13:19
Jesus was demonstrating to His disciples that He was fully in control of events. The betrayal was not a shot out of the blue that disrupted God’s plans, it had always been part of God’s plan. Jesus’ telling the disciples of this beforehand would increase their faith in Him.
13:20
Jesus has said a lot about His being the one sent by the Father, and that receiving Jesus is tantamount to receiving the Father. Conversely, rejecting Jesus is equivalent to rejecting the Father. In the next few chapters we will see this principle being extended to the disciples. So if someone is sent by Jesus, then receiving that person is like receiving Jesus, and therefore receiving the Father. Now we must note that it says “the one I send”. This verse is not giving carte blanche to anyone to claim to be sent by Jesus, and therefore to claim that to be faithful to God we need to accept what they say or do! We need to walk under Christ’s authority, which includes believing the Bible and accepting it as the Word of God. Anyone who teaches stuff that is not Biblical is definitely not sent by Christ. On the positive side we should note how closely God involves us in His plans, and that when we live under His authority, we have authority.
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