111 John 14:22-24 JESUS QUESTIONED ABOUT HIS MANIFESTATION Introduction: In this text Jesus is questioned by one of His disciples. His disciple wanted to know why that after his resurrection Jesus would show Himself only to His disciples and not to people at large. This is a question that many of the Lord's disciples down through the years have had. Perhaps some of you have had the same question. In our text Jesus gives at least a partial answer to the question. I. The question which was asked Jesus V. 22, "Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?" Back in verse 19 Jesus had told His disciples that it would not be long until the unsaved world would see Him no more. He added, however, that His disciples would see Him because He would manifest Himself to them. That is, He would show Himself to His disciples. They would see Him physically after He has risen from the grave. What this meant, in part, was that after His crucifixion and resurrection, He would not remain on earth but a short period of time. During that short period of time, even though He was risen from the grave, yet He would not show Himself to the unsaved world. The unsaved world would not be able to see with their own eyes that Jesus was, indeed, risen from the grave. Only those who were His disciples would see Him after He arose from the grave His resurrection. In sharp contrast to the unsaved who would not see Him, His disciples would see Him. They would see Him with their own eyes and they would be able even to touch Him with their own hands. They would know for certain that Jesus has risen from the grave. Even though Jesus would show Himself after His resurrection to His disciples, He would to away. He would ascend up into the air and go away to haven. Yet Jesus would pray the Father and God the Father would send another Comforter to take His place with His church. During His stay on earth, Jesus had personally been with His church to teach them, to lead them, to direct them, to comfort them and to enable them to do His work. His promise was that God the Father would send the Holy Spirit upon His church and that through the presence of the Holy Spirit, He Himself would be present with them to direct His church and to empower His church to do the work which He would assign them to do. He would not be physically with them, but He would be with them through the Holy Spirit. This promise would be fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. In addition to this, Jesus had promised that He would manifest Himself to every individual person who loves Him and keeps His commandments. In other words, He would manifest Himself to every born again person. This, too, is not a visible manifestation. In this, He is not seen visibly. Nor is this the presence of the Holy Spirit upon the church organization. Rather this is the invisible presence of the Holy Spirit which dwells within every born again believer. It is the presence of the Holy Spirit which indwells each person who is born again. The Holy Spirit produces the new birth and His seed, His nature, remains in the born again spirit of the individual. So actually, Jesus has promised to manifest Himself to His disciples in three different ways. First, He would show Himself in His human body to His disciples after He had risen from the grave and before He would ascend to heaven. Secondly, He would manifest Himself to His church through the Holy Spirit which would come upon the church on the day of Pentecost. Thirdly, He would manifest Himself inwardly to each believer through the Holy Spirit who dwells within each believer. It is not clear to me whether the disciple who raised the question understood at that time all three of these different ways that Jesus would manifest Himself to the disciples. It appears to me that what he was asking about was the visible manifestation of His physical body after He was risen from the grave. In essence he was asking, "Lord, why are you not going to show yourself physically to the unsaved people of the world?" You will note that John identifies this disciple as being named "Judas." Then he quickly clarifies that this is not Judas Iscariot. John did not write this account until well after Judas Iscariot had betrayed Jesus into the hands of His enemies and John wanted to make sure that his readers understand that this disciple is not Judas Iscariot, the betrayer. Most Bible scholars say that this Judas is the same person who is called "Thaddaeus" or "Lebbaeus" in other Scriptures and who is also called "Jude" in the Book of Jude. He is the writer of the Book of Jude. Regardless of his identity, this disciple could not understand why Jesus would not show Himself openly to the unsaved world after He arose from the grave. It just seemed to him that it would be better for Jesus to show Himself openly to the unsaved. It must have seemed to him that if Jesus would show Himself openly to the unsaved that He had indeed risen from the grave that He would be able to convince more people that He really is the Christ. Virtually the whole nation of Israel would be present to witness His crucifixion. At least people from all portions of the nation were present. They would see Him crucified with their own eyes. It seemed logical to this disciple that if they could also see with their own eyes that He is risen from the grave that they would be forced to acknowledge that Jesus has risen from the grave and must be the Christ. He saw this as the best means of getting the nation of Israel to accept Jesus as the Christ and getting them to crown Him as the king of Israel. Today we have the advantage of hindsight. We know that it was not the purpose of Jesus to establish Himself on the throne of Israel at that time. Nor was His purpose to force the unsaved to acknowledge that He is the Christ. It was His purpose to die so that men might be saved and to win them to place their faith in Him so that they might be saved. Then after one has placed his faith in Jesus, Jesus would manifest Himself to that person through the indwelling Holy Spirit. He would also manifest Himself to those who would unite with His church at Jerusalem or with one of churches of like faith and order that would be organized through mission work. He would manifest Himself to each New Testament church through the presence of the Holy Spirit which is with each church to comfort the church, to empower the church and to direct its activities. I think that many disciples of the Lord have had the same question in their minds that this disciple did. I know that I have had it in my mind. I have wondered why Jesus did not just go right back into the temple of God at Jerusalem while the great crowds who had witnessed His crucifixion were still in town. They had seen the Roman soldier pierce His side with a spear. They had witnessed as the lifeless body of Jesus was taken down from the cross. They knew that Pilate had ordered the tomb of Jesus sealed and Roman soldiers placed on guard to make certain that His body was not stolen by His disciples. II. Taking a second look at the question It would seem that the logical thing to do to convince them that they were wrong would be for Jesus to walk right into that Jewish temple before them all and say, "See! I am live! I am the Christ! Thrust your hand into my side so that you will know that I am for real. I am the Son of God! I am the Savior of men!" But once we take a second look we are all forced to acknowledge that God always knows what is best. God's ways are not our ways. God's ways are far superior to our ways. Whether or not we ever fully understand how they are better, we acknowledge that God's ways are better than our's. He is God and God's way is best. Furthermore, God does not have to ask our permission to do things a certain way. God is Supreme. God is the Supreme Ruler of all heaven and earth. A few years ago there was a song which was popular which says, "I did it my way." There is no doubt that man does many things his way. But there is no man in the world who can say that he always does all things his way. Yet God is the only one in existence who can say in all things, "I did it my way. I always do it my way." God is supreme. Furthermore, God does not have to explain to man why He does what He does. III. The answer which Jesus gave to the question But in our test a disciple has asked Jesus a question and Jesus chooses to give him an answer to his question. At least He gave him a partial answer. V. 23-24, "Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me." The answer which Jesus gave is very simple. Jesus said that He would not manifest Himself to the unsaved world because the unsaved do not love Him. Jesus does not want to force people who do not love Him to acknowledge that He has risen from the grave. Jesus does not want to force people who do not love Him to become his followers. Jesus does not want to force people who do not love Him to serve Him. Jesus wants the unsaved to hear the gospel message and trust in Him and be born again. They will love Him and then they will follow Him and serve Him because they love Him. Jesus wants people to serve Him because they love Him. This is why Jesus would manifest Himself only to those who love Him. This is in keeping with God's plan for eternity. The unsaved world will not get to spend eternity with Jesus. Only those who love Jesus will spend eternity with Jesus. So it is with this life. Jesus said, "...If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings..." Those who love Jesus are loved with a special love from God the Father and from Jesus Christ His Son. Jesus said, "...we will come unto him, and make our abode with him..." I want you to take special note of the word "we." We have already seen that through the Holy Spirit which dwells within the believer that Jesus Himself would be with the believer. Now Jesus tells us that both He and God the Father will come to the believer and dwell with the believer through the Holy Spirit. That means that as a result of the new birth and as a result of the Holy Spirit nature which dwells within the believer, the entire Godhead, in essence, dwells within him. The Holy Spirit was born within him in the new birth. Then since the believer loves Jesus both Jesus and God the Father come and take up their abode with the believer. So the believer will not only get to dwell with God in eternity, but right here in this live, the believer dwells with God. The Holy Spirit is born within him and through the Holy Spirit both Jesus and God the Father dwell within Him. The entire Godhead has taken up their abode with the believer dwelling within his born again spirit. In sharp contrast to this, the unbeliever will not spend eternity with God neither in this life nor in the next life. Rather, in the next life he will spend eternity separated from God. He will spend his eternity in torment suffering for all the sins that he ever committed. He will not spend this life in close fellowship with God and he will not spend the next life in fellowship with God. The unbeliever does not love God and he will have no fellowship with God neither in this life nor in the life to come. He will live a miserable life in this world and a horrible life in the world to come. IV. The witness which the world does have But this does not mean that the world will have no manifestation at all of the fact that Jesus did indeed arise from the grave and that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior of the world. Jesus said that the believer loves Jesus and seeks to keep His words. This means a change in the lifestyle of the believer. He once lived a life of sin and rebellion against God, but after he believes in Jesus and gets saved he loves God. He loves God the Father for sending His Son to die for him and he love Jesus for dying for Him. He loves Jesus and he seeks to live his life in keeping with the teaching of Jesus. It is this change that serves as a powerful witness to the unsaved world. The unsaved person does not have the privilege of seeing the resurrected Jesus, but he can see the change that comes in the life of the believer. When he sees a rabble rousing liquor drinking fighting carouser changed into a sober peaceable godly individual he can know that the Jesus is for real. The message of His resurrection is for real. The gospel message of salvation is for real. He can know that Jesus saves. Jesus saved the rabble-rouser when he trusted in Jesus and Jesus can save anyone who will trust in Him. The Apostle Paul told the Philippian jailor, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." Furthermore, there are the teachings of Jesus. Jesus said that His teachings did not originate with Himself. Jesus said that He spoke the words which God the Father told Him to speak. (V. 24), "...and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me." V. 25, "These things have I spoken unto you..." If men will not believe the evidence when they see the changed lives of those who have trusted in Jesus --- if men will not believe the words of God, the they would not believe even if they could see one who has risen from the grave. This is what Father Abraham told the rich man spoken of in Luke 16:27-37. This rich man died and went into the fires of hell and he asked Father Abraham to send Lazarus back to witness to his brothers who were unsaved. The rich man told Abraham that if his brothers could see someone who has risen from the dead they would believe. Abraham told the rich man that if a man will not believe the word of God, he would not believe even though one arose from the dead. So the unsaved world would have evidence that Jesus is the Savior of men. They will have the changed lives of sinners who ha in Jesus for salvation. The unsaved can see with their own eyes the change that has taken place in their lives. If you are unsaved then I say to you that God is calling for you to repent of your sins and for you to trust in Jesus Christ and be saved. He is also calling for you to come publicly and to confess Jesus as your Savior before men. He is calling for you to make a change in your life and follow Jesus Christ. Conclusion: What unsaved person will come and trust Jesus Christ and be saved? What save person will come and follow the Lord Jesus Christ in scriptural baptism? What saved person will come and move your membership to this church and get in active service for the Lord?