John 14:8-17: If Not Jesus, How Much More Not The Spirit

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. - John 14:8-17

"The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you." 

Wouldn't it be nice if when people saw us that we were indistinguishable from Jesus? 

Philip asks "Show us the Father and that will be enough for us." And Jesus reponds by saying, in essence, "Wouldn't it be nice if when people saw me, I was indistinguishable from the Father? If you have seen me, you have the seen the Father." When Jesus spoke and did things, he didn't do them on his own, but he was perfectly in line with what the Father would do. Jesus felt that this conclusion (that he and the Father were one) was a natural one what the disciples had seen over the previous 3 years.

And he says it can go even deeper, into the uncharted territory, when Jesus' disciples were left on their own with only the his teaching and the Spirit as guides. Not only would they be doing the same things Jesus would do, but in fact, they would exceed him. That's pretty hard to imagine, doing better than Jesus. But let's look at one way this was clearly true in the next generation after Jesus died: Jesus spent his entire ministry in Israel but soon after his disciples would represent Jesus to the entire Roman empire, exceeding what Jesus did.

But there is still another level of faith. Jesus comments that the Spirit is coming. No one would be able to see or hear the Spirit (see John 3) except those who were Jesus' disciples. So if Philip had trouble "seeing" the Father, how much more trouble would he have with seeing the Spirit. That's not what happened, though. We can see the book of Acts (Acts 8) that Philip was listening to God's message ("Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip")” and when his job was done, the Spirit moved him on ("the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away").

 How does this work? Jesus spelled it out: "f you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth." We keep God's commands and he directs the Spirit to stay with us.  We have to trust that the Spirit is there and pay attention to his guidance. Otherwise we will be like Philip, still asking Jesus to "show us the Father" when he has already given us the Spirit right inside us.  

Genesis 11:1-9: His Kingdom, Not Ours

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth. - Genesis 11:1-9

 "...so that we may make a name for ourselves otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth" Babel was about empire building, the concetration of human power and potential in order to gain dominion over the world. The people decided to do this "so that we make But domnion was never meant to happen apart from God. According to these verses, the purpose for this tower was to maintain this power--this ability to do things and shape the world and there was a fear that if they they "were scattered over the face of the while early" they would lost this strength. God recognized this when he said, "nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them." It seems that they not only shared a language, but a similarity of understanding the world. 

The building of the city that reached into the sky required a division betweent the rich and the poor, some at the top making decisions and some at the bottom making bricks, just like when the people of Israel were in Egypt. That is, in this society without God and with clarity of purpose, there were unparalleled means to (a) do great things and (b) oppress systematically.

But one morning, they woke up and they couldn't understand each other. Language was broken. Mis-understanding reigned. This common language, common purpose, common identity and common understanding was gone. Some subset of the peole had a new language, purpose, identity and understanding. And they found it easier to live apart. 

Dominion without God wasn't a good thing. When God started bringing things back together in the book of Acts, the Holy Spirit reversed what happened at Babel. The Spirit changed diversity of language from a disadvangage to an adantage. Rather than removing language to prevent misunderstanding, God expanded understanding to encompass the variety of languages within his kingdom. God wants his kingdom to be built, not ours. When we fall into the trap of building our kingdom, then language reverts to its divisive, separating role. But when we build God's kingdom, the diversity of language, understanding and perspectives can be uniting and empowering.    

Acts 2:1-21: You Are Mine

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”

Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

“‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’  - Acts 2:2-21

"I will pour out my Spirit on all people" This passage always seems a bit chaotic to me--a bit out of control--because instead of just a few people getting the Spirit, all the people are getting the Spirit and instead of just a few people getting dreams, visions and prophecies, everyone seems to be getting some sort of direct revelation.  Everyone gets to see the miracles ("wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below") and everyone gets to be saved ("everyone who calls on the name of the Lord.") How do we handle it if the somebody becomes everybody?

It reminds me a little of Peter's letter where it says that "...you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light."  If everybody is "chosen", then nobody is chosen. If everybody is a priest (a special minister before God), then nobody is a priest. If everyone is God's special possession, then nobody is "special". 

Doesn't this seem like chaos? I can just imagine two believers in a room, both confidently asserting contradictory claims of the will of God. Imagine the 120 believers in the upper room when this happened. Imagine the 3,000 who would receive the Spirit in just this chapter. Everyone running around with the "word of God" and predictions about the future. It can be glorious. It can be exciting. It can be darned confusing. But the alternative: the boring, no visions, no Spirit life of a Christian kills or ignores God's supernatural role in our lives by calling it unreliable and subjective--with even cited examples of other badly behaved believers.

But God is going to be God. At Babel, he confused the languages of people in order to confound man's pride but now he bestows additional languages so that his praise and message can be heard.  Whereas a Babel, no one could talk to his neighbor, now each man could hear his neighbor clearly. Babel reversed. Gospel translated. 

This is not the case of "if everyone is chosen,  no one is chosen." False generalization. My kids don't say "if everyone is Tim and Helen's kid, then no one is Tim and Helen's kid." We never had a 4th kid, but if we did, they would instantly have the same status from us as their parent, because they are ours. God has reached out and said, "You are mine." That changed everything. 

Psalm 30: The Kingdom That Cannot Be Shaken

I will exalt you, Lord, for you lifted me out of the depths and did not let my enemies gloat over me. Lord my God, I called to you for help, and you healed me. You, Lord, brought me up from the realm of the dead; you spared me from going down to the pit.

Sing the praises of the Lord, you his faithful people; praise his holy name. For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.

When I felt secure, I said, “I will never be shaken.” Lord, when you favored me, you made my royal mountain stand firm; but when you hid your face, I was dismayed.

To you, Lord, I called; to the Lord I cried for mercy: “What is gained if I am silenced, if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise you? W ill it proclaim your faithfulness? Hear, Lord, and be merciful to me; Lord, be my help.”

You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent. Lord my God, I will praise you forever.  - Psalm 30

"When I felt secure, I said, 'I will never be shaken'...but when you hid your face, I was dismayed." Our sense of stability should come from God and not our circumstances. There are still tears. The psalmist talks about "weeping may stay for the night." and being in mourning when God "removed my sackcloth." He talks about waiting, "being in the depths" and fearing that his enemies having a chance to gloat over his weakness. But the one thing that he counts on is the solidity and immovability of God. If the relationship with God is good,  then the rest will be good. If that is not good, then nothing is good. 

As it says in Hebrews, "...but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our 'God is a consuming fire.'" (Heb 12:26b-29) God allows "shaking" and the years and the waiting because he wants us to see what is really solid. No relationship, no position, no bank account, no skill or talent lasts. That is scary in some ways because I want good things to continue. I don't want them to be taken away just for God to prove his point. But I think that sometimes we don't realize how much we aren't depending on God until those things are taken away--at least temporarily.  

What I get from this psalm is: fight the good fight, keep on fighting and rely on God's stable character .