WE will pursue our subject commenced on page 164, and make a few comments on the well-beloved chapter of John’s Gospel―the fourteenth.
We have still before us the guest chamber, with Jesus in the midst of His disciples. There is no longer any restraint upon the Lord. The betrayer has gone out into the darkness (“it was night”) and the eleven are all loyal to His love. Now the Lord was about to leave them for the Father’s presence, and He had many things in His heart to say to them, but their hearts were not suited to receive all His words. Hence He waited upon their heart needs, and left to the Comforter the unfolding of much that His heart desired to communicate.
The needs-be for a disciple in order to receive the words of Christ’s heart, is a heart attuned to His. But if the Lord had maintained His teaching, and had not waited upon the minds of His disciples, what a loss to us would have occurred We should be not only without their questions, and without the Lord’s answers, but we should be without the witness to His wisdom and tenderness which these answers contain.
The Lord found it necessary to tell His beloved Peter that he would deny Him before He fully unfolded His love to His disciples; and while sadness had fallen upon them all, He said, “Let not your heart be troubled,” and surely we may imagine that He read their countenances and their hearts as He so spoke.
Was it Thomas with his doubtful mind, or Philip, who had not entered into the meaning of His words, Jesus said alike to them all, “Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in Me.” He was about to leave them, and they would have His Words and not Himself close to them, and they were therefore to believe in Him.
The guest chamber was used as a parable for the home above. “In My Father’s house are many mansions,” but hitherto there had been no special place there for the children of men. Earth was garnished by God, and made the home for man, but sin had entered the world, and death by sin, and now the earth-home is broken up. But in that house of many mansions—that hallowed abode of God and holy angels—Jesus, the Son of God and Son of Man, would prepare a special place which should be verily home for His own “I go to prepare a place for you.”
The home of God’s children is now no longer on earth. Jerusalem is not our home: “Heaven is our fatherland, Heaven is our home.” Little children love to go to heaven, aged pilgrims rejoice in their home there, and the reason is, because Jesus has made heaven home to His own.
The manifestation of the joy of home is the presence of the one who makes home home to us. We are not, like a lower order of creatures, heart-wedded to a place; our hearts are in persons. The Lord said, “I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” He is the joy of heaven, and His presence will make heaven home to each and to all of His people.
The guest chamber offered another illustration. “Judas saith unto Him―not Iscariot―Lord, how is it that Thou wilt manifest Thyself unto us, and not unto the world?” The manifestation of Christ unto the world is future. He will come in power and great glory, and every eye shall see Him; how, then, will He manifest Himself in the day of His absence from the world to His own?
There are some who think it necessary to repair to a sacred dwelling in order to find Christ. But what does Jesus say? He looks on earth for a guest chamber suitable to Himself, so that He may dwell there. A shrine of gold and diamonds would not be excellent enough for Him. Ten thousand tapers would not give the brightness which He desires. Jesus looks for another kind of guest chamber on earth altogether. Let us heed His own words. “If a man love Me” ―the guest chamber is the human heart!― “If a man love Me, he will keep My words; and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him.” The heart of one of His friends, suited to His presence by obedience to His words, is the guest chamber on earth so pleasing to God the Father and God the Son that they come and make their abode there.
There is marvelous grace in the Lord. He makes heaven home to His own by His own presence, and He finds a dwelling-place on this earth, which cast Him out and crucified Him, wherever a heart is true to Him.