JESUS PROMISES ANOTHER COMFORTER.
John 14:15-17.
*Notice how closely our love and our obedience are bound together (John 14:15; cf. John 14:21; 1 John 2:3-5).
4. He has given us the Holy Spirit (John 14:16-17).
Jesus said, “I will pray the Father, and He will send another Comforter that He may abide with you forever.”
Elsewhere it is Jesus who sends “the promise of the Father” (cf. Luke 24:49). Thus the Holy Spirit is said to proceed from the Father “and the Son” in the Western creeds.
The Holy Spirit is personal, a “He” not an “it;” a ‘Who’ not a ‘what.’ The Spirit of truth indwells us (John 14:17). He helps us to pray (cf. Romans 8:26), and assists us when we are called to account for what we believe (cf. Matthew 10:19-20).
*This is another reason that the eleven Apostles should ‘let not their heart be troubled’ (cf. John 14:1). Jesus would ask the Father, the Father would send the Spirit, and the Spirit would come as “another Comforter” (John 14:16).
“Another” Comforter suggests another like Jesus, filling the void when Jesus is gone. The Greek word for Comforter is also used of Jesus in 1 John 2:1, although there it is translated ‘Advocate.’
Thus we have all three Persons of the Godhead: Jesus as ‘Emmanuel: God with us’ (cf. Matthew 1:23). The Holy Spirit as ‘God in us’ (John 14:17). And the Father as ‘God for us’ as in ‘If God be for us, who can be against us’ (cf. Romans 8:31).
The world, natural, sensual people, cannot receive the Spirit of truth because it neither sees Him nor knows Him (John 14:17; cf. 1 Corinthians 2:14; Jude 1:19). Christian people know Him because they have the experience of His indwelling.
