We stopped last time with an integral part of Jesus’ departing instructions to His disciples: If ye love me, keep my commandments. We are about to find out that this is part of an if-and-only-if kind of logical statement. That is important for us to hear because we, human beings, are very good at compartmentalizing. So much so, that we can end up believing things that are mutually contradictory. But because we keep them separate, we cannot see the contradiction… or maybe we refuse to see it. Haven’t you ever heard someone say: “It isn’t personal, it’s just business…” as an excuse for acting mercilessly?

Jesus has just told His disciples that if they want to continue His work, they will get His help with it, provided they do it for the sake of His Love.

How do we prove we Love Him?

We obey His commandments.

Wow! Isn’t that simple? As we will see below through repetition this is an if-and-only-if proposition: If we Love Him, we will Obey. If we Obey, we will Love Him. There is not one without the other. It is impossible to claim to Love Jesus and yet disobey His commandments. It is impossible to claim we obey His commandments and then live a life devoid of His Love.

Jesus’ whole ongoing friction with the religious leaders of His people was precisely the fact that they claimed to be able to keep (obey) God’s commandments and yet they had no Love in their hearts… So, really, they were failing miserably. We have known since the Sermon on the Mount, that God’s standard for keeping the commandments goes way beyond the letter of the Law… it all comes down to what is in our hearts.

But if the Pharisees, who worked so hard at it, kept failing, how can He expect our righteousness to be greater than theirs? (Matthew 5:20). Jesus’ answer is immediate: If I honestly choose, out of Love, to obey His commandments, I will have help:

John 14:16-18 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; 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 with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

And now we are beginning to see why Jesus is so focused on spending these last few hours teaching His disciples. There is so much still left to teach…

Here He is explaining why He told them He would not be abandoning them even if He was leaving this physical Earth. He is promising us that He will be with us, in this Earth, in another way. He is promising to send us the Holy Spirit to dwell within us.

Is this an entirely new teaching? Well, they know the Scriptures. They know that God’s Holy Spirit somehow came upon or dwelt in, or with, people (usually prophets) especially chosen by God to carry out His work. Surely, they knew by heart Psalm 51, where King David is terrified at losing God’s Spirit from his life because of his sin with Bathsheba.

Now Jesus has begun to explain the magnified role of the Holy Spirit under the New Covenant announced by the prophet Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 31:31-34 …After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

This is what Joel announced (and Peter proclaimed in the book of Acts).

Joel 2:28-29 And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.

Christianity is fundamentally supernatural

You would think that is a truism, for we claim to believe on a man who claimed to be the I AM, we claim to believe that He was killed and yet came back to life the third day, and we claim to believe that in so doing He has opened the way to eternal life for us. Clearly, all that is supernatural.

But does the way we live show that it is supernatural? Or are we just as obsessed about the things of this world as the people of this world? Do we fear the things that the world fears? Do we crave the things that the world craves?

Is Christianity for us just a choice of lifestyle we have made, a philosophy of life we have chosen, because it is the most optimal for us and our families? Are we Christians because we believe that that puts God on our side? I hope we can see that that way of thinking keeps our eyes still focused on this earthly life instead of on our Master.

Jesus is now plainly telling the disciples that the life of His followers is a life lived in the supernatural realm; accessing a reality that the world cannot experience:

John 14:19 Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.

We will see Him, we will know He is with us, because the life we will feel inside us is His Life… not merely human life but eternal life.

John 14:20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

We will KNOW! There will be no doubt. Such certainty makes no sense in this world but its truth will be undeniable to our spirit. Why? Because the Holy Spirit will be here right beside us.

And this certainty is all brought into our reality by that if-and-only-if that only the Holy Spirit can enable us to live:

John 14:21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me:

and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father,

and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

Do you, my reader, know that this is true… that the Father loves you; that Jesus loves you? …and that He will make that absolutely clear and undeniable, supernaturally so, to you, if you do... (what?)

John 14:22 Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?

Judas Thaddeus has the same question… How? How can you, Jesus, make yourself undeniably real to us but not to the rest of the world. This “supernatural” thing is hard to understand…  but there must be logical rules. How does it happen? And what is it that singles us out?”

Those are the big IFs…

Jesus’ answer is; “I have already given you the answer… But, Judas, you are getting one thing wrong… you are not singled out; this is an open invitation to whosoever will (remember John 3:16).”

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

You see it there? The if-and-only-if again; and it applies to anyone… Anyone that loves Him and obeys His commandments has access to the same invitation and the same promise.. All anyone needs to do is believe…

But if I choose not to believe, then… I won’t be able to love Him, and I won’t be able to keep His commandments and then… all is lost. It is, after all, an if-and-only-if:

John 14:24 He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.

I like the way Jesus ends that statement. He did not make all this up. If I have a problem with any of this, I’d better go and argue with the Father, the maker of the Universe.

The Holy Spirit is our ongoing source of this supernatural power

Jesus only has a few more hours left with them. But that doesn’t mean that the teaching and learning will be over after He is gone:

John 14:25-26 These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

And even though I will not be able to physically see Jesus anymore, His presence will still give me peace and strength:

John 14:27 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.

And with that mention of fear, Jesus circles back to the moment at hand… this moment that is headed inexorably toward the cross and the greatest challenge the disciples will ever face:

John 14:28-29 Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe.

This is ultimately the only way we can face our challenges; namely, trusting that it is all in the Father’s hands… and we know He loves us. If we keep that in mind, even the challenges, the apparent disasters will only serve to strengthen our faith.

And so, Jesus ends with the paradox that is going to shake their world: It will seem to them and everybody else that the devil has won:

John 14:30-31 Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me. But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence.

I love the way Jesus ends here because what he has been telling them, that he applies to Himself: Why will He be able to go through the agony of it all? Because He loves the Father and, therefore, He has kept His commandment.

If and only if…