23 In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 24 Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.
25 "Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father. 26 In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. 27 No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. 28 I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father."
29 Then Jesus' disciples said, "Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech. 30 Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God."
31 "Do you now believe?" Jesus replied. 32 "A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.
33 "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
Dig Deeper
The first year that my wife and I were married was a rough one. We were not Christians in any real sense and we had virtually no solid biblical foundation on which to base our marriage even though we both had some biblical knowledge. Without that as any sort of foundation, we both went about doing our thing and seeking our own agenda. We never really argued or fought but we very quickly drifted apart from one another in just the first year of our marriage. Once we repented and became Christians, entering into the life of Christ, we quickly learned that we had much to change. That was particularly true for me. I realized that there were some very specific things in my marriage that I needed to change quickly and drastically. I went about making those individual changes in the ways that I paid attention to my wife, the way I spoke to my wife, and the things on which I spent my time. After a short period, we realized something important. Those little changes weren’t somehow symbolic of the fact that we were making biblical changes in our marriage. Those specific acts were in themselves the change. They had opened the door to a completely new marriage. When you added up all of the little ways that we changed and the tiny (and sometimes big) things that we began to do differently, it became apparent that those weren’t just empty symbolic acts. They were the repentance; they were the change; they were the new reality of our marriage centered on Christ.
Above all else, I believe, as Jesus brings his farewell discourse with his disciples to a close, he wants them to know that things will never be the same. Things between one another will not be the same. They won’t need to break out into arguments over who is the greatest any longer, because the Spirit will help them to comprehend what it means to be a servant to one another and to love one another the way that Jesus loved them, becoming a true community built on the foundation of the life of Christ. Things between Jesus and them will not be the same. They won’t have him right there with them anymore, and although they still don’t completely understand it all, it will be far better because the Spirit will guide them and help them grow in ways that having Jesus with them in the flesh never could. What’s more, it is his death and resurrection that will make that all possible. Things between them and the Father will not be the same. Rather than being distant and separated from God with nothing more to hold on to than the sacrifices of the law which temporarily covered over their sin, they will have a whole new relationship with God. Their sin will be done away with forever and they will be able to draw close to God in ways that they could never even imagine, becoming part of His family. And finally, things between them and the enemy will never again be the same. The enemy can no longer stand between God and His restored creation. It is available now. They would be able to enter into it now and receive the Spirit as a guaranteed down payment of the fullness of the new creation in the age to come.
What they would only realize later, though, was that all of the things that Jesus had been doing and teaching them, weren’t just symbols or information about the new creation. They were the acts of the new creation itself. They were how the new creation would be brought about. Jesus told them from the very beginning (Jn. 1:51) that they would see him as the new Jacob’s ladder, the portal through which heaven and earth would be open to one another. When Jesus turned the water into wine, healed the official’s son, made the lame walk, miraculously fed the multitudes, walked on water, gave sight to the blind, and raised Lazarus, he wasn’t just showing off little representations or symbols of the new creation like they were little more than baseball cards. All of those acts, and of course, his death, burial, resurrection, and ascension to the Father were, in fact, how the new creation was being ushered into the world. They weren’t just symbols, they were the vehicle of the change itself Satan wasn’t just in trouble, Jesus says. He has, in those very acts, been defeated. The disciples need not worry about the trouble that’s coming because the world has already been overcome (if the principle of what is true for the Messiah is true for his people is true, then so is the opposite: What is true for the prince of this world is true for his followers). The new creation had come and in the resurrection, the only permanent weapon that Satan had was stripped from him.
The defeat of the world, though, wasn’t the only sign that the new creation had entered into the world through the works of Jesus, culminating in his coming death and resurrection. A day was coming, far sooner than they could imagine, when everything would change. In that day, they won’t need to ask Jesus for strength or ask him to go to the Father on their behalf, they will be able to go to the Father themselves. They will be able to go to the Father in Jesus’ name, which as we have seen , meant in his life and in a manner consistent with that life, and ask for anything. They hadn’t done that before because they hadn’t yet entered into Jesus’ life the way they will very soon. But when they do, they will be able to go to the Father and will receive the full life of Christ, if they only ask for it. Then their joy will be complete.
In the ancient world, one could simply not approach a king or ruler and gain access to him. Only a select few could do that. That’s still true in our day. If you don’t believe me, pick up your phone and attempt to call the President of your country. See if you get him immediately on the line. Good luck. Jesus is telling them that there will be no middle man. Yet, he is still the mediator, because the access we have to the Father is through his life, but he will not ask the Father on our behalf. We can, through Christ, go directly to the Father. We need no go-between, no saints, no priests, nothing other than the life of Christ which will bring us directly into the presence of the Father.
The disciples think that they finally have Jesus figured out. Up to this point, he’s been speaking rather enigmatically in their mind, but this makes sense. This is clear, or so they think. There is a certain amount of irony in John’s account here. They’ve got it all figured out now. They don’t need to ask anymore questions and Jesus doesn’t need any more questions to bring out the information clearly. Now they believe he has come from God. He has promised them a new clarity and a new understanding and they make the mistake of thinking that Jesus was talking about now. Although he has been ushering in the new creation through his signs, the day of which he speaks has not yet arrived. They say they believe and understand, but is that really true? Jesus uses a bit of the same ironic tone he did in 13:38 when he asked Peter if Peter would really be the one to lay his life down for Jesus.
If nothing else, the scattering and betrayal by the disciples during Jesus’ crucifixion shows that they do not yet have the kind of belief that Jesus is talking of. They are trying to believe, so we can give them credit for that, but they don’t yet have the Spirit. They’re simply not capable of realizing yet what Jesus is speaking of, even if they think so. That day is coming but it hasn’t yet arrived fully. First, though, another day is coming. A day when they will be scattered, running off to their own points of safety and will leave them alone. Does that sound like a group of people who fully believe, fully understand, and have full access to the Father? Soon, but not yet. Yet, Jesus doesn’t tell them this to put them in their place or ward them off from thinking more highly of themselves than they ought. He has told them everything, including this so that they might not be shaken in their faith and so that they can have peace. Once again, this is another example of Jesus putting their interests first. He has told them of their scattering so that when it comes they won’t be destroyed but rather will have the peace of knowing that Jesus knew that it would happen and that their scattering was all part of the very process that would bring in the new creation. Jesus, as the good shepherd, will go against the wolf alone. He alone will lay down his life for the sheep. As they look back on that day, however, they will be able to rest assured and understand his words that he was never alone. He was doing the Father’s will the whole time and the Father was right there with him.
We need look no further than the book of Acts to see that Jesus’ words were true. Rather than the confused, brash, and timid bunch of followers that we see in the Gospels, the disciples have changed in the book of Acts. They have a clarity, a certainty, and a Spirit-led sense of leadership that is simply absent in the Gospels. They have been transformed by the presence of the Spirit that came to be with them just as Jesus said. Whatever they asked in his name was given to them and they changed the world. The thing that we must never forget is that, although Jesus was addressing his eleven disciples that day, his words are just as accurate when applied to us as they were to them. We have the same unfettered access, through the life of Christ, to the Father that they had. We live in a world where the world (the population of those that live in such a way as to be opposed to the will of God), in Christ, has been overcome. We will have trouble in the world, but in Christ, we may have peace if we approach the Father with the confidence that what Jesus said was true.
Devotional Thought
Jesus says that we have unfettered access to the Father because the Father loves us. Do you sometimes think of God as remote and distant? How does what Jesus say here change that view? What does it mean to you that we can ask anything in Jesus’ name and the Father will give it to us?
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