The people of old didn't have the advantage of the historical position Christians sit in today. They didn't have hindsight as we do, so they saw blurred pictures and failed to understand the clarity of the situation. But even if modern Christians sit in a better vantage point, I understand perfectly the feeling a person has when a concept is nebulous, blurred, or otherwise hard to grasp because of shifting life experiences yielding seemingly conflicted semantics for an idea. It has happened to me over time because my experiences with certain ideas shift over time.
The song below presents very incredibly the conflicting ideas the Jews in Jesus' time were piecing together for God, his promised messiah, and the future presence of God on Earth after hearing Jesus' teaching. Listening to what Elevation Worship offers in the song Yahweh, below, very exactly helps one digest the idea of what Jesus was saying in John 14. I hope you will let this worshipful song enhance your experience of John's record of Jesus' words of the one who was to come.
God made his name known to Moses in the event of the burning bush when Moses asked God, "Who do I say has sent me?" (Exodus 3.14; 6.2-3)
"יהוה" was the answer.
Translating this word is in some ways not hard. The Jews always have understood it. They revered it. They went through a period of time when they wouldn't pronounce it. Their scribes who transmitted the text of the Old Testament went through a period of time when they washed themselves and their writing utensil after writing the name because it was so holy. In that tradition, many translations of the Bible have used a euphemism for the word, such as Lord, rather than translating it directly since it was so sacred. But, the Jews have always known what יהוה (Yahweh) has meant.
But translating the word is in some ways really, really difficult. To Moses it meant something on the order of The one who was and is and is to come, The one who is always present, The one who lives always - past, present, and future, The one who is - no matter the age, The one who exists in all the Earth, The one fills all time, The one who is always beside you.
When Moses went to tell Israel and Pharaoh who sent him, he did just that. He told them יהוה (YHWH) has sent me. Can you imagine what they must've said besides, "Who is that?" Over the next 1300 years, the Jews learned who יהוה (YHWH) was but boiled the name down to the two words, I AM. Jesus used I AM as his reference point, saying it was his father's name, and his own, which is why the Jews could not tolerate the thought of him extending the meaning of the I AM of their understanding, and of their fathers, to apply to Jesus.
Less than a week before Jesus departed the Earth, he spoke to his Twelve selected men. He had told them about his impending death, his timing for waking again , and his departure for his father's realm where he would prepare many places for his followers to live. He lacked telling them one more thing before he left.
Verse 1
Μὴ ταρασσέσθω ὑμῶν ἡ καρδία· πιστεύετε εἰς τὸν θεὸν καὶ εἰς ἐμὲ πιστεύετε
(Don't allow your heart to be disturbed. You trust God, so trust me too.)
The discourse that followed was a beautiful rendition of the name יהוה (YHWH - I AM). Then Jesus ended his words of presence, his YHWH dialog, in the same fashion he began:
Verse 27
Εἰρήνην ἀφίημι ὑμῖν, εἰρήνην τὴν ἐμὴν δίδωμι ὑμῖν· οὐ καθὼς ὁ κόσμος δίδωσιν ἐγὼ δίδωμι ὑμῖν. μὴ ταρασσέσθω ὑμῶν ἡ καρδία μηδὲ δειλιάτω
(I am leaving peace with you. I'm not giving you peace as the world gives it. Don't allow your heart to be disturbed or afraid.)
The morsel to savor for its awesome, robust flavor are two verses in the middle of the dialog telling of I AM, not in Heaven, not in the flesh, but the I AM inside us, beside us every step of our trusting way.
Verse 15
Ἐὰν ἀγαπᾶτέ με, τὰς ἐντολὰς τὰς ἐμὰς τηρήσετε
(If you care for me, you will observe the things I have told you to be doing.)
Verse 16
κἀγὼ ἐρωτήσω τὸν πατέρα καὶ ἄλλον παράκλητον δώσει ὑμῖν, ἵνα μεθ’ ὑμῶν εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα ᾖ
(And I will ask Father to give you someone else to stand beside you so that forever he can be with you,)
Verse 17
τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας, ὃ ὁ κόσμος οὐ δύναται λαβεῖν, ὅτι οὐ θεωρεῖ αὐτὸ οὐδὲ γινώσκει· ὑμεῖς γινώσκετε αὐτό, ὅτι παρ’ ὑμῖν μένει καὶ ἐν ὑμῖν ἔσται
(the spirit of truth that the world cannot receive because they have no frame of reference to know, but you do. He stands with you and is in you.)
And if the Twelve thought they were being given too big a responsibility after Jesus' departure, he promised them them his presence, his I AM nature, but not in the flesh.
Verse 25
Ταῦτα λελάληκα ὑμῖν παρ’ ὑμῖν μένων
(I have said these things while being with you.)
Verse 26
ὁ δὲ παράκλητος, τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον, ὃ πέμψει ὁ πατὴρ ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί μου, ἐκεῖνος ὑμᾶς διδάξει πάντα καὶ ὑπομνήσει ὑμᾶς πάντα ἃ εἶπον ὑμῖν
(Father will send the Holy Spirit, the one who stands beside you, in my name. He will teach you everything and remind you of everything I told you. )
Jesus spoke of his/God's Spirit both to those who follow his words and to the Twelve who needed his personal strength as παράκλητος (the one who stands beside me). I can read the setting to know that the Twelve felt fearful of being followers in a world without Jesus. They knew that people would have questions about a recently departed messiah. I know they had the same question that Moses had. "Who do we say has sent us?"
παράκλητος (the one who stands beside us, the one who is with us in our moments of need) is the answer.
The one who stands beside us, The one who represents us, The one who helps us remember the relevant past, and The one who fills the present, The one who is... the not-in-flesh, not-in-Heaven, God/Jesus-in-us.
I AM - in spirit.
My heart is not disturbed!
[The Greek text used is the Nestle-Alland 28th edition.]
[Songs are sung by the groups Elevation Worship and Jesus Culture.]
[Introductory art, Peace Be With You, by Susie Boyer from
http://www.fulcrumgallery.com/c7594/christian-art.htm?page=2]
[Translations from Greek and Hebrew are my own.]
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