 |  |
The coming separation, betrayal and crucifixion of our Lord was going to put a great
strain on the faith of the disciples, so that Christ gives them words of encouragement and
assurance that His Father had all things under His power and control:
"Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved
me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for My Father is greater than
1: And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might
believe" (14: 28, 29).
Christ announces that He was going away to the Father and coming again to them and
mentions this prior knowledge as proof of His authority so that due fulfillment would
support their faith. This is the way God works to set the seal of truth on His words. A
similar example is found in chapter 13: 19: where the Lord Jesus foretells His betrayal
by one of His disciples:
"Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am He."
Judas (not Iscariot) asks our Lord how He would manifest Himself to them and yet not
to the world (14: 22). The answer lies in verses 23-26. The Holy Ghost would teach
them and bring all things to their remembrance that the Lord had taught them. Looking
at the negative side:
". . . . . the Spirit of Truth: Whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not,
neither knoweth Him" (14: 17).
The world barred by unbelief cannot find the Saviour nor receive the spiritual riches
the Holy Spirit is ready to minister to our minds. Paul's mighty doctrinal letter to the
Romans develops the conclusion that the flesh cannot achieve the required righteous
standards of God and further that while the Jewish law was in itself righteous, it too,
failed because of the weakness of human flesh, but nevertheless, it prepared the way for
the righteousness of the spirit that rests in the finished work of Christ. In the verse now
quoted we see the place accorded by God to faith in His plans for mankind:
"For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him Who
hath subjected the same in hope" (Rom. 8: 20).
God has ordained that our lives in themselves have no continuing purpose (vanity--
uselessness) for they end in death. But these lives are subjected to hope or channeled into
faith in the Son of God whereby we have an entrance in to a new and eternal state and
age.
It is so necessary for us to pause and meditate on the references to the Comforter, the
Spirit of Truth presented to us in this wonderful Gospel of John:
"Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for
He shall not speak of Himself; but whosoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He
will show you things to come. He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of Mine, and
shall show it unto you" (John 16: 13, 14).