The fourteenth and fifteenth chapters of John deal with progressive levels in our spiritual life, plateaus to which we attain. Even with Christ’s disciples, there were levels of discipleship. The Word tells us the Lord deals with us without partiality; nevertheless, there were always those who went a little farther with Him. Peter, James, and John, who were with Him on the mountain where He was transfigured (Matthew 17:1–13), perhaps had determined a higher plateau upon which they would walk. Under the twelve was the ministry of the seventy (John 10:1); below the seventy were the other disciples.
The various plateaus to which individuals can attain are not reached by personal diligence and self-discipline, but by their faith and by their walk with the Lord; in faithfulness they go from one level to another. Sometimes we think it is enough that we are delivered from oppression and bondages. It is not enough! We also must determine how to break through what seems like impossible impasses to get to the next level.
Let not your heart be troubled; believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; (The King James Version says “mansions,” but I do not think correctly so, for it conveys an idea of heaven as being a place with big beautiful mansions in it. “In My Father’s house are many mansions.”) if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. (Not, there you “will” be also, but there you “may” be also.) And you know the way where I am going. Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going; how do we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.”
Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know me, Phillip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how do you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak of My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me; otherwise believe on account of the works themselves. Truly, Truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to the Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.” John 14:1–14.
The Lord told the disciples, “The Father is abiding in Me, and if you have seen Me, you have seen the Father. Now I am going to the Father!” Can you figure that out? Levels and plateaus in the spirit are not measured by distance. Do not persist in the idea that heaven is away beyond the starry blue! Spiritual plateaus are a matter of plane rather than place. There are people who walk around, unaware of the Lord, yet the Lord says, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). Others are so aware of the presence of the Lord that they walk with the Lord continually, for they came up to a higher plateau of spiritual awareness.
We are surrounded with so great a cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1), and yet we get the idea that the dead in Christ are tucked away in some corner of a distant galaxy, waiting for the day of resurrection. It is not so! They are not far away in distance, but they can seem so, because the spiritual plane is different. “In My Father’s house there are many abiding places, and I go to prepare a place for you.” He is going to another plane. “I go to the Father.” The Father was not distant, the Father was abiding in Him. “He that has seen Me has seen the Father.” Can you see what it really means?
We still go through motions that I think are rather ridiculous: we lift up our eyes (they did it in the Bible, too) when we pray and do various things to try to project our consciousness off to some far off space. It is not that way at all. Where is the unique abiding place of Him who is omnipresent, whose presence is felt everywhere, in everything, and in every place? God said; “The heavens of heavens cannot contain Me” (I Kings 8:27), yet Isaiah states: “In this place will I dwell, with him who is a humble and contrite spirit” (Isaiah 57:15). God comes and makes that His dwelling place. That unique place of manifestation of God is within you. It is a mystery, “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” but how to release that presence and come into the awareness of it is what He is revealing.
“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to Myself; (Consider it a plane, not place.) that where I am, there you may be also.” John 14:3. It was of this relationship of abiding in Him which He refers to in John 14:12: … he who believes in Me, the works that I do shall he do also. In John 15, He was on that same thought when He said, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, (it is that higher plane of abiding) ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you.” Verse 7.
The Lord is saying, “Come higher.” It is not a matter of distance; it is a matter of a higher spiritual plane. You may say, “I am afraid I will become fanatical.” Anyone who has such a tremendous potential created in his spirit to walk with God, and is content to live on a lower natural plane is foolish. It is ridiculous for the new creation to be so earthbound. It is beyond reason for us to continually dwell on that lower plane when everything is speaking, If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Colossians 3:1. Open your heart to see this, and come up to something better. Our not being spiritual is foolish. It is ridiculous for us to be so earthbound that we find our natural appetites still governing, and our spiritual appetites having a vagueness about them until it is not important whether or not we read the Word, pray, and dwell in the things of the Lord. Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Matthew 4:4.
Come up a little higher. Change your position spiritually, and come into the mystical presence of the Lord. There are many abiding places. The only difference between you and those who are sleeping in Christ Jesus is not a matter of distance but of spiritual plane. They are no longer occupied with a physical plane of existence as we are, but we are able to reach up to a much higher spiritual plane. We are aware of the Lord, like Moses, who endured as seeing Him who is invisible (Hebrews 11:27).
We are going to live on a higher plane of love. The church of Jesus Christ was never brought forth to be a battleground on a low level of living. It was brought forth to be an exhibition of the grace of God: to those who would walk in perfection, in the grace of God, in sanctification, and in holiness. Let’s not be afraid of it; let’s rise to that level.
After the resurrection, Jesus appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3–5), and to John on the Isle of Patmos (Revelation 1:1). There must have been many such appearances. Did it ever disturb you to read where Jesus said to Mary, Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father … and to your Father John 20:17? Yet He was seen for forty days before His ascension, when the clouds received Him out of their sight. Where did He go? Was He distant, beyond those clouds that received Him? So that they could understand humanly, was it a natural cloud that received Him or was it the same cloud that led the children of Israel in the wilderness (Exodus 13:21)? Was it that they had to understand that now He was not concentrated in a physical body but in a many-member Body, so He had to be received up into a cloud of glory? Henceforth, they would think of Him differently; they would think of His presence with every one of them.
He is not far away! It would be easy for Him to appear; His presence is very much with us. But if He appeared to you right now, He would be lowering His manifestation from what it is. He would be lowering His appearance to another spiritual plane from where He is now. What is He doing now? He is manifesting His presence in a many-member Body; in you. He is more present now, because He is within you, than if you could look upon Him with physical sight, than if you could see His physical glory until it would dazzle you. It is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Colossians 1:27. This glory you will live and abide in for eternity.
I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit in itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch, and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you. By this is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full. John 15:1–11.
John 14, 15 and 16 refer to progressive spiritual development. There are things we cannot bear to hear now, but the Spirit will lead us into all the truth (John 16:13) and unveil things we cannot perceive now.
We read in John 14: “In My Father’s house are many abiding places.” In John 15, the Lord is saying how we abide in Him. He shifts the illustration from abiding places to levels of life or levels of productiveness, from an inorganic to an organic basis. It is not a thing of plane alone; it is a position of living. He is talking about vines and branches; about fruit and about pruning; about a vinedresser.
The emphasis is “abide!” We abide, and we bear fruit; the Lord purges and prunes us and we bear more fruit. The whole picture is the action of the Heavenly Father upon us, so that the life of Jesus flows into us in a more fruitful manner. The function and purpose of the branch and vine is to bear fruit. The vinedresser is concerned that it bear the most possible fruit. The fruit is not a product of the branch but of that which flows from the vine into the branch. There the branch transforms it through the energy supplied through the vine and produces beautiful fruit.
So it is in this walk—we are coming into an ever greater level of fruitfulness. What is the future going to be? It is a mistake to look for a comfortable life. Don’t look to be a beautiful large vine growing larger every year. It is the will of the Father to cut us back, for He desires to make us fruitful.
“He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit” (verse 5). But the first verse states that if you bear fruit at all, the Father prunes you (the literal word is cleanses) so that you will bear more fruit. The King James Version reads, “He purges it.” Pruning just cuts back the vine, but purging gets to the very basis of the branch that is to come forth. God gives us wonderful promises; then He gets out His clippers. Snip, snip, He prunes the branches. The Church goes through a pruning process because the Lord says, “More fruit!” He may ruin your personal life before He is finished, but oh, the joy and release that comes when God has cut you back until everything except the purpose to do the will of the Lord disappears.
Many things you do in this way of consecration to the Lord is a voluntary submitting to the purging and the pruning of the Lord. You come before the Lord weeping and praying, waving your little branch at the Lord and saying, “Oh God, I hate me!” Whack! He cuts off more. Have you felt there is too much of you yet? Keep submitting, and the Father will be faithful to keep clipping, until “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you” (Verse 3). Soon, instead of dead wood, you will be producing living fruit unto God. Fruitfulness comes by the process to which God is exposing us. That is how we move on, from one level to another.
If we kept a diary, we would be encouraged as time passed by the difference between our present way of life and what it was a year ago. We are being pruned by the Lord! Even our attitudes are changing. We are not being conformed to this world but are being transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2).
Do not give up the idea that you continually are growing into a greater walk with God. It is a progressive level of abiding in the Lord. Do not become discouraged when one area of your life dries up or is cut off completely. The Lord purges us sometimes in ways that we are not aware of. Have you ever had Him clip your nice, comfortable way of Bible study? You go on groping, “Where am I? Lord, what’s the matter with me? I feel like I’m out of the picture. Am I apostate or something? Do I belong among the backsliders? I can’t read the Word; I can’t pray anymore. I don’t have any fruitfulness—a little stub is all I have left.”
If you feel like that, rejoice and be exceedingly glad. Do not drop out of church or withdraw—running away from the snips just takes the pressure off. Stay there and take it, because soon the fruitfulness will come—luxurious, beautiful, sweet fruit unto the Lord. Be thankful you are changing. Your problems are problems of growth, of coming into a higher productiveness in the Lord.
Do not be harsh with one another; the Lord is harsh enough with us, so be generous and kind to each other. You do not have to have a spirit of sympathy, but be kind; don’t bear down on the wound, it hurts bad enough anyway! You wouldn’t go to visit a friend who was recuperating from surgery and pull the incision open again. The Lord is working all of us over, so stay out of it. Let it heal. Be kind to each other. Don’t be harsh; He has called us to live and rejoice with one another in the faith. He will be faithful to keep pruning and purging us.
Jesus said, “The works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works than these shall ye do.” With this awareness we ought to start trying to do the greater works. Are you endeavoring to be an instrument in the hand of the Lord? Do you dare reach out and believe that the indwelling presence of the Lord, the indwelling presence of the Father, and the indwelling presence of the Spirit, are there? It would be possible to rise to a plane of faith and there would be a flow of God from you that would be beyond what any generation has seen. Can we believe? Kick down the barriers, the walls! We must come to new planes of awareness. We seem to be stuck on a plateau of only talking about it. Break out of it. No matter how we have to struggle, let’s go on, from glory to glory.
We look to Thee, Lord, to open our eyes. Do we really know how to pray to You, Lord? Do we know how to address the Diety that dwells within us? We have to know that we are literally living stones, built up in a holy temple of God to offer up spiritual sacrifices. O Father, make us to know it, and let us rise to new levels spiritually. We loose ourselves from spiritual blindness, and from this plane of unawareness. Lord, get us out of this. We must break through. We yearn to know Thee; to behold Thee, Lord, on a new level. O God, we must be loosed from the things that have limited us. Loose us from the restrictions under which we have chafed, that have been self-imposed, Lord. We are ashamed of the low level we live on, when we know that a higher one is available. We must believe that it is not only available but is attainable today. We claim it, in the name of the Lord.