The Holy Spirit's Ministry (John 16:5-15)

by J. W. Archibald, Wembley, UK | Category: In The Shadow Of Calvary | Oct 1986

The Lord knew everything about His disciples. Time after time they found that their very thoughts were known to Him. On the last night before Calvary the Lord from heaven spoke to His apostles of many things, and even as He spoke He well understood the effect of His words.

He knew that their hearts were filled with sorrow at the prospect of His departure from them. He had filled their hearts and their lives in such a blessed way that the thought of being without Him was utterly devastating. But their sorrow was great because they did not yet understand where He was going. None of them asked Him. If those disciples had appreciated the triumph and the glory of the return to heaven of the mighty Victor of Calvary, and if they had grasped the full weight of His promise, "I go to prepare a place for you" (14:2) then surely their thoughts would have been very different. However, the gracious Master faithfully told them the truth although He well understood the disciples' limited ability to absorb it.

It is against this background of perplexity and sadness of heart that the Lord gives them the promise "If I go, I will send Him unto you" (v.7). This happy assurance stands in splendour alongside His earlier word, "If I go ...I come again and will receive you unto Myself (14:3)." Not only were they promised His personal return but in His absence they were to have the' constant presence of the Comforter. No wonder Paul describes Him as the Holy Spirit of promise (Eph. 1:13). Not only did the Comforter come in blessed fulfilment of the promise given, but His ministry and His very presence are a real and present pledge of that great promise yet to be fulfilled, "I come again and will receive you unto Myself." Now in the portion we are considering, before the Lord speaks of the Spirit's ministry to the believer, He first refers to

The Holy Spirit and The World

It is the Spirit's work to convict or reprove the world and in doing so He inevitably establishes the attitude that the disciple ought to have towards it. This is clearly stated by Paul, "the world hath been crucified unto me, and I unto the world" (Gal. 6:14) and by John, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world" (1 John 2:15). Three subjects form the basis of the Holy Spirit's convicting of the world, and they must be the starting point in any awakening of sinful man to the true knowledge of God.

The first is sin. Sin is universal in the world since all have sinned. It stands between God and men as a mighty barrier which is far beyond human ability to remove - So great is its power that its victims are unaware of its full gravity and seriousness. The world of mankind does not recognize its desperate guilt before God. Just as the Lord Jesus denounced sin in uncompromising terms, so does the Spirit of God. The world is a world of unbelief in Christ and no one in it could begin to appreciate how hopeless is their case without the blessed ministry of the Spirit.

The second subject is righteousness and this is linked with the departure of Christ to the Father and His absence from the world. In the world of men there is none righteous, no, not one. The Lord Jesus is the only perfectly righteous man who has ever walked this earth. When He was here His words and His conduct shone in brilliant splendour against the murky background of the corrupt ways and institutions of men. What an experience for those who companied with Him during His short time here! They had first hand knowledge of the searching brightness of His divine character and some even turned away from the brightness. This declaring of the divine standard is continued by the

Holy Spirit, who not only reproves sin but also declares absolute righteousness in a world without Christ.

Thirdly judgement, and here the Lord refers to the alien prince of a world which is alienated from God and His Christ. John says elsewhere, "the whole world lieth in the evil one" (1 John 5:19). It is the mighty Adversary of God and men who has blinded the minds of the unbelieving. But the divine sentence of judgement has already been pronounced on that evil prince, and judgement will pass to all who remain deceived by him. The godless society of men is doomed and it is the Spirit's work to make this clear. If anyone from such a world would find the way back to God then the way must begin with a deep awareness of sin, an understanding of the perfect righteousness of God as displayed so marvellously in Christ, and a lively recognition that mankind is under sentence of eternal judgement. Thank God for the gracious presence in the world of the Comforter, without whose helpful ministry none could ever escape.

The Holy Spirit and The Believer

Having considered the threefold ministry of the Spirit in the world, we review now His threefold ministry in the experience of the disciple of the Lord. We learn that "He shall guide you into all the truth" (v.13). Then "He shall declare unto you the things that are to come" (v.13), and thirdly "He shall glorify Me" (v.14).

In the first of these promises the spirit is given the title Spirit of Truth. Now truth can be an uncomfortable thing. God's ways are not our ways and His plan for us will often contain elements that surprise us and which may not conform to our ideas of rightness. If we are to have our grasp of divine truth enlarged then we need to expect that our ideas will need adjustment and we shall need a powerful guide. But in the end, the greater our appreciation the greater will be our joy. We have noted already that as the disciples began to understand that their Lord was going away, their hearts were filled with sorrow. As their understanding increased to take in the triumph of His resurrection and the glory of His exaltation to heaven's throne and the promise of His coming again, their sorrow gave place to joy and their witness acquired an irresistible momentum. So it is for His disciples today. It is the Lord's desire that we should not settle for a limited appreciation of His truth, resting on a comfortable understanding and afraid to follow the Spirit's prompting to move forward. We have His promise, "He shall guide you into all the truth". With such a guide there is nothing to fear. Without Him we shall find only error.

Second is the promise that He shall declare unto you the things that are to come. This should be seen in the light of verse 4 "These things have I spoken unto you, that when their hour is come, ye may remember them, how that I told you". The Lord emphasizes that "He shall not speak from Himself; but what things soever He shall hear". The Spirit's ministry forms a unity with the teaching of the Lord. It is nowhere at variance with the Lord's words and its content does not extend beyond what the Lord has said. This is an important point on which some have sadly erred. The sweet promise is, that whatever the future holds for the disciple of the Lord, the ministry of the Spirit will be more than sufficient to equip the disciple to face it. In the most difficult times the Comforter will help our understanding and will strengthen us to accept the will of the Lord, even when we cannot understand. He knows the end from the beginning.

Thirdly, "He shall glorify Me: for He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you". Here we have God the Spirit glorifying God the Son. In the following chapter the Lord speaks of the Father glorifying the Son and of the Son glorifying the Father. It is a sublime contemplation that the Persons of Deity should glorify one another. The glory of God can be thought of as the effect on the beholder of God's greatness. It is therefore a great privilege for a man to glorify God. It means that the greatness of God has so affected the man as to produce in him attitudes and actions which reflect that divine greatness. Now think of this applied to the Persons of Deity. In this case the Holy Spirit so appreciates the Person of the Son that He, the Spirit, reflects and declares the greatness of the Son. The theme of the Spirit's ministry is therefore Christ the Son of God. There could be no greater help and comfort than this. For those disciples to whom the Lord spoke in our chapter, there stretched out the prospect of days and weeks and years of their Master's absence. They had been enriched beyond telling by His company with them day by day since the unforgettable day that they first met Him and decided to become disciples. To them He gives the promise that God the Spirit will come and abide in them

and day by day increase their store of the unsearchable riches of Christ.

Along with these promises there comes a reminder of who He is who makes the promise. "All things whatsoever the Father hath are Mine". In the presence of those first disciples was the Man of Galilee who seemed to have no earthly power or wealth. In fact all things belong to Him and all things were made by Him. Can it be that He is saying that all the power and resource of Deity is there to be taken and made known to the disciple for his help? Yes indeed, but only through the agency of the Spirit of truth.

And every virtue we possess,

And every victory won,

And every thought of holiness,

Are His alone.

J. W. Archibald, Wembley, UK | Oct 1986
In The Shadow Of Calvary