a preview of our departure · a preview of our departure first: faith in god and faith in christ....

A PREVIEW OF OUR DEPARTURE

One: Faith in God, Faith in Christ

Two: Many Mansions (Father’s House)

Three: The Forerunner

Four: The Way

Five: The True Vision of God

Buddy Dano, Pastor

Divine Viewpoint Bible Studies

www.divineviewpoint.com

162

November 1989

http://www.divineviewpoint.com

Part One:You Believe in God, In Me Also Believe


First: Faith in God and faith in Christ. ‘‘Letnot your heart be trouble, believe in God,

believe also in Me.’’ The twelve were sitting inthe upper room, stupefied with the dreary,half understood prospect of Christ’s depar-ture. The Lord, forgetting His own burden,turns to comfort and encourage them. TheOne departing, encouraging those over His de-parture and their remaining. These sweet andgreat words, most singularly blend gentlenessand dignity. Who can reproduce the cadenceof soothing tenderness, as soft as a mother’shand, in that.

‘‘Let not your heart be troubled.’’ Whocan fail to feel the tone of majesty in that, ‘‘Be-lieve in God, believe also in Me.’’ The one ‘‘Be-lieve in God,’’ an imperative, and the next ‘‘be-lieve in Me,’’ is also an imperative.

Now the first thing you see here, thatstrikes us is that Jesus Christ here points toHimself as the object of precisely the sametrust and belief in which it is to be given toGod. It is because of our familiarity with thesewords that blinds us to the wonderfulnessand their greatness. Try to hear them, try toread them for the first time, and bring into re-membrance the circumstances in which theywere spoken.

Here is a man sitting among a handful ofHis friends, who is within 24 hours of ashameful death, which to all appearances wasthe utter annihilation of all His claims andhopes. And He says, a day before His depar-ture, ‘‘Trust in God, trust in Me.’’ I think thatif you have heard that for the first time, youwould understand a little better than some ofus do the depth of its meaning.

What is it that Christ asks for here? Or,rather let me say, what is it that Christ offersto us here? For we must not look at thesewords as a demand or as a command. But

rather as a gracious invitation to do what islife and blessing to do. It is a very low and in-adequate interpretation of these words whichtakes them as meaning little more than, ‘‘Be-lieve in God,’’ believe that He is, ‘‘believe inMe,’’ believe that I am.

But it is scarcely less to suppose that themere assent of the understanding to His teach-ing is all that Christ is asking for here, by nomeans. What He invites us to goes a greatdeal deeper than that. The essence of it is anact of the will and of the soul, not of the un-derstanding at all.

A man may believe in Him as a historicPerson, may accept Him, all that is said aboutHim here, and yet not be within the sight ofthe trust in Him of which He here speaks.

For the essence of the whole is not the in-tellectual process of assent to a proposition.But the intensely personal act of yielding upwill and soul to a living Person. Angelsknow there is a God and tremble, but thatdoesn’t mean that they receive Him as per-sonal Saviour. Faith does not grasp a doctrinebut a heart. The trust which Christ requires isthe bond that unites souls with Him, and thevery life of it is entire committal of myself tohim in ALL my relations and for ALL myneeds, and absolute utter confidence in Himas ALL SUFFICIENT for everything that I canrequire. Let us get away from the cold intellec-tualism of ‘‘belief,’’ into the warm atmosphereof ‘‘trust’’ and we will understand much bet-ter than by many volumes what Jesus Christhere means and the sphere and the powerand the blessedness of that faith which JesusChrist requires.

‘‘You believe in God, believe also in Me.’’Note also that whatever may be this believingin Him, which He asks from us or invites usto render to Him, it is precisely the same

Part 1 1 A Preview of Our Departure

thing which He bids us to render to God. ‘‘InGod, in Me.’’

The two clauses in the original bring outthe idea even more vividly than in our ver-sion. Because the order of the words in the lat-ter clause is inverted, and they read literallythis way: ‘‘Believe in God, in Me also believe.’’

Believe, God. Me, believe. The purpose ofthe inversion is to put these two, God andChrist, as close together as possible. And toput the two identical emotions at the begin-ning and at the end. Believe, believe. God,and Me. And these are the two extremes andoutsides of the whole sentence. Believe is oneside of the parenthesis and believe closes outthe other side of the parenthesis, and God andChrist are in the middle.

Could language be more deliberatelyadopted and molded, even it its consecutionand arrangements, to enforce this thought,that whatever it is that we give to Christ, isthe very same thing that we give to God?

So here he purposes Himself as the wor-thy and adequate Recipient of all these emo-tions of confidence, submission, resignation,which make up Christianity in its deepestsense. That tone is by no means singular inthis place. It is the uniform tone and charac-teristic of the Lord’s teachings. Let me remindyou just in a sentence of one or two instances.What did He think of Himself, who stood be-fore the world and, with arms outstretched,like that great white Christ in Thornwalden’slovely statue, said to all the troop of languidand burdened and fatigued ones crowding athis feet, ‘‘Come unto Me all ye that are wearyand heavy laden and I will give you rest.’’That surely is a Divine prerogative.

What did He think of Himself who said‘‘All men should honor the Son even as theyhonor the Father?’’ What did He think of Him-self who, in that very sermon on the mount,(to which advocates of a maimed and muti-lated Christianity tell us they pin their faith,instead of to mystical doctrines), declared thatHe Himself was the Judge of humanity andthat men should stand at His bar and receivefrom Him ‘‘according to the deeds done in thebody?’’ Upon any honest interpreting of these

Gospels, and unless you that very avowedlygo picking and choosing amongst His Words,accepting this and that and rejecting this andthat, you cannot eliminate from the scripturalrepresentation of Jesus Christ, the fact that Heclaimed as His own the emotions of the heartto which any God has a right and only Godcan satisfy.

Now I am not dwelling upon that point,we have to nevertheless take into account ifwe want to estimate the character of JesusChrist, as a Teacher and as a man. I wouldnot turn away from Him any imperfect con-ceptions, as they seem to me, of His natureand His work, rather would I foster them, andlead them on to a fuller recognition of the fullChrist, but this I am bound to say, that for mypart I believe that nothing but the wildest ca-price dealing with the Gospels according toone’s own subjective fancies, irrespective alto-gether of the evidence, can strike out from theteaching of Jesus Christ this its characteristicdifference.

What signalizes Him, and separates Himfrom all other so-called religious teachers isnot the clearness or the tenderness with whichHe reiterated the Truths about the Divine Fa-ther’s love, or about morality, and justice, andTruth, and goodness, but the peculiarity ofHis call to the world is, ‘‘Believe in Me.’’ Andif he said that, or anything like it, and if therepresentations of His teaching in these fourGospels, which are the only source fromwhich we get any notion of Him, at all, are tobe accepted. Why, then, one of two things fol-lows. Either He was wrong, and then He wasa crazy enthusiast, only acquitted of blas-phemy because convicted of insanity, or else,‘‘He was God manifested in the flesh.’’

It is vain to bow down before a fancy por-trait of a bit of Christ, and to exalt the humblesage of Nazareth, and to leave out the verything that makes the difference between Himand all others, namely, these either audaciousor most true claims to be the Son of God, theworthy recipient and the adequate object ofman’s Christian emotions, ‘‘Believe in God, inMe also believe.’’

A Preview of Our Departure 2 Part 1

Secondly, notice that faith in Christ andfaith in God are not two, but one. These twoclauses on the surface present juxtaposition.Looked at more closely, they present inter-penetration and identity. Jesus Christ does notmerely set Himself by the side of God, nor arewe worshipers of two Gods when we bow be-fore Jesus Christ and bow before the Father,but faith in Christ is faith in God. And faithin God which is not faith in Christ is imper-fect. And is incomplete, and will never everlast long. To trust in the Son is to trust in theFather, to trust in the Father is to trust in theSon.

What then is the underlying truth that ishere? How come that these two objects blendinto one, like two figures in a stereoscope andthat faith which flows to Jesus Christ restsupon God? This is the underlying Truth, thatJesus Christ Himself Divine, is the Divine Re-vealer of God.

Therefore there is no real knowledge ofthe real God in the depth of His love, the ten-derness of His nature, or the lustrousness ofHis holiness. How there is no certitude, howthe God that we see outside of Jesus Christ issometimes doubt, sometimes hope, sometimesfar, always far off and vague, an abstractionrather than a person, ‘‘a stream of tendency,without us, that which is unnameable and thelike.’’

We know the thought that Jesus Christhas showed us the Father, and has brought aGod to our souls whom we can love, who wecan really, though not fully, of whom we canbe sure with a certainty which is deep as thecertitude of our own personal being, that Hehas brought to us a God before whom we donot need to crouch afar off, that He hasbrought to us a God whom we can trust.

Very significant is it that Christianityalone puts the very heart of spirituality inthe act of trust. Other so-called religions putit in dread, worship, service, and the like. Je-sus Christ alone says the bond between manand God is that blessed one of trust. And Hesays so because He alone brings us a Godwhom it is not ridiculous to tell men to trust.And on the other hand, the Truth that under-

lies this is not only that Jesus Christ is theRevealer of God, but that He Himself is Di-vine. Jesus Christ revealed in Himself His Fa-ther’s Divinity and essence and His own Di-vinity and essence.

Light shines through a window, but thelight and the glass that makes it visible havenothing in common with one another. TheGod-head shines through Christ, but He isnot a mere transparent medium. We are, as itwere, windows, lights in the world, but He isthe Light of the world. It is Himself that Heis showing us when He is showing us God.‘‘He that hath seen Me hath seen (not the lightthat streams through Me) but hath seen in Methe Father.’’ And because He Himself is Di-vine and the Divine Revealer, therefore faiththat grasps Him is inseparably one with thefaith that grasps God.

Men could look upon a Moses, an Isaiah,or a Paul, and in them recognize the eradia-tion of the Divinity that imparted itselfthrough them, but the medium was forgottenin proportion as which it revealed was be-held. You cannot forget Christ in order to seeGod more clearly, but to behold Him is to be-hold God.

And if that be true, these two principle fol-low. One is that all imperfect revelation ofGod is prophetic of, and leads up towards,the perfect revelation in Jesus Christ.

The writer of the epistle to the Hebrewsgives that truth in a very striking fashion. Hecompares all other means of knowing God tofragmentary syllables of a great word, ofwhich one was given to one man and anotherto another.

God, ‘‘spake at sundry times and in mani-fold portions, to the fathers by the prophets,’’but the whole word is articulately ‘‘uttered bythe Son, in whom He has spoken unto us inthese last times.’’

The imperfect revelation, by means ofthose who were merely mediums for the reve-lation leads up to Him who is Himself therevelation, the Revealer, and the Revealed.

And in like manner, all the imperfect faiththat, laying hold of other fragmentary means


of knowing God, has tremendously tried totrust Him, finds its climax and consummateflower in the full-blossomed faith that layshold upon Jesus Christ.

The unconscious prophecies of heathe-dom, the trust that select souls up and downthe world have put in one whom they dimlyapprehended, the faith of the Old Testamentsaints, the rudimentary beginnings of a knowl-edge of God, and of a trust in Him which arefound in men today, and among all us, out-side of the circle of Christianity, all thesethings are manifestly incomplete as a buildingreared half its height, and waiting for the Cor-nerstone to be brought forth, the full revela-tion of God, in Christ, and the intelligent, andfull acceptance of Him and faith in Him.

And another thing is true, that withoutfaith in Christ such faith in God as is possibleis feeble, incomplete, and will not last long.Historically a pure theism is all but impotent.There is only one example of it on a largescale in the world, and that is a kind of bas-tard Christianity, Mohammedanism, and weall know what good that is as a religion.

There are plenty of people among usnowadays who claim to be very advancedthinkers, and who call themselves ‘‘theists,’’and not Christians. Well, I venture to say thatthat is a phase that will not last. There is littlesubstance in it. The God whom men knowoutside of Jesus Christ is a poor, nebulousthing, an idea, not a reality. He, or rather it,is a film of cloud shaped into a vague fromthrough which you can see the stars. It has lit-tle power to restrain. It has less to inspire andimpel. It has still less to comfort. It has least ofall to satisfy the heart. You will have to getsomething more substantial than the far-offGod of an unchristian theism if you mean tosway the world and to satisfy men’s hearts.

And so we come to this, maybe the Wordmay be fitting for some to listen, ‘‘Believe inGod, (and you may say) believe also inChrist.’’ For I am sure when the stress comesand you want a God, unless your God is theGod revealed in Jesus Christ, he will be apowerless deity. If you have not faith in

Christ, you will not long have faith in Godthat is vital and worth anything.

Lastly, this trust in Christ is the secret ofa quiet soul. It is of no use to say to men,‘‘Let not your hearts be troubled,’’ unless youfinish the verse and say, ‘‘Believe in God, be-lieve also in Christ.’’ For unless we trust weshall certainly be troubled, especially in de-parting. The state of man in this world is likethat of some of those sunny island in southernseas, around which there often rave the wild-est cyclones, and which carry in their bosomsbeneath all their riotous luxuriance of verdantbeauty, hidden fires, which ever and anonshake the solid Earth and spread destruction.Storms without and earthquakes within, thatis the condition of humanity.

And where is our best to come from? Allother defenses are weak and poor. We haveheart about ‘‘take a pill against earthquakes.’’That is what the comforts and tranquilizingwhich the world supplies may fairly be lik-ened to. Unless we trust we are, and we shallbe, and should be, troubled. If we trust wemay be quiet.

Trust is always tranquility. To cast a bur-den off myself on other’s shoulders is alwaysa rest. But trust in Christ brings infinitude onmy side. Submission is repose. When wecease to kick against the pricks they cease toprick and wound us. Trust opens the heart,like the windows of the ark tossing upon theblack and fatal flood, for the entrance of thepeaceful dove with the olive branch in itsmouth. ‘‘I will keep Him in perfect peacewhose mind is stayed on Me, because hetrusteth in Me.’’

Trust brings Christ to my side in all HisGRACE, tenderness, and greatness and sweet-ness. If I trust, ‘‘all is right that seems mostwrong.’’ If I trust, conscience is quiet. If Itrust, life becomes a solemn scorn of ills (Youcan laugh at death). If I trust, inward unrest ischanged into tranquility and mad passionsare cast out from Him that ‘‘sits clothed andin His right mind,’’ at the feet of Jesus Christ.‘‘The wicked is like a troubled sea which can-not rest.’’


But if I trust, my soul will become like theglassy ocean when all the storms sleep, andbirds of peace sit brooding on the charmedwave. ‘‘Peace I leave with you.’’ ‘‘Let not yourhearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also inMe.’’ Help us, Lord, to trust our souls to yourSon, the Lord Jesus Christ, and then in Himwe will find you, Father, and in Him we will

find eternal rest. This is our first confidencethat we get from the Lord’s departure, whichwe can carry over into our departure. Remem-ber this passage was spoken 24 hours beforethe Lord’s own personal departure, when ‘‘Hewas absent WITH His body and face to facewith the Lord.’’ ‘‘You believe in God, in Mealso believe.’’


Part Two:Many Mansions


‘‘You believe in God, believe also in Me.’’Why? ‘‘In My Father’s house are many man-sions. If it were not so I would have told you.’’

Sorrow needs simple words for its consola-tion, and simple words are the best cloth-

ing for the largest Truths, especially whensomeone is departing, a loved one. These 11poor men were crushed and desolate at thethought of Christ’s going, they fancied that ifHe left them, they lost Him.

When someone departs, you don’t losethem. And so, in simple, childlike words,which the weakest can grasp, and in whichthe most troubled could find peace, He said tothem after having encouraged their trust inHim. He said, there is plenty of room for youas well as for Me where I am going, and thefrankness of our conversations in the pastmight convince you that if I was going toleave you, I would have told you about it.And that where I am going there you will bealso, I will never ever leave you.

He said ‘‘Did I ever hide anything fromyou that was painful? Did I ever allure youto follow Me by false promises? Should Ihave kept silence about it if our separationwas to be eternal? So simply, as a mothermight hush her baby upon her breast, Hesoothes their sorrows. ’’That ye sorrow not asothers which have no hope." And yet in thesequiet words, so level to the lowest apprehen-sion, there are great Truths lying here, fardeeper than we yet have appreciated, andwhich will enfold themselves in their majestyand their GRACE throughout all eternity.

‘‘In My Father’s house are many man-sions, if it were not so, I would have toldyou.’’ There is only one other occasion re-corded in which our Lord used this expres-sion, and it occurs in this Gospel near the be-ginning, where in the narrative of the first

cleansing of the temple we read that He said,‘‘Make not My Father’s house a house of mer-chandise.’’ The earlier use of the words mayhelp to throw light upon one aspect of thislater employment of if, for there blend in theimage the two ideas of what we can call do-mestic familiarity and of that great future asbeing the reality of which the earthly templewas intended to be the dim prophecy andshadow.

Its courts, its many chambers, its ampleporches, which room for thronging worship-ers, represented in some poor way the widesweep and space of that higher house, and thesense of sonship, which drew the Boy to HisFather’s house in the earliest hours of con-scious childhood, speaks here. Think for a mo-ment of how sweet and familiar the concep-tion of Heaven as the ‘‘Father’s house’’ makesit to us. There is something awful, even to thebest and holiest souls, in the thought of eventhe glories beyond.

The circumstance of death, which is itsportal, our utter unacquaintance with all thatlies behind the veil, the terrible silence and dis-tance which falls upon our dearest ones asthey are sucked into the cloud, all tend tomake us feel that there is much that is solemnand awful even in the thought of eternal fu-ture blessedness.

But how it is all softened when we say,‘‘My Father’s house.’’ ‘‘In the house of my Fa-ther,’’ literally. Most of us have long since leftbehind us the sweet security, the sense of ab-sence of all responsibility, the assurance of de-fense and provision, which used to be ours,when we lived as children in an earthly fa-ther’s house, and the principle that the fatherprovides for his household. But we may alllook forward to the renewal, in far noblerform, of these early days, when the father’s


house meant the inexpugnable fortress whereno evil could befall us, the abundant homewhere all wants were supplied, and where theshyest and the timidest child, could feel atease and secure. It is all coming again, chil-dren of God, and amidst the august and un-imaginable glories of that future, the old feel-ing of being little children, nestling safe in theFather’s house, will find our quiet hearts oncemore. ‘‘There’s no place like home.’’

And if you have never had that type of achildhood with a father’s care, you will in thefuture. No orphans unattended and lookedover in Heaven. And then consider how theconception of that Father’s house, the futureof the Father’s house suggests answers to somany of our questions about the relationshipof the inmates to one another. Are they todwell isolated in their several mansions? Isthat the way in which children in home dwellwith each other? Surely, if He be the Father,and Heaven be His house, the relation of theredeemed to one another must have in itmore than all the sweet familiarity and unre-strained frankness which subsists in the fami-lies on Earth.

A solitary Heaven would be but half aHeaven, and would ill correspond with thehopes that inevitable spring from the repre-sentation of it as ‘‘My Father’s house.’’ Do youcome from a big family?

But consider further that this great andtender name for Heaven has its deepest mean-ing in the conception of it as a spiritual stateof which the essential elements are the lovingmanifestation and presence of God as Father,the perfect consciousness of sonship, thehappy union of all children in one great fam-ily, and the derivation of all their blessednessfrom their elder brother, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The earthly temple, to which there issome allusion in this great metaphor, was theplace in which the Divine glory was mani-fested to seeking souls, though in symbol, yetalso in reality. And the representation of ourverse blends the two ideas of the free, frank,intercourse of the home and of the magnifi-cent revelations of the Holy of Holies.

Under either aspect of the phrase,whether we think of ‘‘My Father’s house’’ as atemple, or as a home, it sets before us, as themain blessedness and glory of Heaven, thevision of the Father, the consciousness ofsonship, and the complete union with Him.

There are many subsidiary and more out-ward blessednesses and glories which shinedimly through the haze of metaphors and ne-gations, by which alone a state of which wehave no experience can be revealed to us, butthese are secondary.

The Heaven of Heaven is the possessionof God the Father, through the Son in the ex-panding spirits of His sons. The sovereignand filial position which Jesus Christ in Hismanhood occupies in that higher house, andwhich He shares with all those who by Himhave received the adoption of son, is the veryheart and nerve of this great metaphor. Andwe say AB BA Father.

‘‘In My Father’s house.’’ Also an illustra-tion of marriage and family, and a heavenlynation. But I think we must go a step furtherthan that, and recognize that in the imagethere is inherent the teaching that that glori-ous future is not merely a state, but also aplace. ‘‘I go to prepare a place for you.’’ Localassociations are not to be divorced from thesewords, and although we can say but littleabout such a matter, yet everything in theteaching of Scripture points to the thoughtthat howsoever true it may be that the essenceof Heaven is condition, yet that also Heavenhas a local habitation and is a place in thegreat universe of God.

Jesus Christ has at this moment a humanbody, glorified. That body, as Scriptureteaches us, is somewhere, and where He isthree shall also His servants be.

In the context he goes on to tell us thatHe goest to prepare a place for us. Andthough I would not insist upon the literal in-terpretation of such words, yet distinctly thedrift of the representation is in the direction oflocalizing, though not of materializing theabode of the Blessed. So, I think we can say,not merely that ‘‘what’’ He is that shall also


His servants be. But that ‘‘where’’ He is thereshall also His servants be.

And from the representation of our text,though we cannot fathom all of its depths, wecan at least grasp this, which gives solidityand reality to our contemplations of the fu-ture, that Heaven is a place, full of all sweetsecurity and homelike repose, where God ismade known in every soul and to every con-sciousness as a loving Father, and of which allthe inhabitants are knit together in the frank-est fraternal intercourse, conscious of the Fa-ther’s love, and rejoicing in the abundant pro-vision of His royal house.

And there is a second thought to be sug-gested from these words, and that is of theample room in this great house. The originalpurpose of the words of our text, I have al-ready reminded you, was simply to sooth thefears of a handful of disciples, upon theLord’s departure. There was room whereChrist went for 11 poor men. Yes, roomenough for them. But Christ’s prescient eyelooked down the ages, and saw all the unbornmillions that would yet be drawn to Him, up-lifted on the cross, and some glow of satisfac-tion flitted across His sorrow, as He saw fromafar the result of the impending travail of Hissoul in the multitudes by whom God’s heav-enly house should yet be filled.

‘‘Many mansions.’’

Many mansions widens out far beyondour grasp. Maybe that upper room, like mostof the roof chambers in Jewish homes, wasopen to the skies. And while He spoke, the in-numerable lights that blaze in that clearHeaven shone down upon them and He mayhave pointed to these. The ‘‘better’’ Abrahamperhaps looked forth like his prototype. Onthe starry heavens, and saw in the vision ofthe future those who through Him should re-ceive the adoption of sons, and dwell for everin the house of the Lord, ‘‘So many as thestars in the sky in multitude, and as the sandwhich is by the seashore innumerable.’’

If we could only widen our measurementof the walls of the New Jerusalem to the meas-urement of that golden rod which the man,that is the angel, as John says, applied to it,

we should understand how much bigger it isthan any of these poor sects and communitiesof ours here on Earth. If we would lay toheart, as we ought to do, the deep measuringof that indefinite, ‘‘many’’ in our text, it wouldrebuke our narrowness and expand our gra-ciousness.

There will be a great many occupants ofthe mansions in Heaven that Christians hereon Earth will be very much surprised to seethere, and thousands will find their entrancethere that never found their entrance into anycommunities of so-called Christians here onEarth.

That one word, ‘‘many,’’ POLUS, which ismuch, great, many, should deepen our confi-dence in the triumphs of Christ’s cross. And itmay be used to heighten our confidence as toour own poor selves.

A chamber in the great temple awaits foreach of us, and the questions is, ‘‘Shall we oc-cupy it, or shall we not?’’ The old rabbis had atradition, which, like great many of their ap-parently foolish sayings, covers in picturesqueguise a very deep truth. They said that, how-ever many the throngs of worshipers whocame up to Jerusalem at the Passover, thestreets of the city and the courts of the sanctu-ary were never crowded. And it is so withthat great city. There is room for all, for you.There are throngs, but no crowds. Each findsa place in the ample sweep of the Father’shouse, like some of the great palaces that bar-baric eastern kings used to build, in whosecourts armies might encamp, and the chamberof which were counted by the thousand. Andsurely in all that ample accommodation, youand I may find some corner where we, if wewill, may lodge forever more.

‘‘Mansions’’ means places of permanentabodes. MONE is the Greek word. Primarily astaying, abiding, akin to; MENO, to abide, de-notes an abode. The same word is translatedin this same chapter, verse 23, ‘‘abode.’’ It sug-gests two thoughts. So sweet to travelers andtoilers in this fleeting, laboring life, of un-changeableness, and repose. Some have sup-posed that the variety in the attainments ofthe redeemed, which is reasonable and scrip-


tural, might be deduced from our verse. Butthat does not seem to be relevant to ourLord’s purpose. One other suggestion may bemade without enlarging upon it. There is onlyone other occasion in this Gospel in which theword here translated ‘‘mansions’’ is em-ployed, and it is this: ‘‘We will come andmake our ABODE with him.’’

Our mansion is in God. God’s dwellingplace is in us. So ask yourselves, ‘‘Have you aplace in that heavenly home?’’ When prodigalchildren go away from the Father’s house,sometimes a broken-hearted parent will keepthe boy’s room just as it used to be when hewas young and pure, and will hope andweary through long days for him to comeback and occupy it again. God is keeping aroom for you in His house. Do you see thatyou fill it?

In the next place note there the suffi-ciency of Christ’s revelation for our needs.‘‘If it were not so, I would have told you.’’ Hesets Himself forward in very august fashionfor us as being the Revealer and Opener ofthat house for us. There is a singular toneabout all our Lord’s few references to the fu-ture, a tone of decisiveness, not as if He werespeaking as a man might do, that which Hehad thought out, or which had come to Him,but as if He was speaking of what He Himselfbeheld. ‘‘We speak that we do know, and tes-tify that we have seen.’’

He stands like One on a mountain top,looking down into the valleys beyond, andtelling His friends in the plain behind Himwhat He sees. He speaks of the unseen worldalways as One who has been in it, and whowas reporting experiences, and not givingforth opinions. His knowledge was the knowl-edge of One who dwelt with the Father andleft the house in order to find and bring backHis wandering brethren.

It was, ‘‘His own calm home, His habita-tion from eternity.’’ And therefore He couldtell us with decisiveness, with simplicity, withassurance, all which we need to know aboutthe geography of that unknown land the planof that, by us unvisited, house. Very remark-able, therefore, is it, that with this tone thereshould be such reticence in Christ’s referenceto the future. The text implies the ‘‘rationale’’of such reticence. ‘‘If it were not so, I wouldhave told you.’’ I tell you all that you need,though I tell you a great deal less than yousometimes wish.

The gaps in our knowledge of the future,seeing that we have such a Revealer as wehave in Christ, are remarkable. But our textsuggests this to us, we have as much as weneed. If you needed to know, I would havetold you. I know and many of you know, bybitter experience, how many questions, the an-swers to which would seem to us to be such alightening of our burdens, our desolated andtroubled hearts suggest about that future, andhow vainly we ply Heaven with questionsand interrogate the unreply oracle.

But we know as much as we need toknow. ‘‘Let not your heart be troubled. Youbelieve in God, believe also in Me. And in MyFather’s house are many mansions. If it werenot so I would have told you.’’

We know that God is there.

We know that it is our Father’s house.

We know that Jesus Christ our Sav-iour is in it.

We know that the dwellers there are afamily; children, sons.

We know that sweet security and am-ple provision are there.

And for the rest, if we needed to haveheard more, He would have told us.


‘‘My knowledge of that life is small.’’The eye of my faith is dim.‘‘But it is enough that Christ knows all,’’And I shall be with Him."

Let the gaps remain. The gaps are part ofthe revelation and we know enough for faith,love and hope.

Nay, we not widen the application of thatthought to other matters than to our boundedand fragmentary conceptions of a future life?In times like present, of doubt and unrest, it isa great piece of Christian wisdom to recognizethe limitations of our knowledge and the suffi-ciency of the fragments we have.

What do we get a revelation for? To solvethe theological puzzles and dogmatic difficul-ties? To inflate us with the pride of ‘‘quasi om-niscience.’’ Or to present to us our God inChrist for faith, love, and hope; for obediencefor imitation?

Surely the latter, and for such purpose wehave enough. So let us recognize that ourknowledge is very partial. A great stretch ofwall is blank, and there is not a window in it.If there had been need for one,it would havebeen struck out. He has been pleased to leavemany things obscure, not arbitrarily, as to tryour faith, for the implication of the words be-fore us is that the relation between Him andus binds Him to the utmost possible frank-ness, and that all which we need and He cantell us He does tell, but for high reasons, andbecause of the very conditions of our presentenvironment, which forbid the more completeand all around knowledge.

So let us recognize our limitations. Weknow in part, and we are wise if we affirm in

part. Hold by the central light, which is JesusChrist. ‘‘Many thing did Jesus which are notwritten in this Book,’’ and many gaps and de-ficiencies from a human point of view exist inthe contexture of revelation. But ‘‘These thingsare written that ye may believe that Jesus isthe Christ.’’ For which enough has been toldus, ‘‘and that believing you may have life inHis Name.’’

If that purpose be accomplished in us,God will not have spoken nor we have heardin vain. Let us hold by the central light, andthen the circumference of darkness will gradu-ally retreat, and a wider sphere of illumina-tion be ours, until the day when we enter ourmansion in our Father’s house.

And then, ‘‘In Thy light shall we seelight.’’ ‘‘And we shall know even as we areknown.’’ Let our elder Brother, Christ, leadyou back to the Father’s bosom and be surethat if you trust Him and listen to Him, youwill know enough on Earth to turn Earth intoa foretaste of Heaven, and will find at lastyour place in the Father’s house beside theBrother who prepared it for you.

So, we have two basic principles so far inour study of the preview of our departure inthe Lord’s own words, about His personal de-parture just one day before He departed.

One: ‘‘If you believe in God, believe inMe.’’

And then: if you have, ‘‘Then in My Fa-ther’s house there are many mansions.’’ Andthen, ‘‘If it were not so, He would have toldyou so.’’


Part Three:The Forerunner


I go to prepare a place for you. And if Igo and prepare a place for you,I will comeagain,and receive you unto Myself; that whereI am, there ye may be also," John 14:1, 2.

What Divine simplicity and depth are inthese last words of our Lord just one day

before His own personal departure. Theycarry us up into the unseen world, and be-yond time, and yet a little child can hold onthem, and mourning hearts and dying menfind peace and sweetness and GRACE inthem.

A very familiar image underlies them. Itwas customarily for travelers in those olddays to send some of their party on in ad-vance, to find lodging and make arrange-ments for them in some great city. Many atime one or other of the disciples had been‘‘sent before his face into every place wherehe himself should come.’’ On that very morn-ing, the two of them had gone in, at his bid-ding, from Bethany to make ready the table atwhich they were sitting.

Christ here takes that office upon Him-self. The emblem is homely, the thing meantis transcendent. Not less wonderful is theblending of majesty and lowliness, GRACE.The office which He takes upon Himself isthat of an inferior and a Servant. And yet thedischarge of it, in the present case, implies Hisauthority over every corner of the universe.GRACE reigns, exalted GRACE. His immortallife, and the sufficiency of His presence domake a Heaven.

Nor can we fail to notice the blending ofanother pair of opposites, His certainty of Hisimpending death, and His certainty, not with-standing and thereby, of His continual workand His final return, are inseparable inter-laced here. How is it that, in all premonitionsof His death, Jesus Christ never spoke about

it as a failure or as the interruption of, orend of, His activity, but always as the transi-tion, to, and the condition of, His widerwork?

‘‘I go,’’ ‘‘and if I go,’’ ‘‘I will return,’’ ‘‘Andtake you to Myself.’’ So then we have threethings here, the departure with its purpose,the return, and the perfected union.

First, the departure:

Our Lord’s going away from that littlegroup was a journey in two stages. Calvarywas the first, Olivet was the second. Hemeans by the phrase the whole continuousprocess which begins with His death andends in His ascension and session. Both areembraced in His words, and each co-operatesto the attainment of the great purpose.

He prepares a place for us by His death.The high priest, in the ancient ritual, once ayear was privileged to lift the heavy veil andpass into the darkened chamber, where onlythe light between the cherubim was visible, be-cause He bore in His hand the blood of thesacrifice.

For in our New Testament system thepath into ‘‘the holiest of all,’’ the realization ofthe most intimate fellowship with heavenlythings and communion with God Himself, aremade possible and the way patent for everyfoot, because Jesus Christ has died.

And so the communion upon Earth, sothe perfecting of the communion in the heav-ens. Who of us could step within the awfulsanctities, or stand serene amidst the region ofeternal light and stainless purity, unless, inHis death, He had borne the sins of the world,and having ‘‘overcome’’ its sharpness by en-during its blow, had opened the kingdom ofHeaven to all believers?


Old legends tell us of magic gates that re-sisted all attempts to force them but uponwhich, if one drop of a certain blood fell, theyflew open. And so, by His death, Christ hasopened the gates and made the Heaven of per-fect purity, a dwelling place for sinful men.

But the second stage of His departure isthat which more eminently is in Christ’s mindhere. He prepares a place for us by His en-trance into and His dwelling in the heavenlyplaces. The words are obscure because wehave but few others with which to comparethem, and to no experience by which to inter-pret them.

We know so little about the matter that itis not wise to say much. But though there befast tracts of darkness round the little spot oflight, this should only make the spot of lightmore vivid and more precious. We know lit-tle, but we know enough for mind and soul torest upon. Our ignorance of the ways towhich Christ by His ascension prepares a ha-ven for His followers should neither breeddoubts nor disregard of His assurance that Hedoes.

If Christ had not ascended, would therehave been, a place, at all? He has gone with ahuman body, which, glorified as it is, still hasrelations to space, and must be somewhere.And we may even say that His ascending upon high, has made a place where His servantsare, but apart from that suggestion, which,maybe, is going beyond our limits, we maysee that Christ’s presence in Heaven is need-ful to make it a heaven for poor human souls.

There, as here, Scripture assures us, andthroughout eternity as today, Jesus Christ isthe Mediator of all human knowledge andpossession of God. It is from Him andthrough Him and to Him that there come tomen, whether they be men on Earth or men inthe heavens, all that they know, all that theyhope, all that they enjoy, of the wisdom, love,beauty, peace, power, which flow from God.

Take away from the Heaven of theChristian expectation that which comes to theSpirit through Jesus Christ and you have noth-ing left. He and His meditation and the minis-tration alone make the brightness and the

blessedness of that high state. The very glo-ries of all that lies beyond the veil wouldhave an aspect appalling and bewildering tous, unless our Brother was there. Like somepoor savages brought into a great city, or rus-tics into the presence of a king and his court,we should be ill at ease amidst the gloriesand solemnities of that future life unless wesaw standing there our ‘‘Kinsman,’’ to whomwe can turn, and who makes it possible forus to feel that it is home.

Not only did He go to prepare a place,but He is continuously preparing it for us allthrough the ages. We have to think of a dou-ble form of the work of Christ, His past workin His earthly life, and His present work inHis exaltation. We have to think of a doubleform of His present activity, His work withand in us here on Earth, and His work for usthere in the heavens.

That which the Scripture represents in ametaphor, the full comprehension of whichsurpasses our present powers and experiencesas being His priestly intercession, and thatwhich our text represents in a metaphor,maybe a little more level to our apprehension,as being His preparing a place for us. Behindthe veil there is a working Christ, who, in theheavens, is preparing a place for all that havereceived Him as personal Saviour.

In the next place notice His return fromHis departure. The purpose of our Lord’s de-parture, as set forth by Himself here, guaran-tees for us His coming back again. That is theforce of the simple argumentation of our text,and of the pathetic and soothing repetition ofthe gracious sweet words. ‘‘I go to prepare aplace for you, and If I go to prepare a placefor you, I will come again and receive youunto Myself.’’ I go, I go, I will come again. Foryou, for you, receive you unto Myself. You,you, you...

Because the departure had for its purposethe preparing of the place, therefore it is neces-sary followed by a return. He who went awayas the Forerunner, had not done His work un-til He comes back and as a Guide leads thosefor whom He had prepared the place whichHe had prepared for them.


Now that return of our Lord, like His de-parture, may be considered as having twostages. Unquestionably the main meaning andapplication of the words is to that final andpersonal coming which stands at the end ofhistory, and to which the hopes of everyChristian soul ought to be steadfastly di-rected. He will ‘‘so come in like manner as Hehas gone.’’ We are not to water down suchwords as these into anything short of a returnprecisely corresponding in its method to thedeparture, and as the departure was visible,corporeal, literal, personal, and local, so the re-turn is to be visible, corporeal, literal, per-sonal, and local, too. He is to come as Hewent a visible manhood, only thronedamongst the clouds of Heaven with powerand great glory. This is the aim that He setsbefore him in His departure. He leaves in or-der that He may come back again.

Remember, and let us live in the strengthof the remembrance, that this return ought tobe the prominent subject of Christian aspira-tion and desire. There is much about the con-ception of that solemn return with all the con-vulsion that attend it, and the judgment ofwhich it is preliminary. That may well makemen’s hearts chill within them.

But for you and me, if we have any lovein our hearts and loyalty in our spirits to thatKing, ‘‘His coming’’ should be ‘‘prepared asthe morning’’ and we should join in the greatburst of rapture of many a psalm, which callsupon rocks and hills to break forth into sing-ing, and trees of the field to clap their hands.His own parable tells us how we ought to re-gard His coming.

When the fig tree’s branch begins to sup-ple, and the little leaves to push their waythrough the polished stem, then we know thatsummer is at hand. His coming should be asthe approach of that glorious, fervid time, inwhich the sunshine has ten-fold brilliancy andpower. The time of ripened harvest and ma-tured fruits, the time of joy for all creaturesthat love the sun, and the Son. It should bethe glad hope of all His servants.

We have a double witness to bear in themidst of this as of every generation. One-half

of the witness stretches back to the cross andproclaims ‘‘Christ has come.’’ The otherreaches onward to the throne, and proclaims,‘‘Christ will come again.’’ Between those twohigh-lifted piers swings the chain of theworld’s history, which closes with His returnto judge and to save, of the Lord who came todie and has gone to prepare a place for us.But we do not forget, let us not forget, that wemay well take another point of view than this.Scripture know of many comings of the Lordpreliminary to, and in principle, one with Hislast coming.

For nations all great crises of their historyare ‘‘comings of the Lord,’’ the Judge, and weare strictly in the line of Scripture analogywhen in reference to individuals, we see ineach single death a true coming of the Lord.

That is the point of view in which weought to look upon a Christian’s death bed.‘‘The Master is come and calleth for thee.’’Each death is a departure and a coming of theLord for His own. Beyond all secondarycauses, deeper than disease or accident, liesthe loving will of Him who is the Lord oflife and the Lord of death. Death is Christ’sminister, mighty and beauteous, though hisface be dark. And he too stands amidst theranks of the ‘‘ministering spirits sent forth tominister to them that shall be heirs of salva-tion.’’ We have guardian angels, He is ourGuardian Angel, the Angel of the Lord.

It is Christ that said of one, ‘‘I will thatthis man tarry.’’ And to another, ‘‘Go, and hegoeth.’’ But whensoever a Christian liesdown to die, Christ says, ‘‘Come,’’ and hecomes. And how that thought should hallowthe death chamber as with the print of theMaster’s feet. How it should quiet our soulsand dry our tears. How it should change thewhole aspect of that, ‘‘shadow feared of man.’’With Him for our companion, the lonely roadwill not be dreary, and though in its anticipa-tion, our timid souls may often be ready tosay, ‘‘Surely the darkness shall cover me.’’ Ifwe have Him by our sides, then ‘‘even thenight shall be light about us.’’

The dying martyr beneath the city walllifted up his face to the Heaven and said,


‘‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’’ It was theecho of the Lord’s promise, ‘‘I will comeagain, and receive you to Myself.’’

Notice finally the principle of the per-fected union. The departure for such a pur-pose necessarily involved the return again.Both are stages in the process, which is per-fected by complete union. ‘‘That where I amthere ye may be also.’’ Christ as I have beensaying is in Heaven. His presence is all thatwe need for peace, for joy, for purity, for rest,for love, for growth. To be ‘‘with Him’’ as Hetells us in another part of these wonderful lastwords in the upper chamber, is to ‘‘beholdHis glory.’’ And to behold His glory, as Johntells us in his epistle, is to be like Him.

So Christ’s presence means the communi-cation to us of all the luster of His radiance, ofall the whiteness of His purity, of all thedepth of His blessedness, and of a share inHis wondrous dominion. His glorified man-hood will pass into ours, and they that arewith Him will pass where He is and will restin the center and home of their spirits andfind Him all sufficient.

His presence is my heaven. WhereverChrist is, there is heaven. That is almost allwe know. It is more than all we need to know.

The curtain is the picture. But it is whatis there transcends in glory all or present expe-rience that Scripture can only hint at it and de-scribes it by negations, such as ‘‘no night,’’‘‘no sorrow,’’ ‘‘no tears,’’ ‘‘no pain,’’ ‘‘nodeath,’’ ‘‘former things are passed away,’’ andby some symbols of glory and luster gatheredfrom all that is loftiest and noblest in humanbuildings and society. But all these things arebut secondary and poor. The living heart ofthe hope and the lambent center of the bright-ness is ‘‘so shall we ever be with the Lord.’’

And it is enough. It is enough to make thebond of union between us in the outer court,and them in the Holy Place. Parted friendswill fix to look at the same star at the samemoment of the night and feel some union,and if we from amidst the clouds of Earth andthey from amidst the pure radiance of theirHeaven, turn our eyes to the same Christ, weare not far apart. If He be the Companion of

each of us, He reaches a hand to each, andclasping it, the parted ones are united. And‘‘whether we wake or sleep, we live ’to-gether,’ because we both live with Him.’’

If we are occupied with Christ on Earth,they are continually occupied with Christ inHeaven. There is union whether asleep orawake. Is Jesus Christ so much to you that aHeaven which consists in nearness and like-ness to Him has any attraction for you? LetHim be your Saviour, your Sacrifice, yourHelper, your Companion. Obey Him as yourKing, love Him as your Friend, trust Him asyour all. And be sure that then the darknesswill be but the shadow of His hand. And in-stead of dreading death, as He didn’t, as thatwhich you think may separate you from lifeand love and action and joy, you will be ableto meet it peacefully, as that which rends thethin veil, and unites you with Him who is theHeaven of Heavens. Christ Himself is theThird Heaven.

He has gone to prepare a place for you.And if you will let Him, He will prepare usfor the place, and then come and lead ushome. ‘‘Thou will show me the path of life,which leads through death.’’ ‘‘In Thy presenceis fullness of joy, and at Thy right hand thereare pleasures forevermore.’’ Here we have theLord’s departure and these are some of the ex-pressions of His pre-departure moment, just aday before He departed. And these are thethoughts that will encourage you when youdepart or when someone you love departs.

‘‘You believe in God, believe also in Me.’’

‘‘In My Father’s house there are manymansions.’’

‘‘If it were not so, I would have told youso.’’

‘‘I go to prepare a place for you.’’

‘‘And if I go and prepare a place for you,I will return and receive you unto Myself.’’

And that can be individually at your de-parture, or collectively as the body of Christat the Rapture of the Church. He comes for usindividually and collectively... each and all.

So far the Lord has spoken about:

• His departure


• and the purpose of His departure

• and the return from His departure

• the guarantee of His return because ofHis purpose

• and of the believer’s eternal and perfectunion with Him

Who is afraid to go home?

And with all this, He has not exhaustedall His comfort. There is still more we need:What is it?


Part Four:The Way


‘‘And whither I go ye know, and the wayye know.’’ ‘‘Thomas saith unto Him, Lord, weknow not wither Thou goest; and how can weknow the way?’’ ‘‘Jesus saith unto him, I amthe Way, the Truth, and the Life: no mancometh unto the Father, but by Me. If ye hadknown Me, ye should have known My Fatheralso: and from henceforth ye know Him, andhave seen Him.’’ John 14:4-7.

Now the Lord had been speaking about Hisdeparture. And He had explained to them

the purpose of His departure. And He spoketo them of His return, as guaranteed by thatpurpose. He told them that believers wouldhave an eternal and perfect reunion withHim. But even these cheering and calmingthoughts do not exhaust His consolation, asthey did not satisfy all the disciple’s needs.They might have said, ‘‘Yes we believe thatyou will come back again, and we believe thatwe shall be together again, but what aboutthe parenthesis of absence?’’

But what about the time until You comeback? And here is the answer or at least partof it. ‘‘Whither I go ye know and the way yeknow.’’ Or literally, ‘‘Whither I go ye knowthe way.’’ When you say to someone ‘‘youknow the way,’’ you mean come. And in thesewords there lies, as it seems to me, a veiled in-vitation to the disciples to come to Him beforeHe came back to them. And the assurancethat they, though separated, might still findand tread the road to the Father’s house andso be with Him still. In other words, they arenot left desolate and neither are we. So the pa-renthesis is bridged across.

Now in these verses we have some largeand important lesson as we follow the courseof our context. First: Observe the disciplesunconscious knowledge. Jesus Christ says,‘‘Ye know the way and you know the goal.’’Thomas ventures to contradict His omnis-

cience. And he traverses both of the Lord’s as-sertions with a brisk and thorough going nega-tive. ‘‘We do not know whither Thou goest,’’says Thomas (OUK OIDA in the Greek). Sincewe don’t know, ‘‘how can we know theway?’’ He is the same man in this conversa-tion that we find him in the interview beforeour Lord’s journey to raise Lazarus, and inthe interview after our Lord’s resurrection. Inall three cases he appears as mainly under thedominion of sense, as slow to apprehend any-thing beyond its limits, as morbidly melan-choly and disposed to take the blackest possi-ble view of things, a practical pessimist. Andyet with a certain frank outspokenness, whichhalf redeems the other characteristics fromblame.

He could not understand all the Lord’swords, which He had just spoken. His mindwas befogged and dimmed, and He blurts outhis ignorance knowing that the best place tocarry it is to the Illuminator who can make itlight. ‘‘We know not whither Thou goest, andhow can we know the way?’’ Was JesusChrist right when He said, ‘‘You know?’’ Orwas Thomas right, right when he said, ‘‘Wedon’t know?’’ The fact is that Thomas and allhis fellows know, after a fashion, but they didnot know that they knew. They had heardmuch in the past as to where Christ was go-ing. Plainly enough it had been rung in theirears over and over again. It had some kind oflodgement in their minds, and, in that sense,they did know. It is this unused and uncon-scious knowledge of theirs to which Christappeals. And He tries to draw out into con-sciousness and power when He says, ‘‘Youknow whither I am going, and you know theroad.’’

Now, isn’t that what a patient teacherdoes with a flustered student, and says tothem, ‘‘Take time. You know it well enough if


you will only think.’’ so the Lord here says,‘‘Do not be agitated and troubled in yourheart, mind. ’’Let not your hearts be trou-bled." Reflect, remember, overhaul your storesand think what I have told you over and overagain, and you will find that you do knowwhither I am going, and that you do knowthe way.

The patient gentleness of the Lord withthe slowness of the scholars is beautifully ex-emplified here, as is also the method, whichHe lovingly and patiently adopts, of sendingmen back to consult their own consciousnessas illuminated by His teaching, and to seewhether there is not lying somewhere, un-wrecked of an unemployed in some dusty cor-ner of their minds, a truth, that only needs tobe dragged out and cleansed in order to showitself for what it is, the all sufficient light andstrength for the moment’s need.

The dialogue is an instance of what is trueabout us all, that we have in our possessiontruths given to us by Jesus Christ, the wholesweep and bearing of which, the whole maj-esty and power and illuminating capacity ofwhich we do not dream of yet. How much inour creeds lies dim and undeveloped? Timeand circumstances and some sore agony ofspirit are needed in order to make us realizethe riches tat we possess. And the certitudesto which our troubled spirits may cling, andthe practice of far more patient, honest, pro-found meditation, and reflection than finds fa-vor with the average Christian man is needed.Too, in order that the truths possessed may bepossessed, and that we may know what weknow, and understand ‘‘the things that aregiven to us of God.’’

In all our creeds there are large tracts thatwe, in some kind of fashion, do believe, andyet they have no vitality in our consciousnessnor power in our lives. And the Lord doeshere with these disciples exactly what He istrying to do day by day with us, namely, tofling us back on ourselves, or rather back onHis revelation to us, and get us to fathom itsdepths and to walk round about its magni-tudes and so understand the things that wesay we believe.

All our knowledge is ignorance. Ignor-ance that confesses itself to the Lord is theway of becoming knowledgeable. His lightwill touch the smoke and change it into redspires of flame. If you do not know go to Himand say, ‘‘Lord, I do not.’’ An accurate under-standing of where the darkness lies is the firststep to the light. We are meant to carry all ourinadequate and superficial realizations of HisTruth into His presence, that from Him, wemay gain deeper knowledge, a firmer faith, amore joyous confidence, and assurance, in Hisinexhaustible lessons.

In every article and item of the Christianfaith there is a transcendent element whichsurpasses our present comprehension. Let usbe confident that the light will break, and letus welcome the new illumination when itcomes, more sure that it come from God.

Be not puffed up with the conceit thatyou know all. Be sure of this, that, accordingto the old, old metaphor, we are but as chil-dren on the shore of the great ocean, gather-ing a few of the shells that it has washed toour feet, itself stretching boundless, and,thank God, sunlit, before us.

‘‘Ye know the way.’’ ‘‘Lord, we know notthe way.’’

Secondly: Observe here our Lord’s greatself-revelation which meets this unconsciousknowledge. ‘‘Jesus saith unto him, I am theWay, the Truth, and the Life; no man comethunto the Father, but by Me.’’ Now it is quiteplain, I think from the whole strain of the con-text and the purpose of these words that themain idea in them is the first: ‘‘I am the Way.’’And that is made more certain because of thelast words of the verse, which summing upthe force of the three preceding assertions.Dwell only upon the metaphor of the Way.

‘‘No man cometh unto the Father, but byMe.’’ So, that of these three great words, theWay, the Truth, and the Life, we are to regardthe second and the third as explanatory of thefirst. They are not co-ordinate, but the first isthe more general, and the other two showhow the first comes to be true.

‘‘I am the way, because I am the Truthand the Life.’’ There are no words of the Lord,


perhaps to which our previous study aremore necessary to be applied than these. Weknow, and yet, Oh, what an overplus of gloryand of depth is here that we do not know andnever can know.

The most fragmentary and inadequategrasp of them with soul and mind will bringlight to the mind and quietness and peace tothe soul, but the whole meaning of them goesbeyond man and even angels.

What little we know of the Word, it is stillpowerful and has its effect on our lives. Wecan only skim the surface and seek to shiftback the boundaries of our knowledge a littlefurther, and to embrace within its limits a lit-tle more of the broad land into which thewords brings us. So just take a thought or twowhich may tend in that direction. Note, then,as belonging to all three of these clauses, thatremarkable ‘‘I am.’’

We show a way, Christ is it.

We speak the Truth, Christ is it.

Parents impart life which they have re-ceived, Christ is life.

He separates Himself from all men bythat representation that He is not merely theCommunicator or the Teacher or the Guide,but that He Himself is, in His own personalbeing, the Way, Truth and Life. He said thatwhen Calvary was within arm’s length. Thiswas just before His departure. His last words,as it were. What did He think about Himself,and what should we think of Him?

And then note, further that He sets forthHis unique relation to the Truth as being oneground on which He is the way to God. He isthe Truth in reference to the Divine nature.That Truth, then, is not a mere matter ofwords. It is not only His speech that teachesus, but Himself that shows us God. His wholelife and character, His personality, are the truerepresentation within human conditions ofthe invisible God. And when He says, ‘‘I amthe Way and the Truth,’’ He is saying substan-tially the same thing as the great prologue ofthis gospel says when it calls Him the Wordand the Light of men. And as Paul says whenhe names Him, ‘‘The image of the invisible

God.’’ There is all the difference between talk-ing about God and showing Him. We talkand teach about Him. Jesus Christ manifestedHim.

Men reveal God by their words, voices.Christ reveals Him by Himself and the factsof His life. The truest and the highest repre-sentation of the Divine nature that men canever have is in the face of Jesus Christ.

I need only to remind you in a sentenceabout other and lower applications of thisgreat saying, which do not, as I think, enterinto the purpose of the context. He is theTruth inasmuch as in the life and historicalmanifestation of Jesus Christ as recorded inthe Scriptures. Men find foundation truths ofa moral and spiritual sort.

‘‘Whatsoever things are true, whatsoeverthings are noble, whatsoever things arelovely, and of good report.’’ He is these, andall true ethics is but the formulating into prin-ciples of all the facts of the life and characterof Jesus Christ.

Further our text says He is the way be-cause He is the life. On the one side God isbrought to all souls and in some real sense toour comprehension, by the life of Jesus Christand so He is the Way.

But that is not enough. There must be anaction upon us as well as an action having ref-erence to the Divine nature. God is brought tomen by the manifestation in Christ, and we,the dead, are quickened by the communica-tion of the life. The one phrase points to allHis work as a Revealer, the other points to allHis work upon us as a Life Giver, a life-givingSpirit, a Quickener and an Inspirer. Dead mencannot walk a road. It is of no use to make apath men cannot walk that starts from a ceme-tery.

Christ taught that men apart from Himare dead, and that the only life that they canhave which was in Himself, and of which Heis the Source and the principle for the wholeworld.

He doest not yet tell us here what yet istrue, and what He abundantly tells in otherparts of this great conversation, that the only


way by which the life which He brings can bediffused and communicated is by His death.‘‘Except a corn of wheat fall into the groundand die, it abideth alone.’’ He is the Life, andparadox of mystery and yet a fact which isthe very heart and center of His Gospel. Hisonly way of giving His life to us is by givingup His life for us. He must die that He maybe the Life-Spring for the world. The alabasterbox must be broken if the ointment and its fra-grance are to be poured out, and death is thegate of life, in a deeper than the ordinarysense of the saying, inasmuch as the death ofthe Life which is Christ is the life of the deathwhich we are.

And so because on the one hand Hebrings a God to our souls, that we can loveand trust, and because on the other hands, Hecommunicates to our spirits, dead in the onlytrue death which is the separation from Godby sin, the life by which we are knit to God,He is the way to the Father.

And what about people that never heardof Him, to whom the Way has been closed, towhom that Truth has never been manifested?To whom the Life has never been brought?Christ has other ways of working thatthrough His historical manifestation, for thereis no Truth more plainly taught in this greatfourth gospel than this, ‘‘That the Lightligheth every man that cometh into theworld.’’ The eternal Word works through allthe Earth, in ways beyond our ken, and wher-ever any man has, however imperfectly, feltafter and grasped the thought of a Father inthe Heavens, there the Word, which is theLight of men, has wrought.

But for us to whom this Book has come,for what people call in bitter irony, Christen-dom, the law of our text rigidly applies, and itis being worked out all round us today.

‘‘No man cometh unto the Father, but byMe.’’ And here we are in America, and evenin other continents of Europe and England,and we are all face to face I believe with thisalternative, either Jesus Christ is the Revealerof God and the Life of men, or there is anempty Heaven.

And for you individually, it is either takeChrist for the Way, or wander in the wilder-ness and forget your Father. It is either takeChrist for Truth, or be given over to the insuf-ficiencies of mere natural, political and intel-lectual truths, and the shows and illusions oftime and sense. It is either take Christ foryour Life, or remain in your deadness, sepa-rated from God.

Now lastly, we have here the disciple’signorance and the new vision which repelsit. ‘‘If ye had known Me, ye should haveknown My Father also: and from henceforthye know Him, and have seen Him.’’ Our Lordaccepts for the moment Thomas’s standpoint.He supplements His former allegation of thedisciples’ knowledge with the admission ofthe ignorance which went with it as itsshadow, and was only too sadly and plainlyshown by their failure to discern in Him themanifestation of the Father.

He has just told them that they did knowwhat they thought they knew not. He nowtells them that they did not know what theythough they knew so well, after so manyyears of companionship, even Himself. Theproof that they did not know is that they didnot know the Father as revealed in Him, norHim as revealing the Father.

If they missed that, they missed every-thing, and for all they had known of His gra-ciousness, were strangers to His truest self.Their ignorance would turnout knowledge,if they would think, and their supposedknowledge would turn out ignorance. Thelesson for us is that the true test of the com-pleteness and worth of our knowledge ofChrist lies in its being knowledge of God theFather, brought near to us by Him. This say-ing puts a finger on the radical deficiency ofall merely humanitarian views of Christ’s Per-son, however clearly they might and admir-ingly extol the beauty of His character and the‘‘sweet reasonableness’’ of His wisdom.

They all break down here, and are ar-raigned, as so shallow and incomplete thatthey do not deserve to be called knowledge ofHim at all. If you know anything about JesusChrist, rightly this is what you know about


Him, that in Him you see God. If you havenot seen God in Him, you have not gotten tothe heart of the mystery. The knowledge ofChrist which stops with the Man and the Mar-tyr, and the Teacher and the beautiful, gentleBrother, is knowledge so partial that even Hecannot venture to all it other than ignorance.

Do our conceptions of Him meet this testwhich He Himself has laid down, before Hisdeparture, and can we say that, seeing Him,we see in Him God? And then our Lordpasses on to another thought, the new visionwhich at the moment was being granted tothis unconscious ignorance that was passinginto conscious knowledge.

‘‘From henceforth ye know Him and haveseen Him.’’ We must give that ‘‘henceforth,from henceforth’’ as a note of time, a some-what liberal interpretation and apply it to thewhole series of utterances and deeds of whichthe words of our text are but a portion. And ifso, we come to this: It was in the wisdom andthe gentleness, and the deep truths of that up-per chamber before His departure, it was inthe agony of the submission of Gethsemane, itwas in the meek patience before the judges,and the silent acceptance of ignominy andshame, it was in the willing, loving enduranceof the long hours upon the cross, that Christinaugurated the new stage in His revelation ofGod and in His life giving to the world.

And it is ‘‘from henceforth,’’ and therebythat in the Man Jesus Christ men know andsee the Father as they never did before. Thecross and the passion of Christ are the unveil-ing to the world of the heart of God. And bythe side of that new vision, the fairest, and theloftiest, and the sweetness of Christ’s formermanifestations and utterances sink into com-parative insignificance.

It is the departing, dying Christ that re-veals the Living God. So here is our WAY toGod. See that we seek the Father by Himalone. He is your Truth. Grapple Him to yourhearts, and by patient meditation and contin-ual faithfulness, enrich yourselves with all thecommunicated treasures that you have al-ready received in Him. He is your Life.Cleave to Him, that the quick Spirit that wasin Him may pass into you and make you vic-tor over all death and departures, temporaland eternal.

Know Him as a Friend, not as a mere his-torical Person, or with mere intellect, for toknow a Friend is something far deeper than toknow a Truth. ‘‘Acquaint thyself with Himand be at peace.’’ ‘‘This is life eternal, to know(with the knowledge is life and possession)Thee, the only True God and Jesus Christ,whom Thou hast sent.’’


Part Five:The True Vision of God


‘‘Philip said unto Him, Lord, show us theFather, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith untohim, Have I been so long time with you, andyet hast thou not known Me, Philip? he thathat seen Me hath seen the Father; and howsayest thou then, Shew us the Father? Be-lievest thou not that I am in the Father, andthe Father in Me? the words that I speak untoyou I speak not of Myself: but the Father thatdwelleth in Me, He doeth the works. BelieveMe that I am in the Father, and the Father inMe: or else believe Me for the very works’sake,’’ John 14:8-11.

The vehement burst with which Philip inter-rupts the calm flow of our Lord’s dis-

courses in His departure is not the product ofmere frivolity or curiosity. One hears the ringof earnestness in it, and the yearnings ofmany years find their voice. Philip had feltout of depths, no doubt, in the profoundteachings which our Lord had been giving,but his last words about seeing God set a fa-miliar chord vibrating. As an Old Testamentbeliever, he knew that Moses had once led theelders of Israel up to the mount where ‘‘theysaw the God of Israel.’’ And that to many oth-ers had been granted sensible manifestationsof the Divine presence.

As a disciple, he longed for some similarsign to confirm his faith. As a man he wasconscious of the deep need which all of ushave, whether we are conscious of it or not,for something more real and tangible than anunseeable and unknowable God.

The peculiarities of Philip’s temperamentstrengthened the desire. The first appearancethat he makes in the gospels is charac-teristically like this his last. To all Nathanael’sobjections he had only the reply ‘‘Come andsee.’’ And here he says if we could see the Fa-ther it would be enough. He was one of themen to whom seeing is believing, and so he

speaks. Philip’s petition is childlike in itssimplicity, beautiful in its trust, noble andtrue in its estimate of what men need. Is see-ing believing?

‘‘Show us the Father,’’ that is what weneed. He longs to see God. This is a God-con-sciousness principle. He believes that Christcan show Him God. This is a Gospel-hearingprinciple. He is sure that the sight of Godwill satisfy his heart. Theses are errors, ortruths, according to what is meant by ‘‘seeing.’’

Philip meant a palpable manifestation,and so far he was wrong. Give the word itshighest and its truest meaning, and Philip’s er-ror becomes a great Truth.

Our Lord lovingly, graciously, gently andwith a hint of rebuke answers the request,and seeks to disengage the error from theTruth. His answer lies in the verses that wehave here before us. Let us try to follow them,and, as we may, to skim their surface, fortheir depths are truly beyond us.

First of all, we have the sight of God inChrist is enough to answer man’s longings.‘‘Show us God.’’ There is a world of sadnessand tenderness, of suppressed pain and ofgrieved affection, in the first words of ourLord’s reply. ‘‘Have I been so long with you,and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip?’’ Heseldom names His disciples. When He does, itis a deep cadence of affection in the designa-tion.

This man was one of the first disciples,the little original band called by Christ Him-self. And so had been with Him all the time ofHis ministry. The Lord wonders with a gentlewonder that, before his eyes that loved Him,as much as Philip’s did, His continual self-revelation had been to so little purpose.

In the answer, in its first portion there liesthe reiteration of the thought we studied be-


fore, ‘‘that the sight of Christ is the sight ofGod.’’ ‘‘He that hath seen Me hath seen the Fa-ther.’’ And that not to know Christ as thusshowing God is not to know Him at all.‘‘Thou hast known Me, Philip.’’

Further there is a thought that the sight ofGod in Christ is sufficient. ‘‘How sayest thoushow us the Father?’’ From all this we maygather some thoughts on which we can touchnow briefly.

First, that we all do need to have Godmade visible to us. The history of heathen-dom shows us that. In every land men havesaid, ‘‘the gods have come down to us in thelikeness of men.’’ And the highest cultivationof this highly cultivated and self-conscious20th century has not removed us from thesame necessity that the rudest savage has, tohave some kind of manifestation of the Divinenature other than the dim, vague ones whichare possible apart from the revelation of Godin Christ.

The God who is only the product of infer-ences from creation, or providence or the mys-teries of history, or the wonders of my own in-ner life, the creatures of logic or of reflection,is very powerless to sway and influence man.The limitations of our faculties and the bound-lessness of our souls both cry out for a Godwho is nearer to us than that, and whom wecan see and love and be sure of.

The whole world wants the making vis-ible of Divinity as its deepest want. Your souland mind require it. Nothing else will everstay our hunger, will ever answer our ques-tioning minds. We all come to the point ofGod consciousness. Christ meets this need.

How can you make wisdom visible? Howcan a man see love or purity? How do I seeyour spirit? By the deeds of your body. Andthe only way by which God can ever comenear enough to men to be a constant powerand a constant motive in their lives is by theirseeing Him at work in a Man, who amongstthem is His image and revelation. Christ’swhole life is the making visible of the invis-ible God. He is the manifestation to the worldof the unseen Father.

The vision is enough, enough for themind, enough for the soul, enough for thewill. There is none else that is sufficient, butthis is, ‘‘How sayest thou, shew us the Fa-ther?’’

If we see God it suffices us. Then themind can settle down upon the thought ofHim as the basis of all being, and of allchange, and the soul can twine itself roundHim and the seeking soul folds its wings andis at rest, and the troubled spirit is quiet, andthe accusing conscience is silent, and the rebel-lious will is subdued, and the stormy passionsare quieted, and in the inner kingdom is agreat peace.

The sight of God in Christ brings rest toevery soul, and the absence of the vision isthe true secret of all disquiet. ‘‘Where there isno vision, the people perish.’’ We are troubledand anxious and tossed from one stormy bil-low to another and swept ever by all thewinds that blow, because we see not God ourFather in the face of Jesus Christ.

‘‘Show us the Father and it sufficeth us.’’This is either a pureil petition or the deepestand noblest prayer of the human heart.Blessed are they who have learned what it isto see, and know where that great sight is tobe seen. ‘‘Show us the Father.’’

Our present knowledge and vision are farhigher than the mere external symbol of Godwhich this man wanted. The elders of Israelsaw the God of Israel, but what they saw wasbut some symbolical manifestation of thatwhich in itself is unseen and unattainable. Butwe who see God in Christ, we see no symbolbut the reality. And there is nothing more pos-sible or to be hoped for here.

Our present manifestation and sight ofGod in Christ does fall, in some way un-known to us, beneath the bright hopes thatwe are entitled to cherish. But howsoever im-perfect it may be, as measured against the per-fection of the vision when we shall see face toface, and know even as we are known, it isenough. And more than enough for all thequestionings, and desires of our hungeringspirits.


Secondly, our Lord goes on to a furtheranswer, and points to the Divine and mutualindwelling by which this sight is made possi-ble. ‘‘Believest thou not that I am in the Fa-ther, and the Father in Me?’’ And that iswhere we started, as it were, in our study ofthe Lord’s departure and a preview of our de-parture, when He said, ‘‘You believe in God,believe also in Me.’’

He went on here to say, ‘‘The words that Ispeak unto you, I speak not of Myself, but theFather that dwelleth in Me, He doeth theworks.’’ There are here mainly two things,Christ’s claim to the oneness of unbrokencommunion, and Christ’s claim, conse-quently, to the oneness of complete co-opera-tion. ‘‘I am in the Father,’’ indicates the sup-pression of all independent and therefore re-bellious will, consciousness, thought and ac-tion. ‘‘And the Father in Me,’’ indicates the in-flux into that perfectly filial manhood of thewhole fullness of God in unbroken, continu-ous, gentle, deep flow.

These two are the two sides of this greatmystery on which neither wisdom nor rever-ence lead us to dilate, and they combine to ex-press the closest and most uninterruptedblending, interpretation, and communion.And then follows the other claim, that be-cause of this continuous mutual indwellingthere is perfect co-operation.

This is also stated in terms correspondingto the preceding double representation. ‘‘Thewords that I speak unto you, I speak not ofMyself,’’ correspond to ‘‘I am in the Father.’’‘‘The Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth theworks,’’ corresponding to ‘‘The Father in Me.’’The two put together teach us this, that by rea-son of that mysterious and ineffable union ofcommunion, Jesus Christ in all His words andin all His works is the perfect Instrument ofthe Divine will, so that His Words are God’sWords, and His Works are God’s works. Sothat when He speaks His gentle wisdom, Hisloving compassion, His prophetic threaten-ings, are the speech of God, and that when Heacts, whether it be by miracle or in the ordi-nary deeds of His life, what we see is Godworking before our eyes as we never see Himin any human being.

‘‘I do always the will of God and thosethings which pleaseth Him.’’ From all this fol-lows a couple of considerations which we cansuggest. Note the absolute absence of any con-sciousness on Christ’s part of the smallest de-flection or disharmony between Himself andthe Father. Two triangles laid on each otherare in very line, point, and angle absolutely co-incident. That humanity is capable of receiv-ing the whole inflow of God and that indwell-ing God is perfectly expressed in the human-ity.

There is no trace of consciousness of sin.Everything that He did He knew to be God’sacting. There are no barriers between theTwo. Jesus Christ was conscious of no separa-tion, not the thinnest film of air between thesetwo who adhered and inhered so closely andso continuously. It is an awful assertion.

Now, I ask you to ask yourself a question.If this was what Jesus Christ said, what didHe think of Himself? And is this a Man, likethe rest of us, with blotches and sin, with fail-ures to employ His own ideas, and still moreto carry out in life the will that He knows tobe God’s will? Is this a Man life other menwho thus speaks to us? If Jesus Christ has thisconsciousness,either He was ludicrously, tragi-cally, blasphemously, utterly mistaken and un-truthworthy, or He is what the Church in allages has confess Him to be, ‘‘The everlastingSon of the Father.’’

Lastly, the Lord further sets before usthe faith to which He invites us on theground of His union with, and revelation ofGod. ‘‘Believe Me that I am in the Father andthe Father in Me, or else believe Me for thevery works sake.’’ Observe that the verb at thebeginning of this last verse of our text passesinto a plural form. Our Lord has done withPhilip especially, and speaks now to all whowill hear Him, and to us among the rest ofHis auditors.

He bids us to believe Him. And to be-lieve something about Him, on the strengthof His own testimony. Or, as it were, secondbest, believe Him on the testimony of Hisworks. We have a couple of gracious princi-ples here in this statement of the Lord’s. The


true bond of union between men and JesusChrist is faith. We have to trust, and that isbetter than sight. We have to trust Him. He isthe personal Object of our faith.

In all faith there is what we may call amoral and a voluntary element. A man be-lieves a proposition because it is forced uponHim and His intelligence is obliged to acceptit. A man trusts Christ because he will trustHim. And the moral and the voluntary ele-ment carries us far beyond the mere intellec-tual conception of faith as the assent to a setof theological propositions. Faith really is theout-going of the whole man, will, mind, andall, to a person whom it holds.

But the Christ that you and I have to trustis the Christ as He himself has declared Him-self to be to us. ‘‘Believe Me that I am in theFather, and the Father in Me.’’ There is a bas-tard, mutilated kind of thing that calls itselfChristian faith, that goes about the world inthis generation which believes in Jesus Christin all sort of beautiful ways, but it will not be-lieve in Him as the personal revelation andmaking visible of the unseen God.

Jesus Christ Himself tells us here that thatis not the kind of faith which He invites us toput forth. If we put forth that only, we havenot yet come to understand Him. Christ ashere declared to us by Himself is the onlyChrist, to whom it is right to give our trust. IfHe be not God manifest in the flesh, I oughtnot to trust Him. I may admire Him as a his-torical personage, I may reverence Him forHis wisdom and beauty, I may even in somevague way have a kind of love for Him, butwhat in the name of common sense shall Itrust Him for? And why should He call uponus to exercise faith in Him unless He standsbefore me as the adequate Object of man’strust, namely the manifest God?

And further, note the believing in thesense of trusting is seeing and knowing.Philip said, ‘‘Show us the Father.’’ Christ an-swers and says, ‘‘Believe and you will see.’’ Ifyou look back upon the previous verses ofthis chapter, you will find that in the earlierportion of them they key word is ‘‘know,’’and that in the second portion the key word is

‘‘see,’’ and in this portion the key word is ‘‘be-lieve.’’ The world says ‘‘seeing is believing.’’The Word of God says ‘‘believing is seeing.’’‘‘Faith is the evidence of things not seen.’’ thetrue way to knowledge, and to a better visionthan the uncertain vision of the eye is faith.

In confidence and in directness, the knowl-edge of God that we have through faith in theChrist whom our eyes have never seen is farahead of the confidence and the directnessthat attach to our mere bodily sight, and sothe key to all Divine knowledge, and the sureroad to the truest vision of God is faith.

Further, faith, even if based upon lowerthan the highest grounds, is still faith, and ac-ceptable to Him. ‘‘Or else believe Me for thevery works sake.’’ The works are mainly themiracles but not exclusively. And we are heretaught, that, if a man has not come to thepoint of spiritual susceptibility in which theimage of Jesus Christ lays hold upon his souland obliges Him to trust Him, and to loveHim, there are yet the miracles to look at, andthe faith that grasps them, and by help of thatladder, climbs to Him. Though it is secondbest, is yet real.

The evidence of miracles is subordinate,and yet it is valid and true. To focus our at-tention on Him and His Word, miracles them-selves never ever saved one soul. John thebaptist performed no miracles.

So, our Lord contradicts both the exag-gerations of past generations and the exag-gerations of this, and neither asserts that thegreat reason for faith is miracles, nor that mir-acles are of no use at all.

Former centuries in the Christian Churchreiterated the former exaggeration and thuspartly provoked the exaggeration of this day.Let us keep the middle course. There is a bet-ter way of coming to Christ than through thegate of miracles, and that is that He shouldstamp His own Divine GRACE and elevationupon our minds and our souls. But if we havenot reached that point, do not let us kickaway the ladder, ‘‘the calling cards,’’ that mayhelp us to it.

‘‘Believe Him for the works’ sake.’’ Be-lieve Him. Imperfect faith may be the high-


way to perfection. Let us follow the light, it ifbe but a far off glimmer, sure that it will bringus into noontide day if we are faithful to itsleading. On the other hand, let us rememberthat no fail avails itself of all the treasures laidup for it, which does not day hold uponChrist in the character in which He presentsHimself. The only adequate, worthy trust inHim is the trust which grasps Him as the in-carnate God and Saviour. Only such a faithdoes justice to His own claim. Only such afaith is the sure path to vision and to knowl-edge. Only such a faith draws down the bless-ing of a questioning intellect answered. A hun-gry heart satisfied, a conscience, accusing andprophetic of a judgment to come, cleanses andpurified.

To each of us Christ addresses Himselfwith His gracious invitation. ‘‘Believe in Me,that I am in the Father. And the Father is inMe.’’ May we all answer ‘‘We believe thatThou art the Christ, the Son of the LivingGod.’’ These departing words of Jesus Christ,a day before His departure, are all a part ofour heritage, and these departing words willcomfort you on the departure of your lovedones, or your very own departure.

1. Faith in God and faith in Christ.

‘‘Let not your heart be troubled, you be-lieve in God, believe also in Me.’’

2. Many mansions.

‘‘In My Father’s house there are manymansions. If it were not so I would have toldyou.’’

3. The Forerunner.

‘‘I go to prepare a place for you. And if Igo and prepare a place for you, I will come

again and receive you unto Myself, thatwhere I am, there ye may be also.’’

4. The Way.

‘‘And wither I go ye know, and the wayye know. Thomas saith unto Him, Lord, weknow not whither Thou goest; and how canwe know the way? Jesus saith unto Him, I amthe Way, the Truth, and the Life: no mancometh unto the Father, but by Me. If ye hadknown Me, ye should have known My Fatheralso: and from henceforth ye know Him, andhave seen Him.’’

5. The true vision of God.

‘‘Shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Je-sus saith unto him, Have I been so long timewith you, and yet hast thou not known Me,Philip? he that hath seen Me hath seen the Fa-ther; and how sayest thou then, Shew us theFather? Believest thou not that I am in the Fa-ther, and the Father in Me? the words that Ispeak unto you I speak not of Myself: but theFather that dwelleth in Me, He doeth theworks. Believe Me that I am in the Father, andthe Father in Me: or else believe Me for thevery works’ sake.’’

And He departed. He died and we depart!

Buddy Dano, Pastor

Divine Viewpoint Bible Studies

www.divineviewpoint.com


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a preview of our departure · a preview of our departure first: faith in god and faith in christ....

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