The first advent of the Spirit of Truth, our Helper. John 14:17; Act 2:4.Title: The first advent of the Spirit of Truth, our Helper. John 14:17; Act 2:4.
In John 14:17, the Lord describes the Spirit’s main function.
John 14:17that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you, and will be in you.
/“The Spirit of truth” is a functional title. a)lhqeia[aletheia] is a thing as it really is and not as it is concealed or falsified. The one and only truth with that quality is doctrine. So He is “the Spirit of doctrine.”\
You know when you get those letters in the mail that says you’ve won a free vacation? There’s a hidden truth there.
Like in Charles’ Dickens’ wonderful book “A Christmas Carol” there is the Ghost or Spirit of Christmas past, present, and future. Well here we have the Spirit of truth.
Scrooge had a change of heart due to a certain realization of a truth. For him it was the realization that greed and bitterness only led a man to end up alone and unloved. The revelation of this changed him. Think of the change that is enacted in the heart of a believer when the whole realm of truth is revealed to him by the Holy Spirit.
We saw in John 17 that the Lord petitioned the Father that we would share the same joy that He did. Well there is no way that joy can be a part of us without the truth of doctrine. And there is no way that we can incorporate that truth into our very being by reading it off the pages of Scripture without supernatural help. So our Lord prays first that we receive the Spirit of doctrine. In John 17 He will pray that we receive the truth and also in John 17 He will pray that we receive the joy and the inheritance of the riches of glory. Our Lord, our husband, thought of everything for His bride.
/It is the function of God the Holy Spirit to make Bible doctrine real in your soul. The Holy Spirit is the prime metabolizer of doctrine so that it becomes the knowledge that defines you.\
John 18:37 Pilate therefore said to Him, "So You are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice."
John 18:38 Pilate said to Him, "What is truth?"[He just told you, His witness]
So we have the King of truth and the Spirit of truth. Both live inside the CA believer forever.
There is only One God and therefore only one truth. This makes God a separatist and the believer must see Him that way or else he will become confused by the many winds of false doctrines.
By failing to honor God and therefore Jesus Christ as the One witness of truth many go the way of destruction, following the herd.
/Matt 7:13 "Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it.\
/Matt 7:14 "For the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it. \
In fact, “truth” is the last word uttered by our Lord before He dies.
/Ps 31:5 Into Thy hand I commit my spirit; Thou hast ransomed me, O Lord, God of truth. \
The Hebrew word for truth, emeth, means a foundation that is certain and firm.
/Ps 119:160 The sum of Thy word is truth, And every one of Thy righteous ordinances is everlasting. \
/Ps 138:2 I will bow down toward Thy holy temple, And give thanks to Thy name for Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth; For Thou hast magnified Thy word according to all Thy name. \
And another scripture concerning prayer: /Ps 145:18 The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, To all who call upon Him in truth. \
/The foundation of truth is certainty and firmness. Truth is the strong arm that supports the weak when mixed with faith.\
Outside of the Biblical idea of truth, mankind has truths that he attempts to reconcile and combine though they come from many different sources. Therefore the faith that is offered through the world system is a wish, something that is possible, hopefully true, but not certain.
For example:
A theory of everything (TOE) is a common theory of theoretical physics that fully explains and links together all known physical phenomena, and predicts the outcome of any experiment that could be carried out in principle. It is theory that would unify or explain through a single model the theories of all fundamental interactions and of all particles of nature: general relativity for gravitation, and the standard model of elementary particle physics — which includes quantum mechanics — for electromagnetism, the two nuclear interactions, and the known elementary particles.
For hundreds of years scientists have been looking for this theory, but to no avail. One French philosopher, who with all the other philosophers of his day was sure that Christianity had to be wiped out, had this to say:
/An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes. —Pierre-Simon LaPlace; Essai philosophique sur les probabilités, Introduction. 1814 \
Pierrecomes close to defining the omniscience of God while he is dead set at removing God from all his equations.
God has graciously given mankind the intellect to discover certain natural and physical truths that reveal His faithfulness. Gravity, magnetism, atoms, chemistry, physics, etc. all faithfully doing the same thing again and again. So man takes these things and tries to unify them into an overall truth while excluding God. Man’s arrogance is always trumping his ability to see.
It has gotten to the point in our world where people think it is impossible to be a scientist and a Christian.
Therefore, if the overall truth cannot be found in the world system then neither can pure faith. Both truth and faith are only found in Christ and only then by means of the power of God the HS.
John 14:17that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive [only believers – you can’t say no to one Advocate and expect to get the other], because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you, and will be in you.
/ “abides with you,” is actually “abides beside you,” since He is not to be within them until the Church-age. This is the OT ministry of God HS. “will be in you,” = CA.\
Since He asserts that they know God the HS, the Lord likely taught them about the ministry of the HS for OT believers who had a special calling, like David.
These disciples, these eleven have a very special calling and they would need the Spirit beside them for the 50 days after the resurrection, upon which, at Pentecost, the Spirit’s ministry would change them forever.
Acts 2:1 And when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.
Acts 2:2And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent, rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.
Acts 2:3 And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them.
Acts 2:4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.
Some thought the disciples were just drunk. Kind of silly to think a man is drunk because he can speak several different languages at once. But that shows you just how far a person will go to reject something. The point is that those who did not come to believe did not receive the Spirit because they rejected Christ and so they did not behold Him or know Him.
Back to John 14. I’m sure the Lord still sees glossed over eyes and fear behind them. He has promised to go prepare a home for them to which they will follow after. He has promised that they will do the works that He does and that He will ask and the Father will send another Helper, but they still need more comfort.
/The Lord has no shortage of comfort for His bride.\
John 14:18"I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
The Lord continues to comfort the disciples. He said He was leaving and that they could not come and they were fearful. Where are You going? Can we follow? How do we know the way? [If you had known Me you would have known the Father] Show us the Father and we’ll be satisfied.
To this the Lord has replied: You will do the works that I do, and even more. You will have full access to the throne of the Father through Me. Now you must love Me through My word so that you will follow me by guarding My doctrines, and remember, I will not leave you without protection, guidance, and supernatural power in order to comfort you. An orphan has no parents and therefore no comfort.
/ “I will come to you” – resurrection, Pentecost, full canon of Scripture, and the Rapture.\
Since the Lord was to proclaim the Gospel as well as the kingdom to Israel, much of His teaching was concerning the fulfillment of God’s unconditional covenants to Israel, which would only come through His cross. So then, almost all of His teaching about the future program of God was about the Millennium. He saved the teachings He had for the Church-age until the very end and so we can understand why the disciples are scratching their heads. They fully expected a Millennial reign with themselves seated on thrones under their King. They believed He was the Messiah and so they were eternally saved. They still were confused about the cross as they missed the suffering Savior in the OT like many of the Jews of their time did. They only saw the Messiah as the conquering King, the crown without the cross. Since Israel had rejected Him as Messiah, Israel would have to be interrupted and the Church-age inserted. This makes for a whole new dispensation and policy. This is all new to them. The horror of the cross is going to be new to them. Crucifixion was reserved for the worst criminals. The next few weeks are going to make or break them, but they were chosen for it and the pressure and adversity and even failures are going to lay for them a foundation of doctrine that will lead them to the ends of the earth proclaiming the good news of Christ.
John 14:19"After a little while the world will behold Me no more; but you will behold Me; because I live, you shall live also.
/ “behold” – present active indicative of qeorew[theoreo] which means to perceive with the mind. You are going to observe me in your soul\
What has begun in the upper-room at our Lord’s Passover was an introduction to the mystery doctrine. To follow is the complete revelation of the mystery and the canon of scripture will be complete. Therefore, seeing Him with our eyes is not necessary.
/John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. \
/1 Cor 2:16 For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ. \
/Through the full realm of mystery doctrine that unlocks any remaining mysteries of all doctrines, the disciples will behold Christ far more than they did during the first advent. \
Knowing His mind brings capacity to love Him.
I could see you for an hour every day for your whole life and not know a thing about you unless you speak and reveal your mind. Christ could not fully reveal His mind until the session when the Spirit and the entire mystery doctrine would be released.
/ “because I live, you shall live also,” refers to the resurrection body that every believer will receive. But in Christ’s absence there is an abundant life available on earth – resurrection life.\
Without a resurrection body our souls would be unclothed forever. Since Christ, through justification, has earned for each one of us a resurrection body we have faith in full assurance that we will be clothed for all eternity and we long for that day. However, in this mortal body there is a sense of nakedness when we are controlled by the OSN and swallowed up by the world system. Christ has provided a covering for our mortal bodies, but it cannot be seen with the physical eye. This covering is a seamless garment composed of the virtues of spiritual maturity. It is a uniform of honor that clothes the soul with the love for Christ and making our whole body feel clothed.
Adam and the woman clothed their nakedness with fig leaves. God clothed them with animal skins as a shadow type of what was to come and now we clothe ourselves with Christ. |