Men are apt to err doubly in their estimate of the Holy Spirit's relation to us. They either overlook the immense effect of His presence and teaching, or they attribute to Him what may be the mere fruit of natural conscience and diffused information. Our Lord here puts in His own perfect way what the Spirit would do as sent down from heaven, not now in external demonstration to the world, but in the positive blessing and help of the disciples.
“I have yet many things to say to you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, shall have come, he will guide you in [or, into] all the truth; for he will not speak from himself, but whatever he shall hear he will speak; and he will report to you the things to come. He will glorify me, for he will receive of mine, and will report [it] to you. All things that the Father hath are mine: on this account I said, that he receiveth of mine and will report [it] to you.” (Vers. 12-15.)
It has been repeatedly shown, and in this chapter most expressly, that the presence of the Spirit depended on the departure of Christ to heaven consequent on accomplished redemption. This changed the entire groundwork, besides morally fitting the saints for the new truths, work, character, and hopes of Christianity. The disciples were not ignorant of the promise that the Spirit should be given to inaugurate the reign of the Messiah. They knew the judgment under which the chosen people abide” until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest;” so vast outwardly, no less than inwardly, the change when God puts forth His power for the kingdom of His Son. They knew that He will pour out His Spirit upon all flesh; not only the sons and daughters, the old and young of Israel enjoying a blessing far beyond all temporal favors, but the servants and the handmaidens, in short all flesh and not the Jews alone sharing it.
But here it is the sound heard when the great High Priest goes in into the sanctuary before Jehovah, and not only when He comes out for the deliverance and joy of repentant Israel in the last days. It is the Spirit given when the Lord Jesus went on high, and by Him thus gone. For this they were wholly unprepared, as indeed it is one of the most essential characteristics of God's testimony between the rejection and the reception of the Jews; and the Spirit, when given, was to supply what the then state of the disciples could not bear. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God; and He is a Spirit, not of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind, besides the incalculable facts of Christ's work in death, resurrection, and ascension to which He testifies. Truly the Lord had many things to say reserved for the Holy Ghost, when the disciples had their consciences purged and could draw near boldly into the holiest, and a Man glorified in heaven furnished the meet occasion for the display of all that is in God, even for the secret hid in God before all worlds, of which not John or any other than the apostle Paul was to be the administrator.
But be the instrument who it might, when He is come, the Spirit of truth, as the Lord intimates here, “he will guide you into all truth,” or “in” it all as the Sinaitic, Cambridge (D), and Parisian (L) uncials with other authorities have it. For this two main grounds are given, besides His necessary competency as a divine person. First, He does not act independently but fulfilling the mission on which He is sent expressly. “For he shall not speak from himself, but whatever he shall hear, he will speak; and he will report to you the things to come.” Secondly, His prime object is to exalt the Lord Jesus, and therefore He will assuredly make this good in testimony to the disciples. “He will glorify me, for he will receive of mine and report [it] to you.”
The reader must guard against the popular error, easily suggested by the Authorized Version of verse 13, as if the sense meant were that the Spirit shall not speak about Himself. But it is neither true as a fact, nor is it of course intended here. The Spirit largely speaks concerning Himself in this Gospel, and particularly in the section we are examining; as He does in Rom. 8 Cor. 2; 12 Cor. 3, Eph. 4, and many other parts of scripture; which makes it the more strange that even the simplest have not learned the meaning here to be, that He shall not speak from Himself, but, as the next clause explains, whatever He shall hear He will speak. As the Son came not to act independently, whatever His glory, but to serve His Father; so the Spirit is come to serve the Son, and whatever He shall hear, He will speak.
But there is more. Not only can He speak of the Son in heaven as sent down by Him, and thus bear the highest testimony to His intrinsic dignity and the new position Christ is in there, but He has not ceased to be the Spirit of prophecy. On the contrary, He, would thus work abundantly in view of the world's total ruin and the blessing that waits on the Lord's return. “And he will report to you the things to come.” The prophetic word is found largely in the New Testament, not only in the Gospels, but also in the Epistles, but most of all in the wonderful book of Revelation. And the effect was immense in detaching the saints from the world as under judgment, however this might tarry. They knew these things before, and thus held fast their own steadfastness. Nevertheless prophecy as occupied with the earth, even though it go on to the kingdom of God there, is but a small and even inferior part of the Spirit's testimony, however astonishing in man's eyes and precious in itself. Christ's own glory, now on high, is the direct object; and this in every way. “He will glorify me, for he will receive of mine and will report [it] to you.” And here also all is in contrast with Messianic light or earthly dominion, however jest and great. “All things that the Father hath are mine: on this account I said that he receiveth of mine and will report [it] to you.” He is sent down to glorify not the church but Christ, and this by receiving and reporting what is Christ's (and all the Father has is His), not by exaggerating the importance or allowing the will of man.
But there is another intimation needful to press the “little while” with its issues of sorrow and joy.
“A little while and ye behold me not; and again a little while and ye shall see me [because I go away unto the Father]. [Some] therefore of his disciples said one to another, What is this which he saith to us, A little while and ye behold me not, and again a little while and ye shall see me, and because I go away to the Father. They said therefore, What is this that he saith, the little while? We know not of what he talketh. Jesus knew [therefore] that they wished to ask him, and said to them, Do ye inquire of this one with another, because I said, a little while, and ye behold me not; and again a little while, and ye shall see me? Verily, verily I say to you that ye shall weep and lament, and the world shall rejoice; ye shall be grieved, but your grief shall be turned into joy. The woman, when she bringeth forth, hath grief because her hour is come; but when she hath given birth to the child, she no longer remembereth the affliction for the joy that a man hath been born into the world. And ye now therefore have grief, but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no one taketh from you.” (Vers. 16-22.)
The “little while” in any and every sense was a strange sound td Jewish ears; so is His going away to the Father. It is no question here of their lost Messiah, the suffering Son of man. This of course is true and important in its place, and fully treated in the closing scenes of the synoptic gospels. But here we see and hear the conscious Son of God, a man but a divine person who had come from and was now going back to the Father. We need especially to be in the spirit of this to estimate the “little while” and indeed Christianity in contradistinction to what was and what will be. The resurrection brought the disciples into the intelligence of this “little while,” though it may not be all out till He comes again. The Jew thought nothing more certain than that the Christ when He came would abide forever. The “little while” was therefore another enigma which His death and resurrection cleared up, and the Spirit subsequently showed to be bound up with all that is characteristic of the present work of God for the glory of Christ. We anticipate by faith what will come and manifestly at His appearing.
Nothing can be more marked than the Lord's avoidance here of introducing His death as such; and it is all the more striking because it is so prominent in chapters 1, 3, 6, 8, 10, 12. Here no doubt it underlies all, and poor indeed had been the joy without His infinite sorrow on the cross. But that solemn hour is here passed over thus: “A little while, and ye behold me not; and again, a little while and ye shall see, me. Verily, verily, I say to you, that ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice; ye shall be grieved, but your grief shall be turned into joy.” This was sorely true when He rose after His brief absence, as it will be fully verified when He comes for them never to part more. And this He illustrates by the most familiar of all figures of sorrow issuing in joy. (Vers. 21, 22.) The absence of the Lord to the world is getting rid of Him; but even now His resurrection is a joy which none takes away. What will it be when He comes to receive us to Himself?