Summary, part 2 of 5 – John, Chapter 14

There are 31 verses in John 14, and each one of them is worthy of our attention. That’s why I wrote so extensively about them. Picking a favorite is like picking your favorite child. It just can’t be done. They are each special in their own way.

However; because I had to, I did pick out some favorites. I only hope the other verses don’t feel slighted, certainly none was intended. Nine verses made the “hit parade,” and here they are …

John 14:1 Do not let your heart be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in Me. Who else are you going to trust? Yourself? Some friend? To trust God means to count on Him (in Hebrew, “Betach”). God tells us to trust Him because He is trustworthy. He cannot lie. All of creation is dependent on God speaking truth. After all, He spoke the world into existence.

John 14:6 Yeshua said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life! No one comes to the Father except through Me. Thomas had asked in verse 5, “How can we know the way?” Yeshua answers, “I am the way.” The “way” is how the early believers were known, as “keepers of the way.” “The way” is idiomatic in Hebrew for “the way of walking” or “Halacha.” The rabbis want us to turn to Talmud for the way. Yeshua wants us to turn to Him.

John 14:12 Amen, amen I tell you, he who puts his trust in Me, the works that I do he will do; and greater than these he will do, because I am going to the Father. There is the trust factor again. By faith we trust. The promise is to do the greater works. This is Yeshua’s promise to us.

John 14:15 If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. I just couldn’t leave this essential verse out. You might ask Yeshua, which ones shall I keep? His answer … all of them.

John 14:18 I will not abandon you as orphans; I will come to you. This is confirmed as God spoke to Moshe, Deuteronomy 31:6 Chazak! Be courageous! Do not be afraid or tremble before them. For Adonai your God – He is the One who goes with you. He will not fail you or abandon you. But you say, “That was Moshe, and I’m me. Then why is this in the Scriptures? 1 Corinthians 10:1-2 For I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers and sisters, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea.They all were immersed into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.

John 14:20 In that day, you will know that I am in My Father, you are in Me, and I am in you. Again, I just couldn’t leave this one out. It is quintessential. Yeshua is in everything.

John 14:21 He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me. He who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and reveal Myself to him. This is perhaps the best summary of the entire chapter. This verse is the apex, or highest point. Everything builds up to this and what follows it points back to it.

John 14:27 Shalom I leave you, My shalom I give to you; but not as the world gives! Do not let your heart be troubled or afraid. Pray this with me. “Why should I be afraid? I have been given the shalom of God.”

John 14:31 But in order that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. “Get up, let’s go from here!” Yeshua’s submission is His crown of glory. Here He is submitting to be crucified. He could have resisted, but He submitted to the will of the Father. Philippians 2:5 Have this attitude in yourselves, which also was in Messiah Yeshua, … 7a But He emptied Himself … 8a He humbled Himself.

So ends the chapter. The entire chapter is so dense with both the teaching and passion of Yeshua. I just enjoyed it all over again. I hope you did too.