John 14:15-24

Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit

15 "If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 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. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. Anyone who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them."

22 Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, "But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?"

23 Jesus replied, "Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.



Dig Deeper

I have a great mother, one who will do whatever she has to in order to help me be the best I can be. That was especially true growing up. I remember one day when I was nine years old and I was supposed to start Peanut League baseball at a field a couple of miles from our house. I was pretty excited, but when I got there I looked around and realized that I didn’t know anyone. On top of that, I was pretty shy growing up and the thought of going into this mass of players and coaches that were spread all over different parts of this massive field was too much. I began to cry and tell my mom that I didn’t want to go. I was sure that she would let me go back to the safe confines of my home and play baseball in the sideyard by myself like I had always done (believe me, it can be done if you have a big enough imagination). My mom urged me to get out of the car, but I was done. There was no way I was going to get out and play. So, she suggested that we both get out and walk up there and check it out. I agreed to that, but I knew I wasn’t going to play. As I got out of the car, glove in hand, my mom yelled that she would be back to pick me up when baseball was over and she drove off on me. I have to say, to be fair, that my mother is getting older and wants to get to heaven and so she denies certain crucial details of this event, but I remember it like it was yesterday. What she did, though, worked. I had no choice but to walk up towards the field. An adult asked me my name and then told me what team I was on, and even walked me over to the team. My coach was warm and friendly and I had a great time playing baseball that day and for the rest of the season. It didn’t feel like it at the time, but my mom knew that the best thing for me in the long run was to be left alone for a little awhile. I had to do it without her.

As Jesus prepares his disciples for his quickly approaching departure. They are clearly disturbed and deeply troubled at the prospect of going it alone and they certainly have no concept of how all of the things that Jesus had told them would happen could happen without him there. How could evil be defeated and the great project of setting the world to rights take place if Jesus was going to leave them? When my mom left me, I felt alone but I wasn’t really. In a far grander way, Jesus promises his followers that not only will they be fine, they will be better off because he is going to send them his own Spirit to guide, comfort, protect, and counsel them. They had to do it without Jesus, but they would never be alone.

A lot of religious people throughout the centuries have claimed to be a Christian and to love Christ with little regard for Jesus actually said concerning that topic. Being Jesus’ disciple doesn’t just mean having warm feelings for him or throwing his name around in conversation. It doesn’t even mean that one is fiercely religious when in private or for a certain amount of time each morning. Jesus reminds his eleven disciples with him in that upper room, and all of his subsequent disciples that to love him means to keep his commands. This isn’t some sort of legalistic adherence to the law such as the Old Covenant demanded. Keeping Jesus’ commands is about the holistic ability to love God and do His will. How can this be done when the entire history of the Old Testament showed that people could not do God’s will? Jesus promises them the thing that so many Christians today still seem to struggle with. If we obey his commands, we will be loved by the Father. There’s no question or doubt to it. They will be able to do God’s will precisely because Jesus is leaving them. He’s pushing them out and letting them do it on their own.

But the key is, they won’t really be on their own. Jesus is going to send them an advocate, the Spirit of Truth. Jesus isn’t leaving them at all. In Jesus’ day, being left as an orphan was a term that could apply to a teacher leaving his disciples just as much as it could refer to parents with children. But he’s not going to leave them on their own. He identifies so closely with this advocate that he can tell them that through the Spirit, he will continue to be with them. Just as the Father and the Son are one, so the Son and the Spirit are one. The word that is translated as "advocate" can also mean "helper" or "comforter." He is the helper that gives believers the ability, the strength, the wisdom, and the energy to be God’s kingdom announcers to the world and to be transformed into the image of Christ. He is the comforter that strengthens and provides solace to those believers so that we have the necessary resources to face whatever comes our way. God never promises to make life easy for those who follow him but Jesus here promises that the Spirit will give comfort and strengthen his disciples through whatever circumstances life may bring. Finally, He is the advocate. In Jesus’ day, the advocate was the one who went and explained their client’s case and point of view to the judge. The Spirit serves that roles for us, constantly pleading on our behalf to the Father.

Jesus makes one important thing clear concerning the Spirit. The world does not know him, recognize him, nor does He work for their benefit at all. Only those who have been cleansed through the blood of Christ, died to self, and entered into the life of Christ at that baptism of death will receive the gift of this Counselor (Rom. 6:3-4; Acts 2:38). And therein lies the irony of the whole situation. In order to have the life that Jesus provides, he must die. Yet, he will live and because he is going into death and out the other side, they will also live by sharing in that death and life.

Those who love Jesus and follow his commands by walking according to the guidance of the Spirit rather than our own flesh, will know that Jesus will show himself, meaning his very life, to them. Judas (not Judas Iscariot, which if my name was Judas back then, I’d want to make sure that was made clear as well) asks a great question. Why would Jesus only show himself to those who obey him? Why not show his true power to the whole world? Why just to them and not to the world? Judas’ mistake is that he is still thinking in terms of worldly displays of power. In that frame of thinking, it would only make sense that Jesus display his power and identity to the whole world. Why not humble all those who reject him and force them into submission? That’s not how love works, though. The great Christian theologian and philosopher, C.S. Lewis answered that question a generation ago, stating that "You must have wondered why [God] does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. But you now see that the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to over-ride a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest . . . degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo."

Jesus’ presence and the presence of the Father will not come in a way that Judas could expect. It is subtle and based on faith. This stands in stark contrast to so many of us who have believed at one time or another how great it would be if we could have lived during Jesus’ time. If we could just see Jesus, or some manifestation of the Father, or some great display of power, then it would be easy to believe. Yet, a quick look at the Gospels tell us a very different story. Many who saw Jesus did not believe. Countless individuals saw him do miraculous works of the Father and refused to follow and obey him. Jesus will be with his disciples but, and this is the surprising part, in a much more subtle but better way. The Spirit will be the fulfillment of the Ezekiel’s declaration, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws," (Ezek. 36:26-27), and Jeremiah’s pronouncement that "I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart" (Jer. 24:7). That new heart came in the form of the Spirit.

It is the Spirit that will enable those who believe to know God and to obey Jesus’ teachings. Those are the ones that the Father will love. It’s easy to read passages like verses 23 and 24 and think that this sounds suspiciously like God’s love is based on our effort but that would be to completely misunderstand his point. God reveals Himself to us because of His grace. The life of Christ is available to us because of God’s grace. We receive the Spirit who enables us to love God and follow the life of Christ because of the Father’s grace. The love that we have for God is because He has allowed us to have it. This doesn’t remove responsibility or free will at all; we still have to respond in faith to God’s grace. But those who do not will not have love for God and will not obey Jesus’ word (his logos). There is simply no room in Jesus’ mind for anyone who claims to love God and belong to God but who has not willingly laid down their life and obey Jesus’ teachings which are summed up in his life. To live the life of Christ is to belong to the One who sent that life. To these, Jesus says, he and the Father will come and dwell or make their home with them. God first made his dwelling among His people in the Tabernacle, then in the Temple, but because of Jesus’ cleansing work on the Cross, God’s people will be the temple of God (1 Cor. 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16; 1 Pet. 2:5). This points to and anticipates the time when heaven and earth will be one (Eph. 1:10) and men will dwell with God in His full presence (Rev. 21:3).



Devotional Thought

Jesus laid out a pretty simple formula that equated love for him with obedience to his commands, which can be summed up in living his life rather than our own. Here’s a simply question: How much do you love him? How are you doing, if you judge yourself by Jesus’ standard? If you take an honest stock of yourself and find yourself lacking in your obedience to the life of Christ, there is always room to embrace it more fully. The life of Christ is about God’s grace and the opportunity that He has given us rather than guilt about not measuring up. Take advantage of the gift that God has given you. Grab every bit of the life to the full that you can right now.