Like Christ, his thoughts run on immortality. “Plato tells of the last hours of Socrates in prison before he drank the poison….Like Christ, Socrates is going to die. Jesus didn’t wonder about the life beyond this earth He knew it and told His disciples that there was room for all in heaven ( many mansions). In My Father’s house are many mansions: Jesus spoke with complete confidence about heaven, here spoken of as His Father’s house. And where I go you know, and the way you know.”Ī. 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.

“In My Father’s house are many mansions if it were not so, I would have told you. ( John 14:2-4) Reasons for calming the troubled heart: a future reunion in the Father’s house. “Jesus’ solution to perplexity is not a recipe it is a relationship with him.” (Tenney)Ģ. Jesus is urging His followers to continue to believe in the Father and to continue to believe also in Him.” (Morris) “In view of the preceding imperative it is in my judgment best to take both forms as imperative. “The verb believe both times is imperative.” (Alford) On balance, the best evidence seems to be that Jesus meant this as a command or an instruction to the disciples. It is possible that Jesus meant, You must believe in God, you must also believe in Me (imperative) or it is possible that He meant, You do believe in God, you also do believe in Me (indicative). There is some debate as how the verb tenses of this verse should be regarded. “One who seems a man asks all men to give Him precisely the same faith and confidence that they give to God.” (Meyer) “What signalizes Him, and separates Him from all other religious teachers, is not the clearness or the tenderness with which He reiterated the truths about the Father’s love, or about morality, and justice, and truth, and goodness but the peculiarity of His call to the world is, ‘Believe in Me.’” (Maclaren) This was a radical call to trust in Jesus just as one would trust in God the Father, and a radical promise that doing so would bring comfort and peace to a troubled heart. You believe in God, believe also in Me: Instead of giving into a troubled heart, Jesus told them to firmly put their trust in God and in Jesus Himself. And it was then that He consoled them with such simple and glorious speech that all Christendom is the debtor to their agony.” (Morrison)ī.

“His disciples felt His departure like a torture. When he saw that because of what he had said to them sorrow had filled the hearts of his apostles, he pleaded with them in great love, and besought them to be comforted.” (Spurgeon) You’re doubts are wonderful.” “He takes no delight in the doubt and disquietude of his people. Jesus didn’t say, “I’m happy you men are troubled and filled with doubts. “The form of the imperative me tarassestho implies that they should ‘stop being troubled.’ ‘Set your heart at ease’ would be a good translation.” (Tenney) Jesus never wanted us to have life without trouble, but He promised that we could have an untroubled heart even in a troubled life. All of this would legitimately trouble the disciples, yet Jesus told them, let not your heart be troubled. Jesus had just told them that one of them was a traitor, that all of them would deny Him, and that He would leave them that night. Let not your heart be troubled: The disciples had reason to be troubled. “Let not your heart be troubled you believe in God, believe also in Me.”Ī. ( John 14:1) A command to calm the troubled heart. Calming troubled hearts with trust and hope in Jesus.ġ.

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