“He will guide you into all the truth…whatever He hears, He will speak…He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you…He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.” (John 16:12 – 15).
As we ponder this passage, are we developing a picture of the activity and ministry of the Holy Spirit? What do we see in this passage?
The Holy Spirit guides, He hears, He speaks, He discloses, He glorifies Jesus (as does the Father, see John 13:31 – 32; 17:5), He takes in order to disclose (which Jesus emphasizes by repetition).
A characteristic of the children of God is that they are led by the Holy Spirit. “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God” (Romans 8:14). The context of Romans 8:14 is intimacy with the Father and Son, as is the context of John 16:12 – 15. The Holy Spirit is not some sort of GPS, the Holy Spirit is God and we are called to relationship with Him. (Romans 8 is, in a sense, a wonderful exposition of John 16:12 – 15 and we’ll return to it in these reflections. How might you compare the two passages?)
The Holy Spirit is not in our lives to make us the center of life, but so that Jesus Christ is the center of life, that Jesus might be the heartbeat of our lives.
There is really only one mark, one sign, one fruit, of the working and Presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of an individual, a marriage, a family, a congregation, and that is the expression of Jesus Christ in word and deed, it is the glorification of Jesus Christ. In Acts Chapter Two, when the Holy Spirit came into the Church, when Jesus baptized His followers with the Holy Spirit, the result was testimony to God and Jesus Christ, Jesus was proclaimed and people were called to repent and follow Him, building up one another in Christ Jesus.
What assurance Jesus gives us! The Holy Spirit will guide us, will speak to us, and will disclose Jesus to us. The treasures of the Father and Son will be given to us by the Holy Spirit.
In his first letter, John writes:
“You have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth” (1 John 2:20 – 21).
“As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and it not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him” (1 John 2:27).
John is writing in the context of false teachers (see 1 John 2:18 – 26). When John writes that “you have no need for anyone to teach you,” the context lets us know that John is affirming the Presence of the Holy Spirit within the Body of Christ, within the group of believers who are reading his letter. John is not saying that we don’t need others to understand the truth and to more fully know Jesus, that would be to deny the Body of Christ. John is saying that within the Body of Christ we are fully equipped in the anointing of the Holy Spirit to understand the things of our Father – we need not look outside the Church, the Temple, the Bride, the Gospel.
I am saddened by our propensity to look outside our congregations for the Word of the Lord, rather than learn as a local people in Christ, rather than allow the Holy Spirit to speak to us as local expressions of His transcendent Body. While I strongly believe in cross pollination, while I emphatically believe in seeing and serving the universal and transcendent Church of Jesus Christ, I am also convinced that we ought to learn what it is for Christ Jesus to express Himself in us as local gatherings, as fully functioning communities in Him, After all, vocational ministerial callings are to equip the saints for the work of ministry (Ephesians 4:11 – 12).
And here is a bit of an irony. The pastor or teacher who is most attuned to the transcendent Body of Christ is, I think, more likely to be secure enough to nurture full participation in church life within his congregation than a pastor who has a narrow understanding of the Kingdom. This is because such a leader has a transcendent context, has a heavenly perspective – one that dwarfs his denomination, tradition, parochial agenda…and that calls his people to a high calling in Jesus Christ. Yes, this is rare indeed.
(This may seem like a tangent but wait until we arrive at John 17.)
Do we believe that we need the Holy Spirit to follow Jesus, to see and hear Jesus, to understand the Word of God, and to proclaim the Gospel? Do we believe that we need the Holy Spirit for our congregations to live?
I doubt it. Whether we are Pentecostal or Baptist or Presbyterian or Roman Catholic or non-denominational (whatever that might be), I doubt that we truly believe and live as if we absolutely need the Holy Spirit to live, to breathe, to follow Jesus, to engage in ministry, to function as the People of God, to see and understand the Bible. Just as Jesus Christ is either everything or He isn’t anything, so we are either utterly dependent on the Holy Spirit or we are not. This is like a trapeze artist working without a net “just in case.”
There is just too much risk for us to depend on the Holy Spirit. What would people think? How could we ever be so foolish as to surrender control to God?
Consider what A. W. Tozer wrote in 1948:
“Every age has its own characteristics. Right now we are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart. The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship, and that servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all.” (The Pursuit of God, pp. 17 – 18).
We are in a much worse condition today than in 1948, for today we have become experts in self-sufficiency, we have our own life – support systems which we market and induce our people to depend upon, and in which we educate our divinity students. Just as KFC has the image of Colonel Sanders at every location but does not need the real Colonel Sanders to operate, so we have symbols of the Trinity in our various locations, but we hardly need the Presence of God to function – we have lives of our own.
Well, as I hope we will see, we have a glorious inheritance in Christ which we can experience today, right now (see Romans 8). We are the sons and daughters of the Living God, the sisters and brothers of Jesus Christ, and Jesus deeply desires to share with us TODAY the treasures which the Father has given Him. The Holy Spirit lives within us, He comes to us to join us to Jesus Christ, the Bride to the Bridegroom, cleansing us and washing us with the Word of God, presenting us to Jesus in glory (Ephesians 5:25 – 27), for after all, we are the fulness of Him who fills all in all (Ephesians 1:22 – 23).
Jesus says, “All things that the Father has are Mine,” and this means that all things that the Father has are also ours, for we are “heirs of God and coheirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17).
Do we believe this?
Are we experiencing this?
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