This night is the last night of Jesus being together with the disciples. Tomorrow Jesus dies. Now the Lord leaves and the disciples will be left in this world. Despair, emptiness, and the waves of perplexity and terror are sweeping through them as the night gets deeper. The Lord of love promises them, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you after living again from death.”
Jesus continues to talk about a mysterious world: “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you” (v. 20). It is a very beautiful world of love. God loves Jesus; Jesus loves God; God loves men; Jesus loves men; men love God through Jesus; and men love each other; heaven and earth, man and God, man and man are all bound together by this bond of love.[1] Though Jesus is about to leave, he says that I will tie I and you with the bond of love and I will be in you, you will be in me. In this love Jesus forms the relationship of love with us today and leads us.
As we have studied earlier, the one who is in the love of Jesus keeps his commandments. It is because “obedience is the only proof of love.”[2] It is to the man who keeps his commandments that Christ reveals himself. Fellowship with God, the revelation of God is dependent on love; and love is dependent on obedience. The more we obey God, the more we understand God.[3]
Jesus says, “We will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” With whom? With the person who loves Jesus!
God is not impressed by the high and mighty of this world, by princes and presidents, by the rich and famous, the learned and great. He is, however, drawn irresistibly to the man, woman, boy, or girl who loves him. Of all the people on this planet with whom God could take up his abode, if he so desired, he takes up his abode with those who loves Jesus. By so doing, he makes them the aristocracy of the universe.[4]
My loving Lord who never leaves those who love him and wants them to reside in his love eternally! Because of this love of the Lord however the bitter cold winter cannot be cold, however distressing hardship cannot discourage us.
[1] Barclay, The Gospel of John, 197.
[2] Barclay, The Gospel of John, 197.
[3]Barclay, The Gospel of John, 198.
[4] Phillips, Exploring the Gospel of John, 277.