What is the moral/core truth of the Gospel John 14:23-29?

Answer 1

14:23 If a person truly loves the Lord, he will want to keep all of His teachings, not just isolated commandments. The Father loves those who are willing to obey His Son without questions or reservations. Both Father and Son are especially near to such loving and obedient hearts.

14:24 On the other hand, those who do not love Him do not keep His sayings. And they are not only refusing the words of Christ, but those of the Father as well.

14:25 While He was with them, our Lord taught His disciples up to a certain point. He could not reveal more truth to them because they could not have taken it in.

14:26 But the Holy Spirit would reveal more. He was sent by the Father in the name of Christ on the day of Pentecost. The Spirit came in Christ's name in the sense that He came to represent Christ's interests on earth. He did not come to glorify Himself but to draw men and women to the Savior. “He will teach you all things,” said the Lord. He did this first of all through the spoken ministry of the apostles; then through the written Word of God which we have today. The Holy Spirit brings to remembrance all the things which the Savior had taught. Actually, the Lord Jesus seems to have presented in germ form all the teaching which is developed by the Holy Spirit in the rest of the NT.

14:27 A person who is about to die usually writes a last will and testament in which he leaves his possessions to his loved ones. Here the Lord Jesus was doing that very thing. However, He did not bequeath material things but something that money could not buy—peace, inward peace of conscience that arises from a sense of pardoned sin and of reconciliation with God. Christ can give it because He purchased it with His own blood at Calvary. It is not given as the world gives—sparingly, selfishly, and for a short time. His gift of peace is forever. Why then should a Christian be troubled or afraid?

14:28 Jesus had already told them how He was going to leave them, and then later how He would return to take them home to heaven with Him. If they loved Him, this would have caused them to rejoice. Of course, in a sense they did love Him. But they did not fully appreciate who He was, and thus their love was not as great as it should have been.

“You would rejoice because I said, 'I am going to the Father,' for My Father is greater than I.” At first it seems as if this verse contradicts all that Jesus had taught concerning His equality with God the Father. But there is no contradiction, and the passage explains the meaning. When Jesus was here on earth, He was hated and hunted, persecuted and pursued. Men blasphemed Him, reviled Him, and spat on Him. He endured terrible indignities from the hands of His creatures.

God the Father never suffered such rude treatment from men. He dwelt in heaven, far away from the wickedness of sinners. When the Lord Jesus returned to heaven, He would be where indignities could never come. Therefore, the disciples should have rejoiced when Jesus said that He was going to the Father, because in this sense the Father was greater than He. The Father was not greater as God, but greater because He never came into the world as Man to be cruelly treated. As far as the attributes of deity are concerned, the Son and the Father are equal. But when we think of the lowly place which Jesus took as a Man here on earth, we realize that in that sense, God the Father was greater than He. He was greater as to His position but not His Person.

14:29 In unselfish concern for the fearful disciples, the Lord revealed these future events to them so that they would not be offended, disheartened, or afraid, but rather believe.

Answer 2

Trust Jesus, let not your heart be troubled. I suppose that you can call that 'moral', but the word 'moral' implies some sort of perfection doctrine that we are to aspire to.

I would rather lean towards the love that Jesus is spurring us to, the trust in him that brings all things that he would add to us. Not a focus on us that we are to have of ourselves, but an outward looking away from ourselves so that he can make us the people he wants us to be.

The core issue I see there is the call for us to trust him. As it is found throughout the Bible.

Answer 3

I would say that it means that you need to study the Bible, then when you need and pray for help from God through his son Jesus, then he will bring to mind scriptures through the Holy Spirit (John 17:3).
Also, verse 28 is another piece of evidence against the trinity, which is a man made doctrine (Matthew 15:9).

John 17:3
This means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God, and of the one whom you sent forth, Jesus Christ.

Matthew 15:9
It is in vain that they keep worshiping me, because they teach commands of men as doctrines.’”

Answer 4

That Jesus is not as great as his Father so they are not equal in power. That God's holy spirit will help us to discern spiritual matters and help us to know the truth and retain what we are taught. That what Jesus was teaching was not his teachings, but those of his Father in heaven, again showing that Jesus and God are not one and the same.