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John 16:1-16
Jesus has been with the Disciples and now things are coming to an end. It truly is time for Jesus to go through the pain and suffering and the death that He must endure to complete the Father’s plan of redemption for the entire human race. Jesus needs His Disciples to know that they are not going to be alone. Let’s here what He had to say.
John 16:1-16 (NIV) “All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them. I did not tell you this from the beginning because I was with you, but now I am going to him who sent me. None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ Rather, you are filled with grief because I have said these things. But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”
I love this passage of Scripture from the Disciple John. There are some really great theological thoughts here. Such as – judgment has come for the Prince of this world – ha Jesus is already Judging the Adversary – the Devil – Satan. Did you ever stop to realize that Jesus has already pronounced judgment against the one who antagonizes us. What does that mean – it means that Satan is powerless against us – those who are filled with and walk in the Spirit – The Church! I think that’s kind of cool.
I also think that it’s pretty awesome that Jesus is thinking of His Disciples so much that He is warning them and telling them what will happen. Jesus wants them to keep the faith and to not loose hope in the coming events. Because His death, is part of the plan. This is what needs to be done.
And then Jesus talks about the work of the Holy Spirit. And I want to concentrate there because I believe that His work is so vitally important to our walk with Christ.
And just like in the last chapter we read, here Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit brings to us only what Jesus gives to Him to bring to us – in the same way that Jesus only brought to us from what He was given by the Father. And here Jesus puts out there that the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth. And it’s this leading that inevitably leads us (The Church) to Jesus as His bride. And really the job of the Advocate is to be our Guardian until we meet up with Christ as His bride.
This reminds me of the story in the Old Testament you’ll find in Genesis 24 of how Abraham sends his servant to find a wife for his son Isaac.
Abraham sends the servant to the land of his fathers. And he finds Abraham’s brother’s granddaughter to be bride to Isaac. You might remember her – Rebekah. Rebekah and Isaac have a couple of sons, one is Esau the other is Jacob. And Jacob becomes…wait for it…Israel who has 12 sons, and now you know the rest of the story.
So this servant leads Rebekah all the way back to Abraham and to Isaac. She didn’t know the way, but she followed the servant and this servant lead her to Isaac. This servant protected her as they traveled. Each day she followed even though she didn’t know all the details of the journey. She allows this servant to move her by his moving. And so it is with the Holy Spirit. We go where He goes as He leads, even when we don’t know how or where the destination lies. And we do this, so that like Rebekah, we will end up in the dwelling place of our Savior. I would invite you to ask the Holy Spirit each and every day to guide and guard you on this journey.