1935 Because the Father's love is not without the Son's love, since it is the same love in each, "Whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise" [5:19], he adds, and I will love him . Why does he say, I will love , using the future, since the Father and the Son love all things from eternity? We should answer that love, considered as being in the divine will, is eternal; but considered as manifested in the accomplishment of some work and effect, is temporal. So the meaning is: and I will love him , that is, I will show the effect of my love, because I will manifest myself to him : for I love in order to manifest myself.
1936 Note that one's love for another is sometimes qualified and sometimes absolute. It is qualified when one wills the other some particular good; but it is absolute when one wills the other all good. Now God loves every created thing in a qualified sense, because he wills some good to every creature, even to the demons, for example, that they live and understand and exist. There are particular goods. But God loves absolutely those to whom he wills all good, that is, that they have God himself. And to have God is to have truth, for God is Truth. But truth is had or possessed when it is known. So God, who is Truth, truly and absolutely loves those to whom he manifests himself. This is what he says, and I will manifest myself to him , that is, in the future, by glory, which is the ultimate effect of future beatitude: "He showed it to his friend" [Job 36:33]; "She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her" (Wis 6:13).
1937 Someone might ask: The Father will manifest himself, will he not? Yes, both the Father and the Son. For the Son manifests himself and the Father at the same time, because the Son is the Word of the Father: "No one knows the Father except the Son" (Mt 11:27). If in the meantime the Son manifests himself to anyone in some way, this is a sign of God's love. And this can be a reason why the world will not see him, because he will not manifest himself to it because it does not love him.
LECTURE 6
22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?" 23 Jesus answered him, "If a man love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 He who does not love me does not keep my words; and the word which you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me. 25 These things I have spoken to you, while I am still with you. 26 But the [Paraclete] Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you." [41]
1938 Above, our Lord promised the disciples that he would come to them; here he clears up a perplexity for one of the disciples. First, we see the bewildered disciple; secondly, Christ's answer (v 23).
1939 With respect to the first, when those who are humble and saintly hear great things about themselves, they are usually astonished and bewildered. Now the disciples had just heard our Lord say, "Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me," and so on. So it seemed that he was preferring the apostles to the entire world. Thus Judas, the brother of James, whose letter is part of Holy Scripture, was bewildered and astonished, and said, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world? It is like saying: Why will you do this? Are we superior to the whole world? David said something like this: "Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?" (2 Sam 7:18). And the righteous also say: "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you?" (Mt 25:37).
1940 Then, Christ's answer is given: first, Christ states the reason why he will manifest himself to the disciples and not to the world; secondly, he explains something he had said (v 24b). He shows, first, why he will manifest himself to his disciples; secondly, why he will not manifest himself to the world, at he who does not love me . As to the first, we see the fitness of the disciples to have Christ manifest himself to them; secondly, we see the manner and order of this manifestation, at and my Father will love him (v 23). In regard to the first, he mentions two things which make a person fit to receive God's manifestation. The first, is charity, the second is obedience.
1941 As to charity, he says, If a man loves me . Three things are necessary for a person who wants to see God. First, one must draw near to God: "Those who approach his feet will receive his teaching" [Deut 33:3]. Secondly, one must lift up his eyes in order to see God: "Lift up your eyes on high and see who created these things" [Is 40:26]. And thirdly, one must take time to look, for spiritual things cannot be seen if one is absorbed by earthly things: "Take time and see that the Lord is sweet" [Ps 34:8]. Now it is charity which accomplishes these three things. Charity joins our soul to God: "He who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him" (1 Jn 4:16). It also makes us look at God: "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Mt 6:21). As the saying goes: "Where your love is, there your eyes are." Charity also frees us from worldly matters: "If any one loves the world, perfect love for God is not in him" [1 Jn 2:15]. Thus, to turn it about, one who perfectly loves God, does not love the world.
1942 Obedience follows from charity; and so he says, he will keep my word . Gregory says: "The proof of love is one's actions. Love for God is never lazy: if it is present it accomplishes great things; if it refuses to work, it is not love." [42] For the will, especially when it is concerned with an end, moves the other powers to their actions: for a person does not rest until he does those things which will bring him to his intended end, especially if it is intensely desired. And so, when a person's will is intent on God, who is its end, it moves all powers to do those things which obtain him. Now it is charity which makes one intent on God, and thus it is charity which causes us to keep the commandments: "The love of Christ controls us" (2 Cor 5:14); "Its flashes are flashes of fire" (Song 8:6). And through obedience a person is rendered fit to see God: "Through your precepts," that is, as kept by me, "I get understanding" (Ps 119:104). Again, "I understood more than the aged" (Ps 119:100).
1943 Then when he says, and my Father will love him , we see the manner and order of this manifestation. Three things are needed so a divine manifestation can be made to us. The first is divine love; and he refers to this when he says, and my Father will love him . We explained above why the future tense is used, will love , which is that he is referring to the effect of love, although from the point of view of his willing to do good, God loves us from eternity: "Yet I have loved Jacob but I have hated Esau" (Mal 1:2). Jesus does not say here, "I will love him," because he had already made that clear to them before: "I love those who love me" (Prv 8:17). It remained for him to say that the Father would love them: "He loved the people: all the saints are in his hand" [Deut 4:37].
1944 The second thing needed is that the divine come to us; referring to this, he says, and we will come to him . An objection to this is that for a thing to come, it has to change its place. But God does not change. Therefore, I answer that God is said to come to us not because he moves to us, but because we move to him. Something comes into a place in which it previously was not: but this does not apply to God since he is everywhere: "Do I not fill heaven and earth?" (Jer 23:24). Rather, God is said to come to someone because he is there in a new way, in a way he had not been there before, that is, by the effect of his grace. It is by this effect of grace that he makes us approach him.
1945 According to Augustine, God comes to us in three ways and we go to him in the same three ways. [43] First, he comes to us by filling us with his effects; and we go to him by receiving them: "Come to me, you who desire me, and eat your fill of my produce" (Sir 24:19). Secondly, God comes to us by enlightening us; and we go to him by thinking of him: "Come to him and be enlightened" [Ps 33:6]. Thirdly, he comes to us by helping us; and we go to him by obeying, because we cannot obey unless helped by Christ: "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord" (Is 2:3).
1946 Why does he not mention the Holy Spirit? Augustine says that we do not read here that the Spirit will be excluded when the Father and Son come, because we read above that the Spirit was "to be with you for ever" (v 16). Since in the Trinity there is a distinction of Persons and a unity of essence, sometimes the three persons are mentioned to indicate the distinction of the persons. And sometimes only two of the three persons are mentioned to indicate the unity of essence. Or again, one could say that since the Holy Spirit is nothing other than the love of the Father and the Son, when the Father and Son are mentioned, the Spirit is implied.
1947 The third thing required for the manifestation of God is the continuation of each of the above, that is, of the love of God and of his coming to us. In regard to these he says, and make our home with him . Two things are indicated here. First, when he says, home , he indicates the stability with which we cling to God. God comes to some by faith, but does not remain because "they believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away" (Lk 8:13). He comes to others through their sorrow for sin; yet he does not stay with them because they return to their sins: "Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool that repeats his folly" (Prv 26:11). But he remains forever in his predestined: "I am with you always, to the close of the age" (Mt 28:20). Secondly, these words indicate the intimacy of Christ with us: with him , that is, with the one who loves and obeys him, since he takes pleasure in us, and has us take pleasure in him, "delighting in the sons of men" (Prv 8:31).
1948 Chrysostom gives this a different meaning. [44] He says that when Judas heard I will not leave you orphans... but you will see me , he thought that after his death Christ would come to them like the dead appear to us in a dream. So he asks, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world? This was like saying: How unfortunate for us! You will die and can only help us as the dead do. To exclude this Christ says, I and the Father will come to him (v 23), that is, as the Father manifests himself, so I do also, and make our home with him , which is not done in dreams.
1949 Now he gives the reason why he will not manifest himself to the world: this reason is the lack of those things on account of which he says that he will manifest himself. For when the cause is absent, the effect is absent. Now the causes for a divine manifestation to be made to the worldly are not found in them. And so God will not manifest himself to the world and the worldly.
It is clear that they do not have the cause, because the world does not love him. Referring to this he says, he who does not love me . Further, they do not obey him; and so he says, does not keep my words . As Gregory says: "To love God it is necessary to use our words, our minds and our lives." [45] The reason is obvious why God will manifest himself to his own, and not to the world. It is because his own really have love, and it is love which distinguishes the saints from the world: "He hides the light from the proud. He shows his friend that he owns it" [Job 36:32]; "The deep says 'It is not in me' and the sea," that is, one who is disordered, "says, 'It is not with me.'" (Job 28:14).
1950 Then when he says, and the word which you hear is not mine but the Father's , he clears up what he had just said, "If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him." For someone could say that there was no reason for this statement (v 23), and it would be more reasonable to have said: "I will love him, and I will come to him." To exclude this idea he says, and the word which you hear is not mine , that is, it is not mine as coming from myself, but it is mine as coming from another, from the Father, who sent me. It is like saying: One who does not hear this word does not love only me, he also does not love the Father. And therefore, one who loves both Christ and the Father deserves a manifestation of each. So he says: and the word which you hear , spoken by me, as a human being, is indeed mine insofar as I speak it, and yet it is not mine , insofar as it is mine from another: "My teaching is not mine" (7:16); "The words that I say to you I do not speak of my self" [14:10].
1951 Augustine remarks that when our Lord refers to his own words he uses the plural, "my words" (v 24), but when he speaks of the utterance of the Father, he uses the singular form, "the word which you hear is not mine," because he wants us to understand that the word of the Father is he himself, the unique Word of the Father. [46] Thus he says he is from the Father, and not from himself, because he is neither his own image nor his own Son, but the Son and image of the Father. Yet all the words in our heart are from this unique Word of the Father.
1952 Here our Lord promises gifts to his disciples. He had promised them both the Holy Spirit and himself; and so now he first mentions what they will receive when the Holy Spirit comes; and secondly, what they will receive from him, peace . From the coming of the Holy Spirit they will receive great things, namely an understanding of all the words of Christ. In regard to this he first mentions what he taught them, and secondly he promises they will understand them (v 26).
1953 He says, in regard to the first, these things , what I have said, I have spoken to you , by the instrument of my human nature, while I am still with you , as bodily present. It is indeed a very great favor that the Son himself should speak to us and teach us: "In these last days he has spoken to us by a Son" (Heb 1:1); "What is all flesh that it should hear its Lord?" [Deut 5:26].
1954 He promises them that they will understand his teachings through the Holy Spirit, who will give himself to them; he says, the Paraclete... will teach you all things . He does three things concerning the Holy Spirit: he describes him, mentions his mission and his effect.
1955 He describes the Holy Spirit in several ways: as the Paraclete, as Spirit, and as Holy. He is the Paraclete because he consoles us. He consoles us in our sorrows which arise from the troubles of this world: "fighting without and fear within" (2 Cor 7:5); "who comforts us in all our affliction" (2 Cor 1:4). He does this because he is love, and causes us to love God and give him great honor. For this reason we endure insults with joy: "Then they left the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name" (Acts 5:41); "Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven" (Mt 5:12). He also consoles us in our sadness over past sins; Matthew refers to this in "Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted" (5:4). He does this because he gives us the hope of forgiveness: "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven" (20:22).
He is the Spirit because he moves hearts to obey God: "He will come like a rushing stream, which the Spirit of the Lord drives" [Is 59:19]; "For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God" (Rom 8:14). He is Holy because he consecrates us to God, and all consecrated things are called holy: "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you" (1 Cor 6:19); "There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God" (Ps 46:4).