◄ What Does John 14:10 Mean? ►

To fulfil prophecy, Jesus came to redeem His people, Israel, preaching repentance of sin and the gospel of the Kingdom. He was sent ONLY to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and performed many signs to authenticate His Messianic claims. According to Scripture, Jesus had to offer salvation to His own people first, before He could shepherd the Gentiles into His heavenly sheepfold, and most of His earthly ministry and Messianic claims were directed towards His own people - the Jewish nation. 

But they rejected their Messiah and His message, and there was a point when His ministry began to change and Jesus started teaching in parables. However, it was during the final few weeks before His crucifixion that Jesus started preparing His disciples for His death, Resurrection, Ascension, and Day of Pentecost together with the coming of the Holy Spirit to indwell the Church during a new dispensation - the dispensation of the Grace of God.

As the second member of the Triune Godhead, Jesus was the exact image and pure representation of His Heavenly Father, while being clothed in human flesh. Jesus was the incarnate God. He was the Word of God made flesh. His disciples already believed in God, but they were also to believe in Him: "You believe in God, believe also in Me," was His challenge, for He had been sent, by God, to be their Kinsman Redeemer.

As the sinless Son of God, He was qualified to pay the price for sin - for He was made in the likeness of sinful man YET there was no sin in Him. As the sinless Son of Man, He was qualified to shed His lifeblood to rescue His people and bring many sons to glory. As the perfect Man without sin, He was qualified to die on the Cross as the sacrificial offering for the sin of the world.

Being the radiance of God's eternal glory and the exact representation of His Father's perfect essence, the Lord Jesus was the visible representation of the invisible God, and not only did He come to die for our sin but He also came to show us the perfect nature and pure attributes of His Father in heaven. Christ Jesus came to reveal the character and essence of the Father to mankind, and He demonstrated to the world How God expects His children to live.

The spiritual unity that prevailed between the Lord Jesus and His Father was so magnificent and pure that He could legitimately claim, "I and My Father are one," and, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father." On many occasions, Christ's own words and works bore testimony to His disciples that He was very God of very God - incarnate divinity, for he claimed the ownership of the Name of the most high God: "I AM." "I AM the Good Shepherd;" "I AM the True Vine;" "I AM the Living WATER;" "I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life;" and "Before Abraham was - I AM." 

He claimed to be the Resurrection and the Life and manifested His authority over life, death, disease, nature, and the very demons of hell. Jesus declared that He was One with the Father and challenged His followers to believe in Him: "For in ME are the words of eternal life," He claimed. Throughout His entire ministry, Christ's words, deeds, actions, and attitude bore witness to the truth that Jesus was one with the Father, which is why He was filled with amazement when He heard His followers question the truth and ask Him to "show us the Father."

"Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me?" He asked Philip, before explaining: "The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works." Jesus was so in tune with His Father that they were united in thought and unified in purpose - Christ in the Father and the Father in Him.

Although He was fully God, the Lord Jesus lived His life demonstrating to humanity how God wants every spiritual man to live - indwelt, led, and guided by the Holy Spirit of God while at the same time abiding in unbroken fellowship with our Father in heaven - every moment of the day. In His relationship with His Father, Jesus demonstrated the true meaning of "abide in Me and I in you."

Despite all that Philip and the other disciples had witnessed throughout the three and a half years of His ministry, the disciples' stumbling block was a lack of faith. They failed to recognise and accept that Jesus is the visible representation of the invisible God - the Word made flesh Whose very life was a beautiful reflection of His Father in heaven. He had already shown them the Father in His own life, but they failed to believe His promises, trust His word, and understand His teachings.

May we so grow in grace and in a knowledge of the Lord Jesus that we die to ourselves and live for Christ. Day by day, may we be so united in spirit and truth that we are being transformed in the likeness of the Lord Jesus so that the things that we do and the words that we speak are carried out because we abide in Christ and He in us. Just as Jesus did not speak on His own initiative, but did so through the Father living within and working through Him, may we not speak in our own authority but joyfully submit to His perfect will in our lives.

Heavenly Father, thank You for revealing Yourself through the lovely Lord Jesus Who is the visible image of Your invisible glory. Thank You for His amazing example of how each one of Your children have been called to live. May I submit my life to You each day so that as I abide in You, the words that I speak and the things I do, are through You living within and working through me. In Jesus' name, AMEN.