1“Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. 2In my Father’s house are many homes. If it weren’t so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you. 3If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will receive you to myself; that where I am, you may be there also. 4You know where I go, and you know the way.”
5Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?”
6Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me. 7If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you know him and have seen him.”
8Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”
9Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you such a long time, and do you not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How do you say, ‘Show us the Father?’ 10Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I tell you, I speak not from myself; but the Father who lives in me does his works. 11Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me; or else believe me for the very works’ sake. 12Most certainly I tell you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also; and he will do greater works than these, because I am going to my Father. 13Whatever you will ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14If you will ask anything in my name, I will do it. 15If you love me, keep my commandments. 16I will pray to the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, that he may be with you forever: 17the Spirit of truth, whom the world can’t receive, for it doesn’t see him and doesn’t know him. You know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you. 19Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more; but you will see me. Because I live, you will live also. 20In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21One who has my commandments and keeps them, that person is one who loves me. One who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and will reveal myself to him.”
22Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, what has happened that you are about to reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?”
23Jesus answered him, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24He who doesn’t love me doesn’t keep my words. The word which you hear isn’t mine, but the Father’s who sent me.
25“I have said these things to you while still living with you. 26But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things, and will remind you of all that I said to you. 27Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, I give to you. Don’t let your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful. 28You heard how I told you, ‘I am going away, and I will come back to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced because I said ‘I am going to my Father;’ for the Father is greater than I. 29Now I have told you before it happens so that when it happens, you may believe. 30I will no more speak much with you, for the prince of the world comes, and he has nothing in me. 31But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father commanded me, even so I do. Arise, let’s go from here.
John would have been about 90 years old at the time of the writing of this letter. He has hammered home the faith's big ideas in his epistle. Jesus is God in the flesh. He continually forgives us. We should walk the talk. Love of God and others is paramount. Notice that the word “truth” is echoed again and again in this passage. Truth is centerpoint for the believer. The world tries to tell us that as Christians, we need to be tolerant of everything, but the reality is that what we believe is more important than what we tolerate in others. We must be centered in biblical truth. The most loving thing you can do is to tell someone the truth. Of course, we’re to do so in love. John mentions truth five times in this section of scripture. John could have been speaking to a literal woman, or he could have been referring to the Church as the “bride of Christ”. Sometimes these writers referred to churches as “she” or in a feminine sort of way.
John is speaking to those who know the truth and who abide in the truth. “Truth” in Greek (alétheia)1 can also refer to Jesus Himself or the Word of God. (Your Word is truth. John 17:17). In Greek, the word means “revealed” or "not hidden”. In common everyday Greek literature, it was synonymous with "reality" as the opposite of illusion, i.e., fact. I like that because it reminds us that knowing Jesus and knowing the truth of the Gospel is SPIRITUAL REALITY. There is no illusion here. When we have Jesus, we have that which is real. We hear a lot these days about different truths. One person will say, “Well, my truth is such and such.” Another will claim to have yet another truth. There is really no truth in any of this. There is one truth. The only truth that exists is what is called “objective truth.” Objective truth is truth based on facts rather than things that are imagined or invented.
The problem is that people often ignore the facts, even when they are right in front of them. In John 18, Jesus appears before Pontius Pilate. Jesus, THE TRUTH, was standing before Pilate, and yet Pilate did not recognize Jesus for who He was.
38 Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?” And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and said to them, “I find no fault in Him at all. (John 18:37-38)
People still don’t see the truth when it is standing before them. As believers, we can be so comforted to know and understand that God’s Word is truth. The Bible is truth. We don’t have to be knocked off balance by a world gone mad. This is a great source of peace to all believers. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man cometh to the Father but by me.” (John 14:6) John adds that this reality will be in us forever. Reader, take hold of the truth. Rejoice in the truth. And today, live in the truth!
https://www.biblehub.com/greek/225.htm truth, but not merely truth as spoken; truth of idea, reality, sincerity, truth in the moral sphere, divine truth revealed to man, straightforwardness. ↩︎