No Trinity Here - Holistic Approach to John 14 by slaveofone
Throughout the Old Testament and Hebrew literature, parallelism is used as a means of identifying the purpose and meaning of a story. John 14 contains a lot of parallelism typical of ancient Jewish narrative.
Just as the Father dwells in Yeshua (14:10), so the Spirit will dwell in you (14:26). Just as the Father is in Yeshua/Yeshua is in the Father (14:10, 11), so the Spirit will be in you/you will be in the Spirit (14:17). Just as by going to the Father, Yeshua will be in you, so by the coming of the Spirit, you will be in Yeshua (14:2, 20). Therefore, where Yeshua is, there you will be also (14:3). And so his works will be your works (14:12). In that way, Yeshua will be manifest to you (14:21). And since Yeshua’s works are the Father’s works (14:10), your works will be the Father’s.
Such talk serves to highlight the point that both Yeshua’s going and the Spirit’s coming are a part of the manifestation or habitation of God among his people as pointed out in the beginning of the chapter as well as 14:23 (we will come to him and make our dwelling-place with him
). Yeshua tells them this so that when all these things take place (Yeshua’s going from them, his resurrection, the manifestation of signs, and Yeshua’s works among them), they will know it is truly the way of Yahweh and his life(14:6). All this paralleled interplay is thus meant to ask us to examine historical events and see if they bear witness (15:26) to Yeshua’s message, and if so, to believe that message (14:29), which is, by definition, believing in Yeshua—and thus believing in Yahweh (14:1).
Chapter 14 comes together in such a way as to create this holistic picture and aim (which itself has a place in the larger picture of the gospel). As it is readily apparent, nothing in this has as its purpose or intent a pronouncement or definition of the divine nature of Yeshua’s personal being as commonly interpreted by Trinitarians. Yeshua is not, here, a Greek philosopher proclaiming universal truths about the makeup of his essence. Such would be an atomistic separation of verses from the structure and form in which they consist to support an ideology foreign to the message conveyed by the narrative. It does not speak of the existence and structure of the messenger, but of the detail and result of the message. Here is not an appeal to understand Yeshua as God in his essence, but to follow/obey/love Yeshua in order to be in Yahweh and receive from him that which is his (such as salvation).