Part 21a – John14

We finished chapter 13 on a note of despair but with an observation that the only way of being able to fulfil Peter’s words of “laying down a life” was to recognise that life is first and foremost Spiritual and it is that Spirituality that works out salvation.

Peter has just been told by Jesus that he will deny him three times before even the rooster crows, but here in John 14:1 Jesus continues with words that give us hope. “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me.” or in KJV it reads
“Let not your heart be troubled, you believe in God, believe also in me.” This verse is paramount if we are to live a life that is spiritual, (which is in fact the only way to live a life), because Jesus is saying that He and God are one. Jesus has said this many times before and he reiterated it yet again. It is reassuring to notice that Jesus is preparing his disciples for life on earth without him but leaving them with full assurance that he is going to prepare a place for them in his father’s house.

It would appear that both Thomas John 14:5 and Phillip John 14:8 either don’t get it or they have both misunderstood who Jesus is. Thomas says “we do not know where you are going and how can we know the way?” while Philip says “Lord show us the Father and it is sufficient for us”

Thomas seemed to be saying that in his experience life was first and foremost physical and his whole outlook was one of a physical experience unable to extend to the spiritual. He had been with Jesus for three years and it appears he had not grasped that Jesus was God in man and therefore was the only access to the Father.

Phillip also reveals that his experience of Jesus’ life is physical with a bolt on optional spirituality and receives a fuller answer to his question than Thomas did. In John 14:6-11 Jesus explicitly reveals the Father and the only access to Him, v6, contains one of the great “I am’s” of Jesus. These I am’s are significant all through scripture and started with God revealing himself to Moses in Exodus 3:14 where God says I AM who I AM. This one little statement declares and confirms the supremacy, the steadfastness, the reliability, the sustaining, the all encompassing nature of God. Whenever we read “I am” in God’s word it should always fill us with hope, a hope that does not fade or expire.

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