Jesus tells his disciples he is about to die, but he will resurrect for them (they did not understand this at the time.)
God will give you whatever you ask in Jesus’ name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete. God loves you because you have believed in Jesus. You will be scattered, but you will have Jesus. You will have peace even when you have troubles, for Jesus has overcome.
11a) “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.” ‘Because I am going to the Father’?
b) They will weep and mourn, but their grief will turn into joy. He gives them the analogy of a woman giving birth. Birth is painful but afterwards, she has her baby, and she forgets all about the pain.
c) His resurrection and reappearance to them.
12a) Jesus will tell you plainly about God. In that day you will ask in my name. The Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. In essence, there will be no barrier to God any more.
b) Jesus knows all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.
c) God has all of it, so we don’t have to. We cannot control others or what happens around us; all we can control is ourselves. This offers us peace.
13) We can overcome our troubles because Jesus has already done so. He gives us the strength we need, so we can have peace.
We have strength through the power of Jesus, and we have peace because of it.
The disciples needed to be prepared for the coming crisis. He knew their sorrow would become joy. There would be greater joy when the disciples had access to God after his death.
Jesus’ death gives us access to God. God loves us.
Jesus is God who came to the world as man, would die, and then rise again.
God is always with Jesus.
Jesus offered his disciples peace and said they would have troubles. He left, but overcame all for us, giving us peace.
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Jesus loves you (disciples), and if you keep his commands, you will remain in his love. You will have complete joy. Now, love each other as Jesus has loved them. Great love is laying down one’s life for others. The disciples are his friends for he has made known to them everything from the Father.
Jesus chose them so that they may bear lasting fruit and that whatever they ask in Jesus’ name, the Father will give them. Now, love one another.
10a) As the Father has loved Jesus, so has Jesus loved you. Jesus loves you (believers), and if you keep his commands, you will remain in his love like Jesus kept God’s commands and remained in his love.
b) They receive the love of Jesus, complete joy, are given what they ask for, are friends of Jesus, are given knowledge of God, and they bear fruit. It encourages me when times, things, and circumstances in my life are low.
11a) Because Jesus loved us.
b) Strangers and people who irritate me. I pray for them and for me to deal better with them.
12a) Jesus chose and appointed his followers so that they might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. So that they might spread the gospel.
b) By remaining in Jesus and abiding by His word.
Always a powerful reminder to love others because so many of us do have people in our lives that are hard to love. But, with God’s grace, we can do so.
Jesus loved the disciples by protecting them, guiding them, and leading them. He cared utterly for their every need. No matter what we do, we are loved.
Abiding is obedience to Jesus and his commands. If you do abide in Jesus’ commands, you will experience joy to the full. Joy is being right with God, not happiness or excitement.
Jesus repeatedly emphasize we are to love others.
Love is to be complete, as giving up all that you have (or your life) for one another.
The relationship between rabbi and disciple in ancient times was never one of friendship. So, if we follow God’s commands, we can be friends with Jesus. Obedience must be there.
Jesus chooses us to bear fruit for God’s glory.
Again, we should expect answered prayer.
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Jesus tells the disciples they will receive the Holy Spirit (an advocate) that will live inside them.
3) They all work together for our good, to bring us closer to God.
4a) Advocate — someone who recommends and supports you or your cause. An advisor, defender, mediator, and intercessor.
Spirt of Truth — The Holy Spirit who allows us to understand God’s spiritual truths and guide us towards spiritual truth.
b) Right now, the disciples cannot understand the Holy Spirit because it has not been given yet (not until after Jesus’ death). After Jesus’ death, the disciples will receive the Holy Spirit inside of them and it will live inside of them, and then they will be able to understand the Holy Spirit.
5) That it exists at all!
I love how Jesus loves us enough to prepare us and to give us gifts, such as a guide for life. How amazing!
Loving Jesus is keeping his commandments. It’s action.
Obedience comes out of love. Disobedience can be from a lack of love.
This is Jesus’ 2nd assurance he gives to the disciples: that he will give them a helper (Holy Spirit).
The Holy Spirit will abide with us permanently.
Jesus was already with them. The Holy Spirit would then be in them.
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Confused, Thomas asks Jesus the way. Jesus says,”I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well.”
Philip asks to see God, and Jesus says that by seeing him they have seen God. Jesus is in the Father, and the Father is in Jesus. If you believe in him [Jesus], you will do great things. Jesus will do whatever you ask in his name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask Jesus for anything in his name, and he will do it.
13a) “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
b) He was confused, and the disciples wanted to go with Jesus.
c) “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” Jesus meant if you believe in him as the Savior, you will be with God for all of eternity. And, you will know God through knowing Jesus.
14) “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”
15a) Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. It is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.
b) The works is spreading the Good News about who Jesus is. Jesus is going away, leaving his disciples to carry on his work for him. Therefore, they will bring more people to God.
16) So many. I am encouraged because it shows we can ask Jesus anything, and he will answer.
I love how simple Jesus makes it: he is the way and his way leads to truth and life.
The disciples always ask clarifying questions; it shows us that we can ask those questions, too.
Jesus’ 6th I am Statement: I am the way, the truth, and the life.
Jesus is the only way to God. To know Jesus is to know God.
Philip’s question teaches us that you can be “close” to God and still not know him.
Jesus spoke God’s words.
“Very truly” marks the first of 3 assurances Jesus will give his disciples on his last night alive. They will carry on his work. It will be greater because they will reach more people than Jesus could in his lifetime on earth.
The Holy Spirit would come so the disciples could accomplish his work.
These works would be possible because they asked in Jesus’ name according to his character and authority and he would respond.
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The disciples were confused and wanted to know who would betray Jesus. Jesus said whomever he gave the bread to would betray him. He gave the bread to Judas, and Satan entered him. Jesus told him to betray him quickly, and Judas left. The rest of the disciples presumed he was sent on an errand by Jesus, not that he was the betrayer.
13a) Satan had a hold of Judas’ heart, and it was night.
b) Satan is always lurking, and we must constantly be vigilant in order to keep him at bay.
14) Jesus loved Judas no matter what sins he would commit. Unconditional love. So we must show this, too.
I love how Jesus spared the other disciples the knowledge of Judas’ betrayal. It probably would have distracted them from the important last day of Jesus and the lessons he would teach. In addition, it shows how Jesus often spares us from knowledge for our benefit.
Peter desperately wanted to know who the betrayer was, so he asked John (the disciple whom Jesus loved who was sitting next to Jesus) to ask.
Fun Fact: John refers to himself as “the one whom Jesus loved” 4 times in his Gospel (John 13:23), (John 19:26), (John 20:2), and (John 21:20).
They most likely were laying on their stomachs for the meal. John and Judas sat next to Jesus. Judas was in the place of honor on the left side of Jesus. He could easily speak to him without being overheard.
The dipping of the bread was an honor, which was a sign of love.
Jesus told John the identity of the betrayer, but he says nothing.
Judas has multiple chances to repent.
Judas had decided to betray Jesus earlier (John 13:2), but the devil entered after the giving of the bread. Judas chose to let Satan in, as we all have free will and choices.
If the disciples had known who the betrayer was, they would have stopped him. This was not God’s plan, so the knowledge was hidden from them for the benefit of ours. We should well remember this when we don’t understand things in our lives, yet we petition God for answers who does not give them — often for our benefit.
Even those with the best teachers can (and do) fall, as we see pastors, too.
Even in the presence of the brightest Light of the World, Judas chose darkness. Never underestimate the power of Satan. Fortify yourself with the Word and power of God.
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Jesus said, “Whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me; and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me,” meaning God.
He also says one of them will betray him.
9a) It was predicted that Jesus would be betrayed in Psalm 41:9: Even my close friend,
someone I trusted,
one who shared my bread,
has turned against me.
b) That if Jesus was betrayed, we can be betrayed, too. Yet, Jesus forgave Judas, as we must forgive those who betray us, too.
10a) The devil. The devil has a way to twist everything, even what we see with our own eyes. We must be wary of this and fortify ourselves with the power of Jesus in order to overcome.
b) Betrayal is a violation of your trust in someone else. Because it’s someone we know and care about (or someone we think we know), which hurts more than a stranger because we trusted them.
11) Another example of his omniscient powers to strengthen the disciples’ faith in him and for later generations to have more faith, too.
12) Because he loved Judas, and no one wants to see their loved one go down the wrong path of evil.
Jesus loves despite betrayal. So must we.
When you reject Jesus, you reject God, too.
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Just before Passover Jesus knew his time had come. He also knew Judas would betray him. He washed his disciples’ feet.
3) That his time had come to return to the Father. He also knew Judas would betray him.
4a) “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”
b) He humbled himself completely by doing something only slaves did at the time.
5) That Jesus was about to sacrifice his life for the sake of the world by becoming the sacrificial lamb that was used during Passover to signify God’s protection over His people and how He brought them out of Egypt. Jesus would be the ultimate sacrifice.
So great! I love how Christ has no pretension about himself!
John 13 begins the 3rd Division of the Gospel of John, also known as the Upper Room Discourse. Here, John focuses on Jesus’ last days with the disciples.
We must remember that Judas had a choice, as we all do — to accept Jesus or reject him.
“The Bible says believers have symbolically applied the sacrificial blood of Christ to their hearts and thus have escaped eternal death (Hebrews 9:12, 14). Just as the Passover lamb’s applied blood caused the “destroyer” to pass over each household, Christ’s applied blood causes God’s judgment to pass over sinners and gives life to believers (Romans 6:23).”
source: Gotquestions
Jesus had about 24 hours left on this side of heaven at this point. He would mostly be focused on preparing his disciples.
Jesus loved us “to the fullest” aka “to the end.” here. An unending love.
We see this sentiment before: Jesus said The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand. (John 3:35)
Jesus knew exactly from whence he came and where he was going to. Do you?
Washing the disciples’ feet was the ultimate act of love. Never would a teacher wash his students’ feet in Jewish culture. Here, in this act, Jesus showed true greatness (previously, his disciples had been arguing who was the greatest among them Luke 22:23 .)
Typically, the lowest servant of the house would wash the feet of the guests as they entered someone’s home. For some reason, this didn’t happen when Jesus and the disciples came into the room. They ate their meal with dirty feet.
They were sitting at a very low table (triclinium), which made washing their feet even more challenging.
Interestingly, if the disciples had washed Jesus’ feet, they would have had to offer to wash everyone’s feet, which would have put them in an inferior position to each other.
Jesus always used actions to teach. He showed true humility. Actions always speak louder than words.
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