The Coming Of The Holy Spirit And The Return Of Jesus.

THE COMING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE RETURN OF JESUS.

John 14:15-31.

*Notice how closely our love and our obedience are bound together (John 14:15; cf. John 14:21; 1 John 2:3-5).

1. 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.

2. Jesus will come again (John 14:18-20).

The word translated “comfortless” (John 14:18) is quite literally “orphans,” which returns us to Jesus’ tender “little children” with which He began this discourse (cf. John 13:33).

Jesus’ “I will come to you” (John 14:18) might refer to His coming in the Spirit, but perhaps also to His appearing at the end of the age. We find the same phrase at the end of the Bible (cf. Revelation 22:20).

Jesus also said, “Behold I am with you always, even to the end of the world” (cf. Matthew 28:20). Meanwhile we “see” Him with the eyes of faith, and because He lives, we live (John 14:19). “At that day” (John 14:20) would then refer to the day of His coming.

*Back in John 14:15, we saw how closely our love and our obedience are bound together: “If ye love Me, keep my commandments.” In John 14:21, Jesus develops this thought. It is not the mere ‘having’ of His commandments that demonstrates our love to Him, but the ‘KEEPING’ of them. As John says elsewhere, ‘Hereby do we know that we know Him: if we keep His commandments’ (cf. 1 John 2:3).

Jesus continues in John 14:21, “and He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love Him, and will manifest myself to him.”

This does not mean that we earn the love of God by our works: the Father has already demonstrated His love to us by sending His Son to die for us, and Jesus has demonstrated His love by fulfilling that task.

However, what Jesus is referring to here is a special manifestation of Himself to those who prove their love by their life. To quote John again, ‘But whoso keepeth His word, in him verily is the love of God PERFECTED’ (cf. 1 John 2:5). You have to live it to know it!

*John 14:22-24. What follows comes by way of response to the question of Judas (not Iscariot), “Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?” (John 14:22).

Typical of the disciples and many of their Jewish contemporaries, this Judas seems to be expecting the Messiah to be a Maccabean type leader who will raise an army to vanquish the Romans from the Promised Land. This notion Jesus always resisted (e.g. John 6:15). The Lord’s own understanding of His exaltation was of a different order, and it included a Cross (cf. John 12:32).

Jesus’ answer is that the manifestation of His Messiah-ship is of a much more personal nature. He will not manifest Himself to everyone, but only to those who love Him and keep His “word” (John 14:23a).

Jesus says of those who love Him and keep His word that “My Father will love” them (John 14:23b). Jesus is talking here of a particular delight that the Father has in those who have ‘known and believed the love that God has for us’ (cf. 1 John 4:16a). The result is a Spiritual abiding of the Father and the Son with such a person (John 14:23c; cf. 1 John 4:16b).