John 14:1–12

14 “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. ² In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. ⁴ And you know the way to where I am going.” ⁵ Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” ⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷ If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

⁸ Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” ⁹ Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? ¹⁰ Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. ¹¹ Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.

¹² “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.

John 14:1–12 ESV – Bible Gateway

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This is part of the Farewell Discourse in John Gospel and occurs during the Last Supper. The Apostles hear more from Jesus on his impending death and that one of them will betray him.

Jesus has announced his imminent departure (13:33), but he reassures his disciples: Do not let your hearts be troubled. In John, the Greek verb behind “troubled” connotes the distress experienced from the proximity of death (11:33; 12:27; 13:21). Instead, Jesus tells the disciples, to have faith, to trust in God the Father and in him. As the Father’s Son and perfect envoy, Jesus is absolutely reliable and trustworthy, and a faith response to him is a faith response to the Father who sent him (12:44).[1]

Peter Kreeft gives us one of the implications of what this means:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled.” That implies that we have some authority over our hearts. What we usually mean by our hearts is our feelings and emotions, and Jesus is telling us that we have the power to say “Be still!” to our hearts when they whine like a dog. We have a mind and a will, and God gave them to us as instruments to take care of our hearts like doctors. Our hearts are like gardens, and our minds and wills are like the tools that we need to keep the gardens from going to seed or going wild or dying. The mind knows that Jesus is our Lord and Savior, that nothing comes to us without his wise permission, and that his motive is always his love for us, his desire for our greatest good. And our will can choose to override and master the troubles that come from our weak and fearful heart. The troubles won’t simply go away, nor will the fears, but we can stop identifying with them and stop letting them master our thoughts and our choices. Our faith assures us that God is God and is always in control. That’s the key: faith has authority over feelings. Thus, Jesus not only says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” but tells us how: “Have faith also in me.”[2]

Steve Ray in his commentary on John, provides us some context for one aspect of this passage:

The parallels between Moses and Jesus continue to demonstrate that John is portraying Jesus as the New Moses (Deut 18:15, 18). “It is in the charge [commission] to Joshua in Deut. 31:7–8 that we find the words ‘fear not, neither be dismayed’. And so the final charge of Jesus to his disciples includes the injunction, ‘Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful’ (14:27, cf. 14:1).… According to Deut. 34:9, Moses apparently imparted the Spirit to Joshua and ordained him to his responsible office: ‘And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom; for Moses had laid his hands upon him: and the children of Israel hearkened unto him, and did as the Lord commanded Moses.’ The Rabbis regarded this incident as vital for the whole idea of succession. All ordinations looked back to this one.… Just as Moses when leaving the world appointed Joshua as shepherd (Num. 27:16–18) so Jesus appoints Peter as shepherd (Jn 21). According to Aboth R. Nathan 17, Moses said to Joshua, ‘This people which I commit to you, I commit to you only as kids and lambs, as frail children.’ Similarly Jesus says to Peter, ‘Feed my lambs’ (21:15). Eusebius in the course of an extended comparison of Christ and Moses regards Peter as answering to Joshua: ‘Moses changed the name of Nave to Jesus, and likewise the Saviour changed that of Simon to Peter.’ ”[3]

Jesus reassures him of his veracity and that he is going ahead to prepare of place for us. Specifically calling us to union with him as he takes us to himself.

Brant Pitre references the common translation of mansion in this passage:

Now people often translate this as many mansions—I think that is the old King James version—and get excited about having a mansion in heaven, but literally the Greek there is monē. It’s from the Greek word menó, which means to remain. So it’s a dwelling place, a place where you stay, a place to remain; which is something that Jesus said over and over again, that he wants to remain in us and us to remain in him. So he says “in my Father’s house there are many dwelling places and I’m going to prepare a place for you, that I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am there you will also be.”[4]

Jesus is not calling us to a place where we live as we do on earth. Not a private dwelling that separates us from others. Jesus uses a lot of temple imagery in this passage as John Bergsma points out in his commentary:

Several temple terms are used here. “My Father’s house” is used as a designation for the Temple in other parts of the Gospels (Luke 2:49; John 2:16). The Temple was the largest building in Israel and was full of storerooms, antechambers, and other spaces roundabout, thus: in it there are “many dwelling places” (NAB) or “many rooms” (RSV2CE). Finally, in Judaism the word “place” (Greek topos, Hebrew maqôm) had a special connotation. It often meant “the holy place,” that is, the “sanctuary” (see John 11:48 Greek; cf. Gen 28:17). All this means that Jesus is departing to prepare a Temple for the Apostles to live in.

…

What is this Temple that Jesus prepares? In one sense, it is the Church, elsewhere identified as the Temple of God.[5]

In verse 14:4, Jesus says: “And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas denies this and speaks for the group saying that not only do they not have this knowledge, but also, “How can we know the way?”

I reflect on this regarding the times when I feel uncertain and yet I do know the path I should be on to be drawn closer to Jesus. It is more dread than uncertainty. A lack to trust, not a lack of knowledge. Wanting a high level of certainty in discernment instead of following what my heart already is convicted of.

Jesus’ minor rebuff to Thomas is to reveal more of himself to him and Trinitarian relations involved in this knowledge. That now he does know, since the “the way, and the truth, and the life.” has given him this knowledge.

Brant Pitre comments:

When Jesus says “I am the way,” the Greek word that he uses here is hodos, which literally means a path or road right. And we found this imagery elsewhere in the Gospels, like in the Gospel of Matthew, when he talks about the road to heaven or the road to hell. So in other words he says that “the path to eternal life is narrow and difficult and few are they who find it, but the path to destruction is wide and easy and many are they who find it.” He says that in Matthew 7. So the imagery of being the way is simply that of a road that leads you to salvation, that leads you to heaven.[6]

The paradox is that for us to follow Jesus on this path is to transverse the narrow way without being narrow ourselves. To be narrow is to be inward and ego driven. In following this path our focus ahead is a love of God and neighbor that widens us in our scope and also enables us to love ourselves as we ought.

Returning to Brant Pitre:

And then finally he says “I am the life.” Well what is the life he is talking about here? It is not natural life. It is not just biological life. It is not bios here—which would be the Greek word for what we call natural life. This is zóé in Greek. It is supernatural life, it is eternal life, the life of the Trinity, the life of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So if you want to have natural life there are all kinds of things you can do. You can eat good food, you can drink good drink, you could stay healthy and exercise and keep yourself in shape; but if you want zóé, if you want the life of the world to come, if you want the life of the Trinity, there is only one place you can go, and that is Jesus of Nazareth. You have to become his disciple. You have to walk on the path with him, learn the fullness of truth from him and live the life that he lived in order to enter into the life of the Trinity.[7]

When Philip in turn asks to be able to see the Father. This calls to mind Moses asking to see God’s glory, to see God’s face. Jesus rebukes Philip for not having to come to know him better considering that he was among the first disciples.

St. Hilary of Poitiers reflects on this passage:

“And therefore the Lord answered Philip thus;—Have I been so long time with you, and ye have not known Me, Philip? He rebukes the Apostle for defective knowledge of Himself; for previously He had said that when He was known the Father was known also. But what is the meaning of this complaint that for so long they had not known Him? It means this; that if they had known Him, they must have recognised in Him the Godhead which belongs to His Father’s nature. For His works were the peculiar works of God. He walked upon the waves, commanded the winds, manifestly, though none could tell how, changed the water into wine and multiplied the loaves, put devils to flight, healed diseases, restored injured limbs and repaired the defects of nature, forgave sins and raised the dead to life. And all this He did while wearing flesh; and He accompanied the works with the assertion that He was the Son of God. Hence it is that He justly complains that they did not recognise in His mysterious human birth and life the action of the nature of God, performing these deeds through the Manhood which He had assumed.”[8]

In verse 14:12, like Moses passing on his gifts and authority to Joshua, or the Elijah to Elisha, Jesus tells them that they will perform greater works. Regarding miraculous healings we see that this is true as seen in the Acts of the Apostles.

John Bergsma looks at another aspect of this:

I’m convinced that the sacraments are at least a partial solution to what Jesus means by the “greater works” to be done by the disciples. The miraculous “signs” of the Gospel of John have been told in such a way that we can see their resemblance to the Church’s sacraments: this is especially the case for the Water to Wine (John 2) and the Feeding of the Five Thousand (John 6) with respect to the Eucharist, and the Healing of the Man Born Blind (John 9) with respect to Baptism. But all the signs Jesus performs have some connection with the sacraments.[9]

He also references other sources as to this aspect:

“But even the raising of the dead to life, the miracle by which a corpse is reanimated with its natural life, is almost nothing in comparison with the resurrection of a soul, which has been lying spiritually dead in sin and has now been raised to the essentially supernatural life of grace.”[10]

“The justification of the ungodly is something greater than the creation of heaven and earth, greater even than the creation of the angels.”[11]

We see this also in the Catechism:

1994 Justification is the most excellent work of God’s love made manifest in Christ Jesus and granted by the Holy Spirit. It is the opinion of St. Augustine that “the justification of the wicked is a greater work than the creation of heaven and earth,” because “heaven and earth will pass away but the salvation and justification of the elect … will not pass away.”[12] He holds also that the justification of sinners surpasses the creation of the angels in justice, in that it bears witness to a greater mercy. (312, 412)

Sources

• The Gospel of John (Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture)
• Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings Cycle A
• St. John’s Gospel: A Bible Study Guide and Commentary for Individuals and Groups: Ray, Stephen K.
• Catholic Productions, Commentaries by Brant Pitre
  The Word of the Lord: Reflections on the Sunday Mass Readings for Year A – John Bergsma
• Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

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1. Francis Martin, William M. Wright IV, The Gospel of John (Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture)  ↩
2. Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings Cycle A, 5th Sunday of Easter  ↩
3. St. John’s Gospel: A Bible Study Guide and Commentary for Individuals and Groups. Steve Ray, 2002  ↩
4. Catholic Productions, Brant Pitre, Cycle A, 5th Sunday of Easter  ↩
5. The Word of the Lord: Reflections on the Sunday Mass Readings for Year A, 5th Sunday of Easter, John Bergsma  ↩
6. Catholic Productions, Brant Pitre, Cycle A, 5th Sunday of Easter  ↩
7. ibid  ↩
8. St. Hilary of Poitiers, De Trinitate 7, 36  ↩
9. The Word of the Lord: Reflections on the Sunday Mass Readings for Year A, 5th Sunday of Easter, John Bergsma  ↩
10. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Conversions, 15.  ↩
11. St. Augustine, The City of God, Book IV, chapter 9.  ↩
12. St. Augustine, In Jo. ev. 72, 3: PL 35, 1823.  ↩