25 “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. 28 You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. 29 And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe. 30 I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, 31 but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.”
In the opening verse of John 14, Jesus said to His disciples, “Let not your hearts be troubled,” and now, as we come to the closing verses of this wonderful chapter, He says in verse 27, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”
He knew that their lives were about to be turned completely upside down, and they had many reasons to be afraid. Troubles and the fears they bring always seem to be just around the corner, and as we well know, being a Christian does not exempt us from the storms and trials of this life. In fact, God often sends us into storms, just as Jesus was about to lead His disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Judas Iscariot and the Roman soldiers were waiting.
The remaining disciples were on the brink of the worst storm they had faced in their lives so far, and Jesus gives them the reason for them not to fear: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.” Peace in a Biblical sense is not just an absence of war, but a deep, inner assurance that the world simply cannot give us. We must not forget that because we live in a broken and sinful world, true peace can never come through worldly things. We do find temporary happiness and fulfilment in what the world has to offer, but these things do not last.
The peace that Christ brings has its foundation in the reality that we have been reconciled to God, and our sins no longer stand in condemnation against us. That’s what it really means to be at peace. Jesus gives us peace with God. Paul, when writing about our justification through faith in Romans 5 said, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5:1)
As much as we’d all like more peace and quiet in our lives, and us much as we’d like to have no struggles and storms in our lives, the greatest gift that Christians have is this: We are at peace with God, because of what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross.
Jesus has ended the war between the believer and God, and He did so by shedding His blood as the price of this peace we now have with the Father. Whatever struggle or storm it is you might be going through right now, if you are a Christian, hold onto this truth: you are at peace with God. Paul wrote in Colossians 1:19-23, “In Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, He has now reconciled in His body of flesh by His death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before Him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the Gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven.”
Not only that. The peace of Christ is far more than the mere absence of our former conflict with God, but it includes the ongoing reassurance of that peace through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. In Colossians 1 Paul was writing about the peace we have received in the past tense, as he referred to the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross, but in Philippians 4:7, he writes about the peace as both a present and future reality. “The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
This peace comes only through a right relationship with God, and this comes through being reconciled to Him through Christ and Christ alone. This is the promise we have today, and it was the same promise that Jesus made to His disciples as they stood in the shadow of the cross.
The truth is that only those who have peace with God can have the peace of God, and this peace comes through the cross alone, and we have this peace in the midst of a hostile and violent world. You’ll notice that Jesus did not promise the disciples an absence of conflict and suffering. It’s well documented that with the exception of John, all of the apostles died violent deaths as a direct result of their faith in Christ, so as Jesus promised them peace, He did not avoid the real dangers the disciples would face for the rest of their lives. In fact, He referred to the vain attempts of the world system to offer peace when He said in verse 27, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you.”
The peace Jesus offers those who put their faith in Him is nothing like worldly peace. The peace He gives came at an immeasurable cost to Himself as His atoning death brings not only peace in this life, but into eternity. Paul wrote in Romans 11:29, “The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” This speaks of the eternal nature of the peace we have with God, which stands directly opposed to how the non-believing world understands true peace.
John Lennon famously sang, “All we are saying, is give peace a chance,” but he never found it because he rejected Jesus Christ and His offer of peace and reconciliation with the God who created him.
The Bible commentator William MacDonald understood the difference. He wrote, “True peace is an inward peace of conscience that arises from a sense of pardoned sin and of reconciliation with God. Christ can give it because He purchased it with His own blood at Calvary. It is not given as the world gives - sparingly, selfishly, and for a short time. His gift of peace is forever. Why then should a Christian be troubled or afraid?”
We must remember though, the context of Jesus’ promise to leave His peace with His disciples. He had told them repeatedly that He was about to leave them, and this was a real problem for them. Why else would Jesus have told them to not let their hearts be troubled? So it is clear that with all the uncertainty of what lay ahead for them, their hearts were troubled. They were afraid.
The question is, what kind of threat would Jesus’ absence be to the peace He had promised them, and how does His physical absence today threaten the peace we have?
Jesus’ answer to the disciples in verse 28 was, “You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father.” It is because He returned to the Father to take His rightful place in glory, that we can be assured of His peace which comes to us by the Spirit, and through the testimony of His Word, the Bible. And one day, we will finally see Him face to face. Because of this, we have much to rejoice over.
Jesus continues at the end of verse 28 by saying something which has created much confusion. “The Father is greater than I.” This is a favourite verse of many false religions such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who use Jesus’ words to deny His deity.
They have taken this verse out of its context to try and prove that Jesus is something less than fully God, but the problem with this view is that the Gospel of John is full of Jesus’ claims to be one with the Father, as is the entire New Testament. In John 10:30 He said, “I and the Father are one.” The Jews wanted to stone Him for blasphemy after He made this claim.
The reformer John Calvin explains that when Jesus says that the Father is greater, “He does not here make a comparison between the Divinity of the Father and of His own, nor between His own human nature and the Divine essence of the Father, but rather between His present state and the heavenly glory, to which He would soon afterwards be received.” This is what happens when you lift verses out of their context.
What Jesus was referring to in John 14 was the lowly position He took on as a man while on earth, and it is in that sense that God the Father was greater than He. In John 14:28 Jesus was talking about His position, not His person. The statement “the Father is greater than I” refers to position rather than essence. Jesus was speaking from the standpoint of His humanity, the incarnate state He assumed in order to fulfill the plan of redemption.
John MacArthur, in his commentary wrote, “He was not admitting inferiority to the Father (after claiming equality repeatedly), but was saying that if the disciples loved Him, they would not be reluctant to let Him go to the Father because He was returning to the realm where He belonged and to the full glory He gave up. He was going back to share equal glory with the Father which would be greater than what He had experienced in His incarnation. He will in no way be inferior in that glory, because His humiliation was over.”
So getting back to our question earlier, how, if at all, does Jesus’ physical absence today affect or threaten the peace He offers us? It doesn’t. His return to heaven is no barrier to His gift of peace. As He insisted throughout His farewell discourse, Jesus’ return to the Father would benefit, not threaten the disciples. His return to the Father heralded a new era of grace that would be far greater than anything before. Jesus’ return in glory is good news for us, because His resurrection and ascension was among others, a sign of the Father’s approval and acceptance of what He achieved on earth as the Saviour of the world. This is why the diminishing recognition of the ascension of Jesus, even within the Church, is not only a pity, but a huge mistake. Christian Churches who do not hold Ascension Day services should be ashamed of themselves, because the ascension of Christ is no less important in God’s glorious plan of the redemption of sinners than the birth, death and resurrection of our Saviour.
Earlier in chapter 14, Jesus had promised to send the Holy Spirit as a comforter and a helper, and He does so again in verse 26. “The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” This is not the first time that Jesus spoke about the role of the Holy Spirit, and He did so, because it is an important detail. You’ll remember from a few weeks ago that the Holy Spirit is a divine person who is sent. He is not an impersonal power or force that we have access to, so it is through the ministry of the Holy Spirit that Jesus gives His peace to us, despite His physical absence.
In particular, the Holy Spirit ministers peace by means of the Word of God, which remains His primary means of speaking to us today. He said to His disciples in verse 26, “He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” This statement was of particular importance to the men in the Upper Room that night, who, in addition to Paul, would later write the New Testament under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
How do we know the Bible can be trusted? Jesus gives us part of the answer in verse 26. The Holy Spirit would teach the apostles the doctrine and lessons that they would pass on in the written Word. It was the Spirit who would inspire and cause them to remember the things that Jesus taught them during His earthly ministry. Paul would later write, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
This is important for us today, because the same Holy Spirit who inspired the writers of the New Testament teaches us the exact same message that Jesus taught His disciples while He was with them during His earthly ministry. We are not “missing out” in any way whatsoever, because it is the same Gospel that saves today, just as it did 2000 years ago.
Whenever you hear someone saying that they have some new or special revelation from God, be very careful, because in the Word of God we have all we need. In John Calvin’s day, the biggest threat (which remains today) was the false Gospel of the Roman Catholic religion. When commenting on Jesus’ words in John 14:26, “He will teach you all things,” Calvin wrote, “By this single word we may refute all the inventions which Satan has brought into the Church from the beginning, under the pretence of the Spirit. The spirit that introduces any doctrine or invention apart from the Gospel is a deceiving spirit, and not the Spirit of Christ.”
Jesus’ emphasis on the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit means that we continue to receive His peace today through the ministry of the Word of God, through preaching, teaching and studying the Bible. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 again: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
As Jesus and His disciples prepared to leave the Upper Room, He said in verse 30, “I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me.”
He knew what lay ahead for Himself and His closest friends. He was also keenly aware of how Satan was at work in the hearts of Judas, the Roman soldiers and the religious leaders who were determined to put Him to death, but we must understand that at no point was Jesus not in full control of the events that were about to unfold, even and especially as He was hanging on the cross.
When Jesus spoke of the devil as the “ruler of this world,” this did not mean that Satan had usurped God’s authority. Contrary to what many believe, God and the devil are not equal opposites. We don’t fully understand the mystery of evil, and there are many unanswered question when it comes to the work of Satan, but the Bible makes it very clear that it is only through God’s divine permission that the devil has any kind of influence in the world.
The simple answer to the often-asked question, “Why doesn’t God do something about all the evil in the world,” is that He has. He sent His own Son into the world to die, so that all who believe in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.
Jesus said of the devil, “He has no claim on me.” Years before, Satan defeated the first Adam in the Garden of Eden, but in just a few hours, in another garden, the second Adam would resolve to go to the cross in order to redeem His own. Satan has no claim on Christ, and because as a Christian, you are in Christ and He is in you, the devil has no claim on you either. This is why Paul was able to write, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7) He would not have said that if we were unable to resist the devil, and the reason we are able to resist him, is because he has no claim on us.
Because of Jesus Christ and His finished work of redemption on the cross, He has redeemed us from the power of sin and of Satan. Hebrews 2:14-15 says, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.”
So again, instead of being conquered by and under the authority of the devil, Jesus went to the cross of His own choosing, in obedience to the Father’s will for our salvation. He said in verse 31, “I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father.” And He said in John 10:17-18, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”
As we come to the end of chapter 14, Jesus said to His disciples, “Rise, let us go from here.” Some commentators believe that Jesus continued His teaching in the following 2 chapters on the way to the Garden of Gethsemane where He was arrested, while others say that He continued to teach them as they prepared to leave. We just don’t know.
The important and central point though, was His promise to leave His peace with them, as He stressed in verse 29. “Now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe.” What really matters is that we believe, because the peace that Christ gives can be received only through saving faith in Him. There is no other way to be reconciled to and to be at peace with God.
The teaching of the Bible is clear: We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone, as revealed in Scripture alone. John wrote in 20:31, “These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.” Salvation comes through believing in Jesus Christ, and there is no other means of being saved.
Remember what Jesus said to Nicodemus back in chapter 3. “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” (John 3:36) This means that we gain peace with God only by confessing our need for Jesus Christ to pay the penalty of our sin, as we receive forgiveness through Him.
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.” (John 14:27). If you confess your need of His atonement for your sins and trust Him for forgiveness and salvation, you will be saved, and Jesus will give you peace with God. Then, as you live by faith through prayer and in studying His Word, “The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7)
Just as He said, “Rise, let us go from here,” to His disciples, He continues to give us His peace today, as we rise and go into the world with all of its evil and suffering, knowing that we have been called to and saved for something the world cannot offer - peace with God.
There are many wonderful promises Jesus made to His disciples in chapter 14, and all have been fulfilled, with the exception of one which we are still waiting for. He did go back to the Father. He is preparing a place for all believers. The Holy Spirit has come to indwell us, and Jesus has offered His peace to those who believe in Him. Now we wait for the final part of His promise to be fulfilled: “I am going away, and I will come to you.”