 |  |
John 14: 1 - 31.
A | 1. LET NOT YOUR HEART BE TROUBLED.--Ye believe.
B | 2-7. | I would have told you.
I go. I come again.
C | 8-14. The manifestation of the Father.
D | 15-20. | The other Comforter. Truth.
The world cannot receive.
C | 21-24. The manifestation of the Lord.
D | 25-27. | The other Comforter. Peace.
Not as the world giveth.
A | 27-28. LET NOT YOUR HEART BE TROUBLED.--Ye heard.
B | 28-31. | I go. I come again.
Now I have told you.
It is evident that the Lord is here ministering comfort to His own, who are to be left
behind in the world. He tells them that if He goes away He will come again, and that
during His absence the Holy Spirit will act as another Comforter. It is with this promise
that His gift and legacy of peace is closely associated.
The source of the disciples' anxiety is most evidently the opposition of the world,
which looms largely in these chapters. After referring to the world in a negative way in
John 14: 17, 19, 22 and 27, the record continues in verse 30: "The prince of this world
cometh and hath nothing in Me." After a blessed interlude, referring once more to the
believer's intimate nearness to the Lord, chapter 15: takes up the subject of the "world"
again, and this time speaks of its hatred:
"If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you . . . . . I have
chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you . . . . . he that hateth Me,
hateth My Father also . . . . . They hated Me without a cause" (John 15: 18, 19, 23, 25).
Summing up the opposition of the world on the one hand, and the comfort and
strength ready for the believer's every time of need, on the other, the Saviour says, in
verse 33:
"These things I have spoken unto you, that in Me ye might have peace. In the
world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world"
(John 16: 33).
"In the world" and "in Me"--these two phrases represent the two spheres of the
present life.
The victory is already ours, and the peace that follows victory is also ours. The prince
of this world has been judged, and we are more than conquerors through Him that loved
us. Truly we, and all of like precious faith, can say, "Peace--and at such a time!"
Let us now go back again to 14: 27 and observe the threefold description of this
peace that comforts and conquers.