Charles Ellicott Commentary John 14

Let not your heart be troubled.—The division of chapters is unfortunate, as it breaks the close connection between these words and those which have gone immediately before. The prophecy of St. Peter’s denial had followed upon the indication of Judas as the traitor, and upon the announcement of the Lord’s departure. These thoughts may well have brought troubled hearts. The Lord Himself had been troubled as the darkness drew on (John 12:27; John 13:21), and He calms the anxious thoughts that He reads in the souls of the disciples.

You believe in God, believe also in Me.—It is more natural to take both these clauses as imperative—Believe in God, believe also in Me. Our English version reads the first and last clauses of the verse as imperative, and the second as an indicative, but there is no good reason for doing so; and a sense more in harmony with the context is obtained by reading them all as imperatives.

As a matter of fact, the present trouble of the disciples' hearts arose from a lack of a true belief in God; and the command is to exercise a true belief, and to realise the presence of the Father, as manifested in the person of the Son.

There was a sense in which every Jew believed in God. That belief lay at the very foundation of the theocracy; but like all the axioms of creeds, it was accepted as a matter of course, and too often had no real power in life.

What our Lord here teaches the disciples is the reality of the Fatherhood of God as a living power, ever present with them and in them; and He teaches them that the love of God is revealed in the person of the Word made flesh. This faith is the simplest article of the Christian’s creed. We teach children to say, and we ourselves constantly say, “I believe in God the Father.” If we but fully grasped the meaning of what we say, the troubles of our hearts would be hushed to silence; and our religion would be a real power over the whole of life, and would also be, in a fullness in which it never has been, a real power over the life of the world.

In my Father’s house are many mansions.—The Greek word used for “house” here is slightly different from that used for the material temple on earth in John 2:16. The exact meaning will be immediately seen from a comparison of 2 Corinthians 5:1, the only other passage in the New Testament where it is used metaphorically. The Jews were accustomed to the thought of heaven as the habitation of God; and the disciples had been taught to pray, “Our Father, which art in heaven.” (Isaiah 63:15; Matthew 6:9; Acts 7:49).

The Greek word for “mansions” occurs again in the New Testament only in John 14:23, where it is rendered “abode.” Wycliffe and the Geneva version read “dwellings.” It is found in the Greek of the Old Testament only in 1 Maccabees 7:38 (“Suffer them not to continue any longer”—“give them not an abode”). Our translators here followed the Vulgate, which has “mansiones” with the exact meaning of the Greek, that is, “resting-places,” “dwellings.” In Elizabethan English the word meant no more than this, and it now means no more in French or in the English of the North. A maison or a manse, is not necessarily a modern English mansion. It should also be noted that the Greek word is the substantive corresponding to the verb which is rendered “dwelleth” in John 14:10, and “abide” in John 15:4-10 (see Note there).

“Many” is not to be understood, as it often has been, simply or chiefly of different degrees of happiness in heaven. Happiness depends upon the mind which receives it, and must always exist, therefore, in varying degrees, but this is not the prominent thought expressed here, though it may be implied. The words refer rather to the extent of the Father’s house, in which there should be abiding-places for all. There would be no risk of that house being overcrowded like the caravanserai at Bethlehem, or like those in which the Passover pilgrims, as at this very time, found shelter at Jerusalem. Though Peter could not follow Him now, he would do so later (John 13:36); and for all who will follow Him, there will be homes.

If it were not so, I would have told you.—These words are not without difficulty, but the simplest, and probably truest, meaning is obtained by reading them as our version does. They become then an appeal to our Lord’s perfect candor in dealing with the disciples. He had revealed to them a Father and a house. That revelation implies a home for all. Were there not “many mansions,” the fullness of His teaching could have had no place. Had there been limitations, He would have marked them out.

I go to prepare a place for you.—The better manuscripts read, “For I ... ,” connecting the clause with the earlier part of the verse. He is going away to prepare a place for them; and this also proves the existence of the home. Then there is to be no separation; He is to enter within the veil, but it is to be as Forerunner on our behalf (Hebrews 6:20). “When You had overcome the sharpness of death, You opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.”

And if I go and prepare . . .—For the form of the expression, compare Notes on John 12:32, and 1 John 2:28. It does not imply uncertainty, but expresses that the fact is in the region of the future, which is clear to Him and will unfold itself to them.

I will come again, and receive you unto myself.—This clause has been variously explained in relation to the resurrection; the death of individual disciples; the spiritual presence of our Lord in the Church; or the coming again of the Lord in the Parousia of the last day, when all who believe in Him shall be received to Himself. The difficulty has arisen from taking the words I will come again, as necessarily referring to the same time as those which follow—I will receive you unto Myself, whereas they are in the present tense, and should be literally rendered, I am coming again. They refer rather, as the same words do when used in John 14:18, to His constant spiritual presence among them; whereas the reception of them to Himself is to be understood as the complete union that will accompany that spiritual presence—a union that will be commenced in this life, advanced by the death of individuals, and completed in the final coming again. (Compare John 17:24.)

And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. The better reading is, And whither I go, ye know the way, that is, “You know that I am the way to the Father, where I am going.” (Compare John 14:6 and John 13:33.)

They did not, indeed, fully know this, but the means of knowing it was within their reach, and His own words had declared it. (Compare, for example,John 10:1 and John 11:25.) They ought to have known it, and His words now are meant to contrast what they ought to have known with what they really did know, in order that He may more fully instruct them.

To know our ignorance is the first step to its removal.

Thomas saith unto him.—Compare, for the character of Thomas, John 11:16; John 20:24; John 21:2.

Lord, we know not whither thou goest.—Our Lord’s words had laid stress upon the “way.” Thomas lays stress upon the “whither.” His mind seeks for measured certainty.

In all that he has heard of the Father’s house of many mansions, of being with the Lord, there is much that he cannot understand. The Messiah, they thought, was to reign upon earth. Where was this vast royal home, with dwelling-places for all, to which Christ was going first, and to which they were to follow? They know not whither, and without that knowledge they cannot even think of the way.