John 14:1

John 14:1 . Let not your hearts be troubled — At the thoughts of my departure from you, and leaving you in a world where you are likely to meet with many temptations, trials, and troubles, and to become a helpless prey to the rage and power of your enemies. Ye believe in God — The Almighty Preserver and Governor of the universe, who is able to support you under, and deliver you out of, all your distresses; believe also in me — Who am sent by God, not only to teach, but to redeem and save you; and who can both protect you from evil, and reward you abundantly for whatever losses and sufferings you sustain on my account. But the original words, πιστευετε εις τον Θεον και εις εμε πιστευετε , it seems, ought rather to be rendered, Believe in God, believe also in me; that is, Confide in the being, perfections, and superintending providence of God: or, Rely on the great acknowledged principles of natural religion, that the glorious Maker and Governor of the world is most wise, mighty, holy, just, and good, and the sovereign disposer of all events; and comfort yourselves likewise with the peculiar doctrines of that holy religion which I have taught you. Or, as Dr.

Doddridge interprets the clause, “Believe in God, the Almighty Guardian of his faithful servants, who has made such glorious promises to prosper and succeed the cause in which you are engaged; and believe also in me, as the promised Messiah, who, whether present or absent in body, shall always be mindful of your concerns, as well as ever able to help you.” It appears most natural, as he justly observes, to render the same word, πιστευετε , alike in both places; and it is certain an exhortation to faith in God and in Christ would be very seasonable, considering how weak and defective their faith was. Thus Dr. Campbell: “The two clauses are so similarly expressed and linked together by the copulative [ και , and, or also ] that it is, I suspect, unprecedented, to make the verb in one an indicative, and the same verb repeated in the other an imperative. The simple and natural way is, to render similarly what is similarly expressed: nor ought this rule ever to be departed from, unless something absurd or incongruous should follow from the observance of it, which is so far from being the case here, that by rendering both in the imperative, the sense is not only good, but apposite.”

John 14:1 . But as they sat astounded and perplexed, He continues, Μὴ ταρασσέσθω ὑμῶν ἡ καρδία . Let not your heart be tossed and agitated like water driven by winds; cf. Liddell and S. and Thayer. He not only commands them to dismiss their agitation, but gives them reason: πιστεύετε … πιστεύετε . “Trust God, yea, trust me.” Trust Him who overrules all events, He will bring you through this crisis for which you feel yourselves incompetent; or if in your present circumstances that faith is too difficult, trust me whom you see and know and whose word you cannot doubt. It is legitimate to construe the first πιστεύετε as an indicative, and the second as imperative: but this gives scarcely so appropriate a sense.

Heart (καρδία) Never used in the New Testament, as in the Septuagint, of the mere physical organ, though sometimes of the vigor and sense of physical life (Acts 14:17; James 5:5; Luke 21:34). Generally, the center of our complex being - physical, moral, spiritual, and intellectual. See on Mark 12:30. The immediate organ by which man lives his personal life, and where that entire personal life concentrates itself. It is thus used sometimes as parallel to ψυχή, the individual life, and to πνεῦμα the principle of life, which manifests itself in the ψυχή. Strictly, καρδία is the immediate organ of ψυχή, occupying a mediating position between it and πνεῦμα. In the heart (καρδία) the spirit (πνεῦμα), which is the distinctive principle of the life or soul (ψυχή), has the seat of its activity. Emotions of joy or sorrow are thus ascribed both to the heart and to the soul. Compare John 14:27, "Let not your heart (καρδιά) be troubled;" and John 12:27, "Now is my soul (ψυχή) troubled." The heart is the focus of the religious life (Matthew 22:37; Luke 6:45; 2 Timothy 2:22). It is the sphere of the operation of grace (Matthew 13:19; Luke 8:15; Luke 24:32; Acts 2:37; Romans 10:9, Romans 10:10). Also of the opposite principle (John 13:2; Acts 5:3). Used also as the seat of the understanding; the faculty of intelligence as applied to divine things (Matthew 13:15; Romans 1:21; Mark 8:17).

Ye believe - believe also (πιστεύετε καὶ πιστεύετε) The verbs may be taken either as indicatives or as imperatives. Thus we may render: ye believe in God, ye believe also in me; or, believe in God and ye believe in me; or, believe in God and believe in me; or again, as A.V. The third of these renderings corresponds best with the hortatory character of the discourse.

CHAPTER 14 Joh 14:1-31. Discourse at the Table, after Supper. We now come to that portion of the evangelical history which we may with propriety call its Holy of Holies. Our Evangelist, like a consecrated priest, alone opens up to us the view into this sanctuary. It is the record of the last moments spent by the Lord in the midst of His disciples before His passion, when words full of heavenly thought flowed from His sacred lips. All that His heart, glowing with love, had still to say to His friends, was compressed into this short season. At first (from Joh 13:31) the intercourse took the form of conversation; sitting at table, they talked familiarly together. But when (Joh 14:31) the repast was finished, the language of Christ assumed a loftier strain; the disciples, assembled around their Master, listened to the words of life, and seldom spoke a word (only Joh 16:17, 29). "At length, in the Redeemer's sublime intercessory prayer, His full soul was poured forth in express petitions to His heavenly Father on behalf of those who were His own. It is a peculiarity of these last chapters, that they treat almost exclusively of the most profound relations—as that of the Son to the Father, and of both to the Spirit, that of Christ to the Church, of the Church to the world, and so forth.

Moreover, a considerable portion of these sublime communications surpassed the point of view to which the disciples had at that time attained; hence the Redeemer frequently repeats the same sentiments in order to impress them more deeply upon their minds, and, because of what they still did not understand, points them to the Holy Spirit, who would remind them of all His sayings, and lead them into all truth (Joh 14:26)" [Olshausen]. 1. Let not your heart be troubled, &c.—What myriads of souls have not these opening words cheered, in deepest gloom, since first they were uttered! ye believe in God—absolutely. believe also in me—that is, Have the same trust in Me. What less, and what else, can these words mean? And if so, what a demand to make by one sitting familiarly with them at the supper table! Compare the saying in Joh 5:17, for which the Jews took up stones to stone Him, as "making himself equal with God" (Joh 14:18). But it is no transfer of our trust from its proper Object; it is but the concentration of our trust in the Unseen and Impalpable One upon His Own Incarnate Son, by which that trust, instead of the distant, unsteady, and too often cold and scarce real thing it otherwise is, acquires a conscious reality, warmth, and power, which makes all things new.