The church I attend has been teaching a Sunday school class on the Puritan look at the act of biblical meditation. With their relatively distraction-free life, they still desired to live a life that actively meditated on God’s Word. (Major conviction on us highly distracted 21-century types!)
Not just reading a passage quickly, then moving on … the goal being to finish a book, or chapter, “In record time.” Their intent was to chew on the Word… to let it satisfy them… that’s my goal today in these short verses.
… and I will manifest Myself to him.
“Make manifest” … that is an unusual term in today’s parlance. Ok… “parlance” is an unusual word - that basically means “a way of talking.” All of that etymology (study of words) to say that we don’t generally use “big words” like manifest in our everyday speech. So what is Christ saying here?
Let’s back up, quickly, and think about this whole verse - especially now that we are at the end of it! So, Christ is talking to us about what it means to truly love Him. You don’t just say you do. There are some wildly important foundational premises. First, you have to have the commands of the LORD. You cannot love God without having His Word. You cannot, in turn, be loved by God if you haven’t got His Word… or if you reject it. Second, just because the Word of God is in front of you… just because you have read the Word and have some mildly positive thoughts about it (heck, even general reverence) … that doesn’t mean you love God either! Aside from having His Word, we must keep His Word.
It is in the having & keeping of God’s Word that our love for Him - the Triune Godhead - is made clear. The Bible spells this out in numerous ways from Genesis to Revelation.
But what comes of such devotion to God? What do we gain through this - often rigorous and difficult - focus in life? Christ reveals Himself to us…
The word here, in the Greek, means to “show, disclose, or make known.” Or, as the ESV translates it, “to manifest Himself.”
In having His Word, and keeping it, we show God a devotional love. When we show God a devotional love, Christ truly shows Himself to us. What does this mean, though? Well… that’s a good question… Obviously Jesus believes it to be an important thing. It ends a clause, and a thought. It completes the verse we are diving into this week.
As I have thought about it, off and on, as I have worked through this verse… I am genuinely unsure if I have a solid answer. The Son promises those who devote themselves to God, and love Him, that He will love them. Christ loves the Church in such a way that He lay down His infinitely worthy life for her. Throughout Church History we have been shown what Christ’s love has meant to the Church. His revelation of Himself has kept the Church from being truly threatened by anyone “without or within.”
Maybe if we expand this pericope (another $100 word meaning “Biblical passage”) outwards we will get a better sight of what Christ is telling us? He has just made His “I AM” statement concerning His exclusionary claim to eternal salvation (“I AM the Way, the Truth, & the Life”). He has just promised to not leave His people as “orphans” in this life. And He will go on, in a moment, to tell Judas (and the other disciples) that He does not manifest Himself to the world in the same way that He does to His own.
That difference comes in the completion of the mentioning of the Three Persons of the Triune Godhead in this section of John 14. We hear that to have & keep Jesus’s command is to love the Father… and to love the Son… and doing so manifests the Son to us. This manifestation sets us apart… and ultimately “indwells” us with the Holy Spirit!
That is what Jesus is getting at! To have Jesus be fully known, is to fully know God… and we can “get there” by having the Third Person of the Holy Trinity dwelling inside of us.
That concept - in it’s own right - deserves a whole other months long conversation… so, instead, I will call it a day! And wish each of happy readers a great time diving into that deep well of God’s eternal Being yourself!