John 14:5,6

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Spirituality 27 Jan '18 08:34
  1. R
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    "Thomas said to Him, Lord, we do not know where You are going; how can we know the way?

    Jesus said to him, I am the way and the reality and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Me."


    Some readers I hope will be helped to understand this passages in this thread. The meaning is so profound though it is impossible to exhaust all expounding on them IMO.

    First, the context is Jesus about to DIE and RESURRECT. But this might not be readily grasped by new students of the Bible.

    I'll show why below.
  2. R
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    27 Jan '18 08:443 edits
    John 14's whole discussion concerns Jesus going to DIE and RESURRECT from the dead to accomplish redeeming sinners and indwelling them for the purpose of building a living house where God lives in man.

    "Do not let your heart be troubled; believe into God, believe also into Me." (v.1)


    Belief in the man Jesus Christ is put on par with believing in God Himself because of the incarnation. God became a man. The Son of God is God incarnated to be like us created human beings.

    But I intend to prove the first sentence of this post.

    So how?

    "In My Father's house are many abodes, if it were not so I would have told you; For I go to prepare a place for you. (v.2)

    And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again and will receive you to Myself, so that where I am you also may be. " (v.3)


    Jesus was wonderful, marvelous, and incredible to the eyes of His disciples. Jesus was saying in essence -

    "If I was the only one who can enjoy this oneness with God and there was no way that YOU TOO could experience this marvel, I would have TOLD you from the beginning."

    If ONLY Jesus could be a man in union with His Father, and none of us other human beings could partake of that enjoyment, He would have informed us of this up front.

    Only He can accomplish redemption. But not only He can be in union and mingling with God. He goes to prepare a way for us to enter into the same union with God that He enjoys.
  3. R
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    27 Jan '18 08:521 edit
    "In My Father's house are many abodes, if it were not so I would have told you; For I go to prepare a place for you. (v.2)

    And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again and will receive you to Myself, so that where I am you also may be. " (v.3)


    Jesus was saying that in the house of His Father there is not only ONE abode. But there are MANY abodes.

    In the eternal purpose of God to build a dwelling place where God lives in man, He intends to indwell billions or more - anyway - "many abodes".

    The ONE abode - Jesus the Godman, wants the disciples to know that His Father intends that His [the Father's house] is to be of many abodes - a corporate dwelling place.

    This will be accomplished by Jesus GOING to the cross to die to prepare a place for the many redeemed, forgiven, and regenerated people to become collectively also abodes in which God lives.

    This is profound.

    He will go and prepare a way for man to get into God and for God to get into man. This He speaks of receiving them to Himself that where He IS they also may be.

    Of course this implies that He has to be LIVING. IF He is no more - dead, He will not be able to RECEIVE them to be where He is.

    " ... if it were not so I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.

    And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again and will receive you to Myself, so that where I am you also may be." (vs. 2b,3)
  4. R
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    27 Jan '18 08:56
    Jesus is a man mingled with God.
    If no other man or woman could be mingled with God, He would have told us so.

    There is a way that others can be mingled with God if He goes to His cross to die for us, redeem us, cleanse us from sin, and come again in resurrection to receive us TO Himself in His resurrection form -

    That where He IS - in union with His Father - in God, WE ALSO may be - in union with His Father in God as many sons of God, as many abodes like the ONE unique abode of Jesus.
  5. R
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    27 Jan '18 09:042 edits
    Christianity has usually misunderstood John 14:2,3 to mean something like this:

    Jesus is going to Heaven to prepare mansions, luxurious large mansions for everyone. And they think for two thousand years Jesus has been there in Heaven preparing curtains, rugs, windows, and all the things that make beautiful physical mansions. Then He will come a second time and bring His saved people to their mansions in heaven.

    This is a natural religious thought and not the revelation of the Bible.

    "I've got a mansion, just over the hill top" is a popular song among some Christians.

    "In bright mansion above" was also a Negro spiritual. about one day going to heaven from the slave master's mansion to the Christian slave's mansion in heaven.

    While these songs have been comforting and sometimes sustained people in great suffering and sorrow, they were still short of the real revelation of John 14.

    The "many abodes" of the "Father's house" are the many redeemed sinners made living dwelling places of God even as Jesus Christ was the model, prototype man indwelt by God.

    " ... so that where I am you also may be."


    That is IN the Father and the Father in Him.

    In the eternal plan of God there are to be "many abodes".
  6. R
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    27 Jan '18 09:121 edit
    "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again and will receive you to Myself, so that where I am you also may be." (vs. 2b,3)


    This is not about Jesus going to Heaven to fix up mansions.

    This is about Jesus going to Calvary to die on His cross to prepare a way, so that excluded sinners, because of their sin and deadness, may be redeemed and enlivened to be united with God.

    He went to the cross to accomplish redemption.
    He rose again in resurrection to receive those who believe into Him as God incarnate - to Himself.

    All this for the expansion of the Father's house.
    All this for the building of the Father's house.
    All this for the building of God into man and man into God for the accomplishing of the eternal purpose of God.
  7. R
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    27 Jan '18 09:251 edit
    The "place" to which Jesus is going is a living Person.
    He is going to the Father.

    The "way" to the "place" is likewise a living Person - Jesus Himself.

    "I am the way ... no one comes to the Father except through Me."


    On one hand, Jesus going to Calvary to die was Him going to a terrible fate of execution. But on a higher plane Jesus considered this as going to the Father. For He was absolute always for the will of His Father.

    He goes to prepare the way for those who believe into Him to also enter into the Father the living "place".

    Thomas like most of us was filled with a natural and unenlightened concept, and asks:

    " ... Lord, we do not know where You are going; how can we know the way? " (v.5)


    The "place" He is going is to the Father in abject and absolute obedience to the Father's will that He die to save us. He Himself is the WAY to that "place". And no one can come to that living Person as a living place except through Him.

    "I am the way and the reality and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." (v.6)
  8. The Ghost Chamber
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    27 Jan '18 13:17
    Originally posted by @sonship
    John 14's whole discussion concerns Jesus going to DIE and RESURRECT from the dead to accomplish redeeming sinners and indwelling them for the purpose of building a living house where God lives in man.

    [b] "Do not let your heart be troubled; believe into God, believe also into Me." (v.1)


    Belief in the man Jesus Christ is put on ...[text shortened]... with God. He goes to prepare a way for us to enter into the same union with God that He enjoys.[/b]
    "Do not let your heart be troubled; believe into God, believe also into Me." (v.1)


    'Belief in the man Jesus Christ is put on par with believing in God Himself because of the incarnation...'


    I'm not convinced that is the case. Sounds more like Jesus is 'additional' (secondary) to God. Of primary importance is 'belief in God.' We are instructed to 'also' believe in Jesus, which doesn't seem to put him on par with God as you claim.
  9. R
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    27 Jan '18 13:392 edits
    Originally posted by @ghost-of-a-duke
    "Do not let your heart be troubled; believe into God, believe also into Me." (v.1)


    'Belief in the man Jesus Christ is put on par with believing in God Himself because of the incarnation...'


    I'm not convinced that is the case. Sounds more like Jesus is 'additional' (secondary) to God. Of primary importance is 'belief in God.' We are instructed to 'also' believe in Jesus, which doesn't seem to put him on par with God as you claim.
    You are going to find that my replies ( if I have one ) will be fiercely focused on the topic.

    You might well take "believe also into Me" as a conduit leading to God His Father. He does say He is the way.

    I don't know about the sense of "secondary" based on too much of the rest of the same Gospel.

    The Word with God WAS God (John 1:1) .

    All must honor the Son even as they honor the Father (John 5:23) .

    Not to honor the Son is not to honor the Father Who sent Him.

    " ... He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him." (John 5:23b)
  10. R
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    27 Jan '18 13:431 edit
    That Jesus presents Himself as a channel, a course, a road or way to the Father I can see in 14:1.
    The evangelist John makes sure that we understand that Jesus was Lord and God. In His resurrection appearance to the doubting Thomas:

    " Then He said to Thomas, Bring your finger here and see My hands, and bring your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving but believing.

    Thomas answered and said to Him, My Lord and my God.

    Jesus said to him, Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed." (John 21:27-29)


    Jesus did not adjust or correct Thomas for confessing that the risen Jesus was "Lord" and ... God".

    " ... Believe into God, believe also into Me." (14:1b)
  11. R
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    27 Jan '18 13:572 edits
    What about more on the Father's house.

    "In My Father's house are many abodes ..." (v.2)


    According to John 2:16,21 "My Father's house" refers to the temple of Christ's body. The body He acquired in incarnation was His Father's house.

    John 2:16,21:
    "And to those who were selling the doves He said, Take these things away from here; do not make My Father's house a house of merchandise."


    Here His "Father's house" is firstly the temple of God in Jerusalem. Ultimately though, the Father's house is His own body. In other words that temple of God is not as real as the house of God as the very man who is God incarnate - Jesus.

    "Jesus answered and said to them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

    Then the Jews said, This temple was built in forty-six years, and You will raise it up in three days?

    But He spoke of the temple of His body. " (vs. 19-21)


    Jesus taught that the house of His Father was His body. His body would be killed and in three days He would raise it up.

    When He raises it up in resurrection the temple of His body becomes also the mystical Body of Christ in which those redeemed by His death becomes likewise "many abodes" in His Father's house.
  12. R
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    27 Jan '18 14:03
    God lived in a Man - the Lord Jesus Christ. When He was executed He also bore the sins of the world in His body and was judged by the divine wrath of God.

    In three days He raised up that body and it became the mystical Body of Christ, the expansion and enlargement of the house of His Father.

    In resurrection the many became the many abodes in Him. The Father's house's many abodes begin to be inhabited by the redeemed believers in Christ.

    "When therefore He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken." (John 2:22)


    That is that His physical body was the Father's house, the temple of God. He rose from the dead and brought His saved people into Himself and He into them for the building of the expanded Father's house, now of "many abodes".
  13. R
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    27 Jan '18 14:12
    I love this verse about He goes to prepare a place for us.

    Men and women are really without a place. They are alienated and alone in the world. They are unaware of their real place and where they really belong.

    Many times a person may feel like this world is not really the place where they are at home. The emptiness persists deep within even in the midst of worldly fun and entertainment. Some feel sadest at the moment when they should be feeling happy.

    Jesus said He goes to prepare a place - a place in God - a place in a living Person of His Father. He prepared a place for us.

    "In My Father house are many abodes, if it were not so, I would have told you, for I go and prepare a place for you," (v.2)


    We are born into this world alienated from God and have really no home. Jesus went to the cross and rose in resurrection preparing a place for us in God.
  14. Joined
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    27 Jan '18 14:573 edits
    Originally posted by @sonship
    Jesus said to him, I am the way and the reality and the life....
    Try using a different translation of the bible, other than the one that is biased towards your own beliefs, and many of the doctrinal knots will naturally drop out of your strange rope.

    Edit: and if you insist on using this one it would be good form for you to cite the version as you have been requested to do many times before.

    #onlinerecoveryversion
  15. The Ghost Chamber
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    27 Jan '18 15:03
    Originally posted by @sonship
    You are going to find that my replies ( if I have one ) will be fiercely focused on the topic.

    You might well take [b]"believe also into Me"
    as a conduit leading to God His Father. He does say He is the way.

    I don't know about the sense of "secondary" based on too much of the rest of the same Gospel.

    The Word with God WAS God (John 1:1) ...[text shortened]... e who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him." (John 5:23b) [/quote][/b]
    Yes, i'm aware you prefer preaching rather than replying.


    'The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being.' (Hebrews 1:3)

    Jesus, Sonship, is the 'exact representation' of his being, God's representative!!! Or if you prefer:

    '“don’t call me good, none are good, only God.”
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