John 14:25-26

“ I have spoken these things to you while I am yet with you. 26. But the support, the Holy Spirit, whom my Father will send in my name, will teach you all things, and will bring all things to your remembrance which I have said to you. ”

We might endeavor to connect these words with the preceding; for it is through the gift of the Holy Spirit, who is about to be spoken of again, that the great promise of John 14:22-24 will be accomplished. But the perfect λελάληκα, I have spoken to you, rather indicates a conclusion; the conversation reaches its end and returns now to its starting point. John 14:25 therefore is not to be connected with John 14:24; it recalls the contents of the entire discourse. What Jesus has just said to the disciples of the future reunion, above (John 14:1-3), and here below (John 14:12-24), is all that He can reveal to them on this subject for the moment. If this future is still enveloped in obscurity for them, the teaching of another master will dissipate the mists, and will explain to them all His promises by realizing them. Ταῦτα, these things, at the beginning, in contrast with πάντα, all things (John 14:26): “This is what I am able to tell you now; another will afterwards tell you the whole. ”

The epithet holy given to the Spirit, John 14:26, recalls the deep line of separation which Jesus had just drawn, in John 14:17; John 14:24, between the profane world and the disciples already sanctified by their attachment to Jesus. As holy, the Spirit can only come to dwell in these last.

The expression: in my name, is to be explained, as in John 14:14, with this difference, that it refers here to an act of God (shall send), and no longer to the human act of prayer (shall ask). On the side of God, it is sending in virtue of the perfect revelation which He has given of the person and work of His Son; while on man's side, it is asking in virtue of the more or less imperfect possession which he has gained of this revelation. Weiss, in despair of finding any satisfactory sense in the words in my name, if they are made to refer to the act of sending, applies them to the object of the mission: God will send the Holy Spirit to be in the place of Christ, as His substitute with believers. But the Spirit is not the substitute for Christ; Christ Himself comes again in Him; then, the grammatical relation of the limiting words in my name to the verb send, does not authorize this sense.

The pronoun ἐκεῖνος, he, he alone, brings into strong relief the person of this new teacher who will tell everything, in contrast with the earthly person of Jesus who is going to be taken away from them (John 14:25). The Spirit will do two things: teach everything; bring to remembrance everything which Jesus has taught. These two functions are closely connected; He will teach the new by recalling the old, and will recall the old by teaching the new. The words of Jesus, the remembrance of which the Spirit will awaken in them, will be the matter from which He will derive the teaching of the complete truth, the germ which He will fertilize in their hearts, as, in return, this internal activity of the Spirit will unceasingly recall to their memory some former word of Jesus, so that in proportion as He shall illuminate them, they will cry out: Now, I understand this word of the Master! And this vivid clearness will cause other words long forgotten to come forth from forgetfulness. Such is, even at this day, the relation between the teaching of the written Word and that of the Spirit. Καί : and specially.

Naturally the first πάντα, all things, embraces only the things of the new creation accomplished in Jesus Christ, the plan and work of salvation. The first creation, nature, is not the subject of the revelation of the Holy Spirit; it is that of scientific study.