Saturday, 19 November 2016

John 16:12-15 – The Holy Spirit enlightens believers

In the previous verses, Jesus dealt with the works of the Holy Spirit among unbelievers to bring about awareness of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. In these four verses, He would talk about the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing enlightenment to believers. He began first by telling the disciples that He had many things yet to say to them. But He knew that they could not perceive them as yet because of the limit of their experiences to that point. However, as they move on with Him deeper, they would experience more and more. And when the Holy Spirit comes, He would reveal the truth to them and help them live out the revelation.

Notice that the Spirit is called the Spirit of Truth. He is called thus because He is here to guide the followers of Jesus into all truth. With progress of time, believers of Jesus will be guided into deeper into truth. Jesus also said that the Spirit’s teaching would not come from Himself but He would teach and speak what He hears. Jesus here indicates for us the perfect harmony between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The issue is about the perfect unity in the Trinity. The Holy Spirit would not be revealing something new but would make clear the truth Jesus had received from the Father and taught. The Spirit would be revealing to His followers of what would be coming. Here Jesus was not referring to end-times events but the whole council of God.  

The Holy Spirit’s work among believers is to enlighten and enlarge their capacity to see the things of God. Paul said in his letters to the Corinthians, spiritual truth are spiritually discerned. We need the Holy Spirit to be able to discern the truth. Here Jesus tells us that the work of the Holy Spirit is centered on Christ. It is not in the Spirit’s nature to draw attention to Himself. He came to glorify Christ and point us to Him. His key task is to take all the things of Christ and declare them. In verse 15 we also sense again the perfect unity of the Trinity. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit function in perfect unity. The Spirit would be as eager to reveal truth concerning the Father as He had about the Son. 

In these verses, we all need the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit. He is here to guide us into truth. What eye has not seen, nor heard, God through His Spirit would reveal them to us. Let’s learn to rely on the Holy Spirit and allow Him to guide us into all truth, even uncomfortable but hard truth. He will illuminate our heart and mind and enable us to discern what is true and what is not. 

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