Homilies on John, Homily 75

“If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray to the Father, and He will give you another Comforter, so that He may remain with you forever: the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him.” [1.] Everywhere we need deeds and actions, not just a show of words. Anyone can easily say something and make promises, but acting is not as easy. Why have I said this? Because many people today say that they fear and love God, but show the opposite in their actions. God requires love that is shown through actions. That is why He said to the disciples, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” After telling them, “Whatever you ask, I will do,” He added, “If you love Me,” so that they would not think merely asking would accomplish anything. “Then,” He says, “I will do it.” And since they were likely to be troubled when they heard, “I am going to the Father,” He tells them, “Being troubled now is not love; love means obeying My words. I have given you a commandment to love one another, to treat one another as I have treated you. This is love: obeying these words of Mine and yielding to the One you love.” “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter.” Again He speaks in a way that accommodates their weakness. Since they did not yet know Him, they would probably long for His company, His conversation, and His presence in the flesh, and would accept no comfort when He was absent. So what does He say? “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter,” that is, “Another like Me.” Let those who suffer from the disease of Sabellius, who do not hold the proper view of the Spirit, be ashamed. The marvel of this discourse is that it strikes down opposing heresies with the same blow. By saying “another,” He shows the distinction of Person, and by saying “Paraclete,” the unity of Substance. But why did He say, “I will ask the Father”? Because if He had said, “I will send Him,” they would not have believed as readily, and the aim now is for them to believe Him. Later He declares that He Himself sends Him, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit” ( c. xx. 22 ); but here He tells them that He asks the Father, to make His words believable to them. John says of Him, “From His fullness we have all received” ( c. i. 16 ); but how does He receive from another what He already had? And again, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” ( Luke iii. 16.) “But what advantage did He have over the Apostles, if He was going to ask His Father for It in order to give It to others, when they often seem to have done this even without prayer?” And if It is sent by the Father in response to a request, how does It descend on Its own? And how is that which is present everywhere sent by Another—that which “distributes to each person individually as He wills” ( 1 Cor. xii. 11 ), and says with authority, “Set Paul and Barnabas apart for Me”? ( Acts xiii. 2.) Those ministers were serving God, yet It still called them authoritatively to Its own work—not to a different work, but to show Its power. “What, then,” someone asks, “does ‘I will ask the Father’ mean?” (He saith it) to show the time of Its coming. For when He had cleansed them through the sacrifice, then the Holy Spirit came upon them. “And why did It not come while He was with them?” Because the sacrifice had not yet been offered. But afterward, when sin had been removed, and they were being sent out into danger and stripping for the contest, then the Anointer needed to come. “But why did the Spirit not come immediately after the Resurrection?” So that they would long for It intensely and receive It with great joy. As long as Christ was with them, they were not in distress; but when He departed, leaving them defenseless and deeply afraid, they would receive It very eagerly. “He remains with you.” This shows that It does not depart even after death. But so that, on hearing of the “Paraclete,” they would not imagine a second Incarnation and expect to see It with their eyes, He corrects them by saying, “Whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him.” “He will not be with you as I have been, but will dwell in your very souls”; for this is what “will be in you” means. He calls It the “Spirit of truth,” thus explaining the types in the Old Testament. “So that He may be with you.” What does “may be with you” mean? What He Himself says: “I am with you.” ( Matt. xxviii. 20.) He also implies something else: “The Spirit’s case will be different from Mine; He will never leave you.” “Whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him.” “Why, what is visible about the other Persons?” Nothing; but here He is speaking of knowledge. At any rate, He adds, “nor knows Him.” He regularly calls precise knowledge “sight”; because sight is clearer than the other senses, He always uses it to represent precise knowledge. By “world,” He means “the wicked,” and in this way too He comforts the disciples by giving them a special gift. See how many ways He has exalted His description of It. He said, “He is Another like Me”; He said, “He will not leave you”; He said, “He comes to you alone, as I also did”; He said, “He remains in you.” Yet even this did not drive away their discouragement. They still longed for Him and His company. To cure this feeling, He says, Ver. 18. “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” [2.] “Do not be afraid,” He says. “I did not say that I would send you another Comforter as though I Myself were leaving you forever. I did not say that He remains with you as though I would never see you again. For I Myself will also come to you; I will not leave you orphans.” Because He began by saying, “Little children,” He also says here, “I will not leave you orphans.” At first He told them, “You will come where I am going,” and, “In My Father’s house there are many dwelling places.” But here, since that time was far off, He gives them the Spirit. And when they were not sufficiently comforted because they did not know what He was speaking about, He says, “I will not leave you orphans”; for this was what they needed most. But since “I will come to you” announced a “presence,” notice how He hinted at it without explaining it clearly, so that they would not again look for the same kind of presence as before. For after saying, Ver. 19. “In a little while the world will no longer see Me,” He added, “but you see Me.” It is as though He had said, “I do come to you, but not in the same way as before, always being with you day after day.” And so that they would not say, “How, then, did You tell the Jews, ‘From now on you will not see Me’?” He resolves the contradiction by saying, “To you alone”; for this is also the nature of the Spirit. “Because I live, you will live also.” For the Cross does not separate us forever, but only hides Me for a brief moment; and by “life” He seems to me to mean both the present life and the future life. Ver. 20. “On that day you will know that I am in the Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” With regard to the Father, these words refer to Essence; with regard to the disciples, to agreement of mind and help from God. “Tell me, how is this reasonable?” someone asks. And how, please tell me, is the opposite reasonable? The distance between Christ and the disciples is great and utterly boundless. Do not be surprised if the same words are used; Scripture often uses the same words in different senses when applying them to God and to human beings. Thus we are called “gods” and “sons of God,” yet the word does not have the same force when applied to us as when applied to God. The Son is called “Image” and “Glory”; so are we, but the distance between us is great. Again, “You are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s” ( 1 Cor. iii. 23 ), but we do not belong to Christ in the same way that Christ belongs to God. What, then, is He saying? “When I have risen,” He says, “you will know that I am not separated from the Father, but have the same power as He does, and that I am continually with you: when events proclaim the help that comes to you from Me, when your enemies are held down and you speak boldly, when dangers are removed from your path, when the preaching of the Gospel flourishes day after day, when everyone yields and gives way to the word of true religion.” “As the Father has sent Me, so I send you.” ( c. xx. 21.) Do you see that here too the wording does not have the same force? If we took it as though it did, the Apostles would differ from Christ in nothing. But why does He say, “Then you will know”? Because then they saw Him risen and speaking with them; then they gained an accurate understanding of the faith. For the power of the Spirit, which taught them everything, was great. [3.] Ver. 21. “Whoever has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me.” Merely having them is not enough; we must also keep them carefully. But why does He so often say the same thing to them? For example, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” ( ver. 15 ); and, “Whoever has My commandments and keeps them”; and, “If anyone hears My word and keeps it, he is the one who loves Me—whoever does not hear My words does not love Me.” ( Ver. 24.) I think He was referring to their discouragement. He had given them many wise teachings about death, saying, “Whoever hates his life in this world will save it for eternal life” ( c. xii. 25 ); and, “Unless a man takes up his cross and follows Me, he is not worthy of Me” ( Matt. x. 38 ); and He is about to say still more. So He rebukes them, saying, “Do you think your sorrow comes from love? Not grieving would be a sign of love.” And because He wanted to establish this throughout, as He continued He brought His discourse back to this same point: “If you loved Me,” He says, “you would have rejoiced, because—I am going to My Father” ( ver. 28 ). But now you are in this state because of cowardice. This attitude toward death does not belong to those who remember My commandments. For if you truly loved Me, you ought to be crucified, since My word urges you not to fear those who kill the body. Both the Father and I love people like that. “And I will reveal Myself to him.” Then Judas says, Ver. 22. “How is it that You will reveal Yourself to us?” Do you see how fear was crushing their souls? Judas was bewildered and troubled, and thought that Jesus too would be seen as we see dead people in a dream. So, to keep them from imagining this, listen to what He says. Ver. 23. “I and the Father will come to him and make Our home with him.” He is almost saying, “As the Father reveals Himself, so do I.” And He removed their suspicion not only in this way, but also by saying, “We will make Our home with him,” something that does not belong to dreams. But notice, please, how bewildered the disciple is, and how he does not dare say plainly what he wants to say. He did not say, “How terrible for us that You are dying and will come to us as the dead come.” He did not speak that way, but said, “How is it that You will show Yourself to us and not to the world?” Jesus then says, “I accept you because you keep My commandments.” He says these things beforehand so that, when they see Him afterward, they will not think He is an apparition. And so that they will not think He will appear to them in the way I have described, He also tells them the reason: “Because you keep My commandments.” He says that the Spirit too will appear in the same way. Now if, after spending so much time with Him, they still cannot bear that Essence—or rather, cannot even imagine It—what would their condition have been if He had appeared to them that way at the beginning? This is also why He ate with them, so that what He did would not seem to be an illusion. For if they thought this when they saw Him walking on the water, even though they saw His familiar form and He was not far away, what would they have imagined if they had suddenly seen Him risen, when they had seen Him taken and wrapped in burial cloths? That is why He continually tells them that He will appear, why He will appear, and how, so that they will not suppose Him to be an apparition. Ver. 24. “Whoever does not love Me does not keep My sayings; and the word you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.” “So whoever does not hear these sayings not only does not love Me, but does not love the Father either.” For if hearing the commandments is the sure proof of love, and these commandments belong to the Father, whoever hears them loves both the Son and the Father. “And how can the word be both ‘Yours’ and ‘not Yours’?” This means, “I do not speak apart from the Father or say anything on My own that is contrary to what pleases Him.” Ver. 25. “I have spoken these things to you while I am still with you.” Since these sayings were not clear, and they did not understand some of them and were uncertain about most, He freed them from all their confusion so that they would not again be bewildered and say, “What commands?” He said, Ver. 26. “The Comforter, whom the Father will send in My Name, He will teach you.” “Perhaps these things are not clear to you now, but ‘He’ will teach them clearly.” And “remains with you” ( ver. 17 ) is the expression of One implying that He Himself will depart. Then, so that they will not grieve, He says that as long as He remains with them and the Spirit has not come, they will be unable to understand anything great or sublime. He said this to prepare them to bear His departure bravely, since it would bring them great blessings. He continually calls Him “Comforter” because of the distress that then gripped them. And since, even after hearing these things, they were troubled when they thought of the sorrows, the wars, and His departure, see how He calms them again by saying, Ver. 27. “I leave you peace.” He is almost saying, “How does the world’s turmoil harm you, provided you are at peace with Me? For this peace is not of the same kind as that. The one is external, often harmful and useless, and brings no benefit to those who have it. But I give you a peace that allows you to be at peace with one another, which makes you stronger.” And because He again said, “I leave,” the expression of One departing, which was enough to bewilder them, He again says, “Do not let your heart be troubled or afraid.” Do you see that they were moved partly by loving affection and partly by fear? Ver. 28. “You have heard Me tell you, I am going away and coming back to you. If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, I am going to the Father; for My Father is greater than I.” [4.] And what joy would this bring them? What comfort? What, then, do the words mean? They did not yet know about the Resurrection or have the right understanding of Him (for how could they, when they did not even know that He would rise again?), but they thought the Father was mighty. So He says, “If you fear for Me, thinking I cannot defend Myself, and if you are not confident that I will see you again after the Crucifixion, still, when you heard that I am going to the Father, you should have rejoiced, because I am going away to One who is greater and able to remove every danger.” “You have heard Me tell you.” Why did He include this? Because, He says, “I am so completely confident about what will happen that I even foretell it; that is how far I am from being afraid.” This is also the meaning of what follows. Ver. 29. “And now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe that I Am.” It is as though He had said, “You would not have known if I had not told you. And I would not have told you if I had not been confident.” Do you see that He is speaking in a way that accommodates their weakness? For when He says, “Do you think I cannot pray to the Father, and He will immediately give Me more than twelve legions of Angels?” ( Matt. xxvi. 53 ), He is addressing His hearers’ hidden thoughts. No one, even in the height of madness, would say that He could not help Himself but needed Angels. But because they thought of Him as a man, He spoke of “twelve legions of Angels.” Yet in fact He merely asked those who came to arrest Him a question and threw them backward. ( c. xviii. 6.) (If anyone says that the Father is greater insofar as He is the cause of the Son, we will not contradict this. But this by no means makes the Son different in Essence.) What He says amounts to this: “As long as I am here, it is natural for you to think I am in danger; but when I have gone ‘there,’ be confident that I am safe, for no one will be able to overcome Him.” All these words were addressed to the disciples’ weakness, for “I Myself am confident and am unconcerned about death.” This is why He said, “I have told you these things before they happen.” “But since,” He says, “you are not yet able to accept what I say about them, I comfort you even through the Father, whom you call great.” After comforting them in this way, He again tells them sorrowful things, Ver. 30. “After this I will not speak with you.” Why? “For the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.” By “ruler of this world,” He means the devil, also using “world” to refer to wicked people. For he does not rule heaven and earth, since he would have overturned and thrown down everything; he rules those who surrender themselves to him. That is why He calls him “the ruler of the darkness of this world,” here again calling evil deeds “darkness.” “What, then, does the devil kill You?” Certainly not: “He has nothing in Me.” “How, then, do they kill You?” Because I will it, and, Ver. 31. “‘So that the world may know that I love the Father.’” “For although I am not subject to death,” He says, “and owe it no debt, I endure it because of My love for the Father.” He says this to stir their souls again and teach them that He goes to this willingly, not unwillingly, and that He does it in contempt of the devil. It was not enough for Him to have said, “I am with you a little while longer” ( c. vii. 33 ); He continually returns to this painful subject (with good reason), weaving pleasant things into it until He makes it acceptable to them. So at one point He says, “I am going, and I am coming back”; and, “So that you may also be where I am”; and, “You cannot follow Me now, but afterward you will follow Me”; and, “I am going to the Father”; and, “The Father is greater than I”; and, “I have told you before it happens”; and, “I do not suffer these things under compulsion, but out of love for the Father.” In this way they could consider that the act could not be destructive or harmful, if He who loved Him greatly and was greatly loved by Him willed it. For this reason, while mixing in these pleasant words, He continually spoke the painful ones too, training their minds. Both “remains with you” ( c. xiv. 17 ) and “My departure is to your advantage” ( c. xvi. 7 ) were expressions meant to comfort them. This is why He said countless things about the Spirit in advance: “Is in you,” “The world cannot receive,” “He will remind you of everything,” “Spirit of truth,” “Holy Spirit,” “Comforter,” and “It is to your advantage.” He did this so that they would not lose heart, as though no one would be there to stand up for them and help them. “It is to your advantage,” He says, showing that It would make them spiritual. [5.] This, at any rate, is what we see happened. Those who now trembled and were afraid, after receiving the Spirit, leaped into the midst of dangers and stripped for the contest against steel, fire, wild beasts, seas, and every kind of punishment. These uneducated and ignorant men spoke so boldly that they astonished their hearers. For the Spirit turned them from men of clay into men of iron, gave them wings, and allowed nothing human to bring them down. Such is that grace: if it finds discouragement, it disperses it; if evil desires, it consumes them; if cowardice, it drives it out. It does not allow someone who has shared in it to remain merely human afterward, but, as though carrying him into heaven itself, makes him picture everything there. ( Acts iv. 32, and ii. 46.) This is why no one said that anything he possessed was his own, but they continued in prayer, praise, and sincerity of heart. For this is what the Holy Spirit requires most, since “the fruit of the Spirit is joy, peace—faith, gentleness.” ( Gal. v. 22, 23.) “And yet spiritual people often grieve,” someone says. But that sorrow is sweeter than joy. Cain was sorrowful, but with the sorrow of the world; Paul was sorrowful, but with godly sorrow. Everything spiritual brings the greatest gain, just as everything worldly brings the greatest loss. Let us then draw the Spirit’s invincible help to ourselves by keeping the commandments, and we will be in no way inferior to the Angels. For their character does not come from being bodiless; if that were so, no bodiless being would have become wicked. The will is the cause of everything in every case. That is why some bodiless beings have proved worse than humans or irrational creatures, while some beings with bodies have proved better than the bodiless. All righteous people, for example, performed whatever righteous deeds they did while living on earth and having bodies. For they lived on earth as pilgrims and strangers, but in heaven as citizens. So do not say, “I am clothed in flesh; I cannot gain mastery or undertake the labors required for virtue.” Do not accuse the Creator. If wearing flesh makes virtue impossible, then the fault is not ours. But the company of saints has shown that it does not make virtue impossible. A nature of flesh did not prevent Paul from becoming what he was, or Peter from receiving the keys of heaven; Enoch too, having worn flesh, was taken away and was not found. Elijah likewise was caught up with his flesh. Abraham, along with Isaac and his grandson, also shone brightly while having flesh; and Joseph struggled in the flesh against that depraved woman. But why speak of the flesh? Even if you put a chain on the flesh, no harm is done. “Though I am bound,” Paul says, “the word of God is not bound.” ( 2 Tim. ii. 9.) And why speak of bonds and chains? Add prison and bars to them, and even these are no obstacle to virtue; Paul, at any rate, has taught us this. For what binds the soul is not iron, but cowardice, the desire for wealth, and countless passions. These bind us even when our bodies are free. “But,” someone says, “these originate in the body.” This is an excuse and a false pretext. If the body produced them, everyone would experience them. Just as we cannot escape weariness, sleep, hunger, and thirst, because they belong to our nature, so these too, if they were of the same kind, would allow no one to escape their tyranny. But since many escape them, it is clear that such things are the faults of a careless soul. Let us then put a stop to this and stop accusing the body. Instead, let us bring it under the soul’s control, so that, with it under our command, we may enjoy the everlasting good things through the grace and loving kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.