There Is A Message at the beginning of John 14 which has brought comfort and reassurance to believers all down through the centuries: “Let not your heart be troubled ye believe in God, believe also in me” (John 14:1 RV as all references).
Comfort in the midst of turmoil
While we treasure these words, we can all too easily overlook the situation in which they were first uttered. First we reflect upon the impact made on the troubled minds of the eleven by what had just taken place. They had been told there was a traitor in their ranks (13:21). As we have seen, such a declaration had an unsettling effect upon the eleven. In the case of Peter and John, they knew the identity of the traitor and had seen him depart into the night. Then there was the disturbing statement by the Lord that he was to leave them and go whither they could not follow him (13:33).
But that was not all: there were other incidents which had taken place in the upper room which can all too easily be overlooked as they are not recorded in the fourth gospel. The Lord had instituted what we call the last supper, the significance of which, at the moment, they did not appreciate. The Lord had spoken of partaking of his body and blood in the symbols of bread and wine (Matt. 26:26-29). Then there had been the childish strife about which of them was the greatest (Lk. 22:24), a contention doubtless corrected by the Lord’s humble but instructive action in washing their feet.
Their faith would temporarily collapse
It is when we take account of all this that we begin to understand the need for the reassuring words recorded at the beginning of John 14. We turn our attention to the rest of verse 1: “Believe in God, believe also in me.”
The response to the call of Jesus on the part of the apostles had been based upon the conviction that he was the promised Messiah of Israel. At his invitation, they had left all to follow him. So much had happened, however, and was yet to happen which would shake their faith in Jesus of Nazareth to its foundations. Now he tells them, you have faith in God, you can also have faith in me. It was an invitation to trust him, a response beyond them at that time of crisis as evidenced when they all fled from him a few hours later.
If they were in such total disarray, it was because so many of their cherished convictions now appeared baseless. It was the resurrection of the Lord which would restore faith in him and create bonds between themselves and their Lord which no amount of intimidation and persecution could destroy (see especially Acts 5:29-32).
Look to the house of God
In the upper room, after calling on the eleven to preserve their trust in him, the Lord provided further grounds of encouragement: “In my Father’s house are many mansions (or abiding places); if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you” (14:2). These words look to the future and the promise has not yet been completely fulfilled. The process of preparation is still proceeding for some who will find a place in the Father’s house — it can therefore be of the greatest interest to us.
In speaking of the Father’s house, our Lord is employing a figure rich in biblical overtones. The temple had been God’s house, consecrated in Solomon’s time by the Lord’s glory entering into it (I Kgs. 8:10-11; II Chron. 7:1-3). We should note that when the glory of the Lord God filled the house, the priests were unable to enter. This was a manifestation of the divine glory too great for the association of the Levitical order.
This significant development hearkens back to what also happened when the wilderness tabernacle had been completed, strictly in keeping with divine instructions. On that occasion, too, the divine glory had filled the house (Ex. 40:34-35). Even Moses was unable to enter, although his face had shone after he descended from the mount (Ex. 34:29-35).
It is when we turn to John’s Gospel that we begin to understand the meaning of what happened at the consecration of the tabernacle and the temple. There we read: “And the word was made flesh, and dwelt (Greek “tabemacled” — RV footnote) among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth” (John 1:14 AV), and continue with, “For the law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). In the light of this passage, we begin to understand the symbolic character of what happened in the wilderness. The transcendent glory which filled the tabernacle, too great even for Moses to be associated with it, speaks of the Lord Jesus, full of grace and truth, the human expression of the great theophany of Exodus 34.
The true dwelling place of God
When we read John 2, we perceive that Solomon’s temple, like the tabernacle, prefigured the Lord Jesus. There, to the confusion of the Jews, he declares: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19). John makes sure we do not misunderstand the Lord’s language, for he tells us Jesus was speaking of his own body (v. 21). Thus, as so often is the case, the Lord helps us to turn from the physical and literal to the symbolic and spiritual.
What is additionally helpful in John 2 is that our Lord cleanses his Father’s house of its human defilement (vv. 13-17). Earlier, in Jeremiah’s day, the literal temple, because of human sin, could not be, in the full sense, the Father’s house (Jen 7 especially vv. 13-15). Furthermore, there had been in Israel a proper understanding that any building made with human hands could not achieve fellowship with the Lord God (I Kgs. 8:27; II Chron. 6:18). God could not establish fellowship with stone and wood, however ornate, but only with men and women who understood His holy nature and what is required of them to make this fellowship effective (see Isa. 57:15; 66:1-2 and Stephen’s words in Acts 7:47-50).
While in the Old Testament there had been an appreciation of the great truth that God could dwell with men, we are taken a decisive step forward in the New Testament when we learn, “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself” (II Cor. 5:19). The word “in” is so important. As for ourselves, Christ must be “in” us, for it is the only hope of glory (Col. 1:27). We have to bring “every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (II Cor. 10:5). It is only thus that we can become constituents of the “holy temple in the Lord” (Eph. 2:21).
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One