Part 23b – John 16
The How
In John 16:7-8 and John 16:13 and also in John 15:26-27 Jesus tells his disciples, who He is preparing for life on earth without him, about a Helper, or an Advocate, or if we use the Greek word, ‘Paraclete’ which when translated means “The one who comes alongside”.
To fully understand this idea of a ‘Paraclete’ and its relevance to our lives we need to cast our thoughts back to the creation story in Genesis 1:3.
Right at the outset of life, God created mankind in His image (Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:7) and breathed life into them. In that moment man (the Hebrew word used here is Enosh, and is not gender specific) became a living being, a complete person in the image of God. As we know, mankind then disobeyed God and was banished from the garden and God’s presence in order to protect them from eating of the tree of life, which they could freely access in their fallen state, and live in a state of all knowing because they had tasted of the forbidden tree, the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It was through God’s mercy and His all knowing fore knowledge that He banished them so that they could not live in, and enjoy the presence of God and live in SIN, a state of unforgiven disobedience.
It is with this backdrop that Jesus is clearly saying to His disciples that He alone is the promised saviour and that it is necessary for Him to depart from them in order for them and all future generations to be able to be reconciled to the Father in perfect unity as was the intention at the outset of creation.
In John 14:16-17 Jesus says He will ask the Father who will give another comforter and then went on to explain who this Advocate is and who will receive it.
The Advocate, “the one who comes alongside” will make us complete again and restore us to the place of completeness in God, this place of unity described in Genesis 1 and 2. This Advocate is hugely important to our own personal well being and our wholeness as it is He who convicts the world of sin, of righteousness and judgement. All the things that enable us to find and believe in Jesus as God’s redemptive Son (John 14:17) tell us that this Advocate is the Holy Spirit who will be in us. Notice here in this verse that Jesus first says that the Holy Spirit “lives with you now” and then says “later will be in you “. This is because Jesus has not yet died and been raised as part of the great plan of salvation, but now that Jesus has risen and ascended into glory the Holy Spirit will be in us. I want you to note that unless we accept and believe that Jesus has died, risen and ascended into glory then we cannot know the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as promised here in John 14:17 and if that is the case then we will abandon our faith in the time of any trouble or persecution because we are not in Christ and He is not in us.
As we observed in John 15 it is all about abiding in Christ.
So to conclude a rather challenging section of John’s gospel let me summarise:-
- We are informed by Jesus that being a follower of Christ will involve a cost.
- We are informed by Jesus that some will abandon their faith, or stumble.
- We are given hope because of the promised indwelling of the Advocate, the ’Paraclete’, the one who comes alongside and dwells in us because of the power of the resurrection.
- We need to take heart because God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are working together in perfect unity to overcome the world and it’s sinfulness in order to bring us, His people, into the safety of Himself as depicted at the outset of creation. We are a living being made in the image and likeness of God, worked out in humanity for the good of all mankind.
Are we up for the challenge?
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