“Behold!” With each step of Jesus’ life and ministry described in scripture we are given revelations of the truth of who he is through the eyes of first one person after another – Mary and Joseph, shepherds and Magi, Simeon and Anna, John the Baptist, satan (in the wilderness), wedding guests in Cana, his disciples, those who were healed, the centurion, Nicodemus, the Syro-Phoenician woman, Saul the persecutor, and on and on and on. But when WE behold what manner of love He has given unto us and experience the transforming work of His Holy Spirit in our own lives, becoming holy as He is holy, “less of me and more of thee”, becomes a reality.
John 14:9-21
“Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say I am in the Father and Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. “
“….it is the Father, living in me, who is doing HIS works…”. Those works of God were the manifestations of healing, of water to wine, enabling Jesus to walk on water or through crowds unseen, multiplying loaves and fishes, raising Lazarus and others from the dead, pronouncing forgiveness of sin, revealing Jesus as the Christ, transfiguring the body of Jesus in a heavenly appearance, etc. Jesus’ physical humanness was under the full inhabiting authority of the incarnate Divine Holy Spirit of God. Nevertheless, Jesus retained a sense of his full autonomous humanness while also embodying the full divine nature of the Spirit of God so that he was able to ask God to remove the cup of suffering if possible, but even so still submit to God’s will and not his human will so that what God desired to do in Jesus was done. Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ, the Incarnate embodied God and still human. There are numerous OT reports of the Angel of the Lord, the physical manifestation of God, appearing to men for specific reasons. This is often described as the eternal Christ, the pre-incarnate Jesus appearing to men. And if God would manifest as Christ pre-incarnate, as seems to be the case, he can and does appear post- resurrection, as well, as we know he has.
“12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
“…… because I am going to the Father”…. Why would Jesus going to the Father enable whoever believes in Jesus to do the works he does and also greater things, too? By returning to the Father, leaving the physical realm existence, Jesus is at the throne of the Sovereign Creator and Sustainer to be our advocate and intercessor. And Jesus promises to do those things his followers ask in His name, that is, those things that are in keeping with his character, nature, and conduct which is the character, nature, and conduct of God. In the next few verses he says he will also send an advocate who will never leave them.
15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”
Jesus said to them that the world would not know the Advocate he would send but they would… in fact, Jesus said they already KNEW HIM… “But you know him, for HE LIVES WITH YOU”….. Jesus is making a profound statement of his identity as the Holy Spirit of God….. of BEING the Holy Spirit of God present with them. Then Jesus continued, saying that this Advocate “will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” He himself IS the Holy Spirit of God, in the flesh, and will come back to his believers as the indwelling Holy Spirit, the Advocate, the Paraclete.
Summing up, Jesus says:
“19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”
This is the most profound description of the unified Triune Godhead as it exists when the Holy Spirit is sent to them.
“On that day- (When the world no longer sees Jesus but his believers do, it will be as a result of the Spirit of Christ living in them and in doing so he gives them eternal life like that of Jesus himself.)
Here it is:
I (Jesus, embodied Incarnate God) am in my Father (Holy Spirit of God), and you (Jesus’ believers) are in me (the Holy Spirit of the Christ), and I (the Holy Spirit of Christ who sends the Holy Spirit of the Advocate, who is Jesus Christ, saying “I will come to you”) am in you (Jesus’ believers).
21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
Jesus Christ will show himself to his faithful followers through his living Holy Spirit dwelling in them, which is the Body of Christ we know as his Church. And, also, in miraculous ways like dreams and visions Jesus Christ will appear or speak, and in His Living Word he will illumine our hearts and minds, and in our souls he will convict us of sins, guide our conscience, and make us holy.