{"id":1611,"date":"2022-02-20T20:39:43","date_gmt":"2022-02-20T19:39:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=1611"},"modified":"2022-02-20T20:39:44","modified_gmt":"2022-02-20T19:39:44","slug":"another-helper-the-presence-of-jesus-in-us-john-1416-27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=1611","title":{"rendered":"Another Helper – the presence of Jesus in us! John 14:16-27"},"content":{"rendered":"

In our morning sermons we\u2019ve been looking at spiritual gifts, the ways that God the Holy Spirit equips Christians for God\u2019s work in the church and the world. We\u2019ve looked at what the apostle Paul teaches about spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians chapters 12 and 14. We have seen how that ties in with the work of the Holy Spirit in the Book of Acts, particularly with the fulfilment of the promise in Joel chapter 2 that the Spirit who inspires prophecy will be given to all believers. Our question for tonight is how does all this fit in with Jesus\u2019s teaching about the Holy Spirit as it is recorded in John\u2019s Gospel?
\nLet\u2019s start with a whirlwind tour of the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers according to John\u2019s Gospel. To begin with is the Holy Spirit who brings the believer into eternal life, the life of the Kingdom of God, through new birth.
\nJohn 3 3 Jesus replied, \u2018Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.\u2019 \u2026 5 Jesus answered, \u2018Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.
\nChristians are born again through the work of the Holy Spirit, but that is only the beginning. We saw in our Bible Study at Draw Near To God that Jesus promised that believers will continue to receive the blessings of this new life through the ongoing work of the living waters of the Holy Spirit, fulfilling promises from Zechariah 14:8 and Ezekiel 47.
\nJohn 7 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.\u2019 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.
\nThe Holy Spirit brings to believers all the blessings of new life. Then in John 14 as Jesus is teaching his disciples in the Upper Room on the night before he was crucified, there is a wonderful promise for all believers which doesn\u2019t mention the Holy Spirit but certainly speaks of what the Spirit will accomplish through us.
\nJohn 14 12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
\nDoing the works that Jesus did and even greater works than those! Jesus goes straight on to explain how this will be possible. In five passages in John chapters 14 to 16, Jesus explains that all the blessings I have just mentioned and more will come to believers through the work of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, the Helper.
\nJohn 14 15 \u2018If 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 for ever \u2013 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.
\nJesus promises that God will give to believers \u201canother Advocate.\u201d The Greek word which the 2011 New International Version and the New Revised Standard Version both translate as advocate is paracletos or the paraclete. There is no comparable use of that word as a title for the Holy Spirit either in the Old Testament or among later documents written by the early church. That leaves us with a bit of a puzzle about how we should understand the title. In the Greek-speaking world a paracletos was an advocate in a court of law. The word comes from a root which means \u201cone called alongside to help\u201d and J.B. Phillips used the phrase, \u201csomeone else to stand by you.\u201d But other Bible versions prefer different translations. Paracletos is also related to the verb parakaleiv which can mean to comfort or encourage. So the old 1984 NIV and the old RSV used the title Counsellor. The old King James Version used the word Comforter but the New KJV and the Good News Translation use the title Helper. All of these titles reflect aspects of the work of the Holy Spirit as paracletos. But to fully understand what it means we will need to look carefully at what Jesus actually promises about this work of the Holy Spirit, which will only begin after Jesus has left the world.
\nThe first thing to say is that Jesus promises that God will send to his disciples \u201canother paracletos.\u201d One more little bit of Greek, because you love it so much. They used to have two words for other. One word means \u201canother of the same kind\u201d, the other \u201canother of a different kind.\u201d Here Jesus uses the word which means \u201canother of the same kind\u201d. But, \u201cThe same kind as what, or as whom?\u201d you will obviously ask. And the only sensible answer is, another paracletos of the same kind as Jesus himself. In the future, the Holy Spirit will continue the work which Jesus himself was performing in his earthly ministry for his disciples, as their paracletos, their advocate, their counsellor, their comforter, their helper. I will give you \u201csomeone else like me to stand beside you.\u201d
\nNext we need to look more closely at what it is that Jesus says the Holy Spirit is going to do in the lives of believers as their paracletos.
\n16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you for ever \u2013 17 the Spirit of truth.
\nThe 2011 NIV translators hedge their bets between advocate and helper here by translating the one word paracletos with the whole phrase \u201cadvocate to help you\u201d. But there are no words saying \u201cto help you\u201d in the sentence. The NewRSV just says advocate and the old NIV just says counsellor. Through his crucifixion, resurrection and exaltation, Jesus will be leaving his disciples. However he promises 18 I will not leave you as orphans but instead the Holy Spirit will remain with them and will never leave them. The Holy Spirit as paracletos will \u201cbe with you forever\u201d.
\nVerse 17 says 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.
\nSo the Holy Spirit is already with, alongside the disciples, and when Jesus has gone the Holy Spirit will be in them, inside them, living in them. What Jesus says next is even more amazing.
\n18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me any more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realise that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
\nI will come to you. Jesus will come to his disciples through the work of the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit comes on the disciples as the the Helper, they will share in the life of Jesus himself. Because I live, you also will live. When that happens \u2026 you will realise that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
\n\u201cYou are in me and I am in you.\u201d That is a very strange thing for one human being to say to another. But Jesus is saying to his disciples that through the Holy Spirit they will know that \u201cyou are in me and I am in you\u201d. One day, after his resurrection and his ascension, Jesus will not just be with them, alongside them. He will actually live inside them, through the Holy Spirit. In John\u2019s Gospel, the Holy Spirit as paracletos will be the personal presence of Jesus with his disciples once Jesus has returned to the Father.
\n23 Jesus replied, \u2018Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.
\nJesus and the Father will make their home with the disciples through the work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus points forward to this in his High Priestly Prayer when he is praying for all his disciples, even for us
\nJohn 17 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one\u201423 I in them and you in me \u2026
\n\u201cMay they also be in us\u201d, \u201cI in them and you in me.\u201d God\u2019s plan of salvation is that we should experience a relationship with God which is as close and profound as the relationship between the Father and the Son. \u201cI in them\u201d. Jesus is living in us!
\nJohn 17 26 I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.\u2019
\n\u201cThat I myself may be in them.\u201d Jesus lives in us. Our experiences of Jesus living in us come to us through the agency of the Holy Spirit, the paracletos.
\nThis is how Christians experience the personal relationship with God which is eternal life, life in all its fulness. Jesus talks about that relationship in his parable of the true vine, right in the middle of all this teaching about the paracletos.
\nJohn 15 \u2018I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. \u2026 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. 5 \u2018I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
\nRemain in me \u2013 abide in me. Stay joined to Jesus. This is all made possible through the work of the Holy Spirit who is the personal presence of Jesus in our lives. So let\u2019s think a bit more about the ways in which Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit will work in the lives of his disciples.
\n25 \u2018All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Advocate, 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.
\nThe role of the Holy Spirit will be to teach the disciples. The paracletos will call to their minds everything Jesus has said to them. And then the Spirit will help the disciples to understand and to believe it all. This will also bring to the disciples an experience of God\u2019s peace in the midst of persecution.
\nThen Jesus has more to say about the work of the Holy Spirit.
\nJohn 16 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.\u2019
\nThe Holy Spirit, the paracletos, is the Spirit of Truth. He will guide the disciples into all the truth. Then it says, He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. The Spirit will pass on to the disciples what God is saying. Sometimes that will include foretelling what is going to happen. This will bring glory to Jesus. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. Jesus is glorified because he himself is the source of all the truths that the Spirit is revealing to the disciples. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.\u2019 The role of the Holy Spirit the paracletos is to pass on to the disciples the saving truth which God has entrusted to Jesus. Jesus revealed the truth by his words and his actions and even by his very presence, \u201cI am the way, the truth and the life.\u201d (John 14:6) The work of the Holy Spirit would be to open up that truth for the disciples to believe and experience. As \u201canother paracletos of the same kind as Jesus,\u201d the Spirit is continuing Jesus\u2019s work of revealing God to the world. The Holy Spirit will bring the presence of the risen Jesus into the lives of the disciples and mediate our relationship with God.
\nThe Spirit will bear also witness to Jesus and help the disciples to testify to Jesus.
\n15 26 \u2018When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father\u2014the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father\u2014he will testify about me. 27 And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.
\nThe Holy Spirit will testify about Jesus to the disciples. More than that, the Spirit will also be working in the world to reveal the truth about God.
\n16 8 When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 about sin, because people do not believe in me; 10 about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11 and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
\nSo when Jesus has gone, the disciples will not be facing the world alone. The Holy Spirit will give them power to be witnesses for Jesus, as Jesus promises. But the Helper will only be given after Jesus has departed.
\n16 7 But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.
\nAfter Jesus has gone away, the advocate, the Helper will come. While Jesus was still with them the Holy Spirit was only among and alongside them. But when Jesus has gone the paracletos will come and be at work in the disciples, inside them. The Spirit will mediate the personal presence of Jesus into the lives of the disciples.
\nTo recap, how will the Holy Spirit accomplish these tasks?
\n1426 But the Advocate, 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.
\n15 26 \u2018When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father\u2014the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father\u2014he will testify about me.
\n16 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.\u2019
\nThese promises will surely remind you of what we have been thinking about so far in our series of sermons about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the communicating Spirit who inspires prophecies and dreams and visions. When we look closely there is a great deal of overlap between these apparently different activities of the Holy Spirit, the communicating Spirit who works through spiritual gifts and the Holy Spirit who is the paracletos.
\nInside every one of us the Holy Spirit is teaching and reminding (14:26), testifying (15:26), guiding into truth (16:13). He will “speak what He hears … tell you what is yet to come … the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.
\nIt is by the work of the Holy Spirit that Christians experience our personal relationship with God \u2013 this is our eternal life. This is how Jesus lives in us and remains in us and we remain in him. The Holy Spirit brings the presence of Jesus into the life of every believer. As our Helper, the Holy Spirit helps us to know Jesus better. He helps us to become more like Jesus. Through spiritual gifts the Holy Spirit helps us to serve Jesus in the church and in the world. And he gives us power to be witnesses for Jesus. But in some ways, titles like Helper and Comforter really need a much more vigorous word. Jesus promised his followers that \u201cThe Strengthener\u201d would be with them. Somebody has said, \u201cThis promise is no lullaby for the fainthearted. It is a blood transfusion for courageous living.\u201d Because through the Holy Spirit the paracletos we have Jesus living inside us!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In our morning sermons we\u2019ve been looking at spiritual gifts, the ways that God the Holy Spirit equips Christians for God\u2019s work in the…<\/span><\/p>\n

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