.
Accordingly, Mounce ought to be heard clearly: “Ultimate truth is not a series of propositions to be grasped by the intellect but a person to be received and therefore knowable only by means of a personal relationship.”[22]
In fact, eternal life is to know Jesus (John 5:20; 17:3; 1 John 1:2).
Each of these descriptions of Jesus are deeply rooted in the OT; throughout, Yahweh is the way, or calls His people to follow His way (e.g., Deut. 5:22-23; 31:29; Ps. 27:11; Is. 30:21; 35:8).
For the truth of God, cf. Ps. 26:3; 86:11; 119:30, and for the life, cf. Prov. 6:3; 10:17; 16:11.
Thomas A’ Kempis wrote,
Without the way there is no going; without the truth there is no knowing; without the life there is no living...I am the inviolable way; the infallible truth; the never-ending life. I am the straightest way; the sovereign truth; life true, life blessed, life uncreated.[23]
For Jesus’ promise to His disciples to know the Father and to see Him (v.7), William Barclay explains,
It may well be that to the ancient world this was the most staggering thing Jesus ever said. To the Greeks God was characteristically The Invisible, the Jews would count it as an article of faith that no man had seen God at any time.[24]”
Foot notes:
[1] Anselm, Tractate XXIX, Ten Homilies on the First Epistle of John. Anselm (1033-1109) was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093-1109.
[2] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), 3.9.1, 25-26.
[3] Barclay, The Gospel of John, 154.
[4] D.A. Carson, Jesus and His Friends: An Exposition of John 14-17 (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House Company, 1980), 18.
[5] William Barclay, The Gospel of John, vol. 2, The Daily Study Bible Series (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977), 155.
[6] J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospel of John: A Commentary (Aneko Press, 2019), 245. Kindle.
[7] Thomas Dehany Bernard, The Central Teaching of Jesus Christ (London: Macmillan and Co., 1892), 144.
[8] Carson, Jesus and His Friends: An Exposition of John 14-17, 21.
[9] Mounce, John, 355-356.
[10] Ibid., 356.
[11] George R. Beasley-Murray, John, Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 36, eds. David A. Hubbard and Glenn W. Barker (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1987), 249.
[12] Brad Matthew Abley, A Commentary & Study of Revelation, Part 3: Chapters 17-22 (Chesapeake, VA: Independently Published, 2022), 135.
[13] Ray C. Stedman, Expository Studies in John 13-17: Secrets of the Spirit (Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1975), 40.
[14] Carson, Jesus and His Friends: An Exposition of John 14-17, 23.
[15] Gary M. Burge, John, The NIV Application Commentary, ed. Terry Muck (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 391.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Bernard, The Central Teaching of Jesus Christ, 134.
[18] Rienecker, A Linguistic Key to the Greek New Testament, 752.
[19] Mounce, John, 561.
[20] Morris, The Gospel According to John, 570.
[21] Mounce, John, 561.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Thomas A’ Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, ed. Lore Ferguson Wilbert (Nashville: B & H Publishing, 2017), 268.
[24] Barclay, John, https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/dsb/john-14.html..
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