Orphanages are a thing of the past in modern Australian society—at least as far as I know. They are now for us only grey decrepit empty sandstone buildings of misery and history. For us now, they exist only in fantasy novels, mentioned in royal commissions, thought of in the context of child abuse and convict institutions, and dubious third world enterprises.
Real orphanages nowadays are only found in the developing world, places like Cambodia, which are too poor to have dispensed with them. They are the places set up by young western idealists, visited by rich western tourists, paid for by generous western benefactors, and used by local parents who are very much alive who send their children there because they get better education and life opportunities, and then manipulated and controlled by local organized crime gangs to gain western money and enable sex slave trafficking. The picture that is painted is pretty horrible.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-02/exploited-cambodian-children-orphanage-tourism-trade/8668506,
In movies and novels, orphanages are dark, dank, grey, joyless institutions of steel and mould, where the orphans are abused verbally by harsh matrons and sexually by deviant men. Orphanages don’t rescue. They are places from which people are rescued. Orphanages ring of ‘stolen generation’, and poverty. In the ‘minions’ world, Gru’s three adopted orphan children are rescued from selling cookies for the money hungry matron. In the Harry Potter world, Voldermort lived in an orphanages and look how he turned out! Even Harry was better off, with his life in his Aunt’s house under the stairs. But he too is an orphan, abused by his unloving relatives. So being an orphan in our culture is pretty bad. You are vulnerable, probably abused, and poor. It could turn out very bad indeed for you.
Remember, Jesus is speaking to the eleven. He is about to go away. They are, at core, disturbed and troubled. And you and I would be too. We too would be unsettled by Jesus’ words, if we were in their situation. And Jesus says that he won’t leave them as orphans. Verses 18-20:
14:18I will not leave you orphans; I am coming to you. 14:19Yet a little while and the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, that I am living and you will live. 14:20On that day, you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
‘Orphans’ is at first glance an unusual phrase for Jesus to use. These are eleven grown men. They were doing quite alright before Jesus came along and convinced them to give up their day jobs. They were fishermen in partnerships with family businesses, like Peter and James and John and Andrew, or well paid public servants like Matthew. They could simply go back to what they were doing before, couldn’t they, if the whole Jesus thing fell through? Does Jesus really think of these big hairy hardened Galilean fisherman—who’ve traipsed backwards and forwards across first century Palestine for three years with him, and who have remained alive while the did so in the context of a brutal Roman occupation, and who even now carry with them and have in their possession two swords as they dine in the upper room—as needy vulnerable children?
Yes, he does. Without Jesus, they are orphans. For Jesus is not just wanting them to keep their heads down and live out their otherwise meaningless lives. He is preparing them for and is about to commission them to go out and overturn the world order. They will be sent out with the news that Jesus is Christ and Lord, and that forgiveness of sins is found in his name. This task will call down upon the disciples all the fury and animus of the world and its ruler Satan. They will be hated by all people on account of Jesus’ name—and now he is going! I don’t care how many fish you’ve pulled in, how many late nights you’ve spent in the cold, or how many storms you’ve survived: eleven men set against the world, the flesh, and the devil is ‘orphanage’ material, if Jesus does a runner. But Jesus is not about to do a runner. Verse 18 again:
I will not leave you orphans; I am coming to you.
Is Jesus referring in verse 18 to his resurrection and return from the dead? I don’t think so. Jesus’ return to the disciples from the dead hardly satisfies the requirement that the disciples be not left as orphans. Sure, Jesus will spend 40 or so days with the disciples after his resurrection. But at the very beginning he tells the disciples not to cling to him—indeed, it’s the first thing he says to Mary! The resurrection appearances prior to the ascension don’t fulfill Jesus’ promise, “I will not leave you orphans; I am coming to you.”
What about Jesus’ second coming, at the very end of the age, to bring in the new heaven and the new earth? Does that fulfill the requirements of verse 18? Not really. This is a real word spoken to real people, people Jesus called his ‘friends’, the eleven. They never got to see Jesus physically and bodily return before they died. So it is hard to believe that Jesus meant his second coming, which would then now be nearly two thousand years overdue, and still counting. John, the oldest of the apostles, didn’t get to see Jesus’ bodily return, and yet he still recorded this promise that Jesus made in his presence—and he was one of the ‘you’. So it is not a reference to Jesus’ second coming.
The answer, I think, lies in the coming of the Spirit. While Jesus the Son will physically be going away, the nature of who Jesus is, as the eternal logos, the monogenes theos, God the only begotten, and who the Spirit of truth is, means that Jesus is not in another important sense going away, but in a significant sense can be said to come to these very disciples in their life times. Jesus will not physically come to these disciples in their lifetimes after his ascension, but he will spiritually and by the Holy Spirit come to them, certainly and for sure. Jesus is spiritually not going away, because the Spirit of truth will be sent to them.
Jesus says, “I am coming to you”. Notice Jesus says that he is coming, not the Spirit of truth. Which one is coming, then? Is Jesus coming, or is the Spirit coming? Both are true, in their own way.
This statement might, of course, be understood in a modalist fashion. Jesus becomes the Spirit, and so comes to the disciples as the Spirit. But that would be a terrible mistake. That doesn’t understand the nature of the mutual indwelling of the persons of the Godhead. That fails to reckon with the permanent distinctions between the divine persons, though they share the essence and nature of God.
Verse 20 points us to this mutual indwelling that explains how Jesus is both really coming to his disciples, and yet is a distinct person of the Godhead to either the Father or the Spirit. Just as the Son is in the Father, and the Father is in the Son, so the Son is in the Spirit.
Of course, the Spirit has been in the Son all through Jesus’ earthly life, and not just when the Spirit visibly descended onto him as a dove at his baptism at age 30. From the very conception of the human named ‘Jesus’, the Holy Spirit has indwelt and filled him. This is yet another reason why we must pause before we say that the Spirit was not indwelling his disciples before Pentecost, or that the Spirit in no sense had ‘come’ to God’s people more generally before Pentecost. For Jesus could both be indwelt as ‘incarnate of the Holy Spirit’ as a one milli-second old zygote, and yet also at the age of thirty in another sense visibly ‘receive’ the Spirit by descent and dwelling upon and remaining with. The Spirit who remained with Jesus after his baptism was the same Spirit who had energized his conception and had indwelt him ever since.
The Spirit of truth is the Spirit of the Son (Rom 8:9-11) as much as he is the Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of the Father. This is because the Son indwells the Spirit, just as the Son indwells the Father, and the Father indwells the Son.
So Jesus will not leave the eleven—or indeed any believer—as orphans. He did indeed come to them, as he has come to us, by the Spirit. And Jesus will also likewise come to any who believe in him from now on, by and with and in the person of his Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth.
In verse 19, however, we see Jesus move from talking about his coming to the disciples in the person of the Spirit of truth (v. 18), to a reference to his coming to the disciples physically and bodily after his resurrection on the third day.
14:19Yet a little while and the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, that I am living and you will live.
Verse 19 seems to refer to something different to verse 18. The reference to ‘seeing’ Jesus, and that he is ‘living’, seems to strongly suggest a reference to Jesus’ bodily resurrection. Thus, the little while is truly ‘a little while’—only two sleeps and a portion of three days—and Jesus will appear to Mary, and then be with most of them again in the locked room. The reference to “the world will no longer see me” is a reference to the fact that Jesus’ appearances were exclusively and only to the disciples. As Peter would later say:
40But God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, 41not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. (Acts 10:40-41 ESV)
And the resurrection of Jesus is the guarantee—the downpayment, deposit, earnest, firstfruits, token—that both the apostles and indeed every believer will live. Jesus has been saying that he is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25-26). His own resurrection will be the opportunity to prove it. The word to the disciples about the coming Easter Day is “you will see me, that I am living and you will live” (v. 19), and their seeing Jesus, touching him, hearing him, smelling him again, will demonstrate and provide the evidence to their senses that they too will rise from the dead and receive eternal life from his hand. Again, there will be another confirmation of Jesus’ teaching on Easter Day, one germaine to Philip’s question. Verse 20:
14:20On that day, you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
Jesus has been saying that he is in the Father and the Father is in him (John 10:38, 14:10-11, cf. 17:21). Well, resurrection day will prove it. “Philip, if you really want to see that I am in the Father, hang around a couple of days. Wait till I walk through the locked door, and you can have your own sneak preview, a little interactive poke and prod session with my hands and feet and side. And as you prepare for the one with Thomas a week later, you can remember that I really spoke the truth to you Philip—that I reveal the Father. He is in me, and I am in him. If you see me, you’ve seen the Father. Remember what you asked me, “Show us the Father”. And on that day you will remember that we had this little conversation on the night before I died.”
But Jesus goes further in his statement in verse 20. Not only is the Son in the Father and the Father in the Son, but Jesus said to them, “you are in me, and I am in you” (v. 20).
Now, this is a strange statement. It is certainly not something that normal everyday people can say to one another. There is another mutual indwelling—the disciples are in Jesus, and Jesus is in the disciples. What does this mean?
This is almost certainly referring to the believer’s union with Christ. This is a rich umbrella idea illustrating and explaining how Jesus saves us that is found mainly in both Paul and John, but not exclusively there. In John, we see it particularly with his analogy of the vine and the branches (John 15). But it is here in propositional form and in a typically Johannine style. And probably if we wanted an analogy of it, we would be best to refer to John 15.
However, what we should notice the time reference. It is to “that day” in “a little while” when they will “see” him and know that he is “living” (vv. 19-20). Jesus is still referring to resurrection Sunday in just two sleeps time—well, he won’t be sleeping again, two nights will pass until he rises again. That is, on Easter Day, before the day of Pentecost, Jesus is already ‘in’ the disciples, and the disciples are already ‘in’ Jesus. Again, this points to the Spirit indwelling the disciples even prior to Pentecost—for the way Jesus indwells his people is by his Spirit (Rom 8:9-11).
Again, Jesus returns to the question of his disciples’ love for him. He has raised this matter in a direct way with the disciples in verse 15—“If you love me”. But now in verse 21 he clearly broadens out the principle to anybody who obeys his commands: Verse 21:
14:21“The one who has my commands and keeps them loves me. Now, the one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”
Good news! Jesus here is not just talking to the eleven. He is now talking to us as well. He has an eye to us. We have Jesus’ commands—particularly the one to “love one another” that John has so emphasized. If we keep it, we love Jesus. That much Jesus has already said to the disciples, the eleven (v. 15). Their obedience to Jesus reveals their love for Jesus. And our obedience to Jesus reveals our love for Jesus. And our love for Jesus in this context is shown pre-eminently in our love for one another—in our context, brothers and sisters in Christ.
Jesus then gives us the consequence of loving one another as believers in Jesus. We will be loved by the Father. This ‘conditional’ love of the Father—our enjoyment of which is explicitly said to be dependent on our love for one another which in turn shows our love for Jesus—does not deny that God loved us while we were still ungodly, sinners, and weak (Rom 5:8-9). We need to have a more nuanced understanding of the ‘love of God’.
Jesus is loved by the Father. One of the reasons the Father loves the Son is because the Son lays down his life at his command (John 10:17-18). But Jesus’ response is a very different response to what we think of as obedience to commands, because in another sense it is absolutely ‘free’—no one takes his life from him.
Suppose then that we disciples, sinful humans that we are undoubtedly are, begin to love one another. Sure, it’s all enabled by the Spirit of truth, who is the Spirit of the Son, but we really are doing it. We are becoming more like the Son in so doing, he showed us what loving one another really means.
If the Father loves the Son because of his free willingness, eagerness, and complete concurrence with his will, and this makes the son ‘loveable’, why wouldn’t these qualities found in us, by virtue of the Spirit of the Son, be recognized by the Father as those of the Son he loves, and thus love us commensurately and as a consequence? For the family likeness, through the Spirit of the Son, is beginning to make us ‘loveable’ to the Father.
Understand, I am not negating, downplaying, or contradicting the necessary unearned, undeserved, and unmerited love upon which our forensic Pauline justification depends, and to which we as sinful people must have continual recourse. I am simply saying that the ministrations of the Spirit to create Christ likeness in us really do evoke love towards us in the heart of the Father. The Father loved us first for nothing in us except his creation of us, his image in us, and the work of his Son for us. And in this instance, the Father loves us for the Son and Spirit he puts in us, and the love that they generate.
Not only does the Father love such a loving one, but likewise the Son loves the one who loves him and others. The last part of verse 21:
[…] and I will love him and reveal myself to him.
The revelation about which Jesus speaks cannot mean revealing to him the commands of Jesus—for the person to whom Jesus reveals himself already knows the commands of Jesus and is keeping them. His obedience is the reason why Jesus is revealing himself to him. But it does indicate that Jesus will indeed respond with self-revelation to those who ‘love one another’. We should probably not think of it as an ‘extra’, a ‘special revelation’ that only ‘special believers’ get. Rather, every believer must and will love one another, and thus every believer will receive this revelation of Jesus. And without that revelation of Jesus, the person is not a real believer in Jesus.
Jesus is preparing his friends for his departure by giving them promises. Of course words are cheap. But Jesus is not leaving them with empty words. He is leaving them with precious promises. And the promise is for another Advocate, the Spirit of truth, or the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit will turn the disciples from potential orphans into apostles, who will do the works Jesus did, and even greater works than what Jesus did. And they did. The Acts of Apostles records those greater works.
And we also who believe in Jesus will do Jesus’ works, and greater works that Jesus. For not only will our words truly reveal the Father who indwells us, but people will also receive forgiveness of sins through our words. This was the work Jesus didn’t do, because he hadn’t died on the cross yet. So now our works of effective evangelism and ministering forgiveness are the greater works than Jesus’ works.
My Translation
14:18I will not leave you orphans; I am coming to you. 14:19Yet a little while and the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, that I am living and you will live. 14:20On that day, you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
14:21“The one who has my commands and keeps them loves me. Now, the one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”