John 14:23Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

So that they might not think He would appear to them in the way I have mentioned, He also states the cause, namely the keeping of His commandments. He says that the Spirit will appear in the same way.

If, even after living with Him for so long, they still could not bear such a manifestation of His being, and did not even understand Him, what would have happened to them if He had appeared so to them from the beginning?

For this reason He also ate food with them, so that they would not think His manifestation a phantom. When they saw Him walking on the waters, they thought so, although He appeared in the same form and had parted from them only shortly before.

What, then, would they not have thought if they had suddenly seen Him risen, after they had previously seen Him taken and bound? Therefore He often tells them that He will appear, why He will appear, and how He will appear, so that they will not think His appearance a phantom.

He affirms His equality with the Father, saying: “I and the Father will come and make Our abode with him.”

God draws near to us not by compulsion, nor against our will, but according to our desire and good disposition. Do not shut the doors against this light, and you will receive great enjoyment.

This light comes to us through faith. When it has come, it abundantly illumines the one who receives it. If you present to it a pure life, it will dwell in you continually.

“He who loves Me will keep My commandments,” says the Savior, “and We will come to him, I and My Father, and make Our abode with him” (Jn 14:21, 23).

As no one can use the light of the sun without opening his eyes, so no one can participate in this illumination without fully opening the eyes of the soul and sharpening them in every way. How can this be done? By cleansing the soul from every passion.

As to how Christ dwells in hearts, listen to what He Himself says: “I and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” He dwells not simply anywhere, but in the hearts of believers who are established and do not waver in love for Him.

Whoever loves His appearing will do everything so that, before the universal coming, there may be a private coming of Christ to him. How, you ask, is this possible? Listen to Christ Himself, who says: “He who loves Me will keep My commandments; and We will come to him and make Our abode with him” (Jn 14:23).

Consider how great this is. He who is to appear to all in common promises to appear to each one of us in particular. “We will come,” He says, “and make Our abode with him.”

Whoever loves His appearing will do everything to call Him to himself and hold Him with himself, so that the light may shine in him. Let there be nothing in us unworthy of His coming, and He will soon dwell in us.

The appearing, έπιφάνεια, is so called because it appears above, έπάνω φαινεσθα, and shines from on high. Therefore let us strive toward the things above, and we shall soon draw the rays from above to ourselves.

No one who crawls below and buries himself in the earth can see the sunlight. No one who defiles himself with worldly affairs can see the Sun of righteousness. It appears to no one who gives himself over to such a life.

Sober up at least a little, and rise from this depth, from the abyss of worldly life, if you wish to see the Sun and be counted worthy of His coming. If you are counted worthy of His coming now, you will gaze upon Him then with great boldness.

Be wise now. Let there be no spirit of pride in you, lest it strike you and cast you down. Let there be no darkness or stony heart in you, lest your ship be shattered against it. Let there be no wickedness in you.

Underwater rocks cause the most terrible shipwrecks. Do not nourish wild beasts within yourself. I mean the passions, for they are fiercer than wild beasts. Do not rely on quickly passing things, like flowing water, if you wish to stand firm.

No one can stand on water, but all can stand safely on a rock. Worldly affairs are water, for it is said: “The waters have come up to my soul,” like a torrent overflowing its banks (Ps 68:2). Spiritual works are a rock, for it is said: “He set my feet upon a rock” (Ps 39:3).

Worldly affairs are mud and uncleanness. Let us detach ourselves from them, and in this way we can be counted worthy of the appearing of Christ. Whatever befalls us, let us endure it.

A sufficient consolation in everything is to suffer for Christ. Let us repeat this divine saying, and the pain of every wound will cease.

At the same time, He stirs them to keep His commandments by assuring them that both He and the Father appear to those who keep them. Conversely, from the one who does not keep the commandments, as from one who does not love, both He and the Father withdraw.

But those who adorn their soul with every virtue, and prove capable of knowing divine and hidden mysteries, will receive illumination through the Holy Spirit. With their spiritual eyes they will behold the Lord who has made His dwelling in them.

Thus the knowledge of the saints is not common with that of others. It is a special and excellent knowledge, marked by a great distinction. In every way and by every means Christ helps us.

First, He clearly defines who the one is who loves Him. He shows, as I think we must rightly understand, that the reception of the gracious gift is not accessible to all. It belongs only to those in whom the worthiness of closeness to Him is found through keeping the commandments.

Then He speaks of how He will shine forth in them and how He will dwell in them, in the words: 'My Father will love him.' This is because whoever honors His Begetter by faith in the Son will have the Father’s love as the fruit of this.

Next He clearly shows what will follow from this and what profit such a man will have: 'We will come to him,' I and the Father, 'and make Our dwelling with him.' As soon as our Savior Christ dwells in us through the Holy Spirit, His Begetter also will certainly be present in us. For the Spirit of Christ is also the Spirit of the Father Himself.

Thus the divine Paul calls the Spirit now the Spirit of the Father, and now the Spirit of the Son. He does not contradict himself, but speaks the truth in both cases, for the Spirit is such by His nature.

Therefore he says in one Epistle: 'He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life also to our mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in us' (Rom 8:11). Then again he says: 'Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father' (Gal 4:6).

Do you see how one and the same Spirit is both the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son? Therefore, when the Only-begotten dwells in our hearts, the Father is not absent. The Son has His Begetter in Himself, since He is of one essence with Him, and He Himself is in the Father by nature.

This is the definition of the faith and the blameless teaching. Yet I would gladly pose one question to those who, in their great ignorance, have dared to think otherwise and arm their tongue against the glory of the Spirit.

What will they answer when we ask them this? If, according to you, the Spirit is created and alien to the essence of God, how then does God dwell in us through Him? How is the one who has received the Spirit a partaker of God?

If it is admissible that we become partakers of the divine and ineffable Nature through some wholly created essence, what would prevent God the Father from setting aside the Spirit? Why would He not dwell in us and sanctify us through any other creature He wished?

But this is impossible. No one can be a partaker of God by nature through anything other than the Spirit. Therefore the Spirit is God and from God. He is not numbered with creatures, as some have thought.

Besides this, one must consider the following. Whatever partakes of something higher in essence, and of a nature different from the nature of the one partaking, must itself be other by nature than that of which it partakes.

Therefore, if the Spirit is made or created, of what will creation then partake? Surely of itself? For in that case createdness is common to both.

But though we are made and created by nature, we have become partakers of the Spirit as One who is other by nature than we are. Therefore the Spirit is not created. If this is true and really so, then the Spirit is God and from God, as we have said.

Nothing that exists can escape the property of createdness except God alone by nature. From Him, evidently, the Holy Spirit ineffably proceeds, πϱοιόν. As the very One from whom He is dwells in us, so He too dwells in us, for He is of one essence with Him and is, as it were, the quality of His holiness.

This is against those false teachers. Against the Anomoeans and those who arm themselves against the Son, who suffer from a madness akin and close to that of the teachers just named, I shall say what is necessary.

'If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word. My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him.' What then, most dear ones, will you say if someone wishes to ask and learn from you whether we shall have two gods dwelling in us, the Father and the Son, or whether one God is conceived and truly exists in us?

If the Son is wholly other by nature, and is conceived as having some nature of His own, must we not believe that there will be a pair of gods in us when we keep the commandments? But if we are called temples, clearly of one God and not two, when the Father and the Son dwell in us, what reason will there be to reduce the two to unity, once there is no place for identity of essence according to your diseased opinion?

Either it is necessary to assert that Christ spoke falsehood to us, and that only the Father dwells in us through the Spirit. Or else He, the Son, dwells in us, while the Father is absent, which is absurd. But one God is in us when we receive Both.

Therefore the Only-begotten will no longer be shown to be of a different essence from His Father. Rather, He is from Him and in Him, as radiance is in the light from which it comes. This, and no other, is the true meaning of the mystery.

So also the divine Paul called us temples not of two gods, but clearly of One and the Same, when he says: 'Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?' (1 Cor 3:16). Do you see that, bringing the Father and the Son to identity of essence, he presents us as temples not of gods, but of God?

Why then, by empty reasonings, do you turn aside the power of the truth and sow the poison of your impiety in those accustomed to attack the holy and divine Scriptures irrationally?

Christ says somewhere of those who are worthy even to partake of the Godhead: 'I and the Father will come and make Our dwelling with him.' Yet it is evident that God dwells in the saints through the Spirit. Therefore, since the Holy Spirit completes the coming of the Father and likewise of the Son, how is it not evident that He is not separated from the divine essence? He is emitted from it by nature, having in Himself the whole energy of the Father and the Son.

The Savior Himself bears witness that the Spirit is sent to the saints from the Father through the Son, saying: 'When the Comforter comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness of Me' (Jn 15:26). And again: 'The Comforter, 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' (Jn 14:26).

Even if they have the gift of prophecy, know all mysteries, possess all knowledge, and have all faith, so that they could move mountains, they are nothing. Even if they give away their goods and surrender their body to be burned, it profits them nothing (cf. 1 Cor 13:1-3).

Love separates the saints from the world, and makes those of one mind into dwellings in one habitation (cf. Ps 67:7). In this habitation the Father and the Son prepare an abode. They also give love itself to those to whom, at the end of the world, They will also give Their manifestation.

About this manifestation the disciple questioned the Teacher, so that not only those who then heard His words from His mouth, but also we, might learn the answer through the Gospel.

Indeed, he asked about the manifestation of Christ, and he heard about love and the abode. There is therefore a certain deeper manifestation, wholly unknown to the ungodly. No manifestation of God the Father and the Holy Spirit is accessible to them.

The manifestation of the Son, to be sure, could be accessible to them in the flesh. Yet it is not like the manifestation given to the chosen. It cannot remain with them continually, but only for a short time. It is for condemnation, not for joy; for punishment, not for reward.

Therefore we must understand, so far as He Himself deigns to reveal it to us, what this means: “A little while, and the world will see Me no more; but you will see Me” (Jn 14:19).

Indeed, after a short time He would remove from their eyes even His body, in which the ungodly could see Him. None of them saw Him after the resurrection.

But because the angels bore witness and said: “He will come in the same way as you saw Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11), and because we also believe that He will come in the same body to judge the living and the dead, the world will surely see Him then. By this name are meant those who are strangers to His Kingdom.

Therefore it is much better to understand that when He said, “A little while, and the world will see Me no more,” He wished to indicate that time at the end of the age when He will be removed from the sight of the ungodly.

Then only those will see Him among whom the Father, and He Himself also, prepares an abode because they love Him. He said “a little while” because what seems long to men is very short in the eyes of God. The evangelist John also spoke of this near time: “Children, it is the last hour” (cf. 1 Jn 2:18).

Lest anyone henceforth think that only the Father and the Son, without the Holy Spirit, prepare abodes among those who love Them, let him recall what was said above about the Holy Spirit: “Whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He abides with you and will be in you” (Jn 14:17).

See, then, that the Holy Spirit also prepares abodes in the saints together with the Father and the Son. He abides within, as God in His temple.

The triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, comes to us when we come to Them. They come by bringing help, and we come by showing obedience. They come by enlightening, and we come by attending.

They come by making fruitful, and we come by receiving, so that the vision of Them may be not external but internal for us. Thus Their abode in us may be not transitory but eternal.

But if any one of you is asked whether he loves God, he answers with confidence and firmness of mind, "I love Him." Yet you heard at the very beginning of the reading what the Truth says: "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word." Therefore the proof of love consists in expressing it by deed. For this reason the same John says in his Epistle, "He who says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he sees, how can he love God whom he does not see?" (1 Jn 4:20; cf. 1 Jn 2:4). We truly love God when we turn away from our own pleasures toward the fulfillment of His commandments. For one who is still distracted by unlawful desires does not truly love God, because he contradicts Him by his will. "And My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him." Consider, beloved brethren, what a feast it must be to receive God visiting in the chamber of the heart. If some rich and powerful friend were entering your house, the whole house would be cleaned with all haste, so that nothing there would offend the eyes of the entering friend. Therefore let the one who prepares the house of his soul for God cast out the filth of evil deeds. But hear what the Truth says: "We will come to him and make Our abode with him." He comes into the hearts of some, but does not make an abode in them. Though they receive God with compunction of heart, in time of temptation they forget the very thing over which they were contrite. Thus they return again to committing sins, as though they had never been contrite for them. Therefore, in the heart of the one who truly loves God and keeps His commandments, the Lord both comes and makes His abode. Love for the Godhead so penetrates him that even in time of temptation he does not depart from this love. Thus he truly loves whose mind is not overcome by wicked love. For each person is separated the farther from the Supreme Love, the lower his own love extends. Therefore it is added again: "He who does not love Me does not keep My words." Behold, beloved brethren, we have briefly explained the words of the holy reading. Now let us lift the mind to contemplation of so great a feast. Since, together with the Gospel reading, a reading from the Acts of the Apostles has also been set before you, let us draw something from this latter reading for the benefit of our contemplation.

Strive to turn the Gospel virtues into habits, into your own qualities. It is natural for one who loves to fulfill precisely the will of the beloved. "I have loved Your commandments more than gold and topaz. Therefore I directed myself toward all Your commandments; I hated every way of unrighteousness" (Ps 118:127-128), says the Prophet. Such conduct is necessary for preserving faithfulness to God. Faithfulness is an indispensable condition of love. Without this condition, love is dissolved. "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word. My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him." It is clear that the Lord comes into the heart of the fulfiller of the commandments. He makes the heart a temple and dwelling place of God. He is seen in this temple, not with bodily eyes, but by the mind. He is seen spiritually. The manner of this vision is incomprehensible to a beginner, and cannot be explained to him in words. Receive the promise by faith. In due time you will know it by blessed experience.

"And We," that is, I together with the Father, whom no one has ever seen (Jn 1:18), "will come to him and make Our abode with him." Clearly, this is speech that cannot be understood literally. Therefore the Lord's manifestations to His believers (Jn 14:21) cannot be understood as appearances in a sensible form. Consequently, this is a spiritual and mysterious manifestation of the Lord and of God the Father. It is their inward communion with believers. This is the same as what Christ once said: "The Kingdom of God does not come with observation; for the Kingdom of God is within you" (Lk 17:20-21). "We will make Our abode" is a figurative expression for the inward, spiritual, and mysterious communion of God with man. This expression points to the mansions in the house of the heavenly Father (Jn 14:2). Now, while still living on earth, man receives God into his own abode. Later, God will take him into His abode. The latter is the necessary consequence and condition of the former. In general, this figurative expression means the inward spiritual communion and union of God in Trinity with the man who believes in the Redeemer and justifies faith by works. The indirect answer to Judas's question, why do You wish to manifest Yourself to us, is completed. It is because only the believer can receive this mysterious manifestation or revelation, or enter into spiritual communion with Christ and the heavenly Father in the Holy Spirit.

Nor is this yet the fullness of God's mercy. "We will come to him and make Our abode with him," says the Lord of those who love Him. What lofty distinction, what indescribable blessedness! Earlier He said that He Himself would appear to the one who loves Him (v. 21). Here He says much more. Here He says that not only He, but also the heavenly Father, will come. There a temporary manifestation is promised, and a manifestation chiefly to the mind's contemplation. Here permanent abiding in the soul is promised: "We will make Our abode with him." The apostle speaks of this lofty condition thus: "We are His house, if only we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of hope firm to the end" (Heb 3:6). "You are the temple of the living God, as God has said: I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God" (2 Cor 6:16). Without doubt, the fullest indwelling of the Triune God in those who love Him belongs to blessed eternity, as the Seer of mysteries beheld (Rev 21:3). Yet to a certain degree it begins in God's chosen ones even on earth. In those who preserve sincere love for the Lord faithfully and unchangeably amid various temptations, God's indwelling in the heart follows the state of which the Savior said, "We will come to him." But in souls not constantly faithful, this coming is only a temporary visitation of heavenly love. Therefore beware of despising even the last poor man, if he sincerely honors the name of the Lord Jesus. Let him live in a poor hut. Yet his soul may be the dwelling place of the Triune God (1 Cor 7:26-27).