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And our son -in -law Darren is stationed there at Goodfellow Air Force Base, and so they bought
Mary a ticket to fly down to see them and the grandkids.
And so I didn't realize it until just recently that she's gonna be gone 13 days.
So it's quite a while I actually hesitate making that known because you know what when she's
gone.
I try and do a little fasting you know and You know some discipline, and I just get too many
Invitations and commitments it's just and so I try and keep it a low -key actually
I've already got four commitments for Eating which I'm happy for I'm not complaining.
I'm happy for but all right
here.
We are in John 14.
This is the third Lord's Day that we're addressing the first 11 verses of John 14
which is concerning the departure and the return of Jesus.
Let's read these verses once again in context.
Jesus was telling his disciples Judas had departed there were only 11 remaining.
Let not your heart be troubled.
But you believe in God or rather believe in God believe also in me.
In my father's house or many mansions or abiding places.
If it were not so I would have told you I Go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and
prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you to myself.
That where I am there you may be also and where I go you know
and the way you know.
Thomas said to him Lord we do not know where you were going and how can we know the way?
Jesus said to him I am the way the way the truth truth and the life in the life.
No one comes to the father who sent to me.
If you had known me you would have known my father also and From now from
now on no you know him and have seen him.
Philip said to him Lord show us the father it is efficient for
us.
Jesus said to him Have I been I've been with you so long and yet you have not
known me Philip.
He who has seen me has seen the father.
How can you say show us the father?
Do you not believe that I am in the father and the father in me?
The words that I speak to you.
I do not speak on my own authority.
But the father who dwells in me does the works.
Believe me that I am in the father and the father in me or else believe me
for the sake of the works themselves.
The outline we've been employing to address this passage as three divisions we've taken each one.
For a week give an address attention to it.
First is the promise of a place where Jesus was going first four verses.
Secondly Jesus is the only way to God the Father which we addressed last Lord's Day.
And Thirdly Jesus as the revelation of God the Father.
And so today we'll address this third section of this passage.
Here we read of the person of Jesus Christ who is one in essence with his father.
That's important.
Jesus is the second person of the Blessed Holy Trinity.
We may see that believing this biblical truth is essential to saving faith.
If you don't believe the Trinity you do not have faith in the true God in the true
Savior.
And we may see that believing this biblical truth is essential as we say.
Is this these verses will also help us to understand more clearly the kind of faith that pleases God?
As the Lord Jesus is attempting to qualify and clarify and enhance their
understanding of who he is and he's emphasizing of course his relationship
and his revelation of the Father to them and so in verses 7 through 11 we could describe
this as Jesus as the revelation of God the Father.
Now last Lord's Day we address the golden text of John 14 6 in which Jesus declared I'm the way the
truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.
One point I did not make last week was regarding the initial words of our Lord in verse 6
Jesus declared I am the way the truth and the life.
This is another occurrence of many in the gospel of John in which Jesus declared
his deity the Greek words a go a me I am The way
the truth and the life as one wrote this is the sixth of seven I am
formal I am statements in the gospel each containing I am a go a me and A
predicate in other words a verb along with the the pronoun and the verb.
These seven formal I am statements are emphatic.
There's emphasis here emphatic descriptions of the person in ministry of Jesus and
Cumulatively form a detailed picture of Jesus Christ.
It's his claim that he is God.
I am John Owen wrote of the deity of Christ that is set
forth in this passage.
So he Jesus testifies of himself.
I am the truth.
He is so essentially that is in his essence.
He's God as He is one with the Father the God of truth.
Deuteronomy 3 2 4.
He is so efficiently not only essentially but efficiently as by him alone.
It is fully and effectually declared for no man has seen God at any time.
The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father.
He hath declared him.
And Jesus is so substantially In opposition onto the types and
shadows of the Old Testament.
He is the substance.
For in him dwelt the fullness of the Godhead bodily the body of Christ and he
is so subjectively for all divine truth.
Relating to the saving knowledge of God is treasured up in him in Jesus Christ.
In him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge of God.
Well, we next arrived to verse 7 Which reads if you had known me you would have known my
father also.
And from now on you know him and have seen him.
Now Lord concluded his I am statement of verse 6 with a conditional.
Sentence in verse 7 begins with the word if it's a conditional sentence
In which he connected himself and his work with his father.
The first portion of a conditional sentence the if portion of a sentence is referred to as a
protasis.
The second portion the then portion if then that's then portion.
Second portion is Commonly known as the apodosis.
Now the way it's expressed in Greek.
There are actually four different kinds of conditional sentences and depending on
the particle that begins the Greek sentence and the and the tense of the verb within the
protasis the first portion of the conditional sentence the writer is able to express different
degrees of certainty or uncertainty of truth or Falsehood of a
statement and here Jesus is not saying they didn't know him.
What he's really indicating to them is they didn't know him as fully as they should have known him.
And that is suggested in the text itself.
He was saying they had not fully known him.
Had they not known him as they should have known him.
No, essentially Jesus was saying to them if you had truly known me.
You would have known my father also and from now on you know him and have seen him.
That's the point that Jesus was making.
Even though he'd been they had been with him for three and a half years in spite of all his teaching and
claim.
They didn't really understand that he was one in essence with the father.
He's declaring that here to them if you had truly known me You would have known that when you
look at me and everything I've done everything I say it's the father on display.
That's what he's asserting.
He's he's informing their faith.
Elevating it expanding it he's emphasizing here that he is God
that he is the second person of the Holy Trinity.
And so as one wrote.
Essentially Jesus was saying to them if he had truly known me in a sense of course they had known Jesus.
They had known him well enough to leave their homes and friends and livelihood to follow him wherever he went.
But they did not know him in his full significance.
Really to know him is to know his father.
Or Calvin wrote it this way.
Christ therefore blames the disciples for not acknowledging that the fullness of the Godhead was manifested in
him.
I See says he that hitherto.
You've not known me in a right and proper manner.
Because you do not yet acknowledge the lively image of the father which is exhibited in me.
And so he was elevating and expanding Informing them more clearly and fully
as to his person.
Now again the second portion of the conditional sentence.
It doesn't begin then here.
But the then is implied is called the apodicis and it reads you would have known my
This states that all that he was and had done before them had been a revelation of the father, but they didn't
know it.
Had they truly known him they would have also known the father.
The father had been revealed to them all along through him through Jesus although they had been
unaware of the fact.
The Lord then stated that their future understanding of the identity of the father and their relationship with him
Would be based on their knowledge of Jesus and the time and experiences they had with him and
so Jesus declared.
From now on you know him the father and have seen him.
Speaking about his ministry.
You've seen him as they're.
You know recollecting all of Jesus taught everything that Jesus did they could
now look upon that as a Revelation of the father all along although they hadn't seen it even
while it was transpiring.
And so Jesus was telling them everything must be different from now on.
For the revelation of God has been dramatically declared by the word become flesh in
The prologue of John's gospel back in John chapter 1 it was announced that Jesus would reveal the
father.
No one has seen God at any time the only begotten son who is in the bosom of the father?
He has declared him and now here at the end of his earthly ministry in
John 14 7 Jesus declared that all that he was all that he had taught
all that he had done before them Had indeed revealed the father to them.
In short Jesus declared to his disciples that the better they know him
the better they would know the father.
God the father and so what Jesus is asserting was that he and his father are
a singular object of faith.
One God you see Jesus you see the father one God.
Now it would seem that his disciples were not understanding the meaning and implications of what he was telling them in
verse 7 and.
So it suggested this is suggested by Phillips request in verse 8.
He still didn't get it.
Did he?
Philip said to him Lord show us the father and it is sufficient for us.
Jesus basically been saying I've been showing you the father for the last three and a half years and yet Philip,
you know Sees this understanding of seeing the father probably in a physical or visible way.
And he just wasn't getting what Jesus was saying.
It would seem Philip rightly understood Jesus could reveal the father to them.
But he was wrong in the manner in which Jesus would reveal him.
He had still distanced Jesus from his father.
Didn't he Show us the father as though they're two
complete separate entities rather than one essence.
Philip had a too low a view of Jesus even after being with him for the previous three and a half years.
As one wrote at one level Philip and the others truly do know Jesus and therefore in the Sun
they have seen the father, but they do not recognize this yet as Highly as
they think of Jesus.
They do not yet grasp that in Jesus.
God was made has made himself known To the extent that this is still beyond them.
They do not know Jesus very well.
Philip was asking for a direct revelation or access to God the father.
Philip rightly understood that the greatest blessing possible for a human being is to come into the presence
of God to seek God.
He was as a psalmist to address God.
You will show me the path of life in your presence is fullness of joy at your right hand are pleasures
forevermore.
It's understandable that Philip wanted to see God.
He was as King David who said to God as for me, I will see your face in righteousness.
I shall be satisfied when I awaken your likeness.
But they were ignorant of the fact that they had been looking into the face of the father three and a half years.
But they were clueless.
It is as Matthew Henry wrote.
We have been made in his image God's image and however much we've defaced that image
through sin We still yearn for the vizio deo the vision of God.
Moses had begged now show me your glory.
But the most he Moses was allowed to glimpse was the trailing edge of the back of God's glory.
The evangelist Has already made it clear in his prologue that however mitigated God's
gracious self -disclosure was in former times in Jesus he's made himself known
definitely gloriously visibly.
But had Philip truly seen Jesus.
He would have known that he had truly seen God the father.
We then read in verse 9 Jesus said to him in way of a rebuke really have I been
with you so long and yet you've not known me Philip.
So how can you say show us the father?
Our Lord seemed to be rather astonished at Philip's question.
His disciples should have known more than what they knew or so it would seem.
And Jesus declared that to have seen him was to have seen God the father as
One wrote.
Jesus now emphasizes afresh the mutual indwelling of the father and the son.
He claims that the words he speaks are those given him by the father to speak and That the works he
does are those given him by the father to do.
The.
Oscillation between the words and works in verse 10 is anticipated in John 8 28.
I do nothing on my own initiative, but as the father has taught me so I speak.
The appeal to the testimony of the works themselves has been made in John 5 36 and 10 37 and 8
but whereas formally these things were said to the Incredulous world now they are
repeated to the disciples who however Uncomprehending they may be are most willing
to believe.
It was a significant teaching moment right at the last before Jesus was to be
arrested and taken to his cross.
Well in order to correct the defective and deficient understanding of him by his disciples Jesus
asked Philip in verse 10 a do you not believe that I am in the father and the father
in me.
Here we read that Jesus was in the father and that the father was in
This is one of the clearest fullest expressions of the deity of Jesus Christ that we have in holy scripture.
How can the son and the father be at the same time and to the same degree in one another.
How can the eternal infinite God who is spirit in essence be in Jesus in fullness?
How can Jesus be in the father in the same way to the same degree?
Only if Jesus Christ is God himself and.
Later of course, we'll be reading about the Holy Spirit how he is the third person of the Holy Trinity and.
So here we have Trinitarian teaching being displayed before us
speaking of two persons of the Blessed Holy Trinity God the Father and God the Son.
A Understanding of the Trinity is very very important
when I say an understanding an understanding of what's taught not necessarily understanding the.
The way it all fits together because it's a mystery.
But J. I. Packer described the Trinity in this way.
The basic assertion of this doctrine is that the unity of the one God is complex.
The three personal subsistence says God the Father the subsistence of the
Father subsistence of the Son subsistence of the Holy Spirit are co -equal and co
-eternal.
Centers of self -awareness each being I in relation to to
who are you?
Jesus referred to the Father as you.
He wasn't referring to the Father as I.
There's a difference a distinction between persons each partaking of the full
divine essence.
And Packer says the stuff of deity if we may dare call it that he
didn't want to seem to be irreverent.
Along with the other two they are not three roles played by one person.
That is modalism.
One God who Portrayed himself as God the Father in the Old Testament Portrayed himself
as God the Son in the Gospels Portrayed himself as God the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts and
thereafter.
That's not Trinitarian teaching.
That's heresy.
The most popular promoter of that is TD Jake's.
And one is Pentecostalism.
Nor are there three gods in a cluster.
That's what Islam accuses Christians of being that we believe in three gods.
No, the one God he is also equally they and they are always together
and always cooperating with the Father initiating the Son complying
the Spirit executing the will of both the Father and the Son.
Which is his will also the Holy Spirit's will.
Also this is the truth about God that was revealed through the words and works of Jesus
and that undergirds the reality of salvation as the New Testament sets forth.
Trinitarian understanding of God is essential to salvation.
It follows that because all three persons of the Trinity are all one God that each of the persons of the
Trinity are due equal honor and glory it must be so if
Jesus could say that he was in the father and the father was in him again Packer wrote the practical
importance of the doctrine of the Trinity is that it requires us to pay equal attention and
Give equal honor to all three persons in the unity of their gracious ministry to us.
That ministry is the subject matter of the gospel which as Jesus's conversation with Nicodemus
shows cannot be stated without bringing in their distinct roles in God's plan of the ages.
All.
Non -trinitarian formulations of the Christian message are by biblical standards
inadequate and indeed Fundamentally false and will naturally tend to pull Christian
lives out of shape.
The Trinitarian understanding of the Godhead is essential an essential foundational truth
of Christianity.
Well, we read next in verse 10 B the words that I speak to you Jesus said I do not speak on
my own authority, but the father who dwells in me does the works.
Notice how he describes the words.
He spoke as the works of the father.
That's interesting, isn't it?
And so whereas verse 10 a Jesus speaks of the equality of him as the son with his father here
in verse 10 B the second portion of verse 10 We read that there is a distinction between the son and the
father you see that there one essence, but there is a distinction between the
father and the son as.
A.
DA Carson wrote the mutual indwelling is a linguistic way of describing the complete
unity between Jesus and the father.
Articulated elsewhere in a statement such as I and the father are one John 10
30.
This does not obliterate all distinctions between them.
The words and works of Jesus are given to him by the father.
And though the reverse cannot be said in other words Jesus didn't give words and works to the father to
do did he?
The father gave the words and works to Jesus to do.
That shows a distinction between them as separate persons.
Earlier we saw one essence one God here.
We see distinctions between the persons of the father and the son and.
So in other words here We see a distinction between the father and the son.
The father gave Jesus the words to speak and the works to do.
But the son does not give words to the father to say or works for him to do.
They are two distinct persons even as they are one in essence one God.
Notice how the Lord alludes to the words that he spoke as being the works of the father.
Every word that our Lord say our Savior spoke was a work of the father that he was
doing through his son.
As one wrote throughout this gospel the deeds are the signs and the words are
God in action.
The words and the deeds of Jesus are like a revelation of God.
Like they proceed from the father and reveal what the father is like.
Notice that though from a human point of view Jesus does them.
They are said to be done by the father and they are called his works the father's works.
There's a distinction between the father and son even though they are co -eternal co -equal of one
essence one God.
We then read in verse 11 in which Jesus said believe me that I am in the father and the
father in me.
Or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves.
The faith of the disciples was there, but it was rather weak and uninformed.
It was a true faith.
But it was still somewhat of an uninformed faith according to Jesus.
But here the Lord Jesus exhorted them to continue to believe on him.
Even as he was stretching them to believe more.
Specifically they were to believe that he was in the father and the father was in him and.
So whereas in verse 10 Jesus asked his disciples if they believe this truth here in verse 11. He
commends them to believe this.
Do you not believe that I'm in the father and the father in me?
That was the question.
Do you not believe this but here in verse 11?
He commends them you believe this.
Jesus urged them to take him at his word.
That he was telling them the truth of the matter and so taking Jesus or the
triune God at his word.
Really is the highest degree in form that the faith of a believer can attain and exhibit.
It's not when there's physical sight of God performing some great miracle or answer to some great prayer that faith
is perfected.
But it's when there is no physical evidence.
There's nothing tangible or temporal which may assure us or convince us that God can and should be
believed.
God desires that his people acquire or grow in this kind of faith.
Even a life of faith in which one's own actions based on what he has asserted and
promised.
Not based on what he's done or will do not based upon what you see him do.
But simply because he declared it you're to believe God and that brings great glory to
God.
Adam and Eve refused to believe the words of God and ever since that time God has been leading his
people to believe him for his.
Words.
Not because they see some evidence or some proof that God is real.
True faith.
The greatest faith is the one who believes although there seems to be nothing in his life or her life.
Suggests this is true and yet he continued she continues to believe on the Lord and will not
turn aside.
That is strong faith.
Sure faith a faith that pleases God.
It's a sinful and adulterous generation that seeks after a sign.
Why should God only be believed if he proves himself to you visibly or in some physical
way?
Now we ought to believe God because he is God and he should be believed
not because he can prove to your satisfaction that he is real and.
This is the kind of faith that God wants us to have.
And I think this is one of the primary.
We didn't get into this.
But I think this is one of the primary reasons why we can have so much unanswered prayer in our lives if that be
the case.
Because we should.
Because God wants us to continue to believe on him in spite of what we see in this life.
We're not going to have time to get into it, but Abraham lived his whole life.
Intense.
Sarah we're leaving home.
We're going a thousand miles away.
And we're going to live tense rest of our life because we're going to look for a city that you cannot see.
We want a promised land that we're not going to be walking on.
We're going to be living in a land that looks like that.
That.
Assures us there is a coming land as you coming city.
But we're going to live not based on what we see, but we're going to live according to what God has
promised us.
And.
That was the faith that glorified God.
He was a friend of God.
He believed God.
Although he's an old man and Sarah was an old woman past the age of bearing God said I'm going to
have your physical descendants number is the sand of the seashore the stars in heaven.
Abraham believed God and that faith in God.
Taking him at his word even though he was totally incapable humanly speaking of bringing it to pass.
He believed God and that faith was counted as righteousness to Abraham.
And that's the kind of faith.
He wants from you and me.
We take him at his word because this is what he's declared in his word his Bible.
And he justifies us freely and fully when we believe what he said about Jesus who he is.
I died on the cross for sinners.
He rose again.
We believe that and Frankly most of us there's very little that we see in
our lives to really prove the fact that God is real and true to what he's promised us and
Jesus himself again, we're not going to have time to get there.
Jesus himself said that's the kind of person that's really blessed of God.
Thomas had problems here not believing God and you recall after Jesus was raised from the dead
Thomas still had problems.
Didn't he.
On the first day of the resurrection Jesus appeared to the disciples.
Thomas was not present with them and The disciples told Thomas after the fact we saw Jesus.
Unless I say the prince in his hands and this and the and the hole in his side from the spear.
I'll not believe.
And so the following Sunday evening the Lord Jesus appeared to them all and appeared to Thomas.
Look at my hand.
Look at my side.
Thomas falls down my Lord and my God.
You believe because you've seen blessed are those Thomas who believe and have not seen.
You're more blessed than Thomas because you haven't seen these things, but you believe
that's the kind of faith that God wants from us a Solid steadfast Faithful
obedient faith.
Not because we see things working out like we think he ought to be doing.
Not because we see Miracles displayed before us proving that God's real and true.
But because we believe that God is God and true and he's to be believed because he
declared it.
Regardless of whether or not we have physical visible evidence to
substantiate that now thankfully God does answer prayer and he performs miracles when he wants to.
But he doesn't perform signs in order to substantiate somebody's unbelief turn
at turning that person's unbelief into faith a Sinful and adulterous generation seeks after a
sign Jesus.
I'm not going to show you any sign.
You look you look you look to the sign of Jonah.
You've got that sign already in the Old Testament.
I'm not going to give you anything else to suggest.
So it is just simply an act of unbelief.
We won't go into it, but the rest of your date notes.
Deal with the nature of this faith in unseen things.
That is set forth in the chapter on faith Hebrews chapter 11 in Which
the people of faith without faith it's impossible to please God.
And then the writer to the Hebrews describes the kind of faith that pleases God and It's a faith of these
Patriarchs the antediluvians before the flood those after the flood who believed God even though
there was no evidence whatsoever to substantiate their faith they believed
God and they pleased God and God is pleased with you.
If.
Though your life is filled with a sense of you know Difficulty and turmoil and
tribulation.
It seems like there's no relief.
There's no escape.
You're wondering where is God and all this?
He is telling you as he told these disciples you think about that, you know, he was soon to be arrested.
He's soon to be crucified.
He's going to die.
There was nothing before these disciples to prove What he was saying was true.
Oh Yeah upon the resurrection they saw it, but he was asking them to believe him
and what he was declaring.
That's the kind of faith that you and I should have and we should exhibit the faith in God and what he has said in his word
Regardless of whether or not we see it demonstrated or proven to us.
And that's the kind of faith that's born of God's grace, isn't it the kind of faith that only the Holy Spirit can produce and
may the Lord help us to exhibit the kind of faith that God looks for and Rejoices
and pleases when he sees it in his people.
Let's pray.
Thank you father for your word and for the revelation of yourself father through your son
our Lord Jesus Christ.
We thank you God for revealing yourself to us as a triune God.
Help us to understand these things more clearly and fully our God and help us our God to continue to
live in faith and not ask or require Some
sign or some evidence that you're true or real.
But help us our God to have a sound and true in a biblical faith and who you are as the one
true God.
For it's in Jesus name.
We do pray.
Amen.