Search
Scripture Reading: John 14:2-3, 6, 10, 16-20, 23; 15:4-5; 16:13-15; 17:1-2, 12, 14, 17-18, 20-24
The Gospel of John is the fulfillment of the tabernacle as a type. In the opening chapter it tells us that the Word of God came to be the tabernacle. The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. The tabernacle is even the subject and focus of this Gospel. Such a One was full of grace and truth, or reality.
In the first chapter there is also the altar. We can say this based upon verse 29, which says, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” Where did the Lamb of God take away the sin of the world? We know that this was on the cross. That is the altar.
In the following cases, from chapter 2 through chapter 12, there are all the offerings. In chapter 3 with the case of Nicodemus, there is the sin offering. In chapter 4 with the case of the Samaritan woman, there is the trespass offering. In chapters 6 and 7 there are the burnt offering and the meal offering. In chapter 12 there is the love feast, the feast of the peace offering. Those disciples and the Lord Jesus, who were together in that house enjoying the feast, were enjoying the peace offering.
It might seem that these dear ones were ready to enter into the tabernacle. They had enjoyed the sin offering, the trespass offering, the burnt offering, the meal offering, and the peace offering. It seems that they were ready and qualified to enter into the tabernacle. Yet according to the typology in the Old Testament, before entering into the tabernacle, you need the washing. You need to go to the laver. This is why in chapter 13 there is the washing of feet. This is the laver. After all the offerings are covered in the first twelve chapters, there is a laver in chapter 13. At first Peter rejected the foot-washing, but once he understood, he told the Lord to wash his hands and his head (v. 9). But the Lord told him, “He who is bathed has no need except to wash his feet, but is wholly clean” (v. 10). This is the function of the laver. According to Exodus 30:17-21, the laver is for washing the hands and the feet to prepare you to enter into the tabernacle.
After John 13 covers the matter of the washing of the feet, the Lord Jesus began His most mysterious speech, composed of three chapters. He opened by telling His disciples: “In My Father’s house are many abodes” (14:2). You have to realize that “My Father’s house” is just the tabernacle. You have to forget about your traditional inheritance that told you “My Father’s house” is a big heavenly mansion. This term My Father’s house is used twice in the Gospel of John, once in chapter 2 and once in chapter 14. In 2:16 it is so clear that My Father’s house refers to the temple of God. It should also be the same in chapter 14. How could the same term by the same writer in the same book after twelve chapters change in its meaning? The change was not with the writer but with all the traditional teachers. They have taught the Bible according to their traditional concept, not according to the Word itself.
Even I myself was not so clear about this portion of the Word until 1958. While I was staying in an honorable guest house in London, I was considering John 14, and the light came. By going back to chapter 2 you can be clear that the Father’s house is the temple. In chapter 2 the Lord Jesus told the Jews that if they destroyed this temple, He would raise it up in three days. He was, of course, referring to His physical body, which was the tabernacle and the temple of God, even the Father’s house. They would destroy this temple by crucifying Him on the cross. Yet in three days He would be raised up again. The raised-up house of the Father becomes the corporate Christ. The raised-up house becomes Christ and all His believers as His members. So in the Epistles we are told that the church is the house of God (1 Tim. 3:15), and we are told that the church corporately is the temple (Eph. 2:21).
Chapters 14, 15, and 16 of John are very mysterious. In these chapters the Lord Jesus disclosed a mystery to us: the Triune God wants to be our dwelling place. He wants to be our home, our tabernacle, that we may enter into Him and abide in Him and even dwell in Him. This is the first point. Second, after we enter into Him, making Him our home, spontaneously we also become His home. First, we enter into Him and abide in Him, and then He enters into us and abides in us. So we have a mutual abiding. This mutual abiding is clearly described in chapter 15. In verse 4 the Lord Jesus said, “Abide in Me and I in you.”
In John 17:21 there is also the concept of the mutual abiding: “That they all may be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us.” In this verse it is really hard to tell who is in whom. But you have to realize that chapters 14, 15, and 16 plus the one chapter for the prayer, chapter 17, are on the Triune God being our home so that we may become His home. There is a mutual abiding. This mutual abiding produces a mutual abode.
This word, abode, is used twice in chapter 14, once in the plural number and once in the singular number. Verse 2 says, “In My Father’s house are many abodes.” Verse 23 says, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him.” In verse 23 abode is used in the singular number, so this means a mutual abode for the mutual abiding.
For a long time I understood the word abide according to the modern connotation, which mainly means “to remain.” At the time that the King James Version of the Bible was translated, the word mansion did equal the word abode. A mansion simply meant a dwelling place. That equaled the word abode in Greek. But today when people read the King James Version, they understand the word mansion according to the modern connotation.
In chapter 15 to abide is not just to remain but to dwell. To abide in Me means to dwell in Me. This thought of dwelling and an abode is throughout chapters 14, 15, and 16. Who is this dwelling place? It is the Triune God! This is too mysterious! It would take us many days to get into it. But by looking at some of the crucial verses, we can realize that this mysterious message given by the Lord has a basic thought, that the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — wants to be our dwelling place that we may enter into and dwell in so that He may also dwell in us. Eventually, we who are dwelling in the Triune God will spontaneously become His dwelling place. Eventually, we dwell in Him, and He dwells in us. There is a mutual dwelling. This is not a simple matter. How could one person enter into another person, and how could the second enter into the first? It is impossible. So there is the need of the matter of life.
In 14:2 and 3 the Lord Jesus said, “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. 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.” These few verses have been misinterpreted by most Christians. They consider that the Lord Jesus went to the heavens after His resurrection to prepare a big mansion for them. I was taught this when I was young, but I had a question: Could this be the Lord’s salvation? Could the Lord’s salvation be that He died on the cross for our sins and that He was resurrected and that He ascended to the heavens and is now building a big mansion? As I mentioned before, it was not until 1958 when I was in London that the light came. No! this kind of interpretation is just religious. It is just traditional. Even it is like Buddhism, which teaches that there is a kind of Western heaven.
We all must see that to prepare a place means to die for our sins, to terminate our flesh, our natural life, and our old creation, and to defeat the serpent and his serpentine nature within our being. This is to prepare the place.
In chapter 14, when the Lord Jesus spoke of His coming back, He was not referring to His coming back the second time at the end of the age. He was referring to His coming back right after His resurrection. And He did come back. We know that on the day of His resurrection, early in the morning, He went to the Father secretly, and in the evening He came back to visit the disciples. At that time He breathed into them and told them to receive the Holy Pneuma, the Holy Breath, that is, the Holy Spirit (20:22). That was His coming back. He came back in another form.
When He was incarnated, He came in the flesh. But after resurrection He came back, not in the flesh, but in the form of breath, in the form of the Pneuma. He came back in the form of the Spirit, and by being the Spirit, He got into the disciples. This was His coming back. In 14:16 the Lord indicated that He would ask the Father to give them another Comforter. Then in verse 18 He indicated that the other Comforter was just Himself. In verse 16 He used the pronoun He, but in verse 18 the He is changed to I. This proves that the other Comforter, the Spirit of reality who would come, is none other than Himself. This time He came as the Spirit, not to dwell among them but to dwell within them forever. Since He came this time, He has never left His church.
In chapter 15 He went on to tell His disciples that they should abide in Him and that He would abide in them. They should make Him their home, and He would make them His home. This is a mutual abiding, a mutual home. You are His home, and He is your home. You take Him as your home, and He takes you as His home.
I believe we can all testify according to our daily experiences that we have the realization that we are in the Lord and that the Lord is in us. Many times I have had this kind of sensation. Sometimes when I was on an airplane, I realized that I was not just on the plane; I was in Christ. While I was in Christ, He was in me. This kind of sensation comes spontaneously after you offer Christ as your sin offering and your trespass offering. Spontaneously, you would sense that you are in Him and that He is in you. Eventually, you realize that Christ is not only your sin offering and your trespass offering but also your abiding place. He becomes your abode. When you realize that He is your abode, you also realize that you are His abode. There is a kind of mutual abiding.
Then in chapter 16 the Lord Jesus went on to say, “All that the Father has is Mine; for this reason I have said that He receives of Mine and will declare it to you” (v. 15). This means that whatever the Father has is embodied in the Son. Whatever the Son is, is realized through the Spirit. And whatever the Spirit is, is in us. This means that the Son is the embodiment of the Father, the Spirit is the realization of the Son, and we are the expression of the Triune God. The Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — is in us, and we are His abode.
Chapter 14 tells us that there are many abodes and one Father’s house. This means that you and I can enter in and abide there. In chapter 14 the Lord also told us that He is the way. But this way is a life. This is why He is the way, and He is the life. If the Lord Jesus is not your life, you do not have a way to enter into God the Father. The way for you to enter into God the Father is the Lord Jesus as your life. When you have the life, you have the way. This is mysterious.
We can illustrate this by the food you eat. All the food and the nourishment that you eat does not enter into you as lifeless matter. If you eat a small rock, it simply passes through you without giving any nourishment. Nourishment is something of life. It is something that can enter into your cells and even into your fibers. Once you take food in, it is digested and assimilated into your blood and into your cells and even into your fibers. Eventually, what has been assimilated by you becomes you. If you eat a lot of fish, you become a composition of fish, or a constitution of fish. This is how we can say that the Triune God becomes us. You are what you eat.
So in chapter 14 you have the abode, and you have the way to enter in. The abode is the Triune God, and the way to enter in is life. If you do not have Christ as the life, you could never enter into the Father. But when you take Christ as your life, this life becomes the way for you to enter into the Father. So the Father becomes your abode, and eventually in chapter 15 there is the mutual abiding with the mutual abode.
After these three chapters we come to chapter 17, where the Lord Jesus prayed. Before we get into His prayer, I must point out that in chapter 17 there is the incense altar. In chapters 14, 15, and 16 there is the actual tabernacle, which 1:14 mentions: “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.” But where is this tabernacle? It is in chapters 14, 15, and 16. The laver is in chapter 13, and following this are three chapters that are a full description and a full portrait of the tabernacle. Now we are in the Triune God, which means that we are in the tabernacle. We have passed by the table of the bread of the Presence, the lampstand, and the Ark. Now we have arrived at our destination. Our destination within the tabernacle is the incense altar.
In chapter 17 the Lord Jesus is at the incense altar. Here He offered a prayer. This prayer may be considered as a model prayer, and it is the focus of the Lord’s intercession. Many Christians talk about the Lord’s intercession. They say that He can save us to the uttermost because He is interceding for us. But not many have ever pointed out the focal point of the Lord’s intercession. It is not for you to have a better car or a better job or a bigger house. Listen to His prayer: “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify You; even as You have given Him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom You have given Him” (vv. 1-2). Do you understand this kind of word? It is mysterious. He is giving you eternal life. When I was young, I was told that eternal life simply means that we Christians will go to the heavens and enjoy a lot of blessings there, which will last forever. They did not use the term eternal life; they used everlasting life. This is altogether too natural. Eternal life is just God Himself as the divine life to us.
He was given “authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom You have given Him” (v. 2). What a blessing it is to know that the Father has given all of us, the entire church, as a gift to the Son! The Father has given all the chosen ones as a gift to the Son so that the Son may give the Father’s life to them.
Following this, the Son has also given the holy Word, the truth. This holy Word sanctifies. You have the eternal life, yet you still need to be separated from the world. You need to be sanctified with all the reality that is conveyed in the holy Word. Many Christians think that the Bible gives only teachings. When they read the Bible, they pick up the teachings in their mentality. They do not realize that the holy Word conveys the reality of the divine person. When we read the Bible, all the reality should saturate our being. The Bible does contain teachings and doctrines, but the teachings and doctrines convey the riches of God’s person. This is why the Bible tells us that we should not only read the Word but also eat the Word (Jer. 15:16). To read the menu is one thing, and to eat the food is another. The menu could never saturate you, but the food can.
When the Lord gives us eternal life, we have the Father’s life. Now the Word saturates us with the Father’s nature. This is sanctification. We may use “teaification” as an illustration. If you put a tea bag into a glass of plain water, it will “teaify” the water. This means that the essence and the nature of the tea will saturate the water. After a few minutes the water will be teaified. This is a picture of sanctification. The word of the Bible is like the tea bag. You need to put the heavenly tea bag in your glass and keep it there all day long so that the essential element of the “tea” will saturate your entire being. This will even change your nature. First, the Son gives us the eternal life, and second, He gives us the sanctifying Word. The Word of God is truth that sanctifies us.
This is not all. Eventually, the Son also gives us the glory of the Father. This also is mysterious. What is the glory? The glory is just the expression of God. Electricity in a room is glorified by its expression through the light bulbs. The Son has given us the glory of God the Father so that we can express God. How marvelous!
Suppose three brothers have been chosen by God the Father and given to the Son. The Son has given the Father’s divine life, the eternal life, to all three of them. All three have the divine life, but one likes to go to the beach to play in the water, another likes to go to the mountains to play in the snow, and another likes to go to the theater. All are one in the divine life, but eventually they are divided by the world, even though all three love the Word to some extent. Day after day they pick up the sanctifying Word. Eventually, the first would no longer go to the beach, the second would no longer go to the mountains, and the third would no more go to the theater. Spontaneously, they would no longer be divided. First, they had the oneness in the divine life. Second, they had the oneness in the divine nature through the sanctifying Word.
But still there may be some problems. One of the brothers likes to make a show of how much he knows spiritual things. The other likes to control things, and the third thinks he is so smart and able to give the best advice. In life they are one, in the sanctifying nature they are one, but in the intention, in the goal, or in other words, in the expression, they are not one. But one day the Lord shows them the glory of the Father. He shows them that the church life is not to express how much they know, nor some kind of authority, nor anything else. The church life is just to express the very God. So all three give up their goals and their intentions to have one goal, to express the very God. Then the three are really one — one in life, one in nature, and one in the glory, that is, in the expression. What is this? This is the Son glorified. The Son is glorified in this kind of oneness.
The oneness in John 17 has three aspects. The first aspect is to take the Father’s divine life as the factor. The second aspect is to take the Father’s nature through the sanctifying Word as the factor. The third aspect is to take the Father’s glory as the factor. By this the Son is glorified, and as the Son is glorified, the Father is glorified in the Son’s glorification.
In John 17:24 the Lord prayed, “Father, concerning that which You have given Me, I desire that they also may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory, which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” What does the phrase where I am mean? Where is the Lord? The Lord is in a situation that glorifies the Father all the time, and He wants us to be there. He wants to bring us all into this kind of glorifying situation, to glorify the Son so that the Son may glorify the Father. This is the intercession at the incense altar.
We all need to see this. This is the ultimate result of enjoying Christ as all the offerings. When we enjoy Christ as the sin offering, as the trespass offering, as the burnt offering, as the meal offering, and as the peace offering, we enter into the Triune God as our tabernacle. Then we will arrive at the incense altar where we will be one with Christ to pray the kind of prayer that is recorded in John 17. We will pray that the Father will glorify the Son and that He would be glorified in the Son. We will pray that all His believers may realize that He has given the divine life, the sanctifying Word, and the Father’s glory to them so that they all may be one in the Triune God to express Him. Then all the members of Christ will have a threefold oneness, and this is the proper church life. This proper church life is surely in the Triune God. It is by such a church life in this threefold oneness that the Son is glorified so that the Father might be glorified in the glorification of the Son. This is the result of enjoying Christ as all the offerings.
Eventually, you do have a glorious consummation here. The believers are now in the Triune God, and the Triune God is now becoming the believers’ expression. So the believers and the Triune God, the Triune God and the believers, are all one. This is the living testimony of the Triune God even today on this earth. In eternity we will see this in full. This will transpire all the way by our enjoying Christ as our trespass offering and sin offering. This will lead us into the enjoyment of Christ as the burnt offering, as the meal offering, and as the peace offering.
This will usher us all into the practical tabernacle, the Triune God, where we will have a mutual abode. Then we will arrive at the incense altar where we, as the Body of Christ, pray with Christ for God’s eternal purpose, that the Triune God would be wrought into the believers and that the believers would be one in God and one with one another in God to be His glorification.
All these matters should be brought into the meetings. How high this kind of meeting would be! We need to have this kind of meeting. This is the way to meet. The way to meet is to enjoy Christ as the initial offerings: the sin offering and the trespass offering. Then we enter into the full enjoyment of Christ, and we will be ushered into the tabernacle. There we will be one with the Triune God and with one another in the Triune God. We will be the church as a living testimony of the Triune God. Then the Lord’s prayer in John 17 will be fulfilled. May the Lord have much grace upon us, and may He grace us with all that we need so that we could be ushered into such a condition that where He is, there we also will be with Him to glorify the Triune God.
