Afterwords -- he comes to us
"I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." (John 14:18)
Οὐκ ἀφήσω ὑμᾶς ὀρφανούς, ἔρχομαι πρὸς ὑμᾶς.
August 26, 2023
Dear friends,
These tender words were spoken by Jesus to his disciples on the night of his arrest, just hours before his trials, scourging, and crucifixion. To "come" (ἔρχομαι, erchomai) is a common word in the Greek language, but as I read John chapter 14 I noticed the number of times Jesus spoke of his "coming" to them. He refers to three comings in relation to them...
1) His future glorious return, after preparing a place for them: "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." (14:3) He then prayed, "Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world." (17:24) This is a prominent subject throughout the New Testament -- the second advent of Jesus at the end of this age. He will come to us personally, visibly, in glory and power.
2) His resurrection appearances, where he physically came to them: "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live." (14:18-19) In this sense he came to all the disciples, to Thomas, and to those fishing on the sea of Galilee (John 20-21). He sought them out, he ate with them, and he showed them his hands and feet and side. He did not sit on a mountain somewhere waiting for them to find him.
3) His coming to his disciples by the indwelling Holy Spirit: "And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive..." (14:16) And, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him." (14:23) As J. I. Packer wrote, "The essence of the Holy Spirit's ministry, at this or any time in the Christian era, is to mediate the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ."
JESUS CAME. Taking the wider context of the gospel of John, we see the first mention of Christ's coming in chapter one, namely, his incarnation -- the "true light coming into the world" (John 1:9; 3:31). This is Jesus' first advent. Further, "He came to his own" (1:11), but his own people did not receive him. Although some people like Nicodemus sought Jesus out, in most cases it was Jesus taking the initiative to seek people. For example, he himself sought out the woman at the well (John 4), the invalid at the pool of Bethesda (John 5), and the man blind from birth (John 9).
HE COMES TO US. In the gospels, we see that it is Jesus who seeks and saves. None of us would seek or come to him apart from being supernaturally drawn by the Father: "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day." (6:44; cf 6:37, 65) Because of our fallen condition, we respond in the way Jesus described, "...you refuse to come to me that you may have life." (cf 5:40, 43) We either seek a god who is not the true God (17:3), or we seek God to further our own desires and agendas. Those who come to him (as he really is) come because they are called and drawn to Jesus by the Father.
DIVINE INITIATIVE. The Lord takes the initiative in our relationship with him. We would not come to him, unless he called us. He came into the world in his incarnation; he presents himself to us in the gospel proclamation; he came to indwell us by the Spirit when we believed; he is with us and in us now; and he will physically come at the end to bring us safely home to be with him forever. He never leaves us as orphans: "I will come to you."
How beautiful and kind this is! Even though he is God, he stoops to seek us and to come to us. The Creator comes down to the creature! Jesus is the bread "that comes down from heaven" (6:50). Should we not then, in loving response, come to him -- and keep coming to him -- in trust and friendship? He invites us: "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst." (6:35; cf 7:37)
READING AND WRITING.
-- I've begun reading The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, by David Grann (Doubleday, 2023). Excerpt: "To 'turn a blind eye' became a popular expression after Vice-Admiral Nelson deliberately placed his telescope against his blind eye to ignore his superior’s signal flag to retreat."
-- Ongoing reading: To Be Near Unto God, by Abraham Kuyper; and A Merciful and Faithful High Priest, by Martyn Lloyd-Jones.
-- I've been posting my Bible reading guides from 2020-21 as downloadable PDFs. Just added: Joshua.
-- Also, I gathered all my Afterwords newsletters of 2022 into one PDF file here.
ARTICLES OF NOTE
-- "In previous ages, wisdom and virtue led to conforming the soul to reality in pursuit of becoming truly human." Read "What Does C. S. Lewis’s ‘The Abolition of Man’ Have to Say After 80 Years?"
-- "...nothing perhaps indicates the change of Western culture more than the replacement of the seriously religious by the merely entertaining." (Carl Trueman)
-- Ten reasons to believe in a historical Adam.
-- On Abraham Kuyper and the L.A. Dodgers.
-- Here's a cool map, showcasing the amazing spectacle of bird migration.
THANKSGIVING AND PRAYER. I'm thankful for the ministry of the Gideons International, handing out Scriptures around the world since 1908. I've personally known many men and women involved in that ministry, and their work, often unseen, bears lasting fruit. Last week, over 5,000 New Testaments were handed out by local Gideons to the students at Virginia Tech on the first day of class. Please pray that many students would begin reading God's word and would also be drawn to the Christian gatherings around campus.
FINAL QUOTE. "And, therefore, if we are to have a saving sacrifice that will really save us, we must have a saving sacrifice of one who was God. Otherwise we could never know that we knew God. If the Lord Jesus is not God, we have no Revelation of God. What other Revelation could we have, if God has not come down here in our midst?" (Dr. S. Lewis Johnson, on Revelation 19)
That's it for this week!
Sandy
Image credit: photo above by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.