Bible Commentaries
John 14

Verses 1-31

XIV 1-31 Consolation —The whole discourse, chh 14-16, constitutes a farewell address. Consolation predominates in 14, while the developments of the two succeeding chapters are more exhortatory. The said consolation comes very opportunely to allay the consternation with which the prediction of Peter’s denial must have filled the eleven. All that is said is meant to reinforce the consolatory word: ’Let not your heart be troubled’—a phrase occurring in 14:1 and 27. The burden of the thoughts is that the departure of Jesus is not abandonment. The Apostles shall have the assurance of his being their Precursor to paradise, of his future return to take them, and of his permanent interest in them, 1-14, they shall have the assurance of his Paraclete present with them, 15-17, the assurance of Jesus’ own interior and living presence, 18-24, the guidance of his Paraclete, 25, 26, and finally the peace with which he bids them farewell as well as the joy that his triumph shall bring them, 27-31.

1-14 The Way to the Father—The movement of this first section is towards the Father in heaven, to whom Jesus is the way, and with whom he is one God.

1. The remedy for troubled hearts is faith in God and in the Christ. Whether we read a double imperative: ’believe. . . believe’ (Chrys., Cyr., Hil.), or (with Vg) an indicative ’you believe’ and an imperative ’believe’, God and Jesus are on a level of equality.

2. ’Many mansions’ mean that a multitude shall come to the bliss of the Father’s house. Diversity of merits (Aug.) is true theology, but not the plain meaning of ’many mansions’ in this context. If it were otherwise—if there were only a few mansions—Jesus would have said so, because his departure was really for the purpose of preparing a place for his own. We must not conceive this preparation in a quasi-material sense of fixing places, but rather understand it of the Saviour’s work as intercessor, sender of the Holy Spirit, helper of his combatant soldiers. Thus by preparing the occupants, he prepares the place which they shall occupy.

3. His return to take them is at the hour of death for each individual (personal, Veni, Domine Jesu) and for the whole Church at the Parousia, Apoc 22:20.

4. They knew vaguely that he was going to God by the way of obedience. So he told them that they knew both the goal and the road. 5. Thomas, a man of slow, critical mind, objects that they did not even know the goal or destination.

6. Thereupon Jesus gives both the goal and the way their full clear meaning. The Mediator is the way (to be followed by faith and obedience), inasmuch as he is the truth showing the heavenward path, and the living force that causes movement towards the goal, which is an unending vision of truth and an unending possession of life. Coming to the Father is necessarily a supernatural filial motion realized through the Son. There is only one Son in whom we are sons, only one Mediator who is our way to the Father. On earth we are wayfarers (viatores).

7. The orientation towards the Father which Jesus gives is perfect. To know him is to know the Father in the unity of the one divine nature. To see him with the eyes of faith is to see the Father.

8. This mention of seeing the Father raised in the mind of Philip the idea of a theophany, such as was granted to Moses, Exodus 33:18, to the 70 elders, Exodus 24:9 ff., or to Isaias, 6:1 ff. Hence the apostle who had said to Nathanael, ’Come and see’, now says ’Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us’.

9. Jesus pointed out, in a tone of gentle reproof, that even in more than two or three years Philip had not penetrated his Master’s identity with God.

10. He therefore repeats the teaching of that famous day of the dedication feast, 10:25-38, when he had said, ’I and the Father are one ’. The statement of 10:38 is here reiterated in inverse order: ’I am in the Father and the Father in me’. Identity of nature means that the words of Jesus are the words of the Father. In-being and immanence express the ineffable union of the Father and the Son.

11. Jesus spoke with an authority that commanded belief; cf. Matthew 7:29. His word was enough to elicit belief when he said ’I am in the Father and the Father in me’. He is now speaking not to Philip only but to all the Apostles.

12. If they hesitated with regard to his mere word, they should believe in his divinity because of his divine works. From the mention of these works he proceeds to tell them solemnly (’Amen, amen’) that hereafter anyone believing in him shall do the same works (works of the same kind) and even greater ones. The meaning is not precisely that Peter’s shadow was to cure the sick, whereas Jesus only cured them with a word or a touch. No apostolic miracle that we know surpassed the raising of Lazarus and many others of Jesus’ miracles; but the results to be achieved by the Apostles and the Church were to be greater, for example, the conversion of the world, the interior transformation of souls through the communication of the Holy Spirit, the admirable development of the little mustard-seed which the Saviour cast into the earth in the days of his mortality.

13. The power to perform such stupendous works shall not be from the Apostles themselves but from Jesus raised to glory with the Father. He makes it clear that he will do the work, even when the apostolic prayer is addressed to the Father ’in his name’. For the Father is to be glorified in the Son.

14. Similarly when Apostles pray to himself and ask something ’in his name’, he will do it. Jesus is, of course, not speaking of the twelve only, but of the apostolic efficacy of the prayer of the Church at all times. Petition ’in the name’ of Jesus means not merely the use of the formula: in nomine Christi or per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, but intimate apostolic union of mind and heart and intention with the Saviour. We have explained the Rheims text, but it should be noted that in 13 the Gk MSS and the best critical text of Vg read: ’whatsoever you shall ask in my name’, the words ’the Father’ being omitted. The addition, however, gives the true sense of the verse.

15-17 The Paraclete, the Spirit of Truth —’Love in deed and in truth’, that is, love shown by keeping the commandments is the condition of the action of Jesus in the world. On behalf of the Church loving his petition to the Father is efficacious. The Father ’will give another Paraclete’. This purely Gk word used by Jn four times of the Holy Spirit, 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7, and once of ’Jesus Christ the advocate of sinners’, 1 John 2:1, means literally ’one called in’, as helper, pleader, defender, patron, advocate (especially in a lawsuit). Its active meaning is the usual one. In this discourse the Gk word is either retained (Syr., Copt., Vg, Aeth., Goth.) or translated as ’Consoler’ (Syr.-Pal., Arm., Georg., Slav.) or as ’advocate’ (Vg in Ep). Consoler is quite a good rendering, if we understand it to include assistance, advice, protection, intercession, everything, in fact, which is required to sustain and strengthen spiritually. The Paraclete shall remain not a short time only with his recipients, but for ever.

17. He is the spirit of truth, communicating truth and therefore irreceivable by the world placed under the dominion of the Father of lies. The antipathy of the corrupt world and of the merely natural man to spiritual teaching is like congenital blindness. Reception of the Spirit is itself vision and knowledge of the Spirit. Such vision is possessed by the Apostles (and the apostolic Church) because of the presence of the Spirit, which presence and its interior character is expressed by the two prepositions ’with’ and ’in’.

18-24 Presence of Jesus and the Father —The advent of the Spirit is really the advent of the whole Trinity. Jesus in heaven is not like a departed parent leaving orphaned children. Invisible to corporal eyes (i.e. to the world) he shall be visible to the eyes of faith, which faith is a contact between the living Church and its living Saviour. The day of Jesus’ coming is Pentecost and every day in which he manifests his spiritual presence.

20. ’In that day’ there will be the recognition of faith that the Christ is in the Father (with whom as Son he is one God), that the disciples are in him as living members, and that he is in them by infusion of the life they possess owing to their incorporation into him.

21. Again the condition of love is formally stated. Active love of the Son draws down the Father’s love and also the Son’s responsive love, which is an intimate manifestation perceived by faith and even sometimes experimentally felt.

22. Judas (more commonly called Jude, not (the Iscariot) expressed his surprise. His surprise was just like the former surprise of the brethren of the Lord to whose number Jude belonged, 7:4, that Jesus should have mentioned no manifestation of himself to the world.

23. Jesus answered by continuing on the same line of thought. Practical love of Jesus calls down the Father’s love and brings a joint visitation of Father and Son, not passing but abiding.

24. The nonobservance of Christ’s word is non-observance of the Father’s word. Hence such conduct excludes from the divine visitation and manifestation, which is really love meeting love.

25-26 The Paraclete as Teacher and Guide —The connexion between 25 and 26 shows that the function of the Paraclete as Teacher and Mentor will be to give full understanding of the teaching of Jesus. 26 is a Trinitarian verse, for the Father sends the Spirit in the name of Christ. The Holy Spirit is always active in the Church furthering the full development of the truth delivered by Christ. 804c

27-31 Farewell —The conclusion shows an example of Semitic inclusion. The discourse ends as it began in words of encouragement, with a slightly enlarged repetition of one phrase: ’Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid’. It has often been noted that Latins greeted by wishing health, Greeks by wishing joy, Semites by wishing peace.

27. The peace (a real tranquillity of order within the human soul) which Jesus wishes is a legacy and a gift, not a mere formula such as the world uses. The peace of Christ excludes both disturbance and pusillanimity. As at the beginning, the Master couples the thought of his departure with that of his coming (his constant coming). As a matter of fact, his departure, instead of being a cause of sorrow, should be a cause of unselfish joy proceeding from the love of benevolence, ’because I go to the Father: for the Father is greater than I’. The greatness of the Father over the Son was conceived by some early Fathers as the relation of giver of the divine nature to him who received it by generation. Though theologically justifiable in the sense of priority of relationship, this conception is not exegesis. Jesus is speaking as the Word Incarnate and as one going to the Father by the glorification of his humanity. The Word as Son was equal to the Father; the Word Incarnate as man was less than the Father. 29. As the departure was to be by the scandal of the Passion, Jesus notes that he is telling all this to his Apostles beforehand, in order to keep their faith from succumbing to the shock of events.

30. Little time is left. The prince of the wicked world—the inspirer of Judas and Jewish hatred—is coming, but against Christ the sinless he has no power.

31. If Jesus delivers himself to the Prince of Darkness, it is to show the world that he loves his Father and carries out his Father’s command. After the signal ’Arise, let us go hence’, he must at least have left the table and gone to another part or the house. It is difficult to suppose that he spoke chh 15-17 on the way to Gethsemani. Some suppose that we have in chh 15-16 a supplementary collection of paralipomena spoken earlier in the supper and closely connected with 13:31-35; others think that 27-31 are dislocated and should conclude