John 14:28-31 - Going away

14:28,29

There are several pitfalls in understanding this verse. The most obvious is in taking “the Father is greater than I” out of context, or considering it purely on its own, and then drawing the erroneous conclusion that Jesus is not fully God. There are several reasons why such a conclusion is erroneous. The most important one is what I have just said about looking at the verse (or, in this case the phrase) in isolation. The rest of the gospel and the New Testament quite clearly shows that Jesus is fully divine. The immediate context is twofold, sending the Spirit, and Jesus’ obedience to Christ. Finally there is a complete misunderstanding we have of authority and superiority. Jesus has stated repeatedly that He only does what the Father wants, and in verse 31 this is seen as the climax of this section. When we talk about God words are limited in what they can express, especially when it comes to the Trinity, so anyone sentence will be inadequate to express the whole truth!

If you love me. Again we need to make sure we do not apply our soppy idea of love! If all the disciples had was an emotional/sentimental attachment to Jesus they would indeed be sad. But if they understood the whole plan, if they were committed to Jesus and the fulfilling of God’s plan then they would be glad.

Jesus knew that they would not understand everything just now, but He is telling them now so that they can better appreciate and understand things later.

14:30

The is the second reference to the “prince of the world”. The previous reference is in John 12:31 where we are told “now is the judgement of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out”. It would seem as though the “prince of this world” was getting his way, succeeding in his plans, but in reality it was God’s plans that were being fulfilled and satan’s hold on the world was being broken. Satan has no hold on Jesus. We do well to remember this, especially in days when we see evil seeming to triumph, whether it be in the extreme cases  of ISIS, or the increasing anti-Christian attitude of governments and society in the west. They have no hold upon Jesus.

14:31

Satan thought he was fulfilling his plans, in reality it was God’s plan that was being fulfilled, but this was not in the way that any man would think of. Jesus came to fulfill the Father’s plan, not man’s plan. People are constantly trying to fit Jesus into a manmade mould, all such attempts are futile, they are a violation of the command not to make any image of God. Jesus does “exactly what my Father has commanded me”. We need to let God shape us into His mould, not the other way round.

“Come now, let us leave”. This probably indicates that Jesus and the disciples left the upper room to make their way to Gethsemane.