For the next few minutes I want you to imagine that you are in the upper room with Jesus and his followers. (I am tempted to suggest that you close your eyes, but I don’t want you to fall asleep!)
It is the fateful night before Jesus’ crucifixion. They have gathered for the Passover supper, observed for more than a thousand years, since the time of Moses. It was intended as a festive occasion, celebrating the liberation of God’s people from centuries of slavery under the cruel hands of the Egyptians. Yet I can only imagine that on this particular occasion the air must have been fraught with apprehension and foreboding.
The disciples could not have known exactly what lay ahead. But Jesus did. And almost certainly they must have picked up on the mounting hostility that had been surrounding him since their coming to Jerusalem only a few days before. And if that weren’t enough, Jesus had already taken the unleavened Passover bread and broken it with the ominous words, “This is my body, broken for you…” And then the cup of wine, saying, “This is my blood, shed for you…”
Perhaps you have noticed already, however, that, unlike the other three gospel writers, John makes almost no mention of the Last Supper. He gives it barely a mention—just a single word in passing. And there is a reason, for John’s focus is on something else: on Jesus’ words of comfort and assurance to his followers, words that John would carry with him for the remainder of his life.
It is clear that Jesus knows what lies ahead of him. And this is his last opportunity to prepare these, his closest companions, for the sequence of events that would lead to his crucifixion—not to mention all that would be happening to them after that!
In the dozen verses that make up our passage for this morning Jesus assures his followers that, even though his time with them is coming to its end, they will not be left alone. In chapter 14 he has already promised them that he would not leave them as orphans—that he would be giving them another Helper, the Spirit of truth, who would be with them not just for a few short years but forever. Now, as we come to chapter 16, Jesus unwraps that promise for them, to give them some more extended teaching on who the Holy Spirit is and what he will do.
The word that Jesus uses for the Holy Spirit both in chapter 14 and in our passage this morning in our English Standard Version Bibles is “Helper”. If you look at other translations, you will find that it is rendered “Advocate”, “Comforter”, “Counsellor” and “Friend”.
The challenge for translators is that very often a word in one language has no exact equivalent in another. The original word that in our Bibles is translated “Helper” literally means a legal advisor—that is, someone who is called in to assist another person in court, whether as an advocate, a witness, or a representative.[1] For this reason my own preference would be to go for “Counsellor” or “Advocate”.
But we don’t need to sweat over words, because in our passage this morning Jesus himself sets out for us exactly what the Holy Spirit’s role will be—in relation to the world, in relation to his followers (which includes you and me today) and in relation to himself.
He will convict the world (4b-11)
First, then, in relation to the world: Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit “will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgement”. So let’s take a moment to try to unwrap what Jesus means when he tells us that the Holy Spirit will convict the world.
Other translations render that phrase “expose the error of the world” or “prove the world wrong”. The word literally means to cross-examine, to put to shame, to treat with contempt, to accuse, to bring to the test, to refute…[2] I had a little fun this past week and asked the internet to give me some other synonyms and here are a few of the alternatives that it came up with:
invalidate; discredit; give the lie to; debunk; show in its true light; knock the props out from under; shoot full of holes; blow out of the water; blow sky high…
I suspect you get the drift!
So often the world’s idea of what is right or good is diametrically opposed to what God himself has set forth and commanded. You may remember way back in chapter 3 of John’s gospel, when Jesus warned Nicodemus, “This is the judgement: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.” (John 3:19)
Centuries before Jesus, the prophet Isaiah had mourned,
All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous
acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our
sins sweep us away. (Isaiah 64:6)
And in the New Testament the apostle Paul echoes that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
We live in a world and in a society that is morally and spiritually spinning out of control. Gender confusion is considered healthy behaviour. So-called abortion rights are protected by the courts, no matter the precious lives of the helpless ones within their mothers’ wombs. Assisted suicide is upheld by legislation as a morally acceptable, even desirable, way for life to end. And in the nation to the south of us there is a man who likely will be convicted of criminal offences and who clearly has no moral judgement, who could easily be elected president.
It is clear to me that, left to our own devices, we human beings cannot be relied upon to choose good over evil, truth over falsehood, right over wrong. Yes, there have been and there are many noble exceptions. And there are times when truth and righteousness have prevailed. Yet there is also a sad trail of wreckage that goes all the way back to when our first forebears spurned the wisdom of God for a fruit that they found pleasing to the eyes and naïvely thought would bring them wisdom.
It is the Holy Spirit who is able to unmask the lies that the world would have us believe and to lead us into the truth. That is not to say that Christians have not taken the wrong path and do not continue to do so—and sometimes with cruel and calamitous results. But it happens when we close our eyes and shut our ears to the Holy Spirit. As the psalmist pleads, “Today, if only you would hear his voice, ‘Do not harden your hearts…’” (Psalm 95:7-8).
He will guide you (12-14)
If the first role of the Holy Spirit, then, is to expose sinful thoughts and attitudes, the second is to be our guide into what is true and right and just and good.
Some years ago Karen and I spent a day in the village of Ghadames, an ancient Berber settlement in the Sahara desert, near the border of Libya, Algeria and Tunisia. Its history can be traced back six thousand years. No doubt we would have found it interesting just wandering through its curving whitewashed passageways and admiring its palm-shaded oasis. Had we known more than a word or two of Arabic, it might have been even better! But what made all the difference was that we had a guide. And Tahar took us into places we never would have known about or even imagined were there. He explained its history and traditions and introduced us to some of its people. In a word, he was able to bring it all to life—to make sense out of what otherwise would have been a mystery to us. And we would have left Ghadames never knowing what we had missed.
So it is with the Holy Spirit. Jesus promises that he will be our guide, to lead us into all the truth. Now I don’t believe that the truth Jesus is referring to in these verses is what we might call scientific truth. More than once people have gone wrong by thinking they can treat the Bible as a kind of scientific manual.
No, the truth that Jesus is talking about here is that the God he came to reveal is a God who is sovereign over all creation. Yet he does not dwell in blissful isolation on some remote throne in the heavens. No, he is personal and accessible to every human being. What is more, he loves you and me. And we’re not just talking about some wishy-washy feel-good love but a costly love—indeed a love that shouldered the ultimate cost, borne in the pain and shed blood of his own Son on the cross for your sins and mine.
The truth that Jesus was talking about is discovering “the wisdom from above”—the wisdom that in the Bible’s words is “pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere” (James 1:17).
The Bible warns us that this kind of truth, the truth into which the Holy Spirit guides us, is something that the world by and large just does not “get”. The apostle Paul described it as “a wisdom not of this age or the rulers of this age” but “the secret and hidden wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 2:6-7). Yet, as Jesus himself has promised, this is the truth that sets us free, free to become the women and men that God has created us, that Jesus has redeemed us, and that the Holy Spirit empowers us, to be (John 8:31-32).
He will glorify me (14-15)
So the Holy Spirit comes to convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgement. He comes to lead us into the truth—and specifically the truth that is in Jesus. And all of this brings us to a third point that Jesus left with his disciples. And it is a point that really flows from the first two. That is, the Holy Spirit comes to glorify Jesus.
Indeed without the Holy Spirit we would never be able to claim Jesus as Lord in the first place. For it is the Holy Spirit who enables us to recognize Jesus for who he is. The Holy Spirit does not come to point us to himself. He comes to point us to Jesus. He does not stand at the centre of the stage, for he does his work in the background and for the most part silently and unseen. It is for that reason he has sometimes been called the shy member of the Trinity.
Yes, there were the big events like Pentecost and the conversion of the Gentiles in Cornelius’ house. But those are the exceptions, the high points, the events that made the headlines—while all along, quietly in the background there were those faithful souls in their thousands, who “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers … with glad and generous hearts and having favour with all the people” (Acts 2:42,46-47).
This past week, as I was preparing for this morning, I came across these very helpful words from a Pentecostal website:
The Spirit does not reveal himself. The Spirit reveals Christ. The fullness of the Spirit is the fullness that he gives as we gaze on Christ. The power of the Spirit is the power we feel in the presence of Christ. The joy of the Spirit is the joy we feel from the promises of Christ.[3]
And so it is the Holy Spirit who enables us to proclaim from our hearts with true conviction, “Jesus is Lord!” It is the Spirit who empowers us to worship God in joyful adoration. It is the Spirit who makes it possible for us to bear witness to Jesus with genuineness and authenticity.
In the next moments we will pause to do what Jesus did with his disciples on that last evening before his crucifixion. With them we will hear his words, “This is my body, given for you…” “This is my blood, shed for you…” As we take the bread into our hands and bring the cup to our lips, may we also take the opportunity to open our hearts afresh to the Holy Spirit, to the Spirit of Jesus, that he may be glorified in our lives.
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