Judas had left the upper room, and Christ was alone with the eleven. He was about to speak of His approaching separation from them, but before this He pointed to the great purpose of His mission. He always kept freshly in mind His joy that all His humiliation and suffering would glorify the Father’s name. This is where He first directed the thoughts of His disciples.3TC 408.2

Their Master and Lord, their beloved Teacher and Friend, was dearer to them than life. Now He was going to leave them. Dark forebodings filled their hearts.3TC 408.3

But the Savior’s words were full of hope. He knew that Satan’s craftiness is most successful against those who are depressed by difficulties. So He turned their thoughts to the heavenly home: “Let not your heart be troubled. ... In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 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.” When I go away, I will still work earnestly for you. I go to the Father to cooperate with Him on your behalf.3TC 408.4

Christ’s departure was the opposite of what the disciples feared—it did not mean a final separation. He was going to prepare a place for them so that He could receive them to Himself. While He was building mansions for them, they were to build characters in God’s likeness.3TC 408.5

Thomas was troubled by doubts. “‘Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.’”3TC 408.6

There are not many ways to heaven. Each person may not choose his own way. Christ was the way by which patriarchs and prophets were saved. He is the only way by which we can have access to God.3TC 408.7

But the disciples did not yet understand. “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us,” exclaimed Philip. Christ asked with pained surprise, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip?” Is it possible that you do not see the Father in the works He does through Me? “How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” Christ had not stopped being God when He became human; the Godhead was still His own. Christ’s work testified to His divinity. Through Him the Father had been revealed.3TC 408.8

If the disciples believed this vital connection between the Father and the Son, their faith would not leave them when they saw Christ’s suffering and death. How persistently our Savior worked to prepare His disciples for the storm of temptation that would soon beat upon them. Everyone there felt a sacred awe as they listened to His words with breathless attention. And as their hearts were drawn to Christ in greater love, they were drawn to one another. They felt that heaven was very near.3TC 409.1

The Savior was anxious for His disciples to understand why His divinity was united to humanity. He came to the world to display the glory of God so that He could lift us up by its restoring power. Jesus revealed no qualities and exercised no powers that we may not have through faith in Him. His perfect humanity is what all His followers may possess if they will submit to God as He did.3TC 409.2

“Greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.” By this Christ meant that under the influence of the Holy Spirit the disciples’ work would have greater extent. After the Lord ascended to heaven, the disciples experienced the fulfillment of His promise. They knew that the divine Teacher was all that He had claimed to be. As they lifted high the love of God, hearts were touched and multitudes believed on Jesus.3TC 409.3

The Wonderful Privilege of Prayer

The Savior explained that the secret of their success would be to ask for strength and grace in His name. He presents the prayer of the humble petitioner to the Father as His own desire in that person’s behalf. Sincere prayer may not be fluently expressed, but it will ascend to the sanctuary where Jesus ministers. He will present it to the Father without one awkward, stammering word, fragrant with the incense of His own perfection.3TC 409.4

The path of sincerity and integrity is not free from obstacles, but in every difficulty we are to see a call to prayer. “Whatever you ask in My name,” said Jesus, “that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.”3TC 409.5

In Christ’s name His followers are to stand before God. Because of the righteousness of Christ credited to them, they are regarded as precious. The Lord does not see the vileness of the sinner in them. He recognizes in them the likeness of His Son, in whom they believe.3TC 409.6

The Lord is disappointed when His people place a low estimate on themselves. God wanted them, or He would not have sent His Son on such an expensive mission to redeem them. He is well pleased when they make the very highest demands on Him in order to glorify His name. They may expect large things if they have faith in His promises.3TC 409.7

But to pray in Christ’s name means that we are to accept His character, reveal His spirit, and work His works. The Savior saves us, not in sin, but from sin. Those who love Him show their love by obedience.3TC 409.8

All true obedience comes from the heart. It was heart work with Christ. And if we consent, He will blend our hearts and minds in conformity to His will so completely that when we obey Him we will be simply carrying out our own impulses. The will finds its highest delight in doing His service. Our life will be a life of continual obedience. Sin will become hateful to us.3TC 410.1

As Christ lived the law in humanity, so we may do if we will take hold of the Strong One for strength. But we cannot depend on humanity for counsel. The Lord will teach us our duty just as willingly as He will teach someone else. If we come to Him in faith, He will speak His mysteries to us personally. Our hearts will often burn within us as One draws near to talk with us as He did with Enoch. Those who decide to do nothing in any line that will displease God will know, after presenting their case before Him, just what course to pursue. And God will give power to them for obedience and for service, as Christ has promised.3TC 410.2

How the Holy Spirit Makes Christ’s Work for Us Effective

Before offering Himself as the sacrificial victim, Christ thought of the most essential gift to bestow on His followers. “I will pray the Father,” He said, “and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” While Christ was on earth, the disciples had desired no other helper. Only when they were deprived of His presence would they feel their need of the Spirit, and then He would come.3TC 410.3

The Holy Spirit is Christ’s representative, but without the personality of humanity, and independent of it. Restricted by His humanity, Christ could not be in every place personally. It was in their best interest that He should go and send the Spirit to be His successor on earth. No one then could have any advantage because of his location. By the Spirit the Savior would be within reach of all.3TC 410.4

Jesus read the future of His disciples. He saw one brought to the execution scaffold, one to the cross, one to exile among the lonely rocks of the sea, others to persecution and death. But in every ordeal, He would be with them. When for the truth’s sake, believers stand at the judgment bar of unrighteous courts, Christ stands by their side. The reproaches that fall on them fall on Christ. When one is locked away behind prison walls, Christ fills the heart with His love.3TC 410.5

At all times and in all places, when we feel helpless and alone, Jesus will send the Comforter in answer to the prayer of faith. Circumstances may separate us from every earthly friend, but no circumstance can separate us from the heavenly Comforter. He is always at our side to sustain and cheer.3TC 410.6

The disciples still failed to understand Christ’s words, so again He explained by the Spirit He would reveal Himself to them. “The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things.” No more will you say, I cannot comprehend.3TC 411.1

Through the disciples Christ was to speak to all the people on the face of the earth. But in the death of Christ the disciples would suffer great disappointment. So that after this experience their word would be accurate, Jesus promised that the Comforter would “bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” “When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.”3TC 411.2

Jesus’ disciples had been taught to accept the teaching of the rabbis as the voice of God, and it still held a power over their minds. Earthly ideas still had a large place in their thoughts. They did not understand the spiritual nature of Christ’s kingdom. Many of His lessons seemed almost lost on them. Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would bring these sayings back to their minds.3TC 411.3

The Comforter is called “the Spirit of truth.” His work is to define and uphold truth. He first lives in the heart as the Spirit of truth, and in this way He becomes the Comforter. There is comfort in truth but no real comfort in falsehood. Through false traditions Satan gains his power over the mind. False standards misshape the character. The Holy Spirit exposes such error and expels it from the heart. By the Spirit of truth, working through the Word of God, Christ subdues His chosen people to Himself.3TC 411.4

The Chief Purpose of the Spirit

Jesus worked to inspire His disciples with the joy and hope that inspired His own heart. He rejoiced because the Holy Spirit was the highest of all gifts He could ask from His Father for His people. God would give the Spirit to regenerate us. Without this, the sacrifice of Christ would not have accomplished its purpose. The power of evil had been strengthening for centuries, and the submission of men and women to satanic captivity was amazing. They could resist sin and overcome it only through the mighty agency of the Third Person of the Godhead, who would come with all divine power. The Spirit makes effective what the world’s Redeemer worked out. The Spirit makes the heart pure. Christ has given His Spirit to overcome all hereditary and cultivated tendencies to evil and to imprint His own character on His church. The very image of God is to be reproduced in humanity. The honor of God, the honor of Christ, is at stake in His people’s perfection of character.3TC 411.5

“When He [the Spirit of truth] has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” The preaching of the Word will be of no use without the presence of the Holy Spirit. Truth will awaken the conscience or transform the life only when the Spirit accompanies it to the heart. Unless the Holy Spirit impresses the truth on hearts, no sinner will fall on the Rock and be broken. No advantages, however great, can make anyone a channel of light.3TC 411.6

Christ has promised the gift of the Holy Spirit to His church, and the promise belongs to us as much as to the first disciples. But like every other promise, it is given on conditions. Many who profess to claim the Lord’s promise talk about Christ and about the Holy Spirit, yet they receive no benefit. They do not surrender their lives to be guided by the divine agencies. We cannot use the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is to use us. But many want to manage themselves. God gives the Spirit only to those who wait humbly on Him. This promised blessing, claimed by faith, brings all other blessings along with it. Christ is ready to supply every person according to the capacity to receive.3TC 412.1

Before leaving the upper room, the Savior led His disciples in a song of praise. He lifted His voice, not in the strains of some mournful lament, but in the joyful notes of the Passover hallel:3TC 412.2

Praise the Lord, all you nations! Extol Him, all you peoples!
For great is His steadfast love toward us,
And the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.
Praise the Lord!
Psalm 117, NRSV3TC 412.3

After the hymn, they made their way out of the city gate toward the Mount of Olives. Slowly they walked along, each busy with his own thoughts. As they began to descend toward the mount, Jesus said, “All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night, for it is written: ‘I will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’” Matthew 26:31. In the upper chamber, Jesus had said that one of the Twelve would betray Him and that Peter would deny Him. But now His words included them all.3TC 412.4

Peter’s Buried Sin

Then Peter spoke, protesting, “Even if all are made to stumble, yet I will not be.” Jesus had warned him that he would deny his Savior that very night. Now He repeated the warning: “Assuredly, I say to you that today, even this night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny Me three times.” But Peter only “spoke more vehemently, ‘If I have to die with You, I will not deny You!’ And they all said likewise.” Mark 14:29-31.3TC 412.5

When Peter said he would follow his Lord to prison and to death, he meant every word of it, but he did not know himself. Hidden in his heart were elements of evil that circumstances would fan into life. Unless he became conscious of his danger, these things would result in his eternal ruin. The Savior saw a self-love in him that would be stronger even than his love for Christ. Peter needed to distrust himself and to have a deeper faith in Christ. When on the Sea of Galilee he was about to sink, he cried, “Lord, save me!” So now if he had cried, “Save me from myself,” Jesus would have kept him secure. But Peter thought it was cruel that Jesus seemed to distrust him, and he became more persistent in his self-confidence.3TC 412.6

Jesus could not save His disciples from the test, but He did not leave them comfortless. Before the denial, they had the assurance of forgiveness. After His death and resurrection, they knew that they were forgiven and were dear to the heart of Christ.3TC 413.1

Jesus and the disciples were on the way to Gethsemane, at the foot of the Mount of Olives. The moon was shining brightly, revealing a flourishing grapevine. Drawing His disciples’ attention to it, Jesus said, “I am the true vine.” The vine with its clinging tendrils represents Himself. The palm tree, the cedar, and the oak stand alone, requiring no support. But the vine entwines around the trellis, and in this way it climbs toward heaven. So Christ in His humanity had to depend on divine power. “I can of Myself do nothing.” John 5:30.3TC 413.2

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.” On the hills of Palestine, our heavenly Father had planted this goodly Vine. Many were attracted by the beauty of this Vine, declaring its heavenly origin. But the leaders in Israel trampled the plant under their unholy feet. After they thought they had killed it, the heavenly Vinedresser took it and replanted it on the other side of the wall. The Vine Stock was to be no longer visible. It was hidden from the violent assaults of men. But the Vine’s branches hung over the wall, and through them grafts could still be united to the Vine.3TC 413.3

“The connection of the branch with the Vine,” Jesus said, “represents the relation His followers are to maintain with Him.” The branch is engrafted into the Living Vine, and fiber by fiber, vein by vein, it grows into the Vine Stock. So the Christian receives life through connection with Christ. The sinner unites His weakness to Christ’s strength, his emptiness to Christ’s fullness. Then he has the mind of Christ. The humanity of Christ has touched our humanity, and our humanity has touched divinity.3TC 413.4

We must keep this union unbroken. Christ said, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.” This is no off-and-on connection. The branch becomes a part of the Living Vine. “The life you have received from Me,” Jesus said, “can be preserved only by continual fellowship. Without Me, you cannot overcome sin or resist temptation.” We are to cling to Jesus and by faith receive from Him the perfection of His own character.3TC 413.5

The root sends its nourishment through the branch to the farthest twig. “He who abides in Me,” Jesus said, “and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” When we live by faith on the Son of God, the fruits of the Spirit will show in our lives; not one will be missing.3TC 413.6

“My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away.” There may be an apparent connection with Christ without a real union with Him by faith. A profession of religion places us in the church, but the character shows whether we are connected with Christ. If we bear no fruit, we are false branches. “If anyone does not abide in Me,” Christ said, “he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.”3TC 413.7

“Every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” From the Twelve who had followed Jesus, one, a withered branch, was about to be taken away. The rest would pass under the pruning knife of bitter trial. The pruning will cause pain, but it is the Father who applies the knife. He does not work with a reckless hand. Excessive foliage requires pruning to keep it from drawing away the life current from the fruit. Overgrowth must be cut out to give room for the healing beams of the Sun of Righteousness. The Vinedresser prunes away the harmful growth so that the fruit may be more abundant.3TC 414.1

“By this My Father is glorified,” Jesus said, “that you bear much fruit.” Through you, God desires to reveal the holiness, kindness, and compassion of His own character. Yet the Savior does not ask the disciples to work to bear fruit. He tells them to abide in Him. Through the Word, Christ abides in His followers. The life of Christ in you produces the same fruits as in Him. Living in Christ, clinging to Christ, supported by Christ, drawing nourishment from Christ, you bear fruit after the likeness of Christ.3TC 414.2

Jesus’ very first instruction when He was alone with His disciples in the upper chamber was, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” This commandment was new to the disciples, for they had not loved one another as Christ had loved them. But through His life and death they would receive a new understanding of love. The command to love one another had a new meaning in the light of His self-sacrifice.3TC 414.3

When people are bound together not by force or self-interest, but by love, they show the working of an influence that is more than human. It is evidence that God is restoring His image in humanity. This love, visible in the church, will surely stir Satan’s anger. “If the world hates you,” Jesus said, “you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.” You are to carry the gospel forward in the midst of opposition, peril, loss, and suffering.3TC 414.4

As the world’s Redeemer, Christ was constantly confronted with apparent failure. He seemed to do little of the work He longed to do. Satanic influences were constantly working to oppose His way. But He would not be discouraged. Through Isaiah He declares,3TC 414.5

“‘I have labored in vain,
I have spent my strength for nothing
and in vain;
Yet surely my just reward is with the Lord,
And my work with my God.’”
Isaiah 49:43TC 414.6

Jesus rested on this word, and He gave Satan no advantage. When the deepest sorrow was closing in on His heart, He said to His disciples, “The ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.” “The ruler of this world is judged.” Now shall he be thrown out. John 12:31.3TC 415.1

Christ knew that when He would exclaim, “It is finished!” all heaven would triumph. His ear caught the distant music and the shouts of victory in the heavenly realm. He knew that the name of Christ would be praised from world to world throughout the universe. He knew that truth, armed with the Holy Spirit, would conquer in the contest with evil. He knew that the life of His trusting disciples would be like His, a series of uninterrupted victories, not appearing that way to human sight, but recognized as such in the great hereafter.3TC 415.2

Christ did not fail, neither was He discouraged, and His followers are to exhibit a faith of the same enduring nature. They are to live as He lived and work as He worked. Instead of complaining about difficulties, they are to overcome them, to despair of nothing.3TC 415.3

Christ intends that heaven’s order and divine harmony will be represented in His church and on earth. In this way, through His people He will receive a large revenue of glory. Filled with the righteousness of Christ, the church is His storehouse, in which the riches of His grace and love are to appear in full display. Christ looks on His people in their purity and perfection as the reward of His humiliation and the supplement of His glory.3TC 415.4

With strong, hopeful words, the Savior ended His instruction. He had finished the work God had given Him to do. He had revealed the Father’s character and gathered out those who were to continue His work on earth.3TC 415.5

As a consecrated High Priest, Christ interceded for His people: “Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are. ... I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one. ... That the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.”3TC 415.6

Christ gave His chosen church into the Father’s arms. For Him the last battle with Satan waited, and He went out to meet it.3TC 415.7

The Lord’s Supper Instituted

The Awesome Struggle in Gethsemane