The Great Trinitarian Comfort Text: John 14:15-31
Introduction: The Logic of Love
We come now to one of the deepest and most comforting passages in all of Scripture. Jesus is in the Upper Room with His disciples. The cross is just hours away. He has washed their feet, identified His betrayer, and announced His departure. Their worlds are about to be shattered. They are filled with confusion, sorrow, and fear. And into this swirling chaos, Jesus speaks words of profound, bedrock stability. He is not offering them sentimental platitudes or a flimsy "everything will be okay." He is giving them a theological anchor that will hold fast in the coming storm, and in every storm that His people will face until He returns.
The anchor is this: the triune God Himself. What Jesus unfolds here is not an abstract lecture on systematic theology. This is theology on its feet, theology for the trenches. He is explaining the very engine room of reality, the inner life of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and He is explaining how that divine life is going to become their life. He is going to connect their love for Him to their obedience, and their obedience to the coming of the Spirit, and the coming of the Spirit to their intimate, indwelling union with the Father and the Son. This is not a to-do list for them to earn God's favor. It is a description of the glorious, Trinitarian reality that is about to break in upon them.
Our modern evangelical sensibilities often get this backwards. We tend to treat love as a gauzy, sentimental feeling, and obedience as a grim, dutiful chore. But Jesus lashes them together with divine logic. Love is the root, and obedience is the fruit. You cannot have one without the other. To say you love Jesus while disregarding His commands is to speak nonsense. It is like saying you love a king while leading a rebellion against his laws. The two are mutually exclusive. And the power to live this life of loving obedience is not found in our own grit or determination. It is a gift. It is the gift of "another Advocate," the Holy Spirit, who will bring the very life of God to dwell within us.
The Text
"If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate, that He may be with you forever; the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him. You know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us and not to the world?” Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me. These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful. You heard that I said to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe. I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me; but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. Get up, let us go from here."
(John 14:15-31 LSB)
The Inseparable Link: Love and Obedience (vv. 15, 21, 23-24)
Jesus begins with a foundational premise that He will repeat three times in this section. It is the central hinge upon which everything else turns.
"If you love Me, you will keep My commandments." (John 14:15)
This is a conditional statement, but it is not a threat. It is a statement of fact, a description of reality. It is the "if" of logical consequence, not the "if" of uncertain possibility. He is not saying, "You'd better keep my commandments, or else I'll conclude you don't love me." He is saying, "Genuine love for me will necessarily, organically, and inevitably produce a life of glad obedience." True affection for Christ is not a passive, internal feeling. It is an active, life-directing allegiance. The affections are the engine, and obedience is the train moving down the tracks. To claim the first without the second is to have a disconnected engine, making a lot of noise but going nowhere.
Jesus repeats this for emphasis. In verse 21, He says, "He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me." And in verses 23-24, He puts it both positively and negatively: "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word... He who does not love Me does not keep My words." This is the great diagnostic tool of the Christian faith. Do you want to know if your love for Christ is real? Don't just take your emotional temperature. Look at your life. Look at your attitude toward His Word. Is it your authority? Is it your delight? Do you seek to conform your life to it, even when it's hard, even when it costs you? That is the evidence of genuine love.
The Promised Advocate: The Indwelling Spirit (vv. 16-18)
Because Jesus knows that this kind of obedience is impossible in our own strength, He immediately follows the command with the provision. The provision is nothing less than God Himself.
"And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate, that He may be with you forever; the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him. You know Him because He abides with you and will be in you." (John 14:16-17 LSB)
Notice the Trinitarian cooperation. The Son asks, the Father gives, and the Spirit comes. Jesus calls the Spirit "another Advocate." The Greek is Parakletos, which means one called alongside to help. Jesus had been their Paraclete, their helper and counselor. Now He is going away, but He will not leave them helpless. The Father will send another Paraclete, one of the same kind as Jesus, to take His place. And this new arrangement is, in a crucial way, an upgrade. Jesus was with them, but the Spirit will be in them. His presence will be permanent: "with you forever."
He is the "Spirit of truth." This is a direct confrontation with the world, which operates on lies and self-deception. The world "cannot receive" Him because it is spiritually blind. It does not have the categories to understand Him. But the disciples know Him, because He has been abiding "with" them in the person of Jesus, and is about to be "in" them. This is the great promise of the New Covenant. The external law written on stone is being replaced by the internal law-writer, the Holy Spirit, who will write God's commands on their hearts.
Jesus then says, "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." The coming of the Spirit is the coming of Christ. This is not two separate events, but two aspects of the same reality. Through the Spirit, Christ Himself will take up residence in His people. They will not be abandoned children, but sons in the house, indwelt by the Son Himself.
The Great Reality: Mutual Indwelling (vv. 19-20)
This indwelling creates a new reality, a new perception, and a new life.
"After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you." (John 14:19-20 LSB)
The world's sight is physical. After the cross and ascension, they would see Him no more. But the disciples' sight would become spiritual. They would see Him through the eyes of faith, enlightened by the Holy Spirit. And the source of this new life and sight is His resurrection: "because I live, you will live also." Our spiritual life is not a separate, self-generated thing. It is a participation in His resurrection life. We are plugged into His power source.
And "on that day," the day of Pentecost when the Spirit comes in power, they will have a new, experiential knowledge. They will know the mystery of what theologians call perichoresis, or mutual indwelling. "I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you." This is the heart of it all. The Son is in the Father, a relationship of eternal, perfect love. And through faith, we are placed "in Christ." And because we are in Him, Christ, by His Spirit, comes to be "in us." This means that the very life of the Trinity, that eternal dance of love and fellowship, is extended to include us. We are brought into the family circle. This is the ultimate answer to human alienation and loneliness. We are made part of the divine fellowship.
The Divine Peace and True Joy (vv. 25-28)
Jesus now contrasts the results of this new reality with the world's cheap imitations.
"Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful." (John 14:27 LSB)
The world's peace is the absence of conflict. It is circumstantial. It depends on everything going well: your health is good, your bank account is full, your enemies are quiet. But the moment the circumstances change, the peace evaporates. Jesus' peace is entirely different. It is the peace of a reconciled relationship with God. It is the peace of knowing you are indwelt by the Trinity. It is a peace that coexists with tribulation. It is a deep, internal calm in the very center of the storm, because you know the one who commands the storm is dwelling in you.
This is why He can command them not to have troubled or fearful hearts. He is not just telling them to buck up. He is giving them the reason, the resource, for their courage: His peace, delivered and maintained by His Spirit.
He then addresses their sorrow at His departure from a different angle:
"If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I." (John 14:28 LSB)
This is a mild, loving rebuke. Their sorrow is self-centered. They are thinking about their loss, not His gain. If they truly loved Him, they would rejoice that He is returning to the glory He had with the Father before the world began. His statement, "for the Father is greater than I," has been a playground for heretics for centuries. But it is simple to understand in context. He is not speaking of His divine nature, in which He is fully equal with the Father ("I and the Father are one"). He is speaking of His role in the incarnation, His state of humiliation. As the Son sent by the Father, He has voluntarily taken on a subordinate role. The one who sends is, in that role, greater than the one who is sent. His return to the Father is a return to the full expression of His glory. It is His coronation. And it is for our good, because only by going to the Father can He send the Spirit.
The Impotent Enemy (vv. 29-31)
Finally, Jesus prepares them for the immediate conflict, the cross, by declaring His absolute sovereignty over the enemy.
"I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me; but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. Get up, let us go from here." (John 14:30-31 LSB)
The "ruler of the world," Satan, is coming. He is marshaling his forces through Judas, the Sanhedrin, and Rome. This is his hour. But Jesus states a crucial fact: "he has nothing in Me." This is a declaration of sinlessness. Satan's only power is through sin. He can only get a foothold where there is a corresponding corruption inside. A magnet can only attract iron. But in Christ, there was no sin, no corruption, no point of entry. Satan could find no hook, no leverage, no claim. He was attacking a perfectly smooth, impenetrable fortress.
So why does Jesus go to the cross? It is not because Satan corners Him or overpowers Him. He goes for one reason: "so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me." The cross is the ultimate act of loving obedience. It is the Son's perfect fulfillment of the Father's redemptive plan. He is not a victim; He is a victorious, obedient Son. And with that, He rises. "Get up, let us go from here." He is not being dragged to His death. He is marching to His throne, and He is going by way of the cross.