I think we might profitably look at the way the Spirit is presented in those three chapters—John 14, 15, 16.
John 14:15-19, 25, 26; 15:24-27; 16:7-1315If ye love me, keep my commandments. 16And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; 17Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. 18I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. 19Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. (John 14:15‑19)
25These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. 26But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. (John 14:25‑26)
24If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. 25But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause. 26But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: 27And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning. (John 15:24‑27)
7Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. 8And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: 9Of sin, because they believe not on me; 10Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; 11Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. 12I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. 13Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come. (John 16:7‑13).—In the early chapters of this gospel the Spirit is presented more in the aspect of power—divine power (chs. 4 and 7). The Lord said to the woman, “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” He evidently points to eternal life in the power of the Spirit, so in chapter 7:37-39, and I think all through in the early chapters. When we come to chapters 14, 15, 16, the Spirit is spoken of as a divine Person who comes into the world consequent on the absence of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is both power and a Person. If Christ personally leaves this scene, and He does, a Person comes from Him into the scene, and is identified in that way as “another Comforter,” Christ Himself remaining one, though in heaven. The Holy Spirit has come into this world a divine Person. He is power in the absence of Christ. He is here personally in us, and with us. The force of “another Comforter” is that Christ remains still that for us in heaven, does not give up the place of being a Comforter there. The Comforter is really paraclete; the meaning of that word is, one called to your side. The Holy Ghost is a divine Person, yet called to our side. How blessed!
This is consistent with the character of the gospel: it does not take us to heaven where Christ is, but brings heaven down to us. It is this that makes this gospel difficult. Paul takes us up to heaven. John brings heaven down to us.
The source of the mission of the Comforter in these chapters is very beautiful. In John 14 the Father sends Him, and that is very much in keeping with the chapter. The sorrow spoken of in chapter 14 is really heart sorrow, trouble of heart, and no one can meet that except the Father. The Father, knowing the sorrow and trouble of heart caused by Christ’s absence, sends the Comforter. When the Lord speaks of sending Him, He sends Him “from the Father.” The co- operation of the Father and the Son is thus blessedly kept up in that expression. When the Lord speaks of going away out of this world He does not speak of His death as such in this gospel, but that He is going to the Father.
“He shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you.” Those are the Father’s things really.
It is blessedly pictured in the case of Abraham and Isaac. Eliezer said, “Sarah my masters wife bare a son to my master when she was old, and unto him hath he given all that he hath.” We ought to recognize the presence of the Holy Ghost that He has come in the name of the One that is gone. He has come to tell us of the One that is gone.
Then we come to chapter 15. There He comes from Christ in glory. Here in chapter 14 He comes from the Father. In chapter 15 it is the witness the Spirit bears to Christ, the glorified One. In chapter 14 it is the comfort the Father ministers by the Spirit to bereaved hearts in the absence of Christ. I am sure we do not feel in its force and reality the absence of Christ, that He is not here, else we should value the presence of the Spirit in a different way. The trouble of chapter 14 is heart trouble. The heaviest sorrow in the world is nothing to the desolation of a heart bereft of the one that is everything to it. One longs to know Christ more in that way, so as to feel bereft of His absence. We could not feel it quite like the disciples; they had known Him on earth with them. We should feel it if we came back from the place where He is.
The presence of the Spirit, as in verse 17, would have a very separating character. The world cannot receive Him, it cannot enter into anything we have in connection with the Spirit’s presence, so that if there is any drawing near to the world it must be entirely on the side of the believer in failure.
Another thing comes out in chapter 14. When we lose loved ones on earth we can have no more communications with them—they are with the Lord. The Lord says, as it were, I am going away, but there is One coming who will keep up the communications with you, who will bring all the blessedness of the absent One into your hearts.
Observe the force in verse 18 of “I will come to you.” It is not a manifestation of the Spirit, but the spiritual manifestation the Lord gives to His people in His absence. It is realized by the Spirit. It is like Paul in the shipwreck (Acts 27:2323For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, (Acts 27:23)), when the apostle said, “There stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve.” It was a distinct spiritual manifestation to him at that moment by the Lord Himself.
We find the same kind of thing further down in this chapter (vv. 21, 23), and this tells us the way in which it is enjoyed. Our enjoyment depends on our keeping the Lord’s commandments.
Is it not very striking that everything in Christianity, and the enjoyment of its blessings, is connected with the Spirit and the power of it?
And that is why there is so little enjoyment of it because the Spirit is grieved and hindered. The presence in person of the Spirit is the great mark of contrast between what existed previously and what is now. When one understands the real power of the Spirit one can understand the deficiency the disciples had in not knowing it. There was no indwelling presence of the Spirit in Old Testament times, but an operation. The Spirit came upon them in power, but not in Person. Now a believer is really indwelt by the Spirit. It is the personal coming of the Holy Ghost, and it is just as distinct and real as the coming of Christ in incarnation. I do not think people realize that the Spirit is a distinct Person. He is thought to be an influence, not a Person.
There is a good deal of talk in the present day about getting the second blessing. What does it mean?
I believe what is really meant by it is what we call deliverance. If a person has received the full blessings of Christianity, that he was entirely purged by the blood of Christ from every spot and stain, and that his old man was crucified with Christ and the Spirit dwelt in him, I do not know what second blessing there could be after this. All that kind of thing tends only to occupy you with yourself—a sort of introspection which leaves you in weakness. A mystic is full of desire. Love has an object. Christianity presents an object to you. We are a great deal more mystics than we have any idea of. What characterizes a mystic is desire, not love—desire, a longing for something you have not got. The real proof of the Spirit of God in power in a person is, that Christ is before the soul. Observe the all things of verse 26 include everything they failed to enter into and apprehend while the Lord was with them.
The special character, as we have noticed, of the Spirit’s presence in chapter 14 is that He is here in the absence of Christ as a Comforter from the Father. Then in chapter 15 it is what we might call a supplementary witness. “He shall testify of me” of Me in heaven. The Lord contemplated His ascension, His exaltation, and as ascended and exalted He sends the Comforter. The testimony of the twelve which we have in the gospel history was to what Jesus was on earth; the testimony of the Spirit is to what He is now in the glory of God.
I believe we have that testimony in Acts 5:30-3230The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. 31Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. 32And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him. (Acts 5:30‑32). He would bear witness in the disciples as well. But we have this witness of the Spirit to Christ in heaven, especially in Paul’s epistles, because he presents a man gone up into the glory of God. In John it is more God come down here into this world. Is there not much to be gathered from the order in verses 26 and 27? Must we not receive the testimony to a glorified Christ before we trace His path on earth?
I believe we must, we could not enter into the full character of the gospels if we have not received the truth of the epistles.
The real word for witness is martyr. Martyrdom is the meaning—the witness sealed his testimony with his blood. A witness is a person who not only bears testimony by word of mouth but suffers for it. If a person maintains the truth and suffers for it, it is martyrdom really. Two words are used to Paul—“to make thee a minister and a witness,” and there it is martyrdom. It is one thing to be a minister, but very difficult to be a witness. A minister is one who makes the thing known—a witness, one that is it in his own person. Minister in that verse could only apply to the apostle.
When we come to chapter 16, it is not a question of the mission, the truth brought out there is not who sends the Spirit, but the fact of His presence on earth, and the effect of His presence. “When he is come he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” His presence is the demonstration of these things. The Spirit will bring demonstration to the world of these things. We must be either with the Spirit as witness, or with the world and against the Spirit. It shows how impossible it is for us to occupy any position but an outside one, because if we are in company with the Spirit we are bound to be outside. Is not this the reason why we get so much about the world in John?
The whole system of the world is in opposition to the Father. There is nothing in the world that I can be an object to. If the Father’s love is in my heart, the love of the Father in me, it gives me the sense that I am His object:
“The object of His love I am,
And carried like a child.”
In Joseph’s history, that was the compensation for the hatred of his brethren—his father loved him. It is a very blessed thing to have the sense that I am the object of the Father’s love, I am an object to Him. What would preserve you from the love of the world would be that you are the object of the Father’s love.
It should read in verse 13, “the Spirit of the truth.” It is very important, because He is the One that maintains it, and the truth therefore will be maintained while He is here. He is the only One by whom it can be received, too. The truth can never be lost. The wonderful thing for us is that He maintains the truth through us, but if we are unfaithful, He will maintain it as long as He is here.
Apart from the Spirit you could not bear the communications of God. He is the servant of the Father’s glory.
1 Cor. 2: You get three things here that are very striking in connection with the Spirit—revelation, inspiration, and reception. You could not take in things but by the Spirit—you must have receptive power by the Spirit—“All things that the Father hath are mine,” the identity of interest between the Father and the Son in the possession of those things. You could not learn the Father’s things apart from the Son. Any truth pressed apart from Christ is barren.