This is part of what we affectionately refer to as “The Upper Room Ministry of our Lord Jesus,” where He gave comfort (in the form of several PROMISES) to His beloved disciples in view of His going back to heaven. Here is an outline which gives us the main divisions of the chapter.

  1. The Father’s House and the Way to the Father….verses 1-7.
  2. The Father in the Son….verses 8-14.
  3. The Promise of Another Comforter (the Holy Spirit)….verses 15-26.
  4. The Peace that Christ Gives….verse 27.
  5. The Son’s Return to the Father….verses 28-31.

Again, in view of the Lord Jesus’ impending death, resurrection, and ascension to glory, He wanted to comfort His own who would be left behind in a godless world that would hate them. Thus He states in verses 1-4, “Let not your heart be troubled…In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you” (NKJV). He “prepared a place for them” by going to the Cross! Then He gives them one of the most blessed promises in all of Scripture: “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.” This, dear fellow-believer, is our BLESSED HOPE! At any minute He could come to take us to glory (see 1st Thessalonians 4:16-17) to live forever in the Father’s house! Verse 6 is a well-known verse, for after being by Thomas, “How can we know the way?” the Lord Jesus replied, “I am the WAY, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” This dispels the error that man can get to heaven through some merit of his own; it is only through the Lord Jesus Christ’s DEATH and RESURRECTION that anyone can make it to heaven.

The next section begins with Philip saying, “Lord, show us the Father” (verse 8). The Lord Jesus then reveals that “the Father is in Him”; that is, the Father and the Son are ONE. He was not teaching that they were both the same Person, but rather that they were two Persons with ONE NATURE and ONE PURPOSE. His words in verse 9 declare, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” When they saw the Lord…His love, His grace, His holiness, His power, and other Divine attributes, the Father was ON DISPLAY. This is what is meant by John’s words in chapter 1, verse 18: “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” He closes this section with a promise pertaining to prayer, “And whatsoever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”

Then the Lord Jesus gives them yet another promise in verses 16-17, “I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth.” The Holy Spirit was given on the Day of Pentecost (see Acts 2:1-4) so believers would be comforted until the Lord returns to take us Home to glory. One of the ways He comforts us in given in verse 26, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit…will TEACH YOU ALL THINGS, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” The Divine Author of the scriptures is our Divine Teacher!

The chapter closes with a two-fold promise of PEACE in verse 27, “Peace I leave with you (this is “peace WITH God”…see Romans 5:1), My peace I give to you (this is the “peace OF God”…see Philippians 4:7). Then the Lord reconfirms (in verses 27-28) that He is returning to the Father but only after His death on the cross, where the Father commanded Him to lay down His life (verse 31 along with John 10:17-18). (281.1) (DO)