Abiding

…John’s presentation of abiding takes on a progressive sense, a journey of the disciples toward the Father’s house.

Follow Me: The Benefits of Discipleship in the Gospel of John, by Mark Zhakevich

Abiding with the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit is seen as the second key benefit described in John’s gospel of continuing in discipleship. The term “abide” or versions thereof, are found dozens of times in this gospel.

One aspect of “abide” is the experience the disciple will have in the eschatological future. A second aspect is that the Father and Son will abide in the believer through the Spirit in our present. Finally, abiding is a condition that the believer in Jesus must fulfill if he is to experience several corollary benefits, such as fruit, the presence of the Spirit, peace, joy, etc.

John 14: 2 In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.

A promise for the future. There are many interpretations of what, exactly, this means. Is it the Father, Son, and Spirit dwelling in the believer, or is it the believer who will dwell with the Father, Son, and Spirit? These two need not be mutually exclusive; in any case, Jesus is speaking of a future event, a promise to be fulfilled.

Zhakevich offers that the overriding tenor of the passage is one of the believer dwelling at some point with the Father. He demonstrates this through other passages in Scripture as well as in books like Enoch that use “dwelling places” in reference to being with God.

I will say, this is always how I understood this passage in John. But, having spent significant time in understanding theosis / divine fullness, it strikes me that Jesus is, or could be, promising both: yes, I will dwell with the Father in the future, but right now, today, the Father and the Son abide in me. It must mean something to say that my body is a temple – is this the place He prepared?

In any case, Zhakevich does offer as a second aspect of “abiding” as now – in the present. In other words, perhaps his distinction of future and present are not much more than a continuation of our life in Christ. We see this possibility just a few verses later:

John 14: 23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.”

Love Him and keep His word and then the Son and the Father and Son will make their home with me! In fact, in these verses from John 14 – from 15 through 24 – Jesus links loving Him and keeping His commandments four times.

The relational aspect of abiding between the believer, the Father, and the Son is to be experienced through the agency of the Spirit.

This is language that could have been offered by Jonathan Edwards. We enter into relationship (koinōnia) with the Trinity, facilitated by the Spirit. We do this by loving Him and keeping His commandments.

Abiding in Jesus this way is a condition that all disciples must fulfill to demonstrate commitment to Jesus. We see this in the next chapter of John:

John 15: 1 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.”

Bear fruit – this is the good work of the branch. But without abiding in Jesus – the vine – the branch will not bear good fruit. In this, I refer somewhat often to this passage from Ephesians:

Ephesians 2: 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

God prepared this fruit – these good works – for us beforehand; I believe individually and personally curated. Of course, love – true love – is the guiding light that helps us understand these good works: love God, love your neighbor.

But we have been given much more detail. If we are to love Jesus and keep His commandments, the Bible is full of such expectations. As an example, read the Beatitudes and the entire Sermon on the Mount.

This distinction of being saved by works and being saved for good works has brought home to me the almost flippant way many Christians consider the necessity of good works. Continuing in this passage from John 15, Jesus makes clear that such works are necessary if one is to abide with Him:

John 15: 5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.

Here we have another example that the abiding is now, in this life – we abide in Him now, and He abides in us now, and from this comes fruit.

6 If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. 8 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.

9 “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. 10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.

11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. 12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. 17 These things I command you, that you love one another.

It is only by bearing fruit that we remain in Him, that we evidence our belief in Him, that we keep His commandments.

Conclusion

Johannine “abiding” is a benefit that brings both a present and future dimension. In order to receive these benefits, we must believe in Christ and keep His commandments – continuously. Not as a cause of salvation, but as evidence of salvation. And without such evidence, well…how many times must we be told that such branches will get thrown into the fire.

This abiding is a relationship between the disciple and the Father and Son. It is a journey, as seen in John, taking on a present and future dimension.

My two cents: when I first came across Jonathan Edwards and his idea of divine fullness (indistinguishable to me from theosis), I was quite pleased to see this idea presented in the Reformed tradition.

I approached this volume from Zhakevich in this light: interested to see how a teacher at Master’s Seminary would treat the gospel of John and the relationship of the disciple to the Father, Son, and Spirit.

Yes, the terms are different, and yes there may be some differences in emphasis when compared to similar ideas in Eastern Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism. But what I have found now in both Edwards and Zhakevich is something that can be described as living in complete relationship with the Trinity – salvation in its most complete sense.

Seeing salvation this way is much more fulfilling than seeing it merely as escaping hell and entering heaven – as nice as that will be.