If ye love me ( ). Third-class condition “if ye keep on loving (present active subjunctive, same contract form as indicative) me.” Cf. verse 23.

Ye will keep (). Future active of , not aorist imperative (keep) as some MSS. have. For this phrase see also John 8:51; John 14:23; John 14:24; John 14:20; 1John 2:5. Continued love prevents disobedience.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Keep [] . The best tests read thrhsete, ye will keep. Lay up in your hearts and preserve by careful watching. See on reserved, 1Pe 1:4.

My commandments [ ] . Literally, the commandments which are mine. See on 10 27.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “If ye love me,” (lean agapate me) “If you all love me, as you ought,” Joh 14:21; Joh 14:23.

2) “Keep my commandments.” (tas entolas tas emas teresete) “You shall all keep or guard my commandments,” Joh 15:10; 1Jn 5:3, that is do what I tell you to do, morally and ethically, in all matters related to right and wrong. Do it by:

a) Letting your light shine, Mat 5:15-16.

b) Serving, speaking as witnesses of me, Act 1:8.

c) Regular, faithful assembly in my church, Heb 10:24-25.

d) By regular tithes and offerings, Luk 6:38; 1Co 16:1-2.

e) Being an ambassador for Christ, at all times, 2Co 5:14; 2Co 5:20.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

15. If you love me. The love with which the disciples loved Christ was true and sincere, and yet there was some superstition mixed with it, as is frequently the case with ourselves; for it was very foolish in them to wish to keep him in the world. To correct this fault, he bids them direct their love to another end; and that is, to employ themselves in keeping the commandments which he had given them. This is undoubtedly a useful doctrine, for of those who think that they love Christ, there are very few who honor him as they ought to do; but, on the contrary, after having performed small and trivial services, they give themselves no farther concern. The true love of Christ, on the other hand, is regulated by the observation of his doctrine as the only rule. But we are likewise reminded how sinful our affections are, since even the love which we bear to Christ is not without fault, if it be not directed to a pure obedience.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL NOTES

Joh. 14:15. Keep My commandment.Ask in My name. Keep My, etc. These go together. We can only truly pray in His name when we keep, etc.

Joh. 14:16. .The pronoun is emphatic. The verb is that especially used by our Lord in reference to His prayers to the Father (Joh. 16:26; Joh. 17:9; Joh. 15:20). It expresses perhaps a greater degree of nearness and familiarity of approach than , I ask. , … another Comforter.The classical meaning of the word is certainly advocate. It is used of our Lord Himself in this sense in 1Jn. 2:1. Its passive form by all analogous words will not justify here an active or transitive sense, but means one called to the side of another, with the secondary sense of helping, consoling, counselling, or aiding him (Dr. Reynolds). In this sense it was taken over in its legal, technical sense into Talmudic Hebrew (Watkins). But surely a term like this must be interpreted here in a large sense, and not confined to its strictly technical meaning. When He who is called to be the advocate of Gods people is Christ Himself or the Holy Spirit, His advocacy will have far-reaching consequences, subjective as well as objective. Therefore Bishop Wordsworth (Greek Testament) is justified in his contention that The word is one of large acceptation. And it was probably chosen for that reason, as best signifying the manifold gifts and offices of the Holy Ghost (1Co. 12:3-10), as the Sanctifier, Teacher, Comforter, Exhorter, Remembrancer, Inspirer, Enlightener, Counsellor, Guide, Helper, and Advocate of the Church.

Joh. 14:17. Shall be in you.Not it in you ( ). The meaning is, He abides now, and shall continue to abide. The Spirit of Truth.In that He prepares the heart to receive the truth (Joh. 3:6-8), and then makes known first of all that most important truth, Christ, and the things of Christ. The world cannot receive Him because of the want of this special preparation. Worldly hearts desire what is visible, and the world does not rise to the love of what is invisible; therefore the world cannot receive Him (Augustine in Wordsworths Greek Testament). Not seen Him, etc.Neither recognise the external nor the internal manifestations of His power.

Joh. 14:18. . fatherless, orphans. He had spoken of them (Joh. 13:33) as little children (). I return to you ye see Me.This refers not only to His appearance in resurrection glory, but to His coming spiritually in sending the Paraclete, and the whole chain of His comings until the parousia, when every eye shall see Him.

Joh. 14:19. For I live, and ye shall live ( , ).The future here simply points out the effect of Christ conquering death (Joh. 11:25-26; also 1Jn. 5:11-13).

Joh. 14:22. Judas (Lebbus, Thaddus: Mat. 10:3; Mar. 3:18).Luk. 6:16; Act. 1:13. Thus carefully distinguished from Judas Iscariot. The question of Judas is founded on the words in Joh. 14:21, …, I shall manifest Myself unto him. Judas is surprised. Was not Messiah to manifest His glory to the world?

Joh. 14:23. Jesus shows that this manifestation is spiritual; and the condition on which it rests is the prepared heart filled with love to Him. We will come unto Him, etc.Rev. 3:20.

Joh. 14:27. Peace, etc.This reminds us of the common Eastern greeting, , Peace be with theeyou.

Joh. 14:28. My Father is greater, etc.In what sense are we to take these words? Surely, after the claim of the prologue (Joh. 1:1-4), only in the sense of the voluntary humiliation of the SonHis emptying Himself, taking upon Him the form of a servant, etc. (Php. 2:5-8). He subordinated Himself, became obedient unto death for the purposes of redemption. The words would be meaningless unless Jesus claimed to be God. This has for its presupposition the essential divinity of the Son; for there would be no sense in speaking thus of a mere man (Luthardt). Ye would rejoice that My humiliation is now well-nigh past, and that I am again to take My full glory, and to carry with Me the body of My humiliation into that glory, the pledge of your final glorification.

Joh. 14:30. I will not continue to talk much with you.The time for teaching was well-nigh past. A more awful duty and passion lay before Him. The prince of this world was the regular rabbinic title for Satan, whom they regarded as the ruler of the Gentiles (Watkins). See Eph. 2:1-9 for the gospel view. But he is now to be conquered, for he can find nothing in Christno sin, no flaw, no weakness, etc.

Joh. 14:31. Why then did our Lord submit so far as to die? Death in Him was not the penalty of sin, but a gift of mercy to us, that He might free us from eternal death (Augustine in Wordsworth). His action in submitting to the attack of the power of darkness for a time was entirely voluntary, and borne for the sake of men. But this voluntary obedience shows the world His love to the Father, who out of love to a perishing world sent Him to suffer and die. It is all the expression of eternal love. Arise, etc.They prepared to take their way to the Mount of Olives.

Joh. 14:8-21. The request of Philip and the response of Jesus.Philip, catching at the word (seen), misapprehended its meaning, and thought of some theophany, some manifestation of the glory of God. This would suffice them, would remove their anxiety.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Joh. 14:15-31

Joh. 14:15-17. Love and obedience.What is the ruling power in the lives of too many professed disciples? What always determines the will and quickens the hand in the way of life? Is it love to Christ? or is it not too often some form of self-love? If it is love to Christ, then it will prove itself to be so by the test Christ here givesthose who love Him will keep His commandments.

I. How reasonable it is for Christians to love Christ.

1. We love our friends because of some excellency or beauty of character or disposition which they display, or for some reason of gratitude because of what they have done for us. Many have friends whom to know better is to love more, as the character opens out and displays new excellencies and traitsdeep springs of affection, beautiful blossoms of simplicity and goodnessthe ripe fruit of wisdom and experience, the silent ministries of love.
2. So too the disinterested patriot, the pure, brave, unselfish deliverer of his people, the self-sacrificing pioneer of life, light, liberty, etc., to oppressed and degraded tribes, win the esteem and affection of all good men, who gladly aid them in their noble endeavours.
3. Now how infinitely more should we love the Redeemer when we remember what He is and what He has done! Who can be compared to Him, the chiefest among ten thousand and altogether lovely? Where else shall be found such loftiness, beauty, and sweetness of character as in the life on earth of Christ Jesus?
4. Then think of what He has done for His people. Not only has He loaded them with many good and precious gifts, even when they had strayed from Him, but He Himself came to seek and save them, to suffer and die for them. Then remember all He is still doing for them from His heavenly throne, of the gifts He so freely bestows, etc., and then say, Ought not He to be loved with an undying affection?

II. The test of the reality of love to Christ is keeping His commandments.

1. It may be said that loving Christ and keeping His commandments are co-extensive in their meaning. They should be, and will be perfectly so in the glorified Church. As Augustine has said: Whoever loves God has in him that spirit which will lead him to keep Gods commandments; and when he obeys these commands he is simply carrying out into action the principle that animates his mind.
2. Thus also when we consider Christs regal positionHe hath made Him to be head over all things to the Church; His powerall power is given Him in heaven and earth; His wisdomIn Him are hid all the fulness of wisdom and knowledge,it is seen to be reasonable and wise that we should keep these commands of His. But apart from this, love to Him will and must lead to a spontaneous observance of them. For it will at once be recognised that these commands, though sometimes apparently hard for flesh and blood to bear, are yet for the souls health.

3. Love will give a full and joyful obedience: not like the obedience of a slave to his harsh owner; nor like that of one who serves with eye service, and will escape when it is possible; nor like that of one who will be glad to obey in great things, but neglects and despises lesser commands, minor duties. The love of Christ will dominate all; and His ruleHimselfwill be the guide of all our life and all its activity. Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? Thus speaks the true disciple.

III. How shall the disciples be fitted for this loving obedience?

1. Human nature at its best is weak; and however good may be the resolutions which even Christian men and women make, yet how liable are they to fall from them in some onset of temptation! So it was, e.g., with Peter.

2. They need therefore a diviner strength than their own, which can inspire them and on which they can fall back in moments of weakness. So it was with the disciples. Hitherto Jesus had been with His disciples, cheering, strengthening, etc. But now He was to depart to go to the Father. True, they were to realise that He would still be near them to comfort and sustain, but they needed also the actual presence of One who would guide and direct them directly in the place of the ascended Redeemer.

3. Hence this promise of another Comforter. All that Jesus had been would this Paraclete be. And He would lead them in the way of obedience, for He is the Spirit of truth. And the way of Christs commandments is simply the way of truth, for Christ is the truth.

4. Nor were they even then without a dim knowledge of the presence of this Comforter, for He was with and in Christ. The world cannot know Him; its spiritual sense is too much dulled and blunted, so that higher and finer influences cannot touch it. But He dwells in blessed influence with believers in the Church, and in each faithful, loving, obedient disciple.

Lessons.

1. The necessity of ever warmer love to Christ in view of all He is and has done.
2. The evidence of love to Christ should be unmistakable.
3. The need true disciples have of the Comforter to show them more of Christ, so that they may love Him more fervently and obey Him ever more spontaneously.

Joh. 14:16-17. The promise of the Paraclete.Why did not our Lord remain on earth after the conflict was past and the victory won? Why not after His resurrection take His great power and reign, and as a conqueror over sin and death rule with benign influence over our fallen race until all the earth acknowledged His sway? At first glance it might seem as if this had been best. The full reason why it was not so is hid in the mystery of the divine counsels. But one reason which seems probable from mans point of view may be ventured reverently. God compels no man to believe by external force. Now the kingly glory of Jesus on earth would have been such a force. No room would apparently have been left for faith, or even for free choice, on the part of men. But salvation is not a state that can be produced by external forcehuman nature is not like some plastic substance that may be moulded by external pressure. Salvation is brought about not against but with the sinners will. The guilt of sin is removed by Christs death; but the power of sin is subdued by spiritual and moral influences appealing to mind and heart. It is in this way that the Spirit works within man, touches the inner being by His gracious influences, penetrating it with subtle though unseen power, quickening the new spiritual life, strengthening, comforting, guiding, aiding, etc. Jesus had hitherto been the Paraclete of the disciples; but now that He must depart He gives this blessed promise of another Paraclete who would dwell with them for ever.

I. The promised Paraclete is a divine person.

1. The scriptural testimony to this truth is abundant and clear. From the period when we read of Him as brooding over the waters of the chaotic universe, till the time when in apocalyptic vision He issues with the Bride the invitation to men to take of the water of life (Rev. 22:17), He is represented as an intelligent agent.

2. He works in and through the moral and intellectual nature of man, irradiating the darkness of the carnal mind, working conviction in sinners, inspiring with strength to lead a heavenly life. All through the New Testament actions and functions are ascribed to Him that can only be applied to a person, e.g. in this very passage. He is spoken of as willing,distributing to every man severally as He wills (1Co. 12:11); making intercession (Rom. 8:26); selecting agents for work (Act. 13:2), etc., etc.

3. Divine actions and attributes which can be ascribed to God only are applied to Him. The Spirit descended in visible form on Christ at baptism, and the Lord offered Himself through the eternal Spirit (Heb. 9:14). These and other references point to the personality of the Holy Spirit. He is not a divine influence merelya vague, indefinite, impersonal something whose true nature escapes observation.

4. This is the only conception of the nature of the Paraclete that will agree with this promise of Jesus. A spiritual influence could hardly be called a teacher, e.g. who could take of the things of Christ and show them to the disciples. All Scripture and Christs words show that the Spirit is a divine person, performing acts God alone can perform, and thus able to speak with divine authority and guide with unerring wisdom. Otherwise our Lord would surely not have said, The Father shall give you another Paraclete. etc.

II. The Holy Spirit is the Paraclete of Gods people.

1. This term (vide Notes, Joh. 14:16) is pregnant with meaning. It not only implies the meaning of the term Comforter; it also includes the ideas of helper and advocate. It was, indeed, just an advocate and helper that the apostles needed in going forth to their arduous workan advocate to be to them a mouth and wisdom in presence of their adversaries, and a helper in times of danger and trial. Thus in every way He would be a comforter.

2. To whom was this promise given? To a body of humble men, not infallible in any sense of that word. They were drawn together by a common bond of love to Christ, yet they were so weak that in their Masters hour of trial they forsook Him, etc. Even after the Resurrection we find them gathering together timorously in secret for fear of the Jews (Joh. 20:19). How differently they comported themselves after the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost! They preached Christ boldly in face of threatenings, stripes, imprisonment, death (Acts 3; Acts 4; Acts 12, etc.), declaring, when commanded to desist, they must obey God, etc. (Act. 5:29). See them as they stand before kings and rulers, speaking not in the words which mans wisdom teacheth, etc. (1Co. 2:4). Scattered by the sword of persecution, and impelled by the gentle impulses of the Spirit (Act. 8:4; Act. 10:19, etc.), they went everywhere preaching the gospel. Is it necessary to point to the long roll of martyrs and heroic champions of the truth who have endured and suffered loss since that time in the Lords servicethe man of substance losing all, and with the slave fleeing into exile, or suffering death for the truth; women, timorous and gentle in ordinary life, snapping asunder ties of affection, enduring untold hardships, standing firm in the hour of final trial to witness for the faith? It was no mere spirit of enthusiasm that inspired them; their hearts were touched with a heavenly affection, their enlightened spiritual vision looked beyond the gloom of the present, their minds and hearts were sustained by the Spirits comforting power.

III. Only Christs people can receive the Paraclete.

1. The world cannot receive Him, i.e. men of the world cannot receive Him to dwell intimately with them. Their hearts have no shrine for Him, that they should become temples of the Holy Ghost (1Co. 6:10); they are filled with idols, their affections are set on things on the earth. The heart must be prepared for the reception of the Spirit; the unclean spirit must go forth (Mat. 12:43) ere the Spirit of Christ can take up His abode there. This is what Christ means when He prefaces this blessed promise with the words, If ye love Me, keep My commandments, and follows it with the same truth amplified (Joh. 14:21). The Spirit cannot dwell in the heart where there is no love to Christ.

2. But into such prepared hearts the Spirit comes and finds an entrance for the truth. The Spirits teaching makes divine truth enter the soul, gives it entire reality within us, and makes it the truth to us. This is undoubtedly the meaning of the expression the Spirit of truth (Godet). He thus casts out all error, showing us plainly the truth in Christ, witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God (Rom. 8:16).

3. Thus believers see Him and know Him; they see the manifestations of His working, and realise His presence in their own souls. The world, because of its spiritual blindness, cannot see and know these spiritual facts. The manifestations of His working are to them mere enthusiasm, madness, as men said when Chalmers began to preach with spiritual power; Come and hear mad Tom Chalmers.
4. He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. He had been striving with them, as He does with all men; but now He was to assume a closer, nearer relationship. He was to be in them. At Pentecost a deeper, fuller, richer manifestation of Him was to be given, which would be permanent. He abides with the disciples for evera perpetual Paraclete.

IV. The blessedness of this indwelling.

1. In hours of trial He upholds the fainting heart. As with our Lord, He is with the believer, teaching Him to oppose an It is written to the subtlest temptation of the adversary. In the hour of death He sustains the passing soul, recalls the divine promises, gives peace.

2. It is by making men partakers of the divine nature (2Pe. 1:4) that He becomes our Paraclete, not by temporary accessions of power, but by making men new creatures, giving power to the faint, etc. So that as believers go forth on their way the spiritual eye sees ever more clearly, the spiritual armour sits more closely the more it is proved, the sword of the Spirit is wielded with greater power. Trials and cares that would once have weighed the Christian down he is now able to bear; doubts and difficulties clear away; and in the brunt of temptations, before which he would have fallen once, he passes on invulnerable. God grant to all of us to be strengthened, etc. (Eph. 3:16-17; Eph. 3:19).

Joh. 14:18. I will not leave you orphans.The experience of the disciples as Jesus spoke of His speedy departure was like that which children feel as they stand at the bedside of a dying parent. What had Christ not been to them during their three years intercourse? How they had learned to look to Him, to lean on Him, to follow Him! How joyful had been their intercourse! Each new day some further revelation of Christs power, wisdom, or love had dawned upon them, until He had become all in all to them. The months and years had fled on swift wings by His side. And now the end drew near, as He told them. Yet a brief space and they would be left alone, orphaned spiritual children in an unsympathetic and hostile world. But to their troubled minds came these words of comfort and promise, I will not leave you orphans, etc.

I. The disciples were not orphans, for they could rejoice in the heavenly Fathers care.

1. All that the Lord had spoken should have filled the disciples with the assurance of the Fathers love and care. In the Fathers house a place was to be prepared for them, and prayer in Jesus name would bring down gifts from His full storehouse, in especial one highest gift, the Comforter, to guide and counsel, etc.
2. In view then of this they were not to be left orphans. But more than this, they had in Christ the assurance of the heavenly Fathers love. The sorrow in the lot of the fatherless is the deprivation of a fathers love and care. But the disciples were to lack neither.

II. They were not orphans, because Christ Himself would come to them.

1. The disciples thought that Jesus was henceforth to be entirely separated from them, that they would not again see Him until death or the time of judgment.

2. But said our Lord, Ye see Me. The world could not see Him, for darkness had overtaken the world. The disciples would see Him in His resurrection glory, so that they could greet one another with the words, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared, etc. (Luk. 24:34-35).

3. But the presence and care of a loving father and friend may be vividly realised though they are not visibly present. The boy at school and the youth going out into life, children of Christian parents, experience this care. They see it in the gifts provided, in the loving letters; they know it follows in earnest prayer. So was it with the disciples. Thus Pentecost, the after-guidance of the Spirit, the inspiration and help in time of need, the power of doing mighty works in Christs name, were all tokens of His presence.
4. More than this, they would be conscious of the possession of that same life which was in Christ, would realise that they were bound up with Him by the indissoluble bond of a common spiritual life. Because I live, etc. His presence then was no imagination, no dream of fancy, but a great spiritual reality.
5. And this in turn leads to a clearer realisation of the disciples unity and fellowship with the Father in Christ as they go forward in the way of His commandments. And thus more and more Christ is manifested to them in the experiences of the Christian life, until that day when they shall be like Him, seeing Him as He is. Those who could appropriate such promises were not orphans.

III. The same promises remain to us.

1. Only those who by faith live because Christ lives can appropriate these promises. They who cannot are orphans, with no promise of a place in the Fathers house, no hope because no capacity for receiving the Fathers spiritual gifts, no assurance because no desire for the Saviours blessed presence.

2. But when in living union with Christ they receive of His Spirit, then the sense of orphanhood passes for ever away, as they attain to the conception of their divine sonship and cry, Abba, Father (Gal. 4:6).

Joh. 14:22-28. The promise of divine manifestation to loving, obedient disciples.These blessed words of promise were spoken in answer to an inquiry by Judas, not Iscariot, as to how Christ was to manifest Himself to the disciples, and yet not to the world. How could the world see Him no more, whilst they were to see Him? The simple-minded disciple was still wandering among materialities. He was thinking of visible appearances, which indeed, in a limited sense, did take place after the Resurrection. But Judas had no true conception of the spiritual manifestation which Christ more especially referred to. Our Lord proceeded to enlighten the disciple. Not that the latter would even then clearly understand; but when the Spirit was given, Christs words would become plain. Jesus pointed out that the prerequisite for this manifestation of Himself is love in the believers heart, that love which evidences itself in the keeping of His commandments. To those who thus obey Him He manifests Himself in glorious fashion.

I. In the consciousness of the Fathers love.

1. What men have desired in all ages has been shelter from the wrath of the Deity, and for the manifestation of His mercy and favour. For these ends they raised their shrines and multiplied their sacrifices, etc.

2. But only in Christ and through fellowship with Him in His atoning work has this even been possible. Here Christ promises a higher blessedness. Through love to Him and being loved by Him disciples are bound by a close tie of affection to the Father, who loves those whom Christ loves.
3. And in this love all fear and terror of God and the future pass away, etc.

II. In the divine indwelling.

1. With the manifestation of Christ to His disciples will be conjoined the indwelling of the Father and the Son; both will come and make their abode in the loving heart.
2. Think of what this means. How highly favoured do even the rich and noble esteem themselves to be when a great monarch or prince visits them, and sojourns with them perhaps but for a night in passing! How proudly, even in after-centuries, are the rooms where those great ones slept pointed out by the descendants as the kings, the queens, the princes, etc., room! But here God the Father, says our Lord, will come with Him, and they will make their abode in the hearts of true disciples.

3. And this indwelling is not that common and universal presence of God, as He who rules over all and is everywhere present; who comes near in judgment to those who outrage His laws, and in the stings of an accusing conscience makes His presence felt; who comes to obstinate contemners of His commands, like Pharaoh (Exo. 4:21; Exo. 8:15), and in this very coming hardens or leads them to harden their hearts.

4. The indwelling of Father and Son here promised is the indwelling of love. To those who listen to and keep Christs words, His promise to the Laodicean Church endures (Rev. 3:20). And where He comes the Father will come.

III. Christ manifests Himself in the indwelling Comforter.

1. All the fulness of the Godhead, indeed, is represented in this indwelling. Christ and the Father come and make their abode with the true disciple in the uniting Spirit of truth.

2. When the Spirit comes, sent from the Father in Christs name, He will teach all things, etc. The Comforter is the revelation of Christ and the Father. And by His indwelling the divine presence will become ever more manifest. He will bring to remembrance the words of Jesus, so that the heart will be led to love Him more perfectly the more He is known. And in loving Him and keeping His word, His presence will become a blessed reality.

3. The proof of this indwelling will be evident to all around. Taught and guided by the Spirit and words of Jesus, and showing an obedient walk in love toward the brethren, the true disciple will be conspicuous as one who has been with Jesus, one with whom God abides.

IV. The indwelling Christ gives peace.

1. Not as on Sinai, with sound of trumpet and thunder-roll, nor in the earthquake or the fire, but in still and gentle breathings, a still small voice, the Spirit comes to dwell with Christs chosen.
2. And the divine abiding leads to peace. Where Christ comes living and loved, He brings His peace, a peace resulting from restful, undisturbed reliance on the Father. So will it be with those into whose hearts the Lord has come. They rest implicitly on the Fathers will.

3. He gives not as the world, for the world will often take more than it gives. He who takes the world into his heart takes also with it the worlds unrest, its gnawing, carking care, its strife of tongues, its angry passions, its jars and bitter enmities. But those who have opened their hearts to Christ, whose hearts have become temples of the Holy Ghost, shall be at rest, even though the storms beat around them.
4. And they may be fearless; for the citadel is safe with Christ within.

Is God abiding with us?

1. In order to fit us for this close fellowship Jesus came to earth, died, rose again, and poured forth the Pentecostal gifts on the waiting Church. 2. The Church needs to send up earnest prayer for the continued renewal of these gifts. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, etc. (Psalms 24). Let God in all His fulness of blessing come and dwell with and in you, that He may be your God, that you may be His people.

Joh. 14:23. Christ and His words.

I. The connection between Christ and His words.

1. Christ and His words are both very fully made known to us. This is not always the case with those whose names have gone far and wide among men as teachers of the race.

2. We may have great and noble words from a man, but we may know little of his personality. But in Christ both the personality and the words have been brought out into the clearest and fullest illumination.
3. And with the words God has been pleased to give us the life, as never a life was given, by these four [Gospels], each different, yet each the same, a separate mirror to take in the side presented to it, but all disclosing in lifelike harmony the one grand person, each so absorbed in his theme that he himself is forgotten, his personality lost in the objectall eye, all ear, all heart, for Christ alone.
4. As they are made known to us there is a perfect harmony between Christ and His words. A man should always be more than his expression. This is pre-eminently true of the Lord Jesus Christ.

II. The connection between loving Christ and keeping His words.

1. The way in which our Lord states this brings before us the central truth of Christian doctrine, viz. that in some way there must be a change of heart before there is a change of life. We must begin to love Christ before we can keep His words. But here comes in a view which admits this, which dwells upon it very strongly and beautifully, and which has done much to bring out the value of the personality of Christ in its bearing on our service. It shows how He creates a new power in the soul, not by His example merely, but by His whole beingnot simply by teaching us and moving before us, but by in a manner transfusing Himself into us.

2. The connection between loving Christ and keeping His words brings before us the Christian philosophy of morality. As Christians we believe that the morality of Christianity is superior to any other, in the kind of duties it gives prominence to, and the light in which it presents them; and candid men who profess to stand outside generally admit this. There would be a fatal objection to this if Christ were either less than He is, or if He had done less for man than He has done. There are only three conceivable ways in which morality can be thought of as springing up in man.

(1) The first is by something like an instinct, and that this does exist in man we are far from denying. If it were perfect in all its parts on any such principle, morality by instinct would be morality mechanical.

(2) The second way is by reason; and that reason can do much for morality must also be admitted; but it can never furnish it with sufficient motive power.

(3) The third and last way is an appeal to love, and love going forth to a person. It is this way that Christianity has chosen. It sets before men the person of Jesus Christ, noblest and most beautiful in itself, and infinitely attractive in its self-sacrifice for them. To love Him is an impulse of the heart, and this impulse is the spring of all morality. If, then, we would be partakers of this noble Christian morality, the true way, the only way, is to come closer to the person of Christ as set before us in Gods word, looking on Him and learning to love Him.Dr. John Ker.

Joh. 14:23-31. To what does the Holy Spirit lead believers?The indwelling of the triune God in the believing and loving soulthe work of the Holy Spirit in those who desire to be Christs disciples, Christs peacethe conflict of Jesus with the prince of this world, and the certainty of victory in this conflict to which Jesus submitted in loving obedience to the Father,these are the chief points in the passage.

Introduction.In Christ was life (Joh. 1:4); and the high purpose of the whole work of Christ is to impart His life to sin-sick humanity. The manner in which this life comes from God and becomes incarnate is unfolded in the Christmas story; the manner in which it overcomes death is shown in the resurrection festival; and the manner in which, through the Holy Spirit, it flows into our hearts, in the Christian community, and among the nations, is the object of the Pentecostal commemorative festival. Nature reawakened is an image of the stream of life, which surges in every branch and through every twig. The Holy Spirit as a wind of divine life penetrates the hearts of men, rests on them like cloven tongues of fire, and changes the unlearned apostles into eloquent preachers. He divides the multitudes, and leads a great number to believe. In those crowds should we also be included; and may the Holy Ghost come to-day into our hearts to fill them with faith and love. The Holy Spirit leads us to:

I. Union with God.

1. He shows forth to us the love of Jesus in Gods word, and thereby stirs us up to answering love, which manifests itself in our keeping the word of Jesus.
2. Thereby the Spirit brings us into a condition with which the Father is well pleased, so that He comes with the Son to rejoice and bless our hearts with the presence of His grace.

II. Comprehension of the words of Jesus.

1. Although we search and examine the Scriptures, our own reflections lead us to no true understanding of this or that passage. But all at Once, in answer to prayer, the Holy Spirit will bring the meaning of such passages home to our souls with striking clearness. We may read over many sentences of deep meaning again and again; their connection with the whole, however, is not clear to us, until the Holy Spirit makes our glance more keen, so that it penetrates into the deeps of the thought, and is able also to survey the whole. Thus He teaches.
2. He also calls to remembrance. He impresses the words of Jesus not only on the understanding, but on the heart. At the proper moment He brings back to our remembrance those passages which are just fitted for the special conditions in which we find ourselves, and which are the most comforting and salutary in the circumstances. He brings it about that we inwardly experience the truth of the word, so that we may be satisfied with it.

III. The peace of sonship.

1. Our heart finds no tranquillity either in itself or in the world; it is restless, fearful, despondent.
2. The Holy Spirit awakes in the soul a desire after the peace of Jesus; through repentance, to which He impels our hearts, He prepares us for the reception of this peace. He assures us of forgiveness of sins and our divine sonship. Thereby He stills our unrest and satisfies our hearts, so that we want for no gift, and experience only blessedness.

IV. Victory in tribulation.

1. We do not see Jesus with the bodily eye, and hence doubts arise in the heart as to whether He is near. But the Holy Spirit reveals Jesus as the exalted one, who is ever near those who love Him till the end of the world.
2. Satan brings tribulation to us, because in our sins he finds a vantage-ground. But the Holy Spirit drives us to Jesus, beneath whose shield the arrows of the wicked one cannot harm us. He presses into our hand the word of God as the sword of the Spirit, with which we can rout the enemy.
3. Oftentimes we obey Gods will reluctantly and dejectedly; but the Holy Spirit shows us Gods leadings in such a glorious light that in all our ways we realise Gods goodness. He then awakes us to a joyful obedience, which we thenceforth show forth in reference to Gods commands and gracious leadings.J. L. Sommer.

Joh. 14:25-26. The Holy Ghost the teacher and Paraclete of believers.Jesus had to depart, but He promised to send His Spirit in place of His own immediate presence. I will not leave you orphans, He had said (Joh. 14:18). You shall not be left without a comforter to encounter what lies before you. Ye who have companied with Me through evil and good report, in dangers, toil, and weariness, who have brought Me the burden of your cares, confided to Me your difficulties, turned to Me in all your sorrows till My presence has become indispensable to youye shall not want a counsellor, a guide, an advocate. The Paraclete, which is the Holy Ghost, shall come and lead you to higher attainments than those you have yet reached, etc. He shall not only call to remembrance all things which I have spoken unto you, but shall teach you all things, lead you to understand what has been revealed. Therefore have My peace, etc.

I. We shall think especially of that part of the Spirits work to which the text refers. He is the teacher of the faithful. He is the divine teacher of the Church. He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, etc. Those to whom the words were first spoken needed such a promise. For nigh three years they had been in the company of Christ, i.e. they had been learning of Him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2:3). They had had a training such as no university now can give to ministers of the word. And how had they profited by this training? Alas! not as they should or might have done. Had not the Lord after His resurrection to speak of some of them as fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken, etc. (Luk. 24:25)? And did they not show on the very eve of His ascension how far they were from fully apprehending His teaching (Act. 1:6-8)? But see the same men after the Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit. A mighty change had taken place in them. A flood of light seemed to have been poured on the sacred page and the sayings of Jesus. What was dark and mysterious before was now bright as noonday. Before, the lowly life, shameful cross, etc., had been stumbling-blocks to them. But after Pentecost the true meaning of that humiliationhumbled that men might be exaltedwas clearly seen. The cross, instead of being a portent of shame, was seen to be a symbol of Christs glory, etc. And the result of this divine teaching was, as Christ foretold, a mouth and wisdom in the day of trial, which all their adversaries could not gainsay, etc. (Luk. 21:15).

II. The Spirit still exercises the same enlightening influence in the hearts of believers.Those not taught of Him, and who therefore cannot discern divine truth, see no beauty in the gospel, are not influenced by its promises or threatenings. And although they may admire the Saviour as a great moral teacher, etc., will see no beauty in Him as the Redeemer of men, etc. They do not, cannot understand spiritual religion; its source and manifestations seem to them too vague and uncertain to merit their deepest regard. How different the aspect those things wear to those who have been taught of the Spirit, etc.! Invisible and spiritual things become to them the highest realities. Their lives are thenceforth not governed by the seen and temporal, but by the unseen and eternal. This divine Teacher makes even the simple wise by revealing to them the will of Heaven. The simple and unlearned, knowing only the Scriptures, but taught in them by this heavenly Teacher, will be able to confute and confound those who, although wise in their own eyes, are fools in the sight of Heaven. And the possession of this heavenly learning brings with it a spirit of contentment, gladness, peace, such as those wise only in regard to earthly things never possess.

III. One other truth must be simply noted in regard to this aspect of the Holy Spirits work: He was to teach and bring to the remembrance of the disciples all things which Jesus had spoken to them. They had not fully understood all Christs teaching. Sometimes it seemed to them He spoke in enigmas. But after His resurrection and the descent of the Spirit sayings that had appeared dark and obscure became luminous (Luk. 24:8; Joh. 2:22; Joh. 12:16; Act. 11:16). The heavenly Sower had scattered the seeds of divine truth into hearts prepared to receive it; but there was needed the outpouring of the Spirit, with heavenly influence, the dews and rains of grace, to awaken it to life, to cause it to spring forth and bloom into fuller fruitfulness. And a test of any teaching professing to be divine will be its accordance or non-accordance with the great principles of truth revealed in the teaching of Christ and amplified in the apostolic writings. Any Church or religious body that claims that its symbols (doctrinal) and decisions (ecclesiastical) have the same authority as Holy Writ, and should be as binding on the faithful, can only claim such authority for them by showing that they stand the test of the Holy Spirits teaching in Scripture. It must be the final court of appeal in matters of faith and doctrine. We are not told that the Spirit was to teach the apostles any new truth. He was to instruct in and call to remembrance what the Master Himself had taught.

IV. This experience of the Holy Spirits power as a teacher is not confined to the past.It is a present reality. It is known in some measure by every one progressing in the narrow way. Not all at once does the full day of the Spirits enlightening power illuminate the soul. Here, as in all Gods works, there is a wise progression. The plants of grace are not ephemeral gourds, but palms and cedars. At the beginning of their course believers feel that to know Gods will and to serve Him aright is a task beyond their own powers. They feel the need of the Spirits help and teaching. But day by day as they look more earnestly into the divine oracles, and use with diligence the means of grace, what was dark will become light, the crooked straight, and the rough places plain.

Joh. 14:27. A heavenly legacy.Peace now reigned undisturbed in the upper chamber. Judas had gone out into the night to do the work for which he had received the wages of iniquity. The withdrawal of his presence removed a feeling of restraint perhaps. The Saviours discourse now flowed along a stream of blessing, which not only refreshed and cheered the disciples on that memorable night, but which has brought joy and comfort to many in every age since then. These are words of farewell, but also of hope. In all this history in St. Johns Gospel we cannot fail to notice a calmness and repose which are marvellous, when we think of the circumstances in which these words were uttered. The unutterable agony, the shameful trial, the bitter cross, lay before Jesus. Yet it was not of Himself He thought, but of His disciples. His mind was calm and tranquil Here the Redeemer showed the same lofty repose of spirit that characterised all His life on earth,

I. In unfolding the central thought of this verse, consider first that this gift of peace which Jesus bestows is what all men need, even when they know it not.These words are not merely words of farewell. Luther says: They are the parting words of One who is about to bid farewell to His friends, and gives them His good-night and His blessing. True, the words might also bear this interpretation. The common Hebrew salutation has some resemblance to these words. How often do we meet such words as , Go in peace; and also in the closing salutations in letters (1Pe. 5:14), and as a greeting to reassure those in fear (Gen. 43:23)! And viewed in this light, they are not like the worlds farewell greetings, often insincere, mere words signifying nothing. Not so the words of Jesus; they are heartfelt and real. But this is more than a mere leave-taking. The words themselves show that. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give unto you. It is the Lords legacy to His disciples, something real which He bestows on them, more precious than gold or jewels. It is what all men have been seeking since the Fall, and have never of themselves found. In their restless striving after satisfaction in pleasure, etc., they were in reality seeking peace, which cannot be found in the possessions of earth. It is sought for in vain apart from God. It may be described as a state of the spiritual nature of man resulting from a right relation between man and God. And this is brought about not by any change on the part of GodHe is unchangeablebut by a renewing of mans nature after the divine image.

II. How is this change brought about?By God Himself, the author and giver of peace. When the new-created world arose at His command, no jarring element marred the unison of all things. Peace reigned in earth as in heaven. Nor was it God who banished peace from earth. It was sin. Sin came like a flood, covering all things with its noisome waters; and peace, like Noahs dove, could find no resting-place. And as men sinned they lost peace (Jas. 4:1). But God yearned over men in pity and love. He Himself sent the Son of His love to bring peace to men. He is our peace. And He was peculiarly fitted to undertake this work; for He is the Prince of peace (Isa. 9:6). One of the chief blessings of His advent was proclaimed to be peace on earth. And it comes to men through His cross (Eph. 2:15-16; Rom. 5:1). Through faith in Him men become new creatures, made anew in the divine image; and thus harmony between the Creator and the creature is again restored. God is the author of peace.

III. The characteristics of this peace.

1. It is Christs own peace.My peace. Contemplate the story of the Redeemers life on earth. He was at peace alike when He was praying on the mountain top; or when, awakened from sleep in the sinking fisher-boat, He arose and said, Peace, be still, and the storm ceased to rage; when He taught the multitudes by the seashore, or was dragged to the brow of the hill above Nazareth; when He sat with the disciples in the upper chamber, or heard the crowds shout, Crucify Him, or prayed for His murderers on the cross. And the key to this characteristic of our Lords life on earth is to be found in the dose and intimate communion He had with the Father, and His unreserved submission to the Fathers will. Such communion and submission could exist only when there was complete harmony between the Father and the Son. But He was one with the Father. The rule of His life of humiliation was, not My will, O Father, but Thine be done. Here again we come in sight of the way of peace. We must, through Christ, enter into the same relation of submissive trust in God. The more we can attain to this spirit, the nearer shall we be to perfect peace.

2. This peace it not dependent on outward circumstances, whatever these may be.The man of the world is most miserable when circumstances are adverse. Who so miserable when the props that upheld his happiness have fallen? It is not so with the man who has entered into fellowship with God through Jesus Christ. Trouble and sorrow indeed drive him nearer to God, and lead him, like the prophet, to say, Although the fig tree shall not blossom, etc. (Habakkuk 3). In the case of true disciples of our Master and Lord, the direst calamities have not been able to shake the firmness of their trust or overturn the foundations of their peace. It is an inner heritage; and no external circumstances, however untoward or unhappy, can deprive them of it or drive them to despair.

3. It is an abiding peace.This follows from what has been said. It comes from trust in God, not in ourselves; and it is this that makes it abiding and eternal. It is in the eternal Jehovah that the believers hope lies. What need he fear who is one with Christ and thus with the Father? As the Rock of Ages stands firm and sure, so believers shall never be moved. In view of this well might the disciples be exhorted to be trustful and courageous! And to disciples now the realisation of this blessed truth should lead to the same steadfastness. Let not your heart be troubled when difficulties and trials meet you. Christ knows them all, and the way out of them. Be not over-anxious about the morrow. God will provide. Neither let your heart be afraid. All that is really opposed to you who are in Christ is opposed to Him; and therefore can even the gates of Hades prevail? Your life in Him should be a joyful service, and its latter endpeace.

Joh. 14:29-31. Comfort for trial.Our Lord knew the weakness of the disciples hearts, and what was needed to strengthen their faith, so that they might not utterly fail in trials just before them. He therefore repeated with wider reference what He had already said (Joh. 13:19) as to His knowledge of what lay before Him. They were to learn that no blind fate, but a directing Providence, was overruling the events about to happen. Our Lord here showed

I. His divine prescience.

1. All through His public ministry He had shown His omniscient prevision regarding the course of events that should group themselves round His person and work, e.g. the action of the traitor, the manner of His death, etc.

2. This would prepare the disciples, in part at least, for what was to happen, and would tend to assure them of the certainty of His promise, I will not leave you orphans. Further, by this prediction

II. Our Lord strengthened the disciples to endure.

1. He called attention to the fact that the prince of this world was beginning his final onslaught. But He added, and hath nothing in Me.

2. The conflict was in reality already over. The will of Christ was one with the Fathers will; and thus in face of the coming foe He arose to meet and vanquish him as He said, Arise, let us go hence.
3. Therefore might the disciples realise that with Christ and the Father abiding with them they too would be secure.

III. The same truth remains for our comfort and strength.

1. One part of what our Lord foretold has come to pass. Shall this not lead to faith that what remains shall likewise be fulfilled? The Father hath put all things under His feet: He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet. As He conquered before, so His people believe He will conquer in the end.

3. In later days the Church will again enter into conflict with the prince and forces of evil (2 Thessalonians 2, etc.). But those with whom the Father and Son abide, to whom the Comforter has come with enlightening and guiding power, need not fear. As in the past, the prince of this world shall have no real power over the people of God. With the Captain of salvation within, and the walls of salvation around, there is safety. No device of the enemy, no engine however cunning and strong, no weapon however vaunted, no fiery darts, can avail to move the heart in which God dwells.

HOMILETIC NOTES

Joh. 14:23. Keeping Christs words.His words mean all that is commanded and promised in them. Thus one who loves Jesus will not only possess or hear but will keep His words, in remembrance, in faith, in the midst of sorrow.

No fear when God dwells in the heart.If the emperor could say to the boatman, Fear not, for Csar is in the vessel, why should I not say to my soul, Fear not, God is with thee?

The manner of the divine indwelling.God will not dwell with us merely as a guest in an inn, who comes to-day and goes to-morrow; He will come as the Father of the family into His house, and will never forsake us.

Joh. 14:24. The Christians love to God shown in his deeds.It is a fatal self-deception when any one boasts of having love to God, and yet proves the contrary by his deeds (Tit. 1:16; 1Jn. 2:3-4).

In the offering of obedient service to God three things must be observed.Obey God willingly (Psa. 110:3); obey God all through life (Luk. 1:74-75); obey God before all else (Act. 5:29).

Figure of a loveless Christian.A Christian without love is like a painted image; or a corpse wrapped in beautiful garments and covered with flowers; or, after the apostles similitude, like sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal (1Co. 13:1).

Joh. 14:26. He who teaches all things must know all things.God alone knows all things. For this reason the Holy Spirit is appointed to be Doctor Doctorum; so that those who are set to teach others should first learn of Him.

Joh. 14:27. What Christs peace comprehends.It contains this assurance, that God is well pleased with us in Him.

The worlds peace.The world often speaks peace with the lips, and cherishes discord in the heart; just as Joab spoke quietly with Abner (2Sa. 3:27), and immediately stabbed him with the sword. Without peace with God men have no true peace on earth.

A peace-loving heart is a dwelling of the triune Jehovah, for the Father is the God of peace; the Son is the Prince of peace; the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of peace.

Joh. 14:29. Experience is a powerful confirmation and assurance of our faith.

Joh. 14:30. The prince of this world.The devil is a prince of this world in conformity with

1. His vain-glory.
2. His tyrannical rule.
3. The willing subjection of the impious.
4. The heathen idolatries.

Joh. 14:31. The Christians pilgrimage.What is the pilgrimage of a true Christian? A continual departing hence, and a continual going to the Father.

Genuine love exceeds words.Love to God must not be merely an expression of the lips. To love in word only is the way of hypocrites. If we would be more than these, then we must love in deed.

Love perfects obedience.Without love obedience is slavish, and cannot endure; but a loving obedience is in no way contrary to our freedomon the contrary, it makes us joyful and blessed.Translated from a collection by Weigel.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Joh. 14:15. The proof of our love to Christ.Christ promiseth His disciplesthat is, such as believe in Himthat He will give them whatsoever they make petition for or desire; yea, if they love Him. For faith without love is dead, and hath no strength. Where there is faith in man, there followeth love. Many of us say, We believe in Christ, and we love Him, yet we keep not His commandments. Such men ought well to note the words that Christ here speaketh, Whoso loveth Me keepeth My commandments (Joh. 14:15-24). The disciples thought that they loved Christ right because they were sorry for His departing; but Christ teacheth us that love consisteth in the keeping of His commandments. If we will declare our love toward God, it must not be done only with word and tongue, but with keeping of His precepts. The eyes of the Lord behold the righteous, and His ears consider their prayers. God will not that we, whom He through His grace hath admitted for His own children, and purified through faith, should go idle. Faith which God giveth us in our hearts standeth not idle; we have for this purpose received it, even to keep His commandments. Now is it His commandment that we deny and mortify ourselves, hate and despise the world, take up our cross upon us and follow Him, stoutly and manfully confessing and acknowledging Him before the wicked world, loving one another as He hath loved us, innocently and godly leading our lives, whereby we may daily receive the more gifts at His hand. For if we keep not His grace that He giveth us, if we do not continually and daily reform ourselves, and with all diligence fashion our lives after His life, it is but right that we lose again what we have received.Bishop Coverdale.

Joh. 14:27. Christian peace and unity.How good and pleasant it is, as David saith, for brethren (and so we are all, at least by nature) to live together in unity. How that, as Solomon saith, Better is a dry morsel and quietness therewith, than a house full of sacrifices and strife. How delicious that conversation is which is accompanied with a mutual confidence, freedom, courtesy, and complacence: how calm the mind, how composed the affections, how serene the countenance, how melodious the voice, how sweet the sleep, how contented the whole life is of him that neither deviseth mischief against others nor suspects any to be contrived against himself; and contrariwise, how ingrateful and loathsome a thing it is to abide in a state of enmity, wrath, dissension; having the thoughts distracted with solicitous care, anxious suspicion, envious regret; the heart boiling with choler, the face overclouded with discontent, the tongue jarring and out of tune, the ears filled with discordant noises of contradiction, clamour, and reproach; the whole frame of body and soul distempered and disturbed with the worst of passions. How much more comfortable it is to walk in smooth and even paths than to wander in rugged ways overgrown with briers, obstructed with rubs, and beset with snares; to sail steadily in a quiet than to be tossed in a tempestuous sea; to behold the lovely face of heaven smiling with a cheerful serenity than to see it frowning with clouds or raging with storms; to hear harmonious consents than dissonant janglings; to see objects correspondent in graceful symmetry than lying disorderly in confused heaps; to be in health, and have the natural humours consent in moderate temper, than (as it happens in diseases) agitated with tumultuous commotions: how all senses and faculties of men unanimously rejoice in these emblems of peace, order, harmony, and proportion; yea, how nature universally delights in a quiet stability or undisturbed progress of motion; the beauty, strength, and vigour of everything requires a concurrence of force, co-operation, and contribution of help; all things thrive and flourish by communicating reciprocal aid, and the world consists by a friendly conspiracy of its parts; and especially that political society of men chiefly aims at peace as its end, depends on it as its cause, relies on it as its support. How much a peaceful state resembles heaven, into which neither complaint, pain, nor clamour (as it is in the Apocalypse) do ever enter, but blessed souls converse together in perfect love and in perpetual concord; and how a condition of enmity represents the state of hell. How like a paradise the world would be, flourishing in joy and rest, if men would cheerfully conspire in affection and helpfully contribute to each others content; and how like a savage wilderness now it is, when, like wild beasts, they vex and persecute, worry, and devour each other. How not only philosophy hath placed the supreme pitch of happiness in a calmness of mind and tranquillity of life, void of care and trouble, of irregular passions and perturbations, but that Holy Scripture itself in that one term of peace most usually comprehends all joy and content, all felicity and prosperity; so that the heavenly consort of angels, when they agree most highly to bless and to wish the greatest happiness to mankind, could not better express their sense than by saying, Be peace on earth, etc.Isaac Barrow.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

GOING TO SEND THE STRENGTHENER AND REVEALER

Text 14:15-24

15

If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments.

16

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever,

17

even the Spirit of truth: whom the world cannot receive; for it beholdeth him not, neither knoweth him: ye know him; for he abideth with you, and shall be in you.

18

I will not leave you desolate: I come unto you.

19

Yet a little while, and the world beholdeth me no more; but ye behold me: because I live, ye shall live also.

20

In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

21

He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself unto him.

22

Judas (not Iscariot) saith unto him, Lord, what is come to pass that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?

23

Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my word: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

24

He that loveth me not keepeth not my words: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Fathers who sent me.

Queries

a.

Who is the other Comforter?

b.

Why so much stress in this section on keeping His commandments?

c.

What did Judas (not Iscariot) want to know?

Paraphrase

If you really love Me and desire to carry on My work and receive answers to your prayers, you will keep my commandments. And if you abide in My commandments I will ask the Father to give you another Strengthener and Helper and the Father will send Him. He is the Spirit of truth and He will dwell with you forever. The world cannot receive Him into fellowship because the world does not love or understand His divine Personality, just as it rejects My divine Personality. You know and love this divine Personality. He is the same Personality who is dwelling in your presence now in bodily form and shall soon dwell within you in spiritual essence. I will not desert you nor go away and leave you destitute of help like orphans. I, the Son, the same Personality who has been with you in bodily form, will come unto you in the Spirit. In just a very short time the world will not even be able any longer to see Me with physical eyes, for I will very soon be gone from the world in bodily form. But you who love Me and obey Me will truly see and know Me for I will be as equally alive and active in the Spirit as I am in bodily form. And when I have accomplished mans redemption and return to you alive in the Spirit then you shall also be alive indeed in the Spirit. In the day when you are born again in the Spirit you will know fully and completely that I am in My Father, and you will know that you are alive forevermore in Me, and that I am alive and dwelling in you. I affirm again, he that continues to know my commandments and continues to keep them is one that manifests his love to Me. The one that so loves Me shall be loved by my Father; and I will love him and will reveal Myself unto him in the Spirit. Judas (not Judas Iscariot the betrayer) said to Him, Lord, you have previously indicated that you would soon manifest yourself to the world in all your Messianic glory. Now you speak of manifesting yourself only to us. What has happened to so limit your intended manifestation? Jesus said, Judas, when a man loves Me he will continue to keep My word. And my Father will love him and the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit will come unto him and make our dwelling place within him. The opposite is also true, he who does not love me will not keep my words. And to reject my commandments is not to reject the commandments of a mere man for the words which you hear Me speak are the very words of God the Father who commissioned Me and sent Me into the world.

Summary

The strong emphasis of this section is upon Jesus return to the disciples in the Spirit on the condition that they love Him and keep His word. The Holy Spirit helps and strengthens and abides in men through the Word of Christ.

Comment

Love is the incentive for obedience and obedience is proof of love and trust. The one who keeps the word of Christ has the mature, complete love of God in him (1Jn. 2:5; 1Jn. 5:3) and is assured that he knows God and is known by God (1Jn. 2:3). But the one who professes to know God and does not keep the commandments of Christ is a liar and the truth is not in him (1Jn. 2:4).

Jesus makes this statement (Joh. 14:15) in connection with what He has said before and what He will promise after. Their obedient love is a condition of their being called and empowered to serve as co-laborers in the redemption of man. Their obedient love is also the condition necessary for Jesus to send them another Helper, the Holy Spirit.

Joh. 14:15 through Joh. 14:24 are of great importance to the Christian in his understanding of the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Godhead. Joh. 14:15 not only indicates the condition necessary by the disciples in order to be given the Holy Spirit, it also indicates the agency (the Word of Christ) through which He comes into the believer. Joh. 14:21; Joh. 14:23 are reiterations of this for emphasis.

Joh. 14:16 clearly teaches that the Holy Spirit is a person, not just an idea or a feeling. He is another divine Strengthener and Helper and Teacher just like Jesus who was the Word become flesh. He is not different from Jesus (except that He comes not in the flesh), but He is exactly like Jesus in word and in deed. The word Comforter is parakleton in the Greek and is transliterated Paraclete. Literally it means one called alongside to strengthen or help. He is not one who brings luxurious comforts as we think of comfort today. He gives strength that we may bear our tests and trials. He testifies of the promises of God whereby we might be partakers of the divine nature and escape the corruption that is in the world (cf. 2Pe. 1:3-4).

He is also the Spirit of truth. He is the Revealer of divine truth. Joh. 14:17 does not mean that it is impossible for man to exercise his will in surrender to Gods revelation and thus receive the Holy Spirit; that man must be irresistibly overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit. Jesus is saying much the same thing He said in Joh. 3:18-21 (see our comments there, Vol. I). As Lenski puts it, He speaks of the inability of willful obduracy . . . one in which men neither behold nor know the Spirit although He is present with all His grace. Jesus is speaking of the worldlings who refuse to have God in their knowledge (Rom. 1:18-32) and who take pleasure in unrighteousness (2Th. 2:8-12). The Pharisees who would not believe in Jesus because He told them the truth (Joh. 8:44-45) are such. There are many such worldlings in many degrees of ignorance concerning the Holy Spirit. And many of them are ignorant of Him because they wish to remain ignorant of Him.

These disciples knew Him. He is the same Personality as Jesus except for the fleshly body. These disciples were learning of Him. Their knowledge of Him was not yet full and mature. They had their childish and selfish concepts of Him but they were growing and would soon mature in their knowledge of the Godhead and His purposes. Jesus makes it very plain here that He and the Holy Spirit are identical in Personality. He was with them in bodily presence but would soon be absent in bodily presence but in them in His Spiritual Personality.
Another touch of pathos comes from the heart of Jesus as He tells the disciples, I will not leave you orphaned, for I am coming to you. The word translated desolate is the Greek word orphanous from which we get the English word orphan. Christ promises that He will not go away and leave them destitute of help like orphans. Orphans have no home but Jesus has already spoken of the dwelling place in the Fathers house which He goes to prepare for His loved ones. Orphans feel lost and desolate but Jesus has shown His loved ones the WayHe is the Way home. Orphans have no comforter but Jesus promises to send the Comforter.

In a few short hours Jesus would be gone from the eyes of the world, physically speaking. But those who love Him and obey Him will truly see and know Him. Christ is as alive and active in the Spirit as He was in the flesh. The Holy Spirit through the Word is living and active and powerful and moves in the hearts of men convicting and converting their stubborn wills. The Holy Spirit through Providence works out all things together for good to them that love God . . . When Jesus has accomplished atonement and justification by His death and resurrection and ascension and when He returned in the Spirit they would truly behold Him. When they should surrender and be born again by faith in Him and obedience to His word they would be truly alive, In the day when they should be born again by the Spirit they would know more completely that He was in the Father, that they were alive forevermore in Him (Eph. 2:1-7), and that He was in them.

Again, in Joh. 14:21, Jesus repeats the conditions and the agency of receiving the Holy Spirit. Again He instructs them that the One who is to be sent will be but another manifestation of His Spirit. He and the Father are One; He and the Holy Spirit and the Father are One. There can be no mistake about how men and women are to be led to obey the Lords commandmentsthey are to be led to love Him. There can be no mistake about how men and women are to show their love to Christby keeping His word.

During His last week of teaching in Jerusalem and near the city, Jesus talked often of the coming of the kingdom, the coming of the Son of man with power and great glory (Luk. 21:25-28, etc.). Now He says to the disciples, I am going away . . . the world will see Me no more . . . I will manifest Myself to those who love Me and keep My word. Judas (not the betrayer) manifests the immature concept of the kingdom of God that is still within the minds of the disciples. He is still full of the worldly notions of the Messiah and His kingdom. He seems to say, This very week you talked of your coming with all the holy angels when the nations of the earth should be gathered together. Now you speak of manifesting yourself to us but not to the world. What has happened to so limit your Messianic program?

Jesus replies to Judas as if to say, Judas, I am speaking of an intimate fellowship of My Spirit with men who love me. It is a living union to bring strength, joy and peace. The return and manifestation I spoke of before is unto judgment; the return and manifestation I speak of now is unto those who love Me and keep My word.

This verse (Joh. 14:23) is one of the most profound, yet simple and lucid verses of the New Testament. In it is explained, as far as man can understand, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within everyone who loves and obeys Christ. It is simple enough for a child to understand yet it contains truth so profound that the most brilliant intellect cannot fully fathom. There are no requirements of mystical rites to be performed, to place one in a mood to receive the Holy Spirit. There are no promises here of any ecstatic trances or emotional fits that one may know he has the Holy Spirit dwelling within him. The very simple and plain promise is that the one who believes, trusts, loves and obeys Christ will be indwelt by the Spirit of God. We shall have more to say of this verse in later comments.

This section closes in Joh. 14:24 with Jesus emphasizing again that He is trying to teach the disciples of the perfect oneness of the Son and the Father and the Holy Spirit. His emphasis is that the disciples should love Him and keep His word as they would keep the Fathers wordfor the words He speaks are the very words of the Father. Although He is soon to go away they may trust Him to fulfill His promises just as surely as God has fulfilled His words in the past. Any man who does not love Jesus nor keep His word is rejecting God! He that honoreth not the Son, honoreth not the Father (cf. our comments on Joh. 5:23).

We pause in our sequence of verse by verse comments here to consider briefly that divine Personality, the Holy Spirit. The context of Chapters 14, 15 and 16 of Johns gospel teach more than any of the other gospels about Him. Jesus is concerned more here with instructing the disciples as to how the Holy Spirit takes up His dwelling within the believer. As a starting point we quote, The Spirit is not a mere impersonal force or influence which we somehow get hold of and use; but He is a personal being, wise and holy, who is to get hold of us and use us. He is one with whom we may have the closest friendship, or fellowship (Php. 2:1; 2Co. 13:14). He enters into our personalities, and we become new persons, with renewed minds, affections, desires and wills. (Seth Wilson, in, Who or What Is The Holy Spirit?)

The question is, how does He enter into our personalities and get hold of us and use us? Do we absorb Him through the pores of our skin? Does He overwhelm us by some mystical, direct, irresistible saturation? How do we know that He is in usby some emotional thrill or ecstatic trance?

We believe there are two spheres in which the Holy Spirit moves and works todaythrough His Word and through Providence. We believe that the Holy Spirits Personality penetrates and enters into our personality as He expresses His mind, will and personality through His word. When we know His will in His word, believe and trust Him, love and obey Him and surrender our wills to His will, we believe He has come to make His abode with us. We believe this is plainly taught in the New Testament. In Joh. 14:1-31 Jesus repeats twice this very idea (Joh. 14:21; Joh. 14:23).

Again, we quote, The Holy Spirit enters today into those who hear and obey the Apostles written word even as He did into those who heard the oral word. The power of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life today is limited only by the lack of faith in the written word! The power of the Holy Spirit will be manifest as the Christian saturates his very life and being with the precepts and principles taught in the Bible, which is the living voice of the Holy Spirit, and puts them into practice in his life. As the Christian has the mind to surrender to the instructions of the Holy Spirit as He speaks through the written word, the Holy Spirit possesses him, leads him and uses him and to just that extent (cf. Gal. 4:19; Col. 3:16). (Walter L, Spratt, in, The Holy Spirit in The Christian Life.)

Jesus said much the same in Joh. 6:48-63 (see our comments in Vol. I). He is the Bread of Life. If men desire eternal life they must partake of His flesh and blood (His very nature). But how? Jesus answers, It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. We partake of Him by assimilating His word into our mind and heart. He is then in us. Peter said the same thing when he wrote that we have been granted by Gods divine power all things that pertain to life and godliness through knowledge of Christ. Furthermore, we may partake of the divine nature through His great and precious promises (2Pe. 1:2-4).

The Holy Spirit as a new Person and a new Life is born within us through the Word of God. We quote, Before a child can be born it must be generated or begotten by its father. The same is true of the new birth. Before one can be born again he must be begotten again. This means there must be a life-causing seed to generate the new life, Is there such a seed? 1. Luk. 8:5-8 record Jesus parable of the sower who went forth to sow his seed. Christ Himself explains the story. Now the parable is this: the seed is the word of God. 2. Having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which liveth and abideth. 1Pe. 1:23. 3. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth. Jas. 1:18. All of this means that the Holy Spirit inspired word is the life-causing seed that is planted in our hearts. How true it is that belief cometh of hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. Rom. 10:17.

The Person of the Holy Spirit is born and grows within us through constant communion with Him by knowing His will, obeying His word and doing His work.

1.

We are to drink of Christs spirit (Joh. 7:37-39).

2.

He is to dwell in us by faith (Eph. 3:17).

3.

We are to be filled with the Spirit by understanding what the will of the Lord is (Eph. 5:17-19).

4.

He lives in us by faith (Gal. 2:20).

5.

We receive Him by the hearing of faith (Gal. 3:2; Gal. 3:14).

6.

We put on Christ by faith and obedience (Gal. 3:26-27).

7.

The new man which is put within is renewed in knowledge after

the image of him that created him (Col. 3:10). Our lives bear fruit when we allow the Spirit to lead us through His will as expressed in His word. The fruit of the Spirit is exhibited in the personal transformation of mind and character (hence conduct) of each individual who grows in Christian faith as he should (cf. Gal. 5:22-23; Rom. 8:2-4; Rom. 8:12-14; Rom. 14:17; 1Co. 6:9-11; 1Co. 6:17-20).

To obey the Word is to be led by the Spirit. The man who obeys the gospel is a child of God. The Spirit tells us to believe, repent and be baptized into Christ. Our spirits tell us that we do believe, have repented, and have been baptized. Therefore His Spirit and our spirits testify with each other to the same thingthat we are children of God (Rom. 8:14-17). By the same token, when we read, understand and do the will of the Spirit as expressed in the written word, we do put to death the deeds of the body (Rom. 8:13).

One thing is certainthe Holy Spirit will not come and dwell with us unless we hear His voice and open the door and allow Him to come in (Rev. 3:20). He may be rejected, resisted, despised, blasphemed, lied to, and grieved, if we do not want Him. Or, He may be heard, trusted, loved, received, obeyed, followed, fellowshipped if we desire Him and allow Him by exercising our faith to take hold of us and use us.

The only dependable agency available to man by which he may be certain that he knows the Holy Spirit or feels Him or that He controls him is obedience to the written will of the Holy Spirit in His word, which is the Bible! We may be sure we know Him if we keep His commandments (1Jn. 2:3). All who keep His commandments abide in Him, and He in them (1Jn. 3:24). Whoever knows the Spirit of God listens to the apostles doctrine and this is the only way man may know the difference between the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error (Satan) (1Jn. 4:6). If we love one another and confess Christ, His Spirit abides in us (1Jn. 4:12-15). Anyone who does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God; he who abides in the doctrine has both the Father and the Son (1Jn. 1:9-10). A man is on dangerous ground when he must depend upon human emotions or human creeds or human concepts to know the certainty of his possession by the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within him.

The Spirit does not operate independent of His Word in possessing a man and dwelling within him. Just as a fathers personality penetrates and bears fruit in the lives of his children through the fathers teaching and deeds, so the Personality of the Heavenly Father, His Spirit, penetrates and bears fruit in the lives of his children through the Fathers word and deeds as they are witnessed to in the Bible. Through His Word, written and spoken, He has striven with men. Through His Word, written and spoken, He convicts men of sin, righteousness and judgment. The Spirit, through His Word, when men allow Him by faith and obedience, comes into a persons heart and mind and possesses him, leads him and uses him.
There are, of course, many other attributes of this wonderful, divine Personality which we have not discussed here (i.e., His characteristics, His miraculous gifts, His providential working in nature and history every day, etc.). This has not been our purpose. We are concerned here only with the entrance into and possession of the believer by the Holy Spirit. If the reader desires more discussion of other attributes of the Holy Spirit we suggest Don DeWelts book, The Power of The Holy Spirit, Vol. I, published by College Press. Ozark Bible College also has a number of mimeographed essays by Seth Wilson, Walter L. Spratt and others for salesimply write to the OBC Bookstore and ask for as much mimeographed material as they have on the Holy Spirit.

This divine Person was promised in the Old Testament (Eze. 36:27). He was promised by Christ, the Incarnate Word (Joh. 7:37-39). He comes to every obedient believer today (Act. 2:38; Act. 5:32). He brings strength, joy, peace, wisdom, power and fruitfulness.

Quiz

1.

Why does Jesus emphasize love and keep my commandments?

2.

Who is the Holy Spirit like? What are some of His characteristics?

3.

Why can the world not receive Him?

4.

Why is Joh. 14:23 of such significance?

5.

How is the Holy Spirit received into our hearts? Name 4 ways the Scriptures say He comes to us?

6.

Is there any way man may be sure that the Holy Spirit is in him? How dependable is it?

7.

When the apostles preached, what did they say was necessary for the coming of the Holy Spirit into the individual? Act. 2:38; Act. 5:32.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(15) If ye love me, keep my commandments.Comp. Notes on Joh. 14:17; Joh. 13:34; Joh. 15:10. The connection here is through the condition in My name, which includes willing obedience to His commands. The word My is emphaticThe commandments which ye have received from Me. Those of this last discourse are perhaps prominent in the thought.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

Christ’s sending the Comforter to supply his place, Joh 14:15-31.

Jesus now makes his starting point from Joh 14:12, where he had spoken of the great works to be done after his departure. He now introduces to their knowledge the divine Agent by whose power those works should be performed, in and through them and his Church.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

15. If love keep my commandments Preparatory to the reception of the Comforter, they were to come into full union with Christ by a love evinced by obedience. Hence this verse is not to be torn from its connection, but is to be viewed as conditional to the promise that follows.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

“If you love me you will constantly keep in mind and obey what I have commanded you (literally ‘my commandments’), and I will pray the Father and he will give you another ideal companion (paraclete)”.

These words connect directly with what has gone before. In Joh 14:13-14 He has spoken with the assumption that there are ‘works’ to be done for which special enabling will be given. Now He specifically says that if they love Him they will do those works He has commanded them. (His commandments to them included preaching the Good News and healing the sick – Mat 10:7-8; Luk 9:2). And in return His Father will give them, at His request, ‘another’ ideal companion, a ‘paraclete’, to replace His earthly presence, to assist them in their work. The word for ‘another’ indicates ‘another of the same kind’.

The word ‘paraclete’ means one called alongside to assist. It was used of a lawyer who would be called on to assist in a court of law, whether as defence or prosecutor, or of one assisting in speechmaking or teaching, or one who consoled. That is why we have translated it as ‘ideal companion’, for He is replacing Jesus Who has been their ideal companion, assisting, guiding, defending, teaching, empowering and consoling.

We do not need to try to select which meaning is in mind. The word Paraclete had an all-inclusive meaning of someone who came alongside to help. Most specifically in context He is the One Who will guide into all truth, bringing to mind what they have heard from Jesus, and interpreting it to their hearts as they carry out their ministry.

This confirms what we have said above. The test of love for Jesus is found in obedience to His demands. They can pray ‘in His name’ only because they love Him and are obeying implicitly what He has told them to do. It is because they have been given a huge responsibility that the resources of Heaven are at their disposal. They are to be used for no other purpose.

Furthermore that demand includes the fact that they must love one another (Joh 13:34-35). That is part of their ‘works’. Service is never in isolation except when unavoidable. So not only can they be sure that Jesus will respond to their prayers, providing all that they really need, but they can also know that they will be given ‘another ideal companion’ to assist them in their work.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

They Must Keep His Commandments And He Will Respond By Giving Them The Spirit Of Truth For Their Help And Strengthening ( Joh 14:15-21 ).

Central to what the disciples are to receive is their obedience. This is stressed here in the opening and closing verses of the passage. And we should note that it is an obedience based on love. Jesus had full confidence in their love for Him. Furthermore He stresses that that love is revealed not by gushing epitaphs, but by obedience to His requirements. In return (although not as something that has been earned but as a free gift) He will give to them the Spirit of Truth to be with them for ever as their Helper.

His point is clear for us also. Our love for Him will be revealed in the fact that we seek to do what pleases Him. If we truly love Him we will do what He says. The corollary is that if we do not seek to do in our lives what pleases Him it is evidence that we do not truly love Him. Profession is one thing, reality is another. Of course, we may sometimes fail, but if we love Him our intent will be constant. And in return, not as something to be earned but as a gift, He will impart to us the Spirit of Truth, the One Who will be with us and will be in us as our Helper and guide.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Of Love and Life.

The coming of the Comforter:

v. 15. If ye love Me, keep My commandments.

v. 16. And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter that He may abide with you forever,

v. 17. even 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.

The prerequisite and condition for the continuance of the loving relationship between Christ and His followers is this, that they show their love toward Him by keeping His commandments. Where there is no faith, there is no love; and where there is no love; there can be no real keeping of the Lord’s commandments. And the greatest commandment is this, that the Christians keep His Word, accept the Word of the Gospel in true faith, and cling to it with all their hearts. But if this condition obtains, then the Lord will pray the Father for a most unusual and wonderful gift for them. This gift is nothing less than another Comforter. Jesus Himself had been a Comforter to the disciples while He was with them. He had been their Friend, their Helper, and their Guide. But now His bodily presence would be removed from them, and they were as badly in need of a Strengthener and Comforter as ever. Jesus had been with them only a short period of time, but the other Comforter would abide with them always, would be the constant source and fountain of strength of all believers at all times. In the great work which is entrusted to the Christians and in the midst of all the trials and temptations of the world, they need someone upon whom they can depend absolutely for aid and comfort. This Comforter is the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit, who never misleads nor deceives the disciples of Jesus. The truth which He teaches, wherewith He cheers and sustains the hearts of the believers, is the Gospel and its wonderful content: God in Christ. “Here we learn and note that He is called a Comforter, and that for our sakes. For in His Godhead He is with the Father and the Son in one undivided divine essence; but for us He is called a Comforter, so that this name is nothing less than a revelation of what we should think of the Holy Ghost, namely, that He is a Comforter. But ‘Comforter’ no Moses or one that urges the Law is called, who terrifies with devil, death, and hell, but He that makes a sorrowful heart full of laughter and rejoicing toward God and bids thee be of good cheer, as one to whom his sins are forgiven, death strangled, heaven opened, and God Himself smiling upon thee. ” This Spirit is the special strength and help of the disciples, by confirming them in the truth and enabling them to win victories through the truth of the Word. This Comforter, whom the believers will welcome so joyfully, the world cannot receive, cannot accept with His gifts. The unbelievers refuse to see and to know the Spirit and His Work. The enmity toward God which is found in their hearts robs them of all sensibility in spiritual, divine matters, 1Co 2:14. If they do make an attempt to fathom the mysteries of God from the standpoint of their enmity, they only increase their spiritual denseness. Only the believers know the Spirit, are on terms of intimate understanding with Him, for He remains in their heart by faith, and His testimony in their hearts produces an absolute conviction as to the certainty of their faith. As soon as a person receives faith and thus becomes a disciple, the Spirit takes possession of his heart and makes His abode with Him. And the knowledge and understanding of the Spirit and His work grows in the believer from day to day. Note that the three persons of the Godhead are spoken of in this section: the Son as praying to the Father, and the Father as sending the Comforter, the Holy Spirit.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Joh 14:15. If ye love me, keep my commandments. The term of loving God, is frequently taken from that expression of love which consists in doing such things as are esteemed grateful or beneficial to the object beloved: but as our endeavours cannot advance either the benefit or happiness of God, and our doing things that are grateful to him consists in performing whathe commands; therefore our obedience to the will and commands of God, is frequently stiled loving him; because the best, if not the only way of demonstrating our love to God is, to endeavour to please him; and we cannot please him, but by obeying him. Hence the love of God is used, in some places, as synonimous to keeping his commandments, as will appear from comparing Exo 20:6. Deu 5:10. Our blessed Lord, therefore, perceiving that his disciples’ hearts were melted with the prediction of his departure, nobly comforts them, by telling them, that their obedience would be a far more grateful sign of their affection to him, than any sorrow which they could shew.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Joh 14:15 . A new exhortation to keep His commandments in proof of their love to Him in order, Joh 14:14 , to attach a new promise thereto. But exhortation and promise are thus necessarily connected, as in Joh 14:11-12 ff. Hence the latter not without the former. Comp. Joh 14:21 .

Note the emphatic : which you have from me; they are not those of the O. T., but the completion of these. Comp. on Joh 13:34 .

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

DISCOURSE: 1687
THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO OBEDIENCE

Joh 14:15-17. If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even 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.

IT has pleased God to unite mans happiness with his duty, and to ordain, that the paths of righteousness alone should be paths of pleasantness and peace. Hence our Lord, in his last discourse, wherein he laboured more abundantly to comfort his Disciples, insisted on obedience to his commandments as the best proof of their attachment to him, and the best means of securing blessings from above: yea, when he was informing them how richly the loss of his bodily presence should be overbalanced by the indwelling of the Spirit in their hearts, he first reminds them, that this benefit was inseparably connected with holiness of heart and life.
In discoursing on his words, we shall consider,

I.

The promise made by Christ to his obedient Disciples

Our Lord requires all his followers to keep his commandments
[The believer is said to be dead to the law; but though dead to it as a covenant, he is as much alive to it as ever as a rule of life. The marriage connexion which once subsisted between him and it, is dissolved: but it is only dissolved, that he may be married to another, even to the Lord Jesus Christ, and through him may, in the quality of his Spouse, be enabled to bring forth fruit unto God [Note: Rom 7:4.]. The obeying of Christs commandments is the only satisfactory evidence that he can give of his love to Christ. In fact, to his latest hour he must try himself by this test. All the professions in the world will be regarded as hypocrisy, if destitute of this evidence and this support. Obedience and love are inseparable from each other. Love without obedience is no better than dissimulation, as obedience without love is mere servile drudgery. The command therefore here given to the Disciples, must be considered as given to all the followers of Christ in all ages.]

To those who follow this injunction he gives the most encouraging of all promises
[His Disciples were now about to lose his presence by reason of his removal to the worlds above. But he promised, that, if they would obey his commandments, he would pray the Father for them, and that the Father would send them another Comforter to abide with them for ever. And here let me observe, that the Holy Spirit is represented by him, not as a quality, or operation, but as a distinct Person: not as a Comfort, but a Comforter; who should come from the Father, in answer to the intercessions of the Son, and abide in the bosoms of Gods obedient people. Yes, as in the days of old, God, by the bright cloud, the Shechinah, the symbol of his presence, abode first in the tabernacle, and afterwards in the temple, so will the Spirit of God now descend and dwell in the hearts of Christs obedient followers, displaying before them his glory, and imparting to them his blessings to the full extent of all their diversified necessities. They, like the Apostles, are subjected to trials, and called both to act and suffer for their Lord: but the Holy Spirit shall give to them all needful succour and support, and make them more than conquerors over all their oppressors. Never for one moment will he leave them, till he has accomplished in them all that God of his unbounded love and mercy has ordained for them.]

Enlarging on this promise, our Lord shews his Disciples,

II.

What a distinguished blessing they are privileged to enjoy

This divine Comforter is known to none but Christs obedient followers
[The world knows him not, nor can, in fact, receive him. As the Spirit of truth he spake in all the prophets: but the ungodly world cast his word behind their backs. In the days of our Lord they did the same. The same also they did when he spake by the Apostles. And the same they do at this day. For want of a spiritual discernment, they see him not: for want of an enlightened understanding, they know him not: and for want of holy dispositions, they neither do, nor can receive him. Their hearts are closed against him: and are so full of corrupt affections, that he could not endure to make his abode with them. If for a moment he enter as a Spirit of conviction, he cannot possibly abide there as a Spirit of consolation. But to the obedient followers of Christ he comes with all his glorious manifestations and endearments. In their hearts he sheds abroad the love of God: to them he witnesses their adoption into Gods family: and he is in them an earnest of their eternal inheritance.]

In all this the distinction between them and the ungodly world is incalculably great
[Mark the contrast as it is here drawn by our Lord himself, between the obedient and the disobedient Christian. The one is benefited by the Saviours intercession; the other not. The one has received the Holy Ghost; the other not. The one has an experimental acquaintance with the Spirit of truth; the other scarcely knows whether there be any Holy Ghost, or, if he do, he has no delight in any thing that he knows respecting him. The one has the Spirit dwelling in him as a Comforter; the other, instead of experiencing the Spirits consolations, cannot so much as know or receive them. The one has all the persons of the ever-blessed Trinity interesting themselves in his behalf; the other has God, even the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, for his enemy. The world may ridicule these things as enthusiasm, if they will: but they are the true sayings of God. And I pray God, that these thoughts may be laid to heart by every one here present: for, as God is true, no man shall dwell with God in heaven, who has not first had the Spirit of God dwelling in him on earth [Note: Rom 8:9.].]

See then here,
1.

The importance of consistency

[A man professes to love the Saviour, and rests his pretensions on some internal feelings and conceits of his own, whilst by his life and conversation he dishonours and denies his Lord. But to every such person our Lord will say, Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? Beloved brethren, whatever ye may profess, as to Christian principles, or pretend, as to Christian experience, you shall find that saying verified at the last, Without holiness no man shall see the Lord Look into the text, I pray you, and see, that our Lord gave these promises on purpose to encourage your obedience. If then you would be partakers of them, treasure them up in your minds, and say, How highly are we privileged! How wonderfully are we made to differ from the world around us! Is there no less than a divine Person sent down to dwell in us as our Comforter? Have we a Comforter, whom none but a chosen few are qualified to receive? And is this marvellous gift bestowed upon us in answer to our Saviours intercessions? Shall we not then testify in every possible way our love to him? Has he done such things for us, unasked, and shall we not do for him the things which he commands? This is the consistency that he requires: and this alone will be accepted as any proof of your love to him.]

2.

The benefit of self-devotion

[We suppose that some of you at least are giving up yourselves to the Lord in a way of holy and unreserved obedience: look up then to heaven, and there you may see the Saviour interceding for you. There too you may see the Holy Spirit of God just ready to come down at the very first intimation of the Fathers will, to take possession of your bosom, and to make your soul his habitation. From thence will he come with all his consolations and supports, so that there shall be nothing in the whole universe able to depress you, or to stop your progress in the divine life. With him shall you enjoy the sweetest fellowship, such as no worldly man can have the least idea of; and by him you shall be progressively prepared for the enjoyment of your God in heaven. Only wait on the Saviour in the way of his appointment; and his promises shall he fulfilled to you in all their boundless extent. You have seen how they were accomplished to the Apostles, and in what felicity they issued: and to those who trust in them, not one jot or tittle of them shall ever fail.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.

Ver. 15. If ye love me, keep my commandments ] No better way to seal up love than by being obedient. “How canst thou love me,” said she, “when thy heart is not with me?”Jdg 16:15Jdg 16:15 . Hushai, to show his love to David, set upon that difficult and dangerous service for him, of insinuating into Absalom’s counsels, and defeating them.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Joh 14:15-17 . The second encouragement: the promise of another Paraclete .

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Joh 14:15 . . The fulfilment of the promise He is about to give depends upon their condition of heart and life. This therefore He announces as the preamble to the promise. On their side there would be a constant endeavour to carry out His instructions: on His side During His ministry Jesus has said little of the Spirit. Now on the eve of His departure He directs attention to this “alter ego”. He designates Him , implying that Jesus Himself was a Paraclete. See 1Jn 2:1 . is literally advocatus , called to one’s aid, especially in a court of justice. [ Cf. in Arist., Thesm. , 369; Ecclesiastes , 9 .] See especially Hatch, Essays in Bibl. Greek , p. 82, and Westcott’s “Additional Note”. “Comforter” in A.V [88] is used in its original sense of “strengthener” (con, fortis); as in Wiclift’s version of Phi 4:13 , “I may all thingis in him that comfortith me” (see Wright’s Bible Word-Book ). This, Paraclete should remain with them for ever, and He is specifically designated (Joh 14:17 ) , cf. Joh 16:13-14 ; He would enable them to understand the new truths which were battling with their old conceptions, and to readjust their beliefs round a new centre He would explain the departure of Christ, and the principles of the new economy under which they were henceforth to live. This spirit was to be peculiarly theirs, , the characteristically worldly cannot receive that which can only be apprehended by spiritually prepared persons. It has been proposed to render , “seize” or “apprehend,” as if a contrast to the world’s apprehension and dismissal of Jesus were intended. But is regularly used in N.T. to express “receiving the Spirit,” Gal 3:2 ; 1Co 2:12 . The world cannot receive the Spirit , Outward sense cannot apprehend the invisible Spirit; and the world has no personal experience of His presence and power; but ye, , have this experimental knowledge, “because He is even now abiding with you (has already begun His ministry; or, rather, has this for His characteristic that He remains with you, making you the object of His work), and shall be within you”. With the entire statement cf. 1Co 2:8-14 .

[88] Authorised Version.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

John

LOVE AND OBEDIENCE

Joh 14:15 .

As we have seen in former sermons, the keyword of the preceding context is ‘Believe!’ and that word passes now into ‘Love.’ The order here is the order of experience. There is first the believing gaze upon the Christ as He is revealed-the image of the invisible God. That kindles love, and prompts to obedience.

There is another very beautiful and subtle link of connection between these words and the preceding. Our Lord has just been saying, ‘Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do.’ Is the parallel wholly accidental or fanciful between the Lord who does as the servant asks and the servant who is to do as the Lord commands? On both sides there is love delighting to be set in motion by a message from the other side. On the one part there is love supreme which commands and delights to be asked, on the other part there is love dependent, which asks and delights to be commanded; and though the gulf between the two is great, and the difference between Christ’s law and our petitions is infinite, yet there is an analogy.

I pause on these words, though they are introduced here only as the basis of the great promise which follows, because they open out into such wide fields. They contain the all-sufficient law of Christian conduct. They contain the one motive adequate to bring that law into realisation. They disclose the very roots of Christian morality, and part of the secret of Christ’s unique power and influence amongst men. They come with a message of encouragement to all souls despairing of being able to do that which they would, and of freedom to all men burdened with a crowd of minute and external regulations. ‘If ye love Me, keep My commandments’-there are three points to be dwelt upon here-namely, the all-sufficient ideal or guide of life, the all-powerful motive which Christ brings to bear, and the all-subduing gaze of faith by which that motive is brought into action.

I. We have here the all-sufficient ideal or guide for life.

Jesus Christ is not speaking merely to that little handful of men in the upper chamber, but to all generations and to all lands, to the end of time and round the world. The authoritative tone which He assumes here is very noteworthy. He speaks as Jehovah spoke from Sinai, and quotes the very words of the old law when He speaks of ‘keeping My commandments.’ There are distinctly involved in this quite incidental utterance of Christ’s two startling things-one the assumption of His right to impose His will upon every human being, and the other His assumption that His will contains the all-sufficient directory for human conduct.

What, then, are His commandments? Those which He spoke are plain and simple; and people who wish to pick holes in the greatness of Christ’s work in the world tell us that you can match almost all His precepts up and down amongst moralists and philosophers, and they crow very loud if, scratching amongst Rabbinical dust-heaps, they find something that looks like anything that He once said. Be it so! What does that matter? Christ’s ‘commandments’ are Christ Himself. This is the originality and uniqueness of Christ as a moral Teacher, that He says, not ‘Do this, that, and the other thing,’ but ‘Copy Me.’ ‘Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart.’ His commandments are Himself; and the sum of them all is this-a character perfectly self-oblivious, and wholly penetrated and saturated with joyful, filial submission to the Father, and uttermost and entire giving Himself away to His brethren. That is Christ’s commandment which He bids us keep, and His law is to be found in His life.

And then, if that be so, what a change passes on the aspect of law, when we take Christ as being our living embodiment of it! Everything that was hard, repellent, far-off, cold, vanishes. We have no longer ‘tables of stone,’ but ‘fleshy tables of the heart’; and the Law stands before us, a Being to be loved, to be clung to, to be trusted, and whom it is blessedness to know and perfection to resemble. The rails upon which the train travels may be rigid, but they mean safety, and they carry men smoothly into otherwise inaccessible lands. So the life of Jesus Christ brought to us is the firm and plain track along which we are to travel; and all that was difficult and hard in the cold thought of duty becomes changed into the attraction of a living Pattern and Example. This living and breathing and loving commandment is all-sufficient for every detail and complexity of human life. It is so by the confession of believers and of unbelievers, by the joyful confession of the one, and by the frank acknowledgment of many of the others. Listen to one of them. ‘Whatever else may be taken away from us by rational criticism, Christ is still left, a unique Figure, not more unlike all His predecessors than all His followers . . . . Religion cannot be said to have made a bad choice in selecting this Man as the ideal Representative and Guide of humanity; nor even now would it be easy, even for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete than to endeavour so to live that Christ would approve our life.’

It is enough for conduct, it is enough for character, it is enough in all perplexities of conflicting duties, that we listen to and obey the voice that says, ‘Keep My commandments.’

II. Now note, secondly, the all-powerful motive.

Probably my text is best understood as the Revised Version understands it, which reads, ‘If ye love Me, ye will keep My commandments,’ making it an assurance and not an injunction. Christ speaks with the calm confidence that love to Him will have power enough to sway the life. His utterance here is not the addition of another commandment to the list, but rather the pointing out of how they may all be kept.

The principle that underlies these words, then, is this, that love is the foundation of obedience, and obedience is the sure outcome and result of love. That is true in regard to those lower forms of love, which may teach us something of the operation of the higher. We all know that love which is real, and not simply passion and selfishness with a mask on, delights most chiefly in knowing and conforming to the will of the beloved, and that there is nothing sweeter than to be commanded by the dear voice and to obey for dear love’s sake. And you have only to take that which is the experience of every true heart, in a thousand sweet ways in daily life, and to lift it into the higher region, and to transfer it to the bond that unites us with Jesus Christ, to see that He has invoked no illusory, but an omnipotent power when He has rested the whole force of His transforming and sanctifying energy upon this one principle, ‘If ye love Me, the Lawgiver, ye will keep the commandments of My Law.’

That is exactly what distinguishes and lifts the morality of the Gospel above all other systems. The worst man in the world knows a great deal more of his duty than the best man does. It is not for want of knowledge that men go to the devil, but it is for want of power or will to live their knowledge. And what morality fails to do, with its clearest utterances of human duty, Christ comes and does. The one law is like the useless proclamations posted up in some rebellious district, where there is no army to back them, and the king’s authority from whom they come is flouted. The other law gets itself obeyed. Such is the difference between the powerless morality of the world and the commandment of Jesus Christ. Here is the road plain and straight. What matters that, if there is no force to draw the cart along it? There might as well be no road at all. Here stand all your looms, polished and in perfect order, but there is no steam in the boilers; and so there is no motion, and nothing is woven. What we want is not law, but power, and what the Gospel gives us, and stands alone in giving us, is not merely the knowledge of the will of God, and the clear revelation of what we ought to be, but the power to become it.

Love does that, and love alone. That strong force brought into action in our hearts will drive out from thence all rivals, all false and low things. The true way to cleanse the Augean stables, as the old myth has it, was to turn the river into them. It would have been endless work to wheel out the filth in wheelbarrows loaded by spades: turn the stream in, and it will sweep away all the foulness. When the Ark comes into the Temple, Dagon lies, a mutilated stump, upon the threshold. When Christ comes into my heart, then all the obscene and twilight-loving shapes that lurked there, and defiled it, will vanish like ghosts at cock-crowing before His calm and pure Presence. He, and He alone, entering my heart by the portals of my love, will coerce my evil and stimulate my good. And if I love Him, I shall keep His commandments.

Now, brethren, here is a plain test and a double-barrelled one, which tries both our love and our obedience with a sharp touchstone. ‘If ye love Me, ye will keep My commandments.’ That implies, first, that there is no love worth calling so which does not keep the commandment. All the emotional and the mystic, and the so-called higher parts of Christian experience, have to be content to submit to this plain test-do they help us to live as Christ would have us, and that because He would have us? Love to Him that does not keep His commandments is either spurious or dangerously feeble. The true sign of its presence in the heart and the noblest of its operations is not to be found in high-pitched expressions of fervid emotion, nor even in the sacred joys of solitary communion, but in its making us, while in the rough struggle of daily life, and surrounded by trivial tasks, live near Him, and by Him, and for Him, and like Him. If I live so, I love Him; if not, not. Not that I mean to say that in regard to each individual action of a Christian man’s life there must be the conscious presence of reference to the supreme love, but that each individual action of the life ought to come from a character of which that reference to the supreme love is the very formative principle and foundation. The colouring matter put in at the fountain will dye every drop of the stream; and they whose inmost hearts are tinged and tinctured with the sweet love of Jesus Christ, from their hearts will go forth issues of life all coloured and moulded thereby. Test your Christian love by your practical obedience.

And, on the other hand, there is no obedience worth calling so which is not the child of love; and all the multitude of right things which Christians do without that motive are made short work of by that consideration. Obedience which is formal, mechanical, matter-of-course, without the presence in it of a loving submission of the will; obedience which is reluctant, calculated, forced upon us by dread, imitated from others-all that is nothing; and Jesus Christ does not count it as obedience at all. This is a sieve with very small meshes, and there will be a great deal of rubbish left in it after the shaking. ‘If ye love Me, keep My commandments.’ The ‘keeping of My commandments’ which has not ‘love to Me’ underlying it is no keeping at all.

III. And so, lastly, notice the all-subduing gaze.

That is not included in my text, but it is necessary in order to complete the view of the forces to which Jesus Christ here entrusts the hallowing of life and the sanctifying of our nature; and we are led to refer to it by what I have already pointed out; the connection between the ‘love’ of my text and the ‘believe’ of the preceding verses. I can fancy a man saying, ‘Keep His commandments? Woe is me! How am I to keep?’ The answer is ‘Love.’ And I can fancy him saying ‘Love?’ Yes! ‘And how am I to love? I cannot get up love at the word of command, or by any voluntary effort.’ And the answer comes again, ‘Believe!’ Trust Christ, and you will love Him. Love Him and you will do His will. And then the question comes again, ‘Believe what?’ And the answer comes, ‘Believe that He is the Son of God who died for you.’

Nothing else will kindle a man’s love than the faithful contemplation and grasp of Christ in that character and aspect. Only the redeeming Christ affords a reasonable ground for our love to Him. Here is a dead man, dead for nineteen centuries, expecting you and me to have towards Him a vivid personal affection which will influence our conduct and our character. What right has He to expect that? There is only one reasonable ground upon which I may be called to love Jesus Christ, and that is that He died for me, and such a love towards such a Christ is the only thing which will wield power sufficient to guide, to coerce, to restrain, to constrain, and to sustain my weak, wayward, rebellious, and sluggish will. All other emotions of so-called admiration and worship and reverence and affection for Jesus Christ are apt to be tepid; but this one has power and warmth in it.

Here is a unique fact in the history of the world, that not only did He make this astounding claim upon all subsequent generations; but that all subsequent generations have responded to it, and that to-day there are millions of men who love Jesus Christ with a love warm, personal, deep, powerful-the spring of all their goodness and the Lord of their lives. Why do they? For one reason only. Because they believe that He died for them individually, and that He lives an ascended yet ever-present Helper and Lover of their souls.

My brethren, that conviction, and that conviction only, as I venture to affirm, has power to send a glow of love into the heart which will move all the limbs in swift and happy obedience. That conviction, and that conviction alone, will melt the thick-ribbed ice of our spirits and will make it flow down in sweet waters. The love that has looked upon the Cross will be the fulfilling of the law of Him that speaks from the Throne. When our faith has grasped Him, as enduring that cross for us, then our love will be awakened to hear and to do His commandments.

‘We love Him because He first loved us,’ and such love will flower and fruit in obedience. I shall keep His commandments when I love Him. I shall love Him with a love that makes my will plastic and my life a glad service, when by faith I grasp Him as the Incarnate Lord, ‘who loved me and gave Himself for me.’

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Joh 14:15-17

15″If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. 16I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; 17that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”

Joh 14:15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” This is a third class conditional sentence which speaks of potential action. Love for God in Christ is expressed by obedience. “Keep” is a future active indicative used as a present imperative (Friberg, Analytical Greek New Testament, p. 337). Obedience is extremely important (cf. Joh 8:51; Joh 14:21; Joh 14:23-24; Joh 15:10; 1Jn 2:3-5; 1Jn 3:22; 1Jn 3:24; 1Jn 5:3; 2Jn 1:6; Luk 6:46). Joh 14:21; Joh 14:23-24 also emphasize this same truth. Obedience is evidence of true conversion (cf. James and 1 John).

The NKJV has the imperative “keep My commandments,” which is supported by MSS A, D, W, the Vulgate, and many Church Fathers. The UBS4 gives the future active indicative a “C” rating (difficulty in deciding), which is supported by MSS B, L, and the Copitc Version, as well as several Church Fathers.

Joh 14:16 “He will give you” See note at Joh 14:26.

NASB, NKJV,

TEV”another Helper”

NRSV”another Advocate”

NJB”another Paraclete”

The term “another” translates a Greek term (allos) that means “another of the same kind.” The Holy Spirit has been called “the other Jesus” (G. Campbell Morgan, see Special Topic below).

The second term is the Greek term “parakltos” which is used of Jesus in 1Jn 2:1 (as intercessor) and of the Holy Spirit in Joh 14:26; Joh 16:7-14. Its etymology is “one called alongside to help,” in a legal sense. Therefore, the term “Advocate” accurately translates this word. A form of this same Greek root, “comfort” (parakalo), is used of the Father in 2Co 1:3-11.

The translation of the noun “advocate” (parakltos) comes from the Roman legal system. The translation “Comforter” was first used by Wycliffe and reflects the use of the verb form (parakale) in the Septuagint (i.e., 2Sa 10:4; 1Ch 19:3; Job 16:2; Psa 69:20;Ecc 4:1; Isa 35:4). It may be the antonym of Satan (the accuser).

Both Philo and Josephus used the word in the sense of “intercessor” or “advisor.”

SPECIAL TOPIC: JESUS AND THE SPIRIT

“that He may be with you forever” Three different prepositions are used in reference to the Holy Spirit.

1. “meta” (Joh 14:16), “with”

2. “para” (Joh 14:17), “by the side”

3. “en” (Joh 14:17), “in”

Notice the Holy Spirit is with us, by us, and within us. It is His job to manifest the life of Jesus in believers. He will stay with them until the end of the age (cf. Joh 14:18; Mat 28:20).

Notice the Spirit is called “He.” This implies the Spirit is personal. Often in KJV the Spirit is addressed by “it,” but this is because the term “spirit” in Greek is neuter (cf. Joh 14:17; Joh 14:26; Joh 15:26). He is the third person of the Trinity (see Special Topic at Joh 14:26). The term Trinity is not a biblical term, but if Jesus is divine and the Spirit is a person, then some kind of tri-unity is involved. God is one divine essence but three permanent, personal manifestations (see Special Topic at Joh 14:26, cf. Mat 3:16-17; Mat 28:19; Act 2:33-34; Rom 8:9-10; 1Co 12:4-6; 2Co 1:21-22; 2Co 13:14; Eph 1:3-14; Eph 2:18; Eph 4:4-6; Tit 3:4-6; 1Pe 1:2).

For “forever” see Special Topic at Joh 6:58.

Joh 14:17 “the Spirit of truth” “Truth” here has the same connotation as Joh 14:6 (cf. Joh 15:26; Joh 16:13; 1Jn 4:6). See Special Topic on Truth at Joh 6:55; Joh 17:3. He is the opposite of Satan, the father of lies (cf. Joh 8:44).

“whom” “This” is neuter to agree with the term “spirit” (pneuma). However, elsewhere in Greek a masculine pronoun is used (cf. Joh 14:26; Joh 15:26; Joh 16:7-8; Joh 16:13-14). The Holy Spirit is really not male or female; He is spirit. It is important to remember that He is also a distinct personality (see Special Topic at Joh 14:26).

“the world cannot receive” The Holy Spirit can only be appropriated by those who have faith in Christ (cf. Joh 1:10-12). He provides everything the believer needs (cf. Rom 8:1-11). The unbelieving world (kosmos see Special Topic below) cannot understand or appreciate spiritual things (cf. 1Co 2:14; 2Co 4:4).

SPECIAL TOPIC: PAUL’S USE OF KOSMOS (WORLD)

“know. . .know” This is probably another double entendre of John. The Hebrew connotation would be intimate, personal relationship (cf. Gen 4:1; Jer 1:5). The Greek connotation would be knowledge. The gospel is both personal and cognitive.

“He abides with you” Abiding is a key concept in John’s writings (i.e., chapter 15, see Special Topic at 1Jn 2:10). The Father abides in the Son, the Spirit abides in believers, and believers abide in the Son. This abiding is present tense, not an isolated decision or emotional response.

“and will be in you” This can be understood as “among you” (plural, cf. NRSV footnote) or “in you” (plural, cf. NASB, NKJV, NRSV, TEV & NJB). The indwelling of the believer by God is a wonderful promise. The NT asserts that all three Persons of the Trinity indwell believers.

1. Jesus (Mat 28:20; Joh 14:20; Joh 14:23; Joh 15:4-5; Rom 8:10; 2Co 13:5; Gal 2:20; Eph 3:17; Col 1:27)

2. Spirit (Joh 14:16-17; Rom 8:11; 1Co 3:16; 1Co 6:19; 2Ti 1:14)

3. Father (Joh 14:23; 2Co 6:16)

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

love. Greek. agapao. App-135., and see p. 1511. keep. Most of the texts read, “ye will keep”.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Joh 14:15-16. If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;

Is it not very sweet to think that the Spirit of God is given to the Church in answer to the prayer of Christ? Prayer is a holy exercise, for Jesus prayed; and what a powerful influence prayer has, for his prayer has brought to us another Comforter,

Joh 14:17. Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him:

This poor world will not receive anything which it cannot see. It is ruled by its senses; it is carnal and fleshly, and mindeth not the things that are unseen. It cannot discern them.

Joh 14:17-18. But ye know him, for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

That expression, I will not leave you comfortless, might be rendered, I will not leave you orphans.

Joh 14:19. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.

What a wealth of meaning these words contain! The sentences are very simple, but they are also sublime. The gorgeous language, in which some orators indulge, is, when the meaning of it is condensed, like great clouds of steam which produce but a few drops of water. But, here, you have vast baths pressed into a small compass, and those that seem most plain are really the most deep. Because I live, ye shall live also. As surely as Christ lives, so must his people. They cannot die, for he lives, to die no more, and they live in him.

Joh 14:20. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

Mysterious triple union, Christ in the Father, we in Christ, and Christ in us. This is a complete riddle to all who have never been taught of the Spirit of God.

Joh 14:21-22. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world ?

He did really answer the question, though perhaps not directly. This is the process by which he manifests himself unto his people, and not unto the world:

Joh 14:23-24. Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Fathers which sent me.

There is Divine authority at the back of every word uttered by the Man Christ Jesus. His message comes not from himself alone, but from the Eternal Father as well.

Joh 14:25-28. These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But 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. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.

And truly so he was, for Christ had, for a while, laid aside his own greatness, and taken the position of a servant.

Joh 14:29-30. And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe. Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.

His words must come to an end, for he vies going to perform his mightiest deeds. He could converse no longer, for he was going from converse to conflict. He must meet his great enemy now and leave his dearest friends.

Joh 14:31. But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence.

And so he went to the garden of Gethsemane, a brave, gentle, confident, victorious spirit, straitened till he had accomplished the great work of our redemption.

Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible

Joh 14:15. , if ye love Me) Immediately after faith, He exhorts them to love [Joh 14:21].

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Joh 14:15

Joh 14:15

If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments.-He gives here the fruit and test of their love to him. If they loved him as their Lord and Master, they would cherish and obey his commandments. This is the divine test of love. Love as God views it is practical and embodies the actions of the whole man. And the test and proof of love is the desire to do the will and seek the honor of the one whom we love. To do Gods will, to do it because it is the will of God, is Gods test. Let us apply it. [Christs own test of love was keeping the Fathers commandments.]

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even 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. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Fathers which sent me. These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But 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.

There is such richness and fullness in this particular section of Johns gospel that I hesitate to try to take it up in one address, and yet it is all so intimately linked together that I feel as though it would be doing violence to it if divided.

There are a number of things that require to be emphasized. First of all, we have the promise of the Comforter. That word Comforter is interesting. It is used to translate a Greek word, Parakletos, which is a compound word meaning one who comes to the side of another that is a helper in time of need. In 1Jn 2:1 we have advocate, which is exactly the same word in the original.

There is a sweetness and preciousness about that word Comforter that appeals to the heart. After all, we cannot use any other word in our language that would so adequately represent the Greek word, for the Paraclete is in very truth the Comforter. Our English word Comforter is also a compound. Comforter comes from two Latin words-con, and fortis, the one meaning to be in company with, and the other to strengthen, so that actually the Comforter is one who strengthens by companionship. That is one of the great ministries of the Holy Spirit. The Paraclete is one who comes to your side to help, to give aid, and so the word is properly used. An attorney-at-law, or an advocate, is one who comes to help you in your legal difficulties, and the Holy Spirit is all this. He has come from heaven, as promised by our blessed Lord, to assist us in every crisis, in every time of difficulty that may arise in our Christian lives-He strengthens by His companionship.

Let us notice how definitely the Lord Jesus points out, or insists upon, the personality of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. Consider the last part of verse 17: But ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. And again, the previous verse, And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever.

Our Lord would never have used this masculine pronoun if He did not mean us to understand that just as God the Father is a person, and God the Son is a person, so God the Holy Spirit is a person-three persons in one God. I emphasize this because I am afraid many real Christians, otherwise sound and orthodox enough, have very imperfect thoughts in regard to the Holy Spirit. So often we hear people speaking of the Holy Spirit as It, and it is perfectly true that in Romans 8 we read: The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God (v. 16). But that is because in Greek the word for Spirit is in the neuter, and, therefore, a neuter pronoun goes with it. But in conveying it exactly in English it might have been rendered: The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.

What the Lord Jesus teaches is that the Holy Spirit is not an impersonal influence, and above all, the Holy Spirit is not simply a wave of emotion pouring through the heart and mind of a man, but the Holy Spirit is a divine person. Just as God the Father sent the Son, and the Son had a certain ministry to perform for thirty-three wonderful years in this world, so now the Father and the Son have sent the Holy Spirit. He has been performing His ministry for something like nineteen hundred marvelous years, in which the gospel of the grace of God has been going out into all the world, working miracles and transforming the lives of men and women everywhere it has been received in faith.

Then, notice the dispensational distinction that the Lord makes here in regard to the Spirits ministry. He says, I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even 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 (v. 17).

Note that expression: He dwelleth with you. That was true all through the centuries before that wonderful day of Pentecost when the Spirit of God came down to form the church of the new dispensation and to indwell all believers. In all past centuries the Holy Spirit was working in the world and He dwelt with believers. The apostle Peter tells us how Noah preached by the Spirit while preparing the ark. The Holy Spirit was with the patriarchs in their particular dispensation. The Holy Spirit was with the people of God in the wilderness in the days of Moses, and all through the legal dispensation He was with the saints on earth. David prayed, Take not thy holy spirit from me (Psa 51:11)-a prayer very appropriate for the age and dispensation in which he lived, but not an appropriate prayer for Christians today, for Jesus said, When He is come He will abide with you for ever. But in the Old Testament dispensation the Holy Spirit came and abode upon people, wrought in and through them, and with them. He has been with you. That was true particularly when Jesus was here on earth because the Holy Spirit was given without measure to Him.

Now Jesus looks forward into the new age, the new dispensation, which was to begin at Pentecost, and He says, He shall be in you. And this is the glorious distinctive truth of the dispensation in which we live. The Holy Spirit in this age dwells in every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Upon your believing, ye were sealed with that holy spirit of promise (Eph 1:13). It can now be said, If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his (Rom 8:9). That does not mean that if any man have not the disposition of Christ he is none of His, but the apostle there is speaking of the person, the Holy Spirit. Therefore, in this age of grace we do not need to go to God and ask Him to give us the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit dwells within us. He has sealed us as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. What we do need, and need very much, is to recognize the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and allow Him to have His way in our hearts and lives that we may be filled with the Spirit and controlled by Him.

Then, notice that the Holy Spirit dwelling within makes Christ real to us. The Lord Jesus Christ was going away, but He said, I will not leave you comfortless [orphans]: I will come to you (Joh 14:18). He was coming Himself in the Spirit to dwell in the believer. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me (v. 19). They would see Him by faith. They would recognize His presence by faith. We are told that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith, and at that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you (v. 20).

Notice the intimate union of believers with the members of the Godhead-Ye in me, and I in you. As we walk in obedience to Him He says He will manifest Himself to us in a precious and wonderful way. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him (v. 21).

Judas, not Iscariot, but Judas the faithful apostle, did not understand this, and he inquired, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? (v. 22). Jesus replied, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him (v. 23). In other words, the obedient believer enjoys communion with the Father and the Son in the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings [that is, the disobedient one]: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Fathers which sent me (v. 24). Notice two things dwelt on here. I go back to verse 15: If ye love me, keep my commandments. Now verse 23 again: If a man love me, he will keep my words. What is the difference between keeping Christs commandments and keeping His words? Well, there are a great many things concerning which our Lord has spoken very definitely, either personally or by the Holy Spirit, a great many things in which He has revealed His will very clearly, showing us just exactly what He would have us do and how to live. Take, for instance, Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world For all that is in the world is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever (1Jn 2:15-17).

A Christian cannot go after the things of the world and love the world without going into the path of disobedience, because there is a very definite command concerning this from the Spirit of God. Or again: Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? (2Co 6:14). There you have a very distinct command of the Spirit of God.

Now Jesus says, If ye love me, keep my commandments. So as we search our Bibles, we see where the Lord has expressed His will, either personally, as in the Gospels, or by the Spirit, as in other parts of the New Testament, and the obedient believer gladly walks in accord with what is there written. When he gets a direct command from the Lord he says, It is not for me to argue nor to reason about it. As a Christian, for me it is to do what my Master tells me.

But the Lord Jesus goes even farther than this. If a man love me, he will keep my words. What does He mean by that? This is more than just keeping a direct commandment. I will try to illustrate. Here is a young girl whom we will call Mary, a loved daughter of a widowed mother. She is attending school, and the mother is considerate. She knows that Mary has a lot of heavy lessons and responsibilities, and so tries not to put upon her any more work at home than is necessary. But as a wise mother she realizes that her daughter should have certain duties to perform, so she says, Daughter, you can look after your own room and hang up your own clothes. (You know some daughters do not.) And I will expect you to do thus-and-so.

Mary loves her mother, so she obeys her. She is about to leave her room for school one morning and notices that things are in an untidy state. Mother says I must always make up my room before I leave. I may be late, but I shall have to fix up my room. She must keep her mothers command in order to be an obedient girl. So she tidies up her room and then runs off to school with a light heart.

One day Mary has her heart set on going out for a game of tennis in the afternoon as soon as she returns from school, so she hurries home. Entering the house she hears her mother talking to a neighbor and happens to hear her say, Oh, dear, I feel so badly. I have company coming this evening. Ive had such a sick headache all day and have the dinner all to prepare, and Im hardly able to do it. Then Mary says, What is it, Mother? You have the dinner to get, and youre not feeling well? Mother, you go and lie down. Ill peel the potatoes, put the meat on, and get everything ready. But mother says, You had planned to meet your friends and play tennis this afternoon. Dont let me keep you from it. But Mary answers, Why, Mother, I wouldnt be happy playing tennis knowing that you are sick with all this work to do. Its because you need me that I want to do this for you.

Do you see the difference? In the morning Mary kept her mothers commandment, now she is keeping her word. She realizes, from what her mother said, how glad she would be to have somebody help, and says, Its my privilege. I would rather help my mother than spend my time in pleasure. And so off comes the coat and on goes the apron, and Mary is in the kitchen keeping her mothers word.

With the Christian it is not always a matter of getting a definite command. He reads his Bible, and as he reads he sees that God has expressed His mind in such a way that the obedient Christian can discern what the will of the Lord is. So he is glad to keep His word and thus render devoted service.

The last thing I want to dwell on is found in verse 26. The blessed Holy Spirit is the power for all this, the revealer of Gods truth, and through Him the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. The Holy Spirit is now the teacher, for Jesus said, But 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.

That is His special ministry to the people of God as they go through this scene. It means far more to sit down over the Bible and have the Holy Spirit open up its precious truths, than to have some kind of an ecstatic thrill in an exciting meeting. There are many Christians who spend a lot of time looking for thrills. They think when they become excited or stirred up in a meeting that such an experience is a special manifestation of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The fact of the matter is that the great ministry of the Spirit is to take of the things of Christ and reveal them to us, to open up His truth, to make His holy Word clear and plain and real to our souls. The more we read this Word in dependence on the teaching of the Holy Spirit, the more it will be opened up to us and the more precious it will become.

Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets

The Giving of the Comforter

If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth: whom the world cannot receive; for it beholdeth him not, neither knoweth him; ye know him: for he abideth with you, and shall be in you.Joh 14:15-17.

1. There is no such profoundly moving scene in all history as this last evening of our Lord before His death. We need not, and we may not, add one touch to the simple narrative of St. John; in his words the scene stands out in its absolute simplicity. As we read these last chapters of his Gospel we seem to be admitted to the very scene itself; to the sorrow, the bewilderment, the helplessness of the Twelve; to the far-reaching Divine mind and infinite loveliness of the Master.

We stand before some great picture and strive to read the mind of the artist, and one of us will see one subtle meaning and another another; or we contemplate the many-sided aspect of nature, and each of us reads into it some reflex of his own mind; and so it is with a great historic scene like this; according to our spirituality, to our insight, and devotion, and purity, and truth, will be the lessons we shall draw from it. This Scripture is of no private interpretation; it is wider and larger than any of our little formulas in which we may try to bind it. It is the task of a life to interpret all that is involved in this farewell address of Christ.

2. The disciples were in something like a panic over the announcement made to them by Christ that He was going away. At the bare word the world seemed to become a blank for these men. All the sunshine of life seemed to suffer immediate and total eclipse. For Jesus was everything to them. In a sense they had nothing in the world but Jesus. He was more than their best friend. He was their all in all. For Him they had sacrificed fathers and mothers and home and friends and business and every earthly prospect. And now He was going! In response to His call they had embarked upon a new life. They had taken up their cross and followed Him. It was not an easy life; it was a hard life, a toilsome life, a sacrificial life. Already they had been called upon to suffer trial and persecution for His Names sake. But with Jesus at their side they had never faltered. With His presence to cheer and strengthen them, they had bravely held on their way. But now He was going. The whole edifice of their life seemed to fall crashing in ruins about their ears. And then to these panic-stricken disciples Jesus explained what His departure meant. He had been as God to them. In Him God had touched the very springs of their life and entered into their souls. His going did not mean that God would forsake them. If He went, they would not be left desolate; God would send them another Advocate, another Helper, who would be to them all that Jesus Himself had been and more; who would bring them just the same sense of Gods nearness and presence; who would inspire and help them just as effectively as Jesus Himself had done.

3. The subject, then, is the giving of the Comforter, and the passage divides itself easily into two parts:

I.On what Conditions the Comforter is given.

II.For what Purposes the Comforter is given.

I

On what Conditions the Comforter is given

There are two conditions expressly named that have to be fulfilled before the Comforter comes. The first condition is that the disciples must he obedient. If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments, and The other is that Jesus prays the Father to give them the Comforter: And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you. From these two conditions there flow two results: first, that the Comforter is a gifthe will give you another Comforter; and second, that He is given to the disciples who are obedient, and not to the disobedient world.

i. Obedience

If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments.

1. Before the promises there is a proviso. It is premised that there is a state of heart and a character of life to which they belong. As the works and the gifts of power were made dependent on faith and prayer, so the experiences now foretold presuppose the life of love and duty. This appropriation is laid down to begin with, and is insisted on more largely as the promises unfold.

The preferable reading, If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments, gives the future instead of the imperative of the Authorized Version, rather describing a process than imposing a condition; but the meaning is the samenamely, that these are promises which belong only to him who loves and obeys.1 [Note: T. D. Bernard, The Central Teaching of Jesus Christ, 159.]

2. In If ye love me we hear a confiding rather than a doubtful tone. The love is supposed, as elsewhere it is expressly recognized. But it proves true love only in one way, If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments; and again, He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. There is a voice of Divine authority in the phrase, my commandments. They claim obedience, but the obedience of love; and love will render it. Love is the spring of action, and is in its nature free; but it is not left to its own impulses; it acknowledges authority; it is placed under rule, and includes the element of obligation.

The connexion between love and commandment dwelt on the mind of St. John, and reappears more than once in his Epistle. It is not according to the tendencies of human nature, as we all know, and as St. Paul has set forth in the seventh chapter of his Epistle to the Romans in recording his experience of the law and its effects. It is, in fact, distinctive of Christian duty and of the morality of the Gospel. In Christ the claims of authority and the affections of the heart agree in one. Here, as ever, the teaching of Jesus fixes our minds on the practical side of religionon doing what we know, on living and walking by His words.2 [Note: Ibid.]

3. Obedience is the one test of sincerity, the one mode of retaining the warmth of love. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. The Bible says very little of what we call religion; but very much of God, and of Christ, and of love. Christ does not say, If ye love me, then ye will meet often to worship me; He does say, ye will keep my commandments; and the chief and summary of all the commandments are the love of God and the love of our neighbour. The true worship of God is obedience and love. It is an idolatrous notion that God is pleased with mere worship. Just as thousands of burnt-offerings and ten thousands of rivers of oil availed nothing without the love and obedience of the worshipper, so not all our gifts or our services are precious to Him except in so far as they are the offering of our love and obedience, and as they help us in our daily life.

God cannot, will not, does not, bless those who are living in disobedience. But only set out in the path of obedience, and at once, before one stone is laid upon another, God is eager, as it were, to pour out His blessing. From this day will I bless you.1 [Note: Hudson Taylors Sayings, 43.]

4. But do we not need the Spirit to make us obedient; do we not long for the Spirits power, just because we mourn so much the disobedience there still is, and desire to be otherwise? And yet Christ claims obedience as the condition of the Fathers giving and our receiving the Spirit. The answer is that Christ Jesus had come to prepare the way for the Spirits coming. Or rather, His outward coming in the flesh was the preparation for His inward coming in the Spirit to fulfil the promise of a Divine indwelling. The outward coming appealed to the soul, with its mind and feeling, and affected these. It was only as Christ in His outward coming was accepted, as He was loved and obeyed, that the inward and more intimate revelation would be given. Personal attachment to Jesus, the personal acceptance of Him as Lord and Master to love and obey, was the disciples preparation for the baptism of the Spirit.

It is as we prove our love to Jesus in a tender listening to the voice of conscience, and a faithful effort to keep His commands, that the heart will be prepared for the fulness of the Spirit. Our attainments may fall short of our aims, we may have to mourn that what we would we do notif the Master sees the whole-hearted surrender to His will, and the faithful obedience to what we already have of the leadings of His Spirit, we may be sure that the full gift will not be withheld.1 [Note: A. Murray, The Spirit of Christ, 72.]

ii. Prayer

And I will pray the Father.

1. There are two telephones across the abyss that separates the ascended Christ from us. One of them is contained in His words, If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it; the other is contained in these words, If ye keep my commandments, I will ask. Love on this side of the great cleft sets love on the other side of it in motion in a twofold fashion. If we ask, He does; if we do, He asks. His action is the answer to our prayers and His prayers are the answer to our obedient action.

2. I will ask seems a strange drop from the lofty claims with which we have become familiar in the earlier verses of this chapter. Believe in God, believe also in me; He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; If ye shall ask anything in my name I will do it; Keep my commandments. All these distinctly express, or necessarily imply, Divine nature, prerogatives, and authority. But here the voice that spake the perfect revelation of God, and gave utterance authoritatively to the perfect law of life, softens and lowers its tones in petition; and Jesus Christ joins the ranks of the suppliants. Now common sense tells us that apparently diverse views lying so close together in one continuous stream of speech cannot have seemed to the utterer of them to be contradictory; and there is no explanation which does justice to these two sides of Christs consciousnessthe one all Divine and authoritative and lofty, and the other all lowly and identifying Himself with petitioners and suppliants everywhereexcept the belief that He is God manifest in the flesh. The bare humanistic view which emphasizes such utterances as these does not know what to do with the other ones, and cannot manage to unite these two images into a stereoscopic solid. That is reserved for the faith which believes in the Manhood and in the Deity of our Lord and Saviour.

In all utterances of Jesus Christ which express the lowest humiliation and completest identification of Himself with humanity, there is ever present some touch of obscured glory, some all but suppressed flash of brightness which will not be wholly concealed. Note two things in this great utterance; one, Christs quiet assumption that all through the ages, and to-day, nineteen centuries after He died, He knows, at the moment of their being done, His servants deeds. Keep my commandments, and, knowing that you keep them, I will then and there pray for you. He claims in the lowly words an altogether supernatural, abnormal, Divine cognizance of all the acts of men down the ages and across the gulf between earth and heaven.1 [Note: A. Maclaren.]

3. Christs prayer is the expression of the eternal Will respecting those for whom He prays. There is no thought of the Son for man that is not the thought of the Father. There is no dissonance of feeling, no discordance of desire, no conflict of will. The promise that Christ will pray is the assurance that the thing He asks for will be given. It is the utterance of that which is in the heart of God.

We are not to think of Christs advocacy in heaven as if it were of the nature of supplication on our behalf. It is much more than that, although it is to be feared that the modern ideas which have usurped the ground which the word intercession covers have nearly evacuated the word of its fuller and more glorious signification. The word used by Christ in this very verse implies that His Personal mediation is an appeal of a higher kind than we understand by prayer. So, again, in Joh 17:9; Joh 17:15; Joh 17:20. And notice that this word is used by Him before His glorification. He never uses of Himself the word ask which He so often uses when He bids us pray. We have to ask in His Name, and the ground of our reliance when we so pray is His universal intervention for His Church, the result of His sacrificial appeal. He intervenes in heaven (Rom 8:34; Heb 7:25), personally, presenting His merits as our High Priest on behalf of all His members who come unto God through Him. The other Paraclete intervenes on earth (Rom 8:27), not by intermediate advocacy, but by the elevating power of Divine inspiration, lifting us up to speak with God our Father in the fulness of Christs merits, by the living fellowship wherein He unites us with Him.2 [Note: R. M. Benson, The Final Passover, ii. (pt. i.) 359.]

4. As our Saviour prayed to the Father for them, so now they would pray for themselves by the grace of the Advocate. Much of our Saviours work among men was teaching them to help themselves. He taught them to pray, not simply by putting a form of words into their mouths, but by leading them into the presence of the Father, by instructing and encouraging them to maintain a humble boldness in that presence, and by assuring them that their prayers offered in His name would have as much power as His own prayers offered by Himself.

The disciples seem to have made the mistake of thinking that they must always have His intercession to lean upon. They were thankful for it, but it was becoming a hindrance to their own devotions; as all help becomes a hindrance the moment it discourages personal effort instead of drawing it forth. The mothers finger is useful to the little child learning to walk, as long as it is needed to impart courage and give steadiness; but as soon as it tempts to idleness and thoughtlessness, it must be withdrawn. And so any religious help is good as long as our ignorance, or coldness, or want of faith requires a kind of external support, but that should only be preparatory to our walking, working, and praying by virtue of an inner impulse. Our Lord was the advocate outside His disciples, praying for them sometimes while they slept, reading their wants and interpreting them to God, doing for them what they must do for themselves if they are to become strong men. And the time for the withdrawal of His aid was at hand; and instead of it was to be substituted the advocacy of the Holy Ghost in their hearts; through His grace they would be enabled to plead for themselves as earnestly and successfully as Christ had done for them; which would be a clear spiritual gain. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it.

iii. The Gift

He will give.

1. The Father sent His Son into the world. He does not send His Spirit into the world, but He gives Him to the faithful.

The word giving is larger than the word sending. Although the latter is also used respecting the Holy Ghost whom the Father gives, yet the more adequate word is that which Jesus uses here. The mission would not imply any covenanted circle of recipients. A mission may be towards enemies. When we were enemies God sent His Son, that we might be reconciled by His death (Rom 5:10). The Son was not given to all mankind. He was sent to them. God sent His Son (Joh 8:16). God commissioned Him (1Jn 4:10). God sent His Son into the world. He gave Him not to the world, but for the world as a sacrifice (Joh 3:16). The Spirit is given to the faithful, to dwell in them. A gift implies a permanent bestowal. The Presence of the Holy Ghost with the Church is a permanent bestowal. He is not to be withdrawn. This is the gift of God, respecting which our Lord spoke to the woman of Samaria. Similarly our Lord says of His flesh, The bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world (Joh 6:51). This promised gift of Christs flesh is by the power of His Spirit. So the gift of the Spirit of life is prior and preparatory to the gift of the food of life.

2. The Spirit is the gift of the Father, because the Father is the Fountain of all Godhead. The Manhood of Christ is represented by our Lord as setting before the Father the necessities of the case, the human needs of His brethren, those whom the Father has given to Him. The Father, as the Source of all Divine life, gives the Spirit; not a created agency, but an essential communication of the indivisible Godhead which is in the Father. The gift of God must be worthy of God, and therefore cannot be less than God.

3. This gift had never yet been given. The Holy Ghost had indeed been sent from God to the prophets by whom He spoke, but He had not been given to the prophets. He was not given to any one previously; much less could there be any ministration of the Spirit by human agency in a covenanted society such as it would be when Christ was glorified as the Head of the Body, the Church. The Fathers gift would be a continuous presence pledged to that society which Christ had called out of the world.

Twice have I erred: a distant God

Was what I could not bear;

Sorrows and cares were at my side;

I longed to have Him there.

But God is never so far off

As even to be near;

He is within: our spirit is

The home He holds most dear.1 [Note: F. W. Faber.]

iv. The World

Whom the world cannot receive.

1. The world cannot receive the Spirit of truth, because it lives content with the superficial knowledge of things around. It does not contemplate God so as to gain a loving familiarity with Divine truth. Instead of looking at the phenomenal from the standpoint of Divine faith, so as to see in outward things the operation of Divine relationships, it is content with registering them as they appear to the outward senses. The contemplation of Gods moral government will go a long way towards solving many of the difficulties which we find in creation. If we refuse to accept that amount of Divine truth which has come down to us by the primitive traditions of our race, and has been developed by the teaching of prophets and the contemplations of the faithful in subsequent ages, we are not in a position to receive the Spirit of truth. Nature becomes to us what a geometrical figure would be to those who disregarded the elementary problems of geometry necessary for its elucidation.

If the movements of a planet can prove the existence of another planet by whose proximity it is affected, how much more ought the varied operations of nature to lead a thoughtful mind, which has a love of truth, to recognize the creative mind by which all the functions of the universe are regulated and maintained in unity! If, on the contrary, the interest which superficial occurrences excite becomes so absorbing as to make men give up the deeper devotional acknowledgment of that which is hidden, then they are rejecting the eternal truth, however assiduously they may seek to record and illustrate those data which constitute our scienceso shallow after all, although to us so seemingly profound. They unfit themselves for the reception of the Eternal Spirit of truth.1 [Note: R. M. Benson, The Final Passover, ii. (pt. i.) 368.]

2. The Lord does not say that the world cannot receive many good things, for it does receive them; nor does He say that it cannot appreciate them, for it is alive to their excellence. Many of the worlds people see and appreciate the beautiful; and beauty is a good, whether in nature, art, or literature. They see the value of honour and probity in all the affairs of the present life, and they denounce falsehood and overreaching; but they do not know the Holy Spirit. They have no consciousness of His working, for they are unyielding. There may be movements of the Spirit of truth towards something better in not a few of their minds, but they are resisted; the Spirit is not discerned or recognized; and thus neglected and insulted He withdraws.

I once stood far up on the Becca di Nona in Piedmont, the valley in which the old Roman city of Aosta lies being below, and on the other side, not far off, two great peaks of the mountains, part of the Alpine range. There were two clouds, about equal in size, floating and abiding above the two peaks, whose course I watched. The one cloud kept in a compact mass together, seemingly repelled by the hardness and non-receptivity of the granite peak beneath it. The other, after a little while, apparently drawn and attracted by its peak beneath, gradually opened out its fleecy beauties and gracefully descended, bathing the happy mountain peak in its exquisite softness and beauty. So, thought I, is it with the influences of the blessed Spirit. They are near us, ready to descend upon us in their sweetest blessings; but the world is as the granite peak which did not attract the cloud, while the humble, God-fearing soul does not repel, and the Divine Spirit descends and fills it with His grace.2 [Note: H. Wilkes, The Bright and Morning Star, 125.]

3. The two reasons which our Lord gives for the fact that the world does not receive the Spirit are (1) that the world beholds Him not, and (2) that it knows Him not.

(1) It beholdeth him not.This is the real secret of mens laughter at the idea of the existence of the Holy Ghostthey see Him not. Tell the worldling, I have the Holy Ghost within me. He says, I cannot see it. He wants it to be something tangible: a thing he can recognize with his senses.

Have you ever heard the argument used by a good old Christian against an infidel doctor? The doctor said there was no soul, and he asked, Did you ever see a soul? No, said the Christian. Did you ever hear a soul? No. Did you ever smell a soul? No. Did you ever taste a soul? No. Did you ever feel a soul? Yes, said the manI feel I have one within me. Well, said the doctor, there are four senses against one: you have only one on your side. Very well, said the Christian, Did you ever see a pain? No. Did you ever hear a pain? No. Did you ever smell a pain? No. Did you ever taste a pain? No. Did you ever feel a pain? Yes. And that is quite enough, I suppose, to prove there is a pain? Yes. So the worldling says there is no Holy Ghost because he cannot see Him. Well, but we feel Him. You say that is fanaticism, and that we never felt Him. Suppose you tell me that honey is bitter, I reply, No, I am sure you cannot have tasted it; taste it, and try. So with the Holy Ghost; if you did but feel His influence, you would no longer say there is no Holy Spirit, because you cannot see Him. Are there not many things, even in nature, which we cannot see? Did you ever see the wind? No; but you know there is wind, when you behold the hurricane tossing the waves about and rending down the habitations of men; or when in the soft evening zephyr it kisses the flowers, and makes dewdrops hang in pearly coronets around the rose. Did you ever see electricity? No; but you know there is such a thing, for it travels along the wires for thousands of miles, and carries our messages. So you must believe there is a Holy Ghost working in us, both to will and to do, even though He is beyond our senses.1 [Note: C. H. Spurgeon.]

(2) The other reason why worldly men do not receive the Holy Spirit is because they do not know Him. If they knew Him by heart-felt experience, and if they recognized His agency in the soul; if they had ever been touched by Him; if they had been made to tremble under a sense of sin; if they had had their hearts melted; they would never have doubted the existence of the Holy Ghost.

No explanation is of any value in matters which do not grow out of experience. Until a deaf man hears music, it is wasted breath to describe it, and there is no proof of colour to the blind. When Jesus spoke to the disciples the words recorded in the fourteenth chapter of John, He offered them truth for experience without explanation. He promised them manifestation of Himself. He knew that the one who should enter into this experience would never be perplexed by Divine reticence in explanation, or by the imperfection of human philosophy.1 [Note: M. D. Babcock, Thoughts for Every-Day Living, 17.]

II

For what Purposes the Comforter is given

The first purpose is to comfort. But as He is spoken of as the Spirit of truth, a special form of the comfort is the leading of the disciples into the truth. A third purpose is that He may abide for ever.

i. The Comforter

The true Christian has three Comforters, and each of them is Divine. God the Father is styled by St. Paul, in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation. God the Son, in the words of the text, speaks of Himself as one Comforter; and St. Paul tells us that our consolation or comfort aboundeth by Christ. God the Holy Ghost is specifically named by Jesus Christ in several instances as the Comforter, and His peculiar office as such is fully unfolded in the last discourse of our Lord to His disciples before His crucifixion. Thus each person of the ever-blessed Trinity is a Comforter, Divine in character, infinite in fulness, eternal in duration. There is, then, no true comfort or consolation that the heart can desire which may not be found in God the Father as the God of all comfort; in God the Son as the Paraclete with the Father; and in God the Holy Ghost as the Comforter who proceedeth from the Father and the Son.

1. The word Comforter.The word translated Comforter is found only in the writings of St. John. You look in vain for it in all other portions of Scripture. We have it four times in the Gospel according to St. John, as coming from the lips of Jesus. We find it once in the First Epistle of St. John (Joh 2:1). In the Gospel, where the word is used by Christ and is applied to the third person of the Trinity, it is translated Comforter; in the Epistle, where it is applied to Jesus, it is translated Advocate. In both instances the word is the same; it is the Divine Paraclete.

It was the custom in the ancient tribunals for the parties to appear in court attended by one or more of their most influential friends, who were called in Greek paracletes, in Latin advocatus. These paracletes, or advocates, gave their friendsnot from fee or reward, but from love and interestthe advantage of their personal presence and the aid of their judicious counsel. They thus advised them what to do, what to say, spoke for them, acted on their behalf, made the cause of their friends their cause, stood by them and for them in the trials, difficulties, and dangers of their situation. In this sense our Lord is said by St. John to be our Paracletewhere he says, We have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteousOne in heaven before God, who appears there on our behalf, patronizes our cause, urges our plea, ever living to make intercession for us.

While on earth, our Lord had counselled, advised, spoken for, and on behalf of, His disciples. They had looked to Him for aid, succour, comfort, truth, grace; and thus, ever at their side, He had been to them a Paraclete, or Advocate. He had most thoroughly identified Himself with them, had taught them to pray, to preach, to live, to work miracles, and the mysteries of the Kingdom. But He was now to leave them. His bodily form was to be removed. Yet, with a sweetness of compassion peculiarly touching, He says, I will not leave you comfortless, orphans, undefended, unadvocated, unsustained. It is expedient for you that I go away: and I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever.1 [Note: W. B. Stevens.]

Many are the emergencies of human life, and many are the forms of help which they require, and all are included in this great comprehensive name. If we wish to distinguish, we may range them in two divisions, the advocacy of our cause before others, the support of companionship to ourselves. When we think of the one office, we speak of an advocate; when of the other, of a comforter. But the same person will fulfil either office as need requires; and both are included in the word Paraclete. Therefore the choice of the English equivalent in any particular case may be dictated by the nature of the occasion and the general feeling of the situation. If so, the Revisers have done well in retaining the old rendering the Comforter in the four passages in which Paraclete here occurs, as they were plainly right in retaining that of Advocate in the only other passage where it is found (1Jn 2:1). The situation presented in the Gospel more naturally suggests the first rendering, while that contemplated in the Epistle certainly prescribes the second.1 [Note: T. D. Bernard.]

2. Another Comforter.The word another signifies that Jesus Himself was an advocate, helper, paraclete, comforter. But it does not mean that He was now to be superseded, or that, going out of sight, He was also to be out of mind. Scarred with wounds and enthroned as the Head of the Church, He was to be more in His peoples minds and hearts, better represented in their lives, than hitherto. Forlet us be clear about thisJesus, and He alone, is our life; it was He and He alone who bore our stripes and carried our death down into His grave, transfiguring our departure, with whatever distress and humiliation may attend it, into a promotion and home-going. He that hath the Son hath life. If we can say with a true and thankful heart, I am Thine own, O Christ; My beloved is mine, and I am his; To me to live is Christ,then we possess the everlasting Life, and will never see Death.

Although Jesus spoke of another Comforter, two facts are clearthe one, that He would continue, and more fully than ever, to be the life of the believing soul and the believing Church; and the other, that the Holy Spirit would be the vehicle of that life, uniting Christ and the soul, and so bringing it to pass that the Church should not so much mourn an absent Lord as rejoice in a present Spirit.

God forbid that our thoughts should for one moment be turned away from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself as the Incarnate Head of His ransomed Church. It is as His executive that the Holy Spirit acts, and in Him there is nothing approaching to either abdication or desertion. There is no such thing as abdication; for we are told that God hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church. Nor is there desertion, for in the self-same chapter in which He gives the promise of another Paraclete He gives also the promise of His own presence in the words, I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you (Joh 14:18); and in the assurance given to those that love Him, He says (Joh 14:23), My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. It may be asked, How is such language consistent with those other words of His, in which He said, It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you? But the answer is simple. As the localized incarnate Son of man, He is gone away, and is now where Stephen saw Him, at the right hand of God; but as the eternal Person of the undivided Trinity, He is omnipresent and ever acting; nor is it within the capacity of finite beings like ourselves to put any limit on His Divine action.1 [Note: E. Hoare, Great Principles of Divine Truth, 234.]

3. How does the Comforter comfort?We know by the fruits of His comfort. To the disciples everything about the working of that Divine Comforter was wrapt in mystery except the fruits. How He made His temple in man, how He imparted His light and His truth to His creatures, how He strengthened the vacillating, and spoke without words to the inward ear, and raised the fallen, and won back the wanderer, none could trace, none could know. The wind bloweth where it listeth: the ways of the Spirit are unsearchable. It is vain to imagine how that Heavenly Person associates Himself with our spirit, becomes to us the source of light and strength, and of the desire of good, making His work our work too, overshadowing, protecting, guarding our souls, giving us thoughts above our own thoughts, surprising us into an earnestness so unlike our common selves. Why should we expect to be conscious of His Presence? Why should we expect, such as we are, to recognize and discern clearly what is of God? But the effects of His Presence were soon recognized in the world, and have never ceased to be recognized since. They were seen in those two contrasted lists in the Epistle to the Galatians, of the works of the flesh and the fruits of the Spiritof what the moral world had been and was, without Him, and of that new phenomenon and substantial fact of character which had shown itself beyond denial since He had come.

(1) Let us take the word comfort first in its modern sense, a sense covered by the Greek word, though not its chief meaning. Then we may say that He comforts us in our sorrow, providing consolation and affording relief.

When I think over the troubles of which I have heard even this week, I know that this is a world that needs comfort. One boy of brilliant promise lies struck down by sudden illness in a nursing-home; another man in the prime of life, doing a brilliant work, has a sickness on him to-day which I fear will never leave him, or, if it leaves him, will take away all power of work. There are two young women lately married; one is a widow after eight months, and the other after three. Another woman has her child born dead. And as these sorrows roll on me, at the centre of this great dioceseand I rejoice that people should pour their troubles on to me, inadequate as I feel myself to help themI look up to heaven and I say, If there were not a Comforter sent from heaven, where should we be? And it was because our Saviour knew this that during that sad Holy Week, before He left, He made us this beautiful promise: 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. I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter besides Me, another Comforter who shall abide with you for ever; there shall be with you the Holy Ghost, the Comforter.1 [Note: Bishop A. F. W. Ingram, A Mission of the Spirit, 192.]

(2) But the Spirits function is not merely, or chiefly, to soothe sorrow and wipe away the tear. The word really does not suggest so much the quiet room as the battle-field. It is an energetic, forceful, militant word. It implies conflict and struggle, and for the conflict and the struggle the Spirit is a fortifierHe lifts men above fear; He reinforces them; He gives them triumph in battleand that is exactly what the Spirit proved to be to these first disciples.

We borrowed the term from a language, the makers of which set great store by these things. Only be thou strong and very courageous, was the Lords message to Joshua, the leader of the host of Israel. As I was with Moses, so will I be with thee. Confortare is the rendering of the first phrase in the Vulgate Version of the Old Testament, and in the Septuagint it reads literally, Be strong and play the man. In Isa 41:10 our noble Authorized Version gives us, Fear thou not, for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee. Confortare is once again the equivalent for this promise of strength. We observe, therefore, that the word which our fathers considered the best English equivalent of the Greek, Paraclete, is one with a history, in which sweetness and strength are united. There is a sympathy which enervates and a sympathy which braces, a love which weakens and a love which inspires. In our Lords promise of the Comforter it is Divine sympathy and love of the latter kind that are suggested.

Did not the Apostle pray on behalf of his Ephesian friends that they might be strengthened with might by Gods Spirit in the inner man? Did not our Lord give His disciples to expect that they should be endued with power from on high? Did He not associate this expectation with the promise of the Spirit? I think we may feel the idea of this strengthening to be an ingredient in the meaning of the word comfort as employed in the New Testament; as, for instance, when we are told that the Church in Juda, Galilee, Samaria, had rest, and, walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, was multiplied. And I should say this element of strengthening entered more or less into the meaning intended to be conveyed by the word comfort or Comforter in various places in our Prayer-Book: in the prayer at Confirmation, Strengthen them with the Holy Ghost the Comforter, and in the invitation, Draw near with faith, and take this holy Sacrament to your comfort. In truest comfort, in God-given comfortand of this the New Testament speaksthere is power; it may prove to be an essential element or condition of real power.1 [Note: J. W. Bishop, The Christian Year and the Christian Life, 247.]

Just over a century ago Robert Morrison set sail for China; it seemed a quixotic business. Do you think, said the captain of the ship in which he sailed, that you are going to convert China? No, replied Morrison, but I believe that God will.2 [Note: J. D. Jones, Things Most Surely Believed, 141.]

ii. The Spirit of Truth

1. Three times in these verses is the Spirit called the Spirit of truth. And, in the original, each time the title occurs, it is the Spirit of the truth. This must be taken to mean the truth which is in Jesus, the truth which is Christ Himself, which was incarnate in Him. For shortly before giving forth this promise of the Spirit He had proclaimed Himself to be the way, and the truth, and the life. I am the truth: the Spirit is the truth. He shall [both] teach you all things, and [more especially] bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you. He shall bear witness of me. He shall guide you into all the truth. He shall glorify me: for he shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you. The Spirit for whose coming, for whose replenishing or baptism, foretold by the Baptist, the disciples would have still a little while to wait, would make clear to them something of the meaning of Jesus earthly life, and of His teaching concerning God and man and duty, so that they might make it clear to others.

He is the Spirit of truth, not as if He brought new truth. To suppose that He does so, opens the door to all manner of fanaticism; but the truth, the revelation of which is all summed and finished in the Person and work of Jesus Christ, is the weapon by which the Divine Spirit works all His conquests, the staff on which He makes us lean and be strong. He is the Spirit by whom the truth passes into our personal possession, by no mere imperfect form of outward teaching, which is always confused and insufficient, but by the inward teaching that deals with our hearts and our spirits.

The method used by the Spirit of truth is not driving or forcing, but leading, guiding, by winning ways and by persistently pointing to the truth and commendingly interpreting it. When we gaze upon a picture we may for ourselves see much that is beautiful and attractive in its mode of exhibiting colour, form, and expression. But to understand the inner meaning of the picture and appreciate its main purpose and idea, we may need some skilled interpreter to open our eyes to its most vital and inherent excellencies. The Holy Spirit is such a guide to the Saviour and such an interpreter and revealer of the true grace and glory of Jesus Christ in His purpose and mission into this world.1 [Note: A. H. Drysdale, Christ Invisible our Gain, 186.]

2. Christ is the Truth. The Comforter, the Holy Ghost, is the Spirit of truth. He is the Spirit of truth in two ways. He is communicated from Jesus, who is the Truth, and He is the living power of the Triune Energy, by which Jesus Himself is the Truth. In Him the Son of God is begotten eternally as the Image of the Father. By Him the Son of God was conceived in the womb according to the fulness of the Divine purpose. The truth of Christs Godhead in the unity of the Holy Ghost necessitated the truth of His Manhood assumed by the power of the Holy Ghost.

3. The Spirit of truth, communicated to the Church, is the living Presence, in wisdom, power, and love, of that Divine energy which formed the worlds. They were formed for the habitation of God purposing to become incarnate. The Spirit of the Incarnate God fits the Church as the Body of Christ, to exercise dominion over all the creation which He has framed with a fitness for this final occupation. There is nothing superfluous, so as to be beyond the eventual purposes of God for His Church. There is nothing wanting, so that the Church of God, the Body of Christ, may feel within herself a Divine capacity for which the created universe gave no practical scope.

The truth of the creature is not separable from the truth of the Creator. Creation is true to itself, while it is true to the mind of the Creator. The first laws of creation are the impress of the Eternal Mind. If they were not so, they would be purely accidental and mutable. Doubtless there are harmonies in creation far deeper and grander than we can trace out. Harmonies of sight and sound, of number and weight, of mechanical power and chemical combination, of microscopic delicacy and astronomical magnificence, of universal distribution and temporal sequence, may be the objects of our guess-work at present, but at the best we can know them now only as one standing on the shore can know the waves whose ripple washes over the sand, all ignorant of the vast ocean far away. But all the universe is true, because the worlds of matter and spirit are the projection of the infinite intelligence of Him who is in His own true essence the law of beauty and truth to which all His creatures must be conformed.1 [Note: R. M. Benson, The Final Passover, ii. (pt. i.) 364.]

4. How does the Spirit of truth operate?

(1) He enlightens our mind that we may know Christ Jesus.He opens the eyes to the true meaning and aims of Christs words and work by furnishing insight into them, and enabling us to realize not only their true inwardness, but their vital importancegiving an attractiveness to them and a fascinating interest in them to our yearning and wondering heart and mind.

We can see the process of enlightenment going on in the New Testament. Take the one matter of the universality of the Kingdom. When Christ left the disciples, they were as narrow in their notions as any Jews in the land; they saw no place for Gentiles in the Kingdom: but see how gradually the Spirit led them to an understanding of Christs purpose. First of all, the Samaritans receive the word. Then, at the impulse of the Spirit, Philip preaches to the Ethiopian eunuch and baptizes him. Then, at the direct and imperious bidding of the Spirit, Peter goes to Cornelius, the Roman centurion, and baptizes him. And then, finally, the Spirit thrusts forth Barnabas and Saul into the work of evangelizing the world, and so the truth is gradually brought home to the disciples and Apostles that they shall come from the North and the South and the East and the West, and sit down in the Kingdom of God.

When Jesus says of this Spirit that he shall guide you into all truth, He does not mean that the Holy Ghost will guide us into natural truth, or scientific truth, or metaphysical truth; but into those great central truthsthe atoning death, the justifying righteousness of Jesus Christ; those poles on which turn as on an axle the whole round scheme of redemption and grace. As it was by this Spirit of truth that the prophecies concerning Christ were uttered which fill the Old Testament; as it was by the Spirit of truth that Jesus was conceived by the Virgin Mary; as it was by this Spirit of truth that He was anointed for His ministry after His baptism: so is it declared that His office is to take of the things of Christ and show them unto men.

Nor is it a new revelation which the Spirit gives, but rather a more perfect understanding of that which has already been given in Christ. Here, then, is the test by which to try all that claims the authority of spiritual truth. Does it glorify Christ? Does it lead us into a fuller knowledge of Him in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden? Whosoever goeth onward, says St. John, in a remarkable passage, for which English readers are indebted to the Revised Version, and abideth not in the teaching of Christ, hath not God. In other words, no true progress is possible except as we abide in Christ.

I sometimes sit at my study window on a bright morning, and combine with my work the pleasure of looking at my share of Gods beautiful world. It is a wonderful blend of landscape and marine, colour and form: trees and flowers in the foreground, dark roofs and tiled chimneys beyond, and behind all the grey and azure of the mighty sea. Not simply once, but many times, do I lift my eyes to it, yet the picture is always the same. Floating clouds overhead may modify the light and shadow, but they do not change the permanent features in the least. And yet I know the picture is not out there: it is within me; it is not the eye but the mind that sees. The effect of the landscape is being impressed upon my consciousness, by the light of dayitself invisible. And every ray of light contains the perfect picture. I may look up a thousand timesit will always be there, while the light can fall upon the eye. And you may come with me and view the same picture. If you have eyes to see you shall have the perfect picture too. And a million persons may, if they choose, stand and gaze. The whole scene is theirs, as much as yours or mine. There is but one scene and one sun, but every ray of the energies of the latter reveals the whole of the former to every eye that is turned upon it. So it is with the work of the Divine Spirit, the other Paraclete. He reveals the Christ to those who seek Him, writes His name, and forms His likeness within the human soul. The living Christ, the indwelling Christ, becomes a rich personal spiritual experience in the power of the Holy Ghost.1 [Note: R. J. Campbell.]

(2) He encourages us to appropriate Christ.We feel entitled, without being chargeable with any vain confidence, to appropriate and apply to ourselves such words of personal conviction as, The Lord is my Shepherd, Thou knowest that I love thee, or, I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him. The very sting of death is extracted, and its terrors no longer keep the soul in thrall. So the dying saint, falling back at last as at first into the arms of a glorified Redeemer, breathes out his soul in fidelity, meekness, and hope, saying in fearless triumph, Into thy hands I commend my spirit.

The immortal Bengel died in 1752. One of his friends was travelling, and spent all night at Bengels house. The great commentator was very busy with his Bible, and worked till nearly midnight. But the friend still waited. He knew the rich Christian character of the scholar, and wished to hear his evening prayer. At length the books were put on one side; Bengel arose, and knelt down beside his chair. He had been studying the words of Christ, and he knew that the blessed Master was near him all the time. So now there was no lengthened agony of supplication. Sweetly and simply the words of the scholar rose to heaven, Lord Jesus, things are just the same between us, and then he laid himself down to rest. Perfect peace! perfect confidence! For he had appropriated Christ as his personal Saviour, and he knew Christ was his.1 [Note: J. A. Clapperton, Culture of the Christian Heart, 36.]

(3) He enables us to overcome sin and grow in true holiness.Our Lord prays, Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. Men of science have at length discovered what is the character of the world so far as it consists of animated things. It is a struggle for existence; it is the survival of the fittest. So it is with the Christian life. The old man conquered, but not thoroughly subdued, contends with the new life which has been superinduced. It is a contest between the lower principles of mans nature and the higher, quickened and sanctified by the Spirit of God. It is a struggle between the animal man and the spiritual man; between pleasure and duty; between selfishness and benevolence; between appetite and conscience; between lust and reason; between love of ease and zeal for good; between cowardice and courage; between deceit and candour; between selfishness and love; between the fear of man and the fear of God; between earth and heaven. But they that be with us are far stronger than they that can be against us. The believer is not perfect in this world, but he is going on towards perfection in obedience to the command, Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.

The connexion between justification and sanctification is not merely human gratitude for Divine grace as the motive of a new life; it is not only a conscious personal communion with a Divine Saviour and Lord, a communion that must be potent in conforming man to His moral perfection; but it is a habitation and operation in man of God by His Spirit, the very life of God become the life of Man 1:2 [Note: A. E. Garvie, Studies of Paul and his Gospel, 190.]

(4) He gives strength for witness and for service.The Holy Spirit who comes to give fulness to the work of Jesus must communicate new power proportionate to the new revelation. The new kingdom is to be marked by profounder spiritual life, by a clearer vision of eternal things, by a more vivid consciousness of sin, by mightier energies of holiness, by a diviner dynamic of spiritual love. In the might of inward spiritual force men and women are to occupy the heavenly places with Christ. To this end they must be endued with new power, with a vaster momentum of spiritual energy.

There need be no hesitation in affirming that the communication of inward spiritual power is the fundamental office of the Holy Spirit of the New Covenant. It is through this new influx of spiritual power that the new illumination is given. The spiritual man judgeth all things, but he himself is judged of no man. At Pentecost and throughout the records of the Apostolic Church, the ministry of the Holy Spirit is fundamentally the giving of holy power. The keynote of the Spirits presence is given by our Saviour in such words as these: Tarry ye in the city, until ye be clothed with power from on high. But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Ghost is come upon you. This is the new spiritual power demanded by the new revelation. For, in view of the reception of this power, the Lord continued: And ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Juda and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

Ye shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming on you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me. The copula links together the power and the witness-bearing. Few facts of history are more convincing, as to the need of the Holy Ghosts power for Christian service, than that these first disciples, who had lived in our Lords immediate society for three years and more, were yet not equipped by that long intimacy of fellowship and observation for the great task which He intended them to carry out. No. They had to tarry in the city of Jerusalem till they had been endued with power from on high; until they had received Him who was designated by the great title: the promise of the Father. From this we may learn that a distinct gift, other than personal knowledge of Christ, and experience of His wonderful ways, confidence in His grace and power, remembrance of His words and works, and much besides, which these men possessed, is needed if we are to bear an effective witness for our loved and trusted Master.1 [Note: R. C. Joynt, Liturgy and Life, 208.]

iii. The Abiding

1. The Comforter is to abide with us for ever. He is the instrument whereby the glory of Christ is communicated to His members, and so His Presence with the Church is coextensive in duration with the glory of Christ the Head. The ministry of humiliation was to cease. The ministry of righteousness was to be an eternal glory.

2. The Presence, the ever-continued assistance of the Holy Ghost, unearthly as it is, is yet a thing of the immediate presentof the present shaping and improvement of life, of present growth in depth and reality, and elevation of character. If ever we rise above what is of the earth, earthy; above what is of time, transitory; above what is of this world, fugitive, unsatisfying, corruptibleit is to Him that we shall owe it.

3. Two phrases, significant in variety, are used to describe the relation of the Spirit of truth to believers. First, that relation is spoken of as a FellowshipHe abideth with you; and next, it is represented as an Indwellingand shall be in you.

Webster once said: The greatest thought that ever entered my mind was that of my personal responsibility to a personal God. A great thought truly, and yet a greater is beneath it: my personal relation to a personal God.1 [Note: Bishop A. Pearson, The Claims of the Faith, 24.]

(1) Fellowship.He abideth with you. While Jesus was with His disciples below, the Holy Ghost dwelt with them in His person. They saw in Him the presence of the Divine Spirit. His mighty works, His wonderful words, His perfect holiness and charity and self-denial and truth, all these things, daily witnessed by them and profoundly reverenced, were results of the Spirit given to Him not by measure. Though He was very God, yet He acted below within the limits (as it were) of a perfectly inspired humanity. It was of the essence of His humiliation, that He lived and acted, spoke and wrought, during His earthly sojourn, as though He were only a Man full of the Holy Ghost. Thus, when He dwelt with them, the Holy Spirit dwelt with them; dwelt with them in a sense and with a fulness never realized in the case of any others. And the Spirit who was in Jesus kept them also in the truth by virtue of a controlling influence put forth upon them from Him. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name.

This fellowship of the Spirit is ours also. The Comforter dwells with us in Church ordinances. Every time that we meet for worship there is a coexistence with us of the Holy Ghost. And He dwells with us in the haunts of common life. He dwells with us in Christian lives; in the daily sight and hearing of the conduct and language, of the acts and the words, of true Christian people

(2) Indwelling.And shall be in you. It would be esteemed a rare privilege to have a great and truly noble person dwell with us, a Paul, a Chrysostom, an Augustine; to have such an one as our perpetual monitor, and adviser, and exemplar; to have him show us how to act, how to speak, how to live; to have the benefit of his oversight, his wisdom, his favour. But then the person thus favoured might never fully copy the devotion of an Augustine, the eloquence of a Chrysostom, or the holiness of a Paul. How different, however, would the case be if there were a process by which the spirit of those great men, in its wholeness could be infused into the minds and hearts of others, so that instead of dwelling with an Augustine, Augustine should by his spirit dwell in them; instead of living with a Chrysostom, Chrysostom should live his life in them; instead of copying a Paul beside us, Paul should dwell in us as the abiding spirit. What a difference there would be! The indwelling spirit of an Augustine would make a second Augustine; the infused spirit of a Chrysostom would make another golden-mouthed preacher; and a Paul living in us would reproduce the spirit and the deeds of the great Apostle in our own life and work. The Comforter, as the Spirit of truth, not only dwells with us as a guest, but dwells in us as the inner controlling, shaping, enlightening, sanctifying Spirit, evolving out of Himself through the functions and faculties of our being, the fruits and graces of a holy life, and the beautiful character of a true Christian.

The artist who paints a picture, or chisels a statue, impresses a certain amount of his own genius on flat canvas or cold marble. It is not a beauty developed from within, working outward; but something put upon the passive canvas or marble, by an outside process that never goes beneath the surface, never imparts life within. But the artist power of the Holy Ghost is seen in that, taking up His abode in the heart, He renews and sanctifies that heart, and the outward life is but the development of the inward grace.1 [Note: W. B. Stevens.]

To all the world mine eyes are blind;

Their drop serene isnight,

With stores of snow piled up the wind

An awful airy height.

And yet tis but a mote in the eye:

The simple faithful stars

Beyond are shining, careless high,

Nor heed our storms and jars.

And when oer storm and jar I climb

Beyond lifes atmosphere,

I shall behold the lord of time

And spaceof world and year.

Oh vain, far quest!not thus my heart

Shall ever find its goal!

I turn me homeand there thou art,

My Father, in my soul!2 [Note: George MacDonald.]

The Old Testament is full of the thought of the presence of God with His people. With very few exceptionswhich are found chiefly in the Psalmsit is always with. My presence shall go with thee. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee. This thoughtand it is a very grand and comforting onecharacterizes the whole of the ancient dispensation. Neither is it forgotten in the New. Lo! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. But the new and determining feature of the Second Testament is the in, the in you. I am in you. Christ in you. The Holy Ghost which is in you. God is in you of a truth. I will dwell in them, and walk in them.3 [Note: James Vaughan.]

The Giving of the Comforter

Literature

Aitken (J.), The Abiding Law, 11.

Benson (R. M.), The Final Passover, ii. (pt. i.) 353.

Bernard (T. D.), The Central Teaching of Jesus Christ, 157.

Bishop (J.), The Christian Year in Relation to the Christian Life, 243.

Bourdillon (F.), Short Sermons, 189.

Brown (J. B.), The Divine Mystery of Peace, 65.

Butler (W. J.), Sermons for Working Men, 289.

Church (R. W.), Cathedral and University Sermons, 182.

Dick (G. H.), The Yoke and the Anointing, 160.

Drysdale (A. H.), Christ Invisible our Gain, 175.

Hoare (E.), Great Principles of Divine Truth, 218.

Ingram (A. F. W.), A Mission of the Spirit, 190.

Jackson (G.), The Teaching of Jesus, 65.

Jerdan (C.), For the Lambs of the Flock, 346.

Jones (J. D.), Things most surely believed, 126.

Joynt (R. C.), Liturgy and Life, 204.

McCosh (J.), Gospel Sermons, 150.

Maclaren (A.), Expositions: John ix.xiv., 320.

Murray (A.), The Spirit of Christ, 60.

Pearson (A.), The Claims of the Faith, 14.

Russell (A.), The Light that lighteth Every Man, 138.

Smellie (A.), In the Secret Place, 339.

Spurgeon (C. H.), New Park Street Pulpit, i. 4.

Stevens (W. B.), Sermons, 28.

Thomas (J.), The Mysteries of Grace, 192.

Vaughan (C. J.), Doncaster Sermons, 463.

Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), New Ser. xiii. No. 1005.

Wilson (J. M.), Sermons preached at Clifton College Chapel, i. 165.

Christian World Pulpit, ix. 332 (W. Roberts); lxi. 294 (R. J. Campbell).

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

Joh 14:21-24, Joh 8:42, Joh 15:10-14, Joh 21:15-17, Mat 10:37, Mat 25:34-40, 1Co 16:22, 2Co 5:14, 2Co 5:15, 2Co 8:8, 2Co 8:9, Gal 5:6, Eph 3:16-18, Eph 6:24, Phi 1:20-23, Phi 3:7-11, 1Pe 1:8, 1Jo 2:3-5, 1Jo 4:19, 1Jo 4:20, 1Jo 5:2, 1Jo 5:3

Reciprocal: Exo 20:6 – love me Lev 18:26 – keep Deu 4:40 – keep Deu 5:10 – love me Deu 7:11 – General Deu 26:16 – keep Jos 22:5 – love Jdg 16:15 – when thine 1Ki 3:3 – walking 2Ki 18:6 – kept Psa 119:4 – General Pro 19:16 – keepeth the Mat 7:24 – whosoever Luk 6:47 – doeth Luk 8:15 – keep Joh 12:26 – serve Joh 14:23 – If Joh 14:24 – that Joh 15:14 – my Joh 21:17 – Feed 2Co 13:14 – the communion 1Th 1:3 – and labour 2Jo 1:6 – this is love Rev 22:14 – Blessed

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

THE MISSION OF THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH

If ye love Me, ye will keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth.

Joh 14:15-17 (R.V.)

It is very important to consider what the Spirit of truth is said to do for us. He does much more than give us fresh knowledge. He gives us knowledge indeed, but it is knowledge which none else can give, knowledge which has a Divine power in it. If we look at the three passages where the name occurs, one in each of these three chapters (Joh 14:17; Joh 15:26; Joh 16:13), and at the words which follow in close connection with them, we shall see that the office of the Paraclete stands out in three distinct and ascending degrees of energy.

I. He looks towards the past.He reveals the truth by heightening the memory of what our Saviour has told us. He will bring Him back to us. I will not leave you desolate (says our Lord, Joh 14:18): I come unto youand not alone. For He says further, If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him (Joh 14:23), and then The Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance ( ) all that I said unto you (Joh 14:26). The coming, then, of the Father and the Son, through the image of Christ formed in the soul, is thus described as the work of the Holy Spirit. It is not, of course, a mere memory, but it is a work of the Holy Spirit using human memory.

II. The work of the Spirit of truth is to help us to bear witness to Christ before the world in our present struggles. 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 bear witness of Me; and ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with Me from the beginning (Joh 15:26-27). And this is expressed in more detail, And He, when He is come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment (Joh 16:8), a hard and sad and yet glorious task.

III. The same Spirit will be the leader and guide of the Church in all future changes (Joh 16:12-13).Thus the sphere of this Holy Spirit is that of a Divine and eternal being. Past, present, and future are one to Him. The mystical Christ-like life inside the soul, the courage that faces the world with an unwelcome message, the far-seeing wisdom that decides what is right in fresh emergenciesall three are equally His province and His gift. We do well to put all these attributes of the Spirit of truth together into one picture, that we may realise how glorious the vision is, how full the consolation.

Bishop John Wordsworth.

(SECOND OUTLINE)

ANOTHER COMFORTER

Refer to the personal character of the Holy Spirits work.

I. It is wrought by a Divine Person entering and dwelling within the human.The word enthusiasm is etymologically a being possessed by God. Among the old Greeks it rose, and behind it was the notion that a Divine power may be expected to manifest itself in some strange transport or frenzy, in which the spirit of man becomes intensely self-assertive, and pushes its lordly sway over the lower parts of his being to the bounds of sobrietya travesty of a true thing. The spirit of man is quickened by the advent of the Spirit of God. Before that advent, man has his blind side, his deaf side, his insentient side, his inarticulate side. The better half of the souls avenues are blocked. Its eye hath not seen, nor its ear heard, neither has entered into it to conceive the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them to it by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.

II. Personal relation to a personal God.Responsibilities based upon an intimate relationship, who does not recognise as more sacred, more importunate, than those which render amenable to the will of a stranger? Apart from relationship, all responsibility is, and must be, the ethical offspring of coercion: noble, worthy coercion it may be, involving the highest appeals to the reasoning faculty of the ruled; but still coercion. But what true father, husband, brother, son, thinks of coercion in connection with the recognition of the hallowed responsibilities bound up with these relationships? Love knows no coercion; and God the Holy Ghost is Love.

III. The paramount question of our personal standing with God is only too perilously obscured to-day by the facile patronage accorded by the world to Church life and work. That there is no matter for thankfulness that the religious topic is touched so widely in the press and in society, we are far from asserting. But in a day when religious questions of all sorts are in the air, and to take them up and discuss them involves nothing of the Cross and its stigmata, the overwhelmingly momentous question of ones own hold upon the deep experimental verities of personal religion is only too apt to be met with the presumption that all is well. Much is heard now of the corporate life of the Church, of her historic continuity. But the body is not the soul; and it is, alas! only too possible to be ecclesiastically alive and spiritually dead.

Bishop Alfred Pearson.

Illustration

What is the life which the Spirit gives, with which He works? I listen, and I hear another voice, which is yet as if also His, and it says, I am the Lifethe Life eternal is in the SonHe that hath the Son hath the Life. I read these words, and I see in them a remembrance that what the Spirit does in His free and all-powerful work in the soul, which He quickens into second life, is, above all things, to bring it into contact with the Son. He grafts it, He embodies it into the Son. He deals so with it, that there is a continuity, wholly spiritual indeed, but none the less most real, unfigurative, and efficacious, between the Head and the limb, between the branch and the Root. He effects an influx into the regenerate man of the blessed virtues of the nature of the Second Adam, an infusion of the exalted life of Jesus Christ, through an open duct, living and Divine, into the man who is born again into Him, the incarnate and glorified Son of God.

(THIRD OUTLINE)

GROUNDS OF COMFORT

I will pray the Father. Hence it is plain that the gift of the Holy Spirit is the fruit of the prayers of Jesus Christ. But whom does the Holy Ghost comfort? Not the world, but the children of God.

How does the Holy Ghost comfort?

I. By revealing Christ.He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you. (Joh 16:14). The Blessed Spirit brings to remembrance the words of Jesus. He unveils the glory of the Redeemer, His atoning blood, His justifying righteousness, His all-sufficient grace, His perpetual intercession, and His glory in store.

II. By shedding the love of God abroad in our hearts (Rom 5:5).He makes us feel that the Father Himself loves us; and He humbles and melts us with a sense of that love Divine, all love excelling, which spared not His own Son.

III. By helping us to pray (Rom 8:26).When we are cold and dead He leads us to the place where grace abounds, and out of weakness we are made strong.

IV. By witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God (Rom 8:16). He bids us Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God (1Jn 3:1). Well, indeed, in the Te Deum, do we sing the praise of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter!

The great need for the whole Church of Christ is a fresh baptism of the Holy Spirit. If He comes to us with Pentecostal blessing, He will burn up all selfishness and meanness, He will take away all malice and uncharitableness, He will nerve the weak and timid with strength and grace, and He will bless us with the sweetest peace of the risen Saviour.

Rev. F. Harper.

Illustration

We are accustomed to live by sight and sense so much that we find it hard to bring to us that which we do not see, and that which we cannot comprehend. We are afraid of it, afraid of confounding it with unreality. The Incarnate Son we can in a measure comprehend; He meant us to do so, that we might receive Him with our hearts and affections. But the Blessed Comforter we only know by what our Blessed Master has told us. He opens His hand, and fills all the world with plenty. We are only too apt to forget what He does, because we are unable to comprehend what He is. Think how, from first to last, in all we read of the New Dispensation, the Presence of the Holy Ghost is associated with the Incarnation, Nativity, Death, and Resurrection. He is the subject of the last great closing discourse of our Blessed Lord. Think how St. Paul startles us, in what he takes for granted as an argument, Know ye not that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost? If we forget Him we do not think as men thought who wrote the New Testament.

(FOURTH OUTLINE)

COMFORTER, ADVOCATE, GUIDE

The Holy Ghost is a Comforter. As I look round the world I say that if He did not comfort He would have left undone a much-needed work. If there were not a Comforter sent from heaven, where should we be? And it was because our Saviour knew this that before He left He made us this beautiful promise.

I. The Comforter.I do not believe it is meant by God for a single soul to leave this church uncomforted. It is not a question of merely coming here to hear a sermon. That is not at all the idea. Religion is absolutely hopeless if that is all it is; but I believe that God has brought you here that not a single soul may go away uncomforted. I speak therefore

(a) To those who are bearing some heavy trouble. There is only one Person in the world Who can comfort you, and that is the Comforter. Have you asked the Comforter to comfort you? Perhaps you are trying to kill your grief by distracting yourself with amusement or, as some have tried, to drown it in drink, or as others have tried, to hide it under an unreal merriment. All these are bad ways. There is One sent from heaven Who has never gone back, Who, indeed, as a matter of fact, dwells within you on purpose to comfort you.

(b) To those who are feeling the far more bitter sorrow of sin. There is a sting about sorrow for sin which there is not about sorrow for loss. The sting of death is sin. How does the Holy Ghost comfort the sinner? There is only one Atonement ever made which avails for the sin of the world, and that is the Atonement made by Jesus Christ Himself.

(c) To those who are possessed by an awful sense of loneliness. What they want is a Comforter; they want Someone Who will cry Abba, Father in their hearts; Someone Who will give them a perpetual sense of the protecting care of God, and surround them with an atmosphere of Gods Presence. The Holy Ghost cries Abba, Father, in thine ears. He gives them a glorious sense of being protected in the everlasting arms, and in that sense He comforts them, and nerves them, and embraces them to stand firm and hold out.

II. The Paraclete.With a world that wanted comfort it was an inspiration that the word should be translated Comforter first. But yet when we look into it and compare the passages togther, there is another translation which is more correct even than Comforter, and that is Paraclete or Advocate: called to our side to help; that is what the word means.

(a) Difficulties. I may be speaking to some who are very much troubled how to get across that difficulty which faces themwho cannot see their way through difficulties at the office, or who have home cares or difficulties in making both ends meet, or how to bring up their children. Now what I want you to dobecause this is a different kind of troubleis, I want you to call the Comforter, the Paraclete, to your side to help you. He loves to do it. He loves to come, and see you throughnot only to-day, but every day.

(b) Tangles. What tangles there are in peoples lives! The life, as it were, is tied up into knots; and no one can see where the mistakes are. That poor girl or boy cannot see where it is wrong. It is what the Paraclete, what the Comforter loves to do. And He sometimes uses men and women to do it. When St. Paul was in a tangle the Holy Spirit sent Ananias to help him, and he was to receive what he was to do through Ananias. And so it may be through some man, some woman, or some friend you trust; it is wonderful how He uses people.

III. The Guide.The Comforter, the Paraclete, undertakes for us the whole journey of life. Those who need comfort in the journey of life need not have the slightest worry or trouble if they really leave it to Him. He guides them through this change, through that difficulty; and when it comes to death, He sees us through that too. There are some who are worrying about the journey of life and are anxious about it, but I do believe it is because you have not put your lives entirely into the keeping of the Comforter. Call Him to your side to help. Do not worry whether you are to be poor or rich, to live a long or a short time on earth; but leave it to the Comforter, and you will have peace for the first time in your life, an absolute freedom from anxiety and worry, because you are in the shelter of a greater power than your own.

Bishop A. F. Winnington-Ingram.

Illustrations

In Gordons Quiet Talks on Power there are two illustrations which illustrate well these points. They are illustrations of what it means by a Paraclete or Advocate. He first pictures a very familiar scene. A little child is trying to cross one of our crowded London crossings, and there, as the poor little thing tries to get across, the great omnibuses, cabs, and motor-cars pass; the poor little child begins to think she will never get across. The tears begin to come in her eyes, when the greator what seems to her greatpoliceman in charge of the crossing calls to her, Do you want to go across, dear? Yes, she says; and when she looks up to the great strong man who puts his hand up to stop the traffic and draws her safely across in his protecting care, he is her Paraclete; he is her Advocate. She called him to her side to help because he was strong enough and had authority enough to help her through the trouble that was too great for her. Then he takes the illustration of a boy at school worried over his sum, who cannot make it come right. He wrinkles his brow, and the poor little brain gets hot. But the kind schoolmistress sees his difficulty; she sits down by his side and looks through his sum, and kindly tells him This is where you went wrong. The little brow becomes smooth, and then he goes on and gets the answer right. She does not do the sum for him; she shows him where he has gone wrong. She is his Paraclete.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

5

This verse words the sentence in the form of a request or requirement. Verse 23 makes it more conclusive; places the keeping of the words of Jesus as proof that the apostles loved him.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Joh 14:15. If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments. An abiding communion between the glorified Redeemer and His disciples on earth has been spoken of as established,a communion, as we have already seen, not to be broken by the going away of Jesus to the Father. The object of the present verse (which is no interruption of the discourse by a direct precept) is to point out the condition by which alone this communion can be preserved and its greatest blessing, the presence of the Advocate, enjoyedlove. This love, too, consists in a loving self-surrender of ourselves to the sole object of glorifying the Father, analogous to the loving self-surrender of Jesus; for my commandments are not merely commandments which He gives, but which He has Himself first received and made His own (comp. Joh 14:27).

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

In these words our Saviour implicitly reproves his disciples for their fond way of expressing their love to him, by doating upon his bodily presence, and sorrowing immoderately for his absence and he expressly warns them to evidence their love to him by their obedience to his commands; If ye love me, keep my commandments.

Where observe, Christ requires an obedient love, and loving obedience.

Love without obedience is but dissimulation: obedience without love is but drudgery and slavery. Such a love as produces obedience, must be a dutiful love; a love of reverence and honour to him as a commander, and an operative and working love, a labour of love, as the apostle calls it; Not waiters, but workers, are the best servants in Christ’s esteem.

And such an obedience as is the product of love, will be a willing, easy, and cheerful obedience a pleasing and an acceptable obedience, a constant and abiding obedience; all other motives without love are servile and base, and beget in us the drudgery of a slave, but not the duty of a son: He that fears God only, is afraid of smarting: but he that loves God, is afraid of offending.

Learn hence, That the best and surest evidence we can have of our love to the Lord Jesus Christ, is an humble, cheerful, universal, and perservering obedience, to his commands: Keep my commandments: that is, endeavour it without reserve; for though we cannot keep the commandments to a just satisfaction, yet we may perform them to a gracious acceptation.

And the word My, my commandments, is a sweetening and alleviating word. Moses’s law, an unsupportable load, but Christ’s law an easy burthen. The law from Sinai, dreadful; the law from Sion, gracious; it pardons weakness, and accepts sincerity.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Joh 14:15-17. If ye love me As ye profess to do, keep my commandments For that will be a surer test and more acceptable expression of your regard for me than all your trouble and concern at parting with me. Keeping Christs commandments is evidently here put for the practice of godliness in general, and for the faithful and diligent discharge of their office as apostles in particular. And I will pray the Father Here we see, that he required a steady obedience to his commands, as the condition on which their prayers would be heard; (see Joh 15:7; 1Jn 3:22;) and assured them, on their complying with that condition, he would send them another comforter, advocate, monitor, encourager, or intercessor, as the word may be properly rendered; another For Christ himself was one: that he may abide with you for ever

With you and your followers in faith, unto the end of the world; to supply the want of my bodily presence. Even the Spirit of truth Who has, reveals, testifies, and defends the truth, and whose office it is to guide my disciples into every branch of divine and sacred truth. Whom the world Carnal and worldly people, who do not love or fear God; cannot receive Except in the way of repentance and faith, in which way they will not be persuaded to walk; because it seeth him not Having no spiritual senses, no internal eye, to discern the nature, necessity, or utility of his influences; nor consequently knoweth him. But ye know him Namely, in some measure, even now, by his powerful operation in you and by you; for he dwelleth Greek, , abideth; with you In part, helping your infirmities, awakening your minds to a sense of the certainty and importance of things spiritual and eternal, and exciting in you sincere and earnest desires to know and do the will of God; and shall be in you By a much more ample communication, both of his gifts and graces: constituting you the temples of God, and a habitation of his holiness.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

ADDITIONAL NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

Vv. 15-24.

1. The meaning of the word has been much discussed. It is evidently founded upon the verb as a verbal adjective, and the fundamental sense of the word is called to one’s side, or aid.That it has, in the classical usage, the special sense of advocate that is, of a person called to one’s aid in this particular lineis to be admitted. This is also the meaning of the word in 1Jn 2:1. But there is nothing in the word itself which necessarily limits it to this signification. Certainly, the offices of the Spirit as they are set forth in these chapters must be considered in determining the idea of Jesus as He used the word. Bishop Lightfoot, in his essay on the Revision of the English Version of the New Testament, claims that the word advocate answers to these offices. It seems to the writer of this note, on the other hand, that this is the one idea which is not presented in these chapters. Jesus is set forth by John in the first Epistle (Joh 2:1) as the advocate, acting for the believer. But while the relation of the Spirit as a helper, a teacher, even a comforter, is brought out by the different statements of these chapters, that of advocate does not seem to be set forth. The designation, Spirit of truth, Joh 14:16, the words He shall teach you all things, Joh 14:26, the statement that He is to bear witness of Christ, Joh 15:26, are descriptive of a teacher, not of a legal advocate. The declaration that He shall convince or convict the world, Joh 16:7, is not of such convincing as specially belongs to an advocate, but the figure is rather of one who is carrying on a discussion with another, and who in the discussion convinces the other of the error of his view and the correctness of his own. Lightfoot claims that Paul has the same idea in Rom 8:16; Rom 8:26; but it would seem that, when the Spirit bears witness with our spirits that we are children of God, He is fulfilling another function than that of an advocate; and even when He is spoken of as helping us in our infirmities by making intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered, it is questionable whether the idea of advocate includes all that is meant. The Spirit, Jesus says, would teach them, would lead them into the knowledge of the truth, would declare to them things which were to come, would take of the things of Christ and make them known to the disciples, would aid them in their work of bearing witness to the truth, would so take the place which He had Himself filled as to manifest to them His love and the Father’s love, and, in this way, keep them from a state of orphanage, would give them an abiding joy. But all this is the work of a teacher, or a comforter and strengthener. The word Helper belongs to the fundamental meaning of the word, and includes the different ideas which are suggested in the several verses of chs. 14-16. It may be observed, also, that the discourse which Jesus is here giving is one of consolation with reference to His approaching departure from them. The Spirit is to fill for them the place which He had been filling. He was to be . But the place which Jesus had specially filled thus far was that of helping, teaching, comforting, strengthening, rather than that of the advocate.

2. The word , in Joh 14:18, from its immediate connection with what is said of the Spirit, as well as from the following context, must be regarded as referring to the coming of Christ to the disciples in and through the coming of the Spirit. There can be but little doubt that this passage, and the verses of the sixteenth chapter, which follow the statements respecting the Spirit (Joh 16:16 ff.), have the same reference, and are to be explained in connection with each other. These passages are inconsistent with the idea of the return for the period of the forty days following the resurrection of Jesus, because of the permanency of His abiding with the disciples which they suggest. They are also inconsistent with the idea of the second coming, because the indications both of ch. 14 and ch. 16 are that Christ is not to be personally with the disciples during the period here alluded to. This latter reason also bears against the reference to the forty days.The sense of the verb in this verse is thus peculiar, differing from any use of the verb which we find elsewhere. As it is contrasted with the idea of orphanage or bereavement, the suggestion of the word seems to be connected with the figure of the departing friend which has been spoken of as lying at the basis of the entire discourse. In this view of the matter, the peculiar use of in this verse may serve to show that the explanation suggested with regard to its meaning in Joh 14:3 may be the correct one.

3. The evidence that the of Joh 14:19 and the corresponding passage in ch. 16 refer forward to the time of the coming of the Spirit is as follows:(a) that it is described as a time when the world will not see Christ, and when the disciples alone will behold Him, and they apparently with a spiritual sight, not with the bodily eye (Joh 14:19 b, 20); (b) that the manifestation made to the disciples will be a manifestation of love and an abiding of God and Christ with the disciples, not of the disciples with God and Christ (Joh 14:21-24); (c) that the new sight is connected with the fact of Jesus’ departure to the Father (Joh 16:17); (d) that it is to be a state of permanent joy, as contrasted with what was temporary, like the forty days (Joh 16:20-22); (e) that it is apparently described as a period of communion with the Divine Being through prayer, as distinguished from personal intercourse with Jesus; (f) these evidences are to be considered in connection with the fact that, in both chapters, the whole passage immediately follows the promise of the coming of the Spirit.

Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)

14:15 {6} If ye love me, keep my commandments.

(6) He loves Christ rightly who obeys his commandment: and because obedience to Christ is accompanied with an infinite type and amount of miseries, although he is absent in body, yet he comforts his own with the present power of the Holy Spirit, whom the world despises, because it does not know him.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

The promise of the Spirit 14:15-21

At the end of His answer to Peter’s question (Joh 13:36), Jesus moved the conversation back to the general theme of preparation for His departure (Joh 14:4). He did the same thing after answering Philip’s question (Joh 14:8). Obedience to the will of God is not only a condition for getting answers to prayer. It is also an evidence of love for God. Love for God is the controlling idea in the following verses (Joh 14:15-21).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

This is Jesus’ first reference in this Gospel to the believer’s love for Himself. Typically Jesus first reached out in love to others and then expected love as a reasonable response (cf. Joh 13:1; Rom 12:1-2). The conditional sentence in the Greek text is "third class," which assumes neither a positive nor a negative response. Love for Jesus will motivate the believer to obey Him (cf. Joh 14:21; Joh 14:23; Joh 15:14; 1Jn 5:3). In the context Jesus’ commands are His total revelation viewed as components, not just His ethical injunctions (cf. Joh 3:31-32; Joh 12:47-49; Joh 13:34-35; Joh 17:6).

The greatness of our love for God is easy to test. It corresponds exactly to our conformity to all that He has revealed.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)