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Joh_14:23-24. Jesus repeats—and that was sufficient for the removal of such a misunderstanding—substantially, yet now at once placing love as the principal matter in the immediate foreground, the condition to which His self-revelation, Joh_14:22, is attached, by more closely defining it according to its divine and blessed manner of existence; and shows from this, and from the antithesis added in Joh_14:24, that the κόσμος —this κόσμος which hates Him and is disobedient to Him—is quite incapable of receiving that self-revelation. The more precise explanation, πρὸς αὐτ . ἐλευσόμ . κ . μονὴν παρʼ αὐτῷ ποιησόμεθα , is intended to make this very incapacity still more distinctly and deeply felt. At the foundation of the expression lies the theocratic idea, realized in this spiritual fellowship, of the dwelling of God amongst His people (Exo_25:8; Exo_29:45; Lev_26:11-12; Eze_37:26 ff.), with which also the later representation of the dwelling of the Shekinah with the pious (Danz in Meuschen, N. T. ex Talm. ill. p. 701 ff.) is connected. This representation, however, is not to be assumed here, since Jesus means an invisible presence. In the plural of communion, ἐλευσόμεθα is the clear expression of the divine-human consciousness, Joh_10:30.
On the genuinely Greek expression μονὴν ποιεῖν , see Kypke, I. p. 404. The Middle (see critical notes): we will make to ourselves.
παρʼ αὐτῷ ] The unio mystica, into which God and Christ enter with man by means of the Paraclete,[155] is presented in the sensuous form of the taking up an abode with Him (comp. Joh_14:17; Joh_14:25), i.e. in His dwelling (comp. Joh_1:40, Act_21:8, et al.), under His roof. They come, like wanderers from their heavenly home (Joh_14:2), and lodge with Him, “will be daily His guests, yea, house and table companions,” Luther.
The λόγοι , discourses, are the individual parts of the collective λόγος , and the ἐντολαί are the preceptive parts of the same, and form, therefore, a more special conception than the λόγοι .
καὶ ὁ λόγος ὃν ἀκούετε , κ . τ . λ .] and—from this you may infer how unfitted such a man is to experience that visitation—the word which ye hear (now, still!), etc. Comp. Joh_7:16, Joh_8:28, Joh_12:49-50, Joh_3:34. He therefore rejects God Himself. The second person ( ἀκούετε ) is individualizing (not to be limited to what was said in Joh_14:23-24, as Godet takes it), and makes the expression at the close of this portion of the address more lively.
[155] Not: “in the divine elevation above space and time” (Weiss, Lehrbegr. p. 276), which introduces here a speculative idea which is very remote from the meaning.