05. The other Comforter (Joh_14:16-17; Joh_14:26; Joh_15:26-27; Joh_16:7; Joh_16:13)

(5) The other Comforter (John 14:16-17;John 14:26;John 15:26-27;John 16:7;John 16:13) In chapters 13 to 16 inclusive, the Lord Jesus assumes His heavenly position: He looks Himself as a heavenly Saviour, having finished the work the Father had given Him to do (John 17:4). Ch. 13 starts with a remarkable statement: the love of Christ for His own unto the end. It was just before the feast of the Passover (the anticipation of Christ’s sacrifice) and "Jesus knew that his hour was come" - the solemn and glorious hour of His death - "that He should depart out of this world unto the Father". He then proves the love for His own in a marvellous way through the provisions of His grace for the time where the disciples (and us after them) would be deprived of His personal presence with them on earth. Yet, thanks be to God, we are never deprived of His permanent presence for us in heaven. The Lord Jesus had been (and still is) the Comforter for His own. He is our Advocate (Paracletos) with the Father (1 John 2:1). The first expression of the Lord’s love for His disciples is to wash their feet: a symbol of the cleansing of their soul by the Word of God, to bring them into the suitable moral state where they might receive His communications for the time of His absence. But now that the Lord is in heaven, there is another Comforter, the Holy Spirit who would abide with the believers for ever (John 14:16). While the Lord’s words (in ch. 3, 4 and 7) had presented several aspects of the operations of the Holy Spirit, this new revelation concerns now His divine Person. The Spirit has been sent by the Father in Jesus’s Name (John 14:26); and, as proceeding from the Father, the Spirit of truth was also sent by the Son (John 15:26; John 16:7). There is a most remarkable unity in the three divine Persons to answer all our needs: God the Father is "the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort" (2 Corinthians 1:3). God the Son is the Comforter, and God the Holy Spirit is the other Comforter, who provides "the comfort of the Holy Ghost" to the assemblies (Acts 9:31) and brings also to every Christian the consolation in Christ, the comfort of love and the fellowship of the Spirit (Php 2:1). But there is more: the Holy Spirit takes that which is the Lord’s to give it to the disciples (and in turn to us), for the Lord’s own glory (John 16:14-15); He guides us into all truth (John 16:13). He teaches us all things (in the NT epistles; John 14:26); He brings all things to our remembrance, whatsoever the Lord had said (in the gospels; John 14:26); He testifies also of Christ (in the Acts of the Apostles, which are in fact the acts of the Holy Spirit; John 15:26); finally, He will show us things to come (in the book of Revelation 16:13). Altogether, the Spirit bears witness concerning Christ, the rejected Son of Man, but now glorified in heaven (John 15:26). As a consequence, the disciples will bear witness about Christ, being themselves eyewitnesses of His sufferings. The last revelation about the Holy Spirit concerns His witness towards the world (John 16:8-11). The world here is not the lost mankind, the object of God’s love (John 3:16), but rather the evil system organized by man on earth away from God since Cain’s offsprings. After Christ’s rejection, Satan is called the prince of this world, where there is nothing for Christ (John 14:30). Again mark carefully the relative moral order: the Holy Spirit first comforts the disciples, then brings to them the truth on behalf of the Lord Jesus, and finally pronounces the judgment of the world. He will "convince the world of sin, and of righteouness, and of judgment" (John 16:8).

(1) First, the conviction of sin: sin was in the world since Adam’s fall; Israel added the transgression of the law, and all men were guilty. But now in the consummation of the ages, Christ had been manifested (Hebrews 9:26): "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself" (2 Corinthians 5:19), and man refused it; man did not believe in Christ: such is sin as declared by the Spirit’s witness.

(2) Then, the conviction of righteouness. "Righteouness and judgment are the foundation of (God’s) throne" (Psalms 89:14). But at the Cross, never had they been so far apart, when Pilate - the guardian of judgment - committed the supreme act of unrighteousness in condemning Christ, the only innocent man on earth. Henceforth, righteousness left the world with Jesus Christ, and is in heaven with "the Righteous" (1 John 2:1), He who sits on the Father’s throne, now invisible for the world (John 16:10), which has lost his Saviour and will see him only as a Judge.

(3) Finally, the conviction of judgment. There will be a future time where "Judgment shall return unto righteousness" (Psalms 94:15), when the Son of Man will judge the world in righteousness (John 5:27; Acts 17:31). Now the world is already judged, together with his prince, Satan, the great adversary (John 12:31). God’s judgment is sure and final, although it is not immediately carried out.