John 14:15-24

GOING TO SEND THE STRENGTHENER AND REVEALER

Text 14:15-24

15

If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments.

16

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever,

17

even the Spirit of truth: whom the world cannot receive; for it beholdeth him not, neither knoweth him: ye know him; for he abideth with you, and shall be in you.

18

I will not leave you desolate: I come unto you.

19

Yet a little while, and the world beholdeth me no more; but ye behold me: because I live, ye shall live also.

20

In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

21

He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself unto him.

22

Judas (not Iscariot) saith unto him, Lord, what is come to pass that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?

23

Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my word: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

24

He that loveth me not keepeth not my words: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's who sent me.

Queries

a.

Who is the other Comforter?

b.

Why so much stress in this section on keeping His commandments?

c.

What did Judas (not Iscariot) want to know?

Paraphrase

If you really love Me and desire to carry on My work and receive answers to your prayers, you will keep my commandments. And if you abide in My commandments I will ask the Father to give you another Strengthener and Helper and the Father will send Him. He is the Spirit of truth and He will dwell with you forever. The world cannot receive Him into fellowship because the world does not love or understand His divine Personality, just as it rejects My divine Personality. You know and love this divine Personality. He is the same Personality who is dwelling in your presence now in bodily form and shall soon dwell within you in spiritual essence. I will not desert you nor go away and leave you destitute of help like orphans. I, the Son, the same Personality who has been with you in bodily form, will come unto you in the Spirit. In just a very short time the world will not even be able any longer to see Me with physical eyes, for I will very soon be gone from the world in bodily form. But you who love Me and obey Me will truly see and know Me for I will be as equally alive and active in the Spirit as I am in bodily form. And when I have accomplished man's redemption and return to you alive in the Spirit then you shall also be alive indeed in the Spirit. In the day when you are born again in the Spirit you will know fully and completely that I am in My Father, and you will know that you are alive forevermore in Me, and that I am alive and dwelling in you. I affirm again, he that continues to know my commandments and continues to keep them is one that manifests his love to Me. The one that so loves Me shall be loved by my Father; and I will love him and will reveal Myself unto him in the Spirit. Judas (not Judas Iscariot the betrayer) said to Him, Lord, you have previously indicated that you would soon manifest yourself to the world in all your Messianic glory. Now you speak of manifesting yourself only to us. What has happened to so limit your intended manifestation? Jesus said, Judas, when a man loves Me he will continue to keep My word. And my Father will love him and the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit will come unto him and make our dwelling place within him. The opposite is also true, he who does not love me will not keep my words. And to reject my commandments is not to reject the commandments of a mere man for the words which you hear Me speak are the very words of God the Father who commissioned Me and sent Me into the world.

Summary

The strong emphasis of this section is upon Jesus-' return to the disciples in the Spirit on the condition that they love Him and keep His word. The Holy Spirit helps and strengthens and abides in men through the Word of Christ.

Comment

Love is the incentive for obedience and obedience is proof of love and trust. The one who keeps the word of Christ has the mature, complete love of God in him (1 John 2:5; 1 John 5:3) and is assured that he knows God and is known by God (1 John 2:3). But the one who professes to know God and does not keep the commandments of Christ is a liar and the truth is not in him (1 John 2:4).

Jesus makes this statement (John 14:15) in connection with what He has said before and what He will promise after. Their obedient love is a condition of their being called and empowered to serve as co-laborers in the redemption of man. Their obedient love is also the condition necessary for Jesus to send them another Helper, the Holy Spirit.

John 14:15 through John 14:24 are of great importance to the Christian in his understanding of the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Godhead. John 14:15 not only indicates the condition necessary by the disciples in order to be given the Holy Spirit, it also indicates the agency (the Word of Christ) through which He comes into the believer. John 14:21; John 14:23 are reiterations of this for emphasis.

John 14:16 clearly teaches that the Holy Spirit is a person, not just an idea or a feeling. He is another divine Strengthener and Helper and Teacher just like Jesus who was the Word become flesh. He is not different from Jesus (except that He comes not in the flesh), but He is exactly like Jesus in word and in deed. The word Comforter is parakleton in the Greek and is transliterated Paraclete. Literally it means one called alongside to strengthen or help. He is not one who brings luxurious comforts as we think of comfort today. He gives strength that we may bear our tests and trials. He testifies of the promises of God whereby we might be partakers of the divine nature and escape the corruption that is in the world (cf. 2 Peter 1:3-4).

He is also the Spirit of truth. He is the Revealer of divine truth. John 14:17 does not mean that it is impossible for man to exercise his will in surrender to God's revelation and thus receive the Holy Spirit; that man must be irresistibly overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit. Jesus is saying much the same thing He said in John 3:18-21 (see our comments there, Vol. I). As Lenski puts it, He speaks of the inability of willful obduracy. one in which men neither behold nor know the Spirit although He is present with all His grace. Jesus is speaking of the worldlings who refuse to have God in their knowledge (Romans 1:18-32) and who take pleasure in unrighteousness (2 Thessalonians 2:8-12). The Pharisees who would not believe in Jesus because He told them the truth (John 8:44-45) are such. There are many such worldlings in many degrees of ignorance concerning the Holy Spirit. And many of them are ignorant of Him because they wish to remain ignorant of Him.

These disciples knew Him. He is the same Personality as Jesus except for the fleshly body. These disciples were learning of Him. Their knowledge of Him was not yet full and mature. They had their childish and selfish concepts of Him but they were growing and would soon mature in their knowledge of the Godhead and His purposes. Jesus makes it very plain here that He and the Holy Spirit are identical in Personality. He was with them in bodily presence but would soon be absent in bodily presence but in them in His Spiritual Personality.
Another touch of pathos comes from the heart of Jesus as He tells the disciples, I will not leave you orphaned, for I am coming to you. The word translated desolate is the Greek word orphanous from which we get the English word orphan. Christ promises that He will not go away and leave them destitute of help like orphans. Orphans have no home but Jesus has already spoken of the dwelling place in the Father's house which He goes to prepare for His loved ones. Orphans feel lost and desolate but Jesus has shown His loved ones the WayHe is the Way home. Orphans have no comforter but Jesus promises to send the Comforter.

In a few short hours Jesus would be gone from the eyes of the world, physically speaking. But those who love Him and obey Him will truly see and know Him. Christ is as alive and active in the Spirit as He was in the flesh. The Holy Spirit through the Word is living and active and powerful and moves in the hearts of men convicting and converting their stubborn wills. The Holy Spirit through Providence works out all things together for good to them that love God. When Jesus has accomplished atonement and justification by His death and resurrection and ascension and when He returned in the Spirit they would truly behold Him. When they should surrender and be born again by faith in Him and obedience to His word they would be truly alive, In the day when they should be born again by the Spirit they would know more completely that He was in the Father, that they were alive forevermore in Him (Ephesians 2:1-7), and that He was in them.

Again, in John 14:21, Jesus repeats the conditions and the agency of receiving the Holy Spirit. Again He instructs them that the One who is to be sent will be but another manifestation of His Spirit. He and the Father are One; He and the Holy Spirit and the Father are One. There can be no mistake about how men and women are to be led to obey the Lord's commandmentsthey are to be led to love Him. There can be no mistake about how men and women are to show their love to Christby keeping His word.

During His last week of teaching in Jerusalem and near the city, Jesus talked often of the coming of the kingdom, the coming of the Son of man with power and great glory (Luke 21:25-28, etc.). Now He says to the disciples, I am going away. the world will see Me no more. I will manifest Myself to those who love Me and keep My word. Judas (not the betrayer) manifests the immature concept of the kingdom of God that is still within the minds of the disciples. He is still full of the worldly notions of the Messiah and His kingdom. He seems to say, This very week you talked of your coming with all the holy angels when the nations of the earth should be gathered together. Now you speak of manifesting yourself to us but not to the world. What has happened to so limit your Messianic program?

Jesus replies to Judas as if to say, Judas, I am speaking of an intimate fellowship of My Spirit with men who love me. It is a living union to bring strength, joy and peace. The return and manifestation I spoke of before is unto judgment; the return and manifestation I speak of now is unto those who love Me and keep My word.

This verse (John 14:23) is one of the most profound, yet simple and lucid verses of the New Testament. In it is explained, as far as man can understand, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within everyone who loves and obeys Christ. It is simple enough for a child to understand yet it contains truth so profound that the most brilliant intellect cannot fully fathom. There are no requirements of mystical rites to be performed, to place one in a mood to receive the Holy Spirit. There are no promises here of any ecstatic trances or emotional fits that one may know he has the Holy Spirit dwelling within him. The very simple and plain promise is that the one who believes, trusts, loves and obeys Christ will be indwelt by the Spirit of God. We shall have more to say of this verse in later comments.

This section closes in John 14:24 with Jesus emphasizing again that He is trying to teach the disciples of the perfect oneness of the Son and the Father and the Holy Spirit. His emphasis is that the disciples should love Him and keep His word as they would keep the Father's wordfor the words He speaks are the very words of the Father. Although He is soon to go away they may trust Him to fulfill His promises just as surely as God has fulfilled His words in the past. Any man who does not love Jesus nor keep His word is rejecting God! He that honoreth not the Son, honoreth not the Father (cf. our comments on John 5:23).

We pause in our sequence of verse by verse comments here to consider briefly that divine Personality, the Holy Spirit. The context of Chapter s 14, 15 and 16 of John's gospel teach more than any of the other gospels about Him. Jesus is concerned more here with instructing the disciples as to how the Holy Spirit takes up His dwelling within the believer. As a starting point we quote, The Spirit is not a mere impersonal force or influence which we somehow get hold of and use; but He is a personal being, wise and holy, who is to get hold of us and use us. He is one with whom we may have the closest friendship, or fellowship (Philippians 2:1; 2 Corinthians 13:14). He enters into our personalities, and we become new persons, with renewed minds, affections, desires and wills. (Seth Wilson, in, Who or What Is The Holy Spirit?)

The question is, how does He enter into our personalities and get hold of us and use us? Do we absorb Him through the pores of our skin? Does He overwhelm us by some mystical, direct, irresistible saturation? How do we know that He is in usby some emotional thrill or ecstatic trance?

We believe there are two spheres in which the Holy Spirit moves and works todaythrough His Word and through Providence. We believe that the Holy Spirit's Personality penetrates and enters into our personality as He expresses His mind, will and personality through His word. When we know His will in His word, believe and trust Him, love and obey Him and surrender our wills to His will, we believe He has come to make His abode with us. We believe this is plainly taught in the New Testament. In John 14:1-31 Jesus repeats twice this very idea (John 14:21; John 14:23).

Again, we quote, The Holy Spirit enters today into those who hear and obey the Apostles-' written word even as He did into those who heard the oral word. The power of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life today is limited only by the lack of faith in the written word! The power of the Holy Spirit will be manifest as the Christian saturates his very life and being with the precepts and principles taught in the Bible, which is the living voice of the Holy Spirit, and puts them into practice in his life. As the Christian has the mind to surrender to the instructions of the Holy Spirit as He speaks through the written word, the Holy Spirit possesses him, leads him and uses him and to just that extent (cf. Galatians 4:19; Colossians 3:16). (Walter L, Spratt, in, The Holy Spirit in The Christian Life.)

Jesus said much the same in John 6:48-63 (see our comments in Vol. I). He is the Bread of Life. If men desire eternal life they must partake of His flesh and blood (His very nature). But how? Jesus answers, It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. We partake of Him by assimilating His word into our mind and heart. He is then in us. Peter said the same thing when he wrote that we have been granted by God's divine power all things that pertain to life and godliness through knowledge of Christ. Furthermore, we may partake of the divine nature through His great and precious promises (2 Peter 1:2-4).

The Holy Spirit as a new Person and a new Life is born within us through the Word of God. We quote, Before a child can be born it must be generated or begotten by its father. The same is true of the new birth. Before one can be born again he must be begotten again. This means there must be a life-causing seed to generate the new life, Is there such a seed? 1. Luke 8:5-8 record Jesus-' parable of the sower who went forth to sow his seed. Christ Himself explains the story. Now the parable is this: the seed is the word of God. 2. Having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which liveth and abideth. 1 Peter 1:23. 1 Peter 1:3. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth. James 1:18. All of this means that the Holy Spirit inspired word is the life-causing seed that is planted in our hearts. How true it is that belief cometh of hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. Romans 10:17.

The Person of the Holy Spirit is born and grows within us through constant communion with Him by knowing His will, obeying His word and doing His work.

1.

We are to drink of Christ's spirit (John 7:37-39).

2.

He is to dwell in us by faith (Ephesians 3:17).

3.

We are to be filled with the Spirit by understanding what the will of the Lord is (Ephesians 5:17-19).

4.

He lives in us by faith (Galatians 2:20).

5.

We receive Him by the hearing of faith (Galatians 3:2; Galatians 3:14).

6.

We put on Christ by faith and obedience (Galatians 3:26-27).

7.

The new man which is put within is renewed in knowledge after

the image of him that created him (Colossians 3:10). Our lives bear fruit when we allow the Spirit to lead us through His will as expressed in His word. The fruit of the Spirit is exhibited in the personal transformation of mind and character (hence conduct) of each individual who grows in Christian faith as he should (cf. Galatians 5:22-23; Romans 8:2-4; Romans 8:12-14; Romans 14:17; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11; 1 Corinthians 6:17-20).

To obey the Word is to be led by the Spirit. The man who obeys the gospel is a child of God. The Spirit tells us to believe, repent and be baptized into Christ. Our spirits tell us that we do believe, have repented, and have been baptized. Therefore His Spirit and our spirits testify with each other to the same thingthat we are children of God (Romans 8:14-17). By the same token, when we read, understand and do the will of the Spirit as expressed in the written word, we do put to death the deeds of the body (Romans 8:13).

One thing is certainthe Holy Spirit will not come and dwell with us unless we hear His voice and open the door and allow Him to come in (Revelation 3:20). He may be rejected, resisted, despised, blasphemed, lied to, and grieved, if we do not want Him. Or, He may be heard, trusted, loved, received, obeyed, followed, fellowshipped if we desire Him and allow Him by exercising our faith to take hold of us and use us.

The only dependable agency available to man by which he may be certain that he knows the Holy Spirit or feels Him or that He controls him is obedience to the written will of the Holy Spirit in His word, which is the Bible! We may be sure we know Him if we keep His commandments (1 John 2:3). All who keep His commandments abide in Him, and He in them (1 John 3:24). Whoever knows the Spirit of God listens to the apostles-' doctrine and this is the only way man may know the difference between the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error (Satan) (1 John 4:6). If we love one another and confess Christ, His Spirit abides in us (1 John 4:12-15). Anyone who does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God; he who abides in the doctrine has both the Father and the Son (1 John 1:9-10). A man is on dangerous ground when he must depend upon human emotions or human creeds or human concepts to know the certainty of his possession by the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within him.

The Spirit does not operate independent of His Word in possessing a man and dwelling within him. Just as a father's personality penetrates and bears fruit in the lives of his children through the father's teaching and deeds, so the Personality of the Heavenly Father, His Spirit, penetrates and bears fruit in the lives of his children through the Father's word and deeds as they are witnessed to in the Bible. Through His Word, written and spoken, He has striven with men. Through His Word, written and spoken, He convicts men of sin, righteousness and judgment. The Spirit, through His Word, when men allow Him by faith and obedience, comes into a person's heart and mind and possesses him, leads him and uses him.
There are, of course, many other attributes of this wonderful, divine Personality which we have not discussed here (i.e., His characteristics, His miraculous gifts, His providential working in nature and history every day, etc.). This has not been our purpose. We are concerned here only with the entrance into and possession of the believer by the Holy Spirit. If the reader desires more discussion of other attributes of the Holy Spirit we suggest Don DeWelt's book, The Power of The Holy Spirit, Vol. I, published by College Press. Ozark Bible College also has a number of mimeographed essays by Seth Wilson, Walter L. Spratt and others for salesimply write to the OBC Bookstore and ask for as much mimeographed material as they have on the Holy Spirit.

This divine Person was promised in the Old Testament (Ezekiel 36:27). He was promised by Christ, the Incarnate Word (John 7:37-39). He comes to every obedient believer today (Acts 2:38; Acts 5:32). He brings strength, joy, peace, wisdom, power and fruitfulness.

Quiz

1.

Why does Jesus emphasize love and keep my commandments?

2.

Who is the Holy Spirit like? What are some of His characteristics?

3.

Why can the world not receive Him?

4.

Why is John 14:23 of such significance?

5.

How is the Holy Spirit received into our hearts? Name 4 ways the Scriptures say He comes to us?

6.

Is there any way man may be sure that the Holy Spirit is in him? How dependable is it?

7.

When the apostles preached, what did they say was necessary for the coming of the Holy Spirit into the individual? Acts 2:38; Acts 5:32.