The one who comes from above is above all.
The one who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of earthly things.
On our own we are limited to speaking of earthly things. We can know something of God from his effects here on earth. But there is always a greater proportion about him that remains elusive. If God himself did not wish to become known the darkened minds of creatures could "perhaps feel their way toward him and find him" (see Acts 17:27). But the good news for us is that we don't have to figure things out from the bottom up by haphazard groping in the dark. Instead, God himself desired to be made known, and provided for us from the top down. The Father sent his Word to us, brim-filled with everything he himself had to give, a complete revelation about the truth about himself, mankind, and the world.
In times past, God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors through the prophets;
in these last days, he spoke to us through a son, whom he made heir of all things and through whom he created the universe (see Hebrews 1:1-2).
Jesus is therefore no ordinary messenger and neither is his message mundane, or trivial, nor for that matter optional. His revelation is something we need, something without which we cannot find our proper and intended place in God's creation. When we certify that God is trustworthy and use his revelation as the basis for our lives we begin to live a supernatural reality that is moving toward eternal life. Apart from his Word there is just no human way to receive that gift, no human path to find that life. We see this all around us, as things at a natural level are subject to constant deterioration. The last word we are able to perceive by listening to this world is not eternity but entropy. If our hearts remain fixated on the earthly that will be the only word we hear.
Jesus is not merely data about the Father and about heaven. He is himself the one who gives the Spirit without measure. He does not hold back, either in revealing the Father, or in sending the Spirit, because they are aspects of the same mission. It is the Spirit Jesus gives to us that makes us experience God as our Father and cry out "Abba!" together with him. The one word that most characterizes the existence of the living Word becomes, by the power of the Spirit, the reality that defines our lives as well. Clearly this gift is not merely something we can know about. He is a living reality is only really received in the measure that he himself takes hold of our minds and hearts. Hence John contrasts belief not with doubt or disbelief, but with disobedience.
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life,
but whoever disobeys the Son will not see life,
Obedience at first might sound easy and natural enough. We go to mass and Sundays, tithe ten percent, we don't take the Lord's name in vain, or kill anyone, and so on. Are we not more or less there with the basics? Yet what happens when are obedience is tested and compliance is not so obvious or without consequence?
But Peter and the Apostles said in reply,
“We must obey God rather than men.
On our own we only avoid the sins that aren't are favorites, for the most part, when we feel like it. We recognize our track record is not so good when there are deeply rooted passions of anger, lust, or jealousy at play within us, or when forces from outside are threatening our comfortable and convenient lifestyles. Obedience in such situations has to go deeper than ourselves, must be rooted in some reality more ultimate than our own egos. This means that we need the Spirit, and, if we have him in some measure, more of him, since there is no limit in how much Jesus himself desires to give us. It is the Spirit himself who creates witnesses with more than mere words, but also of demonstrations of power, and of lives transformed.
We are witnesses of these things,
as is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.”
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