Christ's Doctrine of Faith: A Study of "Believing" in John's Gospel (John 14:29)

Custom Image

We come across the eighty-fifth time the idea of faith occurs in John’s Gospel in John 14:29. Here, the Lord Jesus Christ says: “And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe” (KJV). Now, what is the context, and what are some facts about faith?

First, what is the context? Right after Jesus emphatically tells His disciples that the one who believes on Him will do the works that He does, and do greater works than these, because He goes to His Father, He tells them that, whatever they will ask in His name, He will do that, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. He repeats His declaration that, if they ask anything in His name, He will do it. Then, He tells them that, if they love Him, to keep His commandments, before saying that He will ask the Father, and He will give them another Comforter, so that this Comforter may abide with them forever. He clarifies that this Comforter is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him or knows Him. Christ reassures His disciples though that they know Him, the Comforter, because He dwells with them and will be in them. Jesus reassures them that He will not leave them as orphans [1], because He will come to them, before saying that it will be yet a little while and the world will no longer see Him, but they see Him. He then tells them that, because He lives, they will live also. At that day, He assures them, they will know that He is in His Father, and they in Him, and He in them. He says that the one who has His commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Him, and that the one who loves Him will be loved by His Father, and He will love him and manifest Himself to him. Judas (not Judas Iscariot, but a different Judas) asks Him how it will be that He will manifest Himself to them and not to the world. Jesus answers that, if a man loves Him, he will keep His words and His Father will love him, and they will come to that man and make their abode with him. Conversely, He says, the man who does not love Him does not keep His sayings, before saying that the word that the disciples are hearing from Him is not His, but the Father’s, who sent Him. He informs them that He has spoken these things to them while still being present with them, before telling them that the Comforter, who is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in His name, will teach them all things and remind them of all things, whatsoever He has said to them. He then tells them that He leaves them with peace, specifically that He gives to them His peace. He clarifies that, not as the world gives, He gives to them, speaking of peace, and contrasting His peace with the world’s peace. He tells them to not let their hearts be troubled and to not let them be afraid. He says how they have heard Him say to them that He goes away and comes again to them, before telling them that, if they loved Him, they would rejoice, because He said that He goes to the Father, because His Father is greater than Him. He then says that He, at that point, told them this before it came to pass so that, when it does come to pass, they would believe. This is the context of John 14:29!

Second, what are some facts about faith? Once again, we are going to cover one fact about faith, and it is one that we have previously covered, but, since the Holy Spirit obviously sees it as important enough to include it in this God-breathed [2] record of Jesus’s life, we will nevertheless cover it here. That fact is this: the fulfillment of Jesus’s words is a proof we should trust in him, including, in this case, when He speaks of future events and those events happen just as He spoke. Because He plainly says, in this text, that He has told His disciples these things so that, before it happens, they would believe Him when it does happen. This is a fact about faith from John 14:29!

[1] https://biblehub.com/greek/3737.htm

[2] 2 Timothy 3:16