John 13:32-14:6 Destinations

John 13:32-14:6 Jesus turns now to destinations. He is going away to a place where the disciples cannot follow Him. Peter, ever the uninhibited but loyal follower, wants to follow Him. Peter skips right over Jesus' command that they love each other just as He has loved them. (John 13:34-35, which He returns to in John 17:22-23) Peter believes he is ready to die for Jesus. Jesus’ response to Peter is to not let his heart be troubled even though he is going to deny Jesus before the rooster crows the next morning. The reason for not letting his heart be troubled is that Jesus is going to build a house for each of them and then come back and get them. They know the way, which Thomas is skeptical of, until Jesus explains that He is the way as well as the destination. In fact, He is the only way for them (or anyone else) to come to the Father.

          The building of dwelling places perhaps is foreshadowed by the feast of tabernacles, in which Moses commanded the Israelites to build huts and live in them for seven days. (Leviticus 23:39-43) Even though that feast commemorated the forty years that the Israelites spent in the wilderness after leaving Egypt, when God provided for them supernaturally, and was then fulfilled when Jesus tabernacled among men as a human, there is yet one more fulfillment that Jesus now speaks of. He now speaks of the day when His followers go to live with Him in the Father's presence. His preparation of the way primarily will consist of His going to the cross to atone for the sins of mankind. But secondarily, or perhaps equally, His preparation of that way will consist of speaking the command, with the power of fulfillment, for the disciples to love each other just as He has loved them.

          The sad fact about the reality of the church is that in the twenty centuries since Jesus gave the disciples the simple statement that the way that all men would know we are His disciples would be by our love for one another, the contrapositive has happened. Most men believe that Jesus' followers were not really His disciples, because for the most part they have not loved one another. This includes self-righteous theological disputes, judgmental persecution of those who didn't measure up to the interpretations of Scripture that those in power held to, sectarianism, and great church wars. Whether Jesus’ followers are or are not His disciples, this has been the perception of the world for most of the Christian dispensation.

          Jesus' prophecy of Peter's denial (which was fulfilled in John 18:17 & 25-27) was intended to prepare him for the restoration that would be needed in Peter's soul after the fact. (Matthew 26:75) Jesus was placing in Peter's memory the promise that He would come back and get Peter after He had accomplished the plan of redemption so that He could take Peter to the place He was. And later Jesus had a counseling session with Peter to complete the soul-restoration that would be necessary after his denial. (John 21:15-19)

          The dwelling places in the Father's house are probably a mystery to us by necessity. If we had full understanding of what heaven is like, what life is like in the Father's presence, we would have no need for faith. There are probably other aspects of the life in the body that would be affected as well. So Jesus left us with a promise but very few specifics of this future dwelling place. It will be imbued with and characterized by love. And Jesus is the way to get there. His voice is truth (as He tells Pilate, who is clueless, in John 18:37-38), which is another attribute of the dwelling places He prepares. And in Him is life as John reported to us earlier in the gospel (John 1:4), and also discussed in John 5, 6, 10, and 12.

          What is truth? (Pilate's question in John 18:37) Philosophers have debated this for as long as there have been philosophers. Jesus here reveals that He is truth. The "I am" structure of the sentence carries the implication that Jesus is here identifying Himself with YHWH of the Old Testament, and also revealing that one of the fundamental attributes of God is truth. Jesus is the express revelation of eternal truth. I take this to mean that in everything He said and did, Jesus accurately presented the facts about eternal realities. And these facts about eternity were presented in context and in balance. It is a sad characteristic of humanity that we tend to focus on a small subset of facts and reality and propositional logic and make these out to be the whole truth, often wrenching them from their context, or else blowing their importance out of proportion to other equally true facts. 

          What is eternal life? It must be more than simply unending existence. For many people, life in this world becomes an unendurable burden, and death a welcome rest. This may be due to physical affliction or the pain of emotional or relational stress or breakdown. If what Jesus promises is a continued existence in this condition, it would probably be more like hell than heaven. In this context, Jesus attempts to explain what eternal life in the Father's presence is like. It is characterized by love. The kind of love the Father has for His children, which goes to great lengths to redeem them from their sin. He will wipe away every tear (Revelation 7:17 & 21:4). They will have imperishable bodies (I Corinthians 15:42-57).

          In these three ‘I Am's the fundamental nature of what Jesus is doing is to connect His disciples to the means by which they will get to the ultimate destination that He has promised. Truth and life are attributes that He provides to those who follow Him as a significant part of the way they will get to the destination He has prepared for them. He is preparing them for the destination. Ultimately they will be united with Him at that destination, and partake fully of these attributes.