Jesus, knowing that His time to depart was drawing near, had demonstrated His love to His disciples in the washing of their feet and in His assurance of their place in the Father’s home. He encouraged them to trust in Him and the Father, and told them He would come back for them. He also commanded them to love one another just as He had loved them.

The Master then focused on their love for Him and expressed that if they love Him, they will obey His commands. Their obedience would be the expression of their love for Him and He will ask the Father to send them another Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, to live with them and to be in them. They will not be left as ‘orphans’.

We need to pause here to examine in a deeper manner the implications of what the Master communicated, for herein lies some of the most important principles of Christian living and discipleship. The commands Jesus referred to are not simply just Jesus’ ethical commands but the entire revelation  from the Father as a whole. This will explain how the Master phrased the  Great Commission when He, after expressing His supreme authority, told  the disciples to go and make disciples of all nations….and teaching them to obey everything He have commanded them. Notice the instruction to teach them to obey everything or to observe everything He has commanded which would encompass the whole revelation from the Father to Him. If we  realise what this means, it would imply that making disciples is not simply “collecting decisions” from evangelistic outreach; it must include teaching and nurturing the believers to obey all that Jesus has taught and commanded. It means that they only are to be counted as true Christians who live in a practical obedience to His word, and strive to do the things He has commanded. As a godly Christian once said, “obedience is the only proof of the reality of our Christian faith.

Faith and obedience are the leading marks of real followers of Christ, and will always be seen in true believing Christians. It is no wonder that the Master urged the disciples to trust Him and to love Him by their obedience to His commands. “If  you hold to my teaching (Word), you are really my disciples” (John 8:31). Nothing pleases God more than to have His children loving Him completely and this love invariably is expressed in their obedience to His teachings and commands. Let us be clear that mere duty will not generate obedience to Christ; only love for Him can do that, and love for Him may at times cause the faithful believer to obey Him in a manner which seems contrary to the expectations of the average believers.

But we may object and feel that we are not capable and able to obey all His commands. The disciples also were probably despondent at the thought of their Master leaving; this is where Jesus told them that the Father, at His request, would send another advocate or counsellor to help them and to be with them for ever. He is the Spirit of truth. When the Master told them that they will see Him and He will come to them, it is in the context of telling them that the Holy Spirit will come to them and live in them. It implies that although the Holy Spirit is the third person in the Godhead, in essence, He is the  Spirit of Christ, for He is exactly like Christ. Then Jesus made the astounding statement that when that happens, they will realise that He is in the Father and that they are in Him and He is in them. He elaborated that for those who love Him and obey Him, God the Father will love them and He Himself will love them and the Father and He will come to them and dwell with them.

Presumably, the manifestation of the Father and the Son in the life of the believer is through the Holy Spirit. Earlier on, in answering Philip’s request to see the Father, the Master had explained that anyone who has seen  Him has seen the Father, and that the Father is in Him and He is in the Father. The Master also expressed earlier that the Son always does what the Father commands and He not only speaks what the Father instructed Him, He also speaks what the Father spoke. The Holy Spirit, who is in the believer, will remind the believer of all that Jesus taught, and will reveal the person of the Lord Jesus.

In other words, when Jesus departed and the Holy Spirit comes, an intimate union with the Father and the Son will be achieved for the disciples through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Also, the Holy Spirit will guarantee the accurate recalling of Jesus’ words by the apostles, and this will ensure for us today the accuracy and the authority of the Scriptures.

Just as Jesus obeyed the Father in all things, the disciples will  be enabled by the Spirit not only to know all things taught by the Lord Jesus but also to obey all the teachings of the Lord, in increasing measures. This is the wonderful privilege we have as disciples of the Lord Jesus; we are not alone, for the Holy Spirit is our teacher, our comforter, our guide and He not only was responsible for our regeneration, He is the one who effected our union with our Lord Jesus in His death, His burial, His resurrection and also seated us with Him in the heavenly places. Our union with the Lord Jesus means that we are one with Him in one body and all that belongs to Him also belongs to His people. What a tremendous calling we have in Him!

Jesus ended chapter 14 by telling the disciples to be glad that He is returning to the Father and He exhorted them not to be discouraged but to receive His peace and not be afraid or troubled. His departure will ensure that He will take them to be with Him for ever and this alone should be a reason for joy. If the disciples truly loved Him, they would be glad that He is returning to His Father, to the sphere where He belongs, to the glory He had with the Father before the world began, to the place where the Father is unquestionably greater than the Son in His incarnate state, to His own ‘home’. The disciples were undoubtedly more preoccupied with their own griefs than with the joy of the Master. Today, we believers are also preoccupied with our own sorrows and pain than with what bring joy to the Master.

Jesus leaves His peace (shalom) with the disciples. It is the transcendent peace He displays throughout the difficult hour of suffering and death. By  that death He absorbs in Himself all the malice of others, the sin of the world and introduces the promised messianic peace that none others can give. He effected for all His followers peace with God, the peace of God which transcends all understanding (Philippians 4:7).

The presence and power of the Holy Spirit, the peace and love of God  bequeathed by Jesus and the Father –  all these provide all that is necessary for His disciples to overcome their fears. Our hearts need not be troubled, neither shall they be afraid; all that we need have been provided and all that we will go through is temporary. In this world, we will have trouble, but take heart, He has overcome the world. In Him, we can have the peace that passes all understanding.