The Spirit Telling Truth

Hello everyone. Tonight, we’re continuing our look at the New Testament and how it relates to the doctrine of the Trinity. Right now, we’re in the book of John and we’re in the sixteenth chapter in the upper room discourse. Tonight, we’re going to be looking at verses 12-16.

12“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all 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. 14He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. 15All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.

16“In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.”

What does Jesus mean when he says he has more to say to them? There is not much more said after the gospel. It would seem then that this refers to what the Spirit would say. At this point, some people might be wondering seeing as I’ve blogged before on the voice of God speaking to us. What do I do with this verse?

It’s quite simple. I accept it.

How? That’s also simple. I remember that Jesus was speaking to the apostles and they would be the leaders of the church and I believe the Spirit would lead them somehow into all truth and that could be through verbal communication as we see that that happened at times in the book of Acts.

The difference of course is that that was the apostles. We are not the apostles. Of course, as I’ve said, the Spirit could speak to us and give us truth, but that is not what we are to expect. We are to expect that the words of Christ rang true through the apostles and the writings that they have passed down on to us are true.

In serving this capacity, the Spirit will give glory to Christ. He will take the truth Christ wishes the apostles to have and give it to them. We see here some of the internal workings of the Trinity and we must remember that Christ is because the Father is. There is a beautiful unity taking place.

In fact, the Son affirms that in the next verse. This is an aspect of the Trinity that gets us into the topic of morality. We can see that each person of the Trinity does seek the good of the other for the sake of the other.  We can see then the way that we ought to live. If we are to follow the model of the Trinity, we ought to seek the good of our fellow man for his sake.

Jesus ends this section by saying that shortly they will see him no more and after that, they will see him. What could he mean?

That gives you something to look forward to tomorrow I suppose.

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