Anchor My Faith

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Author: Stephen Weller
758 words, 4 minutes read time

I Came, and Now I Go

Scripture: John 16:25-28

With the previous lesson we finished the section about the disciple’s sorrow being turned into joy after the resurrection of Jesus. With this lesson we begin a section that speaks about Jesus coming from God and is shortly returning to the Father. Jesus points out to them that when the authorities come to arrest him they will scatter from him.

^{Jn 16:25} “I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father. ²⁶ In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; ²⁷ for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. ²⁸ I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.”

A figure of speech is a word or phrase that one would use in a non-literal sense for rhetorical or vivid effects. A figure of speech that Jesus often uses is a hyperbole or an overstatement for emphasis. A metaphor is another example in which something is used to represent something else.

“The hour is coming” refers to the time after the resurrection of Jesus when he would be able to explain much more clearly what he had accomplished by his death and resurrection as the disciples would then have more experience to relate to. One of those times of explanation was recorded in Luke 24:27 ESV: “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” I would like to have been with them to hear what Jesus said to them. Jesus also presented himself alive to the disciples after his death and resurrection and during a forty-day period of time spoke to them about the kingdom of God (Acts 1:3).

After this time with Jesus the disciples will have a better sense of what lies ahead for them. Under the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit they will have an awesome responsibility of establishing Christianity and developing the leadership to carry on the expansion of the work after their time of ministry comes to an end with their deaths. They will understand that the work is bigger than they and they will spend time in prayer to the Father in the name of Jesus seeking guidance and help. They will not ask the Father for their own desires but for the work of ministry. The time will come when the disciples will clearly understand who Jesus is and that he came from God. They will understand the great love of the Father and of Jesus for them and they will then deeply love them.

“In that day” looked ahead to the time after his death and resurrection. Now coming back to the time before the cross, Jesus tells the disciples, “I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.” Jesus was going to leave the world and return to the Father, but he also promised that he would come and dwell with those who love him (John 14:21, 23). At the same time, Jesus can be with the Father and yet be living in each believer. His humanity forces him to be in one place, but his deity allows him to be in many places at once. This is the nature of a divine human person that Jesus was.

Conclusion

Let us take a round number of one billion people who might populate heaven. Have you ever thought about how we will all have access to Jesus? As pointed out at the end of this lesson, how might a divine human person relate to this? How might the fact that we are members of his body and he is the head all connected together by the Spirit relate to this? The body of Christ is to be a perfect unity of many members in perfect communication with each other and with Jesus, the head, by the Spirit, living out agape love in all our relationships. I long to understand the full dimension and mystery of the body of Christ in which sin does not exist.