At that day you shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
All Commentaries on John 14:20 Go To John 14
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
In that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, &c. After I have risen again, and ascended into heaven, and sent you the Holy Ghost, ye shall by His illumination know these three things more clearly and certainly, viz, that I am in the Father, by the unity of the Divine Essence, that is to say, that I am true God2. That ye may be in Me through Love, through the special guardianship which I have over you. Cyril adds a deeper meaning, "That ye may be in Me through union of substance. For since I have assumed human flesh, I have united the whole nature of Prayer of Manasseh , and as it were all men to Myself3. That I may be in you as inhabiting, illuminating, and directing you to all good, and to everlasting life in heaven by My grace. Wherefore, says the Interlinear, ye shall know that I am in the Father, as a ray of light in the sun, one with Him, and ye in Me as branches in the vine, and I in you, as the vine in a branch, causing (heavenly) sap, and the life of grace to flow into you. S. Hilary adds that Christ is in us in the way of food by Participation of the Eucharist.
He that hath My commandments, &c. As the Gloss says, not only you, 0 ye Apostles, but every one who loveth Me, and keepeth My commandments, shall live and know. Toletus understands this of the ordinary believers, who besides the Apostles in the time of Christ believed on Him, that these were here exhorted to persevere in His faith, love, and obedience. That in so doing they would in return be loved by Him and the Father, and that He would show Himself to them, when He rose again gloriously from the dead. This meaning is true, but too restricted. For Christ is speaking to all the faithful of every age. The meaning Isaiah , he that hath My commandments, i.e, he who keeps in his memory and affection the precepts which he has heard of Me, and keepeth them, i.e, fulfils them in deed; he who, as S. Augustine says, keeps them in his life and in his works, and perseveres in so doing, he it is who loveth Me, because he does what is pleasing to Me, what I love and desire to be done by him. A similar phrase occurs in chap. v38 , Ye have not My word abiding in you. For as S. Gregory says, "The proof of love is the exhibition of work. The love of God is never lazy. If it exists, it worketh great things. But if there be refusal to work, love is not there."
But he that loveth Me, &c. Because My commandments are the commandments of the Father. Wherefore he who keepeth them, reverences and loves the Father, and does what is most pleasing to Him. Hence he draws His love upon him in return. Loving God the Father, he is beloved by Him. Love is the magnet of love. But here observe, we do not first love God, but God us, and so He inspires us with grace, by which we love Him in return. And if we accept this His love, and begin to love Him, He the more loves us, and pours greater grace and charity upon us.
And I will love him, not only as God, for so I will love him with the same love as the Father: but even as man I will proceed to love him, and to accumulate gifts and graces upon him. As S. Augustine says, "To this end I will love that I may manifest (Myself). Not indeed that He did not love then. He loved us to this end, that we should believe, then that we should see. Now we love by believing in what we shall see, then we shall love by seeing that which we have believed."
And will manifest Myself to him, by a deeper knowledge from day to day of My mysteries and gifts, not only speculative but practical and experimental knowledge, by which the saints taste and have experience of Christ how sweet Hebrews , the Lord, is: and therefore they burst forth in pious affections of gratitude, love, and praise, as S. Paul does in1Cor11 , and elsewhere. But, above all, this shall take place in heaven.
