J C Ryle
These three verses are rich in precious truth. For eighteen centuries they have been specially dear to Christ’s believing servants in every part of the world. Many are the sick rooms which they have lightened! Many are the dying hearts which they have cheered! Let us see what they contain.
- We have in this passage a precious remedy against an old disease. That disease is trouble of heart. That remedy is faith.
Heart trouble is the commonest thing in the world. No rank or class or condition is exempt from it. No bars or bolts or locks can keep it out. Partly from inward causes and partly from outward causes, partly from the body and partly from the mind, partly from what we love and partly from what we fear, the journey of life is full of trouble. Even the best Christians have many bitter cups to drink between grace and glory. Even the holiest saints find the world a vale of tears.
Faith in the Lord Jesus is the only sure medicine for troubled hearts. To believe more thoroughly, trust more entirely, rest more unreservedly, lay hold more firmly, lean back more completely – this is the prescription which their Master urges on all His disciples. No doubt the members of that little band, which sat round the table at the last supper, had believed already. They had proved the reality of their faith by giving up everything for Christ’s sake.
1Taken, with editing, from Expository Thoughts on John, vol 3, first published in 1873. Ryle is here commenting on John 14:1-3.
Yet what does their Lord say to them here? Once more He presses on them the old lesson, the lesson with which they first began: “Believe! Believe more! Believe distinctly on Me!”
Never let us forget that there are degrees in faith, and that there is a wide difference between weak and strong believers. The weakest faith is enough to give a man a saving interest in Christ. It ought not to be despised, but it will not give a man such inward comfort as a strong faith. Vagueness and dimness of perception are the defect of weak believers. They do not see clearly what they believe and why they believe. In such cases more faith is the one thing needed. Like Peter on the water, they need to look more steadily at Jesus, and less at the waves and wind. Is it not written, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee”? (Is 26:3).
- We have in this passage a very comforting account of heaven, the future abode of saints. It is but little that we understand about heaven while we are here in the body, and that little is generally taught us in the Bible by negatives much more than by positives. But here, at any rate, there are some plain things.
Heaven is a “Father’s house” – the house of that God of whom Jesus says, “I go to My Father, and your Father”. It is, in a word, home – the home of Christ and Christians. This is a sweet and touching expression. Home, as we all know, is the place where we are generally loved for our own sakes, and not for our gifts or possessions; the place where we are loved to the end, never forgotten, and always welcome. This is one idea of heaven. Believers are in a strange land, and at school, in this life. In the life to come they will be at home.
Heaven is a place of “mansions” – of lasting, permanent, and eternal dwellings. Here in the body we are in lodgings, tents and tabernacles, and must submit to many changes. In heaven we shall be settled at last and go out no more. “Here we have no continuing city” (Heb 13:14). Our house not made with hands shall never be taken down (2 Cor 5:1).
Heaven is a place of “many mansions”. There will be room for all believers and room for all sorts, for little saints as well as great ones, for the weakest believer as well as for the strongest. The feeblest child of God need not fear there will be no place for him. None will be shut out except impenitent sinners and obstinate unbelievers.
Heaven is a place where Christ Himself shall be present. He will not be content to dwell without His people – “Where I am, there ye shall be also”. They need not think that they shall be alone and neglected. They may say, Our Saviour, our elder Brother, our Redeemer, who loved us and gave Himself for us, shall be in the midst of us for ever. What we shall see and whom
we shall see in heaven, we cannot fully conceive yet, while we are in the body. But one thing is certain: we shall see Christ.
Let these things sink down into our minds. To the worldly and careless they may seem nothing at all. To all who feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of God, they are full of unspeakable comfort. If we hope to be in heaven, it is pleasant to know what heaven is like.
- God’s people have in this passage solid ground for expecting good things to come. The evil heart of unbelief within them is apt to rob them of their comfort about heaven. “We wish we could think it was all true.” “We fear we shall never be admitted into heaven.” But let us hear what Jesus says to encourage them.
One cheering word is this: “I go to prepare a place for you”. Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people: a place which, they shall discover, Christ Himself has made ready for true Christians. He has prepared it by procuring a right for every believing sinner to enter in. No one can stop them and say they have no business there. He has prepared it by going before them as their Head and Representative, and taking possession of it for all the members of His mystical body. As their Forerunner He has marched in, leading captivity captive, and has planted His banner in the land of glory. He has prepared it by carrying their names with Him as their High Priest into the holy of holies, and making angels ready to receive them. Those who enter heaven will find they are neither unknown nor unexpected.
Another cheering word is this: “I will come again and receive you unto Myself”. Christ will not wait for believers to come up to Him, but will come down to them, to raise them from their graves and escort them to their heavenly home. As Joseph came to meet Jacob, so will Jesus come to call His people together and guide them to their inheritance. The second advent ought never to be forgotten. Great is the blessedness of looking back to Christ coming the first time to suffer for His people, but no less great is the comfort of looking forward to Christ coming the second time, to raise and reward His saints (Heb 9:25-28).
Let us leave the whole passage with solemnised feelings and serious self-examination. How much they miss who live in a dying world and yet know nothing of God as their Father and Christ as their Saviour! How much they possess who live the life of faith in the Son of God and believe in Jesus! With all their weaknesses and crosses, they have that which the world can neither give nor take away. They have a true Friend while they live and a true home when they die.
The superficial piety of the present day is owing, in a large degree, to feeble impressions of the malignity of sin.
J H Thormwell