THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH. March 15, 2015 ADULT SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

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1 March 15, 2015 ADULT SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH MINISTRY INVOCATION O God: We give thanks to You for the manifold blessings to us. You did not have to bless us but You did. We shall remain eternally grateful. Amen. WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW AND UNDERSTAND Jesus promised His disciples that the Holy Spirit would be as real a presence to them as His physical presence while He lived with them on earth. THE APPLIED FULL GOSPEL DISTINCTIVE We believe in the indwelling of the Holy Ghost for all believers and that the Holy Ghost verifies and validates the Believer as part of the Body of Christ. TEXT: Background Scripture John 16:4-15 Key Verse John 16:7 Lesson Scripture John 16:4-15 (NKJV) 4 But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them. And these things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you. 5 But now I go away to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me, Where are You going? 6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. 7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. 8 And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: 9 of sin, because they do not believe in Me; 10 of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; 11 of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. 12 I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. 14 He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. 15 All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you. COMMENTARY Verse 4. But suggests a kind of pause, as if he had said, I will go into no further details these things these prophecies of approaching persecution I have spoken to you, that when [their] hour is come, ye may remember [them] 1

2 how that I told you. Frequently our Lord prepared His disciples for the future, called upon them to remember His predictions as pledges of His Divine mission, but still more as consolations and supply of strength when they would most of all need it. These things I told you not from the beginning; not at the beginning but from the beginning of my ministry and continuously throughout it. The language of the last clause, because I was with you, throws more light upon it. All along, they must have bitterly felt the antagonism, which their Lord encountered. So long as he was with them they could not be made to understand the Divine riches of the consolation, which was, now so near. From the beginning he had not given all this class of instruction, because he was with them. While at their side, it was premature to speak of the special help they would require in their bereaved condition. Verses 5, 6. Now at this very moment I go away to him that sent me. I have completed His work, and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou? Peter s question had obviously turned the whole matter back upon himself, and the way in which the Lord s departure affected his own duties and position; and the same may be said of Thomas. They had both lost sight of the whither in the pain and anguish of the departure. Our Lord had great difficulty in inducing them to realize the blessedness that would befall themselves from His own exaltation, and even now, after all that He had said about this great power and glory which awaited Him, He added, Because I have spoken these things to you since all along you are taking the dark side and looking on the anguish of my departure and desolateness of your own condition, instead of the grandeur of the new Kingdom and dispensation of which you will be witnesses and organs sorrow hath filled your heart; the one heart which I throughout have been seeking to comfort. You are not looking on the end of my departure, or on the fullness of my glory, or on the addition to your own blessedness, but on your own loss, disappointment, and chagrin. Verse 7. Though you are crushed with a sense of your approaching bereavement, and so imperfectly apprehend the conditions of your future power and the method which it is incumbent upon Me to adopt for your consolation and the completion of my earthly work, nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is wonderful that He who is the Truth itself should have needed to have reiterated and affirmed the supreme right He possessed to claim their acceptance of His veracity. The truth, then, thus solemnly asserted, because in their frame of mind it was so utterly unpalatable and incredible notwithstanding all that He had said the truth is, It is expedient for you that I go away. The profit to the disciples is the chief and solitary thought. For you: here lies the gist of the mystery. They might have accepted His own assurance that, bitter as the mode of His departure must be, yet they ought to and would rejoice because He was 2

3 going to the Father. How was it possible for them to rejoice so far as they were personally concerned? He answers the question, For if I go not away and surely this solemn departure meant, as he had recently told them, by the way of death and glorification the Paraclete, of whom I have spoken, the Spirit of truth, will not come to you; but if I go to my Father; the degree of uncertainty as to the issue, I will send him to you The Holy Spirit, as the Divine dispensation of grace to men bringing a renewed humanity into living incorporation with its great Head. Jesus could not become the Divine Life-centre of the human family, radiating from himself the full glory of a universal harmony, until he had been taken up, until he had been glorified in God. Unspeakably precious as many of our earthly gifts and friendships are, we do not apprehend them, nor profit by them to the full, until they are taken from us. The youth, submitted to the condition of perfect dependence on a parent s care and guidance, can scarcely ever reach the fullness of his manhood until he is thrown back upon the spirit of his father s counsel, apart from that father s presence, and brings into daily practice from a new standpoint, the principles he has learned. Nothing had ever been so wonderful and blessed to the human spirit as the fellowship which had prevailed between the Son of man and His disciples. They were with Him, they sat at His feet, they watched His countenance, they experienced a continuous series of Divine surprises at His judgments and His mercies. They were walking by sight, as the children of Israel did, following the pillar of fire and cloud, and drinking of the living water; but they were nevertheless living by sight. Nevertheless, there was something more wonderful and gracious still, when, in His physical absence, they would have the sense of His spiritual Presence. They would lose Him as an earthly Friend, but they would regain Him as a Divine Reality; they would discover more than His humanity in His God-Manhood. They would wield His Divine Word as their weapon, and would become the channels of His healing and convincing and judging powers. The promise, I will send him, is the guarantee of something more than a Christ after the flesh could ever be. Verse 8. And he, when he is come. The Holy Spirit will come, as my grace and the result of my sending. He will convict the world. He is open to the condemnation of conscience, or of men, or of the Law of God. This conviction may in some cases lead to conversion and deliverance, but is distinct from it, and sometimes also may issue after such a manifestation in hardness and impenitence. The world is spoken of, not Jews merely, or their leaders. Humanity itself, with its false standards of judgment, and its self-complacency, is to be convicted of being in the wrong; all kings, princes, potentates, priests, and publicans, who are out of harmony with God, will be convicted by the Paraclete. The conviction of the world is threefold in respect of sin, in respect of 3

4 righteousness, and in respect of judgment. The three great categories of thought, custom, and conduct; the three themes where the world is in infinite need of being compelled to see that it is altogether in the wrong. The disciples are to overcome the whole world by the intensity with which they will be instrumentally the occasion of this conviction. The world under the depressing and distracting influence of its own principles, as well as its passions, has misconceived the whole nature of sin, the entire mystery of righteousness, the certainty of retribution, and the things and principles on which condign judgment must fall. The Advocate, the Divine, indwelling Spirit of the truth, whom Christ will send into his disciples as compensation for His own absence, will through them do this strange and tremendous work. Our Lord does not promise the conversion of mankind, but such a conviction that the blessed consequence may follow. The first great step will be taken. Verse 9. The three elements of this conviction of the world are separately treated. In respect of sin, because they believe not on me. The full causal force of the particle is to be pressed, because they believe not on me. The essence of all sin is unbelief, a refusal to surrender heart and will to the Divine will and authority, though the world generally had taken different views of it: supposing sin to be disobedience to some particular class of duties, or the neglect of certain specific ceremonial. Christ declares that the Spirit which has always been striving with men to bring them into reconciliation with God, will now convict the world that its sinful tendencies and principles have reached their highest and most willful expression in unbelief towards me. The most complete manifestation of God has received from the world the most utter and insensate repudiation. The very nature of sin thus stands revealed, the leprosy of sin will come out on the smiling self-complacency of the world. It will no longer be able to charge upon Adam, nor the devil, nor upon nature, nor upon temptations of the flesh, the blame of sin; but will take the guilt home, and see that, in this crowning act of human folly, unbelievers have rendered themselves personally liable to condemnation, and, by rejecting infinite love as well as eternal law, have left themselves without excuse. Verse 10. In respect of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye behold me no more. The world will be led to form a new conception of righteousness, seeing that God has exalted him whom they have condemned as a male-factor, limit this righteousness to a judgment concerning the guiltlessness of Christ; nor can we, regard it as equivalent to the righteous attribute and process by which God is able to treat as righteous those who believe. This is the only place in the Gospel where the word occurs. The idea of righteousness involves the demand for purity; the idea of justice, one for cleanness. Christ had all along called urgent attention to the fact that that 4

5 which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God, and that the righteousness of His Kingdom must exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, it becomes clear that His exaltation to the right hand of the Father would exhibit God s ideal of righteousness; and by the aid of the Holy Spirit working through the word of the apostles, the world s view of these things would be subverted, the world would be silenced, convicted of being in the wrong in its idea of righteousness as well as in its judgment upon the nature of sin. The idea of righteousness will be expanded and transfigured; the idea of sin will be deepened and intensified and brought home. There is no other righteousness for men than the righteousness of God in Christ and the righteousness of Christ before God. Verse 11. In respect of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. The conviction of sin will have a peculiarly and specially subjective cause; that of judgment will, like that of righteousness, be preceded by two stupendous objective facts the exaltation of Christ and the judgment of Satan. The glorification of the Son of man, to the extent of His being declared to be the Son of God with power, will be the grand event which human nature will be powerless to counteract or ultimately to resist. Know assuredly that this same Jesus whom you have crucified is both Lord and Christ. The judgment of the prince of this world is also a fact lying outside the politics of the world, which may fume and rage as it will; it is beyond the reach of the philosophy or literature, the courts or armies, the fashions or the force, of this world. The central prince and spirit of the world is judged by the Lord Jesus, and condemned; and the time is coming when the old standard of judgment will be cast out, and the world will be compelled to admit that it has been vanquished. The conviction concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment, by the aid of the Advocate whom Christ will send, will become the great work of the apostles and of the Church, until He comes again in His glory. While commenting upon this sublime assurance the awful process must not be forgotten, nor the fact that the prince of the world dies hard. The atrocious wickedness which burst out after the exaltation of Christ among the people who had rejected their Lord, and the consummation of the mystery of iniquity in the Roman empire, was a part of the providential conviction of the world. The entire conviction of judgment, righteousness, and sin must be the work of the Comforter; that all the objective facts, all the teaching of example, all the thunder of prophecy, nay, all the outward demonstration of sin, righteousness, and judgment, made in and by the incarnation and sacrifice of Christ, must be complemented by the grace of the Holy Spirit on individuals, nations, and humanity at large; and that it is in the capacity of human Comforter, or Advocate, that this conviction is wrought. 5

6 Verse 12. Notwithstanding the abundance of the revelations which Christ had given, still, said he, I have many things yet to tell you, but ye cannot bear them now Christ has already said that the coming to them of the Paraclete would be one method of His own Divine approach to them for purposes of consolation and instruction; consequently He does not now allow them to suppose that, though separated from them by death, He would ever cease to instruct them. They could not in their present condition, and before the great events should have happened events on which so much revealing fact would turn bear the revelation of these many things. Pentecost will enable them to appreciate the full mystery of love. The word used for bear is that which is used to describe the bearing of the cross by Christ Himself. They could not, on the eve of the Passion, have borne the full mystery of the atonement, or sufficiently have comprehended the glory of the enthroned King. Verse 13. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come. This points to the definite promise already made when the Spirit of truth is come, having been sent by Me from the Father. He will be your Guide (so that you will not be mere passive instruments, but living agents. Things may be transported, but persons only can be guided. The pillar of fire and cloud led the way, and Israel struck its camp and followed) into the truth in all its parts. A most glorious promise this, for as days of darkness and perplexity draw on, fresh needs will arise. The many things which would be said must be presumed to have been said on highest authority; and hence the unapproachable dignity of the apostles themselves; hence the secret of all their binding and loosing power; hence the revelations they have been able to supply with reference to Christ and salvation, glory, duty, and eternal life, and all the laws of the kingdom. From this vast promise we see the sufficiency of the apostolic teaching, and by implication the portion of it which is committed to writing. Our Lord had delivered to his disciples nothing but the truth; but from the nature of the case they must wait for the truth in its completeness, the whole truth of salvation and deliverance. The infallibility of the Holy Spirit is not that He will be a secondary, or tertiary, or independent Divinity. Like Christ, the Son of God, who was in the bosom of the Father so He who proceedeth from the Father will not speak from himself, as from any spontaneous, independent source. He is, in His gracious operations, no rival Deity, but the Spirit of the Father and the Son and whatsoever things he shall hear (or, heareth, or, shall have heard), that shall he speak. We learn that the Holy Spirit is limited by the revelation already involved in the great fact of the Incarnation. He will speak of that which he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are coming. The revelation will concern Christ and the future. The whole New Testament, so far as it is apostolic, is declared to be the work inspired by the Spirit s guidance of the apostles mind into the truth in all its 6

7 completeness and in all its parts. Verse 14. He shall glorify me. Christ has spoken of being straightway glorified, lifted into the fullness of the Godhead, glorified in God himself. The Spirit will glorify the God-Man, will augment the luster of His blessed Name, will crown Him with honor, and multiply the mirrors of His majesty and the subjects of His power; and the reason is given: For he shall take of mine, and declare it to you. Christ is profoundly conscious of the abundance of truth and reality involved in Himself and in His functions, in the work He is doing and will continue to do. He is alive to the fact that the disciples were not able to perceive what there was in Him without supernatural aid. The Spirit of God will augment Christ s glory in the Church, seeing that He will reveal to men the Person and glory of the Christ, by inward processes, by vivid spiritual intuitions, by mental exercises which we are ready to confess are far beyond the compass of logic, and break through all laws of induction or evolution. This is the high function of the Spirit in inspiration to take of that which belongs to the Son of God, and quicken the spiritual faculty of men that they can and do understand it. The Spirit searcheth all things, even the depths of Deity, and reveals them to those who receive the Holy Ghost. Our Lord declares that all truth is implicitly contained in Himself. He said, I am the Truth about God and about man, and about the relation of man to God. The Spirit will draw aside the veils, which hide this truth and draw forth the hidden harmonies contained in this wondrous Personality. Verse 15. In this verse our Lord makes a still more superlative claim. All things which the Father hath are mine. Perhaps no sentence recorded by St. John is more difficult to reconcile with the mere humanity of our Lord, even of the loftiest kind. The mine of the previous verse is declared to embrace something more than the mystery of His Person and sacrifice. All that the Father hath, all his fullness of being, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, all the power, all the glory of the Father, of the human race, and of all things, are mine. This makes a spiritual apprehension of Christ include a perfect revelation of all the Father s character and work. Therefore said I, that he (the Spirit of truth, in being your Guide into all the truth) taketh of mine, and will declare (it) unto you. Because mine is the Father s, and the Father s is mine; because, i.e., he is the Centre, and Agent, and Motive, and Force in all the Divine self-revelation, and because he possessed as His own this vast range, this infinite fullness of Divine operations, He promised them this spiritual teaching, and assured them that His highest glory was simply to be made known as he is. The Father hath that which is in very essence the Son s; and the Spirit, whose purpose is to glorify the Son by making Him known to men, takes of mine and will declare it. The sum of this astonishing assurance is that the Holy Spirit of truth, an essential element if not Personality in the Godhead, will lead 7

8 these apostles into the fullness of truth and of knowledge of the future, by taking up the essential realities of the Christ in the fullness of His being and work, and disclosing them by spiritual insight and supernatural quickening. These realities of the Christ will prove to be the fullness of the Father s heart all that the Father hath. RELATED DISCUSSION TOPICS CLOSING PRAYER My God: I am grateful to have found You and kept You in the forefront of my being. Bless us continually with Your grace and mercy. They represent bountiful blessings for all of us. Amen. 8