The Daily Word of Righteousness

One New Man, #5

I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. (John 14:18,19)

As our natural life is replaced by His eternal Life we become increasingly aware of the Presence of His Person.

At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. (John 14:20)

"That day" is the Day of the Lord. It is the day in which every knee in us has bowed to Jesus and every tongue in us has confessed that Jesus is Lord. The Lord has knocked at every door of our personality, and we have opened every door so the King may establish His throne in every room of our being.

Complete union with Jesus brings us to the perfect knowledge that He indeed is in His Father, and we indeed are in Him and He in us. This is the manner in which the one new Man comes into existence.

He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. (John 14:21)

Much of the early part of our discipleship consists of attempting to do what the Lord has commanded us. This is how we demonstrate our love for Him. As we persevere in our efforts to please Him, studying His Word and seeking to be obedient, the Father looks on us with love. Then the Lord Jesus loves us and reveals Himself to us.

Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? (John 14:22)

The coming of the Lord set forth in the fourteenth chapter of John is not, as we mentioned previously, the Lord's coming in the clouds of glory with the saints and holy angels. Rather it is a personal coming of the Lord, a revealing of Himself to the individual disciple who is seeking to please the Lord by keeping His commandments.

Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. (John 14:23)

John 14:23 describes the spiritual fulfillment of the Old Testament feast of Tabernacles (Leviticus 23:34). John 14:23 is the substance of which the feast of Tabernacles is a shadow, a type.

If the disciple serves the Lord faithfully, walking in the Spirit of God, bearing his cross patiently after the Master, the Father in Heaven will love Him. Then the Father and the Son will come to him through the Spirit and make Their home with him (in his tabernacle, his body). In this manner the disciple becomes an eternal member of the one new Man—the Man who is destined to fill Heaven and earth with the Presence of God in Christ.

It may be noted that the fourteenth and the seventeenth chapters of the Gospel of John contain passages emphasizing the spiritual fulfillment of the feast of Tabernacles, the creating of the Kingdom of God, the one new Man. Perhaps the most perfect expression of the one new Man is found in John 17:21-23.

To be continued.