“Do not let your
hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. 2 In my
Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have
told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and
prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that
where I am, there you may be also. 4 And you know the way to the
place where I am going.” 5 Thomas
said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the
way?” 6 Jesus said to him,
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except
through me. 7 If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now
on you do know him and have seen him.”
8 Philip
said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this
time, Philip , and you still do not
know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the
Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the
Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the
Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in
the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because
of the works themselves. 12 Very truly, I tell you, the one who
believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater
works than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 I will do
whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14
If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.
John 14:1-14 has the theme of Jesus as the way to the Father for those
who believe in him. The issue of this segment is what will happen to Jesus
after his departure. The disciples are not to have troubled hearts. They
believe in God, so they are to believe in Christ. He reminds them that the
house of the Father has many rooms. As Karl Barth stresses, the comfort and
warning here is that disciples are not in their own house, but in that of the
Father of Jesus, a house that has many rooms, including some of which they do
not yet know.
[1] As John continues, Jesus has told him that
he will prepare a place for them. If he goes, then he will return to take them
to himself. In that way, they will be where he is. He reminds them that they
know the way to the place where he is going. Yet, Thomas says they do not where
he is going, so how can they know the way. As is typical in John, Thomas is
thinking on an earthly level, while Jesus is trying to get him to think on a
spiritual level. The response of Jesus is that he is the way, and therefore
truth and life. No one comes to the Father except through him.
John has many such “I AM” statements: "I am the bread of
life" (6:35); "the light of the world" (8:12; 9:5); "the
gate (for the sheep)" (10:7, 9); "the good shepherd" (10:11,
14); "the resurrection and the life" (11:25); "the (true)
vine" (15:1, 5); and in this passage, "I am the way, and the truth,
and the life" (14:6). They all express the role of Jesus in our spiritual
lives, and therefore, the health of the heart – spiritually. Karl Barth
stresses that Jesus speaks of himself as the Way itself. In John, Truth does
not mean something static, but that truth imparts itself to others. Life does
not mean self-sufficient life, but rather, the life that imparts itself and
redeems from death. He directs us to Eduard Schweizer, who says that the
Johannine Jesus describes himself as the true and proper object of all the
metaphorical conceptions he uses, include that of truth and life here. The
point of Barth is that Jesus points to his own person as the Way, which is as
such the Truth and the Life. [2] He also says that Jesus is the Way because
he is truth (revelation) and life (salvation).[3] Pannenberg says this verse is important
support for the reciprocal self-distinction of Father, Son, and Spirit as the
concrete form of Trinitarian relations. God is infinitely above all that is
human and creaturely. Therefore, one may know God only through the Son. Only
through the Son can we as human beings know the Father. The Son is the
revelation of the Father, since the one knows the Father only through the Son. [4] Pannenberg says that in using the word
“truth,” John is identifying Christ with the truth of God that grounds,
sustains, and comprehends all things. The saying is in keeping with the
eschatological awareness that Jesus had at his coming. Therefore, any
interpretation of his person and history claiming to be a relevant
understanding of its object, has to do with the truth claim that defines the
coming of Jesus and its confirmation by the resurrection of Jesus in which the
Christian faith has its basis. He stresses that Christians live with faith in
this historical testimony to Jesus.[5]
Pannenberg stresses that only the doctrine of the Trinity could clarify
the question of union and tension between transcendence and immanence. This
doctrine makes it possible to link the transcendence of the Father in heaven
with the presence of the Father in believers through the Son and Spirit.
Therefore, in virtue of the consubstantiality and perichoresis of the three
persons, the Father, notwithstanding transcendence, Christian theology could
view as present and close to believers through the Son and Spirit, a point this
passage makes clear. Therefore, the Trinitarian life of God in the economy of
salvation proves to be the true infinity of divine omnipresence. [6] As to the phrase in verse 9, where one who
has seen the Son has seen the Father, Luther will make the point that the
Trinitarian God is revealed in Jesus Christ. As Pannenberg interprets Luther at
this point, implied here is a connection of the Father and Son to the
distinction of the hidden and the revealed God. Yet, the point is not that the
Father is the hidden God and incarnate Son the revealed God. In the event of
revelation, the hidden God is revealed as the Father of Jesus Christ. The unity
of the hidden and revealed God is manifest in the unity of the Father and the
Son. If for Luther the unity of the hidden and revealed God will be
definitively manifest only in the light of eschatological glory, this means
that the unity of the Trinitarian God is still engaged in the process of
history. The Trinitarian distinctions of the Father, Son, and Spirit are not
hidden. The divine reality discloses itself in the event of revelation. What is
hidden is the unity of the divine essence in these distinctions. [7] Dunn makes an interesting point when he says
that John in his notion of Logos and Son has resolved a tension within the
Jewish faith, for God is transcendent and immanent. He identified the
impersonal Logs with the person of the Son, and presented Jesus as the
incarnate Logos who explains the unseeable God, the immanent Son who makes the
transcendent Father visible. Yet, in resolving the tension for the Jewish
faith, he set up a fresh tension for the Christian faith. For when the divine
power that seizes upon conscience and will, heart and mind, is identified with
or as a particular person it is bound to have an encounter with God had been
experienced as personal address, it had not been conceived in terms of a person
distinct from God. However, now in John the word of God is identified with a
particular historical person, whose pre-existence as a person with God is
asserted throughout. [8]
As John continues with the response by Jesus, if you know Jesus, you
will know the Father as well. From now on, they know the Father and see the
Father. Phillip responds that if Jesus would show them the Father, they will be
satisfied. Again, Philip is not quite getting the spiritual level at which
Jesus is speaking. Jesus responds with disappointment, wondering that he has
been with them for so long, and still do not know him. Whoever has seen Jesus
has seen the Father as well. Jesus wonders if they believe that the Son is in
the Father and the Father is in the Son. His words are not his own words. The
Father dwelling in him does the works of the Father. He wants them to believe
that he is in the Father and the Father is in him. However, if they do not
believe, then believe him because of the works (or signs) he does. What Jesus
has done is explain that he can do the powerful acts that God can do because he
and God are related, essentially and substantially, as any human parent and
child share relationship. He is the true Son - the Child of the Heavenly
Father. He and the Father share an essence, an access to power, and a
relationship that allow the full exercise of that power. As Barth sees it, the
terms Father and Son in John are such that the content of the one presupposes
the other, and there follows the declaration that from knowledge of the content
of the one there can be knowledge of the content of the other. In John, one is
form, the other is content.[9] He
also offers the opinion that the believer can have confidence in the providence
of God because our creator is also a gracious Father to the children of God. In
this verse, we can see that the Christian belief in providence sees the Father,
and therefore God over us, and therefore the Lord of the world process. The
will that rules the history of created being is not concealed. Word and work
complement each other. In addition to this most unique and overt naming of
Christ's divine power, John also relates unique teachings of Christ, unparalleled
in the other gospels, which make clear his plan for the disciples and for the
faithful who will come after them. Phillip's question implies the desire for a
vision. Jesus' answer is that now that
he is here, Jesus is the only vision they need.[10] Verses
12-14 have the theme of the power of belief in Jesus. Those who believe will in
fact do greater works than he has done, for he is going to the Father. In fact,
he will do whatever they ask in his name, so that the Father may be glorified
in the Son. If they ask anything in the name of the Son, he will do it. The
disciples can wield the same authority, do the same actions and even greater
acts, if they will only believe that they, too, share this familial bond with
God through Christ. As Dodd puts it, Christ is “coming again” in the mighty
works in the disciples. The miracles of Jesus were signs of the revelation and
salvation he brings. The works of the
disciples continue this ministry.[11] Pannenberg that the Spirit makes it possible
to pray to the Father “in the name of Jesus,” to which Jesus promises a
hearing. All of this suggests that their works are, in reality, Jesus' works -
and by extension the works of God the Father. [12]
[1] (Church Dogmatics, IV.2 [68.3] 808)
[2] (Church Dogmatics, III.2 [44.1] 56)
[3]
(ibid., II.1 [25.1] 29)
[4] (Systematic Theology, Volume 1, 308, 315)
[5] (Systematic Theology, Volume 3, 155)
[6] (Systematic Theology, 1988, Volume 1, 415)
[7] (Systematic Theology, Volume 1, 340)
[8] (Christology in the Making, 1980, p 250)
[9]
(Church Dogmatics, I.1 [5.4] 176)
[10]
(ibid., III.3 [48.2], 29)
[11]
(The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel,
1940, p 395)
[12]
(Systematic Theology, Volume 3, 204)
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