John Calvin Commentary John 14:1

"Let not your heart be troubled: believe in God, believe also in me." — John 14:1 (ASV)

Let not your heart be troubled. Not without good reason does Christ confirm His disciples with so many words, since such an arduous and terrible contest awaited them. It was no ordinary temptation that soon afterward they would see Him hanging on the cross—a spectacle in which nothing was to be seen but cause for the deepest despair.

With the time of such great distress being near, He points out the remedy, so that they might not be vanquished and overwhelmed. For He does not simply exhort and encourage them to be steadfast, but also informs them where they must go to obtain courage: that is, by faith, when He is acknowledged to be the Son of God, who has in Himself sufficient strength to maintain the safety of His followers.

We should always pay attention to the time when these words were spoken: that Christ wished His disciples to remain brave and courageous when they might think that everything was in the greatest confusion. Therefore, we should use the same shield to ward off such assaults. Indeed, it is impossible for us to avoid feeling various emotions, but though we are shaken, we must not fall down. Thus it is said of believers that they are not troubled, because, relying on the word of God, though very great difficulties press heavily upon them, still they remain steadfast and upright.

You believe in God. It might also be read in the imperative mood, Believe in God, and believe in me; but the former reading fits better and has been more generally received. Here He points out the method of remaining steadfast, as I have already said: that is, if our faith rests on Christ and views Him in no other way than as being present and stretching out His hand to assist us.

But it is remarkable that faith in the Father is here placed first in order. For He should rather have told His disciples that they should believe in God, since they had believed in Christ. Because, as Christ is the living image of the Father, so we should first cast our eyes on Him; and for this reason, too, He descends to us, so that our faith, beginning with Him, may rise to God.

But Christ had a different objective in view. For all acknowledge that we should believe in God—and this is an admitted principle to which all agree without contradiction—and yet there is scarcely one in a hundred who actually believes it. This is not only because the bare majesty of God is too distant from us, but also because Satan interposes clouds of every kind to hinder us from contemplating God.

The consequence is that our faith, seeking God in His heavenly glory and inaccessible light, vanishes away; and even the flesh, of its own accord, suggests a thousand imaginations to turn our eyes away from beholding God in a proper manner.

The Son of God, then, who is Jesus Christ, presents Himself as the object to which our faith should be directed, and through Him, our faith will easily find that on which it can rest. For He is the true Immanuel, who answers us within as soon as we seek Him by faith.

It is one of the leading articles of our faith that our faith should be directed to Christ alone, so that it does not wander through long and complex ways, and that it should be fixed on Him, so that it may not waver in the midst of temptations. And this is the true test of faith: when we never allow ourselves to be torn away from Christ and from the promises made to us in Him.

When Popish divines dispute—or, I should rather say, chatter—about the object of faith, they mention God only and pay no attention to Christ. Those who derive their instruction from the ideas of such men must be shaken by the slightest gust of wind that blows.

Proud men are ashamed of Christ’s humiliation and, therefore, they flee to God’s incomprehensible Divinity. But faith will never reach heaven unless it submits to Christ—who appears to be a low and contemptible God—and it will never be firm if it does not seek a foundation in the weakness of Christ.