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Testimonies for the Church Volume 8
Christ revealed all of God that sinful human beings could bear
without being destroyed. He is the divine Teacher, the Enlightener.
Had God thought us in need of revelations other than those made
through Christ and in His written word, He would have given them.
Christ’s Revelation of God to the Disciples
Let us study the words that Christ spoke in the upper chamber on
the night before His crucifixion. He was nearing His hour of trial,
and He sought to comfort His disciples, who were to be so severely
tempted and tried.
“Let not your heart be troubled,” He said; “ye believe in God,
believe also in Me. 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....
“Thomas saith unto Him, Lord, we know not whither Thou goest;
and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way,
the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me. If
ye had known Me, ye should have known My Father also: and from
henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him....
“Lord, show us the Father,” said Philip, “and it sufficeth us. Jesus
saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou
not known Me, Philip? he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; and
how sayest thou then, Show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am
in the Father, and the Father in Me? the words that I speak unto you I
speak not of Myself: but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the
works.”
John 14:1-10
.
The disciples did not yet understand Christ’s words concerning His
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relation to God. Much of His teaching was still dark to them. They had
asked many questions that revealed their ignorance of God’s relation
to them and to their present and future interests. Christ desired them
to have a clearer, more distinct knowledge of God.
“These things have I spoken unto you in parables,” He said; “but
the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in parables, but
I shall show you plainly of the Father.”
John 16:25
, margin.
When on the Day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit was poured out upon
the disciples, they understood the truths that Christ had spoken in para-
bles. The teachings that had been mysteries to them were made clear.
The understanding that came to them with the outpouring of the Spirit