The Other Comforter

“The Other Comforter”

John 14:15-26

Hopefully you will remember from last lesson that as the Disciples gathered in the Upper Room with Jesus on His last evening before His death they were upset and fearful because they were afraid of what the future held. In John chapter fourteen Jesus offers two essential promises to comfort the disciples.

As we have already seen Jesus comforted them with the promise that He has gone to prepare a place for them and He will return to take them with him to be with him forever! His promise of Heaven applied not only to them but to all who will call upon Him to be saved. The promise of Heaven is a powerful source of encouragement to His disciples then and now. As believers Heaven is our home, our eternal destiny, where we will forever be with the Lord.

Now beginning in verse sixteen we come to the second promise, the promise of another comforter. This other comforter of course is none other than the Holy Spirit of God. When you speak of the Holy Spirit in today’s world you may get some strange looks, especially if you use the King James term of “Holy Ghost.” But this is not that unusual in that Jesus tells us in our text that the world “… cannot receive” Him “because it neither sees Him nor knows Him.” (v. 17)

Yet I realize that even to mention the Holy Spirit in a conservative Baptist church makes people uncomfortable, uptight, and even concern-ed! What is it about the Holy Spirit that makes us squirm in our seats? Is it because we believe that Holy Spirit is just for Charismatic churches? Do we really believe that the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity? Perhaps the problem is one of control, we really don’t want to relinquish control of our lives, even to the Holy Spirit?

There are five key passages on the Holy Spirit in the Gospel of John (14:15-17, 14:25-26, 15:26-27, 16:4-11, and 16:13-15) and in each of them we grow to know a little clearer understanding of the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Today in our introduction to the Holy Spirit, I want you to see four things about who the Holy Spirit is.

In verse fifteen we read, “If you love Me, keep My commandments. (16) And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— (17) the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. (18) I will not leave you orphans (orphanos - desolate-KJV); I will come to you. (19) “A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also.”

First, The Promise of the Holy Spirit. (14:16a)

“And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever”

Jesus says that He is sending “another Helper” (or comforter in the KJV) to be with the Disciples. In the original Greek there are two different words that can be translated “another” – allos or heteros. Allos, which is used here means another of the same kind, while heteros means another of a different kind. From the later we get our English word Heterosexual referring to a relationship between two people of the opposite sex.

The word that Jesus uses to describe the coming Helper was allos, which means another helper just like Him! Jesus was comforting His Disciples with the assurance that they did not need to be troubled at His leaving because the Helper or Comforter that He was sending was just like Him. Since this means that “another helper of same kind as the first” this implies that Jesus was the first helper. What Jesus is saying is that He is sending someone who will do for you the same things I have been doing for you. All the things spoken of as being done by the Holy Spirit are somewhere or other in the Bible spoken of as being done by Jesus, such as teaching the disciples (v. 26), being with and in them (v. 26; 15:4) and bearing witness (18:4). The point being that when He calls the Holy Spirit “another” – He is another like Jesus Himself. The ongoing work of the Holy Spirit will be a continuation of the present work that Jesus has done during the Disciple’s lifetimes.

• His Function.

Not only is the Holy Spirit just like Jesus but His function is to be our “helper” this word is tran-slated as “comforter”- KJV, “counselor”- NIV, and “advocate” –NLT. It is unfortunate that term “comfort” has become so watered down in our present day.