Episode 106 - Our Advocate, the Holy Spirit - John 15:26-27

John 15:26   “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. 27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.

In the previous chapter of this book, Jesus made two promises of sending the “parakletos” which is translated in the English Standard Version as “Helper.” Jesus explained in John 14:17 that this is the “Spirit of Truth.” Shortly after in John 14:26 and following he qualifies this “Helper” as the Holy Spirit; the third person of the Trinity. I had also noted that the Greek word “parakletos” could be translated as “Advocate.” I argued that this word better communicates the role of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus explains that the Advocate will always be with Jesus’ disciples. 

I don’t know about you, but I like being with the people I love and who love me. To me, Jesus’ assurance the Holy Spirit would always be with us reminds us that God’s love is always with us. Because of that love, we can understand why he advocates for us. 

Jesus also says in 14:26 that this Advocate “will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” It’s important to understand this promise within its context. One has no grounds to argue that we do not need to study the Bible because the Holy Spirit will teach us everything we need to know. If this were the case, why would Jesus have called these disciples to live and hang out with him for a few years? Why didn’t He just send the Holy Spirit upon them if everything they needed to know would just be put into them by the Holy Spirit? The answer lies in the second part of that promise. Jesus told them the Holy Spirit would remind them of what Jesus had taught them. 

In this brief section in view today, Jesus repeats that this Advocate is the Spirit of truth. I love that Jesus repeats this. In this world of not knowing who to believe for anything, we can trust that God wants to reveal His truth to us by the Spirit of truth who will always be with us. Jesus explains that the first and most important truth the Advocate will communicate is concerning Jesus; “he will bear witness about me.” (v. 26) Then he adds, “And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.” (v. 27) This is why Jesus called these first disciples to follow him and be with him for a few years. In following Jesus, they got to hear his teaching and watch him work the miracles he performed. Whenever the Spirit came, He would take all of that teaching and experience they had with Jesus and teach them by helping them understand the significance of Jesus’ words and works. It was God’s will for them to witness Jesus and learn his teaching (which came from the Father) but for the Holy Spirit to form the deeper understanding and significance of it all. The first and foremost thing I believe they grasped was that this Jesus, this amazing guy they had been following the past few years, was truly God. 

As a side note, I believe it was this awareness that led John the Apostle to not directly name himself in this book and to also magnify the work of John the Baptist who said of Jesus, “He must increase. But, I must decrease.” I think John the Apostle spent the rest of his life in wonder and awe of Jesus, pondering why Jesus chose him.  John does not want to highlight himself in his own account of Jesus’ ministry. So, he speaks of himself simply as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” 

The fulfillment of Jesus’ promise that the Holy Spirit would bear witness concerning him and that the disciples would also bear witness first came in Acts 2 at the Feast of Pentecost. Read that and ask yourself if these people seem different than they did less than two months earlier when they were running away from Jesus and denying him.

The important lesson I believe we can learn is that while we do not get the privilege of seeing Jesus with our physical eyes and listen to him speak with our ears, we do get the privilege of “listening” and “observing”  him through the Scriptures. We also have the witnesses that were with him. So,  the Spirit of truth, our Advocate who is always with us, can illumine our understanding of Jesus’ words and actions so that it will help us have the same kind of wonder and awe that God has chosen us to be with Him. Then, we should bear witness to others so they can believe.

Do you know what the Bible calls this? Faith.

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.