Purkey's Bible Study Outlines

(Read John 14:1-11) 

Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. (John 14:8b) 

Why were the disciples’ hearts troubled? Christ had told them He was leaving them (John 13:33), that one of them was a traitor, and that Peter would fail Him (John 13:36-38). This undoubtedly disturbed them all, for they looked to Peter as their leader. Jesus Himself had revealed His own inward burden (John 13:21), although certainly His troubled spirit was in no way like their troubled hearts. In this chapter, Jesus Christ sought to comfort the Twelve Apostles and quiet their troubled hearts. He gave them reasons why He had to leave them and go to the Father. 

First, To Prepare a Place for Them (John 14:1-6). Christ speaks of heaven as a real place, not merely as a state of mind. He pictured heaven as a loving home where the Father dwells. “Mansions” in the Gk. is actually “abiding places,” speaking of the permanency of our heavenly home. Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people. Christ “the Carpenter” (Mark 6:3) is building a heavenly home for all who have trusted Him. And He will return to receive His own to Himself. The Apostle Paul later amplified this promise in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. “Absent from the body, present with the Lord.” Had Christ remained on earth, He could not have prepared the heavenly home for His own. 

How can sinners ever hope to get to heaven? Through Jesus Christ! Read Luke 15:11-24, the story of the Prodigal Son, in connection with John 14:6. Like the sinner, the boy was lost (Luke 15:24), ignorant (Luke 15:17 — “came to himself”), and dead (Luke 15:24). But he came to the father! (Luke 15:20) He was lost, but Christ is the Way; he was ignorant, but Christ is the Truth; and he was dead (spiritually), but Christ is the Life! And he arrived at the Father’s house when he repented and returned.

Second, To Reveal God the Father to Them (John 14:7-11). Philip seemed to have trouble with his eyes: he wanted to “see.” Almost his first words in John 1:46 are, “Come and see!” He saw the great crowd in John 6 and decided that Christ could not feed them (John 6:7). The Greeks who came to Philip said, “We would see Jesus” (John 12:21). Jesus made it clear that seeing Him is seeing the Father. “From now on you know Him,” He promises in verse 7. It is by faith that we see God the Father as we come to know Christ the Son better.

Insight: “Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?” (John 14:9). The God of the Bible is a Trinity: (1) The Father is God, (2) The Son is God, and (3) The Holy Spirit is God. They are three in one! They are all God.