Throughout the history of the church, there has been a conflict between grace and works. In this passage, Paul looks to two sons of Abraham born by two different women and points to how they allegorically represent these two paths. On one side, you have freedom, grace, and God’s promises. On the other side, you have slavery, law, and man’s works.
Author: the Josh Benner Blog
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A savior who provides. John 14:22-31
Last will and testament
John 14 is like the last will and testament of Jesus.
A Last Will and Testament is a legal document where a person specifies their final wishes regarding their assets and specifies how they wish to provide for family members, friends, pets, and other organizations.
Most standard in a will is what a person gives to their spouse and children. Millionaires have left vast fortunes to families, endowed scholarships at universities and donated to various philanthropic endeavors. People have given money to churches, charities, and communities.
People have used wills to give to loved ones or to take a final jab at people with whom they had strained relationships.
When the hotel heiress Leona Helmsley died in 2007, she entirely cut two of her grandchildren out of her will. For the other grandchildren, their inheritance was contingent upon them making regular visits to their father’s grave. And she left $12 million dollars to her dog, a Maltese named Trouble.
When the comedian Jack Benny died in 1974, he had made a provision in his will that his widow was to receive a single long-stem red rose everyday for the rest of her life. She outlived him by nine years and received more than 3,000 roses.
In John 14, we see the caring provision that Jesus made for his disciples and ultimately for the church.
Jesus will highlight three provisions he’s made for his disciples, and ultimately for his church in John 14:22-31.
- The Holy Spirit
In John 14:21, Jesus says:
Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.
This prompts an apostle named Judas (but not the same Judas who betrayed Jesus to ask in verse 22: Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?”
In verse 23, Jesus says: If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
Jesus talks about obedience to him and keeping his word. And in answering, he says that Jesus and his Father will love the person who keeps his word and make their home with them. There’s some nuance here.
In 14:16, Jesus has talked of giving a helper, advocate, counselor to his disciples. That is the Spirit.
But in verse 23, Jesus is saying that it is he and his father who will make a home with the person. Think of it like progressing a thought. Jesus is giving further elaboration on the Spiritual dimension of how he is to provide for his disciples.
In verse 26, Jesus will specify that the helper he’s referring to here is the Holy Spirit.
So he is giving the helper – the Spirit – but the Father and Son will make a home with the person who loves Jesus and keeps his word. This passage emphasizes the Trinity. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are working together.
And it is because we have the Triune Godhead that the Spirit who indwells a Christian can be mentioned in conversation with God and the Son making a home in a person. It is the Spirit who indwells. It is the Spirit who is in us.
And that is why it is necessary that the Spirit share in all of the divine attributes. Anything less would be inadequate. Anything else could not sanctify. The Spirit brings the presence and the experience of the Father and Son into our lives. It is by the Spirit, that Christ is manifested to us, is revealed to us.
- The Word
Jesus is speaking in 14:25-26. He will point again to his departure.
25 “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Helper, 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 have said to you.
Jesus is saying these things while there’s still time. But he knows where he’s going. He knows what lies ahead. As we said a few moments ago, Jesus talks of the Holy Spirit that he will give to his followers.
It’s only the second time in this gospel where we’ve seen the term Holy Spirit.
The Spirit is holy. Again, the Spirit has all of the attributes of God. The Spirit is not a force. It’s a person. The Spirit is not created, he’s eternal. And in this passage, Jesus is saying that the Spirit will teach those things that Christ has said.
he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
What does that mean?
When Jesus says to his disciples that the Spirit will teach all things and bring to remembrance all that he has said, he’s referring to the witness of the disciples in the writing of the New Testament.
All throughout the gospels, the disciples are not this really sharp, buttoned up group. We see their ignorance. At times, we see their vanity. They often miss the point. But these are the people who wrote the New Testament and were the first ones sent out to spread the good news of the gospel?
For these disciples who lived with Jesus, heard Jesus, saw Jesus, and beheld the risen Jesus, the Spirit would endow them with the ability to recount the word of God.
Like Moses and the prophets of the Old Testament who were entrusted to communicate the very words of God, the disciples too would communicate the greatest revelation of God to the world: the Word, the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The gospels are not just four eyewitness accounts. The secular world likes to treat the gospels like that. Just four accounts of a teacher. But they’re more than that. It is the Spirit breathed and perfect word of God to the world. It is because of that work that we have our gospels and our New Testament.
And it is because of the Spirit that we can trust the New Testament and the gospels. That these are not just opinions of men. It is the word of God.
For the disciples, it meant that the Spirit would point the disciples to the truths about the gospel and the ministry of Christ which were necessary to be communicated.
And this is also the reason why the scripture must trump everything. Because there is no new revelation about Jesus today.
Jesus gives us the Spirit, he gives us the Word.
- Peace
Jesus gives us peace. Verse 27: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
One thing that’s interesting to consider is the idea of peace in Ancient Rome. For the Romans, “peace” was kept through power. And I think it’s fair to say that that’s true in America too. And I’m not really trying to make a political statement. But there’s peace by force.
But that’s not what Jesus is talking about with the peace that he gives.
As Jesus says, he brings peace Not as the world gives do I give it to you.
That’s because the world cannot give us ultimate peace. There are all sorts of things we can look to in order to have a sense of security. Money, our favored politician, to name a couple. They can’t give true peace.
A person can have all the money in the world. I’ve been going through a biography of John D. Rockefeller. Adjusted by inflation, his net worth when he died would be worth upwards of $400 billion today.
He still died. Money can give a person many things. But it can’t give you eternal life and it can’t give eternal peace. Jesus gives a heavenly peace. Jesus gives peace between people who were once hostile to God and God, yes, that’s part of it.
But here, the idea of peace has more to do with an inward peace in spite of the turmoil of the world and what’s around us.
In Psalm 4, in the midst of chaos, David looks at being able to get a good night’s sleep as a sign of the true peace he has with God.
Psalm 4:8:In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.
In Galatians, Paul will call peace a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). In Philippians 4, Paul will talk about peace that surpasses understanding (Philippians 4:7). Peace is a sign in the Old Testament of the Messianic Age.
Jesus offers a peace that the world cannot give. Do we always feel perfect peace? I highly doubt anyone who’s honest would say so. Some of the greatest Christian thinkers who have ever lived have written about their own struggles and faith challenges.
But know that we have a savior who is the way, the truth, and the life. He came to give peace. In a world where there’s so much turmoil, he is meant to be our true hope and our true peace.
Perhaps part of the reason why we so often lack peace is that we too often get too caught up in a worldly perspective what peace ought to look like.
Bruce Barton is helpful in the Life Application Study Bible Commentary on this. I’m paraphrasing his ideas. The world’s peace is meant to give us a sense of security in ourselves, in this life. Jesus is meant to give us peace in him and knowing his gospel and who he is and walking with him.
The world likes to say that peace should bring ease. The Bible points us to having peace that God will provide, but gives no such promise that things will always be easy. But through the difficulty, we have God.
The world likes to say that peace is the absence of conflict. Ultimately, that is the future hope we have in a perfected state. It is the hope we have today in that we have peace with God. But with a world that is sinful and opposes God, in spite of the conflict, Jesus invites us to remember that we are his.
The world wants us to look to a certain set of circumstances for our security. Jesus invites us to be secure in him.
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Costly grace vs cheap grace
In John 14:16-17, Jesus is foretelling his death. He promises another helper in referring to the coming of the Holy Spirit. In John 14:18-21, Jesus promises that he himself will also return.
John 14:18: “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
When Jesus says I will not leave you as orphans, that seems to have a double meaning. The disciples will not be orphans both because they will be given the Spirit of truth who will be the helper with them forever. And they will not be orphans because Christ himself will return. And at the end of the verse, he says: I will come to you.
Scholars have interpreted that last part of the verse in different ways. But the best evidence is that Jesus is talking about the resurrection. That on the night before he was to go to the cross, Jesus was promising his disciples that he would come back.
Given what will follow, I believe that is what makes the most sense because Jesus will start talking to the disciples about what is revealed and what the world is blind to, both in light of the resurrection.
There is an immediacy to Christ’s coming back which I think fits better with the resurrection appearances.
John 14:19: Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.
Here, Jesus is clearly talking about the circumstances of his death and resurrection. When he says the world will see me no more, it’s referring to the sinful and fallen humanity. Those who are not of God and who are not his disciples. And on the eve of his death on the cross, it is true that the world will not see him again.
His resurrection appearances will be exclusively to those who are his disciples or to those who will become his disciples, such as when he appears to Saul. And while the world will not see him again, the disciples will see the risen Lord. This will be covered in chapters 20 and 21 of this gospel.
And not only will the disciples see Jesus, they will have life because of Jesus.
Because I live, you also will live.
Life in Christ has been talked about all throughout this gospel.
In John 11, when Jesus’ friend Lazarus had died, Jesus had proclaimed:
“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
The Gospel
Again, the world loves to create its own gospel. It loves to undermine the truth. It loves to tell you there are other ways. It loves to tell you that you can make your own way.
But the Gospel of John is continually confronting us with the fact that it is Christ and Christ alone who is the way to life and who is the giver of true life. That there is one gospel and this is it. That Jesus would go to the cross and die for the sins of the world.
John 14:20: In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
In the day that Jesus is raised from the dead. On the first Easter, you will know. When you encounter Jesus, you will know. And we too are invited to know the risen Lord. To know that he died, and rose, and lives forever and that life is found in him. We are invited to know him and live in the truth of who he is and what he has done through the power of the Holy Spirit.
John 14:21: Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
It’s noteworthy that Jesus is mentioning obedience to his commands for the second time. When he says whoever has my commandments and keeps them, the point is that it’s not just knowing his commands. It’s also about following….Him.
Grace and Law
There is this complicated balance within churches of grace and law. Too many churches go too far to one extreme or the other.
If you go too far to the extreme of law, you have a church that’s very legalistic and self-righteous. The danger of that is that you can start to withdraw your faith from Jesus and ultimately start to put your faith in yourself. Your goodness, your righteousness.
And when you do that, you’ve missed the whole point.
You can follow a bunch of rules and not even believe in the gospel at all. Following all the rules is worthless without faith because you’ll never be good enough.
But on the other side of the coin, you have churches that go too far to the grace where we lose sight of the commands of Christ and accountability, and repentance
The danger of this is that we can start treating grace like it’s a license to sin.
God is loving. So it doesn’t ultimately matter what you do because he’s a loving God who loves to love people.
This devolves into what Dietrich Bonhoffer called “cheap grace.”
And what that means is that it cheapens the gospel, it cheapens what Christ has actually called us to.
Quoting from the Cost of Discipleship. I’ve read this before but it’s a classic.
Cheap grace
“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.
Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.
Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.
Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: “ye were bought at a price,” and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”
What we need is balance between the two. Now it’s interesting in our passage.
And I think the key to balancing all of that is right in our passage. Let’s look again.
Jesus says: you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
Jesus speaks of his unity with the Father. He’s said similar things elsewhere in this gospel.
But what’s unique to this passage is that Jesus also adds and you in me, and I in you.
That we will be in Christ. That when we have faith in the gospel, we are united with Christ. That’s not to say that we are Christ, or are somehow deified.
But we are forgiven in Christ. We are loved in Christ.We have union in Christ.
Jesus and the Father have perfect unity with each other. And we have a share of that when we are in Christ. Now we are still human and still sinful so it is not yet the perfected union that it will be. But we are in Christ and Christ is in us through the Spirit.
And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
That to love Jesus is to be loved by God. Because Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is the one whom God sent. Jesus is the one who goes to God on our behalf. Jesus is the one who sits at the right hand of God.
Again, John’s Gospel does not give wiggle room. Jesus is not just a great teacher.
He is the way, the truth, and the life, and he is the one who gives us the privilege of being loved by God.
And Jesus says he will love us and manifest himself to us.
That we will have a greater and greater sense of the truth and love that are in Christ, as a result of having the Spirit, as we live for Christ and walk with Christ.
And that is why our lives matter and what we do matter.
Because our lives are not our own. When we truly know Jesus, when we truly love Jesus, that Jesus changes us from the inside out. True faith creates a new person who can never again be the same.
And the world does not understand that message.
The world thinks Christianity is just a guy telling people to be good, and mocking that idea because anyone should be able to figure that out on their own.
Christianity is living a new Spiritual life in Christ to the glory of God.
And because we’re still finite people living in a fallen world, we will do that imperfectly, and the good news is that there is grace and forgiveness when we fail.
But the costly grace of the gospel is that Jesus calls us to live for he who paid the ultimate price for our forgiveness.
And that’s either beautiful to you or detestable.
It’s either the wisdom of God or it’s an absurdity.
But what is it to you? Is it the bedrock on which to build your life? And is it shaping who you are?
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Another Helper. John 14:15-16
In 2019, Merrill Lynch and Age Wave did a survey on Americans over the age of 55 on the subject of end of life planning. 45% of those over the age of 55 did not have a living will.
And when it came to having a living will, an advanced directive in terms of end of life decisions, and a power attorney, that applied to just 18% of those surveyed over the age of 55. You might think “well maybe those legal affairs aren’t equally relevant for everyone.”That may be. But in the same survey, nearly half of respondents – 43 percent – expressed worry that they lacked an advocate to look out for their interests at the end of their life. Planning for death is not an enjoyable task.
On the night before he was to go to the cross, Jesus was telling the disciples of the provision he was going to make for them when he was gone. He knew the agony and torture that awaited him. But here he is thinking about his disciples.
He was going away to the Father, but Jesus told the disciples that he would not leave them as orphans. In John 14:15-21, Jesus talks about two provisions which he made for the disciples.
The promise of the Holy Spirit, and the promise of his return.
- The Promise of the Holy Spirit
Jesus tells his disciples: If you love me, you will keep my commands.
D.A. Carson points out that this is actually the first time in the Gospel of John where Jesus has called the disciples to love him. Jesus has talked of his love for the Father, and the Father’s love for him. Jesus has talked of his love for the disciples, and he’s called the disciples to love each other.
He’s talked about the importance of loving the Father. He’s talked about eternal life. But here he talks of the importance of loving him.
And love results in keeping his commands. Truly knowing Jesus, truly getting it with the gospel results in a life that is changed by the gospel. And so as a result of verse 15, Jesus continues speaking.
John 14:16-17:
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
Studying the word “paraclete”
In verse 16, Jesus says that he will give another Helper.
That’s the word the ESV uses. It comes from the Greek word “paraclete.” And the way that word is translated varies quite a bit in English Bibles.
NASB, and New King James Version also translate the term as “helper.” The King James says “comforter.” NIV and NLT say “advocate.” The Christian Standard Bible says “counselor.” The Message says “friend.”
It’s such a rich and multi-faceted term that I think English translations struggle to capture the full meaning of the word.In a sense, all of those translations are right because they all capture different aspects of the meaning. The Spirit is all of those things. He is our helper, comforter, advocate, counselor, and friend.
Instead of talking about which one of those words is best, I think it’s helpful to take a moment and get a sense of how the word is used in the Bible and to allow that to paint the picture of what the paraclete, the helper, does.
Also, it’s worth nothing that Jesus says “another helper,” and he says that because he too is a paraclete. Jesus is the first helper. It is the Spirit who is the second helper who will come after Jesus has gone.
The Greek word paraclete is used four times in John’s Gospel and once in 1 John 2:1. And that is the extent of the usage of that term in the New Testament.
Atchafalaya river
In the book Creature of the Word, the authors give an illustration about a river in Louisiana called the Atchafalaya. It’s an important river for industrial and commercial activities. But it is totally dependent upon the Mississippi River.
It’s a distributary that breaks off of the Mississippi, but otherwise has no other water source. So if the water on the Mississippi is high, the Atchafalaya will be high. If the Mississippi is low, the Atchafalaya will be low. But ultimately, the Atchafalaya owes all that it has to something outside of itself.
The river achieves what it achieves because of its source. So it is with the Holy Spirit. End of verse 16. Jesus has talked of how he will provide this helper, this paraclete. To be with you forever.
Jesus had an earthly ministry that lasted for a finite amount of time. It was short. About three years. But he gives the Holy Spirit which we will have forever.
When Jesus was saying these words, that had not yet been realized. The disciples had not yet been indwelled by the Spirit.
Theology – Holy Spirit
In the New Covenant, the people of God, who have faith in the gospel will have the Spirit of God dwelling in them. And so when Jesus says If you love me, you will keep my commands, that is ultimately true due to the work of the Spirit.
Love for Christ, obedience to Christ, and the Holy Spirit will all work together in New Covenant. Because it will be the Holy Spirit who enables people to obey Christ.
The world so often misunderstands the heart of the gospel, and of the Christian life.
And sadly still, too many Christians misunderstand this. And what we misunderstand is the Spiritual aspect of faith. The Bible is not teaching us “just be good and God will love you.” That’s what the world often thinks Christianity is. And again, too many Christians think that way too. Strive to be good enough.
That is exactly what the gospel is not.
We are saved by grace.
But.
For a person who truly has faith, they have the Spirit and the Spirit works in them. And it is that which results in a life that is changed by the gospel.
Christianity is not YOU be good enough so God will accept you.
It’s that you’re not good enough. But on the merit of Christ, God will accept you. And for the person who truly has faith in Christ, they have the Spirit, and it is the Spirit who works goodness through them. So we are not saved because of our own goodness. But to have a life that is unaffected by the gospel shows that someone doesn’t truly have the gospel.
That is why Jesus says If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
Because in the New Covenant, the time we’re in now, true love for Jesus is in the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit has a ministry which carries on the work of Christ.
Without its source, the river dries up.
-It is by the Holy Spirit that we are born again when we have faith in Christ.
-The Holy Spirit teaches us and points us to truth and to righteousness.
-The Holy Spirit bears fruit in our lives which enables true believers to live according to the virtues which were valued and exemplified by Christ.
-The Spirit equips us with Spiritual gifts to use in order to serve God and build up his kingdom.
-The Spirit does convict us of sin while also working to sanctify and transform us to greater love for God.
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Sermon: Calming the storm – Mark 4:35-41
Sometimes Jesus meets us in the storm. In this passage, the disciples find themselves out on the Sea of Galilee when they get caught up in a ferocious storm. Why are they there? Because Jesus had them get on the boat. Where’s Jesus? He’s asleep on the boat. But when he wakes up, he will respond in a way which will leave the disciples with fear and awe, as they question “who is this?”
