He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him.
—John 14:21
Christ had promised the disciples that the Holy Spirit would come to reveal His presence and would always be with them. When the Spirit came, Christ through the Spirit would manifest Himself to them. They would know Him in a new, divine, spiritual way; in the power of the Spirit they would know Him, and He would be far more intimately and unceasingly with them than ever He had been on earth.
The condition of this revelation of Himself is comprised in the word love: “He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him.” This is to be the meeting of divine and human love. The love with which Christ had loved them had taken possession of their hearts and would show itself in the love for a full and absolute obedience. The Father would see this, and His love would rest upon the soul; Christ would love him with the special love drawn out by the loving heart and would manifest Himself. The love of heaven poured out in the heart (see Romans 5:5) would be met by the new and blessed revelation of Christ Himself.
But this is not all. When the question was asked, “What is it?” the answer came in the words, “If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him” (John 14:23). In the heart thus prepared by the Holy Spirit, showing itself in loving obedience in a fully surrendered heart, the Father and the Son will make their residence.
And now, Christ promised them nothing less: “Lo, I am with you alway[s]” (Matthew 28:20). That word “with” implies “in”—Christ with the Father, dwelling in the heart by faith. Oh, that everyone who wishes to enter into the secret of the abiding presence would study, believe, and claim in childlike simplicity the blessed promise: “I will…manifest Myself to him.”