“Taught by the Holy Spirit” (John 14:25–26)

Series: “John: Life in Christ’s Name”Text: John 14:25–26

By: Shaun Marksbury Date: May 12, 2024

Venue: Living Water Baptist ChurchOccasion: AM Service

Introduction

You might be confused by what the Holy Spirit does in our lives. I remember reading about one young lady who was certainly mixed up: “A girl at Philadelphia Bible College miserably flunked an exam. The professor called her in and asked why. She said, ‘I read the verse that says the Spirit will give you in that day what you shall say, and so I did not feel I needed to study.’ ” Perhaps you would see that as a misunderstanding of passages like what we just read, but some people do struggle with the meaning here.

Perhaps they ignore the personal need for the Holy Spirit in their lives. They might go to church, receiving sound teaching, but they inconsistently apply it to their lives. They might try to work in the flesh for some moral good, but that can prove to be an exhausting effort. Unless we see the truth and power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we will not walk as new creatures in Christ.

As we return now to John 14, we’re considering the comforts Christ gives to His disciples as He goes away from them. These are comforts we continue to enjoy today, to varying degrees. One of these comforts is the Holy Spirit, who our Lord began discussing in vv. 16–17: “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.” The Holy Spirit would be there for the disciples forever, providing divine comfort and support while Jesus goes to the Father, interceding there for His saints.

Today, we’ll see three truths about the Holy Spirit. He comes to all Christ’s disciples, He teaches all Christ’s disciples, and He repeats all Christ’s teaching to Christ’s disciples. For the first point, let’s begin in the first part of v. 26.

First, the Holy Spirit Comes to All Christ’s Disciples (v. 26a)

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name,

Our Lord repeats teaching about the Holy Spirit four times in this farewell discourse. As we already noted, He began teaching on the Holy Spirit in vv. 16–17, then here, again in 15:26–27, and finally in 16:7–15. We’ll be visiting these verses repeatedly as we seek to understand the role of the Holy Spirit, and they are worth highlighting in your Bibles.

Jesus is abundantly clear here. The Greek word He uses is paracletos, and we noted back in v. 16 how many ways this is translated. In this translation, the term is rendered “Helper” (also ESV & NKJV); it’s also translated “Advocate” (LSB & NIV), “Counselor” (HCSB & NIV84), and “Comforter” (KJV). Some people just transliterate this “Paraclete.” However we translate the term, Jesus repeats here that this is the Holy Spirit.

One issue that continues to arise in connection to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is that of sex and gender. Gender is historically a category in language, not in persons, describing how words can be masculine, feminine, or neuter (which exists in Greek and Spanish and practically every language except English). When we refer to people as male or female, we’ve historically used the term “sex” to refer to these two categories (and there are only two!). Yet, since we are here referring to the Holy Spirit, the term sex doesn’t apply, leaving some to debate which pronouns are appropriate for the Holy Spirit.

We see this debate in various theological traditions. For instance, as you may have heard, the conference for the United Methodist Church just voted to affirm the ordination of homosexual clergy, and there were references to God in that conference with feminine pronouns. Others see the Holy Spirit as an impersonal force, and they’d have no compunction about using the pronoun “it.” Do we get to choose our own preferred pronouns for the third person of the Godhead?

We noted last time that the Holy Spirit has thoughts, emotions, desires, and a will, meaning that a personal pronoun is most fitting. It’s true that the Greek word for “Spirit” is neuter (pneuma), but that doesn’t mean we refer to the Spirit as an “it.” Jesus says here in v. 26, “He will teach,” and the pronoun there is masculine. In 15:26, Jesus again uses the masculine pronoun, as He does in 16:13–14. If Jesus uses masculine pronouns for the Holy Spirit, then we should, as well. Let’s certainly not have none of that “she” nonsense here!

Okay, but why does Jesus spend so much time on the Holy Spirit? We must remember that the Old Testament spoke quite a bit about the Holy Spirit. We see Him in the first chapter of Scripture — “the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters” (Gen. 1:2). One of the promises God gives for the Messianic Age is “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances” (Ezek. 36:27). So, thinking about the Holy Spirit wasn’t unknown to the disciples.

Jesus is transitioning them to that coming dispensation. As one commentary notes, this “verse obviously indicates that that time was drawing to a close and that a new era was about to begin — the era of the Spirit/Paraclete.” As Jesus is about to leave them for the cross later that evening, they needed to see not only comforts, but the great Comforter who awaited them.

We’ve noted the shift from the Old Testament sense of the Holy Spirit to this new dispensation. In 1 Samuel 16:12–16, we read that the Spirit came on David for a time but departed from King Saul. Later, in Psalm 51:11, David fears this loss, saying, “Do not cast me away from Your presence and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.” In this new age, the Helper would not depart; Jesus promises in v. 16 that He’ll “be with you forever,” and in v. 17, “He abides with you and will be in you.” Christians, on their worst day, do not need to share David’s fear (though we don’t deserve the Holy Spirit’s presence on our best day!).

He is meant to be with Christ’s disciples. Think again about that term Paraclete or Helper. He is God’s advocate or representative with us just as Jesus is our advocate or representative before the Father. As one study explains,

The Greek term used here, paraklētos, refers to a legal assistant in a court who pleads someone’s case before the judge (compare 1 John 2:1). The judge is God, and people are judged based on whether they follow Jesus’ command to believe that eternal life comes through His death and resurrection (John 12:48–50). When on earth, Jesus was the means for believers to interact with God the Father since their sin prevented them from doing so directly. The Spirit is sent to do the same work. This is one of His many tasks. Paraklētos is used throughout Greek literature in a legal context (e.g., Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquitates Romanae, 11.37.1; Demosthenes, De falsa legatione, 1). Jewish writer Philo uses the legal term in a religious context, referring to a sinner pleading their case (e.g., Philo, Antiquitates Romanae, 166).

So, as Jesus says here, the Father will send this Advocate or Helper. Jesus said in v. 16 that He’ll ask the Father to do so for “y’all” (plural). Jesus also says after His resurrection that He will send this promised Spirit from the Father (15:26; cf. Luke 24:49). He received the promise from the Father and poured the Spirit forth on Pentecost (Acts 2:33). There was actually a large church controversy as to who sends the Holy Spirit, but Scripture says that both Father and Son send the Holy Spirit to the disciples.

This means that the Spirit “is given not ‘gotten’ ” to all Christ’s disciples. This fits with what we’ve already considered about the Spirit always being with us. In 1 Corinthians 2:12, Paul affirms that “we have received… the Spirit who is from God.” No where are Christians told to stand with arms uplifted, asking for the Holy Spirit to fall on them. Rather, when Christians believe, they already receive the Holy Spirit in fullness.

The Lord sends His Spirit to all His disciples. This means we each have the Holy Spirit through every trial and temptation, which changes how we approach the troubles of our lives. Of course, this promise started with those first disciples, so let’s consider how this promise affected them.

Second, the Holy Spirit Teaches all Christ’s Disciples (v. 26b)

He will teach you all things

Throughout each of the Spirit passages in this farewell discourse, there’s a sense in which the disciples will continue their discipleship with the Spirit. In v. 16, He’s “another Helper,” which means “another of the same kind of Helper.” The Holy Spirit is the “Spirit of truth” (v. 17; 15:26), meaning that He will communicate truths for the disciples to receive.

The disciples did not always fully understand, as John 12:16 says. This was, of course, a common malady. For instance, Mark 9:32 says, “But they did not understand this statement, and they were afraid to ask Him.” As natural men, they shared the same, limited, political view of the Messiah as their kinsmen, viewing much of the teaching of Jesus through the lens of their traditions. It would take the death and resurrection of the Lord to shake them of this, and the comforting reminders the Holy Spirit would later give them. In John 2:22, we read, “So when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.” Only after the outpouring of the Spirit would they remember and process all that happened.

Jesus will say in 16:12, “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” He says that in connection with the promise of the Holy Spirit who will brings His teachings to their remembrance. He says in the next verse, “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth” (v. 13). The Holy Spirit would open their spiritual eyes to understand how all these prophecies about Jesus’s death and resurrection were necessary for their salvation.

Some of this would be predictive. In 16:13, Jesus continues on to say that the Holy Spirit “will disclose to you what is to come.” This is a prophetic Word that the disciples will need to build the early church. As Ephesians 2:20 says, the church is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,” and 4:11–12 says that He “gave some as apostles, and some as prophets… for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.” The Holy Spirit worked through prophets and apostles in the New Testament era, giving them the necessary revelatory truth to form the foundation for the church age.

To be clear, their special knowledge and truth would be recorded in Scripture. We learn about Jesus from the written word of Scripture. The evangelists and pastors/teachers that the Lord also gives to the church (Eph. 4:11) rely on the Spirit-inspired teaching of the apostles and prophets. In 2 Peter 1:20–21, the Apostle Peter says, “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” In 2 Timothy 3:16–17, the Apostle Paul says, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” It’s through the inspired Word that we see the teaching of the apostles and prophets, which is to say, we see the teaching that comes from God through them.

Now, of course, this doesn’t only apply to the first century disciples. Some have abused these passages to claim that they have a special anointing from God, and that we should listen to them. Some even claim to be modern-day apostles!

John later says we don’t need special teachers; we each have our own anointing from God. In 1 John 2:20–21, he says, “But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth.” In other words, Christ (the anointed one) has shared His anointing with us through the Holy Spirit, meaning that we don’t need to follow self-appointed apostles and prophets. We can know the truth of God ourselves through the Holy Spirit.

I remember not caring much about God as an adolescent, until God got ahold of my heart through His Spirit and made me suddenly realize I needed Jesus. I also remember then being amazed as a younger believer how there was a new sense of right and wrong within me, that I could sometimes discern what God wanted, and then reading Scripture to verify that. That’s not necessarily new prophecy, because I was sometimes wrong, and my own sin often got in the way. However, there was a sense in which the Holy Spirit was helping my thinking to mature.

He worked, though, not through vague feelings and impressions. I had already memorized Scripture as a child, and because of the Holy Spirit, I was getting back into the Word of God. Much more of it made sense, and truths seemed to quickly come to mind. That continues today; there are times when I might personally wonder how I might answer an unbeliever, or help a believer, but as long as I pray and rest upon the Holy Spirit, some truth comes to mind, even if it’s that I should probably be quiet about something!

Another way of considering this is that the Holy Spirit is bringing truth into remembrance. That is the final point for today:

Third, the Holy Spirit Repeats all Christ’s Teaching to Christ’s disciples (vv. 25, 26c)

These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you… and (He’ll) bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.

Some of you have red-letter editions of the Bible to highlight the words of Jesus. I once had a child ask me that, if all the red letters are Jesus’s words, does that make all the black letters the narrator? I found that to be an amusing and thoughtful question. Yet, this highlights a potential problem with red-letter editions — they cause us to think that Jesus’s teaching is only limited to these pages.

There are even groups of professed believers who call themselves Red-Letter Christians. You’ll know when you encounter one. If you say that the Lord condemns gay marriage, for instance, they’ll ask where in the Gospels Jesus said anything about homosexuality. If you say only men should be pastors based on 1 Timothy 2–3, they’ll reply that this is only Paul speaking, not Jesus. They tend to think that Jesus only spoke for three years on earth, making the black letters less important than the red.

Jesus spoke much to the disciples that they didn’t understand, but He sent the Holy Spirit to them not as a different teacher, but as another one bearing the same divine message. For instance, in John 2:22, we read, “So when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.” As we noted, Jesus will say in 16:12, “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” He says that in connection with the promise of the Holy Spirit who will bring His teachings to their remembrance and disclose more truth to them (v. 13). He goes on to say, “He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you” (v. 14–15).

Again, this is the basis for the inspiration of Scripture. The Holy Spirit provides the truth of God’s Word to the pens of the apostles. Inspiration explains how the writings of the prophets and apostles could be the Word of God. He moved them, as 2 Peter 1:20–21 says. It’s because of what Jesus said in this farewell discourse that we know He was authorizing His apostles to continue penning Scripture; the Holy Spirit would cause them to remember what Jesus did and said, and He would teach them what else they needed to see.

It's not that the Holy Spirit is dictating to them what to write. There’s a mystery to that, as each prophet and apostle retains his distinct tone and style, bringing unique vocabulary and prose to the text. Yet, someone they understood the Spirit moving in them. Jude provides us an example when, in Jude 3, he writes, “Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.” The message of each book of Scripture comes ultimately from the Spirit of Christ working through His people.

Some wonder if they made mistakes. There are two theological terms to describe the finished product on the desks of the apostles and prophets — infallible and inerrant. The text is infallible in that it accurately communicates the truths about God and salvation. The text is also inerrant in that it doesn’t contain error in incidental facts (place names, years, etc.). This also allows for the unique flourishes which wouldn’t meet the standards of today’s English critic, but prove to be natural in human reckoning. There’s much to say about that subject, and if you want to know more, I can recommend some books for you after the service.

The point to see here is that the very existence of Scripture is owed to the will of God. The Lord sent His Spirit in the OT, and in the NT, Jesus sends the Spirit again. They record His Word with perfect recollection of His sayings because that is His will.

Of course, all disciples of Christ benefit from the inspired writings of these disciples. Moreover, believers can trust that the Holy Spirit will guide them through the Bible, bringing relevant verses and passages to our minds when we need them. The Holy Spirit has given us this Word, and He works in our lives with it and through it.

Conclusion

That means that, if we want the Holy Spirit to reveal the word of Christ to us, we should read the Bible. Some folks want to audibly hear from the Holy Spirit, so the best thing for them is to read the Bible aloud. There’s nothing in this Spirit-inspired Word about trying to listen for voices within our heads or impressions in our hearts. If we want to be taught by the Spirit, then we should read and obey His Word.