No, I will not abandon you as orphans—I will come to you. Soon the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me. Since I live, you also will live. When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you. Those who accept My commandments and obey them are the ones who love Me. And because they love Me, my Father will love them. And I will love them and reveal Myself to each of them. —Jesus, John 14.18-21 NLT
Jesus told His students that He was leaving them, but that He’d be coming back. Most of the time when we read the Passion Discourses, we read our own times into them—we read them as if Jesus is talking about ascending to heaven, instead of getting crucified; and when He talks about coming back, He’s talking about the Second Coming instead of His resurrection. True, when John wrote his gospel, he was writing for an audience who was looking forward to Jesus’s return to earth instead of His return to life. Even so, what Jesus had to say applies to now, not later. It’s not stuff to be partially (and, admittedly, half-assedly) followed in the hopes of a distant future. It’s stuff to be fully followed in the hopes of an immediate future. Not “someday, if the Lord tarries.” Now.
Of course, the whole teaching applies to Jesus’s first-century followers. He was leaving them and, briefly, returning to His Father to prepare a place for them. But He was coming back; He was getting resurrected. Here, Jesus is patiently explaining some profound truths that wouldn’t really sink into His followers till then:
Because He lives, so will they. And we. In Jesus’s day, most Jews believed in resurrection, but some didn’t. The Pharisees did; the Sadducees didn’t. (And in our day, most Christians do, but some don’t.) Of course, nobody had seen a resurrection; they had only read about it in the bible, and they didn’t expect to see a resurrection until the End. Jesus’s resurrection caught everyone by surprise—even though He had told His followers several times that it was coming, they likely figured He couldn’t be talking about an actual resurrection; maybe He was using another metaphor. But He wasn’t kidding. He got resurrected. And because of Jesus’s resurrection, we know that our resurrection will definitely happen someday. (1Co 15.12-20)
Once He was raised, their doubt would disappear. His students had their doubts about Him. Doubt, after all, is only natural. Jesus’s followers believed in Him whenever He did or said something amazing, (Jn 2.11, 7.31, 8.30) but other times their faith was shaky. When He was arrested later that evening, the fact that they bailed on Him and ran for cover—Simon Peter even disavowing Him—shows how that faith had been shaken right out of them. At the time He said this, they believed He was likely the Messiah. But after He returned from the dead, they believed He was absolutely the Messiah, and each would go to their deaths saying so. They would know He was in the Father, they in Him, He in them.
Those who love Him would obey Him. Reiterating what He’d said earlier, the way He identifies His own is by our obedience. If they had any doubts about whether they were His, they should look to their fruit—they’re making an effort to do as He teaches. They might not succeed, but all Jesus cares about is effort. No effort; no love.
Their love is connected to the Father’s love.
Their love is connected to Jesus’s interaction. Here Jesus promises—since everything He says He’ll do is as good as a promise—that those who love Him will see Him.
Now, there are three senses in which this is true. One is obviously the idea that His students would have had in mind when He told them this: After His resurrection, He’d appear to those who’d been faithful to Him. Which He did. (Jn 20) Two, the popular interpretation of this passage, is that Jesus will appear to every Christian on the planet when He returns. Which He will.
But what about in the meanwhile? Well, that’s the third sense: When we follow Him now, we get to see Him. Now. Not just later; not “when we get to heaven,” whether you understand that to mean after you die, or after the resurrection. Jesus is not a distant king. He’s an imminent one.
I’m not necessarily talking about His making a physical appearance to us, like He did with Paul. The usual way He appears to us is that He does stuff, and we see what He’s done; He talks to us, and we hear what He’s said. Sometimes He makes a visible appearance, so don’t rule out the possibility. But when we obey Him, He shows up. So Jesus isn’t only talking about His 500 or so followers who saw Him before He ascended into heaven; (1Co 15.6) He’s talking about His 2,000,000,000 or so followers who can see Him when we have the faith to obey Him.