The Spirit of Truth, the Scriptures, and God's Guidance of You

“The Spirit of Truth”

(John 16:12-15, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, December 27, 2009)

John 16:12-15 ¹² "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. ¹³ When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. ¹⁴ He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. ¹⁵ All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Q: What did Jesus promise His disciples concerning the Holy Spirit and the truth of the faith?

A: "He will guide you into all the truth." (John 16:13)

Many things to say (12)

The central truths of the Christian faith are contained in the Old Testament. When Peter, Paul, and the other apostles preached the message of Christ to the world, they did so with many quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures in order to prove their point. Yet the Old Testament was not enough for the Christian faith to be embraced and to flourish. Not that there was anything wrong in it, or even lacking in it, but there was something lacking in us. Even the words spoken by Jesus were apparently not enough. Not that there was any falsehood in what Jesus said, and not that He did not reveal to His disciples many things, but there was something else that was necessary for us.

We needed to receive the Holy Spirit, called here the Spirit of truth, so that we could see the glory of Christ in the Old Testament, and take in the wonder of the heavenly kingdom that He was establishing. Jesus said in John 16, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now." If the knowledge that we needed from God was just a matter of words, the Lord could have said the words that would answer any reasonable question that anyone could have asked. There are two reasons why this did not happen. It has never been God's goal to reveal all of His knowledge to man, and secondly, we are not ready for everything that we perhaps should already know. The Lord is kind to us, and He knows that there is so much truth that we simply could not bear right now.

He will guide you into all the truth (13)

The work of impressing the truth of Christ and the kingdom of heaven upon the hearts and minds of men will be accomplished by the Spirit of Truth. Each person is different, and the pathway of Christian growth in our lives, that combination of the teaching we receive, our readiness to hear it and obey it, and the events that the Lord plans for our eyes to make us ready to hear and obey His Word, varies between individuals who are seated here today or who are reading these words. We do know that only the Holy Spirit can somehow make this real for us. It is a fair and important question to ask someone who wants to learn and to grow in the Christian faith, "What is the Spirit of Truth teaching you now?"

He will guide you into all the truth of Jesus Christ, but not all in one sitting. There may be other things that have to happen in your life before you are ready and able to hear certain matters of faith more fully. The Spirit of God is not inventing new truth just for you that only you can comprehend. That would be a horrible individualism that would destroy our unity. There is one body of truth for the church, and it is contained in the inspired documents that form the Old and New Testaments. This truth is God’s property, and He is giving it to you, and doing this in the most wise and loving way possible, with the most sensitive attention to who you are and what you have been through. The Holy Spirit is taking the body of established truth that belongs to the Father and the Son and enlightening your mind in the knowledge of Christ at just the right moments and at the right pace for you to hear the truth, understand it, struggle with it, embrace it, love it, have some awareness of what the Lord wants you to do with it, and finally, hopefully, to obey Him concerning all this truth and its life implications. (Read Acts 8:31 and Rev 7:17 on “guide”.)

As important as this work of the Spirit is, and though the Holy Ghost was surely doing something like this with the apostles as worshipers of God, He was also doing something else for them as apostles that is what these verses are more specifically concerned with. The teaching of the apostles was to be foundational for the life of the church in a way that would not be the case for future generations of worshipers and church leaders. There were many things that these men needed to know and to teach, and they were not ready yet to grasp all of that accurately. The Holy Spirit would guide them into all the truth of Christ in such a way that they and others they were with could teach and write the inspired revelation that would eventually become the New Testament. While the truth of Christ was already in the Old Testament, it would be the New Testament writings that would give the church the correct interpretations of the Law, the Prophets, and the other writings of the Hebrew Bible. This was from the Father and the Son, and came to the apostles and other inspired associates through the Holy Spirit.

…Things that are to come (13)

There are two things that Jesus tells His disciples here about the truth that will come to them from the Spirit of truth. The first is that He will declare to them what He calls here "the things that are to come." When Jesus and the Father send forth the Spirit of truth to the disciples, the cross will be an event of the past, and even the resurrection and ascension will be great milestones that have already occurred. Yet there is so much more to come. The message of Jesus Christ must be taken to the ends of the earth, and then what the Bible in one place calls “the end” will come with the return of Christ with all the heavenly host. Yet it is so clear from the Scriptures that this end is not so much a definitive end as it is a much larger beginning. There is so much yet to come. In fact, the word that is often translated “end” also means outcome, result, goal, aim, or fulfillment. That end is not the cessation of life but the goal and fulfillment of life for those who have life in Christ.

It is a very common error for people to think that everything is over in life, when life has barely begun for those who are in Christ. If you and I have eternity in heavenly realms ahead of us together with the Lord, all His angels, and with those who have gone before us, why do we so easily imagine that our lives end with death? There is so much yet to come. For the apostles, the Holy Spirit would guide them into and through their future days, and even beyond their earthly lives. As they became more aware of the things that were to come, they would be able to lay before the church the hope that is ours in Christ Jesus. As we examine the letters of the New Testament the importance of this theme of the reality of the life that is coming is very striking. Here is just one example of this: Isn’t it amazing that every chapter in First Thessalonians ends with a reference to our future hope?

…Things that glorify Jesus (14-15)

The second thing that Jesus teaches about the truth that will come from the Spirit of Truth is that this truth will glorify Jesus. To glorify someone is to make sure that the person shines in whatever you say and do. Once again, it is striking how this is the case in all of the New Testament letters. If we are brought to a deeper understanding of the good life that is coming for us, there can be no doubt that this good life is ours in Jesus Christ.

Someone needed to supply all the righteousness necessary for my justification. The Spirit of Truth tells me where that came from. Jesus is my righteousness. Someone needed to take my penalty and clear my debt that I had before the Father. Jesus is my atoning sacrifice. Someone needed to show me the life to come. Jesus is my resurrection. Someone needed to prepare the way for me to have a heavenly home. Jesus has gone to prepare a place for me. Someone needs to bring God's plan for justice and mercy to a perfect conclusion. Jesus is coming again to judge and to rescue us for eternity together in the glory of His Kingdom.

Do you have anything of lasting good that is worth talking about, anything that will go beyond the grave? It is in Jesus Christ. Is there something of use before you in the week ahead where you can serve and love someone else on this broken planet? Jesus has prepared it for you and given it to you, so that you have something to do for him in the next few days. Is there anything good anywhere that is worth shouting about? Is there any promise that makes life worth living, even in a day of the deepest disappointment? Is there any consolation that would allow us to count a deep trial as somehow a true joy because someone is able to turn it into heavenly gold? If so, it is all because of the Someone who can do this, Jesus Christ, our King.

Of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things. He has all truth in His hands. He and the Father give it to the Spirit, and the Spirit brings it to you for a purpose; that Jesus might be glorified. He has secured for you all that is yet to come, He is guiding you into all truth, and He is glorifying Your Savior. We receive His true testimony, and follow where He would lead. This is how we glorify Jesus Christ, now and forever.

In light of the fact that the Spirit guides the church into the truth of Christ, I leave you with two brief applications:

1. Concerning the apostolic meaning of this passage, glorify Jesus Christ by receiving the apostolic testimony in the New Testament for what it truly is, the work of the Holy Spirit Himself, and therefore, the Word of God.

2. Concerning the non-apostolic extension of this text, remember this guiding work of the Spirit of truth in your own life. Hear the truth, understand it, struggle with it, embrace it, love it, seek some true awareness of what the Lord wants you to do with it, and finally, obey Him concerning all this truth and its life implications. Let this be the way that you glorify Jesus; not only that you acknowledge the role of the Spirit of truth in giving us the Bible, but that you would also glorify Him by eagerly expecting that this same Spirit would use His inspired Word in both the Old and New Testaments to guide you personally into all the truth of Christ.

1. Why could the disciples not bear many aspects of the truth?

2. How are we to understand the dynamic work of the Holy Spirit in revealing truth to the disciples?

3. What are some of the things to come that Jesus refers to here?

4. In what sense does all truth from the Holy Spirit belong to Jesus and glorify Jesus?

An Embarrassing Gift

“An Embarrassing Gift”

(Matthew 22:34-40, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, December 20, 2009)

34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

I place my hand over my mouth (34-35)

There is something about the love of God that is so deep and wide, so profound, that when we are on the receiving end of it, and we feel our unworthiness, and we have some sense of the cost of it to God, we hardly know what to say. And maybe the best thing is not to say too much. Yet we have an almost instinctive reaction to really outrageous love, knowing that it requires some response, lest we feel yet more unworthy than we already do. We may think, “This person has been so merciful, gracious, generous, and warm-hearted to me. I cannot remain unmoved by that and still consider myself a decent human being.”

There is something about what God did in sending His Son for us that is like that. It was way too much to do for God to become man. (Read Luke 2:1-9) How are we to respond to a gift that big? If someone treats you in an unexpectedly bad way, you might reasonably say, "What did you do that for?" A surprise like that could be the end of even a very warm friendship. But there is also something about a Christmas gift that is too big that might cause a person to ask the same question. That is certainly the case with the gift of God's Son. It was too big. It was too much. "What did you do that for?" We might ask a question like that.

I imagine we could get some pretty sophisticated answers to that question, but it might be best for us to give the kind of answer that the Lord gives in Ephesians 2 concerning all His great saving acts. He says that it was “because of the great love with which He loved us.” Now I know that we are used to feeling happy about the love of God as we come to know the story of the Bible. We are thankful that God loves us. Yet there is another sense in which we might rightly feel uncomfortable and say something like this: "How am I supposed to respond to that?"

It would be one thing if God were just an impulsive being, so that one day, on a whim, He decided to send His Son as a lowly Israelite to be born in Bethlehem. But that was not the case. The very fact of a birth in the town of Bethlehem was announced by the Lord hundreds of years prior to the first Christmas. This love of God was a settled love, a plan that had been in the making for a long time. So there is nothing that can diminish the outrageous extravagance of what God did in sending His Son. It is way too much, and it was way too deliberate, like a surprise present that can make you feel ridiculous about what you were planning to give in return. You want to hide what you have wrapped up for him and tell him that you forgot your gift at home because its too embarrassing to give him your little gift after He gave you His Son to be born and even to die in your place. How are we supposed to respond to a gift that big?

The major religious groups of Jesus' day didn't want to see Him as a gift at all. They were not overwhelmed in a good way. They did not feel uncomfortable in a good way. They were threatened and responded with hate. They tried very unsuccessfully to embarrass and to trick him with their questions.

A question (36)

The group that was most law-oriented decided to send one of their experts to test Jesus with a question. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” This does not sound like a trick question to me. It sounds like an honest question from a representative of the group that cares about the law the most. But the circumstances seem to insist that there is some evil intent here, since a group that was against Jesus gathered together and came up with this plan.

There were many laws that the Jews knew of, some in the Bible, but many of them from tradition. The whole question of the right interpretation of the law was a source of great controversy between Jesus and many Jews. As we know there were Sabbath traditions and rules of clean and unclean, and Jesus did not agree with or practice many of the Pharisaic ways on these matters.

Yet the answer to this question was not a hard one. “Which is the great commandment in the Law?” Every little child in Israel was supposed to be taught something called the Shamah from Deuteronomy 6:4-5. This passage taught that there was only one God, and that every Israelite should give to Him an undivided heart of devotion. Was this expert in the Law testing Jesus trying to embarrass the miracle worker and teacher into admitting what everyone knew: that there was only one God, and that there was no room left for other beings, however great, after giving all our everything to the one God?

The great and first commandment (37-38)

Of course, Jesus does not deny this law in the least. He knows very well that the Scriptures teach that the Lord is one. He is very happy to teach what everyone knows, that "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." This is the great and first commandment. Jesus kept this Law and all of God's commandments for our sake. That was an essential part of His work of love for us. He not only believed in this great Law; He kept it, and then He died for us who have not kept the Law.

God calls us to love Him. This is a great Law, but what does it require of us if not a complete devotion. If we lack that devotion and obedience for even one moment we have violated this Law. If there is one idol that we choose above the Lord, or one instruction of His that we determine to ignore, then we have broken this wonderful way of life. It should be easy for us to see that if we searched throughout the world and through all the ages of history that we would only find violators of this perfect Law. But then the gift of Love came in person in the birth of a child, a child who became a man, a man who was despised and rejected by other men, a man who died for us. Now we have become receivers of this love of God in Christ.

The second is like it (39)

There is a second law that our Lord spoke of that day: that each of us should love our neighbor as ourselves, and He said that this second was like the first. This is also a beautiful law. If you have ever been in the presence of a loving person, someone who seemed to love you as he or she loved himself, you know that such a love, if you can receive it, is a great gift. As a law it admits of no compromise. If once you treat a neighbor as less that yourself, you have violated this commandment.

How is this second commandment like the first one? Probably in very many ways, but here are a few thoughts. Both commandments come to us from God, who loves us. Both commandments show us up as law-breakers. The second command flows from the first. If we love God with all of our being, and if this One we love so well commands that we love one another, then it follows that we need to love our neighbor as ourselves as a sincere expression of our love for God. It is a comprehensive way of life, in a sense, but then it is disarmingly simple (1 John 4:7-21). This life of love is lived out best in a quiet way, in a sense, but in a way that shines with boldness that is not self-centered (Matthew12:15-21).

How significant is love to God and to you? (40)

What do we do with these commands of God to love? Especially, how do we respond to the gift of Love to us in Christ, which is an embarrassingly large gift? How do we even understand the love of God? The depth of the love of God is too much for us to fathom. The direction we need to move toward a life of love and the change that we need to make that life real in us and not just a show will not come with lots of words, but with a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of the One who is love, and who laid down His life for us. What we should be able to see today is that this life of love needs to be of the utmost importance to us.

Love is the fulfillment of the Law, and it is what the Prophets of the Old Testament wrote of when they wrote of Christ, the Man of Love, and when they spoke of heaven, which is a world of perfect love. When Jesus came as God's greatest gift to us, He was willing to give up himself for our good. We are told that God is Love... We see that love matters most to Jesus, and to the apostles that He sends out with the message of His love... We are told that love changes things; in fact we are told that love never fails... We know that faith is a great gift of God, and that hope is a precious possession; but we are also told that when we look at these three, faith, hope, and love, the greatest of is love.

Finally we experience the embarrassingly large gift of love that God has given to us in Jesus, and we still need an answer as to how we are to respond. We don't want to get angry about it, and to question him in some strange effort to reduce the tension, thinking that we can make him fall and fail. That's what the Pharisees tried to do. We also know that it can't be right to ignore a gift this big. We are sure that we should yield ourselves to this Love, give in to it, and let it rule our hearts. And we also know that the faith demands an outlet not only in the worship of God, but in generous sacrifice for God, His people, and for the world around us, our neighbors. This is what the Lord is calling you to as you contemplate His extravagant gift. His love can work through you, and it can win in hopeless situations if you will yield to this gift from heaven in Christ. This is not a program or a marketing strategy to appear more loving to others. This is a matter of necessary divine blessing. This is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is heaven, and heaven will win. Yield to God. Yield to heaven. Yield to love, and let love win through you.

The Holy Spirit and the World

“When the Holy Spirit Comes”

(John 16:8-11, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, December 13, 2009)

⁸ And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: ⁹ concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; ¹⁰ concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; ¹¹ concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

What will the Holy Spirit do when He comes?

A: “He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.” (John 16:8)

He will convict the world (8)

Jesus, the Messiah, is in the process of giving His final instructions to His disciples as He goes to the cross. He has been with them for three years, but now, He is going to the Father. Naturally they are very concerned about this, particularly since He has been telling them that they will face much persecution after He is gone. Yet He has told them that it is good news that He is going to the Father. When He has returned to the Father, He will send the Holy Spirit to them.

The Holy Spirit has a rich and varied ministry among believers, but what many people do not realize is that He is vitally active in the world more generally, since it is only by the Holy Spirit that true conviction comes to those who have stood against God. It is this ministry of conviction that is the focus of these brief verses in John 16. Before we examine the threefold conviction that comes to the world by the Holy Spirit, we need to have a better understanding of what it means to be convicted. When we talk about someone being convicted, we are often talking about a legal proceeding before a judge or a jury, when someone is officially pronounced guilty in a court of law. But there is another courtroom in every man’s heart. For a man to be convicted in that courtroom by God is for him to become convinced in his own conscience about certain things, whether he is willing to change or not, as he is made to see that God is right, and that he has been wrong about some important issue of faith and life. This is the conviction that the Holy Spirit brings to people in the world, and it is a vital step in the pathway to a new spiritual life.

Jesus says here that the Holy Spirit is coming. It is not as if the Holy Spirit has been absent throughout the centuries prior to this point. We hear of His work from the first moments of creation where we read that “the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” Yet there is something very new that is about to happen with the turning of the ages from the Old Testament days to the New Covenant era. The Holy Spirit will do a work not in just a few special prophets and holy people in Israel. He will be poured out even on the Gentiles as well as the Jews, as the Word of Israel’s God will now be brought by the church to the whole world.

This is what Jesus is talking about when He says, “And when He comes.” This coming of the Holy Spirit begins at Pentecost and is written about in the opening chapters of the Book of Acts. But that experience in Jerusalem was only a beginning. The Holy Spirit is still coming to the world, to places that have never heard of the Savior’s dying love. When the Holy Spirit does His work today among a people group in Southeast Asia, He does the very same things that He did so long ago in Jerusalem. He convicts the world; He convinces those who have not known of at least three very important truths.

Concerning sin (9)

First in the courtroom of a man’s unbelieving heart, the Holy Spirit convicts a man concerning sin. Sin is any violation of God’s Law. If you have had a true spiritual consideration of any of the Ten Commandments, then you have experienced this work of the Holy Spirit convicting you of sin. Jesus says that this convicting of the world concerning sin, is necessary “because they do not believe in me.” Unbelief is sin, and it necessitates divine rescue.

God is calling all of the world to believe in Jesus and to rest in the Lord’s only provision to truly take away our sin. It is a horrible weight on the unbelieving heart to live without an answer to the sin problem. Our consciences do accuse us, but if we have no solution to the problem of guilt, which is naturally felt by all, we protect ourselves from these feelings of guilt by attempting to deny our sin. When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, they suddenly became aware of their nakedness. Did they cry out to God, “Rescue me, O God! I have done the wrong thing. I ate of the tree that you told me not to eat of.” No, they set about a different kind of work. It was an ineffectual cover-up. They tried to make their own clothes out of leaves, and to cover their nakedness. This is what the man of the world does, by his sinful nature, when he senses his sin. If he is very good at this cover up, he gets to the point where his conscience does not even work any more. He does not feel his own sin.

Enter the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit can convict a man concerning sin. He has ways of bringing a man to a point of insufficiency. He begins to think, “I cannot fix this problem. I cannot make my life work. I have been hiding from the truth. There is such a thing as sin, and I have sinned, and I am in need.” This may be quite a struggle, and it may take place over many years. It is a very necessary work. The people of the world do not naturally admit the truth about sin, because they do not believe in the only answer for sin. Yet the Holy Spirit, according to His sovereign and mysterious motions in the hearts of so very many people can convict the world concerning sin.

Concerning righteousness (10)

But it is not enough for a man to be convinced that he is a sinner. In the courtroom of a man’s unbelieving heart, the Holy Spirit must also convict him concerning righteousness. There is no true answer to the world’s broken relationship with the Almighty Creator unless there is someone who can be truly seen to be righteous. Sin is any violation of God’s law, but true righteousness is the perfect upholding and keeping of God’s Law.

If a man is convicted of sin in His heart, but is not convicted of the existence of righteousness, He is a creature who is trapped in the worst despair. When Jesus came among men, He was the expected Messiah. In Jeremiah we read of One who would come with this name, “the Lord our righteousness.” Jesus is righteousness in person. Many were convicted of the existence of righteousness because they heard the words of Jesus of Nazareth and saw His great deeds. Some would rightly conclude that He was a man who was truly righteous before God, like a fountain of righteousness, a source from which righteousness might come for others. The cross is all about the righteous One becoming the Sin-bearer for us. His resurrection and ascension is righteousness on display.

But with that resurrection and ascension to the Father Jesus is going away. If the message of truth is to go to the world, how will the world become convicted of righteousness? Enter the Holy Spirit sent from the Father and the Son to the world. The Holy Spirit can convict a man concerning the righteousness of the Son of God, by pressing upon that man the fact of the truth of the accounts of Jesus Christ, both in the Old and the New Testaments. Through that convicting work a man of the world can come to believe not only in his own sin, but in the righteousness of another, of one who becomes for him the source of all righteousness.

Concerning judgment (11)

Finally, it is necessary for the world to see that the world and its spiritual powers in high places cannot possibly provide some other alternative to the one that God has given us in Jesus Christ. Jesus has said, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” The world, though convicted of sin, and convicted of righteousness, will search to see if there is some other way to have the trouble of sin removed, and to have righteousness credited to it, without bowing the knee to God.

God says to the world, “Worship Me. I am your life.” The world says, “Is there some other way?” God says, “Be honest in all that you say and do, and trust Me with everything. I can take care of you best.” The world says, “Is there some other way?” God says, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself, pick up his cross, and follow Me to heaven.” The world says, “Isn’t there anyone else up there with a different way than the cross?”

Chief among the possible imposters is the one fallen angel who is the leader of fallen angels, the one who is called here “the ruler of this world.” This Satan is surely under the control of the Father Almighty, and he must ultimately serve the purposes of the Lord of lords, yet until he is cast finally into a lake of fire, he does cause a lot of trouble. Yet something decisive has happened at the cross that is very definitive. Not only is sin shown to be a heavy burden, not only is righteousness shown to be accomplished in the greatest act of obedient love ever contemplated, but the judgment of God is shown to be very real as the Son takes the wrath of His loving and holy Father which we deserved, and somehow the ruler of this world, who is against God’s eternal purpose, is defeated. When the Holy Spirit does His work of convicting, the reality of God’s judgment is convincingly displayed to the world. Any thought of another way of life apart from Jesus Christ is demolished, and Christ is shown to be the only way to life.

The Holy Spirit points to Jesus and the cross, and many in the world hear Him, and they come. Here we see and believe that sin is real and that Christ is our Sin-bearer. Here we see and believe that perfect righteousness is real, and that Christ is the Lord our righteousness. Here we see and believe in the judgment of God, and we kiss the Son of God by the power of the Holy Spirit. There is no place on earth that is so dark, no ground so hard, and no people so post-Christian that the Holy Spirit cannot convict and even save. Jesus has ascended to the Father. He is sending forth the Holy Spirit. He is convicting the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.

1. What is the coming of the Holy Spirit referred to here?

2. What is meant by the conviction of the world?

3. Why would the Holy Spirit convict the world of these three things?

4. Who is the ruler of this world who is judged?

Jesus, tell us about heaven...

“Where Are You Going?”

(John 16:4b-7, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, December 6, 2009)

I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. ⁵ But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, 'Where are you going?' ⁶ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. ⁷ Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.

I was with you (4b)

Jesus is on His way to the cross. Judas is off meeting up with the group that he will lead to Jesus in his act of betrayal. Our Lord is speaking to the remaining eleven disciples. His farewell discourse continues from John 14 through John 17. At the end of John 16:4, which is in the middle of this final talk with His disciples, we are told that Jesus is speaking to them about some things that He did not say to them, at least with the same clarity, from the beginning of His time with them. He says that He did not speak of these things because He was with them.

What has Jesus been talking about so far in this farewell discourse that He did not speak about before this time? He is speaking in greater detail and with greater force and clarity about what the disciples will do after He is gone. They will do greater works (14:12). They will have a divine Helper, the Holy Spirit (14:16), and Jesus Himself and the Father will make their home with them (14:23). Especially He has told them that the fruitfulness of the kingdom will involve suffering on their part (15:2), and that this pruning work of God will include their being hated by the world on account of their close association with Him (15:20). He has made it clear that they will be in danger of losing their lives (16:2), but that it will be in the midst of this kind of violent religious environment that they will have the privilege of bearing witness concerning Him (15:27).

There was a time when Jesus was with them in a way that everyone could see. They could hear His voice all the time. They were witnesses of His many miraculous signs. There was increasing opposition against Jesus during the years that He was with them, but He was the focal point of the hatred of enemies. The plans of violence were against Him. All of that was about to change. They would be witnesses of Christ to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. The way that people would express their hatred of Jesus would now be against them and their followers. Jesus would be at the right hand of the Father. His disciples would be the new focal point for the wrath of the dragon. One day these specific men would finish their earthly race. Others would take the baton from generation to generation. It can be a costly race for us to run. The Old Testament prophets ran with that baton in the days of preparation. It was eventually passed to John the Baptist. Then Jesus came, but after the cross there was nothing that men could do to Him. It was the apostles who were given the baton, and it has now been passed to us.

What were the benefits of Jesus being with His disciples in His earthly ministry? We were created to be with the people we love and to enjoy the pleasure of their company. The disciples were able to love their Master and to be loved by Him in a way that fits who we are as creatures created in the image of God. They were able to hear His words with their own ears, and to see the results of His signs with their own eyes. We cannot do this today. What we do enjoy are all the eternal benefits of the Lord’s time on earth. It was during the lives of these men that Jesus accomplished all of the obedience required by the Father. His suffering and his death were the crowning achievements of His own race. We have the amazing benefit of all that Christ did as the propitiatory sacrifice that turned God’s wrath aside for us. He did this in His body. Even His resurrection was a bodily fact that was accomplished and witnessed during the time about which Jesus spoke when He said, “I was with you.”

I am going to Him (5-6)

But now as He is going to the cross, the three years of His disciples being with Jesus in that special way is coming to a very abrupt end. It would be easy to assume that His leaving was entirely bad news, but the Lord wants His disciples not to think of this new time just in terms of what they will lack. Their eyes will generally not see Him and their ears will generally not hear Him. Yet this next phase of the life of our Lord can be referred to very positively.

Jesus says to His disciples, “I am going to Him who sent Me.” The Son's going to the Father is a return to the place from which He came. The disciples have not been to this place, and naturally, there is a tendency for them not to be able to understand it, not to be able to talk about or think about the place where Jesus says that He is going. The Son of God is going home to heaven. Though there have been some conversations earlier about where Jesus was going, at this very moment, the disciples are not asking any questions about this place where they have never been, a place that Jesus entirely knows. Why don't they ask Him the obvious questions? When we had visitors from a far-off land, when we became comfortable with them we eventually asked them many questions about their home town. Is it just that the disciples are overwhelmed by the things that Jesus has said to them? Why don't we ask God questions about heaven? Why don’t people regularly seek answers in the Scriptures to their questions concerning the life to come? Could it be that we are so familiar with life here, and so unfamiliar with life there, that we do not even know where to begin? Is it healthy for us to wait till we get there to learn about heaven?

Sorrow has filled the hearts of the disciples. The fullness of their expectations concerning what is real is heavily weighted toward their only experience. This is the same for all of us. We are like those people who have spent all of our lives in one place. We begin to think that maybe no other place really exists. We live on earth, and earth has a problem. It has a problem of decay, of sin, and of misery, but it is all we know. The disciples have known three years of earth with Jesus in the flesh on this earth. Now Jesus is going to the Father, and they do not know what to say and what to think. Of course they are sad about these events. They are being told that Jesus will be gone from them physically, and that they will become the chief targets of those who are angry with God. They are being told that some people will consider it their religious duty to kill them, and that Jesus will be beyond their sight.

There is a connection between our thoughts about heaven and our present experience of the sorrows of earth. The more that we are able to listen to the Word of God with faith concerning the place where Jesus now reigns, the more we will be able to enjoy the moments of life that we have in our remaining years here below. Let this fact sink into your heart: After Jesus ascended to heaven, the church continued to have some very significant Jesus experiences, experiences that made the reality of heaven obvious. These men saw Jesus ascend bodily to another place. Peter was completely convinced that He was performing miracles in the Name of Jesus. The apostles had angelic visitors that had things to say about the continued existence of Jesus. Someone spoke to the apostle Paul and said to Him, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” The apostle John received messages through an angel that were letters from Jesus in heaven to seven churches in Asia Minor. They had no doubt that Jesus was yet alive, and they knew where He was. The more that we can be aware of the truth about heaven from the Bible, the more we will be able to live with joy, though our joy will be rightly mingled with the remaining grief of this age of our earthly existence.

I will send Him to you (7)

Jesus is going to heaven, and He is going there by way of the cross and the resurrection. Everything about this is so full of good news that the significant bad news of what is about to take place in the life of Christ and in the lives of the apostles over the next few decades is not worthy to be compared with the glory that will be revealed from heaven at just the right time. That future glory is a great truth, but even now we have been given a present gift.

Yes, we who live now are to suffer here as the bearers of the baton of Jesus passed down to us through the apostles and through the centuries of the history of the Christian church, but we have the greatest gift of heaven in us: the Holy Spirit. As our Lord excites the imagination of His friends concerning the benefits of His leaving, He tells His disciples why it is so good for them (and for us) that He went away. The pathway of Jesus to heaven was of great advantage to these eleven men and it is also to our advantage. It is only after suffering the death that we deserved for us on the cross, it is only after vindicating His own righteousness through His resurrection, that Jesus, now ascended into the heavenly sanctuary of God, would then send forth to His church the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Considering the wonder and blessing of this gift of a new land and a new era somehow placed within our souls, how can we be satisfied with anything less than this gift of God? Jesus has sent forth to us the Holy Spirit. This could not have happened if He had refused to suffer the death of the cross. The cross was necessary if we were to receive the promise of the Spirit. It was necessary that Jesus would leave, and that He would leave through the one way that would clear our debt to God.

The disciples needed this divine Helper from heaven in order to make them more heavenly minded. They needed to believe that heaven was real, and that Jesus would be going to prepare a place for them there. They needed to be able to rightly value the gift that God would give them after Jesus had gone above. They needed to see the kingdom of heaven as a pearl of great price. The only way for them to see these truths in the suffering work of the church before them was to send forth this gift of the new land and the new era in a person, the eternal Holy Spirit.

It is only by the work of the Holy Spirit that we have the beginning motions of God in our lives, those first steps of true repentance and faith. Jesus called people to turn away from their sins and to trust in Him. We do this by the gift of the Holy Spirit. Have you ever asked that God would give you His Holy Spirit so that you might repent and believe? It is also by the work of the Holy Spirit alone that you grow in repentance and faith. Keep asking for His work in your life. Jesus was with His disciples. He went to His Father by way of the cross, and then He sent us the Holy Spirit. This is good news for those who have just heard that the Christian life may mean significant suffering.

1. What did it mean to the disciples to have Jesus with them?

2. Why were they sorrowful concerning His coming departure?

3. Why was it better for us that Jesus would ascend to the Father?

4. Why was it necessary for Jesus to return to heaven in order for the Holy Spirit to be granted to us?