“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my  Father’s house  are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”—John 14:1-3.

After washing the disciples’ feet, and after the sop had been given to Judas and he had gone out; and after telling the disciples that they all would  be offended  that  night  because  of him, and answering Peter that he would deny him thrice before the cock crew, we may well suppose that the hearts of the eleven were heavy,  disturbed,  troubled  with  fearful  forebodings.  Had they indeed been deluded, or had they misunderstood the  Master when  he told them that  he was the Messiah, the heir of the kingdom, and that they should sit with him in his throne? How would they interpret his language, seeing that only five days before  he  had  received the hosannas of the multitude as the Son of David, the King of Israel, when riding on the ass? What would it mean that the Master was now “exceeding sorrowful” and spoke of betrayal,  and  of their dispersion and of his own death?

It was in answer to these their troubled thoughts that our Lord spoke to them the beautiful words of comfort and consolation recorded in the 14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th chapters of John’s Gospel, beginning: “Let not your hearts be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.”

The Apostles were already consecrated to God as his servants, they already believed in God, trusted in him, were Israelites indeed  without guile.  This is testified  further by our  Lord’s Prayer, in which he says, “Thine they were, and thou gavest them  me.”  The trouble  in their hearts was not in respect to the foundation of their hopes, for these were all established. They not only knew and trusted God, but knew and trusted also the promises of God respecting the kingdom and the blessings that should come to all the families of the  earth  through  it.  The whole question before their minds was respecting Jesus:—Was he indeed the Messiah, or had they built some false expectations upon his wonderful words and deeds? How should they understand it if now, after three and a half years of ministry he should die at the hands of his enemies, instead of establishing his kingdom and subduing all things to himself, as they had expected? He had said that he was going away, and that whither he went they could not come. How could they understand these matters, and harmonize them?

They had not yet learned the meaning of the words which early in his ministry our Lord had addressed to Nicodemus—”Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God,” “Except a man be born of water and of spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God .”—John 3:3, 5. These were spiritual truths, and could not be appreciated  until  Pentecost would  bring them the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and permit them to “comprehend  with  all  saints the lengths and breadths and heights and depths” of the divine plan. They did need some comfort, and the Master proceeded to give them the best and the strongest spiritual  food,  instruction, that they were able to receive. He had many things to tell them, but they could not bear them then, could not understand them, until the anointing of the  Holy Spirit would  prepare their hearts.

Our Lord began by reviving in them their faith in the Father and in His  plan,  saying,  “Ye believe in God, believe also in me,” recognize the fact that all of the Father’s plans will be accomplished, and inasmuch as you have seen my  loyalty to the  Father  in word  and  in deed, and inasmuch as you have seen the Father’s power unto good  works  manifested  in me,  let faith’s anchor hold; continue to trust me, continue to have confidence, and you shall have a blessing; wait for the development of the divine plan, and it will more than satisfy your highest expectations. You are perplexed because I said that I am going away—going to the  Father,  but let me explain to you that my going is in your interest: I go to prepare a place for you in my Father’s house of many apartments; and as surely as I do this I will come again and receive you unto myself, that we may henceforth be together forever.

Thus in a few words, the Master declared the work of the Gospel age, pointing to his second advent and the glorification of the church at the end of the age. He did not here  stop to give them detailed explanations of the trials of faith and of patience through which they must pass; this he had done on other occasions, warning and cautioning them—Matthew 24; now their hearts were troubled, and he would merely console them  with  the assurance that  his going away was necessary, that his second coming would be certain, and that the gathering of all to everlasting fellowship with him in the mansions prepared was assured.

The Father’s house is really the universe, and figuratively speaking heaven is his throne, the earth his footstool. Divine providence has made abundant arrangement for the everlasting blessedness of all the sons of God. In the divine arrangement a provision had been  made for man when in harmony with God, before the fall, but by reason of sin  all  of man’s  rights to a place in the everlasting abode of the just had been forfeited, and at the time of our dear Redeemer’s discourse he was in the world for the very purpose of redeeming man and all his forfeited rights and possessions. —Luke 19:10; Ephesians 1:14. The purchase had not yet been completed—our Lord intended to finish the arrangements, therefore, within a few hours at Calvary. This would cost the sacrifice of himself—the full surrender of the man Christ Jesus as a man, and he could be with them no  longer as  a man.  The  hope  was that  by  his  obedience to the divine will he should not only redeem Adam  and  his  race  by the  sacrifice  of  himself,  the man Christ Jesus, but that he would be raised  from  death to a new nature on  a higher plane — the divine nature. Thus it was necessary that he should go away from them as the man Christ Jesus, and that they should see him no more as the man, but that in due time, at his second coming, they also should be “changed” from human conditions to spirit conditions, and “be like him and see him as he is.” —1 John 3:2.

It was necessary also that, after laying down his life, he should ascend to the Father and present his sacrifice as on man’s behalf, as man’s ransom, and this he did. The Pentecostal blessing was the divine attestation that the sacrifice for sins was accepted of the Father  on man’s behalf, and that hence the resulting blessing came forth upon all who accepted Jesus as their Redeemer.

R 2453-2454 (1899)