their hearts were filled with pain, with anguish at the thought that their Lord was leaving

them. But it was `expedient', profitable to them that He should go away, for then He

would send the Comforter to them, and He would abide with them for ever (14: 16).

Although the circumstances are different, yet we need the same ministrations of the

Spirit of the Truth. As the darkness gathers, and the love of many grows cold, we too

would be `bereft' without His ministry, but through His presence in our hearts the Lord

Himself is with us.  We may not yet have reached the stage of active hatred and

persecution by the world for His Name's sake, the very indifference of those around us

tends to blunt our keenness and contributes to indifference in our own hearts, but the

Holy Spirit bears witness to us concerning Christ. Often our hearts are grieved, or they

should be, by the indifference to the truth even among believers, then the Spirit of truth

leads on into the fullness of truth. Perhaps there are times when we need to be reminded

that the darkness and indifference all around are but a part of the coming things, that the

dawn cannot come until the night has reached its darkest point. When so many `glory in

the flesh' it is good that the Spirit of the Truth should glorify our Lord to us: when the

pressures of life tend to fasten our attention on `things on the earth' we need the Spirit's

aid to `set our affections on things above'.

The work of the Holy Spirit is essential, and never more so than at the present time.

Here the believer needs to heed the warning to `let no man deceive you', for there are

many today who emphasize, and over-emphasize the work of the Holy Spirit: they glory

in the Holy Spirit, they glory in what they claim are His gifts to them. The Holy Spirit,

the Spirit of the Truth glories in, and glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ. "He shall not speak

of Himself" (John 16: 13). The mark of the Spirit filled believer is that he glorifies the

The final reference to the Spirit of truth comes in John's first epistle:

Those who `are of God' listen to those who are of God: they have fellowship one with

another. They have in common the desire to glorify their Lord, to learn more of Him

from their fellow-believers. The spirit of the error, however, has no place for those who

are concerned with the truth, and is in fact the `spirit of antichrist'. It may be that the

reason for trying the spirits is today different from that which John had in mind in the

fourth chapter of this first epistle, but the spirit of antichrist is as active in the world today

as it ever was, and there are as many `false prophets' (4: 1). Trusting to the guidance of

the Spirit of the Truth, we must search the Scriptures constantly.

Against the background of docetism: an early heresy which denied the reality of

Christ's sufferings on the cross, claiming that He only seemed to suffer, John says: