The G. Campbell Morgan Archive

Jerusalem. With His Own.
Seventh "I AM" Way, Truth, Life - (John 13:36-38 - John 14:1-31)
he Passover had been observed and superseded. The new feast had been instituted and observed. Then immediately converse followed between our Lord and the group gathered round about Him, Judas being excluded. These men were in trouble, and what wonder. Four of them spoke. The rest listened, and shared unquestionably in the troubled feelings, expressed by the four, and answered by Jesus. When we reach the end of the chapter, we find them quiet, hushed into peace.
n this paragraph we have the account of their questions, and of our Lord's replies. There are four questions and answers recorded between verse thirty-six of chapter thirteen, and verse twenty-four of chapter fourteen. Right in the heart of this we have the seventh sign of our Lord in the realm of words. In what remains, verse twenty-five to verse thirty-one (John 14:25-31), we have the summing up of Jesus at the close of those intimate conversations.
t is very arresting that all the questions were concerned with super-earthly matters. Their supreme consciousness at the moment, a poignant one, a painful one, filling them with sorrow, was that our Lord was going. He had been telling them about this for six months, insisting upon it since Caesarea Philippi; and the way of His going He had clearly indicated; that it was to be the way of suffering and death, leading to resurrection. Those men had never understood the reference to resurrection. It was quite self-evident to them that He was going. Of course, they could not have listened to Him without knowing that His attitude was never that of despair, but rather that of a consciousness of majesty, as He was moving along a Divinely marked course. But for them the terror of it was He was going; that soon, as they thought, He would be dead, and with them no longer. All their questions therefore moved into the realm of super-earthly matters; Peter, "Whither goest Thou?"; Thomas, "Lord, we know not whither Thou goest; How know we the way?"; Philip, "Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us"; Jude, "What is come to pass that Thou wilt manifest Thyself to us, and not to the world?" Every one of them moved in a high realm, the realm of super-earthly consciousness.
he story of Peter begins at the thirty-sixth verse (John 13:36-38), and runs through chapter fourteen and verse four (Joh_14:1-4). The cause of unrest in the soul of Peter was that of the absence of Jesus from the earth. "Lord, whither goest Thou?" The Lord was going away. Where? It is patent that he knew by this time, as they all did, that Christ was going to death. So Peter said, Where are You going? We shall not have you here. Where will You be?
hen came the remarkable answer of Jesus, all of which must be considered. The first thing He said to him was not a definite answer as to where He was going. He said, "Whither I go, thou canst not follow Me now; but thou shalt follow afterwards." Peter never said a finer thing than he said in response to that. "Why cannot I follow Thee even now? I will lay down my life for Thee." He was perfectly sincere. The difficulty was that he did not know himself, nor understand the weakness of his nature.
his the Lord proceeded to declare to him as He said, "Wilt thou lay down thy life for Me? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, the cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied Me thrice. Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in Me."
recognize that objection may be taken to reading these sentences thus in close connection on the ground that in the first verse of chapter fourteen the pronouns are plural, while the pronouns are singular at the end of chapter thirteen. That is quite true; but when He said, "Let not your heart be troubled," while He took them all in, He did not exclude Peter. Luke tells how on this same occasion He said to Peter, "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have you"-plural-"that he might sift you"-plural-"as wheat; but I made supplication for thee, that thy faith fail not"-singular. But He did not exclude the others from His interest and prayer by saying that. So here. He began with the individual, and including the rest, He did not exclude Simon.
imon had said, I will lay down my life for Thee. To which our Lord replied in effect:-Is that so? Is that how you feel? Is that your will? Simon, I know you better than you know yourself. I know the worst that is in you. I know before the flush of morning is on the Eastern sky, you will have betrayed Me; but do not let your heart be troubled.
hen He told them the condition upon which their heart might be free from trouble as He said, "Ye believe in God, believe also in Me." Our translators, most of them, have rendered that sentence with one indicative, and one imperative. "Ye believe in God," indicative; "Believe also in Me," imperative. I think they should both be rendered as imperatives. "Believe in God, believe in Me." He thus asked for equal confidence in God and Himself.
hen He gave the larger answer to Peter's first question. He said, "In My Father's house"-that is in the whole universe, "are many abiding places. If it were not so, I would have told you." If this earth were the only abiding-place, I would not have deceived you. You are all troubled as to where I am going. I am only going from one abiding-place in My Father's house, to another. I am going "to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." He was telling him now where He was going. He was going, still in the Father's house, to some other abiding-place; and He was going to prepare it for Peter and the rest. I am going from this abiding-place, to another; so that when you come, you will be at home there, for you will find Me there. I am going to prepare it for you. I will be there when you come. And if I go, I come,-not I come again, but I come,-and will receive you unto Myself.
ow again quite simply and bluntly, to review the whole movement. I am ready to die for You, said Peter. Peter, said Jesus, is that your will? You will not be equal to it. Before the morning dawns, you will deny Me thrice. But let not your heart be troubled; believe God, believe Me. I am going to prepare a place for you, and if I prepare a place, I will come and get you. In other words, I know the worst that is in you, Peter, but if you trust Me, in spite of the worst that is in you, I will realize all your highest aspirations, and fulfill your life for you.
n all this we have a great revelation of His attitude towards life. These men were earth-bound in their thinking, engaged in a quest, asking strange questions in an honest, blundering way; and He flung round them the vastness of the universe; and the fact that it was unified as being the Father's house; and therefore the fact He was out of sight, did not mean He was lost to them. I come to you. Now how are we to interpret that "come"? There have been various ways. I think they are all included. He came to them in resurrection. He came to them in a full and new sense when the Paraclete came. He came to receive the majority of them as they passed to Him through violent death. He met them as they passed over. The ultimate reference was undoubtedly to His second Advent.
eter had said, Where are You going? What is the mystery of this life that lies beyond? Can't You tell us something about it? If there were nothing beyond, said Jesus, I would have told you. There are many abiding-places in this house of My Father. I am going out of sight, but I am coming for you, and I will prepare the home for you; and in the meantime I come to you, and at last I will receive you to myself. And He ended by saying: "Whither I go ye know the way."
hen Thomas the magnificent, the honest-the man who would not pretend to have a faith he had not, or a knowledge he lacked-bluntly contradicted Jesus, broke in upon what He was saying, and said, We do not know where. You have not answered Simon. You have not told us where. How can anyone know the way who does not know the destination?
hen in answer to that honest expression of disagreement with Jesus, came that great claim; "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." The implicate of that is that He had said to them incidentally, that He was going to the Father. I am the way unto the Father; therefore I am the way to all the abiding-places in the Father's house. I am the truth about the Father, and therefore ultimately about all creation, all the universe, all being. And I am the life, the very life of the Father; and therefore the One in Whom, as Paul put it presently, "all things consist," or hold together. That word of Jesus illuminated all the darkness that was resting upon the minds of these men. Whether they entered into it then or not, who shall say? Peter's Where are You going?; Thomas' How can we know the way?; Philip's Show us the Father; Jude's What means the method of hiding the manifestation of Thyself from the world?; the whole realm of difficulty was illuminated by this claim. I am the way to the Father, and to all the universe. All the highways that baffle our thinking, and leave us dreaming dreams and seeing visions, are unified in Me, I am the way. I am, moreover, the truth, the ultimate interpretation of everything. And finally of all that universe, I am the life.
hen we commenced these studies, I insisted upon, and I want to emphasize again, the fact that the works we call miracles, do not demonstrate His Deity. They do demonstrate the fact that God was working through Him. It is His words that demonstrate His Deity. Put these words into the lips of any other than Jesus. It is unthinkable and impossible. In the midst of that little group, hell outside through priests and enemies, and Judas' treachery, waiting to murder Him and to those enquiring souls who were trying to know something about the life beyond, Ht said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." Follow Me, and you have direction anywhere in God's universe. Follow Me, and you have, ultimately, the interpretation of all secrets, the ultimate in truth. Follow Me, and you will know the fellowship of the ages, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one cometh unto the Father, but by Me." He was going to the Father. He was the way there. He was the truth about the Father. He was the very life of the Father.
hen Philip spoke, and I never read this word of Philip without feeling that whatever he may have meant, it was the great cry of humanity voicing itself through this quiet, simple, unobtrusive man, because that is what Philip was. In a myriad tones still, many of them discordant, many of them wails of agony and sobs of distress, that is what the world is saying. Show us God and it sufficeth us.
ow listen to Jesus. "Have I been so long time with you, and dost thou not know Me, Philip? he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." Thus He claimed to be the Revealer of God. When we introduce some man or woman, youth or maiden, to Jesus Christ, we are bringing such face to face with God. That is what Christianity means.
e did not finish there. He went on to show that if in Himself was the revelation, by the coming of the Holy Spirit, there should be an interpretation of the Revelation. "I will send another Comforter," an Advocate, and His business shall be that of interpreting Me. As the Spirit interprets the Christ, men find God. "He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father." The Spirit shall be the Interpreter of the Revelation. That is the only way in which humanity's need will be met. Men will never find God by groping after Him in Nature. A man tells me he has given up going to Church, and worships in the country. He is deluded. He never gets near to God in that way, so as to meet humanity's dire need. A man may have an aesthetic titillation of his senses in the country, but for God's sake don't let him call that religion. Don't let him imagine that so he is dealing with God. "No man cometh unto the Father, but by Me." I will send the Spirit, and He shall interpret Me, and so men will find God. There is no other way.
nd then He spoke of manifestation, and Jude fastened upon the word "manifest," How is it come to pass that You are abandoning the world? "What is come to pass that Thou wilt manifest Thyself unto us, and not unto the world?"
he answer was not in some senses a direct answer, but it was a complete answer. His answer to Jude's enquiry was to talk about love, and the keeping of commandments. He went on to tell Jude and the rest of them that when they, or any, loved Him, and proved it by keeping His commandments, something would happen. What? "We"-My Father and I-"will make Our mansion with him." The word here rendered "abode" is exactly the same word Jesus used, when He said, "In My Father's house are many abiding-places." He had said that, referring to the whole universe. Now He said in effect: You ask Me, Jude, why I have abandoned the world? I have not abandoned the world. My Father and I are coming to dwell in you, and in all who shall, like you, love Me.
he implicate of that statement is the answer to Jude's question. Given a man or a woman in whom God and Christ are living, the world receives illumination. One of His great claims in one of the earlier days of ministry was, "I am the light of the world." It is not in John's record, but in His ethical Manifesto He had said to those disciples, "Ye are the light of the world." Thus He answered Jude by showing He was not abandoning the world, but finding those in whom God and He could live, and shine upon the world in manifestation.
hen in final words He summarized on the whole fact of that which was coming. He told them of the coming of the Comforter for interpretation. Very tenderly He said to that little group of troubled men, I will not leave you desolate, I will not leave you orphans, unloved and straitened and uncared for. He had called them teknia, little children. He said, I am not going to leave you like little children, with no one to care for you. I am sending an Advocate, a Paraclete, One called to be by your side, and Who will interpret these things, to bring all things to your remembrance that I have said; to interpret to you the revelation you have, but have not yet understood.
nd then finally, "My peace I give unto you." "I go unto the Father." When He said that He was looking through the conflict to the issue. "The prince of the world cometh; and he hath nothing in Me," nothing on which he can fasten that can give him the victory. Then He was considering the victory in the conflict. I go "that the world may know." Then He was referring to the final purpose, and showing that it was still the world.
n view of all that He said, "My peace I give unto you." Literally, I will give unto you the peace that is Mine. Had He not said something like that before? Yes, a little earlier He had referred to "the commandments that are Mine." In the next chapter He spoke of "the love that is Mine"; and a little later, "the joy that is Mine."
e is going. The commandments, the peace, the love, the joy that were His, He committed to them; commandments to be obeyed, peace to be entered into, love to be yielded to, joy to be experienced.
hen He said, "Arise, let us go hence." The conversations were over. There were no more interruptions. The key note to the whole is, "Let not your heart be troubled." Do not let these questions cause you unrest. "I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life." There is direction for you in Me. There is the solution of all problems ultimately for you in Me. There is life sufficient for the fulfillment of your being and service in Me. " Let not your heart be troubled; believe God, believe Me."