Do You Now Believe?

"Now we know that You know all things, and have no need for anyone to question You; by this we believe that You came from God." Jesus answered them, "Do you now believe? Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home, and to leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world." (John 16:30-33)

Now we know that you know... The pharisees and experts of the law have questioned You and challenged Your teachings. But now we know You are really smart and have all the right answers. Because You have all the right answers we now really believe You came from God. Is that what You have been waiting to hear from us?

Given the conviction that has been growing in me for some time, I see a mindset here in the disciples that is one of the most difficult to overcome among religious people. And I believe this mindset is connected to an addiction that can be traced all the way back to its origin in The Tree of Knowledge....

It seems that as fallen humans we are obsessed with getting the right factual knowledge. And sadly, for those who are fond of researching the Word of God to find advanced truths for this time, this subtle trap can become all to easy to slip into without ever realizing we are even close to it.

The disciples of Jesus, just like His disciples today, were naturally focused on trying to figure Jesus out in their own heads. They lived among people very familiar with religion, even if many of them had given up trying to fulfill all the expectations demanded by religious leaders. The intense aspirations and hopes of all the Jewish nation were focused intently on a coming Messiah who would extricate their nation out from under the galling occupational forces of pagan Roman. They hated the Romans with a passion and were puzzled as to why God had allowed them to fall under that power since they had centuries ago firmly renounced idol worship, the cause of their Babylonian captivity.

Yet now they found themselves chafing under the most despotic rulers who exploited them at every opportunity, rankled their religious sensibilities, corrupted their leadership and worst of all were blatant idol worshipers themselves. How could God be fair or righteous and allow such a depraved power have absolute control over the lives of God's chosen people who had worked so hard to obey His warnings about the dire consequences of worshiping false gods? They had meticulously avoided anything to do with the kind of worship that had gotten their ancestors into deep trouble with God. So what could possibly be God's problem with them now?

The Jewish leaders had spent years developing guidelines, regulations and meticulous detailed instructions to prevent their people from ever gravitating back toward the false gods their ancestors seemed so addicted to. Yet even with a preponderance of religious activities, carefully worked out theology and doctrinal purity systemitized by generations of biblical experts, the Jews still lived in bondage as if God were ignoring them completely or was punishing them for not living up to His high standards.

This was the mindset of people that the disciples grew up around. This was the context into which Jesus was born and the expectations for the Messiah. Every claim of that role on the part of Jesus would be compared to these beliefs. Most people had a pretty clear idea of what the Messiah's job was supposed to look like based on the meticulous study of the Scriptures worked out by top theologians. Education was as highly valued in their day as it is in ours, so the experts of education were respected as having the best knowledge available to instruct the people as to what God expected of them to escape their oppressive circumstances. (Never mind that many of the religious leaders themselves were exploiting the occupation situation to take advantage of the masses for their own benefit as well)

Now the disciples found themselves in the upper room listening to things that had sounded strange for a long time. Every time Jesus mentioned the idea that He was going to die, they had brushed it off or at times had even openly tried to discredit it – though that backfired rather painfully for Peter. The problem was that it seemed many things Jesus wanted to talk to them about contradicted everything they already knew about what the Messiah was supposed to do for them. In addition, patriotism then was even more intense than patriotism is now in America and many other nations. If religion did not agree with the patriotic aspirations of God's chosen people, then it was likely that religion was misunderstood, for the bottom line was that God had to be on the side of His favored ones and against all of their enemies.

Throughout His ministry Jesus used language that seemed at times oblique or confusing to the disciples and pretty much everyone. Unfortunately many things Jesus said still confuse people yet today, and for the same reasons that it confused His disciples. Because of firmly entrenched preconceptions about what God thinks about His chosen people, and even beliefs influenced by our own patriotism, our preconceptions act as powerful filters through which everything is screened before we even try to analyze what it might mean. So if something does not fit our predetermined views of reality or God's overall plan based on the consensus of our biblical experts, then it is generally brushed aside as unimportant while we over-emphasize things we find in Scripture appearing to support our theories.

This is precisely what got Jesus into deep trouble when He preached His first sermon back in His hometown of Nazareth. One of His first gaffes was to quit reading just before He got to what was considered the meat of the matter in Isaiah. Because He failed to read the passage commonly presumed to support the nationalistic prejudices of the Jews who considered themselves superior to all others on earth, He ended up starting a riot in church that nearly cost Him His life.

The reason Jesus used words that for many people seemed confusing was, I believe, because Jesus thought from the perspective of heaven instead of from the context of how humans view reality. Jesus sometimes used words whose meaning was very different than the commonly accepted use of those terms. Thus at times His disciples and others were baffled and thrown off balance by what they thought He was saying when in fact He was often referring to something very different.

So after a few years of trying to figure out what Jesus was talking about, repeatedly questioning Him, discussing Him behind His back rather often as well as hearing less than complementary insinuations from the educated elite, the disciples were keen to finally get to the place where they might actually be able to understand His terminology the first time around. To intensify this desire, they had an acute sense that something huge was about to transpire, that very likely Jesus might be about to break out of His shell, step into the limelight and finally assert His 'rights' as king of Israel to fulfill what everyone clearly expected the Messiah to do. Thus the disciples were keen to decipher Jesus' words in the upper room so that they might finally prove that they were not as naive as they seemed to have been for so long.

Our disadvantage in appreciating the feelings and mindset of the disciples is that we have too much information about how the story turns out ahead of where they were. But in reality this too may become our own Achilles heel leading us to think we now understand Jesus when in reality we are in just as much danger of misinterpreting His words as they were because of our own preconceived beliefs. We may not share the exact same presumptions about prophecy that they did, but human nature has not changed at all in the intervening years and we are just as eager to believe God is on our side against those 'out there' as the Jews and the disciples were.

I see the disciples intently focusing on Jesus' words like never before here, hoping that at last they finally might be able to figure out the first time around what Jesus might actually mean with His words. For years they had heard Jesus talk about their need to believe. This word had come up over and over, connected with people desiring to be healed or with souls longing for assurance of eternal life. And each time they had heard Jesus emphasize the necessity of believing in Him.

They also were beginning to latch onto the idea that Jesus was more than just a miracle-worker, a prophet like Elisha who could do things most humans were unable to do. Jesus had spoken enough about His relationship to His Father, particularly in this plain discussion with them, that they felt safe in repeating back what they thought He wanted them to believe. Now we believe that You came from God! If they could just convince Him that they believed the right things about Him, then maybe He might consider them loyal enough to assure them of key positions in His kingdom He was likely about to inaugurate any time now. They felt they were getting the pieces of the puzzle together enough now that He should entrust them with more responsibility and privileges.

Jesus clearly knew what they were thinking. But He also knew they were still fixated on a salvation based on knowledge in the same way as what had been mentored to them by their religious leaders. They believed that Jesus must have the inside scoop on the truth beyond what the Jewish leaders had figured out; so they thought if they could just crack the secret code or whatever it was that Jesus used in His speech, then they could join Him in establishing His kingdom and everyone would be happy.

Jesus did not rebuke them for being clueless about the nature of His kingdom at this time or even after His resurrection when it was evident that His disciples were still fixated on Jesus fulfilling the nationalistic aspirations everyone was waiting to see realized. Rather, Jesus simply gave them a reality check, revealing that they were still far from having the kind of knowledge necessary to synchronize with heaven's way of thinking. His words popped their bubble of self-confidence and anticipation of some glorious announcement they assumed He might be about to make by stating categorically that they would all see things dramatically different in a very short time.

Now we know that You know all things

You will all leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me

In Me you may have peace

Do you see the shift of focus here?

The disciples were fixated on getting the right answers, believing the right facts, getting affirmation for knowing the right things.

Jesus says that this kind of thinking will do nothing to prevent them from all turning tail and running away – abandoning Him – in just a few hours from then. Their confidence was based on knowledge, but a kind of head knowledge that was valued and encouraged by the religion they depended on, not the kind of personal, experiential, heart knowledge that Jesus longs for everyone to enjoy with Him. He knew that because they did not yet have their hearts tuned to know Him more than knowing the right answers, they could not possibly stay loyal to Him when the enemy would exploit their vulnerabilities and confront them with intimidation. Their loyalty was too dependent on head instead of heart knowledge.

Jesus moves the focus here from head knowledge – an addiction too many of us have – to relationships. He says that because of their dependency on knowledge He would be left alone with no one who really understood what He was going through. But He quickly affirmed in this revelation that the most important relationship could still be counted on in any lurch. God never leaves anyone or forsakes them like the disciples were about to do to Him. God would be faithful and can be relied on no matter what anyone else might do. Only God can be fully trusted to stand by during the good times and the bad times. This knowledge of God – the kind of intimate knowledge that Jesus had with His Father, was the sort of knowledge that the disciples desperately needed to have with Jesus who was God Himself, and He longed for them to experience this core truth in their lives.

I wanted to explore what I thought were significant insights I found when I looked up the word translated here as home. It actually refers to one's self, their own things, their own way. But what I now feel is more important is to finish by looking more at that knowledge like Jesus had, a knowledge that will give us His peace even if we fall very short on other kinds of knowledge.

These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.

Jesus had been speaking profound truths to His disciples for possibly several hours at this point. He had demonstrated dramatically the kind of spirit He longed for them to exhibit towards each other by washing their dirty feet in the humility of a servant. He had shared some of His deepest emotions and desires with them, speaking of a joy with which they were yet unfamiliar but that was vitally necessary in order to have the kind of endurance and courage needed to face what was ahead of them.

Now, fully aware that they are still largely unprepared to face what was about to crash into their lives, He reminds them that it is peace that they really need, not more knowledge. God knew from the very beginning the subtle trap of accepting Satan's offer of advanced knowledge that would only lead to dishonor, disappointment and finally death. Yet we still suffer under the very same obsessions that the disciples had even while we can talk about it analytically. It is amazing to me how easily we can dissect, expostulate, categorize, psychoanalyze, theologize and any other term you might use, the teachings of Jesus and the facts about truth while failing to actually enter into the experience of them. I say this because of my own frustration of feeling caught in that same trap many times myself.

What Jesus longs for each of His followers to experience more than anything else is to know the kind of peace and rest and joy that He came to restore to us – a relationship with Him that we were originally designed for and which we must have to really thrive. God is not fixated on getting more information into our heads so that we can know all the right answers better than anyone else. What we need more than anything is to have the gut-level assurance of God as our Daddy, a settled peace from which the true character of God can emanate no matter how violent people around us may become.

Knowledge and spiritual insight will never give us what we need most that can only be found in a personal entering into the kind of rest that is still waiting for the people of God. (see Hebrews 4, Exodus 33:14 and Matthew 11:28) I keep being reminded of my own need to enter and to remain in that kind of rest, a rest from striving for knowledge and perfection, that brings a peace that is beyond reason or explanation. This is a rest that has little to do with head knowledge of all the right answers.

If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:2)

The disciples found out the reality of this truth very shortly after Jesus spoke His words to them.

We will find out in similar embarrassing, painful ways how fickle knowledge can be if we also fail to enter into the kind of rest found only in the love and humility of the mind of Jesus.

I know that I need this rest. I also can testify that when I have tasted this kind of intimate knowledge of God, a knowledge not found in knowing the right answers but in catching a glimpse of what God is like, getting an inkling of the incredible beauty of His face – it is then that I feel an overwhelming desire to remain in that kind of reassuring rest, a rest in the knowledge that the One who holds me tight will never leave me and who is also the One who can transform me and restore me into the joy of living close to Him for eternity.

Am I content with having the right answers about the nature of Christ, the character of God, correct doctrines hammered out by religious experts or any other facet of correct information? Not any more. I have seen all too often that depending on the right answers more often than not leads to arguments and disputations and division rather than love and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. I am not saying it is healthy to believe false doctrines; but the disciple's problem was not so much that they held false beliefs about doctrines but that they were still depending on facts and head knowledge instead of entering into the joy and passion of their Lord.

Of course the good news is that a few weeks later they at last did enter into the intense kind of knowledge about God that literally set them on fire, the holy fire of God's passionate love for sinners. As a result of entering into God's passion they also found perfect unity, peace, humility and all the other things Jesus had demonstrated in His own life, and they became an irresistible force for the gospel, the good news about how God feels towards His enemies.

I long for that kind of pentecostal experience in my own heart. No, I am not looking for a charismatic church to fire up my emotions. I am looking for a heart encounter with a heavenly Father who is so much better than anything my earthly father ever dreamed of being. I want to become so supercharged with the passion of Jesus to rectify God's damaged reputation by a living example of the real truth about Him, that no one will be able to miss the fact that I have come to know Jesus personally, not just know facts about Him. God grant me this desire.

In his life on earth, Christ could have made disclosures which would have eclipsed and assigned to oblivion all human discoveries. He could have opened door after door to mysterious things, and many revelations of eternal realities would have been the sure result. He could have uttered words which would have been as a key to unlock mysteries that would have captivated the minds of generations to the close of time. But Christ does not open the numerous doors at which human curiosity has been striving to obtain entrance. He does not spread for men a feast that would prove deleterious to their highest interests. He came to plant for men, not the tree of knowledge, but the tree of life. {GCB, April 23, 1901}