Plain talk about the Father

In John 16:25, Jesus says to his disciples, “I’ve been using figurative language, but no more of that, just plain talk about my Father.”

What Jesus had been aiming at in his “figurative language” about the Father began back in John 14:2, when he told his disciples that “In my Father’s house are many rooms” – to stir a picture in their minds that being with the Father in his home was their ultimate destiny and that’s what Jesus was preparing them for (2-3, 6).

The second analogy Jesus uses about his Father is in John 15:1, when he says, “I’m the true vine and my Father is the gardener.” Again the focus is on their ultimate destiny that the “gardener” Father had planned for them, and again Jesus being the instrumental “vine” in the Father’s garden to bring that purpose about. 

The third analogy Jesus uses about his Father is in John 16:21, when he compares the pain and anguish of a “woman giving birth” and the joy she receives when the baby is born, to the pain and anguish his disciples will feel when he leaves them, but the joy in store for them too when they realize his leaving them is to open up the same direct relationship with the Father for them that he had, in which “my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name” (23). So it’s the same purpose as the other two analogies – to focus their attention on the Father’s plan for them, and Jesus being the one who made it possible. 

But enough of analogies, Jesus says, it’s time now for speaking plainly about his Father. And it’s a simple point Jesus makes in verse 27, that “the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.” All these analogies Jesus had been using about his Father, then, were actually – and primarily – about the Father’s love. It’s important to Jesus, then, to get this point about the Father loving them fixed in their heads first. 

But second point, it’s also important to Jesus that his disciples love him too, to focus their minds on him being the ultimate expression and proof of the Father’s love, which is why the Father had sent him – to love them and care for them on his behalf. And it was both these simple points Jesus wanted his disciples to know, because he knew what the world would throw at them after he was gone, and how it was that he was able to say, “I have overcome the world”….(next blog)