ACC ~ John 14 v18 - 24

OVERVIEW:

Jesus is like a father to orphans (AUGUSTINE), not wanting to leave them alone but providing them the Spirit’s presence until he comes back (CHRYSOSTOM) in order to fortify them (CYRIL). But since the world cannot see the Spirit, it does not receive him (GREGORY THE GREAT), demonstrating the feeble nature of a world that does not understand spiritual things (BASIL). Those who have kept inviolate the Spirit entrusted to them will behold the divine beauty of Christ without obstruction (CYRIL). But first Christ must be raised from the dead, and then his disciples and we too shall be raised (AUGUSTINE). The disciples can know they will see Jesus again after the resurrection (THEODORE).

Christ speaks of the indwelling of himself in the Father and of us in him. He was in the Father through the nature of his deity. We dwell in him through his birth in the body of which we partake in the mystery of the sacrament (HILARY). The union he speaks of is not simply one of mutual love but is a participation in the divine nature, which he himself enables through his incarnation (CYRIL). This union is an intimate connection accomplished through the power of the Spirit (THEODORE). The believer unites in himself three persons—himself; Christ, who dwells in him; and God, who dwells in Christ (APHRAHAT). The apostles knew that Christ was in the Father, and they have united Christ and the Father to us through their writings (BEDE).

Those who leave behind the world (MARK THE HERMIT) and live righteously demonstrate that they are the ones who love Jesus and thus are loved by him and the Father (CYRIL). At the future judgment, they will be granted a vision of Jesus (THEODORE) as they see the king in all his beauty (BEDE). Jesus reveals himself to those who love him (AUGUSTINE). Such obedient love keeps our self-will in check (GREGORY THE GREAT) so that God dwells in us once we have cleaned the house of our heart from the filth of sin (ORIGEN, GregORY THE GREAT, CYRIL). The Spirit of God and of Christ dwells in us as one, although they remain separate under the mysterious appearance of a joint indwelling (HILARY). God dwells in heaven as the first of his works and in us as the last of his works (AMBROSE) in which he is pleased to dwell (AUGUSTINE). The Son is the Father’s Word (GREGORY THE GREAT), and those who reject the word of the Son reject the word of the Father (GAUDENTIUS).

14:18 | Christ Is Not Deserting the Disciples

JESUS SPEAKS LIKE A FATHER TO ORPHANS

AUGUSTINE: After the promise of the Holy Spirit, in case anyone should think that the Lord was to give the Spirit, as it were, in place of himself (implying that he himself would not be with them in the same way), he added the words, “I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you.” Orphani [Greek] are pupilli [orphans] in Latin. … Accordingly, although it was not the Son of God that adopted sons to his Father or willed that we should have by grace that same Father who is his Father by nature, yet in a sense it is paternal feelings toward us that [the Son] himself displays. TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 75.1. [1]

[1] NPNF 1 7:335**; CCL 36:515.

THE SPIRIT’S PRESENCE UNTIL CHRIST COMES

CHRYSOSTOM: Earlier he had said, “Where I go you shall come” and “In my Father’s house there are many mansions.” [1] But since this was a long time off, he gives them the Spirit in the intervening time. They did not know what that [Spirit] was, however, and so they derived little comfort from what he said. … And so he promises them what they required most: his own presence. He says, “I will come to you.” But he intimates at the same time that they are not to look for the same kind of presence all over again. “Yet a little while, and the world sees me no more,” as if he said, I will come to you but not to live with you every day as I did before. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 75.2. [2]

[1]

[2] NPNF 1 14:274-75**.

FORTIFICATION OF THE SPIRIT

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: It is impossible for one’s soul to accomplish anything good, or to have power over its own passions or to escape the great subtlety of the devil’s snare if the soul is not fortified by the grace of the Holy Spirit and has Christ himself within it. … Christ promises nothing less than that he will be present and will help those who believe on him through the Spirit, even though he ascends into the heavens after his resurrection from the dead. COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 9.1. [1]

[1] LF 48:307**.

14:19 | The World Could Not See, but You Will

CONSTRICTING THE HEART WITH WORLDLY THINGS

GREGORY THE GREAT: This other Consoler of humanity, who himself is invisible, inflames each person that he has filled so that he too longs after invisible things. And because worldly hearts are only focused on what is seen, they do not receive him because their minds are not elevated to what is unseen. As secular minds broaden their horizons by focusing on the outward things [of this world], they constrict the ability of the arteries of the heart to admit the Spirit. MORALS ON THE BOOK OF JOB 5.28.50. [1]

[1] LF 18:279*. See also Bede Homilies on the Gospels 2.17 (CS 111:166).

THE FEEBLE NATURE OF THE WORLD

BASIL THE GREAT: [Jesus] applied the word world to those who, being bound by this material and carnal life and beholding the truth by material sight alone, were ordained through their unbelief in the resurrection to see our Lord no more with the eyes of the heart. … For the carnal person who has never trained his mind for contemplation but rather keeps it buried deep in the lust of the flesh, as in mud, is powerless to look up to the spiritual light of the truth. ON THE HOLY SPIRIT 22.53. [1]

[1] NPNF 2 8:34.

BEHOLDING CHRIST’S BEAUTY

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: Those who love evil in the world will go down to Hades and be banished from the presence of Christ. However, the lovers of virtue who have kept inviolate the earnest of the Spirit will be with him and dwell with him. And being with him surely they shall also behold his divine beauty without any hindrance. For he says, “the Lord shall be your eternal light and God shall be your glory.” [1] COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 9.1. [2]

[1] See Is 60:19.

[2] LF 48:310**.

FIRST JESUS’ RESURRECTION, THEN OURS

AUGUSTINE: But why does he speak of life as present to him and future to them? Because his resurrection preceded, and theirs was to follow. His resurrection was about to take place so soon that he speaks of it as present, theirs being deferred till the end of the world. He does not say “you live” but “you shall live.” … Because he lives, therefore we shall live: “As by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.” [1] TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 75.3. [2]

[1] 1 Cor 15:21.

[2] NPNF 1 7:336**; CCL 36:516.

THE DISCIPLES WILL SEE JESUS AGAIN

THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA: The world, that is, all the other people, sees me for a short time only, but you will see me again after my resurrection so that this vision of yours may testify that I am living again. And you will not only see me living, but the same thing will happen to you. When you also resurrect at the right time after your death, you will live and will participate in a second life. He does not say, “because I live” casually, that is, you will see me because I live. But he means You will witness the fact that I am alive, and by seeing it you will know that I resurrected from the dead and live and that I did not remain subject to death, as many believe. COMMENTARY ON JOHN 6.14.18-19. [1]

[1] CSCO 4 3:264.

14:20 | Mutual Indwelling of Father, Son and You

DIFFERENT HUMAN AND DIVINE INDWELLINGS

HILARY OF POITIERS: If he wished to indicate a mere unity of will, why did he set forth a kind of gradation and sequence in the completion of the unity, unless it were that, since he was in the Father through the nature of deity and we on the contrary are in him through his birth in the body, he would have us believe that he is in us through the mystery of the sacraments? And thus there might be taught a perfect unity through a mediator while, we abiding in him, he abode in the Father and as abiding in the Father abode also in us. In this way we might arrive at unity with the Father, since in him who dwells naturally in the Father by birth, we also dwell naturally while he himself abides naturally in us also. ON THE TRINITY 8.15. [1]

[1] NPNF 2 9:141-42*; CCL 62A:327.

A UNION OF DIVINE PARTICIPATION

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: If it is merely because he loves and is loved that the Son is in God the Father, and if by the same law we are in the Son and he in us, and no different bond of union is discernible—whether we consider that which binds the Son to the Father or us to him and him to us—then in what sense, or on what principle, I ask you, does Jesus say that “in that day” we shall know the mystery of this? …

“For in that day you shall know,” he says, “that I am in the Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” For I myself live, he says, for I am life by nature and have shown the temple of my own body alive. But when you yourselves (albeit you are of a corruptible nature) also behold yourselves living in a similar way as I do, then indeed you shall know very clearly that I, being life by nature, knitted you through myself into God the Father, who is also himself life by nature, making you partakers as it were and sharers in his incorruption. For I am in the Father naturally, being the fruit of his essence and its real offspring, subsisting in it, having shone forth from it. I am life of life, and you are in me and I in you, forasmuch as I appeared as a man myself and made you partakers of the divine nature by having my Spirit dwell in you. For Christ is in us through the Spirit, converting that which has a natural tendency to corruption into incorruption and transferring it from the condition of dying to that which is otherwise. And so Paul also says that “he who raised Jesus Christ from the dead shall enliven also your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwells in you.” [1] For albeit the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, yet he comes through the Son and is his own. For all things are through the Son from the Father. The divine psalmist will testify that it was through the Spirit that we were recreated for eternal life when he cries as one speaking to the God of all … , “You shall take away their breath and they shall fail and shall turn again to their dust. You shall send forth your Spirit, and they shall be made, and you shall renew the face of the earth. [2] Do you hear how the transgression that was in Adam and the “turning away” from the divine commandments, troubled the nature of humanity and made it return to its own earth? But when God sent forth his Spirit and made us partakers of his own nature and through him renewed the face of the earth, we were transfigured to “newness of life,” casting off the corruption that comes with sin and once more grasping eternal life through the grace and love toward the human race that our Lord Jesus Christ has. COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 9.1. [3]

[1] Rom 8:11.

[2] Ps 104:28-30 (103:28-30 LXX).

[3] LF 48:312, 321-22*.

IMPLICATIONS OF UNITY WITH FATHER AND SON

THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA: Then, he says, from these facts only you will learn that what I said to you was true about which you now have your doubts. I said, “I am in my Father” concerning the equality of nature and the inseparable connection when I will appear so. And I said “you are in me” concerning your faith and love for me when you will be made a participant with me in charity and also in the gift of the Spirit. “And I in you” is said with reference to what the close connection will cause when, after being regenerated by the power of the Spirit, you are with me in the body and I am with you in the head. [1] COMMENTARY ON JOHN 6.14.20. [2]

[1] Eph 4:15-16; Col 2:19.

[2] CSCO 4 3:274-75.

BECOMING ONE OF THREE PERSONS

APHRAHAT: When someone sweeps clean their soul in the name of Christ, Christ dwells in them and God dwells in Christ. From that time onward, that person becomes one of three persons—himself; Christ, who dwells in him; and God, who dwells in Christ. DEMONSTRATION 4.11. [1]

[1] CS 101:15-16**.

14:21 | Love and Keeping the Commandments

LOVE OF GOD LEAVES LOVE OF THE WORLD BEHIND

MARK THE HERMIT: Do you see how [Jesus] has hidden his manifestation in the commandments? Of all the commandments, therefore, the most comprehensive is to love God and our neighbor. This love is made firm through abstaining from material things and through stillness of thoughts.

Knowing this, the Lord enjoins us “not to be anxious about tomorrow,” [1] and rightly so. For if someone has not freed himself from material things and from concern about them, how can he be freed from evil thoughts? And if he is beset by evil thoughts, how can he see the reality of the sin concealed behind them? This sin wraps the soul in darkness and obscurity and increases its hold on us through our evil thoughts and actions. The devil initiates the whole process by testing a person with a provocation that the person is not compelled to accept. But the one urged on by self-indulgence and self-esteem begins to entertain this provocation with enjoyment. Even if their discrimination tells them to reject it, yet in practice they take pleasure in it and accept it. If someone has not perceived this general process of sinning, when will he pray about it and be cleansed from it? And if he has not been cleansed, how will he find purity of nature? And if he has not found this, how will he behold the inner dwelling place of Christ? For we are a dwelling place of God, according to the words of prophet, evangelist and apostle. [2] NO RIGHTEOUSNESS BY WORKS 223-24. [3]

[1] Mt 6:34.

[2] See Zech 2:10; Jn 14:23; 1 Cor 3:16; Heb 3:6.

[3] TP 1:145*.

NOT ALL WILL RECEIVE AN ETERNAL REWARD

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: Jesus has added the qualification “he who loves me,” clearly showing that none other than those who have chosen to live most righteously will be allowed to choose such an incomparable grace, for they are the ones who love him. While it is true that Christ raises the bodies of all—for there will be a resurrection of the evil and the good alike—a new life of glory and happiness will not be given to all without distinction. For it is clear that some only rise again to punishment and will have a life worse than any death, while others … will live a desirable and holy life in Christ. COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 10. [1]

[1] LF 48:324-25**.

A VISION OF THE SON FOR THE FAITHFUL

THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA: Whoever loves me and keeps my commandments will enjoy my love and that of the Father and will obtain in addition a vision of who I really am. They will not be disadvantaged by the fact that they did not see me in body. Indeed, they will also enjoy that vision at the appropriate time as well when they see me coming down from heaven. COMMENTARY ON JOHN 6.14.21. [1]

[1] CSCO 4 3:275.

THE KING IN ALL HIS BEAUTY

BEDE: Even now the Son loves those who love him and the Father. But he loves them now so that they may live properly as a result of their faith, which works through love. Then (in the future), he will love them as well, but in such a way that they may come to the vision of the truth of which they only had a taste through faith. When he adds, “I will show myself to him,” he will indeed show himself to all human beings but will show his very own being only to the elect. At the judgment even the damned will see Christ, [1] but only the just will see the king in all his beauty. [2] HOMILIES ON THE GOSPELS 2.17. [3]

[1] See Zech 12:10.

[2] Is 33:17.

[3] CS 111:169-70*.

14:22-23 | Judas’s Question and Jesus’ Answer

GOD REVEALS HIMSELF TO THOSE WHO LOVE HIM

AUGUSTINE: Judas the holy, not the impure, the follower, not the persecutor of our Lord, asks why Jesus will make himself known to his own but not to the world. … Jesus answers that is because the one loves him and the other does not. … The saints are distinguished from the world by that love that moves those who are of one mind to dwell together in a house. In this house Father and Son make their home and impart that very love to those whom they shall also honor at last with this promised self-manifestation that the disciple asked his master about. TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 76.1-2. [1]

[1] NPNF 1 7:337*.

LOVE KEEPS SELF-WILL IN CHECK

GREGORY THE GREAT: The proof of love is its manifestation in deeds. This is why John says in his letter, “He who says, ‘I love God’ and does not observe his commandments is a liar.” [1] Our love is true if we keep our self-will in check according to his commandments. One who is still wandering here and there through his unlawful desires does not really love God, because he is opposing him in his self-will. FORTY GOSPEL HOMILIES 30.1. [2]

[1] 1 Jn 4:20.

[2] CS 123:236-37; PL 76:1220.

GOD DWELLS IN US AFTER CLEANING HOUSE

ORIGEN: God does indeed consume and utterly destroy: he consumes evil thoughts, wicked actions and sinful desires when they find their way into the minds of believers. God, with his Son, inhabits those souls that have been rendered capable of receiving his word and wisdom, in line with his saying, “I and the Father shall come and make our abode with him.” After their vices and passions have been consumed, he makes them a holy temple, worthy of himself. ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 1.1.2. [1]

[1] ANF 4:242*; GCS 22(5):17-18.

GOD AS GUEST

GREGORY THE GREAT: Consider, dearly beloved, how great this solemnity is that commemorates the coming of God as a guest in our hearts. If some rich and powerful friend were to enter your home, you would quickly clean the entire house for fear something there might offend your friend’s eyes when he entered. Let anyone then who is preparing his inner house for God cleanse away the dirt of his evil deeds. … He does indeed enter the hearts of some but does not make his home there because through repentance they acquire respect for God, but during a time of temptation they forget that they have repented and so return to committing sins as if they had never wept over them at all. The Lord comes into the heart and makes his home in one who truly loves God and observes his commandments, since the love of his divine nature so penetrates him that he does not turn away from it during times of temptation. That person loves truly whose heart does not consent to be overcome by wicked pleasures. FORTY GOSPEL HOMILIES 30.2. [1]

[1] CS 123:237; PL 76:1220-21.

GOD WILL NOT DWELL IN THE FILTH OF SIN

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: Just as we ourselves cannot bear to live among filth and stench and are eager to rid our houses of such if there should be any, will not the pure and all-holy God even more disdain the polluted soul and abhor a heart sunk in the swamp of sin? Of this there can be no question. COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 10. [1]

[1] LF 48:333*.

ONE MYSTERIOUS INDWELLING

HILARY OF POITIERS: For by this he testified that while the Spirit of Christ abides in us the Spirit of God abides in us. The Spirit of him who was raised from the dead is no different from the Spirit of him who raised him from the dead. For they come and dwell in us. I ask whether they will come as strangers associated together and make their abode or in unity of nature? No, the teacher of the Gentiles contends that it is not two spirits—the spirits of God and of Christ—that are present in those who believe but the Spirit of Christ, which is also the Spirit of God. This is no joint indwelling; it is one indwelling, yet an indwelling under the mysterious semblance of a joint indwelling. For it is not the case that two spirits indwell, nor is one that indwells different from the other. For there is in us the Spirit of God and there is also in us the Spirit of Christ, and when the Spirit of Christ is in us there is also in us the Spirit of God. And so, since what is of God is also of Christ, and what is of Christ is also of God, Christ cannot be anything different from what God is. Christ, therefore, is God, one Spirit with God. ON THE TRINITY 8.27. [1]

[1] NPNF 2 9:145*; CCL 62A:338-39.

GOD DWELLS NOT ONLY IN HEAVEN

AMBROSE: It is only right that heaven is first and last in the creation of the world, for heaven also has what is beyond heaven, the God of heaven who says, “Heaven is my throne.” [1] For God does not sit above the element of heaven but in the heart of humankind. For this reason the Lord also says, “We will come to them and make our home with them.” Heaven, therefore, is the first of the works on earth. Human beings are the close or end or last of his works. LETTER 49 (TO HORONTIANUS). [2]

[1] Is 66:1.

[2] FC 26:257-58**; CSEL 82 1:99.

GOD IS PLEASED TO DWELL IN US

AUGUSTINE: God is not too grand to come, he is not too fussy or shy, he is not too proud—on the contrary he is pleased to come if you do not displease him. Listen to the promise he makes. Listen to him indeed promising with pleasure, not threatening in displeasure, “We shall come to him,” he says, “I and the Father.” To the one he had earlier called his friend, the one who obeys his precepts, the keeper of his commandment, the lover of God, the lover of his neighbor, he says, “We shall come to him and make our abode with him.” SERMON 23.6. [1]

[1] WSA 3 2:59; CCL 41:312.

14:24 | My Words and the Father’s Words

THE SON IS THE FATHER’S WORD. GREGORY THE GREAT: You know, dearly beloved, that the one speaking, the only-begotten Son, is the Father’s Word. Therefore the word that the Son speaks is not his but the Father’s, because the Son himself is the Father’s Word. FORTY GOSPEL HOMILIES 30. [1]

[1] CS 123:238*; PL 76:1221.

REJECT THE SON, REJECT THE FATHER

GAUDENTIUS OF BRESCIA: He made known to them many things concerning the oneness of his own divinity with that of the Father. He made clear that there was no separation between them so that even the words he spoke to them were not his, he declared, but the Father’s. “And the word that you have heard is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.” In this sentence he makes it abundantly clear that all who reject the teaching of his only-begotten Son reject the teaching of the Father also, since the Son says that the words he spoke are not his but the Father’s. And from this it follows that if they are the words of the Father, they are also the words of the Son, for he declares, “All things whatever the Father has are mine.” [1] … And this is clearly because of the oneness of the divine substance that recognizes nothing as part of it that does not belong to the divine nature. SERMON 14. [2]

[1] Jn 16:15; see Jn 17:10.

[2] PL 20:944.