What Does John 14:23 Mean?

(23) **If a man love me, he will keep my words.**—Our Lord repeats the condition necessary on the part of man in order that the manifestation of God to him may be possible. This is an answer to the question of Judas, the world in its unbelief and rejection of Christ’s words, and without the spirit of love, could not receive this manifestation. **We will come unto him, and make our abode with him.**—For the plural, comp. Note on John 10:30. For the word “abode,” comp. Note on John 14:2. The thought of God as dwelling in the sanctuary and among the people was familiar to the disciples from the Old Testament Scriptures (see, *e.g.,* Exodus 25:8; Exodus 29:45; Leviticus 26:11-12; Ezekiel 37:26), and the thought of the spiritual temple in the heart of man was not unknown to contemporary writers. Philo has a remarkable parallel in his treatise, *De Cherubim,* p. 124, “Since therefore He (God) thus invisibly enters into the region of the soul, let us prepare that place, in the best way the case admits of, to be an abode worthy of God; for if we do not, He, without our being aware of it, will quit us and migrate to some other habitation which shall appear to Him to be more excellently provided” (Bohn’s ed., vol. i., p. 199. See the whole of chap. 29). Schöttgen, in his note, quotes from a Rabbinical writer who says, “Blessed is the man who strives daily to make himself approved unto God, and prepares himself to receive the divine guest.” (Comp. 1Corinthians 3:16; 1Corinthians 6:19; and Revelation 3:20.)