Wednesday Bible study: John, the homestretch part 2

 NOTE:  Due to the ever-changing situation with Misty, no M10 show this week.  Keep us in your prayers, I just don't have the wherewithal to music this week-C.

In John 14, Jesus introduces the Disciples to the concept of the Holy Spirit, as we call it.  He gives it/Him the name "parakletos", which is the idea of helper/comforter/advocate.  Though the Spirit is revealed in many OT references (My favorite being Proverbs 8, where It self-describes as Wisdom), this is the first mention of Him being a co-equal partner in God.  Around this, Jesus makes three statements that tie into the Spirit's presence, to which the Disciples ask 3 questions.  So, what does Jesus tell us about the Spirit?

1- He is the Spirit of Truth- truth in the sense of all being revealed.

2- To understand Him, one must RECEIVE Him- something the world refuses to do.

3- Because of this rejection, He is neither seen nor known by sinful man.  Which takes you back to #1- either you accept Him and receive truth, or you reject Him and follow your "own" truth. The whole thing is binary- you do or you don't.

4- Jesus describes the big difference between OT people and Christians now, in this line:

Joh 14:17  ...You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. 

Starting with Pentecost, 50 days after Jesus rose, The Spirit created a living space INSIDE a believer.

5- He will teach you all you need to know- give them understanding of the things they weren't grasping- and  (6) remind you of all the things Jesus taught- directly to the Disciples, through the Word to us.

Advocate, Revelation, Receiving, Perception, Presence, Teaching, and Remembrance- perhaps these are then the Seven Spirits of God John later recalls in Revelation:

Rev 3:1  "And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: 'The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. "'I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.

So, let's see how the subject is explained.  First, Jesus wants the Disciples to know they won't be abandoned when Jesus Himself leaves:

Joh 14:1  "Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.
Joh 14:2  In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
Joh 14:3  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

But there are three of the 12- well, 11 now- who need proof of things.  The first to speak up is the ever-doubting Thomas:

Joh 14:4  "...And you know the way to where I am going."
Joh 14:5  Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?"

Note, Jesus doesn't tell them they KNOW where He is going- but that they know how to get there.  Thomas confuses this point because he hasn't grasped the difference between a physical place and the end goal. This is what Jesus then answers gently with His very famous staement:

Joh 14:6  Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Joh 14:7  If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."

Now, Jesus tells these 3-year long companions they don't yet know Him.  But once again they want empirical data.  Stepping up to the mike now is the man who wanted to know how Jesus knew what He did, Phillip:

Joh 14:8  Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us."
Joh 14:9  Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?

 John took this message to heart at the very start of our tale...

Joh 1:18  No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.

But those that require hard facts required proof- and that exasperated Jesus.  He had done things that only God could do in front of them; He has told them, "The Father and I are one."  Jesus then spend the next 6 verses, re-explaining this.  Then, He begins the explanation of the Holy Spirit which we started on.  Within this, He adds in the statement that answers the main thing resting on their hearts, with all this talk of His leaving:

Joh 14:18  "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
Joh 14:19  Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.
Joh 14:20  In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 

Jesus goes on to explain that Love is the next step- love will extend their knowledge of Him; lack of love for Him will withhold that knowledge.  But despite all the examples Jesus's battles with the religious elite has given them, they don't get the binary nature of this knowledge.  That brings us to a question from the "back benches":

Joh 14:21 " ...Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him."
Joh 14:22  Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?" 

 

Now at last the Disciples are asking the right questions. A question that gives Jesus the chance to explain the Spirit more fully:

Joh 14:23  Jesus answered him, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
Joh 14:24  Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me.
Joh 14:25  "These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you.
Joh 14:26  But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

Again, it is a binary knowledge.  The Spirit comes and asks acceptance; the soul either accepts and learns, or rejects and does not.  I have seen the results of this in the arrogant statements of self-satisfied atheists on social media.  (Note: this is NOT calling all atheists "arrogant" or "self-satisfying".  As we learn in Proverbs, there are three kinds of non- believers: The simple, who just haven't been told of God; the scoffers, who might with explanation and circumstance come around; and the Fool, who has determined in his heart there IS no God, and won't change his mind as a matter of self-identity.)

Finally, despite that earlier exasperation, Jesus tells them, He realizes they weren't going to get it yet- the filling of the Holy Spirit hasn't yet happened. Thus, He explains, this entire talk has been one of those things the Spirit will later "bring to remembrance."  Thus armed, He announces its time for the endgame to begin:

Joh 14:29  And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe.
Joh 14:30  I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me,
Joh 14:31  but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.