February 14, 2016         John 14:15-31

Download discussion questions: John 14_15-31 Another Helper

Our discussion began with the question, “What does it mean to love God?”  Jesus uses the verb “love” (agapao, ἀγαπάω) ten times in the brief passage.  (The fact that this passage and this topic are a part of our study on Valentine’s Day was purely providential.)

There was no shortage of responses.  Loving God means keeping His commands, obeying His Word.  Loving God means abiding, “sticking with Him” as one person put it.  Loving God means trusting Him and knowing Him.  We had gone through numerous responses before one participant suggested that loving God means having a deep affection for Him and experiencing strong emotional feelings for Him.  I would speculate that the responses to the question (on Valentine’s Day), “What does it mean to love your spouse?” might have elicited responses about affection much sooner in the process.  Doesn’t it seem curious that we do not typically think of affection or emotion directed toward God?  Our time looking at this passage was in the context of that irony.

Jesus clearly and repeatedly says that the evidence of our love for Him is obedience (John 14:15, 21, 23; stated negatively in v. 24).  It seems that we often invert the order of His words.  We appear to think that we must fulfill the duty of obedience in order to show the reality of our love.  Instead, perhaps Jesus is saying that love is more than only affection; but equally important, love is not less than affection.  The affection toward a person usually results in behavior that will please that person, such as obedience to God’s commandments.  Employees and soldiers obey commands because of duty.  People who love each other joyfully fulfill each other’s wishes.  The best illustration of this that I know comes from a sermon by John Piper.  He describes bringing flowers home to his wife.  She asks him why he did this.  “It was my duty” is emphatically the wrong answer.  “Because I delight in pleasing you and making you happy” expresses a love that cannot help but serve another.[1]  “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” expresses that kind of response as we grow in our love, in our affection for God.

Puritan pastor Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) expressed the insight that our emotional response to God (as well as our obedience to Him) is a central part of how we glorify Him:

God is glorified not only by His glory’s being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the understanding and by the heart.[2]

Or, as John Piper puts it more succinctly, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”

Another thought occurred to me but there was not time to share it in the group (we seldom – actually never – have time to discuss all a passage has to offer).  We often think (incorrectly) of our love for God as a duty unconnected to our affections.  We probably do not think of God’s love for us in the same way.  In fact, it would be disturbing to think of God’s love as His duty, carried out without affection for us.  Multiple images in Scripture emphasize the affection God has for His beloved people, singing over them (Zephaniah 3:17) or the father running to embrace his prodigal son (Luke 15:20).  Even in this passage the love of the Father and the Son (v. 21, 23) is promised for increasing intimacy with them (disclosing Themselves and abiding with believers). Surely our response to such love will also have an affectionate dimension.

Jesus Himself exemplified the affectionate love that results in obedience.  No one could accuse Him of serving the Father merely out of duty.  He says things like, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work” (John 4:34).  His motivation for His actions (from washing feet to dying on the cross) was His relationship with His Father:  “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God, got up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself.  Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded” (John 13:3-5).  Jesus expected the disciples to reflect His affection for the Father:  “If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father” (v. 28).  He begins with the call to His disciples, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (v. 15) and ends on the same theme, applied to Himself, “so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me” (v. 31).   His affection for the Father naturally flowed into obedience, a model for His disciples and for us.

Love is not the only thread woven through this passage.  Jesus also says much more than He has said before about the Holy Spirit.  He also calls Him “another Helper” and “the Spirit of Truth.”  He describes this Helper’s role as teaching and reminding Jesus’ followers in their Lord’s absence.  The Spirit is sent by the Father (v. 15, 26) in Jesus’ name, as His surrogate, “another” (allon, ἄλλον), the same kind of Helper that Jesus has been to them.

Jesus says much more about the Holy Spirit.  His statements sound promising but perplexing.  The disciples know the Spirit who has not yet been sent because He (the Spirit) is abiding with them (v. 17), and later Jesus talks of abiding with the disciples Himself (v. 25).  Jesus says He is leaving but He (Jesus) will come to them (v. 18, 28).  He says that the Spirit will be in them (v. 17) and that He will be in them (v. 20).  Yet in all His descriptions (here and later in this same discourse, John 16) He makes a clear distinction between the individual Persons:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  He describes three different Persons who are so closely identified and in such harmony with each other that they share completely in one another’s desires and intentions and actions.  They are completely relational[3], individuals in whom there is no independent individualism.

The Trinity is often acknowledged as a requirement for orthodoxy.  Unfortunately, the doctrine is almost as often ignored regarding practical effect.  But knowing someone and loving that person (a friend, a spouse, a relative) means learning as much as we can about the person.  Exploring the nature of God as Triune is part of growing in loving Him.  Perhaps ignoring the Trinity as too complicated or as impractical is part of the explanation for our lack of affection for God.  We just don’t know Him well enough to see His beauty.

In our group attempt to peer just a little deeper into God’s Triune nature, one member suggested our own multi-part existence:  will, body, emotions.  While acknowledging that any (and every) analogy or picture will be flawed, we talked about the human will being similar to the Father, our body somehow resembling the Son, and our emotions similar to the Holy Spirit.  We are at our best when will, body and emotions are in harmony.  In that state we enjoy the world around us and the people in our lives.  We contribute to the blessing of others and experience joy ourselves.  Many of our problems come when the three (will, body, emotions) fail to work together.  Our will becomes stubborn, our bodies grow tired, our emotions are out of control.  But in the case of the Godhead, there is never a failure to work together, to be in harmony, to be completely relational.  (Compare a similar image by Dorothy L. Sayers, friend of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien.  A writer has an Idea, which Energy turns into a book, which, when read, exerts a Power on the readers.  Sayers suggests that Idea, Energy, and Power are another three-part analogy to God’s Triune Being.[4])

While we had a little more discussion about the Trinity and the relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, our group came back to the question, “What does it mean to love God?”  Even more practically, if loving God does indeed involve affection and deep emotions, why do we seem to have difficulty with that reality?  Why is our first response more about duty and obedience and commands than it is about affection?  Someone commented that affections come naturally in some situations, for example when seeing a baby or young child (we had just witnessed child dedications in the worship service before our group).  Perhaps our emotional response to God is limited because our perception of His beauty, “the delightfulness of the Lord” (Psalm 27:4), is so vague.  We see more of who God is and what He is like as we meditating and read Scripture.  Improving our understanding of Him can develop our sense of His delightfulness.  What we see in Him stimulates our affections and our emotional desire for Him.  One of the best resources I have found to explore this idea is another sermon by John Piper.  His biography of Augustine describes God’s grace as “sovereign joy,”[5] implanting a desire and affection for God into our hearts.  That grace makes our obedience the outflow of our love, just as Jesus said.

Jesus intertwines the two themes of love for God and the work of the Holy Spirit in this passage.  Perhaps the reason is that the Holy Spirit is the One who teaches us and reminds us about all Jesus said (v. 26).  Later, the Lord describes the Holy Spirit as the One who reveals Jesus to us and shows us His glory (John 16:14-15).  Affection for God grows out of our knowledge about Him and our relationship with Him.  Digging deeply into Scripture (as we try to do in this group) under the guidance and illuminating power of the Holy Spirit spiritually forms us.  He is the One who transforms our heart into a growing affection for God as we see more of His beauty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

[1] This is a slight paraphrase of Piper’s words in the second of two sermons, “Passion for the Supremacy of God”:
http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/passion-for-the-supremacy-of-god-part-2
Be sure and also listen to the first sermon to get the full impact of his message:
http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/passion-for-the-supremacy-of-god-part-1

[2] John Piper, The Pastor as Theologian; Reflections on the Ministry of Johathan Edwards, Bethlehem Conference for Pastors, April 15, 1988.  http://www.desiringgod.org/biographies/the-pastor-as-theologian, accessed November 14, 2014.

[3] This phrase describing the Holy Trinity, “completely relational” is from author and speaker Larry Crabb.  Unfortunately I do not have a citation, since I believe he used the phrase in a conversation.

[4] Dorothy L. Sayers, The Mind of the Maker (New York:  HarperCollins, 1987).

[5] John Piper, The Legacy of Sovereign Joy (Wheaton, Illinois:  Crossway Books, 2000), 41.  Also at
http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/the-swan-is-not-silent