This chapter of John is about as mystical as it gets. Had Judas been there to hear, it would have been one more excuse to betray Jesus and get out of this ministry. It was contrary to everything Judas was hoping to see. The others were committed, but had as yet no recognition of what it was to which they had committed themselves.
The mention of His Father’s house should have been a clue to them: There is nothing literal in this lesson. It’s about eternal things in invisible realm of Heaven. Jesus was going to leave them on this earth and go to Heaven and prepare residences for them. They would eventually join Him in Heaven.
With this as the background, He mentions “where” He must go to do all of that. Thomas is the first to admit he’s not following this talk. Like the other ten still together now, he’s been investing so much time and thought into a literal political revolt against the Sanhedrin and Rome that there’s no room left in his attention for anything on a different level.
Jesus knows that His answers need to stick in some part of their souls, so He replies to the query with something that would have memory hooks, if only because it was so unexpected. “I AM the Way!” He adds the terms for verification of truth and living. In the context, He claims to be the source of everything humans seek. He’s the only way to the Father. The only way you can understand the Father is to be friends with Jesus; it was worded as a feudal protocol. If you know Jesus, you know all you possibly could about the Father.
Here we have the radical statement that truth is personal, in the sense that you can’t know God as facts, but as a Person. His Person is indistinguishable from the Person of Jesus, insofar as any human can know the truth. Everything that really matters in this world is wrapped up in getting to know Jesus. So, Jesus had to drill Philip on that understanding.
The Lord wondered aloud if they had learned much over the last three years. Could they not see the character of the Father in the things Jesus said and did? Did they not realize that following the teachings of Jesus included the miracles He had done, and more? If these men claimed to be His brothers in faith, they should operate in light of His teachings. On those grounds, He could persuade the Father to give them His Spirit. He went to great lengths to clarify that the Holy Spirit was impossible for outsiders to perceive, much less to receive.
Then Jesus said that the Presence of the Holy Spirit is His own Presence, much closer than being with Him in the flesh. He talked about the feudal meaning of love and commitment as obedience. That kind of love holds the promise of knowing intimately the Person of the Father and Son through the Spirit.
Jude, likely speaking what the others were thinking, asked how it was possible that they could see Jesus and the world not see Him. It must have been frustrating for Jesus, but He generously tried to get across that mimicking His moral character was manifesting Him in your body. This would release the Holy Spirit to breathe life into His perplexing teachings and make everything clear. Everything Jesus had said would come back to life in their souls.
This should all point back to the shalom that God had promised a thousand different ways. They had seen shalom in the flesh, and now that peace would linger for the rest of their lives. They had nothing to fear. Jesus was going to inaugurate a New Covenant in His own blood. They should rejoice that Jesus was leaving this world so that all the Father’s promises could come pouring out of Heaven. He was telling them before it happened.
So the lesson was over and now Jesus had to face one last round of moral combat with Satan. Not that Satan had any leverage against him, but it was his job to try to divert Jesus from this final path. Jesus was determined to obey the Father’s commission to the bitter end, in order to open a glorious eternity.
