Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                  Chapter Fourteen

                                                                                                                                               Verses 28-31

The message that Jesus gave to His disciples that He would go away and come to them again has a double meaning. To His disciples, Jesus meant that He would go away from them for three days and appear to them again after His resurrection. But to His Church, Jesus meant that He would go to His Father during the Church Age, but He would come again and Rapture His Church and take His Church home with Him to Heaven. I Thessalonians 4:13-18. Jesus told His disciples and His Church that they should rejoice because He would be with His Father in Heaven to hear the prayers of His saints, and He would make intercession for them to His Father. Romans 8:34.

When Jesus related that His Father was greater than He was, He spoke a a mere man. Although Jesus was absolutely perfect and He possessed the entire Holy Spirit, He nevertheless was also just a man who could feel emotions, pain, thirst, and hunger like any other human. Just like any other human, Jesus' duty was to acknowledge God as being greater than he. Hebrews 4:14-15; John 3:24. Jesus did not acquire a spiritual body until after His resurrection. Luke 24:36-43. This fact can only mean that Jesus' perfect, physical body did not merge with His Spirit until after His resurrection. This fact also means that Jesus can give His perfect righteousness to the recreated body, soul, and spirit of every believer saved by grace so that His Father can accept them into Heaven with the same acceptance that He gives to His Son. II Corinthians 5:21; Romans 8:14-17.

From eternity Jesus has always been God, but He did not become human until He was born as a baby into the world. John 1:1; John 1:14. God was not a man until Jesus came into the world. Numbers 23:19. When Jesus rose from the dead, His perfect body became merged with God's Spirit so that He became One in Being with God. Philippians 2:2-11. Imperfect humans saved by grace can be united with God through the Holy Spirit, and they can be accepted by God just as His Son is accepted, but imperfect humans can never be One in Being with God. John 17:20-26. Christ has to make imperfect humans perfect so that they can be accepted by His Father, but an absolutely perfect human can become One in Being with God. Jesus became God in human form when He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Matthew 1:18-25. But in a sense, the perfect body of Jesus has always been God because God is eternal. In any moment of time, the Holy Spirit extends His presence into the eternal past and future. For this reason, Christ can extend His shed blood into the past to save Old Testament saints and into the future to save His Church. For this reason, Jesus could speak about His death, burial, and resurrection as if He had already accomplished it before He ever went to the cross. John 17:1-5.