John 14:15-27
"If ye love Me, keep My commandments."
Who is there that sees anything severe or arbitrary in this requirement? If there be such an one, it is because he does not know the character of the Lord. Suppose you have a dear friend who is going to a distant land to be gone several years. You are sad at the thought of parting, but he comforts you with the assurance that he will come again, and that then he will remain with you; and then, putting a likeness of himself into your hands, he says, "If you love me, keep this." Would you go about bewailing your hard lot? Would you say that it was asking too much of you? Indeed you would not. On the contrary, you would rejoice at such a token of your friend's love and confidence. Even so should we regard this keepsake from our Lord.
The commandments of Jesus are the commandments of God the Father; for God said of Him to Moses: "I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put My words in His mouth; and He shall speak unto them all that I shall command Him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto My words which He shall speak in My name, I will require it of him." (Deut. 17:18, 19) Jesus said: "I have not spoken of Myself; but the Father which sent Me, He gave Me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. Whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto Me, so I speak." (John 12:49, 50) He was simply the revelation of God to men, the manifestation of God in the flesh, so that it was God speaking in Him. The law of God was in His heart (Ps. 40:8), so that He was that law personified.
Jesus is the One who gives freedom. (John 8:34-36) The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus gives freedom from sin and death. (Rom. 8:2) He therefore is the "perfect law of liberty" into which we are to look as into a mirror, beholding not our own sinful selves, but "the image of the invisible God," into whose image we are transformed as we behold. (James 1:25; Col. 1:15; 2 Cor. 3:18) Therefore in requiring us to keep His commandments, He simply asks us to keep a memorial of Himself. Love will gladly do this. "This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not grievous."
"He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me."
When God made man, the crown and lord of creation, He planted a garden eastward in Eden; "and the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep it." (Gen. 2:8, 15) Man did not have to make the garden; he was not required to plant it; he was only to dress it and to keep it. God made it perfect; man's duty was only to keep that which God had committed to him. So God gives us His commandments, His own perfect righteousness, and asks us to keep it. By faith in God we keep the commandments; so that one has only to keep the faith in order to keep God's commandments. To us all, even as to Timothy, comes the exhortation, "Keep that which is committed to thy trust." It should not be considered a hardship to keep what is given to us, when that thing is the highest good.
Notice that this talk about keeping the commandments immediately follows the promise that if we shall ask anything in His name He will do it. "And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. And this is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another." (1 John 3:22, 23) "Love is the fulfilling of the law," and love is freely shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. He makes the conditions of answered prayer very easy, and then supplies the conditions.
"And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him; but ye know Him; for He dwelleth in you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless [orphans]: I will come to you." (John 14:16-18) Jesus Himself is a Comforter. His presence is comfort. It was because He was going away, that the hearts of the disciples were troubled; and Jesus comforted them with the assurance that He was going to the Father, to prepare a place for them. Therefore we may know that "if any man sin, we have a Comforter with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." (1 John 2:1) The word rendered "Advocate," in this text is identical with that rendered "Comforter" in John 14:16. We have a Comforter with the Father, and "another Comforter" on earth with us. Surely we have no lack of comfort.
This Comforter, the Spirit of truth, is Christ's own representative, Christ's own personal presence with us as He could not be in the flesh. We know this in two ways from our text. First, Jesus says, "I will send you another Comforter," and adds, "I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you." So through the Spirit Christ is personally present even when absent. If, when talking to Nicodemus, He could speak of Himself as "the Son of man, which is in heaven" (John 3:13), now that He is on the right hand of God in the heavens He may with equal truth speak of Himself as with us.
In the second place, we know that the Spirit is but Christ's larger presence, so to speak, because the Comforter is "the Spirit of truth." Jesus Christ is "the truth." (John 14:6) The Spirit of truth therefore is Christ's very essence. Having the Spirit, we have Christ and all that He possesses.
"I will not leave you orphans." Christ is "the Everlasting Father" (Isa. 9:6), and He is the living image of the Father, the shining of His glory. Therefore the Holy Spirit, Christ's representative, who brings Christ's own presence, brings also the presence of the Father, so that with Him we are not orphans. Through the Spirit we become sons of God, members of His household, and the Father Himself is with us all the time. No longer are we prodigal wanderers from our Father's house, but sharers of all His bounty.
The world cannot receive the Spirit, because it cannot see Him. The world's motto is, "Seeing is believing;" the truth is that "believing is seeing." The world does not believe, and so it does not really see; it only imagines. It is not content with a God whom it cannot see, and therefore it manufactures gods. Out of its own imagination it makes images, and worships them. The Spirit, however, can be received only by faith, and whoever believes endures as seeing the invisible. All who believe may know the presence and voice of the Holy Spirit just as surely as they may know their most intimate friends, and even more so, since they can have no other friend so intimate. "Ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." Do you ask how you will know Him? Believe and you will know for yourself, as no one can tell you.
"Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no more; but ye see Me; because I live, ye shall live also." Christ is our life, and the fact that we live is proof of His presence. "But the wicked live!" you exclaim. Yes, and that proves the grace and mercy of God; it shows His presence to save. The Spirit of life and righteousness is striving with all, seeking to be received as a welcomed guest. Christ says to His true disciples, "Ye see Me." This is true even now that He is absent so that the world cannot see Him. But He is present now only by the Holy Spirit, which proves that believers have ocular demonstration of the presence of the Spirit. Yes, faith enables men to see spiritual things.
"He shall teach you all things." There is no teacher like God (Job 36:22), for "out of His mouth cometh knowledge and understanding." (Prov. 2:6) The Holy Spirit is "the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord." (Isa. 11:2) He is "the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God." His very presence gives wisdom. Through the Spirit one knows things that without Him could never be learned by any amount of study.
Without the Spirit, one really knows nothing. This is a fact. See: The Spirit is bestowed in order that we may know the things that are freely given to us by God. (1 Cor. 2:12) Since God does nothing uselessly, it is evident that without the Spirit we could not know the things that God freely gives us. Now what does He give us?--With His Son He freely gives us all things. (Rom. 8:32) There is nothing that God does not give us, and nothing of that which He gives us can be known without the Spirit; therefore without the Spirit we cannot really know anything. The school of Christ--the school of meekness and humility--is the school in which true knowledge of even the most common things is obtained, and the reception of the Spirit ensures to us the highest education. Think a moment, and you will see that this is literally true. Take two men, one having all the advantages of the best schools in the land, and the other compelled to spend all his life in hard, manual labour. The one will have all the polish that the world can give, while the other may present a rougher exterior, and may not be able to pass even an entrance examination in schools from which the first has been graduated with honour. The one is a skeptic, while the other knows and fears the Lord, and has obtained the wisdom that comes from above. (James 3:17) Which one has the advantage in education? You may hastily say, the first. Not so fast. Remember that this whole life, even though it be fourscore years, is but the threshold of eternity, and you must never leave eternity out of your reckoning. The Judgment comes, and the first goes to destruction, and all his attainments perish with him, while the other has before him endless ages of association with God and angels, whose acquaintance he has made on earth. Say you not that even the very first day of the life beyond, the poor man knows more than the other? When you first judged, you were like one who should make his decision as to two men upon their entrance to school. The end is the time to pass judgment. None of this that has been said by any means depreciates learning or application; far from it; for the one who knows the Lord will by that very companionship be stimulated to reach out for every attainable thing, and will be enabled to make more advancement in solid knowledge than an unbeliever can.
"He shall teach you all things." The Spirit is the only teacher. Whatever one learns from any other person he does not really know. "Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things." (1 John 2:20) "The anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you; but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in Him." (Verse 27) No one is to learn of man. It is true that God has set teachers in the church, and He uses men as agents for conveying instruction; but the one who receives the instruction as coming from man, instead of direct from God, does not know the truth. No matter by whom the instruction comes, unless the learner receives it so directly from the Spirit that he knows it as a personal revelation from God, he does not have it as he ought to have it.
"The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, ... shall bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." Since all things that are worth remembering come from Christ alone, and the Spirit brings them all to our remembrance, when we receive Him, it follows that the Spirit is given to us to be memory for us. Mind, the Spirit is not a substitute for study and application, and is not given to encourage laziness; but He is our Teacher, spurring us on, and helping us, and becoming so one with us that He takes complete possession, so that we have no mind but that of the Spirit. Then the Spirit is understanding, and memory as well, enabling us to think of the right thing at just the right time.
The Declaration of Peace
"Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."
So the chapter ends where it began. "Let not your heart be troubled." Peace is ours, then how can we be troubled. Do not get things reversed. We are not to believe that we have peace because we have no trouble; but since Christ has given us His peace, we are not to be troubled, no mailer how great the trouble.
"My peace I give unto you." Peace, perfect peace, means victory. In that Christ gives us His peace, He gives us His victory. He has conquered, and put the enemy to flight, after taking from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and He gives us peace. Not only so, but He gives us His peace--the peace that was unruffled even in the fiercest fight. He was oppressed and persecuted as no other man ever was; spies were continually on His track, perverting His words, seeking to exasperate Him, whispering about Him, bearing false witness, defaming His character, arousing suspicion, contradicting and abusing Him; yet never once was He impatient. What perfect peace! And this peace He has given us. We are not able to keep patient under trials, but the peace of Jesus can keep us. "Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." (Phil. 4:6, 7)
--April 20, 1899