John 14:24Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Only those who keep His commandments become worthy of His manifestation and of the Father's love. For God and the Father abide in the one who keeps the commandments. Yet not in the same way as He abides in the Son. In the Son He abides by nature, but in man morally.

As He promised those who keep the law that He Himself would dwell in us together with God the Father, so, I think, He will wholly withdraw and depart from those who are not such. Solomon speaks the truth to us in the words: 'Wisdom will not enter a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body enslaved to sin' (Wis 1:4).

You may find the same state of things among us. Does not each person prefer to live among those of one mind with him, and those who follow the same way of life, rather than among others? 'Every living creature loves its like,' as it is written, 'and a man cleaves to one like himself' (Sir 13:19-20).

If even among ourselves it seems worthy of special care to be with people of like character, should we not think this much more concerning God? Being good by nature, and the principle and source of every virtue, He dwells not in lovers of evil but in doers of virtue. He turns away from everything unclean, and quite justly.

As we ourselves try to cleanse our dwellings of filth and stench, refusing to live in them if anything of the kind is found there, how much more must our most pure and all-holy God withdraw from a defiled soul? How much more does He turn away from a heart darkened by the uncleanness of sin?

This is beyond doubt. The very meaning of the saying under interpretation will again teach you that the one who has not kept the commandment must be such, as an unclean lover of filth. For the origin of sin is found in the failure to keep the divine commandments.

As the deprivation of light introduces its opposite, I mean darkness, so unwillingness to practice virtue leads to the birth of evil. By the law of opposition, I think, mutually exclusive qualities cannot be present together in the same subject.

Thus vice and virtue are divided from one another by opposite qualities, or whatever one may call it without error. They cannot be present in any man at the same time and be fulfilled in action. A man is either vicious or virtuous, even if not to the extreme limit of vice or virtue.

Therefore, when one grows strong in us, the other, its opposite, certainly grows weak. If keeping the commandments is a form of virtue, is it not evident that failing to keep them is the beginning of vice?

As the one who has kept the commandments is appointed to have the Father and the Son in himself, which is the beginning and foundation of every blessedness and glory, so the one who has not kept them is appointed not to partake of the divine and ineffable Nature. This is the deprivation of every good.

Therefore, if it seems beautiful and worthy of love to anyone to become a partaker of the divine Nature, and to have the Father and God of all dwelling and abiding in the treasuries of his heart through the Son in the Spirit, let him cleanse his soul. Let him wash away the stain of his vice by every possible means, and above all by every virtue.

Then he will be called a true temple of God, and God will rest in him and dwell in him, as it is written (cf. Jn 14:23 and 1 Cor 3:16). He will not be like the lawyer mentioned in the Gospels, who did not wait for the grace of the Savior’s call. He came of his own accord to follow Him, and, seizing for himself so wondrous an honor, said: 'Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.'

But what did the Lord answer him, as though in a parable and riddle? 'Foxes have holes, and birds of heaven have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head' (Mt 8:19-20). By foxes and birds of heaven He named the malicious and unclean demons, and all those worldly and aerial spirits.

They settle and dwell in the hearts of men given over to pleasures, finding in them the fulfillment of their desires. They so confine the wretched souls of those who receive them that God finds in them no place at all to dwell. This is what the expression 'to lay His head' means.

Let us therefore cleanse our hearts of every stain. Only under this condition will God dwell in us. He will show us to be above every influence of the devil, make us blessed and zealous, and reveal us as communicants of His divine and ineffable Nature.

'And the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.' Again He providently introduces something necessary and directed toward right reasoning. He once more sets before His disciples something through which they had still more to learn the proper understanding of the deep mystery.

He strengthens the mind of His hearers, lest anyone, carried away by the ignorance of the Jews and inclined to think according to their suppositions, should begin to despise the holy and evangelical teaching. I mean the following.

The Law, having a shadow and image, appointed 'until the time of reformation' (Heb 10:1; Heb 9:10), became, according to Paul, 'our tutor to Christ' (Gal 3:24). It brought in, as it were, a preliminary care for the virtue of piety. Therefore one would not depart from the truth if one called the Mosaic ordinances a preparatory exercise in true and spiritual worship.

For this reason 'the Law made nothing perfect' (Heb 7:19). Our Lord Jesus Christ no longer showed us images of things, but the truth itself before our eyes. He no longer sketched virtue for us in types and veils, as Moses did, but presented it as naked and manifest. He fully prepared man for piety.

Thus the teaching contained in Christ’s words was the transformation and translation of types into truth. Since the truth had already shone forth, it was no longer necessary to hold to the shadow. Christ gave as law to those who came to Him through faith that they should no longer move among legal figures.

This greatly grieved the Jews, because they thought that Christ had come to destroy the ancient Law. Yet they had heard Him plainly cry: 'I have not come to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it. For I tell you that not one iota or one stroke will pass from the Law until all is accomplished' (Mt 5:17-18).

Indeed, the true virtue introduced by the laws of Christ is the fulfillment of the shadow of the Law, as we have just said. But the Jews, having fallen into unbelief through a senseless mind and having reached a zeal for the Law not according to knowledge (Rom 10:2), thought that by rejecting Christ’s teaching they were defending the Law.

Therefore, lest He seem to anyone to be laying down some new laws of His own, contrary to the will of God the Father, He profitably and necessarily added: 'The word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.'

Let no one, He says, among those who come to Me through faith think that I have spoken any word contrary to God the Father. The evangelical preaching belongs also to Him, and to no other. He was not in any way ashamed, so to speak, of the ancient ordinances. Nor has any higher commandment now been invented. Rather, the type has been transformed into truth at the proper time.

For the One who then spoke those laws to the ancients through Me now speaks these to you also. I am the living Word, the Interpreter of the ineffable will of God the Father (Jn 1:1, 18). For this reason I am called 'the Angel of Great Counsel' (Is 9:6).

Either we must understand the saying in this way, I mean, 'The word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me,' or we must understand it in another way also. He calls His own word the word of God the Father, so that those who keep it may know that they honor God when they obey His words.

Those who fall into the opposite of this, and are not ashamed to insult the commandment given by disobedience, sin against the very Nature that reigns over all. Again, the mind of the hearers can be strengthened in two ways. Either one may move them to faith by awakening the desire to honor God, or accomplish the same by awakening fear of offending Him.

In both cases the reasoning proves useful and fitting. When He says that the word is not His, He certainly does not turn us away from His own Person, since He is the Word and God. He says this as One who still had the form of a servant, appeared in human form, and was truly like us.

He does not wish His word to be considered human, but truly divine and royal. He necessarily refers it to the Person of the Father, so that, by dividing Himself, He may not give occasion to recognize two sons. He is one Son both before the Incarnation and after the Incarnation, for there is one Christ, not two, as some think.

Being God, the Word from the Father became flesh, according to John (Jn 1:14). He was not changed into flesh, but made the temple from the Holy Virgin His own flesh.

Therefore, lest we consider His word human and separate the evangelical teaching from the divine Nature, He providently and most beautifully, as One who appeared also in human form, again attributes His word to the divine Nature. He does this in the Person of God the Father, from whom and in whom He exists by nature, as His radiance, His Word, and the express image of His hypostasis (Heb 1:3).

He is not unequal to Him, and yet He does not have being from Himself. Indeed, He did not lie when He said, "He who does not love Me does not keep My words." See, He called the words His own. Did He contradict Himself when He then said, "and the word which you hear is not Mine"? Perhaps, for the sake of a certain distinction, when He called them His own, He used the plural, saying "words" (sermones). But when He said "word" (sermo), that is, Word (Verbum), He called it not His own, but the Father's Word. He wanted Himself to be understood here: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (Jn 1:1). In any case, this is not His own Word, but the Father's. So also He is not His own image, but the Father's, and He is not His own Son, but the Father's. Therefore He rightly ascribed to the Author everything that He does equally with the Father. From Him He has that very reality by which He is indivisibly equal to Him.

Thus the one who loves Christ will be loved by God the Father, because Christ's word is the word of the Father who sent Him. Then God the Father and God the Son will come to him, together with the descent of the Holy Spirit upon him, and will make him Their abode and temple. By contrast, the unbelieving world does not love Christ and does not fulfill His commandments. Therefore it can be neither the object of God's love nor the temple of God. From this answer of the Lord, the disciples should have understood that He was speaking to them of His spiritual, inward manifestation to the believer. Yet in conclusion the Lord notes that full clarification for the disciples, both of this truth and of the Savior's whole teaching, will follow only with the descent of the Holy Spirit upon them.

Consequently, to the world, that unbelieving society of men, neither He Himself nor the Father in the Holy Spirit can manifest Themselves. Judas and the disciples should have understood that dreams of the Messiah's sensible kingdom were entirely contrary to the teaching of their Teacher and Lord. As is clear from Judas's question, they undoubtedly regarded Him as the Messiah. Yet this common thought about the kingdom of the Messiah had so entered their soul that they had not completely parted from it even now (cf. Acts 1:6). Only after the descent of the Holy Spirit upon them on the day of Pentecost is this thought no longer seen in them. Thus the word of Christ now spoken was fulfilled: "in that day you will know," and so forth (Jn 14:20).

In His love for men, He desires to be near to everyone. To everyone who sincerely loves Him, He comes with His Father. In each one, according to the widening of the heart by love, He takes up His dwelling with His Father. But the world, such as the Jewish world was, the world of vain, vainglorious, proud, greedy, envious, and pleasure-loving men, does such a world have love for anything divine? If there is no love for the divine in it, then there is no receptivity for the glory of Jesus. It is incapable of seeing it. Thus the heavenly Teacher extinguishes in His disciples the dreams of earthly glory, which they secretly desired. He turns their hearts toward care for pure love for God and Christ. He awakens sighing over the lack of such love. He makes them think that, if the privilege of those who sincerely love the Lord is inaccessible to the world, this is already enough for those who love Him. It is enough not to envy the wicked and not to be jealous of those who commit lawlessness.

As is known, we have the Epistle of Jude in the canon of the New Testament. Eusebius of Caesarea, in his Chronicle, preserves a tradition that the Church of Edessa was founded by the apostle Judas. The Lord continues His discourse, interrupted by Judas, and strongly repeats to His disciples the commandment of love and of keeping His word for the sake of this love, of which He spoke in verse 21. He reveals to the disciples the joyful future, eternal dwelling in the world of truth and love. This is the world that is the fulfillment of God's will, and man's union with God through man's fulfillment of God's will. The Lord's abode is the place of rest, "where there is no sickness, sorrow, or sighing, but life everlasting," as the Divine Liturgy of John Chrysostom and the memorial service say. "He who does not love Me does not keep My words," says the Lord. He indicates to man that failure to fulfill His commandments proves the absence of true love for the Lord, who so loved us and suffered for us. Besides this, the Lord again fixes the disciples' attention on the fact that, though in the form of a man, He speaks the words of God. They are eternal words, words embracing the whole world. He utters immutable laws that govern the spiritual man both in this life and in the life to come.