“The Parakletos” (Part 1)
John 14:15-18, 26; 15:26
Introduction:
The disciples had spent three and a half years with the Messiah our Lord Jesus, They had been eyewitnesses to his life, His miracles, His word, His death and Resurrection. They had received the Great Commission and felt the urgency to fulfil it. They had been in the best Bible School that has ever existed and received theological and practical training in spiritual matters concerning the things of God’s kingdom by the master of all teachers.
Now the Lord Jesus was going away and would need someone to replace Him. This provision was to be found in the God the Holy Spirit the third person of the Tri-Unity of the Godhead. He would be one equal in divinity and power to God the father and God the Son being Himself God the Spirit.
In the text of John’s gospel in Chapters 14:17-18, 26; 15:26; 16:7-11, which we will be looking at in two studies, translates the Holy Spirit as “the counsellor or “the comforter” or as “the advocate” in our English Bibles. In the Greek text of these verses He is called; “the paráklētos,” defined as “One called to stand alongside of another to strengthen them,” or as “one summoned to one’s side to give them aid, one who pleads another’s cause before a judge, a pleader, a counsel for the defence or a legal assistant and an advocate and intercessor and one who gives succour or is a consoler.” The Greek text of these verses we will be studying brings out the fuller meaning of the word used for the Holy Spirit.
The Lord Jesus promised His disciples that after His ascension they would not be left orphans but would have His presence with them in the person of the Holy Spirit or the Spirit of Jesus who is also called the Spirit of the Messiah as He is called in the New Testament (Acts 16:7) (Romans 8:9) (1 Peter 1:11).
The Lord Jesus had the power of the Holy Spirit resting upon Him for His earthly ministry (Luke 4:18). The disciples would also need the power of the Holy Spirit for their ministry and to fulfil the will of God in their lives (Acts 1:8). The Lord Jesus provided them with His power on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came down upon the 120 disciples in the upper room as the Lord Jesus had promised (Luke 24:49) (Acts 1:8) (Acts 2:4). The Lord Jesus released the anointing of the Spirit that was upon Him to fall upon His disciples on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:33).
We see this illustrated in the Old Testament in Psalm 133 where we read; “Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in harmony! It is like fine oil on the head, running down on the beard, running down Aaron’s beard over the collar of his robes” (Psalm 133:1-2). Aaron was a type of our High Priest the Messiah our Lord Jesus. When Aaron was to serve as a High Priest he was anointed with oil poured out upon his head and it ran down over him and onto his garments. It did not touch his flesh.
This pointed to the Lord Jesus who was anointed with the Holy Spirit and after His ascension the anointing on Him would flow off from Him onto His disciples at Pentecost just as the oil ran down upon Aaron’s garments which represented the Body of the Messiah connected to its head the Lord Jesus. It was nothing that the fleshly will of man could produce but it was totally a supernatural work of God. This is illustrated in the fact that the anointing oil poured out upon the head of Aaron and flowing down over his robes did not touch his flesh.
Now the same power that the Holy Spirit imparted to the 120 in the upper room at Pentecost is the same power the Lord Jesus has provided for us as His Body (the Church) (Acts 2:33, 39). The Lord Jesus is the baptiser with the Holy Spirit (Matthew 3:11). In John 14:15-18,26; 15:26 there are definite things we are taught about the ministry of the Holy Spirit and what He wants to do in us, for us, with us and through us. Let’s now look at these verses.
John 14:15-18, 26; 15:26
Exposition:
(Vs.15) “If you love Me, you will obey what I command. (Vs.16) And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counsellor to be with you forever— (Vs.17) the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Hm. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you. (Vs.18) I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you… (Vs.26) But the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” (15: 26) “When the Counsellor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, He will testify about me.”
1. The Holy Spirit comes to be with us forever upon obedience to Jesus and to His Word
(Vs.15-16) “If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counsellor to be with you forever—“
Here we are told that the Holy Spirit would be with us forever and that He would not come and go but be permanently present with us throughout our life. He would be one called alongside of us to strengthen us. Without His presence and power we cannot accomplish anything for God, neither can we live in the way God intends us to live. In the person of the Holy Spirit God has given us a true friend and guide and a counsellor in both spiritual and temporal matters pertaining to our life in this world. He would be one who would be able to enter into every situation and circumstance of our life.
Now it needs to be said that He is given to those who love the Lord Jesus and even though they are not perfect they are willing to be obedient to Him which is being obedient to the Word of God as the Lord Jesus is the Word of God and His Word has been authored by the Holy Spirit making the Bible the Spirit-breathed Word of God (2 Timothy 3:16). If we would experience the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives as New Covenant believers then we must be willing to be obedient to what He has already revealed in the Bible that we must say and do. If we are not willing to be obedient to what God has already revealed in His Word then we cannot expect any further guidance. Our Love for Jesus is not proved by our emotional responses as they change and many believers are ruled by their emotions and subject to their changing circumstances. Our faith expresses itself in obedience to God’s will (John 3:36 NASB) (Romans 1:5, 16:26).
However, the Lord Jesus said If you love Me do what I say, and the implication is whether you feel like doing it or not do it anyway as an act of faith and not of ones emotions. Our faith is the faith of obedience and if we are willing to be an obedient child then the Holy Spirit is very present to enable us and to strengthen us supernaturally to walk in step with Him and we will find the peace of God that transcends all human understanding deep down on the inside of us as we walk in all that God has for us to do in this temporary life. As sons and daughters of God we are to be regularly led by the Holy Spirit in all of the areas of our life in both temporal and spiritual matters (Romans 8:14).
The blessed Holy Spirit Himself is then a loving and divine friend who loves us with a love that cannot be comprehended by human understanding, one who is able to go with us and to enter into every situation and circumstance we will ever face in this life. Without a willingness to obey the Word of God we will not experience the power of the Holy Spirit. If we are born again then He is living deep down on the inside but if we are walking in disobedience then in a very real sense He is a prisoner without power.
Now it needs to be said that with man obedience to God and to his Word is impossible and it is only as we walk moment by moment by faith and in step with the Holy Spirit will we have power from on high to overcome everything the world, the flesh and the devil throws our way. In these days in which we are now living, as we see the end of this present age looming on the horizon in these last days, we need the power of the Holy Spirit more than ever before if we are to spiritually survive in this wicked, crooked and perverse generation (Galatians 5:16, 25). With man this is impossible but with God all things are possible. Nothing is too hard for the LORD (Matthew 19:26) (Luke 1:37; 18:27) (Job 42:2) (Genesis 18:14).
The power of the Holy Spirit is available to you and me as New Covenant believers in the Messiah our Lord Jesus and He is more willing to impart His power and love to us than we are willing to receive it so great is His love for us and for lost humanity, and we are His instruments in reaching the lost in the world and the spiritually backslidden in the Church. The promise of the baptism with the Spirit’s power is for every believer in every age and it is available for you and me today (Acts 2:39). We are to be continuously filled or controlled by the Holy Spirit and this is a command from God and not optional for every New Covenant believer in Messiah (Ephesians 5:18).
2. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, not error and lives in everyone who has been spiritually reborn from above
(Vs.17-18) ”…the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”
The Holy Spirit Himself is not just an aspect of truth but the Spirit of all truth. He never lies or reveals anything to us that goes contrary to God’s will. He never says anything inconsistent with the Word of God because He is God the Spirit and His will is in complete harmony with the will of God the Father and God the Son. He will never act independently from their will and purposes as the Triune God. He will never lead us into doctrinal error. John also tells us in His gospel that the Spirit of truth guides us into all truth and that He does not speak on His own but only what He hears from God the Father and God the Son and that He will also teach us the truth concerning future events yet to come. His whole purpose in teaching the truth is to glorify the Lord Jesus and revealing to us what the Lord Jesus has in mind for us to know concerning the truth (John 16:13-15).
He can be trusted to lead us in God’s will and the instrument He uses in this is the unchanging Spirit-breathed Word of the Living Triune God. He will never abandon us or let us down when we are passing through trials and afflictions. He is our dearest and closest friend because He is of the same nature as the Lord Jesus Himself. Indeed the blessed Holy Spirit is the loving and sensitive divine comforter and the third person in the Trinity given to strengthen us, to live in us and to stand beside us in all of the changing circumstances of our life.
The unsaved do not know Him and are spiritually ignorant where the things of God’s kingdom is concerned because spiritual things are revealed by the Spirit living on the inside of those who have received Him (1 Corinthians 2:12-16). In the Greek text in verse 18 the phrase can be rendered “But you know Him, for He lives in you and will be in you.” One cannot be saved without the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:9). There is a difference between the Spirit indwelling and the Spirit poured out. On the day of Pentecost the 120 in the upper room were born again New Covenant believers and had the Holy Spirit living on the inside of them as a well of eternal life. Only after the Holy Spirit had been poured out upon them corporately and individually as well were they empowered by Him to fulfil the Great Commission (Acts 1:8).
The New Birth and the baptism or infilling with the Holy Spirit are two separate and distinct works of the one and the same Spirit. They can and should be simultaneous (Acts 2:38-39) but in most cases they are not. We see this in the New Testament and it is true in the lives of many believers today and even missionaries on the mission field and ministers in in their pulpits (See the Holy Spirit teaching series on this website).
When we are spiritually reborn from above we are enlisted into God’s eternal family and commissioned for His service and it is when we are baptised with the Holy Spirit that we receive the spiritual weapons we need to fight spiritual battles and to pulldown spiritual strongholds in our lives and in the lives of others as we are empowered to bring every thought into the obedience to the Lord Jesus and to His Word (2 Corinthians 10:4). You never send any soldier into battle without also furnishing them with weapons to fight with! On the day of Pentecost the 120 born again New Covenant believers were baptised with the Holy Spirit as He welled up from within them and came down upon them with power from on high as the Lord Jesus has said would happen (John 7:27-39) (Luke 24:49) (Acts 1:8).
As members of God’s eternal family He has not left us alone or spiritually parentless but has given us a superb and divine counsellor and comforter who is with us and in us and for us and wants to do the very best thing through us. We may have the Holy Spirit on the inside but how much of us does He have? It is not enough to have the Holy Spirit living on the inside of us but to have Him fill us, to empower us and to control every aspect of our life and service for the Lord Jesus (Ephesians 5:18).
3. The Holy Spirit teaches us all things we need to know as to how to live the Christian life
(Vs.26) “But the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”
We are told in the first letter of John that as born again New Covenant believers we have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of us know the truth and know that no lie comes from the truth when the truth has been spiritually revealed to us by the Holy Spirit (1 John 2:20). John also writes “I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. As for you, the anointing you received from Him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in Him” (1 John 2:16-27).
In our text we are told that the Holy Spirit is our teacher in spiritual matters and will teach us all we need to know for our spiritual welfare and that He will also enable us to discern doctrinal error and those who teach it. He is the one who knows the deep things of God and reveals them to us. He represents the Messiah on earth, not the Pope of Rome. There is only one vicar of Messiah or one who stands in place of the Messiah on earth and that is the Holy Spirit our great intercessor before God on our behalf.
As the author of Hebrews writes; “But because Jesus lives forever, He has a permanent priesthood. Therefore He is able to save completely those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to intercede for them. Such a high priest truly befits us—One who is holy, innocent, undefiled, set apart from sinners, and exalted above the heavens” (Hebrews 7:24-26).
The Holy Spirit comes in the name of the Messiah, not in his own name. He is the one who can interpret God’s Word to us and teach us its truth. Now the Holy Spirit can and does use others to help us understand the Word of God and this is why He has appointed apostles, prophets, evangelists and pastors and teachers to equip the wider Body of Messiah for works of service (Ephesians 4:11-13). Having said this it is our privilege as God’s dearly beloved children to be individually instructed by the Holy Spirit in our inner spiritually regenerated spirit man as well as through the Word of God. There are some things that only can be taught directly one on one by the Holy Spirit.
Everything we need to know about living the life of a New Covenant believer is revealed to us by the blessed Holy Spirit our teacher in spiritual matters. If the disciples needed to be taught so do we. At times we will find Biblical truth hard to understand and there are commentaries and Lexicons and other resources by Biblical scholars that can facilitate our understanding in difficult passages of scripture we find hard to understand. However, when we rely upon the Holy Spirit and walk in step with Him, and call out to Him, He will show us mighty marvellous and glorious things which we can never arrive at by human understanding even after reading the commentaries and devotional books. As the LORD said to Jeremiah the prophet; “Thus says the LORD who made the earth, the LORD who formed it and established it, the LORD is His name: Call to Me, and I will answer and show you great and unsearchable things you do not know” (Jeremiah 33:2-3).
4. The Holy Spirit always points to the Lord Jesus, not to Himself
(John 15:26) ““When the Counsellor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, He will testify about Me.”
The Holy Spirit does not promote Himself but promotes the Messiah our Lord Jesus and reveals Him to men and women. We see this on the day of Pentecost when Peter has been preaching and the power of the Holy Spirit brought about conviction of the sin of unbelief in Jesus as Saviour and Lord, who had died for our sins and was buried and rose again physically from the dead and proclaiming that only in Him and in His name could anyone receive salvation and the resurrection to eternal life (Acts 2:36-37). The Holy Spirit never promotes Himself, His gifts or those upon whom He has bestowed His gifts according to his sovereign will and not theirs (1 Corinthians 12:4-7). He is the Spirit of truth being God the Spirit, who goes out from God the Father and who has been commissioned by God the Father to bear witness and to testify about God the son. His counselling always brings about His comfort in every circumstance we will ever face in this life. He is the Spirit of truth and not error and those who belong to God will be open to His truth and be willing to be taught by the Holy Spirit.
In these verses in John concerning “the paráklētos” we are told four things about Him. 1. He is given to us to be with us forever upon obedience produced by saving faith. 2. He is the Spirit of truth who indwells everyone who has been spiritually reborn from above. 3. He is the one who teaches us all things we need to know to live the life of a New Covenant believer. 4. He always points to the Lord Jesus, not to Himself, His gifts or those exercising His gifts.
Epilogue
Anyone who knows God the Father and God the Son but who is not personally acquainted with God the Spirit has not as yet fully attained to the Biblical revelation concerning the Holy Spirit. He is not just a Biblical doctrine we hold to be true but a very real counsellor, comforter and one who reveals spiritual truth and everything we need to live a life of godliness in this present wicked, adulterous, and perverse generation. He is the one God has appointed to teach us, to guide us and to lead us into all truth and into that good acceptable and perfect will of God when we are fully surrendered to Him. In the person of God the Holy Spirit we have a loving, sensitive, infallible and totally divine friend and guide and one who wants us to get to know Him better.
