Episode 101 - The Adovocate will teach you all things - John 14:25-26

John 14:25   “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

These two verses are usually taken with the following verses through verse 31. But, I would like to focus purely on this statement concerning the Holy Spirit. Jesus had just promised to request the Father to send “another Helper” who would be with them forever. The Greek word translated “Helper” in both these verses can also mean “Advocate.” Personally, I like that term better. Maybe I’m reading too much into this. But, it appears to me that “Advocate” connotes the idea the Advocate has the interest of maintaining a relationship between multiple parties; in this case ourselves and the Father. 

Jesus explains how this works. The Father will send the Spirit in Jesus’ name and the Spirit will teach Jesus’ disciples all things. Jesus has been teaching them “all things” for the past few years. What Jesus has been teaching them has been from the Father hasn’t it. Jesus asserted that he was not teaching or doing anything on his own authority but what he saw and received from the Father.  Now, the Spirit would be picking up the job of teaching Jesus’ disciples. Is it not awesome that God wants to teach us His truths? God could just be a power that created and sustained the universe. But, God actually wants us to learn and has made sure that Jesus’ disciples would not stop learning what He wanted them to learn. 

Secondly, the Spirit would “bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” You and I have actually benefitted from the fact that this came true. Back in John 2, Jesus told the religious rulers who demanded a sign for his cleansing the temple “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” They thought he was talking about the temple building. But John records, “21 But he was speaking about the temple of his body. 22 When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.” 

Do you see? God, Father and Son, and the Spirit understood those men would not understand at the time what Jesus meant by his response. Yet, the message was given by the Father to the Son who spoke them in space and time to humans. Now that Jesus was going back to the Father from where he came, the Father would send the Spirit to cause Jesus’ disciples to remember these things and understand more fully what God was communicating. 

We are often in such a hurry. We want to know more and we want to know it now. But, God has perfect timing. In His all-wise perfect plan, God is patient and will lovingly reveal things to those He loves without expecting us to understand it all. Then, at the right time, His Spirit will open our minds to what He has said and we will understand what He wants us to understand. The Holy Spirit is the one advocating our needs to the Father and the Father’s truth and patient care to us.