Promise of the Comforter

MEMORY VERSE: “The Counselor, 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.” —John 14:26, RSV

JOHN 16:4-15

AS JESUS explains in the opening verse of this lesson, he was about to impart some information to his disciples which he had previously withheld—“because I was with you” This increased enlightenment concerned the sending of the Holy Spirit as a comforter to his disciples. The thought behind this word is not only the imparting of comfort in times of sorrow—although it includes this—but it also means helper, “intercessor.”

While Jesus was with his disciples during the course of his earthly ministry he served them personally in these ways, but now he was about to leave them and return to his Heavenly Father. Before morning he would be arrested, and before the close of the next day, crucified. It was a tense situation for Jesus and for the disciples. Jesus said, “Now I go my way to him that sent me; and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou? But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart.

Then Jesus explained, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.” In the King James Version the Holy Spirit is often referred to as the holy “ghost” This is an endeavor on the part of the translators to make the Holy Spirit a person, the third person in what is called the trinity of God.

The Revised Standard Version and most newer versions never use the word “ghost” in connection with the Holy Spirit. However, they do attempt to keep alive the erroneous view that the Holy Spirit is a person by using personal pronouns when the text refers to this invisible power of God. There is no warrant for this inasmuch as the pronouns used with reference to the Holy Spirit could just as properly be translated “it” as “he.”

Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; and then explains, “Of sin, because they believe not on me; of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.” This is rather a vague statement, but of one thing we are sure, and that is that the work of the Holy Spirit during the present age is largely in and through the lives of the Lord’s consecrated people. The Lord’s people, with the light of truth illuminating their hearts and lives, have always been a rebuke to the sinful world of mankind, as they have continued to testify concerning the great plan of God, including the future Day of Judgment, when Satan is bound.

Jesus said to his disciples, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” The disciples were natural-minded men. They did not have the spiritual perception which was later theirs by reason of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, so it was impossible for them to grasp the teachings of Jesus as they later did as a result of the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit.

But Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit, when it came, would guide his apostles into “all truth.” This, of course, was a reference to the truth of the divine plan; and the apostles served as the mouthpieces of truth for the remainder of the church down through the age.

Prior to the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost Peter could not understand why Jesus should die at such an early age, when, as it doubtless seemed to him, his ministry had not been completed. But when the Holy Spirit was poured out at Pentecost, Peter was instantly illuminated, and in his Pentecostal sermon quoted Psalm 16:10, and pointed out that it was a prophecy of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Yes, he now understood that Jesus’ death was a part of the plan of God for the redemption and restoration of mankind.

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