If you know me, then you will also know my Father.
From now on you do know him and have seen him.
Philip seemed to think Jesus was implying something less direct and immediate than was in fact the case. He thought, perhaps, that Jesus was using hyperbole to imply that he would be able to recognize the Father because of his likeness to Jesus. So he pressed Jesus that the actual event could take place. As Moses asked God, "Please show me your glory" (see Exodus 33:18), so now Philip asked, "show us the Father". He thought Jesus was training him so could eventually behold the Father directly without any need of Jesus as an intermediary. But Jesus was not merely a bridge that could be crossed and then forgotten. The theophany of God the Father did not await on some far side without him. Rather he himself was the revelation of the Father, and without him the Father could not be seen or known.
Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.
How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?
Many people had apparently seen Jesus. But most had not seen him with the eyes of faith. Faith revealed the presence of the Father in Jesus, but in a specific way. It was not as though Jesus was a mask the Father wore to present himself among men on earth. The Father and Jesus were not different modes of operation for one person. They were one. But they were also, somehow, in relationship with one another. Thus Jesus used the language of relationship. He explained that even the works he performed were not only his, but also those of the Father, saying, "The Father who dwells in me is doing his works". This wouldn't make sense unless they were somehow outside of the context of relationship. But it did not negate the profound oneness that they shared. The Father chose Jesus exclusively to reveal his face and his heart to the world. Jesus chose to say only the words his Father wished him to say, to do nothing but what he asked, to prefer nothing to his will. They gave themselves to and for each other completely, steadily, and without hesitation.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever believes in me will do the works that I do,
and will do greater ones than these,
because I am going to the Father.
Believing in Jesus was the gateway to sharing in his communion of love with the Father and the Spirit. The Father had until then been doing marvelous deeds through the human nature of Jesus. But Jesus promised that, together, he and his Father would use the faith of believers to do even greater things. The works that the disciples had witnessed appeared to be largely external, and to have consequences that were merely temporary. Even so great a work as the raising of Lazarus was impermanent. But the work that God would do in us by virtue of our faith would accomplish forgiveness and salvation, eternal goods. We can thus speak of "obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls" (see First Peter 1:9) in the sense that it is both God's work and our own. This is why Jesus responded to the question of what must be done to accomplish the works of God by saying, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent" (see John 6:29).
In the Acts of the Apostles we witness the disciples performing many great and miraculous deeds. But the greatest accomplishments, and those which were the most celebrated, were always people coming to believe.
All who were destined for eternal life came to believe,
and the word of the Lord continued to spread
through the whole region.
We sometimes get fixated on miracles because of how pressing are the temporary trials that afflict us as mortals. But if we focus on the fact that our faith is something still greater we can have the same joy that characterized the disciples, since the Holy Spirit has filled us just as it first filled them.
The disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit.
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