The Father asked the impossible of Jesus, but made it possible by being united with him. Jesus described it in John 14:10, as “the Father living in me,” which created the understanding in his mind in verse 11 that “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”
Jesus knew such a relationship with his Father existed because his Father made it real by “the miracles” Jesus was able to do (11), miracles that clearly showed Impossible things were being made possible in Jesus’ life because the Father was “doing (or living) his work” in him (10). It was an amazing experience for Jesus, and so powerful and loving that Jesus’ great wish was to have his disciples united with him in the same way and for the same purpose.
Which explains why he looked forward to “going to the Father” (28), because he could ask the Father for the means to create that unity between himself and his disciples, so they too would “realize that I am in my Father, (but also) you are in me, and I am in you” (20). And they too would come to know such a relationship existed by the miracles he’d enable them to do as well – and even “greater” ones than he’d done (12).
Jesus then told his disciples how all this would come about. It would be through the Holy Spirit “living with you and in you” (17). And they’d know it too, because the Spirit would unite them with him by focusing their minds on everything Jesus had taught (26), by giving them the love for Jesus to want to obey his teachings and the realization as to how much they were loved for doing so (21), the proof of which would be Jesus “showing himself” to them (21) through impossible things being made possible – real miracles happening in their lives that could only be explained by Jesus living and doing his work in them. Which, amazingly, they could ask him to do at any time, and he would answer (13-14).
It would get the point across in John 15:9, that “As the Father has loved me so have I loved you.” So the unity Jesus had experienced with his Father would now be the unity his disciples could experience with him, starting with the realization in verse 16, that “You did not choose me, I chose you.” Their unity with Christ was all his doing, therefore, which meant that he would fulfill in them what he’d chosen and united them with him for, which was “to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last.” And we know from the lasting fruit produced in Jesus’ life by his Father being united with him that the impossible would become possible, the “evidence” of which, Jesus promised, would be “A miracle-filled life”….(next blog)
Buck To Basics 