The book of John is such an exceptional retelling of the life of Jesus that makes it hard to leave without seeing the heart of Jesus. Unlike the other gospels which focus on the facts surrounding what Jesus did, or which places he visited, or who he saved and performed miracles on, the book of John zooms in on the person of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and as God. It is almost as though we are being invited into the “Holy of holies” of the gospels and to get there we need to have had some pre-requisites like having previously read the other gospel accounts. This is my take on it and as you would have guessed, it is not biblical but that is how I view the gospel account of John. This week, I started in the fifteen chapter which talks about abiding in Christ. In this chapter, Jesus exhorts his disciples to remain in him and he uses the analogy of a vineyard to make his point across. This form of speech was not unusual for Jesus because he loved parables as a figure of speech. However, what I found worth mulling over is the idea of “reciprocity” or “likeness” or “reflection” we see in the relationship between the Father and the Son that should be true of us followers of Christ and the role of the Holy Spirit in all of that.
First, let’s look at the idea of “reciprocity” or “likeness” or “reflection”. You will notice I don’t seem to have a proper term yet that helps me explain what I have observed. However, for the sake of simplicity, I will use the term “likeness”. One recurrent theme in the book of John that we hear from the mouth of Jesus is that he only does what the Father does. Jesus imitates the Father in everything. Jesus does everything He sees the Father do. If the Father is working, Jesus is working. If the Father rests, Jesus rests. When Jesus tells the disciples to abide in Him, he clearly states the basis for abiding in him which is “as he himself abides in the Father”. So, whatever template the relationship Jesus has with His Father is based on, he wants the relationship we have with him to be based on the same template. I find that to be wonderful and very kind because we know that the relationship between the Father and the Son is filled with love, it is filled with peace, it is filled with honour, with respect, with obedience, with submission, it is filled with the very things our hearts long for true satisfaction and fulfilment. Jesus is willing and ready to offer us that when we surrender to him. When Jesus tells us or commands us to abide in Him, it is actually for our benefit as he does not need anything from us to survive. As he says, he is the vine and we are the branches (John 15:1). Branches are connected to the vine, the source is not the branches but rather the vine. Branches can be cut off and the vine will still grow. As a matter of fact, the gardener who is the Father does cut branches in order to prune them if they are good or to get rid of them if they are bad (John 15:2). When that action is done, the vine is still alive. Because our relationship with Christ is taken from the template of the Father and the Son relationship, Jesus wants us to bear fruit, thereby glorify the Father, just as he glorified the Father. Bearing fruit is a sign of us glorifying God and it is what we came here to do. We do not just bear any kind of fruit but the type of fruit that remains. I was struck by that statement because it implies there are fruits that do not remain. Maybe because they rot quickly or for other reasons but this is noteworthy.
The other aspect of this idea of “likeness” we see in the relationship between Jesus and the Father that is to be found in our relationship with Jesus as well is the idea of love and obedience. You see, we are called to love because the Father and the Son love one another. That love we are called to did not emanate from us, we replicate something that exists between the Father and the Son. Jesus loves us the same way the Father loves him (John 15:9). Repeatedly, Jesus has told us that the way to know if we love him is by our obedience to his commands. It is quite simple when you think about it. If you do what Jesus says, it means you love Him and by extension, you love the Father but if you do not do what Jesus tells you to do, then it means you do not love Jesus and by extension, you do not love the Father. This is where many of us cringe and find this statement strong or too difficult because we instinctively equate love with feelings and desires. To many of us, loving someone means feeling good about that person and wanting to do something for them. When I don’t have feelings towards someone and if I don’t have feelings for someone, then I must not love them. That is also why many of us raise our eyebrows at Jesus’ statement in Mark when he was asked about his brothers and sisters. He said “whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:35). Again, obedience is key to loving God, it is a visible sign that love is at work. One of the mark Jesus left the world to judge whether or not we are his disciples is by the way we love one another (John 13:34-35). How do we love one another? It is by being obedient to Christ and by doing what he told us to do like serving one another, being the servant and not seeking to serve. Again, we are to be what he himself was as Mark reminds us: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).
The third aspect of this “likeness” we see in the life of Jesus that is to be found in our relationship with him is the suffering we will incur by aligning ourselves with him and by abiding in him. As Jesus was speaking these words in chapter fifteen of John, he knew his time had come to be hand delivered into the hands of sinful men. He knew he was about to die. And more importantly, he knew that his followers would also suffer because they believed in him. So, in preparation, Jesus tells them to expect to be rejected, to expect to be hated by the world, to expect to be marginalized, to expect opposition because they belong to Jesus, not the world and the world did not love Jesus, therefore it cannot nor does it know how to love those who carry his fragrance. The more we abide in Jesus, the more we are spreading his fragrance around us and because his fragrance is either a hit or a miss, some people will oppose us. I believe expectations are important and when we have them, we know how well to tackle difficulties. Jesus prepared us to handle the difficulties and the sufferings that come along with abiding and remaining in him so that we will not go astray and will remember that Jesus had warned us (John 16:1, 4). This “likeness” characteristic we have in Christ does not leave many things out. We get to experience all that our new life in Christ gives us (the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places, adoption as sons of God, etc.) including the fight against sin and the principalities of this dark world and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 1:3-14 and 6:12). When we follow Christ, we cannot pick and choose what we want. It is a package that the Lord Jesus offers transparently and it is an offer that outweighs the pleasure of this world and has more benefits than disadvantages since we engage in suffering knowing that we will overcome. As Jesus said “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33). This is very reassuring and comforting. What a wonderful master He is! What’s more, we are not alone in this journey. We have the Holy Spirit that is there to help us.
In the second part of this post, I would like to highlight how the Holy Spirit helps us in the Christian journey. Throughout our journey as imitators of Christ, we have the Holy Spirit with us, who was given to us by Christ and who plays a big role in helping us accomplish the main task of glorifying the Son and by extension the Father in this world. Jesus promised us the Holy Spirit for our benefit. He had to go so that we would experience the Holy Spirit. I will not attempt to describe the Holy Spirit for you or even get into the idea of the Triune God we serve but I will say that the bible is clear that the Holy Spirit is a person, the Holy Spirit is not a thing, or an “it”. The Holy Spirit has many roles and those are very specific in how they help us carry the mission of a follower of Christ. I will highlight these roles in their appearance as I saw them in the chapters fourteen through seventeen of John. The first role of the Holy Spirit is that of counselor. Jesus introduces the Holy Spirit to his disciples as the Counselor who is also called “the Spirit of truth”. As the Counselor, the Holy Spirit does many things such as: 1) teaching us all things and reminding us of everything Jesus has said to us (John 14:26); 2) testifying about Jesus (John 15:26) and 3) convicting the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgement (John 16:8). The second role of the Holy Spirit is to guide. We read in John that the Holy Spirit, “will guide you into all truth” and just like the Son, the Holy Spirit will not speak on his own, rather he will speak what he hears. The third role of the Holy Spirit is to reveal what is to come and to glorify Jesus by taking from what is Jesus’ and making it known to us (John 16:13-14). There is a lot that the Holy Spirit does and sadly we do not lean on his wisdom as much as we should. Many of us do not even pay attention to his promptings, to his warnings, to his speakings. We mechanically lean on our own understanding which, may I remind you is foolishness according to Proverbs? Jesus knew that the battle we would be fighting was not something we could do on our own so he left us the Holy Spirit to aid us in the fight. We need to invite the Spirit of truth back in our day-to-day dealings with the world; we need to submit and surrender our wisdom to the wisdom of the Counselor; we need to submit our understanding to the One who can teach us all things. I was struck by that too this week, the idea that the Holy Spirit can teach you and I all things, not some things but all. The omniscience of God is available to us. It is quite unfathomable. Obviously, we will never be omniscient like God nor would we ever be God but knowing that we have His Spirit in us that can communicate to us truths we lack is incredible.
I pray the Spirit of truth who reveals what is yet to come and convicts us of sin and righteousness causes us to rely on him as we strive to live a life that is honouring to the Father. Amen!
A Word Aptly Spoken 